Mountmellick: knitting with four strands

This is a technique that was discovered by one of my students up at Maitland recently.

For the traditional Mountmellick embroidery knitted fringe, we generally use four balls of knitting cotton together to provide a very full fringe. Rather than dividing a single ball into four, the student wondered if she could use two balls, and take the ends from the outside as well as the inside of the ball, thereby knitting with four strands.

So she got herself two balls, and went home that night to try it out. By squashing the balls and folding up the cardboard tube inside the balls, she was able to make it small enough to pull the tube out from the centre of the ball.

She was then able to successfully knit with the outside ends and the inside ends of the two balls, thereby easily using four strands. An ingenious method!

We have knitting cotton that is perfect for Mountmellick work, available from Vetty Creations’ online shop. It is completely matt, is not fluffy, and has a good twist. By purchasing two balls, you can try out this fabulous technique!

Each ball comes with two patterns for making the Mountmellick knitted fringe. Our book Mountmellick Embroidery: Inspired by Nature by Yvette Stanton and Prue Scott, also features a third method which is the most traditional method of producing the fringe (NB: only the edition with the cover shown has this third method – the first edition does not). It has step-by-step instructions, with words and diagrams for each step.

Thanks to Judy for working out this great technique!