KnittingFool

Swatchbox crop for the past few weeks:

• Haystack Stripe
• Three-Color Honeycomb
• Wavy Braid
• Horseshoe II
• Steeples
• Dotted Wave
• Stripes and Diamonds
• Sliding Block
• City Lights
• Four Color Progressive Tweed
• Quilted Check
• Macedonian
• Three-and-One I
• Vertical Chain
• Fancy Diagonal Stripe
• Sliding Bricks
• Wave
• Chessboard I
• Maze
• Fretted Mosaic
• Dogtooth Check
• Assyrian Stripe
• Pinbox

Most of these are mosaic stitches.  I have this to say about mosaic stitches in general:  Barbara Walker seemed to favor working mosaics in a garter stitch mode.  I think all mosaic stitches work out much neater in stockinette mode.

The latest additions to the box are the following:

• Holiday Stripes - This is a pleasing combination of color and texture.
• Night-and-Day Stripe - This is easy, Fair Isles-lite.
• Hornet’s Nest - This starts out like a bobble, but doesn’t close like a bobble.
• Watergate - An interesting spin on what is essentially a mosaic pattern.
• Surprise Two Color Version - The result is like a Fair Isles pattern.
• Swiss Check - A simple, easy, two color pattern.
• Reversible Two-Tone - Results in a double-knit with a different color on each side.
• Tweed II - This is the two color version of the Linen I pattern.  The result is a dense fabric.
• Bold Check - Lots of color and texture.
• Garter Stitch Stripe - Similar to Bold Check.  The result is blocks of vertical and horizontal stripes.
• Russian -  A vertical serpentine pattern.
• Sandwich Stripe - The result is blocks of vertical and horizontal stripes.
• Tuscan - I do not like this pattern.  It was tedious and the result is not very appealing.
• Syncopated Tweed - A pretty multi-color pattern with a hint of texture.
• Crazy Quilt - Results in a two color eyelet.
• Petal Quilting - Lots of texture and interest.
• Cluster Quilting - This is an evolution of the Petal Quilting pattern.  The result looks like smocking.

This time I added the following swatches:

• Four Color Blend - Blends the colors nicely with a faint impression of being ribbed.
• Fingertip Tweed Check - houndstooth - like
• Dice Check - works more like a mosaic stitch with a result that looks a bit like something you would get from Fair Isles work
• Garter Stitch II - the fabric is lose and spreads horizontally
• Salt and Pepper Tweed - results in a tight, woven fabric.  The reverse side is also interesting.
• Grain Slip - the results are like ribbing with little shadow boxes between the ribs
• Striped Quilting - gives a thick fabric that reminds me of smocking
• Two-color Hedges - tends to spread horizontally
• Royal Quilting - very pleasant geometry.  I could easily see this pattern used on an Elizabethan costume
• Chain of Triangles II - gives the appearance of vertical ladders

This week I added the following swatches:

• Yarn Over Check - fluffy, light good thermal characteristics
• Woven Polka Dot - you actually only knit with one color.  The second color is just being carried along.
• Tri-color Cable Rib - Would make an interesting detail on a garment.  Tends to draw up laterally like most ribs.
• Winged Wave - This is structurally very interesting.  It might be attractive with more than two colors for instance with a rainbow collection colors.
• Shadow Box - Also structurally interesting.  This gives a sophisticated multicolor pattern that is not difficult to achieve. 
• Fancy Bricks - High degree of texture without being too difficult.

This week I have added the following samples:

• Reverse Fabric - The wrong side looks better than the right side on this pattern.
• Pebbled - Looks a little bit like an open weave.
• Seed V - A brioche type of stitch as evidenced by that lateral spread.
• Chain Stripe - Would make a cute accent or edge treatment.
• Clouds and Mountains - Lots of texture along with color.
• Hexagon - Would be difficult to block if used close to the edge of a garment.  Tends to draw up vertically.
• Elongated-Stripe Waves - Subtle pattern, low density fabric.
• Zebra Chevron - Results are a thick fabric.  This should be classified with the mosaic stitches.

The September 15, 2007 additions to the Swatchbox are the following:

• Broken Plaid
• Tricolor Basket
• Belted Stripes
• Pine-Burr
• Open Honeycomb
• Brioche Stockinette

Between working on selling my Dad’s collection of tins and going camping last weekend, I didn’t get much done.  This may not change soon because there is awful lot of tins to be processed.

I received an inquiry today about how to find the stitch patterns to which I have added picture.  

Well, there is a way, although it is a little labor intensive.  I have programmed [warning you are entering a tech talk zone] some database triggers that update a date field based on changes in either the picture field or a change to the text of a pattern.  In the web interface, I read the date field and make a decision about how to display the stitch name.  If the date is within the last 30 days, on the alphabetic listing of stitches I add a phrase “recently updated or added dd-mmm-yy.”  The other clue that you would need to look for is that when there is a picture available, the name of the stitch is in bold type face.  So if you took the time to scan through the entire alphabetic list of stitch names at least once per month, you would be able to find all the new pictures. 

Much as I would love to have all of you clicking away on my site and driving up my statistics, I can see where this would not be effective for most people.

So, I thought, this finally looks like a problem that I could use the blog to fix.  Let’s face it, I am just not a natural blogger.  I just could not make myself get on here every day just to yak about my latest knitting exploits.  Most of my knitting exploits are little stitch samples.  I have made very few garments lately.   I don’t have much to get on here and crow about.  The swatches get posted somewhere else so why repeat that here. 

 But if I would just make a blog entry every few days or once a week listing the latest pictures added or correction made to the stitch catalog, that might actually coax me into blog.  And it would be a service to those who need/want to find the latest updates.

[The lady who inspired this blog entry told me she was printing out all my stitch patterns that have pictures to make her own handbook.  Handbook!!  What wheel barrow is she hauling this thing around in?  She’ll need a pickup truck if I ever achieve my long term goal.  There are now over 650 patterns with pictures and many of then would take more than one page to print.]

Ok back on target.  Here is the list of swatches recently added to my collection of stitch pictures.  This is from the pile on my desk and they are going straight to the swatch box tonight.

Woven Tricolor Stripe

Three Color Tweed

Stranded Tricolor Stripe

Striped Check

Four Color Fancy

Woven Stripe

Two Color Brioche Rib

Triangle Check

Chickenwire Check

[Pause, punctuated by the sound of fuzzy mocassins on a cheap carpet.]

OK, I just got back from the swatch box.  Glad that’s over, I can see part of my desk again. 

My daughter took a picture of the box where I toss the stitch patterns swatches after I put the pictures up on the web site.  She has been playing in them and trying to figure out which one would look best in a dog sweater. 

The doily patterns on the Knittingfool site are an attempt to capture knitted lace doily patterns in a data base form.  The diagrams of the doily patterns are generated demand from instructions in my database.  I have tried to present the patterns both as diagrams and in a more traditional written instruction. 

As of today, I shall have been working on knitting sample swatches for the stitch pattern catalog for about 7 months.  I have completed swatches for 573 of the 1656 patterns that I have documented.  That puts me at 34.6% of the patterns having swatch pictures to illustrate them.  However, as my husband enjoys pointing out, I am my own worst enemy on this.  I keep adding new patterns almost faster than I knit new swatches.  I have been averaging between 2-3 swatches per day.  Even if I added no more patterns, just to work through the ones I have now would take more than a year.  I am sure that I have source material for about 2000-3000 more patterns.  This could all go on for years.  Someday,  I will be in the nursing home with oatmeat drying on my chin wondering how many more patterns I have to do and what row am I on.