Stricken: a free lace knitting stitch pattern

Stricken: a free lace knitting stitch pattern, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

The word I drew from my word hoard for this stitch pattern is Stricken, suggested by Red Urchin, a Patreon supporter. Stricken means knitting in German: what fun!

Each month, my Patreon backers have the chance to suggest words for me to encode as knitting stitches. I make two of these into knitting stitches each month: the first is drawn from the collection of new words; the second is drawn from the collection of unused words. A random number generator helps me choose these, and then I get to work, first turning the letters into numbers, then charting the numbers onto grids in various ways. Finally, when I make the chart into lace, I turn the marked squares into yarnovers and work out where to place the corresponding decreases. (I usually make lace; occasionally I make cables instead.) I also make a chart for any craft that uses a square grid for designing; this goes in a separate post.

The stitch patterns are not meant in any way to look like the original words; the words are the seeds of my creativity.

Follow link for charts and instructions

K3tog: a tip for tight knitters

| Naomi Parkhurst

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a tight knitter. This doesn’t trouble me much these days; I’ve loosened up enough that I don’t need to struggle to push each stitch along the needle one at a time the way I did when I was a child. I often get the gauge on the yarn label using the recommended needles. (Yes, really, though it’s not as useful as you’d think.) The biggest benefit to being a tight knitter is that I don’t need to knit socks using the thinnest needles.

But there’s times that it used to get a little aggravating, and I’ve realized that the reason those times don’t happen any more is that I’ve worked out various unconscious tricks for dealing with them. One of the things that used to vex me was knitting (or purling) three stitches together: such a struggle to get the needle through all three stitches at once!

Here’s how I loosen them up:

Stricken: a needlework chart for any craft

Stricken: a free needlework chart for any craft, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

The random number generator picked Stricken from my word hoard for my second encoded word post this month, suggested by Red Urchin, one of my Patreon supporters. Stricken means knitting in German.

I usually develop a complicated knitting stitch pattern for each word, but I also like to provide a basic chart for any craft that’s worked on a grid: beads, cross stitch, whatever. I also try to provide an image of the pattern repeated all over not as a chart. It doesn’t necessarily look like a finished object for any particular craft, but I just want to give a sense of it in use.

click for charts

Water: a free mosaic knitting stitch pattern

Water version 1: a free mosaic knitting stitch pattern, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

A while back, I encoded the word Water and made it into lace. For this week’s post, I reworked one of the code grids I made while planning that post and turned it into a mosaic knitting stitch pattern. (I used the process described in this post.)

The nice thing about mosaic knitting is that the charts are similar to the final appearance of the knitting, so I’m not going to provide a swatch this time. Mosaic knitting looks difficult, but it’s really easy to do! Basically, knit two-row stripes, and slip stitches from the row below to make the contrasting pattern. If you can knit stripes, you can knit mosaic patterns.

Here’s a detailed blog post I wrote about how it works.

Continue reading →

Liberty: a free lace knitting stitch pattern

Liberty: a free lace knitting stitch pattern, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

The first word I drew from the Patreon word suggestions for this month is Liberty, suggested by Maura on Patreon. Liberty has lots of possible references, but right at this instant, my mind goes instantly to the Lady Liberty statue made by the protestors in Hong Kong. (Designed and created after the word was suggested.)

Each month, my Patreon backers have the chance to suggest words for me to encode as knitting stitches. Starting this month, I’ll make three of these into knitting stitches each month: two drawn from the collection of new words and the third drawn from the collection of unused words. A random number generator helps me choose these, and then I get to work, first turning the letters into numbers, then charting the numbers onto grids in various ways. Finally, when I make the chart into lace, I turn the marked squares into yarnovers and work out where to place the corresponding decreases. (I usually make lace; occasionally I make cables instead.) I also make a chart for any craft that uses a square grid for designing; this goes in a separate post.

The stitch patterns are not meant in any way to look like the original words; the words are the seeds of my creativity.

Follow link for charts and instructions

Bees: a free mosaic knitting stitch pattern

Bees: a free mosaic knitting stitch pattern, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

A while back, I encoded the word Bees and made it into lace. For this week’s post, I reworked one of the code grids I made while planning that post and turned it into a mosaic knitting stitch pattern. (I used the process described in this post.)

The nice thing about mosaic knitting is that the charts are similar to the final appearance of the knitting, so I’m not going to provide a swatch this time. Mosaic knitting looks difficult, but it’s really easy to do! Basically, knit two-row stripes, and slip stitches from the row below to make the contrasting pattern. If you can knit stripes, you can knit mosaic patterns.

Here’s a detailed blog post I wrote about how it works.

Continue reading →

Warmth: a free lace knitting stitch pattern

| Naomi Parkhurst

The word I drew from my word hoard for this stitch pattern is Warmth, suggested by Nim on Patreon. Warmth is a happy word for me, and is part of why I love knitting.

Each month, my Patreon backers have the chance to suggest words for me to encode as knitting stitches. I make two of these into knitting stitches each month: the first is drawn from the collection of new words; the second is drawn from the collection of unused words. A random number generator helps me choose these, and then I get to work, first turning the letters into numbers, then charting the numbers onto grids in various ways. Finally, when I make the chart into lace, I turn the marked squares into yarnovers and work out where to place the corresponding decreases. (I usually make lace; occasionally I make cables instead.) I also make a chart for any craft that uses a square grid for designing; this goes in a separate post.

The stitch patterns are not meant in any way to look like the original words; the words are the seeds of my creativity.

Follow link for charts and instructions