mosaic knitting

Charting mosaic knitting in StitchMastery

| Naomi Parkhurst

It occurs to me that it might be helpful (for other designers at least) to explain how I use my chart software to make mosaic knitting charts. For one thing, while there is a mosaic knitting format built into StitchMastery, it isn’t the one I personally prefer, so I do some extra editing to make my charts in the Barbara Walker format.

This is not a post about how to design mosaic knitting stitches; it is a post about how to produce a particular kind of chart format in the StitchMastery software. I don’t know enough about other knitting chart software to know how the methods translate.

I also use vector graphics art software for some of the final editing on these charts. Some major examples of this kind of software include Adobe Illustrator (subscription software), Inkscape (free and open source), Affinity Designer (this is what I use on our desktop computer). I usually prefer using Graphic for iOS. (They also have a version for MacOS which I have not tried.)

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Doodle digression – various colorwork charts

| Naomi Parkhurst

Last week I showed how I turned a doodled colorwork chart into a very different-looking mosaic knitting chart. I had a plan worked out for a series of posts showing how that original colorwork chart would look as a knit-purl pattern, and even as lace. I will come to those blog posts eventually, I hope, but I got whacked in the head by an idea and feel compelled to run with it.

Important note: after the initial mosaic chart, none of the charts in this post are suitable for mosaic knitting.

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Doodle: a free mosaic knitting chart

| Naomi Parkhurst

The other week, I posted a needlework chart I called doodle, because I’d doodled on graph paper. I did in fact have some particular things in mind when I made the doodle; I wanted a design that I could turn into various kinds of knitting stitches to demonstrate how that works.

A key thing when I’m playing with stitch patterns is that I’m rarely concerned with making the variations look like the original chart. I’m more interested in seeing how the original chart is transformed by the process.

This variation is mosaic knitting. 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 an article from Twist Collective about how it works.

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Typo: a free mosaic knitting chart

| Naomi Parkhurst

Last week’s code grid for the Typo lace turns out to work quite well as the basis for a mosaic knitting chart. 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 an article from Twist Collective about how it works.

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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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Snug: a free mosaic knitting stitch pattern

Snug: a free mosaic knitting stitch pattern
| Naomi Parkhurst

I’m occasionally going back to look at the needlework charts I’ve been posting to see what interesting stitch patterns can be made from them. My hope is to inspire you to see how to do this yourself.

This month’s stitch pattern is a mosaic knitting chart made from Snug. 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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2018: a free mosaic knitting stitch pattern

2018: a free mosaic knitting stitch pattern by Naomi Parkhurst
| Naomi Parkhurst

I have a tradition (four years is a tradition, right?) of using the four digits of the upcoming year as a basis for designing a stitch pattern to celebrate the New Year. May this year be a good one for all of us.

The first three years were all lace. This year, I realized that one of the possible code grids for 2018 was suitable for a mosaic knitting chart. This is the first time I’ve seen that possibility in my code grids, so of course I had to go with it.

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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Mosaic knitting: much easier than it looks.

| Naomi Parkhurst

This beautiful new hat pattern from my friend Sarah looks complicated, doesn’t it? It’s called Mighzal, which means spindle in Arabic. She took the concepts of using writing as decoration on spindle whorls and the concept of a Kufic square, which rotates the same word around the four sides of a square to make a complex looking tile, to create a hat pattern which will let the wearer proclaim their love for spindles.

mighzalIt looks really difficult, but is only a step up in difficulty from knitting a hat with two-row stripes. The technique of mosaic knitting, refined by Barbara Walker, lets the knitter not only work with only one color at a time, but count stitches only on every other row because the first row in each stripe defines quite clearly what happens in the second row.

Here, let me show you with a swatch:

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So many ways to make a hug!

| Naomi Parkhurst

This is my last post on encoding “Hug” in yarn. First I knitted lace, then I played with crochet, and now I’m going to finish up with some more knitting.

I discussed the mechanics of laying out this particular grid in the crochet post, but here it is one more time, stripped down a bit.

other hugs - 2 rows

As with the crochet, sometimes the stitches work better with patterning on every row, and sometimes they do well to have a plain row in between. (Compare it with the lace chart, and you’ll see that the yarn overs go in the dark squares.)

other hugs

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