No Purls

Copper Tide is a free knit square pattern worked in slip stitch using four shades of Cascade Heritage fingering weight yarn: Bachelor Button, Marine, Mango, and Pumpkin. Part of the Year of Color 2026 MAL, this square arranges the colors in vertical stripes, but the slip-stitch technique softens every boundary, letting each color bleed into its neighbor rather than stopping cleanly at a line. Inspired by the Tweed Slip Stitch With Garter – No Purls technique by Joanne’s Web.

The technique uses only knit stitches. Slipped stitches carry the adjacent color through each row, building a woven, textured surface that looks far more intricate than it is. The square is worked flat.

The name comes from the way ocean water moves at the shoreline: distinct bands of color, deep navy to bright sky to warm sand, that blur and shift wherever they meet.