Struttura

A few things you should know about me that will, I think, help you understand why Struttura exists:

• I’m a writer. A travel writer, more specifically. This is what I do for a living.
• I live in Portland, Oregon, where the summers are pretty damned perfect, which means I prefer traveling elsewhere during our winters.
• I have anxiety issues.

So, when I imagined the perfect wrap for traveling during the winter, it needed to have a few specific characteristics:

• Extreme coziness: I run cold, and there’s nothing quite like bundling up in the garment equivalent of a hug to keep the chill at bay.
• Durability: I take care of my stuff, but I ask a lot of my travel gear and clothing. I don’t have time for delicate doodads when I’m traveling.
• Texture: Even when a trip is going smoothly, my anxiety is usually just itching for an excuse to rear its head. Having a great, squishy texture to fiddle with is, I’ve found, super helpful for my brain. (The name “Struttura” is the Italian word for “texture,” though I’ve also been calling this wrap my wearable “Fidget Spinner.”)

And so Struttura was born.

As much as I like the ease and squish of garter, I wanted something more interesting to knit (and to look at) for Struttura. I believe the stitch is called a “slip stitch garter,” and I love the offset angled lines that it creates. Plus, not a single purl stitch in sight, y’all.

There’s some vague language in the pattern, especially as it relates to gauge and needle size, because that part is really more of a recipe than a pattern. I played with the yarn I had until I got a fabric that I liked, with plenty of drape but still the cozy thickness I wanted. You’ll need to play a bit, too, which isn’t the worst thing, right?

Materials & Details

• Shape: Parallelogram
• Yarn: 1230 yards/1124.7 meters light worsted yarn (I used 5 skeins of Knit Picks Simply Alpaca, a fluffy 100% alpaca yarn which is listed as aran weight but is more like a DK/light worsted). Note that while this pattern is totally adaptable to using different yarn weights, doing so will result in different dimensions for your finished wrap.
• Needles: US sz 5 (3.75mm) needles on a cable (how long the cable needs to be will depend on how wide your wrap gets)
• Gear & Notions: yarn/kitchen scale, darning needle to weave in ends, scissors, one removable stitch marker/progress keeper to identify beginning of repeat (optional)
• Gauge: Gauge isn’t important for this project. I chose a needle size that gave me a thick but still drapey fabric with the yarn I used, and my gauge was about 25.5 stitches over 4” (roughly 6.5 sts/inch). You may need to experiment a bit to find what works for you, whether you use the same yarn or not. The goal is fabric you love, regardless of the yarn and needle combination you use.
• Finished Measurements: approx. 103” long from point to point x 14” wide

Notes

• The alpaca yarn I used creates such a lovely, fuzzy halo that it’s even more cozy. I think working a strand of mohair with another yarn would create a similar effect.
• While I think this pattern could look great as a fade or with leftover yarn bits (even a marled look with multiple strands held together), keep in mind that the busier the yarn color is the less the texture pattern will stand out.