More of the former binary sweater was knit up into a lap blanket by Knitting Sensei on her Ultimate Sweater Machine. Although finicky and somewhat cantankerous, the USM knit four square feet of stockinette in about three hours. That ain’t bad!

It makes me feel kind of like a little old lady, but I love draping it over my lap at work (when no one’s around to see). Shut up, it’s warm!

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Here, Darth Tater presents the “Split Granite” stitch. This is a handsome stitch I picked out of my copy of The Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns. It’s a little fancier than garter or moss stitch, but not so complicated that I lose track and mess up if I’m knitting while watching a movie. I like it, but it does tend to curl pretty badly.

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I made swatches, so many swatches. I applied the scientific method (observation, hypothesis, prediction, results). I thought I had solved the problem, through some mysterious process, by knitting backwards (knitting where I should purl, and vice versa).

But it wasn’t until I thought I had put the mystery to rest, and sat down to work on my next project (another Fibonacci scarf in garter stitch) that I finally solved it, for real. And the Fibonacci scarf #2 wasn’t even biasing!

The scarf was twisting. After only an inch, I could see a distinct corkscrew develop. After six inches, it was unmistakable. Something was really and truly, quite obviously, wrong.

But what?

I went back to basics. There’s only one thing to a garter stitch – knit stitches, endless rows of them. So maybe I was knitting wrong. This seemed implausible – nay, laughable – but I’m an open-minded person, and it was the only reasonable explanation.

I looked at these diagrams carefully, but it looked fine to me. Then I googled, and finally found Lucia’s article on twisted knit rib. I don’t know why – it didn’t seem to have anything to do with my actual problem – but I read the article anyway.

Lucia mentioned “knitting into the back loop” to produce a twisted stitch. And by “back loop” you mean…. something different… from how you usually…. ohhhhh.

I went back to the knitting diagrams and looked a little more closely. Very very closely. I held my needles up to the screen, and slowly, fumbling, made… my very first un-twisted knit stitch.

With a sinking sensation, I clicked to read the instructions on how to make a purl stitch. Yup, been doing that one wrong, too.

So there you have it, people: if your knitting is biasing or twisting, try making sure that you’re making the stitch correctly. I know it sounds stupid, but hey.

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Biasing, that ancient mystery of the ages. No one knows what causes biasing, or what to do about it.

Okay, that’s not true. Everyone knows what causes biasing, but everyone seems to know something different.

Everyone agrees on the definition of “biasing.” It’s the unseen force which vertically distorts a straight edge into a slant. In the unfinished scarf above, this effect can be easily seen in the top portion. The scarf is straight, but the color blocks, which should be square, are actually diamond-shaped.

Biasing is caused by the yarn having been made with too many twists (that’s not my problem, by the way – this yarn isn’t very “twisty” at all, it’s actually so loose that it’s barely twisted at all by the time I get it on the needle). Biasing is caused by the stitch pattern. Biasing is caused by the way in which you wrap your yarn around the needle when purling. Biasing is caused by knitting with more tension at the beginning of the row than at the end.

Biasing can be solved by knitting more tightly. Biasing can be solved by knitting into the back, and then into the front. Biasing can be solved by blocking the finished work over a shower curtain rod and weighting it so that it’s pulled into shape as it dries.

What the hell, people?!

I decided to find out for myself. Tune in tomorrow for the surprising results of my biasing experiments – I found a cure!

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As I ripped out the failed binary cardigan, I asked myself, “Who could possibly want something knit out of this insanely warm Wool Ease Chunky?”

The answer?

Cats!

Here’s what happens every night. Brady (pictured above) gets there first. Then after a while, Kimble (below) decides that he wants the cat mat, at which point he ambles over and sits on Brady. At first Brady pretends that this is perfectly normal, he doesn’t mind being sat on by his 16-pound brother. His ears tip further and further backwards, until finally the annoyance wins out, he gives up and jumps down, glares at Kimble, and stalks away to lurk under the kitchen table.

Fortunately for Brady, Kimble doesn’t usually stay on the cat mat for very long. (He doesn’t really WANT to sleep on the cat mat – his favorite spot is at the end of my bed. He only evicts his brother to point out that he can.) After 10-15 minutes, Kimble gets up and heads back to my bedroom, and Brady emerges from under the table to reclaim the cat mat.

This happens at least once a night without fail.

Back when they were barely out of kittenhood, I bought them a proper cat bed and put it on a shelf near the heater in the living room. After a week of watching these little mini turf wars, I naturally assumed that it was a simple math problem – one cat bed, two cats. So I went out and bought a second, identical cat bed, and set it right next to the other one.

Problem solved? Not at all. Silly logical me! Of course it didn’t work. They just ended up fighting over whichever bed the first cat was sleeping in when the second cat decided that he wanted it. I never once saw both cat beds occupied at the same time.

Damn cats.

Anyway, in case you were wondering, that’s why I only knit one cat mat. It’s not because I can’t do the math – it’s because knitting a second one would be futile.

I knit the cat mat in garter stitch, because they prefer a nubbly texture. Partly visible is the white intarsia heart I put in just for kicks, and because it’s kind of cute.

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