For those of you who have been waiting with bated breath to see a picture of a stitch pattern, today is your lucky day!
Coral Knot Stitch? Sure LOOKS like it to me!
For non knitters, feel free to skip to the second portion of this post. For you knitters out there, I would like to share to with you how my GG wrote this pattern circa 1942 – verbatim . My translation of this antique pattern will be boldly italicized for emphasis, and sheer goofiness.
Cst on 44 sts. – Cast on 44 stitches (so far so good)
-Base: Knit 4 rows all knitting – Knit 4 Rows Garter Stitch (Good, good. I’m following you).
*Begin Pattern – Begin Pattern (ok, so I’m feeling like a bit of a smart ass here, you’ll see why)
R1-k2sts,k1st, marry k2sts through,k1sts. – Row 1: K2, K1 *K2tog* continue till last st., K1. (The “marrying” of two stitches came down to some sort of combination stitch so that wasn’t too painful, only slightly complexing)
R2-k1sts, kbottom up but NOT below through, k1sts – Row 2: K1, *K into strand between* continue till end, K1 (It took a stitch dictionary to figure out that knitting from the “bottom but NOT below” had to mean that something was going on in the middle. There was a bit of frogging going on in this pattern before I gave up and used the book, but it was worth it)
R3k – Row 3: Knit
R4 Frontknit – Row 4: Purl (What is front knitting? Well, as she was taught you pulled the yarn “close to your heart” and knitting toward the body. This I found in her own personal notes on a pair of gloves that she knitted in 1972).
End of true confessions!
But not the end of the post!
High Definition of Pattern.
Picture of pattern with changes in saturation, and a frame because why not?!
What fun it is to delve into the minds of other people’s shorthand! I have some absolutely hysterical patterns written by her and I hope to share that, after all she is my history and you should learn from history. Unfortunately none of the scraps of paper and scrawl are able to get a good scan without some editing finesse, and thus comes part duex of my post:
Photo Editing for Blogs and Genealogy Documents
I don’t want to get into this into too much depth now, but 4 years ago I had a pretty severe injury to my hand that has left me as an arthritic knitter with only my thumb and pointer finger on my right, and dominate hand, fully functional. I had to learn to write again, use utensils and of course knit (but that’s for another day). It has also taken away a great deal of my ability to stabilize a camera while shooting. I lust after my ability to take a good photo again, to be able to hold the behemoth camera in my hand and get the shot in frame and not fuzzy. Relearning will take time, just as everything else has taken time, but good LORD it’s frustrating!
Getting back to my point, I am trying to use several different photo editing tools to try to restore my pictures to something I wouldn’t be ashamed to show other people, especially when there is so much talent evident in the blogging world. A friend of mine, a student majoring photography here at CSCC in Ohio gave me two different applications to try out; Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 and Adobe Photoshop & Premiere Elements 11. Now, I have used some photo editing in my day, but really I just preferred to let the pictures I was taking talk for themselves, plus I like the darkroom which isn’t really conducive with computer re-imaging. Plus I am old and stubborn and at 28 very set in my ways.
So now I am inundated with information on how to use this software correctly and confidently, neither emotion I am feeling at this particular time. The layout and format seems simple until you want to get more in-depth the your image, then I am out of my ballpark laughing at myself so hard I am nearly apoplectic. Clearly the photographs above have been edited, simply; change the saturation, bring up contrast, sharpen, and add a frame because now I can do that and damn it, that makes me happy.
So now, in addition to my Blog Envy I can add Photoshop Envy (always in capital letters in my head) to the list. Life would be boring with challenges I guess, they make you feel alive and remind you that you should never stop trying to learn new things. They can also make you want a hole to open up in the ground and swallow you whole. I prefer the former but relate to the latter.
All Night Knits 