Support thread from Arts & Crafts for the blankets

[tribpot]

We've been talking quite a lot on the main thread about getting the stitches right for a particular square with a lovely heart design in it. You need to be registered on Ravelry to see it here or with the designer's website (also free) to see it here.

The race is on to see whether any of us can complete it without going completely insane at the difficulty of some of the patterns, so we are having a (supportive) 'heart-off' this weekend to try and get it done without flooding the main thread with messages about it.

On the cast list so far are: GleamingHeels, MinnieBar and me, but all are welcome - beware though, you have to supply your own valium.

I've just recharted it to get it down to a size that will knit out to (about) 6", so have chopped out 4 rows of border from the bottom, 2 stitches of border from the sides and 2 stitches of the plain bit between the outer and inner border. So I'm starting with 29 stitches. I'd prob prefer to have 3 rows of border and 3 side stitches of border too, but as the square is going to be put into a larger blanket (unless rejected by our Blanket Mistresses Pistey and Knotty) I thought a slightly scrappy border would probably be okay.

excellent plan Barbara and trib

Hello hello

Moved this one for you now

MNHQ x

Thankyou RowanMN x

In honour of our move to A&C, today I have started learning to crochet.... and have cramp in my right hand

And here was me thinking you were beavering away on the Team Heart pattern Gleaming :) Although you are such a fast knitter I would not be surprised to discover you'd done that already today!

I wonder if MN would consider an eBooklet with suggested patterns in, if there's a way of doing that without getting into copyright problems. The Refuge book has ones which were specially designed, but I wonder if it'd help Knotty and Pistey if we had some blanket FAQs, patterns and pics to inspire somewhere on the MN site?

That's a good idea trib, I'd be happy to help and have time on my hands since I am currently not gainfully employed

I will knit the Team Heart this evening, but just took a notion to try crochet too - I've got single crochet and double crochet fairly sussed, just need to work out what other basics I need to learn before attempting an actual pattern

I really fancy this crochet bag pattern, I think it'd work much better as crochet than knit although you apparently can do it that way!

Have reached row 13, the rows of Complete Doomlessness look much better and nary a yo-yo nor a backleg purl in sight. Yay! Trib!

That bag looks fab - I'll could download the pattern as a guide to all the stitches and crochet abbreviations to learn, then maybe I'll give it a go

Back to Team Heart

Hurrah! I imagine with your less slapdash approach both to tension and following the pattern, though, it will come out looking better than mine but about 4" square :) I will do the full-size version tonight, and chart up the original one for anyone desiring their own experience of the Yoyoing Back Leg of Certain Doom.

Yes, I think it will come out small - for me I would extend the seed stitch border to five stitches on each side and the top and bottom border to four or probably five, but I am knitting it on my three and three-quarter needles (I still think they're 3.75mm, they're just old and possibly pre-date anyone being confused by using vulgar fractions to describe decimal measurements).

Anyway, I debated adjusting the pattern, then decided to knit your pattern as is.

Great, I will credit you as my technical knitter when I flog the pattern (and, erm, get sued by the original author). I've hacked out a stitch from the moss stitch border (should be 4 not 3) and one of the 4 plain stitches between the moss stitch border and the Border Of Former Doom, on both sides, to reduce it from 37 to 33. Taken out a few more rows than perhaps I should have done to accommodate giving one back for the extra two purl rows in the horizontal borders. Mine is only just 6" in length I think.

Btw if anyone is looking for inspiration for a very simple bit of cabling for a square, this owl cloth is lovely - would need a bit of adjusting for a 6" square but it's all the same stitch except for the owl itself.

... now you've put the kybosh on me with all the less slapdash and technical knitter... I missed a yo, now have to take out two rows as the heart has gone wonky eejit for not noticing if I fix it correctly, can I still be your technical knitter?

Ooh I'm really tempted to try that owl, despite my last cabling disaster?

It's dead easy, Minnie, I can do some photos if it will help? And Gleaming yes, be sure you correct those mistakes at once young lady!

This was the one I tried and failed miserably at. The pattern is a chart so I tried to translate it and just got really bogged down and confused. Plus, it says all knit for the trunk and all purl for the background, which would just make all garter stitch, no?
(I realise it's too narrow in its current format to be a square; I thought I could just add extra to the sides.)

Yes, I see what the problem is there. It's from a pattern knit in the round instead of back and forth. In that, if you just keep knitting every row comes out looking like the right side of stocking stitch, because you're always facing the same side of the fabric. To turn it into something to knit back and forth like a square, every other row has to be the opposite of what the chart says.

I can chart that up for you and have a crack at it if you like? It's a lovely pattern.

Trib you are the Yoda of knitting. I salute you! I am in proper awe.

If you honestly wouldn't mind that would be brilliant

Yes Miss Trib have ripped out and started again Miss

Owl, I don't know how to cable - do I have enough brain to learn to crochet and to cable?

Oh I totally am not the Yoda of knitting, Minnie. We have many fine experts on MN who can do totally amazing stuff. Looking at it again, I'm not sure it's exactly written for knitting in the round as much as it is meant to be interpreted either way, i.e. if you're knitting back and forth, you're trying to make a purl stitch appear on the right side of the fabric. Which means if you're on the wrong side you need to knit it. All very lovely but a few bleedin' lines to explain that would have been nice I think!

The cabley bits could be a mite more tricky to translate, but let's get you started. It's 19 stitches wide, how wide would you like it to be? Shall I put in a few stitches either side for a border?

Gleaming, no talking at the back! Knit!

Umm, 37 stitches or thereabouts I guess because then it'd come up at 6" please?
Border - up to you, I don't want to add to your troubles!

Let the force be with you.

Yey, thanks for the move Rowan. We have a small place in Arts and Crafts history now folks.

Just home from work. Dinner then hopefully I might hit the Upper Border of Doom (unrevised version) before bed. Stupid paid employment getting in the way of my knitting!

How are the non-hearters getting on with their patterns? How's them waves Glaikit.

Miss Miss* Team Heart done and tea and dining room dusting - 5x5 inches on my needles and at my tension

Just going to photograph - inner border looks perfectly balanced and matching in the horizontal and the vertical. Good Work young trib - take ten house points

Why thank you Madame Gleaming, and well done for not duffing it up á la Trib.

In the meantime, Minnie's tree has been twisting my melon, man. I've got this far with trying to translate the pattern - in this case it will be important to read the chart as the instructions show, right to left for right side rows, left to right for wrong side rows.

Minnie - it's obviously not finished (unless you think the CIA may have redacted the portion at the top) but is it at all understandable in terms of what you should (I think) be doing? If you carry one stich, that means wang it on a cable needle either in front of or behind the work as indicated, do whatever stitch you're meant to do with the next one which is on the main needle, then put the carried stitch back on the left hand needle and do whatever it says to do with it. The complication therefore comes that even if you are reading right to left, the instruction for the two stitches needs to be read as a single instruction - e.g. row 20. do the border, then k11, then carry 1 stitch in front, purl the next stitch then knit the one from the cable needle.

I wouldn't be totally displeased if anyone decided the owl was a nicer piece of cabling but I will have to finish this chart anyway, I will not be beaten by a bloody knitted tree.