Combinations of Knit & Purl – Simplicity or Complexity?

July 19, 2009| Lindy| 3 Comments | 8:51 pm

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The other day while waiting for my MIL at the beauty shop, I took out my baby blanket and sat knitting in the waiting area. One of the stylists came up to me and asked me what I was knitting. So I showed her. Then she said, “I could never knit anything like that – it’s too complex.” I replied that this pattern was actually very easy – it was just a three different combinations of knit and purl stitches, and I showed her the graph of the pattern square. She then told me that she had once knitted a sweater for her granddaughter that had a color pattern of a frog. So, I told her that if she had done that type of color knitting, this textured pattern would be easy for her to do. She replied that “maybe, she could do it – BUT she didn’t think she’d ever be able to master anything like cables”. So in spite of my gentle encouragement, I’m not certain this knitter will try to knit something with a variety of textures – which is too bad, because she will miss out on some wonderful knitting projects.

Have you ever limited your knitting by such thinking? I know I did many years ago – but after discovering Elizabeth Zimmerman’s approach to “unventing” things, my perspective has changed greatly. I’d like to encourage all my readers to think about this. There is a lot of freedom in being able to take a printed pattern and view it not as something that has to be followed exactly, but more as a place to start something uniquely yours. BTW – if you have never read Elizabeth Zimmerman’s books – you are missing an absolutely fun and enlightening experience!

As I spend time knitting my baby blanket, I find myself marveling at how those two basic stitches – the Knit Stitch and the Purl Stitch – can be combined in endless ways to make up fascinating textures. Consider the sheer simplicity of these two stitches. They are just opposites of each other. Yet these two stitches are knitting up nicely into teddy bear squares surrounded by seed stitch borders. And this project is rather simple. Then consider an Aran sweater pattern as an example of a far more complex combination of textured patterns – but again, the textures are made by the way one combines the basic knit and purl stitches and applies techniques such as cabling. Thus, knitting is both simple and complex and filled with unlimited possibilities of variation and combinations. No wonder we knitters love to knit!

3 thoughts on “Combinations of Knit & Purl – Simplicity or Complexity?”

LindyLou (too) says:

July 23, 2009 at 5:19 pm

Yes, you’re right. Sometimes it’s absolute instinct to stop right at the brink of doing something new just because it looks harder than we give ourselves credit for being able to learn.

I haven’t read EZ’s books, though she MUST have something remarkable to teach people. So many people love her work and find her inspirational and feel freed to create after reading her books. I’ve been at the brink of reading them, but . . . .

Yeah. I should listen to you and take the leap and try something new/old and read EZ. I’ll do it!
admin says:

July 23, 2009 at 6:47 pm

That’s terrific. I’m glad my comments triggered a positive response for you. I’d start with either “Knitting without Tears” or the “Knitter’s Almanac” from Elizabeth Zimmerman — both are available through Amazon.com, but many retail knit sites sell them as well. You can also probably find them through your LYS. Happy reading!
How I Lost 30 Pounds in 30 Days Without Diet says:

July 23, 2009 at 11:12 pm

Thanks for posting about this, I would like to read more about this topic.

Comments are closed.

OMG – I was hacked!OMG – I was hacked!

I haven’t posted for several weeks because I was busy transferring files from my old computer to my new one. You know — it takes awhile whenever you switch computers.

So yesterday morning I was at a point where I thought I should post something new to my blog — and when I attempted to login and do so — I got a really nasty surprise. When I typed in my url — what came up was this very blunt warning message that my site had suspicious activity and was now considered a dangerous site. OMG — I’d been hacked! 😮

And that ominous warning page wasn’t going to let me get anywhere near my login page. A bit of a problem, since one of the things I needed to do was go in and change passwords and update WordPress. So I started by notifying my Webhost that I had been hacked. I use IX Web Hosting and I have to tell you their response was great! By this morning, they had located the malware and removed it from my site. I was not expecting this because everything I had read about how to clean up your site after a malware attack indicated that I would have to do this myself. Thanks, IX Web Hosting!

So then the challenge was to get Google to remove its warning page — and to do that you have to go to Google Webmaster tools and request that they re-review your site. It took an hour or so — but then my site starting coming up without that dire warning. Whew!

I’m still having issues with Firefox on my new computer — it pulls up the warning page every time I try to access this site, but Internet Explorer and Safari are fine. I can access the site using Firefox on my old computer — so it has to be something with Firefox on my new computer.

