Most of us are familiar with Feather and Fan, right?  It is one of many related patterns of undulating bands, all built around increases and decreases alternately grouped together.  I showed the basic Feather and Fan a few weeks ago:

This one is built on a sequence of 4 rows:  Knit, Purl, Knit Pattern, Knit plain.

Below is a project I am using for time-filler at the moment:

and a close-up:

This one is also built on a 4 row sequence: Knit, Purl, Knit Pattern, Purl; so you are making a stockinette pattern without purl ridges on the front side, and you change colors after each 4 row repeat.

Instead of the [YO, K1] repeat for the open eyelets of Feather and Fan, you are doing [Kfb] into the same group of six stitches.  This type of pattern is wonderful for things like baby blankets where you don’t want a lot of holes for infant fingers to become stuck.

Here are the charts for both of the variations shown above.

The red and blue sample is worked on a field of 3 repeats wide (3x18sts), plus a 5-stitch garter border, so the whole is 64 stitches side, and I am using 2 balls of Phydlbitz Sock yarn.  You can take any dissimilar/mismatching sock yarns and create your own version, just changing yarns after each 4-row repeat.    OR… collect all your sock yarn leftovers and randomly select some other color after each repeat.  Using a weaving-as-you-go technique, you can readily hide the tails as you knit: weave in a new color as you finish purling Row 4, then weave in the old color tail as you knit Row 1 with the new color.    Since I am alternating red and blue, I simply catch the non-working yarn into the work to carry it up the side and keep it ready when I need it.

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