Oolong knits

I love simple geometric patterns and Abbott by Michele Wang, with its clean diagonal lines, is all about that. The photo was taken from skuoprice's project .

On the first two posts of this series, I described the concentric and the swirl methods to create circles. Both these methods use increases in order to create a circle shape from the centre out. Except for that, they seem to be completely different. But they have something else in common. Take a look at the table below that contains the number of stitches in the every increase round on the concentric method and the previous round of the swirl method. Row Concentric Swirl 2, 1 8 8 4, 3 16 16 8, 7 32 32 16, 15 64 64 32, 31 128 128 64, 63 256 256 You see, what both this methods have in common is that on average there are 4 increases per round. On the swirl method these are worked in alternate rounds, on the concentric method they are worked a lot more rows apart. This is the inspiration behind what I'll call the general method, which is ...

Continuing the Gansey theme from last week. This is Sweet Little Gansey by Boadicea Binnerts, a modern take on a the fisherman's Gansey or Guernsey. Super cute.

This winter has been particularly warm: we didn't have snow and not much frost either. A couple of perennials in my front yard, namely a geranium and plenty of gazanias, which always die out in winter, are still green and even shyly flowering right now. For this reason my prettiest tulips are now coming out in between the gazanias, which is just fine, only a little bit crowded. In the front of the main garden, the usual spring bulb suspects are showing off their colours: white snowdrops, bright yellow, purple and white crocus and the pretty yellow tete-a-tete which bloom earlier than other daffodils. In the back of the main garden, the hazel flowers are dying out, while the helleborus are in full luscious bloom and the beautiful camellias are slowly coming out. So starts my favourite time of the year. From now on, there will be a line of new flowers all the way to Autumn. At home, I already started sowing some early seeds in mid-February. This year I'm making a bit ...

I love the knit and purl combinations typical of seamen’s ganseys and I think these versatile patterns can look even more beautiful on scarves. Ludlow by Julie Hoover is a good example of this. Note how even the wrong side looks great.

We continue my new series on shapes with another method used to obtain a circular shape, that I call the swirl method, which I mentioned in my previous post and I even have described in a very old post . But I'm going to repeat it here again with a different, and I think better, set-up. The swirl method Like the concentric method (described on the previous post of this series), this is a method to knit a circle in the round and from the centre out , but it can easily be adapted if you'd rather work from the outside to the centre (see the variations section). It does not really knit a perfect circle, but it's good enough for most uses. It creates a swirl with 8 arms, but see the variations section below for a different number of arms. Here is the simple recipe (you will need 8 markers): Use the pinhole cast-on to cast-on 8 stitches and spread them over 2 or more needles, according to whatever method you prefer to join in the round. Round 1: knit all stitches, if y...

I am usually not a big fan of lace, but Chaukor the Second by Sandhya S. has caught my eye. I guess I like it because it is both geometric and organic. What do you think of it?

I am starting a new series of posts dedicated to shapes. Each post will exemplify a single method to obtain a specific shape. This means that several posts will be dedicated to the same shape since there is always more than one method to obtain a specific shape. Today we discuss one of the many methods available to knit a circle. As it turns out I already wrote a few posts on this: using the swirl method , the same method we will discuss today and a circle with a hole in the centre . But those posts were written quite a while ago and, even though I am repeating myself, I'd rather do it for the sake completeness. Before I start, let me remind you there is not one perfect method, each method has its advantages and drawbacks, but knowing them all will allow you to choose the right one for your project. Hence, I will try to briefly discuss the uses as well as advantages and disadvantages of each method. The concentric method This method is named after the concentric circles cr...