Stitch Patterns – Garter Stitch, Stockinette Stitch & Reverse Stockinette Stitch

August 1, 2009| Lindy| 0 Comments | 2:28 am

Categories:

I have decided to blog about various stitch patterns from time to time. So I am starting with the time honored basics: the garter stitch, the stockinette stitch and the reverse stockinette stitch.

This discussion assumes you know how to do a knit stitch and a purl stitch. If you are new to knitting and are not familiar with these two stitches, click on this link: http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/knit-stitch.

Garter Stitch: this stitch pattern is made by knitting every row, turning your knitting at the end of each row. (You would get the same effect if you purled every row – but most knitters prefer to knit every row). If you want to knit garter stitch “in the round”, you would knit one row and then purl one row – so most patterns using garter stitch are for flat pieces rather than circular knit pieces. The pattern produces a knitted fabric with ridges on each side that is essentially reversible – it looks very much the same on the right side as the wrong side. It takes two rows to make 1 ridge. The garter stitch is great for borders because it will not curl and lays flat once knitted. Many afghan and baby blanket patterns have a garter stitch border and it is often used as the basis for wash clothes and placemats.

Stockinette Stitch: this stitch pattern is the most commonly used knitted fabric. This stitch pattern produces a fabric with flat “V” shaped stitches on the right side and bumpy stitches on the wrong side. It is also known as flat knitting, tricot or jersey knit. Stockinette stitch consists of knitting one row, turning your work and purling one row if you are knitting a flat piece. If you are knitting in the round, you knit every row. Stockinette stitch fabric curls on the edges and at the top and bottom – it makes a good fabric for the body of a garment, but usually requires another stitch pattern for edging and or borders. It also stretches lengthwise when worn.

Reverse Stockinette Stitch: this is exactly what it sounds like – it is simply stockinette stitch fabric used with the purl side as the right side. It has all the properties of the stockinette stitch, but in addition, it will also stretch widthwise. You can see how the 3 stitches differ in the picture below:

If you look at the pictures of my teddy bear baby blanket – you will see how the teddy bear is formed by using the stockinette and reverse stockinette stitches together to form the pattern. This is a good example of how they can be combined to form textured patterning. Aran knitting patterns often combine stockinette, reverse stockinette and garter stitches as part of the textural patterning. Again, here are examples where the stitching is actually very straightforward and easy – but produces a fabric that looks complex because of the wonderful textures.

Note: For information on tension issues occurring with garter stitch, stockinette and reverse stockinette stitch, see my post on Master Knitter Level I — Swatches #1, 2 & 3.

1 thought on “Stitch Patterns – Garter Stitch, Stockinette Stitch & Reverse Stockinette Stitch”

LindyLou (too) says:

August 5, 2009 at 3:59 am

I’ve heard of reverse stockinette many times, but have never investigated it. Thank you for the clear explanation and for including the information about the stretchability of reverse stockinette.

Comments are closed.

WIP: The EZ Green SweaterWIP: The EZ Green Sweater

June 26, 2011| LindyBeir| 0 Comment| 4:43 pm

I have been knitting recreated Green Sweater from the pattern recreated by Sunday Holm from the original sweater knitted by Elizabeth Zimmerman. (Schoolhouse Press Pattern #13, Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Green Sweater). This sweater pattern has a charming history and you can read the story here: Channelling Elizabeth.

Now, I am a “sometimes knitter” when it comes to sweaters. I start them and I knit on them “sometimes” — for some reason, I tend to knit on my sweater projects in between other projects. This means that I take a long time to finish a sweater project once it’s started. So, I started this project over a year ago — and I knitted a portion of the lower body and then I set this project aside.

A couple of months ago, I took this project up again and knit on it quite a bit. It’s a very intriguing pattern. The sweater is knit in the round using steeks. Yes, I said steeks. Steeks are that technique that many of us knitters avoid — but one Elizabeth Z embraced and used extensively. I decided to do this sweater specifically because of the steeks — I figured it was time for me to master the use of steeks. In this pattern, there are four steeks. The first one is up the center front (the sweater is a cardigan), then there is a steek for each armhole/sleeve and the fourth one is the neckline. You basically cast-on extra stitches, in this case I cast on five for each steek, and knit them up with the sweater. Then you cut them apart in the middle. Yep — I said you cut them apart. That’s what’s scary about steeks.

Here are some pictures of this sweater in progress:

This is the center front, showing the center 5 steek stitches and the beginning of the armholes for the sleeves.

This shows the sweater with all the steeks knitted, before they have been cut.

I used the crocheted method for fastening the steek stitches on each side.

In these two pictures, you can see the steeks, all cut and awaiting further work.

I am now working on the first sleeve. I am about two-thirds done with it. The sleeve has a unique design, and I really like how it is knitting up. I’ll post more pictures of this sweater once I have the sleeves and the neckline knitted.

Some details: I am using Frog Tree 100% Merino Yarn in Colorway 909 Teal and using circular needles, size US 8 (5.0 mm).

