I’ve got a knitting technique structure thing I want to talk about, but I think it will be easier if I do it in stages, both to write and to read. So this time I’m going to write about basic knitting stitch structure.
Knitting is about final results, regardless of the method used to get there. So finger knitting, loom knitting, knitting on needles, and machine knitting are all different ways to produce knitting stitches. In this series of posts, I’m going to leave the tools used out of the picture entirely, and just show the stitch structures involved.
I’ve been delighted on a number of occasions to see knitters use my stitch patterns or needlework charts to make things, but I haven’t had the good fortune until recently to see other crafters make use of my work.
photo copyright RJ Nelson
RJ Nelson has kindly sent in a photo of a cross-stitched bookmark using my Idyll needlework chart as the border. She’s done such beautiful work with it!
The random number generator picked Woodland from the suggestions for this post, suggested by Catnach, one of my Patreon supporters.
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 at least some digital art 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. (I try to make it look like knitting when it’s got floats short enough for easy stranded knitting.)
A while back, I encoded the word heart and made it into a lace stitch pattern. For this week’s post, I reworked a code grid I made while planning that post and turned it into a mosaic knitting stitch pattern. (I used the process described in this post.)
A 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. Mosaic knitting looks difficult, but it’s not as hard as it looks! Basically, knit two-row stripes, and slip stitches from the row below to make the contrasting pattern.
The random number generator picked Junco from the suggestions for this post, suggested by Enting, one of my Patreon supporters.
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 at least some digital art 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. (I try to make it look like knitting when it’s got floats short enough for easy stranded knitting.)
Still, I’ve decided to go ahead and do it for 2021 with a kind of determined persistence. May this coming year be better! Also, I like the result. (I’m posting this a few days early because I have a Patreon post that will go up on January 1.)
A 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. Mosaic knitting looks difficult, but it’s not as hard as it looks! Basically, knit two-row stripes, and slip stitches from the row below to make the contrasting pattern.
A 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. Mosaic knitting looks difficult, but it’s not as hard as it looks! Basically, knit two-row stripes, and slip stitches from the row below to make the contrasting pattern.
The first word I drew from the words suggested on Patreon this month is Zaftig, suggested by Kate, a Patreon supporter. It’s a rather tall and skinny stitch pattern for the word, but at least the motifs within it are beautifully round and voluptuous.
Each month, my Patreon backers have the chance to suggest words for me to encode as knitting stitches. I make three of these into knitting stitches each month: the second and third (posted on the first day of the next month) are drawn from the collection of new words; the first 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.
The random number generator picked Zaftig from the suggestions for this post, suggested by Kate, one of my Patreon supporters.
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 at least some digital art 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. (I try to make it look like knitting when it’s got floats short enough for easy stranded knitting.)
A 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. Mosaic knitting looks difficult, but it’s not as hard as it looks! Basically, knit two-row stripes, and slip stitches from the row below to make the contrasting pattern.
