Month: September 2020

Did you get value from your pattern?

Did you ever buy a pattern and wondered what you paid for? What makes this pattern special?

I’m knitting the Lanterns shawl by Softsweater (Sylvia McFadden).

The leaf pattern is gorgeous. I worked it with the twisted knits and twisted purls (don’t worry, there is an untwisted version). This was a challenge. The trick, I found, is to work the twisted knit row on the loose side so the twisted purls on the next row are easier to work. It doesn’t take long to get the hang of this. The final blocking will really show this off.

The leaf section is done. But that’s not the special part for me.

The edge stitches are really well thought out and charted. I’m quite sure the beginning and end of the rows took time to develop. She even did a video of a different stitch she used. That’s customer service. But that’s still not ‘it’ for me either.

What I paid for, and it was a very small amount of $ but I won’t go into how much patterns are undervalued in our industry, was the 10 or so rows right here.

This is the transition from the leaf pattern to the chevron pattern. It’s elegant, don’t you think? It’s a thing of beauty. I’ve stopped knitting here so I can just appreciate how she made these patterns flow, one into the other.

As far as I’m concerned this is what I paid for. A little bit of knitting elegance. When I pick it up tomorrow I am starting with a smile of appreciation on my face. Thanks Sylvia.

Cheers and happy knitting, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

Cabin Fever No-Sew patterns by Deb & Lyn

Tiny (Sock) Slippers

If you already know how to make cuff-down socks, you can make a small modification and use your sock know-how to make slippers. I hope this is a helpful tip for you.

I’m making tiny socks for my grandson and at 3 months old he’s not on his feet too much so making sock slippers seemed like the way to go.

worked from the Need A Sock book by Cabin Fever 36 sts in sock yarn

What makes them slippers instead of socks? A continuous rounded toe to give the slippers a higher toe box.

It’s all about the grafting at the very end.

These tiny socks are worked in the usual manner of cuff-down socks, ending with a rounded toe. Then instead of grafting the stitches on the front of the sock to the stitches on the sole of the sock, move the stitches on your needles so that you can graft the side stitches to the other side stitches. This gives you some thickness to the toe box of the socks and is therefore more slipper-like.

Graft 4 side stitches to 4 side stitches.

Now I admit that using only 4 stitches on either side doesn’t raise the toe box very much, so for an older child or an adult you could graft 8 or 10 side stitches to 8 or 10 side stitches and that would make them slippers. Make sure your slipper foot is long enough and then for the toe decrease work: starting in the centre of the sole, *knit to last 5 sts on needle, K3, K2tog, on top of foot K3, SSK; repeat from *. Work in heavier yarn, add a stitch pattern or some colour work, make the cuff ribbing nice and tall so it can be folded over and voila, slippers.

Try it and let me know if you liked it. Cheers, Deb

Gauge-Free and Any Gauge patterns by Deb

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Cabin Fever patterns by Deb & Lyn

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