Tag Archives: stitch patterns

Stitch Pattern Week 14 & Oops…

This is going to be very quick friends and neighbors because I LOST GG’s copy of this pattern! I cannot believe I actually did this, I took it to work to rewrite it so I could post this morning and I think I may have ended up in the trash before I left.

Well, live and learn I guess….still a HUGE bummer.

So, with no introductions to make on GG’s behalf, here is the Basket Weave Stitch Pattern!

Even the Photos are Bad This Week…

** Pattern **

Rows 1 and 3: P2 *K2, P4*. Rep till last 4 stitches, K2, P2
Rows 2 and 4: K2, P2 *K4, P2*. Rep till last 2 stitches; K2
Rows 5 and 7: K1, P1 *K4, P2*. Rep till last 4 stitches; P3, K1
Rows 6 and 8: P1, K3 *K1, P2, K3*. Rep till last 2 stitches; K1, P1

: The Basket-weave Dishcloth

: Up Close and Personal

: Lightened and Sharpened

: Even the Photos are Bad This Week…

This has been a cruddy past couple of days, I don’t really want to get into it because I am still processing but this is not the quality of work that I want to be putting out. My blog is important to me – not just for myself but also for anyone who is reading it. The standards have been set very high in this blogging community and I hate thinking that I am dropping the ball.

If I am able to find the pattern I will most certainly update this post. Plus, I am working on putting all the weeks of stitch patterns in a drop-down menu at the top of my blog. More than anything, I am just embarrassed with what I have to post today.

Live and learn and then do better next time right? Have a wonderful weekend friends and neighbors!

Stitch Pattern Week 8 – Dreams & Fears

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Well friends and neighbors, it’s that time again! Let’s see what GG could work out for us this week. I humbly present to you Stitch Pattern Week 8- The Daisy Stitch.

Hello Daisy

If you follow this blog, you’ll recognize the daisy stitch from the Hinagiku Hat that was posted a few days ago. I liked the pattern so much – and found it in GG’s patterns – that I went out and bought some ridiculously (for me) expensive pure eco cotton and made bath mitts! The green was so fresh and vibrant that is screamed spring at me, and knitting it was like going back to an old friend. Knitted in the round, the daisy stitch twisted and turned as if on its on accord. It was made to be big enough to fit comfortably over your hand so you can scrub till your heart’s content. I’m kinda in love…. 😉

Folds in the Bath Mitt

Hello Daisy Stitch!

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Wanna see GG’s written Pattern? No worries, it will be anxiously waiting for you at the bottom of the page.

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-Dreams-

This week I opened an Etsy store, made a Facebook Fan Page, and barely managed to keep my head on my shoulders. It has always been a dream of mine to open a little shop full of handmade goodies. I never had dreams of making loads of money, not that it wouldn’t be a good thing, but of having things I created put to use in other people’s homes. These items are near and dear to my heart, everything made with love and care but also with the memories of generations of knitters behind it. My GG’s dish cloths are still in use today and she passed on almost 20 years ago, but every time I pull one of her dish cloths out I think of her. The wonder of turning a strand of yarn into something purposeful and beautiful is still remarkable to me. I always wanted to share that with people.

-Fears-

The downside to trying to bring your dreams into the light is that there is that looming sense of dread that you will be a complete and utter failure. Take for example the expensive Etsy kit I bought. I loved it when I saw it, the designer did an amazing job and did exactly what I asked for. But I don’t like it. It doesn’t resonate as something I thought my store was about and now there is that shadow of doubt hanging over my head.

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The panic monster in my mind has been screaming at me the past two days, it has invaded every thought and every action with its annoying chatter.

Me: This is a good start.

Panic Monster: Not good enough.

Me: This is really well made, took a while but still something I would use or give as a present.

Panic Monster: Took too long, could be better. SHOULD be better.

Me: So the Blog following and Facebook pages will take a while to grow, that’s how it should be.

Panic Monster: Nobody is going to bother with your sill websites, they look like crap!

Me: So what if I haven’t gotten a blogging award, it’s only been eight weeks! Time and patience and keep working hard, it’s the way things are done when done correctly!

Panic Monster: Never gonna happen, duh! You suck, your writing since college has gone down the tube and nobody gives a crap for a sub-par arthritic knitter. Don’t quit your day job loser.

This is pretty much how it has been going in my overly anxious mind. My OCD and panic monster are chopping at the bit to remind me that, guess what? there are things you CANNOT DO! Oh well live and learn and then get a big bat to smash the panic monster to bits and pieces.

There are so many wonderful, award-winning blogs that have introduced me to the talent and creativity that is out there. How could I possibly compete with that? Some have views in the six digit category and some have hundreds (if not thousands) of followers. So yes, it is intimidating to put yourself out there. I am just going to have to remind myself (and my panic monster) that I love what I am doing. Worse comes to worst and I never sell a thing and no one ever reads my blog again, I will have gifts for the next ten years to give and I will always love writing.

