Combinations of Knit & Purl – Simplicity or Complexity?

July 19, 2009| Lindy| 3 Comments | 8:51 pm

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The other day while waiting for my MIL at the beauty shop, I took out my baby blanket and sat knitting in the waiting area. One of the stylists came up to me and asked me what I was knitting. So I showed her. Then she said, “I could never knit anything like that – it’s too complex.” I replied that this pattern was actually very easy – it was just a three different combinations of knit and purl stitches, and I showed her the graph of the pattern square. She then told me that she had once knitted a sweater for her granddaughter that had a color pattern of a frog. So, I told her that if she had done that type of color knitting, this textured pattern would be easy for her to do. She replied that “maybe, she could do it – BUT she didn’t think she’d ever be able to master anything like cables”. So in spite of my gentle encouragement, I’m not certain this knitter will try to knit something with a variety of textures – which is too bad, because she will miss out on some wonderful knitting projects.

Have you ever limited your knitting by such thinking? I know I did many years ago – but after discovering Elizabeth Zimmerman’s approach to “unventing” things, my perspective has changed greatly. I’d like to encourage all my readers to think about this. There is a lot of freedom in being able to take a printed pattern and view it not as something that has to be followed exactly, but more as a place to start something uniquely yours. BTW – if you have never read Elizabeth Zimmerman’s books – you are missing an absolutely fun and enlightening experience!

As I spend time knitting my baby blanket, I find myself marveling at how those two basic stitches – the Knit Stitch and the Purl Stitch – can be combined in endless ways to make up fascinating textures. Consider the sheer simplicity of these two stitches. They are just opposites of each other. Yet these two stitches are knitting up nicely into teddy bear squares surrounded by seed stitch borders. And this project is rather simple. Then consider an Aran sweater pattern as an example of a far more complex combination of textured patterns – but again, the textures are made by the way one combines the basic knit and purl stitches and applies techniques such as cabling. Thus, knitting is both simple and complex and filled with unlimited possibilities of variation and combinations. No wonder we knitters love to knit!

3 thoughts on “Combinations of Knit & Purl – Simplicity or Complexity?”

LindyLou (too) says:

July 23, 2009 at 5:19 pm

Yes, you’re right. Sometimes it’s absolute instinct to stop right at the brink of doing something new just because it looks harder than we give ourselves credit for being able to learn.

I haven’t read EZ’s books, though she MUST have something remarkable to teach people. So many people love her work and find her inspirational and feel freed to create after reading her books. I’ve been at the brink of reading them, but . . . .

Yeah. I should listen to you and take the leap and try something new/old and read EZ. I’ll do it!
admin says:

July 23, 2009 at 6:47 pm

That’s terrific. I’m glad my comments triggered a positive response for you. I’d start with either “Knitting without Tears” or the “Knitter’s Almanac” from Elizabeth Zimmerman — both are available through Amazon.com, but many retail knit sites sell them as well. You can also probably find them through your LYS. Happy reading!
How I Lost 30 Pounds in 30 Days Without Diet says:

July 23, 2009 at 11:12 pm

Thanks for posting about this, I would like to read more about this topic.

Comments are closed.

Master Knitter Level I – Swatches #4, #5, & #6 – IncreasesMaster Knitter Level I – Swatches #4, #5, & #6 – Increases

March 4, 2010| Lindy| 0 Comment| 7:54 pm

Swatches 4 through 6 in the Master Knitter Level I program are all about increases. Specifically, each swatch demonstrates a particular type of increase. The increases are done on each side, with three stitches before the right edge increase and three stitches after the left edge increase.

Swatch 4 - Bar Increase

Swatch 4 demonstrates the Bar Increase. This is probably the increase most knitters first learned to make when knitting. It often written as “KFB” in patterns — which means “Knit in the front and back loops”. When you knit into the front loop of a knit stitch and then knit in the back loop of the same knit stitch, the resulting increase has a purl bump where the second stitch was made. It is clearly visible as you can see in this picture.

I learned a few things working on this swatch. Since I am now much more aware of my tension, I found that the purl bumps looked much better if I made certain I kept the tension even with both stitches. It’s much the same issue as when I had trouble getting even tension in ribbing.

Also, through my research, I learned that you should never make your increases on the very edge of your knitting — you should have at least one stitch on the edge before doing the increase. This makes it much easier and neater to do seams. This is something to pay attention to when you are knitting pieces that will be sewn together — I know I will practice this in my future knitting projects.

Swatch 5 - Make 1 Increases

Swatch 5 demonstrates Make 1 increases. On the right edge, I knit an M1R increase — which means “Make 1 Right” — this is a right-slanting increase. It is made by inserting the left needle from the back and lifting the horizontal strand between stitches onto the left needle and knitting into the front of this strand.

On the left edge, the increase is an M1L — which means “Make 1 Left” — a left-slanting increase. It is made by inserting the left needle from the front and lifting the horizontal strand between stitches onto the left needle and knitting into the back of this strand.

M1 increases are tighter and there is no purl bump on the front of the knitting.

Swatch #6 - Lifted Increases

Swatch 6 demonstrates the Lifted or Raised Increase. This is the most invisible of increases — and was an increase I had never used before, so the entire swatch was a learning experience.

Again, I knit a right-slanting increase on the right edge. This increase is done by lifting the stitch below the stitch on the left needle and knitting it.

The left-slanting increase on the left edge of the swatch gave me the most difficulty. I had to search out several different pictures of it in my references before I figured it out. The left-slanting lifted increase is done by lifting the stitch below the stitch just knitted on the right needle and then knitting it.

The best pictures and explanations I found of this increase, as well as the others, were in an online article at Knitty.com, entitled “Techniques with “Theresa – Increases”.

So, these three swatches improved my technique when knitting increases and I learned a method of increasing that I had never used before. Check out the article on Knitty.com if you want to explore these methods.

A Study of Pooling in a Variegated Sock YarnA Study of Pooling in a Variegated Sock Yarn

May 5, 2010| Lindy| 0 Comments| 12:38 pm

Several days ago, I decided to knit a pair of plain vanilla socks using Serenity Sock Weight Yarn (Premier Yarns) in the colorway Amethyst. This was a yarn I had purchased at my local Hobby Lobby and had been sitting in my sock yarn stash for a few months. In the skein, the yarn appears to be a mix of greys and purples, and I thought it would result in a striping of the socks. The label does not indicate that the yarn is “self-striping”, but the picture on the label shows a sock with an interesting variation of stripes.

Since I had never knit with this yarn, I knit a circular swatch to determine needle size and gauge before starting on my socks – and this is where my study in “Pooling” began. I started with US 2 (2.75 mm) needles and cast on 64 stitches (which is what I would use for my socks with a gauge of 7 stitches per inch). As I worked on the swatch, I noticed that the yarn was not knitting up in the stripes the way I had anticipated – in fact, it seemed to be predominately purple on one side of the swatch and predominately grey on the other side.

Obviously, I had some “pooling “ going on. Pooling is an effect that occurs when a variegated yarn knits up in “pools” of color, rather than in stripes. Now, I wasn’t really sure I liked the effect – and my stitch gauge was 6.25 spi, rather than the 7 spi I wanted.

So, I decided to do a second swatch with fewer stitches, a smaller needle – and because I had read about pooling in a Rav thread, I also decided to knit from the outside of the skein instead of the inside. I cast on 52 stitches on size US 1.5 (2.50 mm) needles and knit away – and I got more striping – not even stripes, but definitely stripes on both sides of the swatch.

So, I took a picture of the two swatches and posted a comment on Ravlery under the thread, “Examples of Pooling Good & Bad”, stating what I had observed along with my assumption that the change was probably due to knitting from the outside of the skein – and completely ignoring the fact that I had changed the number of stitches in the swatch and this might also be contributing to the way the colors were knitting up.

I must admit, I did not anticipate much of a response to my comment in this thread. But I received several. It’s one of the things I love about Ravelry – fellow knitters are always willing to share and question things. Anyway – after reading the comments, I decided I needed to do a little more work before I could actually answer my fellow Ravelers’ questions.

Off I went to swatch again – this time I decided to start from the inside of the skein, use US 2 (2.75 mm) needles and begin by casting on 72 stitches. I knit approximately 1.5 inches, then purled and decreased the number of stitches to 64 stitches, knit another 1.5 inches, purled and decreased to 54 stitches and knit another 1.5 inches. Here’s a picture showing how the yarn pooled with different numbers of stitches.

So – in response to Robocass and Hypercycloid, who asked me if the difference might be due more to the difference in the number of stitches in my swatches: Clearly, the number of stitches used results in very different color patterning and it doesn’t really matter whether I knit from the inside or the outside of the skein.

Hypercycloid also asked about the length of each of the colors in the yarn. Hmm – I hadn’t thought about that, so I got out the measuring tape and discovered that each purple section of the yarn was approximately 19 inches, while the grey sections were approximately 12 inches. Not quite, but almost a 3 to 2 ratio. Statnerd suggested I count the number of grey stitches compared to the purple stitches in my wider swatch – I did and ended up with 27 stitches of grey to 37 stitches of purple. Again, this is close to a 3 to 2 ratio of purple to grey. All of you were correct in your observations that the colors shift around the circumference of the swatches – and due to the differences in the number of stitches, the colors stack up very differently for different numbers of stitches.

Zgma commented:

“It doesn’t look like a self-striping yarn to me. The striping you got in the top sample is a result of the colors pooling in a way that looks like stripes, not actual “self-striping”. When yarns are labeled self-striping, it is because the runs of color are large enough that for the project intended (as in, socks for self-striping sock yarn), the color will last for all the stitches in at least one round or row, usually more. When a particular color (for instance, the black in your sock samples) lasts for part of a row, but then in the next row the color occurs before or after it did in the previous row in such a manner that it looks like striping, it doesn’t mean that the yarn is self-striping – just that it is prone to pooling in a stripey way.”

Yep, you are right about that.

To each of those that took the time to comment — thanks! I learned a great deal about pooling and variegated yarns.

I did a little internet surfing on the subject, as well. I found two informative posts about Pooling — One from the Yarn Harlot and the other from Knitting Sutra.

So – I am not really sure if I like this particular yarn – but I have decided to proceed with using it to knit a pair of plain vanilla socks. I am going to use US 2 (2.75 mm) needles with a gauge of 6.25 spi and cast on 54 stitches (this should fit my foot). I’ll post pictures of the final result.

Finished SocksFinished Socks

August 31, 2009| Lindy| 3 Comments| 5:04 pm

Knitted striped socks

I finished my striped socks yesterday morning. I am pleased with how they turned out. I used a self-striping yarn from Patons Yarns and it was fascinating to see the stripes evolve as the socks knit up.

I did not really use a pattern for these socks. There are literally thousands of free sock patterns available on the internet, but you really don’t need them if you understand the basics of knitting socks. I started with a gauge swatch and used my foot measurements to determine the number of stitches I needed. The “how to” of this seems to be enough for a separate post, so I will place that in my queue for future topics.

I choose to do a picot hem at the top of the cuff, a 3 by 1 rib for the cuff and instep, a slipped stitched heel flap with a square heel turn. My mentors for these socks were Nancy Bush – I consulted her book “Knitting on the Road” for advice on the square heel and Cat Bordhi, whose book “Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles” contains a wealth of information on how to knit socks.

Knitting socks on two circular needles

I used the two socks on two circular needles for this pair of socks. I prefer to knit socks two at a time, because when you’ve finished, you have a pair of socks and don’t have to go back and knit that second sock. You can knit socks two at a time using either two circulars – as shown here in my photo – Or you can use the magic loop technique. I started another pair of socks last night using this technique – so I’ll post about them later.