Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

I've been aware of the work of Steve Plummer for some time. His illusion knits include not merely simple geometric designs but complicated illusions such as Albert Einstein or Mona Lisa. But the sad thing about illusion knits is they are not reversible. Until now. I am very excited to add an illusion knitting class to my repertoire. And now that I can show you how to work it reversibly, so much the better. In fact, I think this might be easier, as you are always looking at the right side of the work. And the two sides are independent, which means you can work the same pattern on both sides or different patterns. Just be sure both charts are the same size and they both start with the same color. Here is a simple example. One side is a checkerboard. The other side is two large triangles. I'll see if I can make a larger, more impressive sample.

Like so many knitters, I am curious about the latest gadgets. My stash is large. I feel guilty acquiring new yarn. (In spite of this, whatever yarn I want for my next project never seems to be a yarn already in the stash.) But, I do want to support friendly local yarn shops. When I was in Ligonier, Pennsylvania last year, Kathy Zimmerman had Prym double-pointed needles in her shop. I had seen these at TNNA in the summer of 2018 . Actually, I had seen the straights, but had not seen the double-points. When Kathy had some, I bought a set. It turns out the Prym double-points are rather nice. I'm not typically a fan of plastic, but these are okay. They are not as slick as metal, but they are smooth. They have the correct amount of friction. They are also lighter and warmer than metal. They have a little give, which can prevent hand fatigue. And they have a triangular cross-section. As a fan of the sadly discontinued Kollage square needles, the unusu...

The tussle with the Bohus Forest Darkness sweater continues. I think I am winning. Maybe? I ripped back to the colorwork, then tinked out the last color pattern including the final plain increase round. That was five rounds of 400 stitches each. It was in pulling out those rounds that I discovered the moths had nibbled on color 306 in the penultimate color pattern. That was another four rounds to pick out. Grrrr. After all the pain of tinking, I finally got to start knitting forward. The color patterns proceeded pretty well. I was able to wet-splice the yarn the moths had eaten. I put in a lifeline after the colorwork. I worked the short rows. I used the same number of short rows as written in the pattern, but I spaced them 4 stitches apart instead of 5. And I used the German short row technique. After working the crescent of short rows, I put in another lifeline. After adding about an inch and a half in the front, I divided for the body and sleeves....

For the record, I want to state that the easy part of the Forest Darkness has been the colorwork. You'll recall my challenge is the smallest size is too big for me. After more knitting and frogging and knitting and frogging, I thought I had figured things out. The instructions that come with the sweater kit have short rows as well as body and sleeve increases as you transition down the yoke towards the split for the sleeves and body. Some rounds/rows have both body and sleeve increases, and some have sleeve increases only. The short rows are turned at 5-stitch intervals, producing a gentle wedges on each side that reach from the underarm to the bust. I had already worked those instructions. I already knew they produced a sweater that was way too large for me. So I tried an alternative solution. I thought I might be able to extend the back and sleeves but not the front. The yoke is almost at my bust. I worked two inches of short rows using 2-stitch ...

It looks like we might hit our first freeze later this week. As the weather cools in Atlanta, thoughts turn to unfinished sweaters. There's a beautiful Bohus Forest Darkness that has been hibernating for awhile in my unfinished objects. According to my Ravelry notes, I started the sweater in the spring of 2015. The colorwork progressed nicely. The problem was when I got to the plain part. I worked the directions for the smallest size and discovered the smallest size is too big for me. I ripped back to the colorwork — thank goodness I put in a dental floss lifeline — and plopped the project back into a Longaberger picnic basket. I determined in order to finish the sweater, I would probably need a mannequin sized to my own body, so I could adjust fit as I knit. At one point Jenna from The Whole Nine Yarns helped me make a mannequin from an old t-shirt and duct tape. After my Aunt Carol passed away last year. I acquired her adjustable sewing mannequin. So ...

Last weekend I took Alasdair Post-Quinn's online "Double-knitting Off the Grid" workshop . While I don't double-knit often, I find it useful in certain circumstances. Alasdair's inventive exploration of the technique is always worthy of my time. Learning something new was a familiar pleasure, one I haven't indulged in much in 2020. The swatch took a couple hours to knit. Basically, the class was a deep dive into double-knit increases and decreases. The decreases are pretty much the same ones I use in versa lace. In double-knitting those decreases involve two colors not one, but are otherwise the same. Alasdair has an interesting way of working the swap between stitches #2 and #3 in a single decrease. And he has an unusual way of working the lifted increase. Also, I would have misread his charts if I hadn't taken the class.  The off the grid method allows you to create motifs that are more curved and refined, rather than pixela...

My latest pattern comes from an idea I had swatched a year or two ago. What brought it to the top of the queue was a need for grief knitting. My aerospace friend, Bob Greene, passed away from cancer in the early morning hours of Thursday 8 October 2020. He was in hospice care the final three weeks of his life. I spent a fair amount of those three weeks sitting bedside with him. I also drove out and back to Mississippi to fetch his granddaughter, and then did the same trip three days later to take her home. On my last day with Bob I downloaded the audiobook of The Martian and played that. Bob and I shared a love of all things outer space. I will miss him every time I see space news. I hope to live long enough to see humans walk on the moon again or even Mars for the first time. Bob dearly wanted to see that, too. The grief knitting turned out to be Penta Benda. The pattern is based on an interesting way of arranging right triangles, so they create an octag...