Reference / Techniques

Oval starts

A sphere starts from a point (the magic ring). An oval starts from a LINE: a short foundation chain, worked up one side and back down the other.

The anatomy

  1. Chain a few (say 4).
  2. Work along the chain: the last chain usually gets extra stitches to turn the corner.
  3. Do NOT turn the work over: keep going around the END of the chain and back along the other side of the same chains.
  4. The foundation chain disappears inside; the stitches around it form a closed oval loop, and following rounds grow outward like rings of a stadium: straight along the sides, fanned at the two ends.

Where increases go

On an oval, the sides stay the same length and all growth happens at the two curved ends: that is why oval patterns put their increases in clusters at the ends of every round.

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