Author: Naomi Parkhurst

Fish: a mosaic knitting chart

sample image for Fish: a mosaic knitting chart, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

Generally, when I’m making mosaic knitting charts from an encoded word, it works best with shorter words. So I’m not making a single mosaic chart for starfish. Instead, I made one for star last week, and this week, I’m posting fish. They have the same stitch repeat and can be used together.

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

Star: a mosaic knitting stitch pattern

sample image for Star: a mosaic knitting chart, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

Generally, when I’m making mosaic knitting charts from an encoded word, it works best with shorter words. So I’m not making a single mosaic chart for starfish. Instead, I’m making one for star, and another for fish next week. They’ll have the same stitch repeat and can be used together.

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

Gansey: a lace knitting stitch pattern

sample image for Gansey: a lace knitting stitch pattern, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

The first word I drew from the words suggested on Patreon this month is gansey, suggested by Bookwyrm, a Patreon supporter. This is a choice that made me laugh, since a gansey is a kind of sweater from the island of Guernsey; there is no lace involved. (They are wonderful sweaters.)

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.

Follow link for charts and instructions
sample image for Starfish: a needlework chart for any craft, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

The random number generator picked starfish from the suggestions for this post, suggested by Lara, 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 usually try to make it look like knitting when it’s got floats short enough for easy stranded knitting, but this particular design didn’t look good in that format, so I suspect it’s not really suitable for that kind of knitting.)

Follow link for charts and more information

Starfish: a lace knitting stitch pattern

| Naomi Parkhurst

The word I drew from my word hoard for this stitch pattern is Starfish, suggested by Lara, a Patreon supporter. For some reason, finding the right encoding to make a good stitch pattern was really difficult this time; I ended up having to encode each word separately, then stack the results one on top of the other. I haven’t swatched the words individually yet, but experience suggests that it should work out, though I might need to edit the decreases a bit. (I’ve generally had good luck with stitch patterns that are only two or three right-side rows high.)

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.

Follow link for charts and instructions

Star Rib Panel: a lace knitting stitch pattern

| Naomi Parkhurst

When I designed Snow recently, I noticed that the narrower panel in it was basically the same as Star Rib Mesh. I thought it was pretty as a panel, so here we are. For this stitch pattern, I used the double decrease from Star Rib Mesh instead of the one from Starfish. (You could use whichever you prefer, of course.)

This is the sort of pattern where I’m certain someone else must have come up with it independently. I just liked it, so here we are.

Follow link for charts and instructions

Snow: a needlework chart for any craft

sample image for Snow: a needlework chart for any craft, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

The random number generator picked Snow from the suggestions for this post, suggested by Naomi T. and Natasha, two 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

Snow: a lace knitting stitch pattern

knitted sample for Snow: a lace knitting stitch pattern, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

The second word I drew from the words suggested on Patreon last month is Snow, suggested by Naomi T. and Natasha, Patreon supporters. I’m pleased with how it came out, not least because it has no double yarnovers. (It’s very hard to avoid them entirely with my design methods.)

I think it’s fun that one of the two panels is essentially Star Rib Mesh, though with somewhat different decreases.

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.

Follow link for charts and instructions

Song: a mosaic knitting chart

sample image for Song: a mosaic knitting chart, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

Last week, I encoded the word Song 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