knitting

Moonrise: a needlework chart for any craft

Moonrise: a needlework chart for any craft that uses them, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

The random number generator picked Moonrise from the suggestions for this post, suggested by Valerie, one of my Patreon supporters. I think this one would make great stranded mittens, what do you think? Or a hat. Pale grey yarn with a dark blue background, perhaps. I wonder what’s in my stash.

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. 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

Moonrise: a lace knitting stitch pattern

Moonrise: a lace knitting stitch pattern, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

The first word I drew from the words suggested on Patreon this month pattern is Moonrise, suggested by Valerie, a Patreon supporter. I designed Moon a while back, and I thought it would be good to make a stitch pattern that coordinates with that, so I took that as my starting point and continued the code grid based on that one. (I need to reknit the swatch for Moon at some point, looking at it again. It doesn’t show the design well.)

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

Harvest: a lace knitting stitch pattern

Harvest: a lace knitting stitch pattern, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

The word I drew from my word hoard for this stitch pattern is Harvest, suggested by Rebecca and Amy, two of my Patreon supporters. I like the way this ended up looking like jellyfish!

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 first and third are 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 charts and instructions

Autumn: a mosaic knitting chart

Autumn: a mosaic knitting chart, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

A while back, I encoded the word Autumn and made it into a cable pattern. 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.)

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.

Follow the link for charts

Honey: a mosaic knitting chart

Honey: a mosaic knitting chart, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

Earlier this month, I encoded the word Honey and made it into lace. For this week’s post, I reworked the 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.)

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 →

Honey: a free lace knitting stitch pattern

Honey: a lace knitting stitch pattern, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

The first word I drew from the Patreon word suggestions for this month is Honey, suggested by Cathy on Patreon. I’m quite pleased with how this one came out. I do regret that it doesn’t have the same stitch count as Bees, but that’s just how things go sometimes.

Each month, my Patreon backers have the chance to suggest words for me to encode as knitting stitches. I’ll make three of these into knitting stitches each month: two drawn from the collection of new words and the third 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

Union: a free mosaic knitting chart

Union: a mosaic knitting chart, by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

Earlier this month, I encoded the word Union and made it into lace. For this week’s post, I reworked one of the other 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.)

I like the accidental sheep in this pattern.

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.

Follow link for charts and more information

DSD and other people’s designs

| Naomi Parkhurst

I came up with the DSD double decrease several years ago. It’s a double decrease that is visually an exact mirror of sk2p: work ssk (or any of the other left-leaning single decreases), slip it back to the left needle and pass the next stitch over it, then slip it to the right needle again.
It took me a while to find a name for it. I knew I couldn’t have been the first person to invent it, and I wanted to use the same name as other designers. When I asked on Ravelry, I got a kind answer from Annie Maloney (Ravelry patterns, stitch dictionaries), who also designs lace. She told me that she calls this decrease a double slip decrease because that is what Barbara Abbey called it in her book about lace design. Annie Maloney abbreviates it as DSD, so I do likewise.

I didn’t know if I’d ever come across it again in anyone else’s work, but amazingly, in the last couple of months I’ve come across examples in two books I’ve had for a very long time: my Mon Tricot stitch dictionary and Susanna Lewis’s Knitting Lace, which provides charts for a 19th century stitch sampler and talks about lace design.

Continue reading →

Union: a free lace knitting stitch pattern

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

The first word I drew from this month’s new Patreon words is Union, suggested by Smart mouth’d, a Patreon supporter. The word was suggested on the Labor Day (US ) for obvious reasons. Solidarity! (I’m seeing more and more discussion of unions in US tech companies, which is such a welcome change.)

Each month, my Patreon backers have the chance to suggest words for me to encode as knitting stitches. I’m making three of these into knitting stitches this month: two from from the collection of new words; the third 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