Birdproof Stitch

Day 118: We have my husband's parrot Carlo to thank for the renaming of bicolor bee stitch. You see, Carlo was "Papa's Parrot" and made no bones about telling you so, or defending his exclusive rights to Papa when Bruce was home. While Bruce was at work, Carlo and I got along quite nicely, but once Papa came through the door and Carlo took up his position on his shoulder, I knew better than to approach lest I find my ears pierced again or a nip taken out of my hand or arm.

Enter a knitting project. I wanted a warm winter sweater, so dragged out Mon Tricot to select a stitch, and then worked up a raglan pattern with knit-in sleeves. Only after the sweater was done did I discover that the texture baffled bird-bites when Carlo thought he had a mouthful of Mama-meat but only had his beak full of yarn. Bicolor bee stitch became known as "birdproof stitch," and over the years, I wore out half a dozen "birdproof sweaters."

Birdproof stitch is made entirely of knit rows which makes it fairly quick to work despite the fact that you only gain the length of three rows for every four. The first and third rows are straight knit over an even number of stitches. Row two is made with a repeat of *k1, k1 in the stitch below,* end k2. Row four begins with k2, then *k1 in the stitch below, k1* to the end. The pattern lends itself well to using up tag ends of yarn as rows 3 and 4. The main color is carried on rows 1 and 2. It also makes a lovely sweater worked in two shades of the same color. Many variations are possible, but I like mine loud and tropical...as a reminder of Carlo, who really was a sweet little guy when the two of us were home alone together.