Lack of New PostsLack of New Posts

June 4, 2011| LindyBeir| 0 Comment| 9:45 pm

I apologize to those who read my little blog — I have not posted for some time due to computer issues.

About a month ago, my DH and I both got new HP Desktops with Windows 7 as the operating system. After making all the necessary file transfers, I got up and running and thought things were just dandy. The new desktop was much faster and I loved my much larger monitor (great for these old eyes!). Then, about two weeks ago, funky random things started happening as I was using my new PC. Things like the screen just freezing up — which caused me to go to Task Manager and force the “not responding” program to close. Over the next several days, this went to happening at weird random and unpredictable intervals to happening almost every time I went on to the Internet. And then, it also started happening when I was in other programs — including the game Solitare and even Word. And — it was getting so that Task Manager couldn’t shut down the “not responding” program — now, when it happened the entire PC locked up — and I do mean LOCKED UP! The only way out was to hold down the Power Button until the machine shut down….yep, a hard shut down.

So, last weekend I started researching this little problem. I had to use my iPad — ’cause my HP certainly wasn’t going to let me do any surfing on it. And I discovered that this is a KNOWN problem with Windows 7. I found lots of threads about this little issue — one of which had been going on in a forum for over two years. From this research, I gleaned a few helpful suggestions that I thought I might try. Now this surfing took me most of Saturday afternoon over the Memorial Day holiday. So Sunday, I decided to check out HP Technical Support and see if there was anything new or helpful about this problem. And you know what? HP had a technical article on this problem — along with a whole series of steps to follow to determine how best to fix this little issue.

Now — before anybody goes there — the first thing I did when this little problem popped up was to run my virus scanning software — I did a full scan of my hard drive. As we all know, a virus is the most likely cause of problems with your computer. My computer scan came up clean. No viruses.

So, what was the cause? It was most likely either a program I had recently installed or an update to Windows that had been automatically installed. The solution? Well, HP has a utility called “System Restore” that allows you to go back and “restore” your system to a point before that update — i.e. a time before the problem started happening. Full instructions for how to do this were given in the article. BUT — before I went forward with this, I decided to back up my files — and this took me most of Sunday afternoon. Then Monday I was able to go ahead and do the System Restore. I discovered that there had been an update to Windows just before I started experiencing my issue. So I took my system back to the point just before that update. Viola! No more freezing or locking up! Whew! problem solved.

Not sure what conclusion to draw from all of this. Clearly it is a known issue that can randomly occur with Windows 7 — but it doesn’t appear to be something that Microsoft has addressed at this point — even though it apparently has been happening to Windows 7 users since 2009. I find it interesting that HP has a solution for the problem in the form of a utility that allows you to restore the system back to a point before the problem started to happen.

Anyway — that’s my tale of woe. Now that I have a working PC, I can get to work and actually write a new post about my new vintage crochet pattern. Stop back in a couple of days — I should have the pattern ready and available.

FO: Multnomah Shawlette in Crazy ZauberballFO: Multnomah Shawlette in Crazy Zauberball

September 20, 2010| Lindy| 0 Comments| 2:31 pm

I took a little knitting detour last week and knit up the Multnomah Shawl in Zauberball Crazy yarn. Colorway is Fliederduft, which is loosely translated as “lilacs”. I had allocated this yarn to a pair of socks as part of the “10 in 2010” projects at the beginning of this year. However, after looking through many examples of socks knit with Zauberball Crazy in the Ravelry projects, I decided that I really didn’t want to knit this yarn into a pair socks. So — I switched to a shawl and ended up doing the Multnomah pattern by Kate Flagg.

The shawl was done in garter stitch until I had 265 stitches and then I started the feather and fan pattern and did 9 repeats. This pattern is a fairly quick knit. I was able to finish it up in a week and that was even with needing to frog back a couple of rows in order to have enough yarn to bind off.

Final size of the shawl — it’s actually a shawlette — was 15.5 inches by 58 inches.

I am pleased with the result. It’s an nice size for a decorative scarf/shawlette and I think the striping of the yarn is shown off to better affect than it would be in a pair of socks.

Zauberball Crazy is a self-striping, marled yarn. Which means that it stripes, but because the two plies of the yarn may be different colors, you get a somewhat “tweedy” appearance in many of the stripes. It’s a unique yarn. It is a fingering weight, superwash wool and nylon yarn and the fabric is soft and drapes nicely after blocking. I did find that the yarn had a tendency to split occasionally and there were spots where a tuft of yarn from one of the plies would stick out — these were easily removed. I might be tempted to try another colorway — but not certain what project I would use it for.

The Multnomah Shawl pattern is a very popular pattern on Ravelry and there many knitters who have made larger shawls, so when I knit this pattern again I plan to knit a larger one. The pattern is free and available for download from Ravelry (must be Ravelry member) or on Kate Flagg’s website.

I have finally figured out how to share information from my Ravelry project pages, so I am linking to this project details on my “Z Crazy” Multnomah Page.