Dragons: a free lace knitting stitch pattern

| Naomi Parkhurst

This month, the random number generator chose dragons, suggested by Nyriis and Asimina on Patreon. I like the result! From one angle, the sections with more stockinette look kind of like dragon heads, though I didn’t plan for it. From another, the sections full of yarnovers remind me of plant cells under a microscope.

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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A few words about clothing and color

| Naomi Parkhurst

I was reading a book about making clothes the other day and stopped short when it started being bossy about how to wear colors that don't suit one. Now, maybe it's just that I'm not a particularly fashionable person, but this made me cranky. I wanted to throw the book out the car window; fortunately for the book, it came from the library.

I happen to be pleased that the colors I like to look at are the same colors that other people tell me I look good when wearing. Ultimately, though, I think what's important is that my clothes should make me comfortable and happy, should be well-made and last a long time, and should ideally have been made in ethical circumstances. (I don't manage the last as much as I'd like, for a variety of reasons, but I try not to beat myself up over it.)

This goes for you, too: if a given color makes you happy, I'm not going to argue that you shouldn't wear large quantities of it. In fact, if you’re a friend of mine, I’ll give you things in that color because I know you like it, whether or not I think it “suits” your complexion, and whether or not I like the color in question. If it makes you happy, it suits you, end of story.

I feel this way about a lot of things, really. My motto about knitting styles is that if you're getting results you like (or are getting better), and you're not hurting your hands, then you're knitting correctly.

Help: a free lace knitting stitch pattern

| Naomi Parkhurst

This is a continuation of my Help post from before, this time with a lace stitch based on the word help. If you like it and use it, please consider donating money to a group working to assist after natural disasters. As I discussed in my previous post, local donations are usually best, but if you don't have much time, I think it's hard to go wrong with Doctors without Borders.

I'm not familiar with the right groups for the flooding in South Asia or Africa, or the earthquake in Mexico. This is all highly discouraging, but remember to look for the helpers!

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Dragons: a free chart for any craft that uses them

| Naomi Parkhurst

The word of the month is Dragons, suggested by Nyriis and Asimina on Patreon.

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 chart, but I just want to give a sense of it. This month’s is fake cross stitch because I think the floats would be too long if this were worked as stranded knitting.

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Help Texas flood victims

Help: a free chart for any craft that uses them
| Naomi Parkhurst

The colorwork chart I’ve included in this post is based on the word help, using my encoding methods. Whether or not you plan to use it, please consider donating money to organizations helping with disaster relief after Hurricane Harvey.

There’s a lot of organizations that need help. Here are the principles I like to use for natural disasters and some suggestions for organizations:

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Wrong side cable crosses

| Naomi Parkhurst

I had a question from a friend about how I work cable crosses on the wrong side.

There’s two parts to my answer:

  1. If it’s a right cross on the front side, it’s a right cross on the wrong side. If it’s a left cross on the front, it’s a left cross behind.
  2. If I’m using a cable needle, which I prefer for anything other than a 1/1 cross, the way I move the stitches around is identical on both sides; I just purl them on the wrong side instead of knitting. Otherwise, see after the cut.

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1/1 Cable Crosses

| Naomi Parkhurst

I use 1/1 cable crosses fairly frequently in my lace design. Sometimes they help me continue a decrease line where there isn't a corresponding increase. Other times they make a nice closure at the top or bottom of a motif. In any case, here's a brief guide about how I work them without a cable needle. I'm pretty sure the 1/1 right cross method is pretty standard (I think I learned it from Barbara Walker's books); I don't know about the 1/1 left cross.

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