knitting

Idyll: a mosaic knitting chart

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A while back, I encoded the word idyll and made it into a lace stitch pattern and a needlework chart. 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.

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

Follow the link for charts and instructions
knitting

meta Knit: a needlework chart for any craft

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The random number generator picked Knit from the suggestions for this post, suggested by Nim, one of my Patreon supporters. I was pleased that this option came out with motifs that are common in traditional needlewrok.

In my opinion, this pattern looks good as both an allover design and as a border strip; there’s an example of the latter at the end of this post.

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.)

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knitting

Leafy Columns: two lace knitting stitch patterns

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Last week, I posted Leafy Blocks, and remarked that it inspired something I preferred. Here is Leafy Columns (versions 1 & 2), which is like a compressed version of Leafy Blocks. I think these work much better: they have cleaner lines and they look less blobby. I think it’s more interesting and attractive.

I’m not looking for affirmation here; I’m confident about the quality of my designs. I have two points that I’m trying to make with these recent blog posts:

  1. Personal taste is subjective, and it’s okay to like different things. Though my original planned point was
  2. part of the process of making things is to make mistakes and try things that it turns out you might not like personally. Imperfection is part of the creative process. I’m going to link again to a post from Tien Chu that expands upon this.
    I’m sharing the results of these experiments that I don’t like because I feel like it’s easy to look at designers and bloggers and Instagrammers and so on who only share the things that satisfy them, and think that all their things are perfect, and then feel that if your own work isn’t perfect, there’s something flawed about you. But really it’s just that they don’t ever share their imperfect work.

Posts in this series of stitch patterns based on Bunny Ears Yarnover

Follow link for charts and written instructions
knitting

Leafy Blocks: a lace knitting stitch pattern

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I’ve been making a series of stitch patterns using the Bunny Ears Yarnover I unvented. I’m sharing all of them, even the ones I don’t like as much, to demonstrate that it’s okay to make things you don’t think are perfect. I’ve learned things from all of the swatches I’ve knit so far using the technique, and someone might like the ones I don’t. (After all, we all have different taste.)

I was intrigued by the curvy shape that the bunny ears yarnover made, and thought it might look good as the bottom of a small leaf shape. In the end, I’m not really satisfied with this, but there’s nothing really wrong with it. I just don’t like the way it looks: I think it’s clunky.

It did, however, give me an idea… stay tuned until next week!

Posts in this series of stitch patterns based on Bunny Ears Yarnover

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knitting

Water: a needlework chart for any craft

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The random number generator picked Water from the suggestions for this post, suggested by Amy G, 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.)

Follow link for charts and more information
knitting

Train tracks: a knitting stitch pattern

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I’ve been making a series of stitch patterns using the Bunny Ears Yarnover I unvented. I’m sharing all of them, even the ones I don’t like as much, to demonstrate that it’s okay to make things you don’t think are perfect. I’ve learned things from all of the swatches I’ve knit so far using the technique, and someone might like the ones I don’t. (After all, we all have different taste.)

The first few I liked quite a bit. This one doesn’t excite me, but it’s fine. Furthermore, it might look great combined with other stitch patterns. One thing I do like about this one is structural: it’s not ribbing, but it acts enough like ribbing that I think it wouldn’t curl.

Another thing I like is that it would be very easy to adjust the width of the repeat by adding or subtracting knit stitches between the bunny ears yarnovers.

Posts in this series of stitch patterns based on Bunny Ears Yarnover

Follow link for charts and instructions
needlework charts

Idyll: a needlework chart for any craft

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The random number generator picked Idyll 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.)

Follow link for charts and more information
knitting

Idyll: a lace knitting stitch pattern

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The first word I drew from the words suggested on Patreon this month is Idyll, suggested by Kate, a Patreon supporter. I think we could all use an idyll right about now. Peace, and rest, and beautiful surroundings. Or at least, that’s how I’ve always thought of idylls.

I decided to look it up, and it turns out that an idyll is a poem or song that describes a peaceful episode in the countryside, often idealized and unrealistic. A romanticized view of country life, in other words. Ah, well. A peaceful episode in the country still sounds comforting right now.

To return to knitting, I can’t tell if I’m just currently obsessed with the bunny ears yarnover, but I think it’s going to be useful in a fair number of code lace layouts that I would otherwise have decided were impossible. I’m using it enough that I’ve started to abbreviate it instead of writing it out in the instructions. Also, this design introduces the alternate form that’s based on bunny ears back, because of the way the decrease lines need to go. Both forms are there, so watch the chart symbols and abbreviations carefully!

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.

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knitting

Flying Birds: a knitting stitch pattern

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I took the chart from Scattered Tulips, condensed it, and ended up with the chart below. When I knitted it, it came out with a satisfyingly thick, open texture. I haven’t tried it with variegated yarn yet, but my suspicion is that it would work very well indeed with this structure.

I get a vague impression of flying birds when I look at this one. There’s another view of this stitch pattern from the side at the bottom of the post.

Posts in this series of stitch patterns based on Bunny Ears Yarnover

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knitting

Scattered Tulips: a knitted stitch pattern

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This is the first of the stitch pattern ideas I mentioned in the blog post about Bunny Ears yarnovers. It’s the first one I tried, and I like it a lot. It’s a classic layout for motifs, so I figured it would probably look good, but I wasn’t sure how it would look with lots of plain stockinette as the background.

Thanks go to my twitter followers for helping me come up with the name. There were a lot of ideas, but the vast majority of people saw tulips in it, so here we are.

Posts in this series of stitch patterns based on Bunny Ears Yarnover

Continue reading Scattered Tulips: a knitted stitch pattern →

knitting, crochet, other string tricks, and forays into other creative endeavors

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