2015 State Fair Projects: Knitted Edging for a Hand Towel

I just completed another entry for the State Fair: a knitted edging for a hand towel. This one will be entered in the Home Furnishings category "Edging or insertion for linens attached to appropriate household linen."

For this entry I used a commercially-appliqued cotton hand towel and size 10 Aunt Lydia's Classic Crochet Thread in colorway "Ocean."

I used a size 0 circular bamboo needle for this project. I like the way that bamboo holds onto the thread and keeps stitches from slipping off. Most of my tiny knitting needles are metal, which I prefer to use in larger sizes, but for thread projects the metal allows stitches to too easily slide off. I usually don't like the bamboo for its greater "grabbiness" for most yarn projects, but that quality works well for knitting thread and for projects calling for double-pointed needles.

The pattern is my variation of "Pattern 137" from Classic Knitted Cotton Edgings by Furze Hewitt and Billie Daley (Kangaroo Press, 1990 edition; p. 78). The pattern is a 12-row repeat that works up fast in all knit stitches. The only thing I changed was to knit the triangles in a stockinette, rather than a garter stitch pattern. I preferred the way this made that part of the edging stand out from the garter stitch heading and gave the triangles a smoother appearance.

After blocking, I hand-stitched the edging onto the towel boarder. Although it might not be evident from the photos, I think the colors in the thread are similar to the colors used in the appliques so the edging makes a nice complement to the towel.