Mars: a free lace knitting stitch pattern

| Naomi Parkhurst

The first word for this month is Mars, suggested by Kate on Patreon. This is a happy coincidence, given the recent successful landing of the InSight Mars Lander.

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 this, 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 charts are not meant in any way to look like the original words; the words are the seeds of my creativity.

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Doodle worked as a cable pattern

| Naomi Parkhurst

This is yet another variant of the doodle pattern I designed several weeks ago. This time I used it as the basis for a cable design, though I left out the two little dots in the middle of the diamonds. They didn’t make sense in this context.

Unfortunately, while I would have had time to knit a swatch, I didn’t have the ability. I cut my thumb while getting ready for a winter storm! It’s getting better, but I’m not up to knitting yet. I’ve checked the design over carefully by eye and also double-checked it with Stitch Maps.

At a guess, I’m not sure I’d find this particularly interesting on its own. I suspect I’d want to incorporate lace motifs or other stitch patterns into the centers of the diamonds.

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Doodle worked as a knit/purl pattern

Doodle, the knit/purl version
| Naomi Parkhurst

A while back, I doodled up a chart. (It’s not secret code.) I’m gradually working through making it into various kinds of knitting. Here it is as a knit/purl pattern. I don’t know if it’s something to do with the stitch pattern, the yarn, or my gauge, but the pattern in my swatch is really only visible with bright light coming from an angle. I suspect it’s mostly the yarn; my next knit/purl pattern will be done with thicker yarn.

Nonetheless, I’m happy with the result.

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Mars: a free needlework chart for any craft

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

The random number generator picked Mars for my first encoded word post of this month, 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 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.

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Candle Flames v2: a free lace knitting stitch pattern

Candle Flames v2: a free cable/lace knitting stitch pattern
| Naomi Parkhurst

Last week, I shared a stitch pattern with you that I’d derived from a motif from Ply. This is a variation on last week’s pattern, because I saw that if I changed things around slightly, I could nestle some extra columns in between the first set, shifted just a little bit vertically. A standard term  for this that’s used in pattern design is half-drop. Mathematicians refer to this as an example of translational symmetry. (This kind of symmetry involves sliding copies of a motif around without changing the shape of it.)

Note: this doesn’t count as secret code anymore because it’s been manipulated a lot.

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Candle Flames: a free cable knitting stitch pattern

Candle Flames: a cable knitting stitch pattern, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

Sometimes when I design a stitch pattern, I see a motif that I want to play with a bit more. Ply, from last week,  has a motif that reminded me of a candle flame. When I pulled it out of the larger stitch pattern, it was easier to turn the decrease lines into cable stitches, and here we are. (Note: this doesn’t count as secret code anymore because it’s missing most of the yarnovers from the original word.)

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Ply: a free lace knitting stitch pattern

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

The word I drew from my word hoard for this stitch pattern is Ply, suggested by Natasha on Patreon. Many knitters will know that plied yarn is yarn where two or more strands of yarn have been twisted around each other. (The word ply comes from the French for to bend.) It was entirely accidental that the columns of lace look rather like plied yarn, but it makes me happy.

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.

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Rune: a free cable knitting stitch pattern

| Naomi Parkhurst

The first word I encoded for Patreon this month was Rune, suggested by Catnach on Patreon. Sometimes I make an extra cable design from the encoded word (when it’s a short enough word); this is one of those times.

I ran out of time to knit a swatch for this post. I still hope to do so, but in the meantime, I’ve included the colored-in cable chart I made to make sure I’d put the cable crosses in the right directions. I’ve applied a photo filter on top to make it look a bit better.

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 this, 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 charts are not meant in any way to look like the original words; the words are the seeds of my creativity.

Continue reading →