Pattern help for Jacobs ladder

[Mavis58]

I saw this pattern on Pinterest and want to try it right now. Unfortunately I don't have the yarn to do so right now or the colors I want to use lol. Soon though.

 I would like to know if anyone has done a afghan in this pattern ?  Or created their own pattern using this stitch?  I have found several patterns that use a 10 chain in the pattern whcih makes a beautiful afghan but I want to know if it is possible to change it up such as making say 3 dc and then a chain ( I don't know if there is a certain formula to use for the ladder or if it is always 10 chain.)  Can anyone help me with that.

Thank you and have a wonderful weekend all.

Mavis58

[magiccrochetfan]

Welcome to the ville!

 

For a jacobs ladder http://fantasticmio.com/2012/03/01/jacobs-ladder-tutorial/ one chain won't be enough to make the ladder. It has to have enough length to equal the height of the dc on each side plus a few ch for width. Ten may be the standard, three for each dc plus four for width and flexibility/ease in pulling the loops thru to form the ladder.

 

If you google "crochet jacob's ladder" lots of references come up, or you can go to ravelry and look up the term in the pattern listing. Then you can look at different patterns and see what the range is for number of chains in the ladder.

[Granny Square]

This pattern looks really strange as you are working it because it's so stringy looking, but trust me you need a lot of chains to make the loop properly; maybe you can go down to 9 or 8 chains but it might start to pucker (it might depend on your tension).  Once you 'knit up' the chains, the gap goes away. The length of the chains is what makes the interesting offset color jog.

 

It has been a while, but I recall preferring the appearance of fewer chains just on the first and last row.  When you knit up the first stitch at the bottom, it makes a pronounced inverted U shape otherwise; and the top will be straighter with a shorter last loop.  But you do need the loop length in the body of the piece.

 

You might try a swatch with 1 chain length in the middle and just a few DCs at each end, varying number of chains in between to see what happens.

[Mavis58]

Thank you magic and granny.  Very helpful. I have been to ravelry now and see lots of examples of this technique. Love the way it turns out. But while some examples have over 5 colors the ones with 3 look best to me.  Going to have some fun with this pattern. Again thanks