Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

Jolie’s recipe for Nicky Epstein’s Knitted Buttercup This is a significant variation of the flower on page 22 of Knitted Flowers (New York: Sixth&Spring Books, 2006). The changes: specified cast on in the round not back and forth with seam centered and straight rather than slanted decreases threaded center rather than bound-off center bead instead of french knot felted instead of not felted Nicky's design is probably easier for the novice knitter to execute, certainly less fussy on the decreases. If you have the book, try both her approach and mine and see what you think. Use size 9mm/US 13 needles Samples made with Cascade 220, color 8555 (black) Yarn held double throughout Each flower uses about 6-7 grams/13¼-15½ yards Makes a 7-petal flower Flower is worked in the round on double-pointed needles, two-circulars, or a magic loop. Special techniques: dec 5 into 1 (worked over a group of 5 stitches)= slip first stitch knitwise, slip second stitch knitwise, knit third stitch (...

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...