The Stitch Dictionary

I've always thought it was amazing how two little stitches, the knit and purl could combine to make all sorts of things. Actually it's the combination (Knit 2 Together) and lack of (Yarn Over) these two stitches that creates numerious stitch patterns.

People have been creating different stitch patterns throughout the years and written books which contain many of these stitch patterns. Why would they go through the effort to figure out all of these combinations? One use for these guides is for anyone who wants to create a pattern to have some inspiration. Another use for these books is the fact that they give knitters semi-easy way to modify patterns to the stitches that they prefer. This may take a little effort and some math, but may take a pattern from ok to perfect for it's recepient.

In the past few years, Vogue knitting has released some very good stitch dictionaries. These books have very clear directions and good photographs of each of the stitches so that the knitter can get a good idea of what the finished pattern will look like. There are currently three books:
Vogue Knitting Stitchionary Volume One: Knit & Purl
The Vogue Knitting Stitchionary Volume Two: Cables
The Vogue Knitting Stitchionary Volume Three: Color Knitting
There are other stitch dictionaries out there, but these are my favorites. Their presentation uses very nice yarn in neutral yet beautiful tones, which makes it easy to imagine the pattern in any yarn.

Has it really been that long?

So, it’s been a while. I just got to a point where I had no desire to knit anymore. I think I just needed a break from knitting. One reason was that my hands were starting to hurt. I wasn’t sure it was the knitting, but I didn’t want to take a chance. Another thing is that I somehow messed up on my gauge swatch (should’ve washed it before measuring) and the hat I was making for Patrick for Christmas was huge. The hat more closely resembled a sweater than a hat, even after I did another swatch (that I didn’t wash) and took away 40 stitches. The entire time I was knitting it, people made comments that it was too big, or looked at me funny when I said I was making a hat, and I didn’t want to listen, I kept thinking, this is merino wool and I can just full or felt it and it will somehow magically become the perfect size. I really believed it, but then I was scared that what if I did that and it just didn’t turn out right and I wasted this beautiful yarn. So, I have learned my lesson and will wash the swatch before I measure it to see how many stitches to cast on. Wish me luck with this.

Well, I’m back, and I’m hoping that I can keep the blog up. I’m still learning about what exactly I should include on my blog. I’ve gotten comments that I shouldn’t include so much personal information on the internet. That was one of those points when I really reconsidered the whole blog thing. I really didn’t think I was exposing myself to the world too much, but there was still a question, what is too much information? I mean I’ve told ya’ll some things about myself, and about interesting things to do and places to see in New Orleans. I was just trying to help tourists see the New Orleans that I know, its not like I go to any of the places I featured on my blog constantly. Patrick actually cooks a lot, so eating out is more of a special treat than something I need to keep from starving. I cook occasionally, but not as much as him. I try not to include pictures of my friends and family, just to keep their lives private. I don’t include a lot of pictures of myself, there are some, but they usually don’t show me completely.

I’m not really sure if this blog should be just about knitting, but I really don’t think so. Maybe mostly knitting, but I still like to write about things that non-knitters will find interesting. I want people to come here and to be able to learn about knitting. If someone doesn’t know how to knit, I hope that my instructions are clear and my videos really do illustrate the concepts well. I’m thinking about redoing the videos in the tutorials because the video camera I was using flips everything around and I worry that it might be confusing to someone who wants to learn. I’ve deleted a few posts which didn’t really have anything to do with knitting and didn’t really add to the blog.

I’m going to try to keep the same schedule as I once did with the blog:
Mondays: Upcoming Events
Tuesdays: Knitting Tools
Wednesday: Random thoughts or Rest
Thursday: Tutorials
Friday: Project Profiles

Thanks and have a great weekend!

Double Pointed Needles (DPNs)

The double pointed needle is probably one of the most intimidating knitting tools. The intimidating part about DPN's isn't the individual needles, they look a lot like big toothpicks. The part that gets most people about DPNS is that they are used in groups. I know whenever I am using DPNs I get strange looks, because I'm using 5 needles at one time. To most people, it seems like there are too many things going on if five needles are in one project at a time. The thing about it is that it really isn't hard to use DPN's, the secret is to make sure that the needles you aren't using at a particular moment don't slip out of your stitches. The best thing to do to ensure that the stitches don't slip off of the needles is to use needles made from a rough material. My favorite double pointed needles are made of bamboo. These needles aren't as smooth as aluminum needles, but they are still smooth enough to slide through yarn without snagging it.

So, what are DPN's used for? Double pointed needles are used to make cylindrical garments, such as socks and sleeves. DPNs are useful for those instances when a circular needle is too big. Yes, there is another way, probaby more than one way, but the one that comes to mind right now is the magic loop method, which allows knitters to use long circular needles to knit things that are smaller in diameter than the length of the circular needle, if that makes any sense. I have not gotten completely comfortable with the Magic loop method, but when I do feel a little more proficient at it, I will prepare a tutorial on it and share it with you.

Ribbing

Ribbing is very common in hats, sweaters and anything where a stretchy fit is desired. The prequesites for knitting ribbing is a knowledge of the cast on, knit and purl stitch. Refer to previous tutorials if you want to learn more about these stitches and others. Ribbing is basically alternating the knit and purl stitch. There can be 1 by 1 ribbing, two by two, one by five or pretty much any combination. Here are some examples of ribbed projects. These are all projects made with 2 by 2 rib, in which I knit two stitches then purled two stitches, continueing in this manner until I reached the next row. On the next row, if we are kniting in the round like in the sock below, the stitches will just be a continuous knit two purl two. If the garment is knit flat, as in the case of the scarf below, the pattern that consisted of knit, knit, purl, purl... will be the opposite on the next row. A better way to think about this is to just make sure that the knit stitches line up with the purl stitches on the previous row.

Houston This weekend

October 18 -19 is the Bayou City Art Festival Downtown in Houston. Here is some information from their website: “October 18 - 19, 2008 SATURDAY AND SUNDAY10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Both days Admission is $10 for adults and free for children 12 and under.The downtown skyline serves as a dramatic backdrop for art, music, dance, and interactive activities at the Bayou City Art Festival Downtown.The annual, juried, fine art event boasts a stress-free outdoor gallery brimming with 300 artists working in 19 artistic media. Adding to the festive outdoor gallery are wine cafés, an interactive Creative Zone for children, restaurants, Broadway in Houston’s Broadway Café, and a performing arts stage with on-going multicultural musical and dance entertainment presented by The Houston Arts Alliance.The festival is showcased in front of City Hall and around Hermann Square on the streets of Walker, Bagby, and McKinney, as well as Sam Houston Park. For more information about the Bayou City Art Festival Downtown, please contact the Art Colony Association”October 25th is the MidCity Art Market. The market is the last Saturday of each month at Palmer Park. Palmer Park is at the intersection of S. Carrolton and S. Claiborne Ave in Uptown New Orleans. It is from 10:00 am until 4:00 pm. Come out and support art in New Orleans. See Lane Lefort Photography to view some of the available photographs.