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lwood[Edit: Apparently the pictures weren't viewable to others. Fixed.]
While working on a new felted knitting bag (loosely based on Knitty's French market bag), I found that the yarn I was using had been discontinued, so I had to look online for more.
I got the right make, and right color...but in my rush, definitely the wrong size; I have four skeins of what the English call "4-ply", which looks like midrange, nubbly tweed perl cotton. Only it's wool.
Well, no returns on this stuff, so I'm making lemonade, a different scarf with each skein: one 200-ish yd hank will make a short, summer-weight scarf on my new size 9 bone needles.
The first was again from Knitty.com, their Branching Out pattern--looks a lot like their picture except dark blue with green tweed flecks.
Next is a pattern adaptation -- the central twirly diamond pattern from this pattern, Marnie's scarf. It's a written-out pattern, but I'm finding that my preference is toward charts, especially when I'm only taking part of a larger piece and turning it into a smaller one. But how to do that? Last time I hacked a pattern (those of you with experience in the White Wolf Storyteller system and/or Cyberpunk may have a giggle now; I know I do), I charted with pencil on nonille (nine squares to the inch) graph paper--which, I disclaim, is not as a result of my usual obsessions, but because the pattern was eighteen stitches across.
But I found something better, because I knew there had to be--and yes, there are. Fonts for charting patterns!
There appear to be two significant freeware knitting font authors: David Xenakis and Aire River Design. The main problem with transcribing knitting patterns is that word processing documents flow from upper left to bottom right, whereas knitting charts flow from lower right to upper left (assuming right-handed knitting)--so it took multiple swots to get it right.
Resulting charts, and key, are here, behind the cut. The small font I used for textual directions doesn't appear to have survived downsampling to 72dpi very well, although it's still legible--at least to me. I'll tack up my PDF if someone actually wants to replicate these but has trouble.
This is the redone chart for the Branching Out pattern--the chart on knitty.com uses the other font, but I find that this one is clearer when depicting the three different double decreases in the pattern. That said, I don't see much difference between the three double decreases (k3tog || sl 2, k, p2sso || sl, k2tog, psso) in the finished work. My own preference is (sl k2tog psso) because I got quite used to it when working the Yarn Harlot's Snowdrop Shawl. The leaf pattern in "Branching Out" is, according to its author, only slightly modified from one of Barbara Walker's patterns.
Yes, pagan and heathen sports fans, that Barbara Walker, who has used so many of our fine primary sources as so much birdcage liner. However, she got her start compiling knitting pattern encyclopædias which are actually quite good--and to be encouraged, in the sense of We Really Wish She'd Stayed With That.
This chart key is for both patterns.
And the chart for the "traditional diamond" pattern excerpted from this pattern, Marnie's scarf.
This second scarf is coming along nicely. The Notorious DLP is hanging onto the "Branching Out" even though it hasn't been blocked yet, as its blocking is pending blocking something rather a lot larger, a black-feathered, shiny-beaded cousin to a certain falcon-cloak now in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
walkyrja's possession. hyndla covets the Twirling Diamonds, and I know of at least one other recipient for another of the set, mwahahaha.
As always, We'll See What Happens...
-- Lorrie
While working on a new felted knitting bag (loosely based on Knitty's French market bag), I found that the yarn I was using had been discontinued, so I had to look online for more.
I got the right make, and right color...but in my rush, definitely the wrong size; I have four skeins of what the English call "4-ply", which looks like midrange, nubbly tweed perl cotton. Only it's wool.
Well, no returns on this stuff, so I'm making lemonade, a different scarf with each skein: one 200-ish yd hank will make a short, summer-weight scarf on my new size 9 bone needles.
The first was again from Knitty.com, their Branching Out pattern--looks a lot like their picture except dark blue with green tweed flecks.
Next is a pattern adaptation -- the central twirly diamond pattern from this pattern, Marnie's scarf. It's a written-out pattern, but I'm finding that my preference is toward charts, especially when I'm only taking part of a larger piece and turning it into a smaller one. But how to do that? Last time I hacked a pattern (those of you with experience in the White Wolf Storyteller system and/or Cyberpunk may have a giggle now; I know I do), I charted with pencil on nonille (nine squares to the inch) graph paper--which, I disclaim, is not as a result of my usual obsessions, but because the pattern was eighteen stitches across.
But I found something better, because I knew there had to be--and yes, there are. Fonts for charting patterns!
There appear to be two significant freeware knitting font authors: David Xenakis and Aire River Design. The main problem with transcribing knitting patterns is that word processing documents flow from upper left to bottom right, whereas knitting charts flow from lower right to upper left (assuming right-handed knitting)--so it took multiple swots to get it right.
Resulting charts, and key, are here, behind the cut. The small font I used for textual directions doesn't appear to have survived downsampling to 72dpi very well, although it's still legible--at least to me. I'll tack up my PDF if someone actually wants to replicate these but has trouble.
This is the redone chart for the Branching Out pattern--the chart on knitty.com uses the other font, but I find that this one is clearer when depicting the three different double decreases in the pattern. That said, I don't see much difference between the three double decreases (k3tog || sl 2, k, p2sso || sl, k2tog, psso) in the finished work. My own preference is (sl k2tog psso) because I got quite used to it when working the Yarn Harlot's Snowdrop Shawl. The leaf pattern in "Branching Out" is, according to its author, only slightly modified from one of Barbara Walker's patterns.
Yes, pagan and heathen sports fans, that Barbara Walker, who has used so many of our fine primary sources as so much birdcage liner. However, she got her start compiling knitting pattern encyclopædias which are actually quite good--and to be encouraged, in the sense of We Really Wish She'd Stayed With That.
This chart key is for both patterns.
And the chart for the "traditional diamond" pattern excerpted from this pattern, Marnie's scarf.
This second scarf is coming along nicely. The Notorious DLP is hanging onto the "Branching Out" even though it hasn't been blocked yet, as its blocking is pending blocking something rather a lot larger, a black-feathered, shiny-beaded cousin to a certain falcon-cloak now in
walkyrja's possession. hyndla covets the Twirling Diamonds, and I know of at least one other recipient for another of the set, mwahahaha. As always, We'll See What Happens...
-- Lorrie
