Last month I admitted a fascination for crescent shawl shaping, even though I couldn’t say what construction style I preferred. Well, I decided to try the “start at the outside, and shape with short rows and decreases” approach, and I’m pretty darn pleased by the results:
(That’s Her Royal Cuteness, The Princess Fluff Butt, photobombing in the bottom right.)
Knit in Claudia Hand Painted Yarns Lust, this crescent started as a long strip of lace edging. I then picked up stitches along the edging’s straight edge, and worked a few decreases once every 10 rows to get the crescent to “bend” a little bit. At the same time, I worked a series of short-row turns so that the rows got progressively shorter, to shape the tips of the crescent. An I-cord bind-off provided the perfect finishing touch.
This as-yet-unnamed design will serve as another sample for my new Loving Your Lace Edgings class. But what do you think – is it more than “just a class sample”? If I were to write up the pattern, would you buy it?
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That crescent wrap was, in large part, a “design on the needles” exercise. It certainly kept me entertained on the flight to Stitches Midwest. But as I finished up the short rows on the flight home, I wasn’t sure how to complete the crescent. When should the short rows end? Did I need extra decreases in the row before the bind-off? And which bind-off did I want to use??
Lifeline to the rescue! When I thought I’d done enough short rows and was ready to experiment with bind-off options, I threaded a lifeline through each stitch. That way, if I later decided to change my mind, going back and trying again would be a simple matter of returning all the stitches from the lifeline to my needles.
What made this trick possible? The mini knitting kit that lives in my carry-on bag:
Stitch markers, puppy snips, cable needle, and – key to this story – tapestry needle and waste yarn reside in a single tiny tin, perfect for travel anywhere. Without that kit, I wouldn’t have been able to insert the lifeline, wouldn’t have had the nerve to continue experimenting, and would have had to find some other way to entertain myself on the flight home.
Moral of the story? Put together your own mini knitting kits! Keep ’em where you might need them, for just such an emergency.
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Have you knit a Curl yet? If not, here’s another excuse to give one a try: the digital version of Curls 2 now includes links to stitch maps.
Curls are the brainchild of Hunter Hammersen, author of Fine Things for Plain Occasions and the The Knitter's Curiosity Cabinet series, volumes I, II, and III. Each Curl begins with just a few stitches and grows rapidly at one edge to create an asymmetrical wrap that’s surprisingly fun to wear. Better yet, you can use any yarn you like, and just keep on knitting until your Curl is the size you want.
With Curls 2 – as with the original Curls – you can now follow links from the digital ebook directly to stitch maps at Stitch-Maps.com. These stitch maps show you precisely how each Curl achieves its shape, such as this one for Subterfuge:
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Speaking of using stitch maps to see what’s going on within a lace pattern... Joan McGowan-Michael has just released a Botanical Scarf Collection with three designs inspired by a botanical theme:
Joan says: “The traditional lace stitch patterns were chosen to give the knitter three progressively more skilled motifs, so you'll build your skills as well as some wonderful gifts!”
You get to choose: ebook only, or a kit combo of ebook and Stitch Sisterz cashmere? Mm, cashmere...
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The schedule is up for Stitches West, and I'm going to be teaching a whopping nine classes!
Whew, that’s a lot of classes! The upside for you: lots of choices. The downside for me: no time for shopping in the Market! And in case you’ve never been to Stitches West, let me tell you that the Market is huge. Ah, well, I’ll just have to do my shopping elsewhere.
Want to see what else is on my schedule? You can check it out at any time on my website. |
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Did you know that Stitch-Maps.com has a Ravelry group, where you can ask questions and talk to other stitch maps fans? Two discussion threads are worthy of special mention: In the “Did You Know?” Tip of the Week thread, I post a tip every week, usually with copious links and illustrations. And in the Project patterns with stitch maps thread, designers are encouraged to post descriptions of their patterns that include stitch maps.
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