Octagon Time by Nick Davis

Octagon Time

Knitting
June 2021
Worsted (9 wpi) ?
12 stitches and 24 rows = 4 inches
in garter stitch, knit in the round, blocked pretty firmly.
US 8 - 5.0 mm
1000 - 3000 yards (914 - 2743 m)
Any; customize it. The blue-green sample is about 50”/1.26m across.
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Just in time to be totally unseasonable (to be Northern Hemisphere-centric), it’s a blanket/shawl/rug formula!

Octagon Time is a very simple circle (or, really, technically: octagon). It’s mostly garter stitch, with some conscious planning to eliminate/disguise the jog that occurs with garter stitch when it’s worked in the round.

Use scraps or full skeins; use fingering-weight yarn knit at a more open gauge for a shawl or dk/worsted for a blanket; use needles appropriate to your yarn. Most will prefer to start with DPNs, and switch to longer needles as needed.

For the sample shown, I used about 5 skeins of worsted-weight wool—three full skeins of Cascade 220 Wave in Deep Ocean, one in Dream in Color City in Pickleball, and one comprised of scraps of Malabrigo Yarn Washted in Aguas and Cirrus Grey. (There’s a small band of Malabrigo Yarn Rios in Apple Green, too.) You’ll probably need at least 1000 yards to get a decent small blanket, and more if you knit at a denser gauge.

Gauge:
For the sample, gauge was 12 sts and 24 rows over 4”/10cm in blocked garter stitch, worked in the round. Your gauge will vary according to the materials you use and the goals for your project (blanket? Light shawl?), so there is no official gauge for this one.

Materials:

  • 1000-3000 yards of yarn (shown in worsted weight: Cascade 220 Superwash Wave in Deep Sea; Dream in Color City in Pickleball, and scraps of Malabrigo Yarn Washted in Cirrus Grey and Aguas).
  • 1 set of 5 DPNs, 1 16”, and 1 long 40”+ circular needle in US7/4.5mm, or size needed for gauge.
  • 8 removable stitch markers, or scrap yarn to use as stitch markers (technically optional)
  • One crochet hook, in size suited to yarn
  • Tapestry needle

Skills: knitting and purling, and m1 increases. You’ll also need this cast on again. And you’ll have the option of a knitted-on edge.

(Did you see Heptagon Time!? It uses similar techniques, but it’s knit flat and the result is a cozy wraparound shawl. Anyway, I like to link my interrelated patterns. So that’s what this little footnote is about.)