Oolong knits

This family has two stitches: the sand stitch and its reverse side the dot or spot stitch . However, there is another stitch also known as dot stitch that I'll include here, which is the stitch used in the Hermione socks . To add to the naming confusion (which is pervasive in the knit stitch world), the dot stitch is also known as broken seed stitch , and is very attractive when done in alternate rows of different colours, as you can see if you follow the link. The sand stitch (left) and the dot stitch (right). Odd rows are wrong side for the sand stitch and right side for the dot or spot stitch . Even number of stitches, flat or in the round Rows 1 and 3 : knit, Row 2 : * k1, p1, repeat from *, Row 4 : * p1, k1, repeat from *, Repeat rows 1–4. Hermione or dot stitch Multiples of 4 stitches, flat or in the round, Row 1 : * k3, p1, repeat from *, Rows 2 and 4 : purl (flat) or knit (in the round), Row 3 : * k1, p1, k2, repeat from *, Repeat rows 1–4.

In this post I'll join this three stitches in one family, but this is a bit of a personal choice. From left to right: seed, moss and double seed stitches (click on image to magnify). What do this stitches have in common? This is obvious from their appearance and construction, but I'll add one important quality: none of them curls . In addition, all of these stitches look the same from both sides. Seed stitch, which is also often mistakenly called rice or moss stitch, is often used in edges, just like garter stitch, when the elasticity provided by ribbing is not required or desired. Its tension is more similar to stockinette than that of garter stitch. Moss stitch is often used in conjunction with cables in sweaters. Even though, for simplicity, instructions are provided for a specific number of stitches per row or round (even, odd or multiples of 4), they are straightforwardly modified for any number of stitches. Seed stitch flat (odd number of stitches) every...

Clockwise: plain stockinette, reverse stockinette, twisted stockinette and crossed stockinette. Note: unfortunately the yarn I've used for these samples has quite a lot of twist, and this has the result that stockinette stitch, as well as the other ones, has a different appearance from the normal one,     namely, it looks twisted while twisted and crossed stockinette look almost identical, this would not be the case with another yarn. The stockinette family of stitches consists of 4 different stitches stockinette, or stocking stitch reverse stockinette twisted stockinette crossed stockinette What all these stitches have in common is that, when knitting flat, they all consist of alternate rows of knits and purls; they result in a very plain fabric, with minimum texture; and they all curl! Twisted and crossed stockinette stitch result in a fabric that is slightly more firm (less elastic), and more tense (tighter gauge) than plain stockinette. I'm sure ...

I'm starting a new project, a very simple one, but one that every creative knitter should consider, and many before me have. It consists on making a stitch dictionary of my own. My idea right now is to make swatches of all kinds of different stitches (the ones I'm curious about) and later on sewing them together in a kind of patchwork blanket. A word on naming stitches: it's needless to say that names are always arbitrary in some sense, so it should not come as a surprise that there is some confusion in the literature about the names of even some of the most common stitches, let us not even discuss the uncommon ones. I think the only stitches that everyone agrees on a single name are probably garter and stockinette. In this series I'll use mostly Barbara G. Walker's "A treasury of knitting patterns" and thus the names used in this book, but I'll also occasionally use other sources and naming conventions. I begin with the garter stitch, for the sak...

Misguided feminism... there are surely plenty of examples of it, some major ones with serious consequences, others just minor, even possibly irrelevant. This post is surely in the latter class, which makes me wonder why I chose to talk about this, but here we go… I was inspired to write this post by this article on the BBC , which kind of irritated me. Here is the thing: Surely one of the fundamental laws of the market is that if the client is willing to pay more, sellers will take advantage of it and prices will go up . So, the reason that women's products are more expensive than men's is not because sellers are sexist, it's because women are stupidly willing to pay more than they should. This is just one more of the many examples of sexism, if you want to call it that, created by women and not men. Take for example, razors. In a still recent past, razors were just razors. Men and women used the same ugly razors that men still use today. Then, one fine day, a razor...