who comes up with these things?

I took a class today at my new LYS on entrelac. I've wanted to learn how to do this for a while so when I found out they had a three hour one time class for learning just the technique (I'm all about technique classes as opposed to project classes), I jumped on it.

As with most things, its not so bad once you break it down step by step. Here are my efforts during class:


What I really want to know is under what circumstances did someone decide to knit wonky triangles and slanted rectangles to create this type of fabric? What possessed someone to figure this out? Not that I'm not grateful but sheesh, what a strange thing to invent. I imagine a few ladies sitting around knitting playing double-dog-dare-you to see who could come up with the weirdest knitting technique.

I love the yarn I'm using but not so much for entrelac. The variegation repeats are way too short and its not color blocking out the rectangles like I've seen with yarn that has longer color repeats. The teacher's sample shows that:


I'll have to dig around in the stash to see what I've got that might work for this. I do have some Noro and I bet that would work well. I've decided that I'm going to rip out what I made in class and start over with a different yarn. I was thinking this would make an awesome blanket but the back side is not so attractive so I'd probably have to line the back with a piece of fabric. I'll think on that some more. Most likely I'll start out with a scarf or pillow to begin with.

Sort of makes you wonder what some crazy knitter will come up with next...