I just wanted to let you know that my Post Index is up to date for the first time in a while. Huzzah!
Author: Naomi Parkhurst
Secret Code rewrite: making grids in non-rectangular shapes.
This is part of my rewrite of my secret code instructions. It won’t make sense if you don’t read the rest of the series! It has to do with using one of my encoding methods in a non-geometric shape.
Linkety-link part 22
First, a useful link elsewhere:
- how to bind off if there’s not enough yarn (without unraveling a row). LaVisch designs has some other useful tutorials, too. Check them out!
Second, three links to some older posts of mine I think you might find useful:
Happier selvedges for swatch blocking
I don’t know if you noticed on Saturday, but I’ve hit on a combination of selvedge stitches that I like for blocking my swatches. I might even like it for lace shawls and such. At any rate, it’s easy to knit, and it’s easy to block with blocking wires. And I like the way it looks.
Sunshine: needlework charts for any craft
The word of the month is Sunshine, suggested by Natasha 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.
Sun, Shine, and Sunshine: free lace knitting stitch patterns
This month, the random number generator chose sunshine, suggested by Natasha. I spontaneously decided to work up the component parts of this compound word, and encoded sun and shine separately. When they are stacked on top of each other, they spell sunshine. This is not something I’ll do every time someone suggests a compound word.It’s a very similar principle to my idea for making coordinating stitch patterns by taking an excerpt of rows of a bigger stitch pattern.
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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Happy Tau Day
Swatch blocking experiment
You might have noticed that I knit a lot of swatches. I’ve been getting fussier about how carefully I block them, and have been getting more consistent about using a short blocking wire (or skinny metal knitting needle) along each edge. Recently I’ve been pondering my swatch selvedges, and thinking about how to make it easier to thread the blocking wire through them. I remembered coming across a selvedge that uses yarnovers at the very edge, and decided to try that, at least for swatches.
It does make for easier blocking; I’m not yet convinced I like the look of it, though that doesn’t matter so much for swatches. I might try the yarnovers on every other or every third row instead.
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Book Review: Norah Gaughan’s Knitted Cable Sourcebook
Norah Gaughan is well known for her cable designs, so it’s a delight to have a book that is a combination of a stitch dictionary and a guide to her cable design process.