GG, Papaw, my husband and Max would be proud.

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GG’s Stitch Pattern vs. The Real Deal

-The Daisy Stitch-

(No cast on number…hmm….good start GG. Good start!)

odd k – Rows 1 and 3 (RS): K (Good, Good.)

r2 k1,p3together,ya,p3together –Row 2: K1 *p3 tog and don’t drop them off the needle, yo (wrapping yarn completely around needle), p same 3 together again and drop them, k1; rep from * (At first I really thought that I was going to end up with no stitches left on my needles until I visited my Hinagiku Hat pattern and figured this out. Thank goodness for the internet)

r4 kpk-p3together,ya,p3tog -Row 4: K1, p1, k1 *p3 tog and don’t drop them off the needle, yo (wrapping yarn completely around needle), p same 3 together again and drop them, k1; rep from *, end p1, k1 (Again, thank you ol’ in-tra-net (my grandfather loved to say this just to bug the living he!! out of me) you’ve saved me loads of frogging. As for you GG, I wish you were her so I could take you to town for this!)

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Well my ramblings have gone on far too long, I hope you enjoyed what you’ve seen or read, and thank you for visiting. To pose a question; Where did you get the inspiration/ know-how to make all of your blogs look so lovely? so functional? so…inviting? You’re all inspirations to bloggers at any level!

Stitch Week 7 – Heartfelt Thank You’s & Photo Editing Mishaps

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Before I get started today, I wanted to say thank you to all of you that commented, liked or simply read Please Don’t Tell Me What I Cannot Do. It was overwhelming to see that the blogging world actually cared about my circumstances, and the outpouring of support and encouragement left me a bit dumbfounded. I’m still surprised that something that personal poured out of me, obviously it needed an outlet. Infertility, especially miscarriages is something that most people want to sweep under the rug, like seeing it in the daylight would solidify it in reality. It felt like a weight lifted off my shoulder to just write about it, to purge my mind. So thank you so much. Thank you.

* * * *

Perhaps white was not the best yarn color to try to photograph, but live and learn and play with photo editors! So with no further adieu, I humbly present Week 7’s Stitch Pattern!

Hello Week 7!

I will tell you that knitting this was a delight – a little confounding do to my dearly departed GG’s handwriting- but once you get past that it seemed to knit itself. When I started taking pictures of the dishcloth with my iPod, they were horrible! No joke, it was like the image just disappeared in the picture, which gave me the opportunity to play with both Instagram and Vintique . I haven’t done much editing with these applications, but playing around with them last night was a blast. Whether it was successful or not, I shall let you decide.

Sharpened and Hi-Light.

Super Duper Sharpened with Lo-Res Filter

Aqua Filter

To be honest, I am feeling the Epic Fail with theses. On the plus side, I was introduced to all the fun filters and sophisticated things that can be accomplished with an iPod; something I foolishly used (until just recently) to listen to music and check the weather. Silly me!

With the filters on my iPod not giving me what I wanted, I pulled out my trusty Canon and decided to go old school – if you can consider digital photography and Photoshop to be old school that is. I was pleased with the result;, this could be because of the abject failure of the first attempt but hey, I am still learning! Most people who work in hospitals aren’t well versed in the fine art of making their pictures not suck. Or maybe that is hopeful thinking! Anywho, here are the shots from the Canon.

Before Photoshop Close Up

After Photoshop, Thank you Hi-Pass

Full Frontal

Stitch Pattern Dishcloth

Magnified Close Up

Much Better!

So GG, what did you have in store for us this week eh? Well, once again there was no name to the pattern, no punctuation, and a very odd Cast On number. Well Week 7, you haven’t disappointed me!

co38 – Cast On 38 Sts. (Feeling Pretty Good)(Why yes, I am a smart a**!)

R1 correct, kall- Row 1: (RS) Knit all Sts. (Seriously, sometimes when I read these patterns I think of the movie Nell and her secret language!)

r2,pall – Row 2: Purl all Sts. (Nice, nice)

r3 p2 k1 end – Row 3: P2, K1 to end of row (This would have been simple, but there are 38 sts and that definitely is a multiple of 3! Eh, don’t fight it Rachel, just see what happens).

r4 k2 p1 end- Row 3: K2, P1 to end of row (Well at least we are being consistent with the whole incorrect number of stitches dealio. Again Rach, just breath in through your nose and out through your mouth).

rep to end, fin. – Repeat Rows 1-4 to desired length, BO loosely. (Dear God, Please let this work out ok!)