In the meantime — if this ever happens to you, dear reader, go immediately to Google Webmaster Tools — it will tell you what the problem is. Then go to your Webhost and alert them to the hack. May this advice never have to be used…

How to Knit a Helpful Swatch – Part 2 Stitch PatternsHow to Knit a Helpful Swatch – Part 2 Stitch Patterns

In my previous post, I discussed how to make a preliminary swatch to select the size needle that gives you a fabric that you like and then how to knit a gauge swatch. The gauge swatch is measured to give you your stitch gauge (stiches per inch) and your row gauge (rows per inch).

At this point, you might think you are ready to cast on and begin knitting your sweater – BUT….

Are you planning on using some type of ribbing for the bottom, cuffs and neckline of the garment? Are you planning on using a certain textured stitch pattern, a lace pattern or cables in your sweater? Will you be combining two or more stitch patterns in the body of the sweater? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, then you need to do more swatching.

Swatches with Borders: Have you ever knit something with a definite edge made by knitting either garter stitch or seed stitch and then found that the edges curl? The reason this happens is usually due to a difference in gauge between the stitch pattern used for the border and the stitch pattern used for the body. Thus, if you are knitting piece with a border that is different than the body of the piece, knitting a swatch with the borders on it provides you with an opportunity to make adjustments to minimize or eliminate the problem. Suzanne Bryan has a nice video on this that you may find helpful, here’s the link:

Short Rows in Garter or Seed Stitch Border

Note: I don’t recommend using garter stitch borders on gauge swatches even though others do. The border tends to distort the swatch and may affect the accuracy of your measurements.

Swatches of Ribbing: Ribbing by nature tends to “pull in”. Which means that 30 stitches of ribbing will have a smaller width than 30 stitches of stockinette stitch. How much of a difference can be quite significant and affect the way the garment fits around the hips and neck as well as around the wrists on a long sleeve. Also, some knitters find that their ribbing stitches appear larger than their stockinette stitches due to changes in tension. One solution for this is to use a smaller needle when ribbing – but if you do that you may need to have more stitches to get the right width of fabric for a proper fit. Knitting a swatch with your selected ribbing pattern followed by a transition to the stitch being used for the body of the sweater will provide you with the information you need to decide what you want to do. You might want to knit separate swatches with different ribbing patterns to select which ribbing you prefer to use in your garment. (You don’t have to use the same ribbing that the designer did for the pattern if you don’t want to…just saying.)

Swatches of Stitch Patterns:

In this post, stitch patterns refer to textured pattern stitches, lace patterns, cable patterns, etc. Basically any grouping of stitches that combine to make a pattern from the variations in stitches used.

I think making a swatch of the stitch patterns used in a written pattern provides a great deal of useful information about how the finished garment will look and feel – and fit! It’s also good practice before doing it as part of your finished item.

Keep in mind that most written patterns only give gauge in stockinette stitch and while that tells you what the designer’s gauge is – it does not tell you how the gauge changes in the stitch pattern(s) used in knitting the garment. If you find a written pattern that states the gauge of the stitch pattern – great. But does your gauge match that? Swatching is the only way you will know.

If you are only using one stitch pattern, then knitting a swatch with two or more pattern repeats will help you figure out how the pattern affects the width and length of the garment and what adjustment you might need to make to obtain the correct size of garment you want. If you combine it with your ribbing, you will see how the ribbing affects the transition to the main fabric of the garment.

If you are combining more than one stitch pattern within the main fabric of a garment, I recommend doing individual swatches for each stitch pattern to use as a gauge swatches.

Then to see what happens when the stitch patterns are combined, you should do a swatch large enough to include all of the stitch patterns used in the order you plan to use them. This may end up being a very large swatch – even enough stitches for the back of your garment. This type of swatch will provide you with a lot of helpful information and give you insight into what adjustments you might need to make for a great fitting garment. More on this in a later post.

Finished Chevron Scarf and Matching HatFinished Chevron Scarf and Matching Hat

I finished the hat to match the Chevron scarf during our snowstorm. I washed and blocked both the scarf and the hat. Since the hat is supposed to be a tam — I dried it over a large round platter:

ChevronHat2

However — once dried, the tam was too loose and too big!. So I dunked it in some water and threw it in the dryer — it’s made of superwash sock yarn. And I ended up with:

ChevronHat1

Which — when placed on the head, looks like a basic beanie hat with two-color chevron stripes. Not what I envisioned — but still a nice result. Now I need to wrap the scarf and hat and get it mailed off.