Monica Knits

These leg warmers were designed for cool weather and winter walking and are knitted with acrylic yarn for quick laundering. They feature feature 1 x 1 ribbing at the ankle and calf, a seed stitch buttonhole placket, shell buttons and a baby cable rib stitch. These are knitted from the ankle upwards and the buttonhole band is either knitted on or sewn on afterwards. The buttonhole band has a self-facing for aesthetic and structural purposes. To make it easier to pickup stitches for the buttonhole band, a chain stitch selvedge is knitted for the body, excluding the ribbing rows. These leg warmers use my preferred baby cable stitch pattern.   

I was amazed at the texture and shine the Satin yarn developed when knitted in the baby cable pattern. The photo doesn't show the full lustre, but it does show the texture. I wasn't sure how well defined the pattern would be, since the yarn is a dark blue and very soft to the touch. This is why you should occasionally have a friend (even a non-knitter) select yarn for you. My girlfriend and hiking buddy, Shilda, selected this yarn and another, as well as embellishments and introduced me to the advantages of legwarmers for hiking.       Read more .....

Buttonhole The buttonhole or blanket stitch is used to reinforce the knitted buttonhole to prevent it from stretching. In this example, with a self-facing, it serves the dual purpose of anchoring the facing to the button band and reinforcing the buttonhole. For this sample, the floss was not color matched as in the original Leg Warmers, so that you could see how the stitch is constructed. Four (4) strands of DMC floss were used.

The stitch is formed by passing the tapestry needle through the work from front to back and bringing the needle out at the buttonhole opening in front of the yarn. Read more ... for further information and links.

Although these buttonholes are vertical in the completed Leg Warmers, they were knitted in a horizontal band from stitches that were picked up along the chain stitch edge between the cuffs, using the method described in the article Making a Horizontal Buttonhole Look Good. They feature a scalloped edge, self-facing and buttonhole stitch. Read more .... for detailed instructions.