Well, it ended up working out better than ok! The pattern was almost spa like in its interwoven bumps and ridges. I would even go so far as to say it felt luxurious! With this in mind, I got on Ravelry and started my scavenger hunt for dishcloths and facecloths for something similar. The closest I found was from Anne Mancine listed under Spa Day Facecloth, which was the same pattern, just outlined with a seed stitch border. What I found a bit confusing though was that the pattern contained a Copyright – how is this possible? GG wrote the pattern (or more likely copied it down from a magazine or a book) circa 1968. Thus I remain confounded by the whole Copyright thingamajigger. Well, it is something new to add to the every compounding list of things to learn.

Thank you again bloggers for all your support and encouragement. Feel free to leave comments, questions or insights….your knowledge is priceless. OH, and Max says Hiya:)

Hiya Bloggers!

Stitch Pattern Week 6 – Bad Books and Doodads

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Since I was unquestionably late posting the stitch pattern for last week, I hope this will assuage any worries about my commitment. Ha! That certainly sounded pretentious! Sh!t, so did that! Any-who, with no further adieu, I present week 6 for your viewing pleasure!

Quilted Lattice

Normally, I would share the pattern written by my great-grandmother with a nice – if slightly snarky- correction on how the pattern would be written today. I want to do that for you below (it is down there, promise), but if you can bear with me there is a story that goes with this pattern that I would like to share.

First and foremost, I am honestly going to say that I went right to a stitch dictionary to find out how this pattern was supposed to be written because for the first time she actually included the name of the stitch! Whoopee! Hooray! No Frogging for this girl this time!

Wait…not so fast. If I learned something this week it is not to get overly excited that something may go as planned.

I went to a book I recently found at a yard sale for fifty cents, which seemed like a steal at the time but hey, what do I know? Maran Illustrated Knitting and Crocheting seemed like a really good starter book for my niece to try her hand at knitting and I was familiar with the brand name, thus comfortable in my ignorance. When I found the quilted lattice pattern it was slightly different on one row from my GG’s dictation, but considering she wrote it in her eighties I went with the book.

Wrong plan. Bad idea. Don’t do it. No. No. No….NOOOO!!!

As it turns out, the pattern in the book was written incorrectly; after much frogging and even more cursing I went to Lion Brand’s website (I’d had it with stupid books with their stupid pages and stupid….stupidness) and found an identical pattern to what GG was attempting to convey in her own chicken scratch way and was off and running.

: Work in Progress

: Quilted Lattice – Full Size

: Quilted Lattice – Up Close and Personal

: Edited with Instagram

I love the pattern by the way, it was totally worth the hair loss caused my abject frustration, and as a bonus my niece and I stumbled upon a great DIY idea. This pattern lends itself to perfectly to having lovely doodads hung from the loose stitches, so I am currently doing this pattern again and following the idea born from Lion Brand’s website.

Lion Brand’s Website Craft Idea for Quilted Lattice.

So with another new project on the needles and an epic weekend Scrabble tournament going on between my niece, my husband and I, I am feeling pretty giddy. Loads of work to do but when you love what you do, it never seems like work!

GG’s Pattern vs. Actual Readable Pattern

quilted lace – Quilted Lattice but so close! A name for the pattern! Huzzah!

all wrongs p – Purl all odd rows (Good, good. Cooking with gas).

r2 k2 s5 yth k1. rep. last k – Row 2: K2, *Sl5 wyif, K1* rep *to* till last st., K1 (Luckily I have seen yth= yarn towards heart, so bringing it forward made sense, which made the s=slip fall into place).

r4 k4 lift k drop k5. last rep -1 – Row 4: K4 *Lift lose strand, knit into next stitch, bring lose stitch under strand; K5* . Rep. *to* till last rep, K4 instead of K5. (Dear GG, If you were planning on passing on your patterns, great googley moogley why did you write the stitch transition like this? Was there a maniacal giggle happening as you did this? Devilish glint in your eye? Sometimes I wonder).

r6 k1 s3 yth then k1 s5 yth till last 5 k1 s3 yth k1 – Row 6: K1, sl3 wyif, *K1, sl5 wyif*. Rep. *to* to last 5 sts; K1, sl3 wyif, K1 (I am getting a handle on you, you old bag. Your odd shorthand is becoming clearer and clearer to me with each passing week. Considering quitting my day job and pursuing a career as a codebreaker for the CIA).

r8 k1 lift k drop k5 last rep k-4: (Really) Row 8: K1 *insert needle under loose strand, knit into next strand and pull off needle and under lose strand, K5* Rep *to* till last rep., K1 instead of K5 (Dear GG, I forgot to ask earlier, why do you hate punctuation? Is there some family history about punctuation doing my family harm? Wish you were alive so I could ask, cause it is giving me heartburn to think about it).

-Almost the End. Promise.-

If you have made it to the end, more power to you. So I shall end this post with a burning question in my mind; Has anyone else bought a book or pattern and had it be completely off the mark? And if so, how did you figure out how to fix the problem?

Thank you again for glimpsing into my families history and my passion for knitting. I must be passionate, otherwise I am just nuts!