knitting

Tea: a free mosaic knitting stitch pattern

Tea: a free mosaic knitting stitch pattern, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

A while back, I encoded the word Tea and made it into lace. For this week’s post, I reworked one of the code grids I made while planning that post and turned it into a mosaic knitting stitch pattern. (I used the process described in this post.)

The 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 this time. Mosaic knitting looks difficult, but it’s really easy to do! Basically, knit two-row stripes, and slip stitches from the row below to make the contrasting pattern. If you can knit stripes, you can knit mosaic patterns.

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

Continue reading →

Charisma: a free lace knitting stitch pattern

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

The word I drew from my word hoard for this stitch pattern is Charisma, suggested by Valerie on Patreon.

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.

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 chart and instructions

Mosaic knitting: an easy way to do colorwork

| Naomi Parkhurst

If you’ve ever wanted to knit colorwork designs, but find the idea of stranded colorwork intimidating because of handling more than one yarn at once, then mosaic knitting might be for you: each row is worked while holding only one yarn. (Stranded knitting is not actually as hard as it looks either, in my opinion, but it’s not as easy as mosaic.)

The key to mosaic knitting is the slip stitch. Mosaic knitting essentially involves knitting two row stripes in alternating colors. You can be knitting along in one color, but when you need a contrasting color, you slip a stitch instead of knitting it. Because the previous row was a different color, it looks as if you knit that stitch in the contrasting color. In other words, you only need to hold one strand of yarn at a time while knitting, and yet it looks as if there are two colors in that row.

I’m going to demonstrate how this works with photos and words in this post; I’m also going to explain how to read the specific kind of mosaic knitting charts I like to use.

Continue reading →

Some more random mosaic knitting charts

George: a free mosaic knitting chart, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

Here are two more mosaic charts I doodled recently. (They aren’t made using my encoding method, so there’s no hidden meaning involved.) I couldn’t think of names for one of them based on appearances, so I just went with a family name.

I checked all of them at Scott Pakin’s mosaic charting webpage which has a feature that checks to make sure that a mosaic chart is actually possible.

I’m going to have to write up a thorough tutorial on mosaic knitting and how to read this specific kind of chart now that Twist Collective’s awesome website is gone. In the meantime, here’s the closest thing I can find right now. (The isolated column to the right in my charts indicates what color is being used in a given row, like the first column in the charts on that page.)

An added benefit to finding that page is learning that the same charts can be used for mosaic crochet, which I didn’t know was a thing!

Follow link for charts

Tulip: a free lace knitting stitch pattern

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

The first word I’m encoding for this month is Tulip, suggested by Cathy on Patreon.

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.

Follow link for charts and instructions

Bergamot excerpt: two free lace knitting stitch patterns

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

It’s been a while since I posted an extract of one of my larger stitch patterns. I thought the bottom section of Bergamot looked like a good candidate, and I was correct. This stitch pattern works well by itself, and also as a coordinating stitch pattern to go with Bergamot. (Note that the excerpt no longer counts as an encoded word after this editing.)

follow link for charts and instructions

Some random mosaic knitting charts

| Naomi Parkhurst

Here are four mosaic charts I doodled over the weekend, each a variation of the first. (They aren’t made using my encoding method, so there’s no hidden meaning involved.) I couldn’t think of names for two of them based on appearances, so I just went with some family names.

I checked all of them at Scott Pakin’s mosaic charting webpage which has a feature that checks to make sure that a mosaic chart is actually possible.

I’m going to have to write up a thorough tutorial on mosaic knitting and how to read this specific kind of chart now that Twist Collective’s awesome website is gone. In the meantime, here’s the closest thing I can find right now. (The isolated column to the right in my charts indicates what color is being used in a given row, like the first column in the charts on that page.)

An added benefit to finding that page is learning that the same charts can be used for mosaic crochet, which I didn’t know was a thing!

Follow link for charts

Oolong: a free lace knitting stitch pattern

Oolong: a free lace knitting stitch pattern, by Naomi Parkhurst (photo of lace)
| Naomi Parkhurst

The word I drew from my word hoard for this stitch pattern is Oolong, suggested by Joan, Asimina, and Amy on Patreon. As a tea-lover,I’ve been delighted that the random number generator has been bringing up so many tea-related words! Oolong is a word that means the tea leaves have been prepared a special way that’s different from black tea. As a black tea drinker, I’m pretty ignorant about the specifics of oolong, so I hope the Wikipedia article is accurate!

I like the way the lines of this look like flying birds.

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.

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 chart and instructions