colorwork

Mermaid: a free needlework chart for any craft

| Naomi Parkhurst

The random number generator picked Mermaid for my first encoded word post of this month. It was suggested by Ange, 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 an image 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.
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Wish: a mosaic knitting stitch pattern

Wish: a mosaic knitting stitch pattern
| Naomi Parkhurst

Yesterday’s needlework chart for Wish turns out to work quite well as the basis for a mosaic knitting chart. I ran out of time to knit a swatch, but the nice thing about mosaic knitting is that the charts are similar to the final appearance of the knitting.

The thing about mosaic knitting is that it just looks difficult. It’s really easy to do! Basically, you’re knitting two row stripes, and slipping stitches from the row below to make the contrasting pattern. If you can knit stripes, you can knit mosaic patterns.

Here’s an article from Twist Collective about how it works.

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Rhinebeck: a free Fair Isle chart

| Naomi Parkhurst

There’s not much to say about Rhinebeck that hasn’t been said by hundreds of other people already (it’s wonderful! and well-organized, at least from the parking and ticket line and bathroom point of view), so instead I’m going to share a secret code chart for stranded knitting with you. I’ve encoded the letters of “Rhinebeck” as numbers in base six, charted them on a grid, mirrored the grid in two directions, and voilà! The featured picture shows the result in colors I saw at Rhinebeck in the trees and sky. I’ve also included a more basic chart: the coded numbers are marked by the black squares.

Edit: I had a request for colors for a rainy day instead of bright blue skies, and it was easy enough to do:

Rhinebeck take 2I’m also working on some lace, but I didn’t have it ready for today. (I try to post regularly on Mondays – it keeps me energized. Also, regular posting tends to give me ideas for more posts. If I just post randomly, my ideas dry up.) Anyway, it was chilly enough at Rhinebeck that lace seems less practical than stranded knitting.

rhinebeck plain chartI’m always careful with the charts I post for stranded knitting that there’s no more than seven stitches in a row in a single color; this makes better results.

As always, this could be used for cross stitch, needlepoint, or any craft worked on a grid.

Designers, please feel free to use these stitches in your patterns. I’d like credit but won’t be offended if people don’t give it. Thanks! – Naomi

If you like my posts like this, please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks!

Book Review: KNITSONIK Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook

| Naomi Parkhurst

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned this book in the same post as Sequence Knitting, then went on to only review the latter. Now it's this book's turn.

KNITSONIK Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook, by Felicity Ford. KNITSONIK, 2014. ISBN: 978-0993041501. Website: knitsonik.com. Ravelry group: KNITSONIK

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The marriage of inlay and k1long

Making a decorative pattern on the surface of your knitting that looks like embroidery but is knit in as you go.
| Naomi Parkhurst

Sometimes I discover that my brain has been thinking up things while I wasn’t looking, as it were. I love the way it does that. (Except when I’m overwhelmed by ideas.) This time, the back of my brain  decided to combine a technique I’ve been playing with in swatches–k1long with inlay‘s ability to add a contrast color in a vertical colorwork design. This isn’t actually inlay, but merely borrows the idea of carrying a contrast color vertically up the wrong side of the knitting when it’s not in use.

I’ve only written instructions that show how to work this from the front, but I hope that it will be evident how to reverse the process from the wrong side. Please let me know if I’m mistaken and I’ll write this up. As it stands, it should be easy enough to work in the round regardless.

The first step is to consider whether the contrast color loop is leaning from bottom left to top right or from bottom right to top left. If the former, I’ve used a k2tog (right leaning) to secure the loop, and if the latter, I’ve used SSK (left leaning).

The instructions below are for the right-leaning version; the left-leaning version doesn’t require the slipped stitch to be worked first (if working in the round, anyway).

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new secret code lace: Eclipse

Free stitch pattern: Eclipse
| Naomi Parkhurst

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

Well, Rebecca on Patreon suggested that I should encode Eclipse, and it came up in a random choice as this month’s word. I really like the end result. It’s actually my second try. I couldn’t make the first one work out – I tried making an edging and kept ending up with four sections that didn’t hang together stylistically.

I did the numbers for this one in base eight, just for a change.

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Autumn is here (free cable stitch pattern, secret code)

"Autumn" encoded as a cable (free stitch pattern)
| Naomi Parkhurst

With the arrival of the autumnal equinox, I’ve made a cable chart for knitters and a generic chart for use in a variety of crafts. The former was encoded in base 6 and the latter in base 3.

It’s been a while since I did a secret code cable chart; the last one I tried just wouldn’t work out whatever I tried. I got discouraged.

Fall made me not want to do lace, though. Cables seemed more the thing, so I looked through all the grids I made for autumn and realized that this one would work.

The first yarn that came to hand is in rather a wintery color. Oh, well.

I didn’t swatch the generic chart this time; it’s not too hard to see how it looks, though:
three of four seasons encoded as a chart for crafts.

(Click images to enlarge.)

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Étude no. 5 – combining knitweaving with stranded knitting.

Etude no. 5 - combining knitweaving with stranded knitting.
| Naomi Parkhurst

Since learning about knitweaving, I’ve been curious about combining it with regular stranded knitting. All the projects I’ve seen have used one technique or the other (probably because knitweaving by itself can look better with doubled strands rather than single).

In this swatch I played around with two configurations. In the bottom section (variation 1), each column of dark stitches was worked using only one technique. The knitweaving sections therefore have little horizontal green bars while the stitches worked in dark green make a solid vertical stripe.

The upper section (variation 2) has the knitweaving and dark stitches worked out of phase with each other. This makes for a subtle knotted effect; the stitches worked in the natural color in those vertical lines disappear.

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