Yes, it’s Friday, and it’s time for another release from Rip it Up and Start Again! I have a quick, small project for you today called A Walk Across the Rooftops
A Walk Across the Rooftops represents a sort of refinement – and perhaps the final iteration – of a simple slipper style of which I’ve produced a few versions over the years, beginning with the Baffies I designed about 10 years ago.
Starting with a winding cast on at the toe, the slippers are worked to the foot’s required length (the ankle bone), where stitches are divided, with some held for the instep, and others worked back and forth, in sturdy garter stitch, to form the heel.
After the heel is joined with a three needle bind-off, stitches are picked up around the ankle opening, where an i-cord bind-off creates a sleek finish.
I think of A Walk Across the Rooftops as a cabin-style of slipper. Quick and fun to make, the pattern is easily adjustable to fit most adult feet. They are light, yet cosy, and ideally suited to padding about in indoors.
So where does the pattern “refinement” come in? Well, while many slipper and sock designs involve an equal number of stitches for the top and bottom of the foot, A Walk Across the Rooftops begins with proportionately more instep than sole stitches. This allows the twisted-stitch motif to wrap comfortably around the foot, while at the same time creating a neater and slightly slimmer (stockinette) sole.
After you’ve worked the foot to your required length, there’s a bit of a switcheroo, where you’ll rearrange the stitches to distribute more for the heel than for the ankle opening. While the instep / sole distribution makes for a more visually appealling foot (with its wrap-around texture) the heel / ankle distribution means that there are more stitches exactly where you need them to enable a better (higher) fit around the back of the heel. If you can’t visualise what I’m going on about, all you really need to know about this stitch re-distribution jiggery-pokery is that it works, and that the end result is a pair of slippers that fit well, look great, and don’t slip off.
You’ll recognise the twisted stitch pattern as one which has already featured on a few designs in this collection: After the Flood, Heid Hunter, Veedon Fleece.
What can I say? Whenever I find a design direction I enjoy, I tend to pursue it, and I honestly just love this motif. It’s such an intuitive pattern to work, and, with its appearance of satisfying tessellation, it’s ideally suited to A Walk Across the Rooftops.
Now for the yarn I used to knit these slippers, which is a delicious single-clip North Ronaldsay, produced by my neighbour Emma at nearby Killdalloig Farm.
There are so many things I love about this lovely woollen-spun yarn: its hardiness (which makes it an ideal choice for slippers), its satisfying sheepiness (who can argue with that?), and especially the way that you can discern, while you are knitting with it, all the colourful characters and delightfully different fleece shades that make up Emma’s North Ronaldsay flock.
All of these marvellous natural fleece shades are blended together to form one the warmest, most beautifully variegated greys you can imagine.
The North Ron is definitely a hardy (and quite a hairy) yarn, so if your preference is for something a little smoother, Emma’s just had some yarn from this year’s clip back from the mill, in which she’s blended 60% of the North Ron with 40% BFL. This new yarn is called Lichen, and you’ll find it available on her website too.
If you are knitting from stash, you’ll need 100g skein of heavy DK or light worsted-weight yarn to knit A Walk Across the Rooftops, worked at a relatively tight gauge, of 25 sts to 4 inches (to create a really dense and hard-wearing slipper fabric). It’s a design that really suits sturdy sheepy yarns, like Emma’s fabulous North Ron!
The design is named for this week’s classic album, The Blue Nile’s A Walk Across the Rooftops (1984), a record I had on perpetual repeat, on my then-brand-new walkman, during my early teenage years in Rochdale. One of the many interesting things about this album is although it is certainly very much of its time, its unnusual sound does not feel dated, unlike so much synth-dominated mid-1980s pop. Rather, A Walk Across the Rooftops is spacious, evocative, and, at times, truly magical. . . why not give it a listen?
I’ll be back on Sunday to talk about why I love this album. Enjoy your slippers, and your Friday!
A Walk Across the Rooftops on Ravelry
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