mosaic stitch – Page 2

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

Cast-on Monday – Crescent Shawl

Posted on May 8, 2023May 7, 2023 by Laura Kate

My new project is in keeping with my desire to work with my stash. I have been wanting to make a shawl with this purple yarn, called Leticia, by Bremont.

It is a singles yarn (for you non-knitters, that means it’s not plied.) Three fibers are blended together: wool, alpaca and silk. I own three skeins. Over the past few years, I have tried unsuccessfully to pair it with another yarn, so that I could make a two-color shawl.

Last week, while wasting a lot of time viewing yarns on the Jimmy Beans site (https://www.jimmybeanswool.com/ ) I discovered the perfect match from Malabrigo.

I ordered two skeins lickety-split and they arrived post-haste within three days. This yarn, also a singles, combines silk and merino wool about 50/50. It’s hard to describe the silky sheen of this yarn, (I was almost swooning while casting it on and knitting the first few rows.)

For my pattern, I re-visited a Craftsy tutorial by Laura Nelkin, in which she explains how to design 14 different shawl shapes. It’s fantastic, if you don’t mind doing a little math. I chose the crescent shape.

https://www.craftsy.com/class/knit-shawls-14-ways-exploring-shape-design/

My two-color shawl inspiration comes from Helen Kennedy’s Pale Moon pattern on Ravelry.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/pale-moon

I love the way the mosaic section bridges the two colors of yarn. But instead of making Pale Moon, I would prefer to use Laura Nelkins’ instructions for the shape and design a mosaic chart of my own.

My first attempt at designing a mosaic pattern, unfortunately, was a failure. Apparently, there are some hard and fast rules about sequencing slipped stitches between the two colors. So back I go to my graph paper for a re-do.

knitting

Friday Finish – Chevron Scarf

Posted on April 9, 2022 by Laura Kate

A day late and a dollar short, here is my finish for yesterday. I made this for a friend’s birthday which, sadly, came and went before I had finished knitting.

The chevron stitch pattern is one I had been wanting to try for a while. This version is created using a slipped-stitch, not a stranded technique – which contributed to the lateness of my completion. Because slip-stitch, also known as mosaic technique, tends to pull the rows up tight against each other, it took 48 rows to create 4 inches of scarf.

The yarn came from Hobby-Lobby, from its new line of hand-dyed fingering weight yarns. Fiber is 100% superwash merino wool.

Bill has kindly consented to serving as my model today.

If you would like to give this stitch a try, I have attached a pdf of the twelve-row pattern that I used.

Chevron stitch pattern Download

It was fairly easy to memorize, with only three right-side rows that varied. In this technique all back-side rows are the same: purl the knits and slip the slips. The pattern also features an I-cord edging.

I’m pleased with the result, but mostly relieved that I finished.

knitting

Finished Object Friday: Knitting – Reblogged

Posted on August 11, 2021 by Laura Kate

While visiting my daughter’s family last month, I had a chance to get the recipient’s reaction to her new vest. You can judge for yourself, but it looks to me like she is really pleased.

“Why, thank you Grammy!” “You are welcome, my love.”

Here is the post, originally published on Juny 12th.

Yes indeedy, today is Saturday But I assure you that I was able to finish this project yesterday, qualifying it as a Friday finish.:

I first wrote about this project in early May, having purchased the yarn while visiting Madison WI in mid spring. This Polkastripe vest is intended for my granddaughter.

The basketweave slip stitch pattern and general design I am using comes from Norwegian designer Anna Schei.

Ravelry: Polkastripe pattern by Trekkentar Deg

This pattern downloaded in pdf format. Consequently I was unable to use a translator to turn the instructions into English. No matter – what was important to me was the color chart. For the construction of the vest itself, I relied heavily on another baby vest pattern, also downloaded for free from Ravelry.

Ravelry: Milly Tank Top pattern by MillaMia Sweden

I recently learned that Lu likes wearing vests, and is practicing her buttoning skills. So I made sure that her summer vest included a front opening and button closure.

The pocket design is my own. You can read about it here.

Who Needs Pockets? – Daily Fiber (wordpress.com)