Knitting Concentric Circles

With National Poetry month on the brain, I started knitting concentric circles after reading a poem by Clifford Franklin Gessler. I started from the center on all of them. The stockinette yellow one began like an Elizabeth Zimmermann Pi Shawl, doubling the number of stitches every fouth round. For the stockinette stitch blue one I was compelled to add spokes so I made paired yarn over increases each side of a single stitch at 7 evenly spaced points. With the garter stitch ones I increased every other round, after every garter ridge. Which is on the first round of a new color for the stripey ones. The first increase round  (k1 , m1) all the way around. For the second increase round  (k2, m1) and so on – one more stitch between make ones on each new increase round. I used a backward loop for the make one, so it would be the correct color and be kind of sneaky. I should have broken the yarn each time I introduced a new color and woven the ends in to make the garter ridges look more concentric. But I was lazy…and in real life they don’t look so bad…though they could all use a little more blocking. And funny thing I just noticed – the light blue one with the spokes, I have an extra yarn over in the second fancy increase round.

Concentric Circles

Cracks in broken windows
Thread out likes spokes from the center where a pebble,
or a bullet struck.
Cross and recross, and spread to the edge of the pane.
Ripples in still water or running water race out in concentric circles from the place where a stone or a body is thrown in.
Ice forms on pools in long thin slivers that knit slowly and close up the gaps till a hard, brittle floor is formed.
Fissures in stones spread slowly, and widen and deepen with the prying of frost.

Thoughts are like all these things

Clifford Franklin Gessler, from Poetry Magazine June 1921
found at PoetryFoundation.org

Yesterday I visited Scarborough beach and watched the beautiful crescent waves.

I brought a little picnic and some knitting, and I stayed a while.