The end of my affair with construction twine

Just finished the second -- and last -- part of a housewarming gift for friends who moved into together.

The pattern is the Ilene Market Bag by Hannah Ingalls, free to download from her blog, iknityouknot. It's a stretchy, single strap market bag that is knit from the bottom up.  While the bottom is knit flat, stitches are picked up from around the sides of the base and it is knit in a circle up to the top of the bag before going back to flat knitting for the strap.

Retiring into an afghan

Ages ago, I fell in love with this afghan pattern -- a series of concentric tipping squares.

When I first tried the pattern something simply did not, would not, could not penetrate my skull about how it was supposed to be done. I ripped out my attempts and set it aside.

I pulled it back into the light this month with the retirement of a long-time friend. Life-cycle moments like births, new homes and retirements call for gifts made by hand.

Hand Knit Garden Trellis

An overdose of lace and fingerling yarn sent me flying into the arms of giant needles and giant projects.  It also launched a fascination with knitting with construction twine that is now waning rapidly.

One of my first projects was this trellis to cover a bamboo tripod that usually supports bean plants with a spread of romaine lettuces below.

It's knit out of nylon twine on US 35 needles. While the nylon doesn't stretch like wool yarn does, the huge gauge has loads of give. The piece was knit flat with ties along one edge.  It is tied to the tripod along one leg.

Even a simple knitting pattern demands precision

"SSSShhhhtz," I hissed over the seed stitch row I was working for my version of designer Sally Melville's L'Envelope.

"What?" asked a fellow Knerdy Knitter.

"I got off on my stitches and I'm going to have to back up."

"Oh, you're tinking!"

I looked up blankly.

"Tinking -- knitting spelled backwards," she said.

Stitch Maps make lace chart make sense

I participated in a fascinating Interweave webinar on May 20 about knitting lace scarves using stitch maps.

Stitch Maps is a wonderful website that uses a new way to cart knitting without a grid. this method actual shows the shape and flow of the knitting. you can see how a stitch relates to the stitches above and below it as well as side by side.  Here's an example:

The site has nearly 1,000 patterns mapped. Currently, 145 of the patterns also have attached swatch photos. Many of the pattern contributors also have links to Ravelry.com.

Once you've selected a pattern, you can change the number of horizontal or vertical repeats.  It gives you the cast-on count, allows you to get written instructions and request row and column guides (the grey lines shown below).


The webinar demonstrated how using stitch-maps.com, you can select a pattern and the number of pattern repeats to make a scarf or a stole and create elegant, sophisticate pieces without buying a specific pattern. 

You can search for border or edging patterns on stitch-map.com and provide a unique finish to your project.

Standard gridded charts never worked well for me.  I'll confess it's partly lack of experience, but the stitch mapping makes sense straight out of the box.