Barbara Walker – Daily Fiber

Cast on Monday, working my stash yarn

Posted on August 7, 2023 by Laura Kate

With the Sequences Shrug 99% finished, (This will be revealed on Friday) I have cast on another project, again, targeted at shrinking my stash. I first wrote about this one back in June.

The pink and purple Elysian yarns were left-over from Lu’s simple sweater, completed earlier this year. That blue alpaca yarn is just a place-holder. Ultimately, I decided to purchase a yarn better suited for the project in mind, which is a child’s balaclava, designed by Gretchen Tracy at Balls to the Walls Knits.

https://www.ballstothewallsknits.com/p/about.html

The stitch pattern was adapted by the designer from Barbara Walker’s diced three-color check pattern, found in A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns.

After casting on, a skinny rectangle is knit with three colors of yarn. This weird-looking piece resembles a pre-historic but colorful creature from Unicorn World.

Knitting is continued by picking up around three sides and working in pattern until the helmet section of the balaclava is finished.

At this point, I am dubious about whether it will fit my intended recipient. But I’m willing to trust the designer and carry on with the pattern as written.

If it doesn’t fit Laura Lu, it will fit someone, somewhere.

To find Gretchen’s balaclava pattern, click on the link.

https://www.ballstothewallsknits.com/2014/02/kids-dice-check-balaclava.html

knitting

WIP – Mosaic Stitch Swatches

Posted on May 12, 2023 by Laura Kate

For today’s post on work in progress, I’d like to share my adventure in choosing a mosaic stitch design for my crescent shawl.

To get started, I picked up Barbara Walker’s excellent Treasury of Knitting Patterns, published in 1968. Chapter Four (Color Changing Patterns) contains advice and 76 different examples of mosaic stitch. The first one I tried is called Rippled Chevron.

For the 1st pattern repeat, I used stockinette stitch. The second repeat was knitted in garter stitch. I liked this pattern, and it was quite easy. The garter stitch version would work better with my shawl design.

Continuing my swatch, I went for something more complicated: Dotted Diamond.

I love the look of this pattern. After knitting it I began to see how an exciting piece of knitting could be made by working a sequence of different mosaic stitches with different background yarns and one foreground yarn.

All of this swatching around is very fun and instructive. But I concluded that Mrs. Walker’s patterns were all very geometric looking. I craved a pattern that appeared more curvilinear – almost flower-like. So my next step was to use the advanced search option on Ravelry to find some flower-like mosaic patterns. This took a good hour. Eventually I discovered a pattern for socks that incorporated mosaic designs inspired by Native American symbols.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/burntwater-socks

This is getting closer to what I had in mind. After making a few final adjustments and switching to a bigger needle, I started knitting the resulting pattern into my shawl. By yesterday evening I was half-way finished with the 50-row pattern.

I love what’s happening here. My original swatch was too narrow to give me any idea of the secondary pattern in the design. When several pattern repeats are worked, the wing-like lines between the circles clearly stand out. This makes me happy.

Barbara’s treasury is truly a treasure. If you can get your hands on this book, you will find it immensely useful in expanding your knowledge and skills. Kudos also to Mary the Hobbit, who designed the Burntwater socks. This pattern could easily become my next sock project.

knitting

Friday Finish – More Socks

Posted on October 14, 2022 by Laura Kate

As of today, the completion rate on my sock challenge is 75%. Newly added to the sock pile is a pair I am calling Dots and Dashes.

This is the largest pair of the challenge, with a foot length of 10 1/2 inches. I used 100% natural wool in two colors and a pattern from Berroco called Fairlee. I would rate the skill level for this pattern as intermediate, which matches the rating assigned by the Berroco designer. They are described as slipper socks – I’m assuming that’s due to the fact they are written for dk weight yarn.

Modifications that I made include the two-color pattern on the foot, which came from Barbara Walker’s Treasury of Knitting Patterns. It’s in Chapter Four, Two-Stitch Check, version 1.

The second modification is the bind-off. The pattern calls for a sewn tubular bind-off. That looked like a hassle to me, so I worked Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy bind-off for one-by-one rib instead.

You can find the original Berroco pattern on Ravelry, or visit my post dated October 3rd for the embedded link.

One more to go. I had to order some needles, so I won’t be casting-on the last pair yet. Tune in on Monday to see what goes on my needles next.

knitting

Wednesday WIP

Posted on September 8, 2021 by Laura Kate

This project got its start as an example for a shawl design class I taught in August. It is also a response to the situation I’ve been griping about called Left-over Sock Yarn.

Some of you may remember this photo.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Once I truly looked at the yarn that was in the bowl, I realized that I had the makings of a multi-color garter ridge shawl. After discarding the red and green yarns, I took a cue from my own advice about color value and separated the leftovers into two piles – darks and lights.

The medium blue ball in the center is the connector between the lights and darks. I also tossed in the very pale blue full skein with a thought that it could make a good border.

The light yarns went into one bag, the darks into another. Starting with the medium blue yarn I cast on about 30 stitches and worked three ridges of garter. Initially I chose yarns by randomly drawing balls from each bags, alternating light and dark and knitting as many rows as I felt like before changing colors. But very quickly, a desirable pattern emerged – four ridges of light alternating with three ridges of dark. The extra ridge of light separated the color changes.

After working the black yarn, I started over with the darks – blue, brown, royal blue, teal, black.

I call this my Sea and Sand shawl.

Once I get up to around 300 stitches, I’ll choose a color to make the border. My creative juices are flowing as I consider pattern options. Since it’s a shawl border, the pattern must be very stretchy. First I thumbed through Barbara Walker’s fabulous “Treasury of Knitting Patterns”(published in 1968) where I spotted a few possibilities. Here’s three that meet my criteria: