The project: Knitting all the stitches in KnittingOnTheNet.com's Stitch Directory.This week's stitches: #41 - Thermal Underwear Stitch, #42 - Triangle Ribs, #43 - Triangle Squares and #44 - Triangles. Hopefully, I'll have four stitches this week and next so I can "catch up" to where I think I'm supposed to be!
The yarn: Anything you want. I'm using a Phentex "Monster Ball of Yarn" (32 oz. 100% acrylic), which won't block, but will give good stitch definition.
The needles: Again, whatever you want that goes with your yarn. I'm using my beloved Lantern Moon size 7s, because they're pretty.
Why this is happening: Because lots of people want to learn new stitches this year!
Okay, first, Thermal Underwear Stitch. It's a (multiple of four) + one, so I kept four seed stitches at the beginning of the RS row, did 21 pattern stitches, and had five seed stitches at the end. It's a four row pattern that was giving me fits, but I did five repeats just to make sure it was right!
What I noticed about this pattern: I have to tell you - this one was probably more confusing to me than it should have been... or was it? The antihistamines can only be blamed for so much, but knitting this stitch, it kept feeling like something was wrong, or off. I checked the swatch photo on line, and nope, that's how it's supposed to look. I'm pretty sure this is the only time I'll ever be using this stitch, antihistamines or no! It is, however, the same, front and back, so if you need something 100% reversible, you can consider it. I probably won't, but you can, especially if you have a high-histamine, high-confusion threshold.
Now, on to stitches that start with the word "Triangle". Triangle Ribs is squares made by triangles. Not, in any way, to be confused with Triangle Squares, below. It's a multiple of 8 stitch, so I did 7 seed stitches, 16 (2 repeats) pattern stitches, 7 seed stitches. With a 12-row repeat, I repeated twice. Six rows of seed stitch separate this swatch from the next.
What I noticed about this pattern: Needs blocking, as it tends to curl in both directions.
Triangle Squares are little squares, diagonally bisected into triangles! It's a five-stitch pattern, so I did four horizontal repeats with five seed stitches before and after the 20 pattern stitches. It's a four-row repeat, but I really need more swatches that are 20 rows, so I did five repeats. (I was originally doing all 20-rows, but some stuff is either two or three rows - gets boring pretty quickly.) Again, six rows of seed stitch separate this swatch from the next.
What I noticed about this pattern: There's just so much you can do with triangles. This one, at least, wouldn't necessarily need blocking, and it is completely reversible. Definitely something to do in a solid--color yarn, or the pattern would disappear entirely. Nice, small texture. Blocking would straighten out the rows of vertical knit stitch.
Last up, Triangles is, well, triangles. Again. A multiple of 10 stitches in the pattern means five seed stitches, 20 pattern stitches, then 5 seed stitches. It starts out strongly (k5,p5), os after two repeats (20 rows again!), I repeated Row 1 to punch up the pattern. This time, five rows of seed stitch separate this swatch from the next.
What I noticed about this pattern: Is it just me, or does it look a lot like Triangle Rib, just smaller? Of the triangle stitches, this is my favorite. It's a nice size, visually, and I prefer the back-to-back triangles here to the offset triangles of Triangle Rib. I expected it to pull in on itself, but it didn't!
A note on the whole project: Since there are 139 stitch patterns (some are listed under multiple headings), plus 7 different edgings in KnittingOnTheNet.com's Stitch Directory, I'll be trying to do two to three stitches a week, minimum. This should get everyone a goodly number of new stitches by the end of the year, and hopefully get me a blanket. No worries if you "fall behind" or "start late" - this is for fun & education, there isn't *really* a time limit of any sort on it. If you're just discovering this project, this link will take you to the beginning, and this link will pull up all the related entries. Just knit on, and have fun!
Never heard of the thermal underwear stitch. Think the triangles are much more fun
ReplyDeleteI agree, that Thermal underwear stitch doesn't look too exciting....
ReplyDeleteYou sure are quite the knitter...beautiful work.