Linen stitch

[RiaOverTheRainbow]

I'd like to try knitting a linen stitch blanket, but I'd prefer to finish it before 2018, and while I like the look of it I'd rather the blanket not be very dense. I was wondering if I could use over-sized needles, so dk yarn and say 6mm needles, to make the stitches a bit larger. Has anyone tried this? Or do I have to choose between style and speed?

I think you need to ... ahem.... swatch. ie do a say 6x6 inch square and see what you think.

Your plan seems eminently logical. Linen stictch can basically be knitted carpet if you get the needle size too small. It is also VERY slow progess as effectively every row gets knitted twice pretty much to make a row forward progress,

Good luck.

Try it with oversized needles as a swatch. My feeling is that the look of the linen stitch comes from the denseness jamming the extra yarn against the grain iyswim. It may look entirely different if sloppier. And linen stitch is lovely but does take up A LOT of yarn. How about fisherman's rib for the blanket? That would be lovely and floppy.

Also, another word of advice- use long-tail casting on if you don't already, especially for a blanket.

I recently did a linen stitch square for a woolly hug. What i did was to cast on about 12sts with a 4mm needle and worked about 1.5in linen stitch finishing with a .ws row, knit 1 row to give a ridge and then changed up a needle size and worked another 1.5in.

I did this up until i got to about 7mm needle,(I'm a tight knitter) this way i could easily see what linen st would look like on different needles without the agony of knitting endless test squares.

Thanks everyone, and bamboo that's a great idea, much less off-putting than half a dozen squares I'll just undo.