Here’s the sequel to last week’s Lace Crescents post. I found myself looking at the edges of the vertical repeats and thinking that I could reduce two columns to one – after all, the decreases were on alternate rows.
Indeed, I like the final result even better. I like the braided effect where the repeats come together.
(This isn’t one of my encoded word patterns.)
Follow this link for a chart and written instructions
The random number generator picked Frond for my second encoded word post of this month, 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 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 in use.
Continue reading
The word I drew from my word hoard for this stitch pattern is Frond, suggested by Lara on Patreon. Spring is on the way where I am, and it’s nice to think about sprouting fronds.
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 photo
It’s pretty common for one of my ideas to lead to another. Trying variations of stitch patterns is pretty educational in terms of stitch pattern design! I’ve never had a knitting design block —playing with one idea usually leads to all sorts of other ideas. If I don’t have time to use all the things the first idea makes me think of, I write down enough of a note that I can come back to it later.
Important note about writing down ideas for later: I’ve learned the very hard way that I can’t just scribble down a couple of words that make sense at the time. I need to write things out, or sketch a diagram or chart with an explanation for myself, with enough words that I would have understood what I meant before I had the original idea. Otherwise I come back months later to something like “overlapping braids”, and what the heck does that mean? (I’ve never used that particular phrase in my notes, but it’s the kind of thing that would make sense in the heat of the moment. It would have seemed so obvious to me at the time that I would have thought that it would be enough to jog my memory.)
Anyway! After making Lace Crescent Rib, I wondered what would happen if I shifted every other rib up halfway, removing the purl columns as well. What kind of allover pattern would be the result? Here is the answer. It’s still somewhat rib-like, and I like it. This stitch pattern inevitably led to a further question, and you’ll see what happened with that experiment next week.
Here’s a stitch pattern I’ve been thinking of posting for a while, so much so that I thought I’d already posted it or that it was already in someone else’s stitch dictionary. I spent some time searching my blog and Stitch Maps, and then I started flipping through my books. I finally found the pattern in question, and it wasn’t the same. It is a related stitch, so I can see why I had a strong case of déja vu: Openwork Hourglass, in Barbara Walker’s Treasury of Knitting Patterns. (I had in fact posted about it about a year ago.)
Openwork Hourglass and Lace Crescent Rib both have the same yarnover motif, which is one that turns up in a lot of my stitch patterns. This might make them good choices for coordinating stitches for my work. I have two more posts on the Lace Crescent theme coming up in the next couple of weeks. Enjoy!
The random number generator picked Staghorn for my first encoded word post of this month, suggested by Valerie, 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 in use.
Continue reading
The first word I’m encoding for this month is Staghorn, suggested by Valerie on Patreon. Staghorn can refer to at least five different things from nature! The obvious thing is the horns of a stag (a male deer), but the other four I found on a casual web search include a coral, several species of moss, a genus of epiphytic ferns, and a sumac. Not surprising really, given how many things have a branching shape. Since the encoding process I use doesn’t produce a stitch pattern that looks like the final result, I’m not surprised that the final result doesn’t look like a stag’s horns, but it does have an organic appearance. In the top part, I see moths. (Not the kinds that eat wool.)
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 this link for charts and written instructions
This is a chart and instructions for the one that StitcherUniverse came up with. My long blog post from last week is here.
follow link for charts and directions
One of my very favorite things about the online knitting community is the way that one person will write about a technique or an idea, and that will inspire someone else to try a variation, and so on.
This back-and-forth brainstorming has been happening lately with hex mesh, bunny ears decreases, and combinations thereof.
Sequence of events: several years ago, I unvented the bunny ears decrease and figured I couldn’t have been the first to come up with it. Indeed, that was the case. Details in this post. Later, Denise Plourde came up with a way to not use (k1,p1) to work a double yo, instead using a (p1, yo, p1) and a bunny ears decrease and posted about it on Ravelry and on Stitch Maps. I’ve been playing with that for the last couple of weeks – last week I posted a hexagonal mesh based on a six row repeat using that technique. And then StitcherUniverse posted on my Ravelry group that he had come up with a way to use a variant of bunny ears to make that a four row repeat.
I had to try it out, plus I wanted to see what would happen with another hex mesh from this post.
Follow link to see results
