Happy Harvest Knit-along: Cast-on Day + Working the Acorn Lace

It’s heeeeerrrreeeee! It’s cast-on day for the Happy Harvest Knit-along. I’m so excited—are you?

I’ll be using Berroco Ultra® Wool Chunky in Pine as my main color, and the contrast color (and cowl color) will be Charcoal. This pairing is so great for fall and winter—the deep green is that kind of color that can pretend to be neutral, and the charcoal color of the cowl makes it a perfect wear-with-everything accessory.

For this first week of knitting, we’re aiming to cast-on the front, work all of the Acorn Lace section, and work the buttonholes. It seems like a lot of knitting, but remember, this chunky yarn moves fast! And if you don’t get that far this week, that’s fine! Work at your own pace—the important part is to enjoy the process.

If you need a little help with the lace pattern, Elizabeth has these great visual tutorials—check them out!

The Acorn Lace stitch pattern used in Happy Harvest is such a fun pattern to work! It’s a 8-row stitch pattern, where all but 2 rows just consist of knits and purls – easy enough, right? It’s a basketweave-type of pattern, so many of the rows are worked k3, p3 or p3, k3. The eyelets you see are created by working a row that consists of YO’s and k3tog’s. And see that neat stitch that borders the stitch pattern and the Garter stitch edge? That’s a slipped stitch (sl1) that is worked as the first and last stitch on every right side row.
So let’s dig in…I won’t go over how to work k3 or p3 since that is pretty basic. But I have created some photo tutorials on how to work the “sl1” and the “yo, k3tog, yo” sequence:

Step 1: Insert the right needle into the next stitch as if to purl
Step 2: Slide the stitch from the left needle to the right needle without working it

That’s all you need to slip stitches! You’ll see this abbreviated as “Sl 1” in the pattern.

Step 1: To YO, bring the yarn from the back of the work to the front.
Step 2: To k3tog, insert the right needle into the next 3 stitches on the left needle…
Step 3: Wrap the yarn around your right needle…
Step 4: and knit these three stitches together.
Step 5: To make the last yarnover, bring the yarn to the front of the work and then to the back, ready to work the next stitch.