Raven: a free lace knitting stitch pattern

Raven: a free lace knitting stitch pattern
| Naomi Parkhurst

September’s stitch pattern word is raven, suggested by Ron on Patreon.

I really wanted to knit this one in black, for obvious reasons, but it’s hard to photograph black lace so as to show all the details, even when it’s beautiful. I had to console myself with the very rare existence of white ravens (not albino ones). I’m pleased with how the stitch pattern came out!

Each month, my Patreon backers have the chance to suggest words for me to encode as knitting stitches. A random number generator helps me choose the word of the month, 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.

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Skulls: a free lace knitting stitch pattern

Skulls: a free lace knitting stitch pattern
| Naomi Parkhurst

This isn’t secret code. This is the result of starting a secret code swatch back in August and having to start over because there were excellent skull faces in it. (It was not appropriate to have skull faces in that particular context.)

I’ve fiddled a bit with the design – removing the non-skull bits and elongating  the top a bit. I’m not sure the proportions are anatomically correct, but I like the effect, so.

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Suffrage: new shawl pattern

p8223005-cropped
| Naomi Parkhurst

When I decided to knit a shawl based on sunflowers, I really had no idea what I wanted to call it. Shortly after starting work on this shawl, it was International Women’s Day, and I was reminded that my great-grandmother had been a suffragist in Kansas as a teenager. While looking around on the internet for information about Kansas suffragists, I happened across the information that they used the Kansas sunflower as a symbol. The name for my shawl became obvious, as did its purpose.

I’m donating all my profits from this shawl to organizations concerned with voting rights. Half will go to the League of Women Voters (the successor to the women’s suffrage movement) and half to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which works for voting rights, among many other civil rights issues.

The shawl is shaped like a letter C: cast on a somewhat long inner edge, work honeycomb mesh outward for a while with some shaping, work a mildly complicated transition (with some patterning on two wrong side rows), finishing up with chevron petals. The outer edges have some garter stitch to counter curling. The petals can easily be made longer or shorter to accommodate different quantities of yarn.

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Some patterns

some patterns
| Naomi Parkhurst

I’m making good progress on the big project that’s got my attention at the moment. I thought I’d take a few moments to spotlight the patterns I’ve published for sale this year (and an extra). Here is a link to all my patterns.

Meeting of the waters mitts

Meeting of the Waters

These top-down mitts are designed to make a matching pair from a yarn that would otherwise make fraternal mitts. The secret? Knitting them in one piece, then cutting them apart and sewing a seam in each mitt. This is good practice for learning to use steeks before trying them in a larger project. See more information, and buy here.

New Hope Creek shawl

New Hope Creek
This unusual, not exactly a crescent, shawl is made from five triangles which hug the shoulders nicely. The pattern is planned to work well with a wild yarn in combination with a mild yarn to make a more subtle fabric. See more information, and buy here.

Sycamore Creek

Sycamore Creek

This deep crescent shawl is all garter stitch with a few yarnovers. It starts at the center top and works outward, making it a great way to use up your stash. See more information, and buy here.

And a pattern from 2014 that uses one of my code stitches:

Onward hat

Onward

This top-down hat for any size head, in any weight yarn, is a simple knit-purl combination that encodes the word onward. See more information, and buy here.

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Blog hiatus

| Naomi Parkhurst

I have a big project I’ve been working on for a long time, and I need to carve out some time to sit down and finish it. (You’ll know what it is when it’s done and published.) I think what that means is that I need to take a few weeks off blogging, except for my Patreon stitch pattern posts and announcements for an upcoming pattern publication.

Instead, I’ll post links to some of the older posts I’ve made. I should be back, full speed ahead, some time in October.

combinationswatch

In the meantime, here’s a link to a post I made about stitch mount and twisted stitches. If your knitting ever looks like the top part of this photo, and you don’t want it to, you might want to have a look.

 

Lace Beading: a free lace knitting stitch pattern

lace beading: a free knitting stitch pattern (not with actual beads)
| Naomi Parkhurst

Here’s the fixed up version of Permutation 3 from two weeks ago. I’ve named it something that might be confusing if you’re used to putting beads in your lace. There’s a reason for it, though.

I used to work in a fabric store. One of the standard forms of premade lace trim for sale is what’s called lace beading. It has an extra purpose: running ribbon in and out through the holes to make a brightly colored contrast or drawstring. This knitted lace reminds me strongly of it.

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A final note on reflection in symmetry

final chart for peace 1
| Naomi Parkhurst

The kinds of chart layouts produced by reflective symmetry (as described in my last post on the topic) can make the columns along the line of symmetry look a bit clunky. This post explains a way to fix that. If you find anything confusing about it, I would very much appreciate it if you told me!

This is part of my rewrite of the instructions for how to embed words as stitch patterns.

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Designs using my stitch patterns

| Naomi Parkhurst

It occurs to me to mention that I have a bundle on Ravelry that lists all the patterns I know of that use my stitch patterns: Naomi’s stitch patterns in use. So far, it’s just nine patterns, but I know of four more that will be coming in the next few months.

If you have a Ravelry account, you can click the “add to favorites” button on the bundle to find it easily in the future.

Here’s a screenshot of what you’ll find right now (see bundle for working links):

screenshot of patterns currently in pattern bundle