Antique Pineapple Stitch

Good Morning! Fellow Crochet Fiends!

So, everyonceinawhile, I wake up with a vague idea floating around the inside of my skull.  Sometimes it never does escape and just sort of fades away and is forgotten and never heard from again.

I have been wanting to make a cowl to keep my neck warm in the cooler winter windy days that are coming.  I started to make one using the crochet seed stitch.  I really like this stitch and have used it many times over the years since I first saw it done by my sister.  I have said before she was my inspiration for many things CROCHET and the seed stitch being one of those.  I did need a change and a challenge to try something just a bit different from the usual automatic - no - thought - needed stitches in my repertoire.

So, I started the cowl for myself but for some reason kept thinking I really want to try something a bit different for a change.   And again, a sister -- this time a sister-in-law was my inspiration.  Some time back my SIL Bett made a scarf for one of her daughters with a crochet stitch I had never heard of before but loved the effect of the stitch.  It was called the Antique Pineapple Stitch (click on the link for instructions how to do it).  One of the major stumbling blocks to this stitch is that it is a one way design.  This type of stitch really only works if done from one direction and that means at the end of every row you cut the yarn and go back to the other side and start again.  For a scarf this would work well, because then you will end up with a fringe on each end where you restart the yarn anew and cut it at the end of the row, OR if you work in the round you would basically be working the row in the same direction on top of each previous row, all in the same direction. 

I wanted my cowl to go back and forth without having a fringe or without having to weave in ends at each row, which would detract from the pattern.

So this morning I have done just a bit of experiment.  That is one great thing about Crochet is with the basic 4 stitches, you can combine and change the look of your end piece quite drastically, simply or with great combinations.

right side of updated stitch

My resulting pattern stitch is simple, easy to remember and doesn't require the ending and beginning of every row.  An easy solution to the 'fringe' effect was to make the second row a row of single crochet across.  My version of the UPDATED Antique Pineapple stitch is quite nice actually and I have begun to crochet my new winter cowl.

wrong side of updated antique pineapple stitch

I should say that if you try this out, it requires a odd number of chain stitches to start so that there is one single crochet at the end of the antique pineapple stitch row, then chain one, turn and single crochet back.  The APS row makes one stitch for every two foundation chain, or for every two single crochet on the alternate row.

In a day or two I will post about the completed cowl.

Looks like the sun will shine today, so enjoy it before the winter winds put a damper on sitting under that big tree in the back yard!