Oolong knits

As promised last week, here is a brief tutorial on how to add a lace enhancement to the microplastic ban pattern . We are going to add a band of lace to it. To be more precise, we will do a outer garter band of 3 stitches and an inner band of lace, with the centre of the pattern in plain garter. It sounds more complicated than it is, so just bare with me. There is a simple pattern at the end of this post, I promise. First, let us choose the simple lace stitch pattern we will use. Inspired by this pattern , I have chosen a modified version of the Lace Trellis stitch pattern (see A Treasury of Knitting Patterns , by Barbara G. Walker, p. 190). Here it is: Garter Lace Trellis (right slant) On an even number of stitches Odd rows (WS): * yo, k2tog, repeat from * Even rows: knit. Note: the right and wrong sides of this stitch look very different. Before, we continue, let me mention that the lace trellis pattern has a bias, which results from the slant of the k2tog stitch (which pu...

Today's candy is a project, not a pattern. It is a brilliant example of how with a little extra work and a bit of imagination one can greatly improve a pattern. This is Lucy's green variatsioon . I am not a big fan of lace, but the delicate open mohair fabric is the perfect match for it. And I love the colour.

A few years ago I wrote a post about converting increases and decreases from German or English-style knitting to Portuguese-style knitting. Do you need to do that? Not really, there is nothing to stop you from just going ahead and knit a pattern exactly as it's written. Then, why would you want to do that? Because most patterns written for German or English-style knitting include as much knit stitches and as little purl stitches as possible, since the former are much easier to work than the latter when you keep your yarn behind the needles. On the other hand, when working in Portuguese-style, you keep your yarn in front of the needles and thus you would like to purl as much as possible. The best example of this is, of course, garter stitch, as used in the microplastic ban pattern . There are two ways of converting this pattern to Portuguese-style: Straight-forward conversion: use the stitch dictionary and invert the order of stitches . Then, Increase row: k2, yo, knit to end. D...

Elorie by Elizabeth Doherty. I love the unusual idea of using slipped stitches, instead of the more traditional purl ones, to obtain texture. Lovely. And the boxy shape is all the rage this year.

My last post was all about banning microplastics from our lives by using our own hand knit dishcloths. What I did not mention is that garter stitch is surprisingly good at removing dirt and even scrubbing tough burnt food from pans. You would think the soft cotton would be rubbish for that, but those purl bumps are magical. They are also really good for cleaning glass windows. If you get tired of boring bias garter squares, round garter dishcloths are fun to knit and very pretty. The idea is to use short-rows to achieve a round shape using garter stitch. There are several ways of achieving this. Here I will start with some notes and then finish with a few patterns. Notes On cast-on and bind-off A provisional cast-on and a Kitchener bind-off allow a perfect finish. Otherwise, standard cast-on and bind-off can be used, but require seaming (the seam can be quite invisible too, check link to video tutorials on the basic circle pattern below. If using provisional cast-on and a ...