Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

If you've made it this far in the pattern, all that's left is the heel. There are several ways to make a heel. The one I'm offering here is only one of many; and because it is worked in garter st, I'm not sure it would work well on a real to-be-worn sock. Remove the waste yarn and put loose stitches on dpns. (In the sample, I knit 40 waste yarn stitches, so I picked up 40 sts on the bottom and 41 on the top for 81 total.) Starting in the lower right and using the contrast color, knit once around. As you do this, pick up an extra st or two at each corner to prevent holes. Purl the next round. Knit the third round, but work a double decrease at each corner (4sts decreased total on the round). I used a sl-2tog-knitwise, k1, psso decrease to make a strong line. If you don't like the central line, just knit all three sts together. Purl the fourth round. Continue alternating a round of knits with double decreases and plain purls until there are only about one-quarter of t...

I've found that cuffs often look "fluffier" from the purl side. Now, you could cut the main color, tie on the contrast color, knit one round and then purl, purl, purl. But there is another way. Hold the stocking and join on the contrast color so that the inside of the stocking is the RS and the outside is the WS. Purl the first row only -- the knit side of this row will be on the public side of the stocking and will make for a smooth transition. Now, knit around so that you are forming reverse stockinette stitch on the public side of the work. Keep knitting until the cuff is double the length you would like it to be. On the sample, I knit about 65 rows. Don't bind off yet. I've made the cuff extra fluffy and strong by folding it in half and stitching it down. In the first photo (upper left), you see the nice row of red and white bumps. This is the view from the inside of the stocking. You can see the rounds and rounds of knit stitches in white. In the second photo...

If you've worked the part of the pattern posted yesterday, you have a nice round spiral. That's the toe. There should be 79 stitches on the needles. The body of the stocking is pretty easy -- p1, k1, p1, k1, p1, k5. Always work the whole repeat. The beginning of the round shifts one stitch to the left with each round. On the sample stocking, I knit about 30 rounds. The toe of the sample stocking is a bit short -- feel free to make it whatever length you like. Then I set-up for inserting the heel later. In Knitter's Almanac (New York: Dover Publications, 1974, 1981 reprint) p.145, Elizabeth Zimmermann calls this a thumb trick . Lynne Barr in Knitting New Scarves (New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2007) pp.138-139 calls this a scrap yarn slit . Cat Bordhi in A Second Treasury of Magical Knitting (Friday Harbor WA: Passing Paws Press, 2005) p.109 calls it a waste yarn opening . (BTW, I highly recommend all three of these books.) In this case, take a spare p...

Ok, I really did not mean to get wrapped up in how many different ways there are to create a spiral in pattern. In my defense, I did mention the perfectionism at the start. After many tries, I have here a pattern that I am willing to post. And many, many comments to go with it. There are several ways to start a center. I hadn't realized how many. The example in natural uses a 7st center. The very first row is in seed st. Unfortunately, the seed st is somewhat obscured by the increases in the second round. Another variant (at right, in magenta), uses an 8 st center. The first row is all knit, and the seed st is not established until the increase round. Both of these beginnings involve merely wrapping the yarn around a knitting needle and then threading the loose end back through with a tapestry needle. This makes a beginning that looks exactly the same as an ending -- i.e. an end bit of yarn runs through all the loose loops and pulls them together into one tight little bind. Last ti...

I decided I wanted the stocking toe to flow gracefully into the body of the stocking. In other words, I wanted the toe to increase in pattern. The goal: p1, k1, p1, k1, p1, k5 in the round, on a multiple of 10 minus 1 stitches. Why the ‑1? Because the swirl comes from having the whole pattern shift one stitch to the left on every round. The offset will make the p1, k1 section produce seed stitch rather than 1x1 ribbing. My inspiration for the pattern came out of the Moss-Stitch Zigzag for 7 December in the 365 Knitting Stitches a Year perpetual calendar (Woodinville WA: Martingale & Co, 2002). The original pattern was written for flat knitting, zigzagging left and right, and the stockinette stripes were narrower. I discovered that the zigzag effect wasn't well-suited to knitting in the round. Since I've decided to share this stocking pattern, I thought I'd better spend a little time improving on the swirl toe. The two experiments in today's post were knit on 3.75m...

I'm a recovering perfectionist. After admitting the problem -- and really, it IS difficult to admit that striving for the very best in everything is a fault -- I've tried to focus this energy into specific projects. Perfectionism is a really bad thing in relationships. Thus, I keep it out of my marriage and instead put it into my knitting practice. My intention in the coming weeks is to post pictures and notes of my assorted knitting experiments. Like any artistic endeavor, some things work brilliantly as planned, some don't, some are better for not having worked as planned, and some lead to other paths and other places not yet imagined. In keeping with the holiday season, I recently knitted a Christmas stocking to contribute to the charity knitting at the North Georgia Knitting Guild . These will be given to a local hospital so that the babies born during the holiday season go home in a stocking instead of in a blanket. My contribution is the stocking you see in today'...