AlterKnit Stitch Dictionary: 200 Modern Knitting Motifs - Hardcover

Rangel, Andrea

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1632505533 ISBN 13: 9781632505538

Verlag: Interweave, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

Break the rules--knit outside the lines!

AlterKnit Stitch Dictionary takes an unexpected look at stranded colorwork with 200 new motifs. These non-traditional colorwork charts are perfect for the creative knitter looking to break away from the ordinary. Derived from graphic design elements, these fresh motifs include everything from geometric mountains, waves, and spirals to modern bikes, skulls, and sheep.

Dive into stranded colorwork with confidence with a section on reading charts, working floats, and choosing colors. Learn how stranded colorwork can be used in design with five accompanying projects including mitts, cowls, and sweaters. Plus, use your imagination to modify, deconstruct, and combine the unique motifs to create your own designs.

Be inspired to break the rules and use charts in creative ways with AlterKnit Stitch Dictionary.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Andrea Rangel is a knitwear designer and teacher. She's the author of Rugged Knits (Interweave), and her patterns have been published in Interweave Knits, Knitscene, Brooklyn Tweed Wool People, Twist Collective, and other publications, as well as independently. She lives on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.

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Alter Knit

Stitch Dictionary

By Andrea Rangel

F+W Media, Inc.

Copyright © 2017 Andrea Rangel
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-63250-553-8

Contents

INTRODUCTION, 4, 
CHOOSING YARNS & COLORS, 6, 
HOW TO HOLD THE YARN, 8, 
FLOATS, 10, 
COLOR DOMINANCE, 15, 
HOW TO READ CHARTS, 16, 
SWATCHING, 17, 
STEEKS, 18, 
TIPS FOR BETTER COLORWORK, 20, 
1 SWATCHES, 23, 
2 PROJECTS, 124, 
USING STITCH MOTIFS IN PROJECTS & DESIGNS, 
BIKEY BEANIE, 132, 
DEEP OCEAN MITTENS, 136, 
HELIX COWL, 140, 
SKULL AND BONES PULLOVER, 144, 
LEAVES IN WATER CARDIGAN, 150, 
ABBREVIATIONS, 162, 
SWATCHES BY STITCH AND ROW COUNTS, 162, 

CHAPTER 1

CHOOSING YARNS & COLORS

Yarns

You can work stranded colorwork with most kinds of yarn, but you'll probably want to start out with a wooly, tweedy, woolen-spun yarn. Blocking these kinds of yarns causes the stitches to bloom and settle into each other, making a cohesive fabric that shows the color patterns and softens most uneven tension. Smoother, worsted-spun yarns are crisp and clear, but make uneven stitches show up more distinctly. The swatches in this book were created with a gorgeous round worsted-spun yarn, Quince and Co. Finch. It makes for bright, clear swatches with high contrast, which was my main goal for this book, but keeping those stitches even took a bit more effort than it would have if I had used a woollier yarn.

Fibers such as alpaca, silk, and cotton really show off any inconsistencies in stitches because they have little or no memory (they're not bouncy), and the fabric will be quite heavy due to the thickness of colorwork. They can also grow out of shape over time, since they're so slippery.

Colors

Deciding which colors you like together is deeply personal, and a big part of creativity in knitting. My suggestions on choosing colors aren't rules, but rather tools that you can use when you're applying your own creative power. Colors can be an expression of your mood, your personality, your style, or just where you're at in your life. It's important that you use colors that inspire you, but not all color combinations will work equally well. Most of the time using colors that contrast strongly with each other will look best, because it will make the color pattern stand out clearly. So how can you tell which colors will contrast with each other?

Hue

Hue is defined by the position on the visible color spectrum. It's what we mean when we say, "What's your favorite color?" — blue, red, green, and the others. Hues that are on opposite sides of the color wheel from each other tend to contrast well, such as red and green. But hue isn't the most important thing to keep in mind when choosing yarn colors.

Value

Value is the relative lightness or darkness of colors. Even if you choose colors that are on opposite sides of the color wheel, if they're relatively the same value, the pattern you create using them can have a tendency to look muddy and unclear. You're more likely to get a clear and pleasing combination by choosing colors that are different values, even more effective than when you use those with different hues. After all, a dark and light blue can contrast beautifully! A great trick to help you determine if colors are sufficiently different in value is to take a black-and-white photo of the yarn combination. Once the hue is removed you'll be able to tell how light or dark each color is in comparison to the one next to it. If one isn't considerably lighter than the other, they're probably too close in value and won't contrast well.

Swatch

The only way to know for sure if you like your color combination for the particular pattern you're working on is to knit with it. I love swatching with different color combinations until I find the best one for the job. I also recommend inverting the colors — having a light pattern over a dark background or vice versa can make a striking difference in the feel of your fabric, and it's worth experimenting with which you prefer.

CHAPTER 2

HOW TO HOLD THE YARN

There are several ways to hold your yarn when knitting with two colors. I encourage you to try them all to find out which you prefer (this is my general knitting philosophy!), but it's very important that no matter which you choose, you're consistent. Work in the same way for a whole project (including your swatch, which you definitely will be making and blocking and measuring, of course, because you always do, right?), and be sure to hold the colors in the same orientation throughout. That'll be covered more when we talk about color dominance in the next section, but remember that consistency will make your project more beautiful.

Holding One Color in Each Hand

My favorite method for working stranded colorwork is the two-fi sted method. I hold a strand of yarn in each hand and then use picking to work the stitches in my left hand (also known as Continental knitting) and throwing to work the stitches in my right (English knitting). With this method, it's easy to get into a rhythm following the chart, I don't have to look at my knitting in order to know which color I'm using, and I can consistently keep one ball of yarn on my left and one on my right. Here's what that looks like:

Holding Both Colors in the Same Hand

Most knitters are primarily pickers or throwers, so using both hands at the same time can take practice. If you prefer, you can hold both colors in the same hand, but a major drawback of doing so is that, if your pattern doesn't have about the same number of stitches in each color, or if you have long sections of one color, you'll have to drop your yarn to reestablish proper tension more frequently than you would if you worked the colors independently — one in each hand. That being said, you do you! Lots of knitters happily and successfully hold both strands in one hand, and here's how:

Left Hand (Continental/Picking)

When holding both strands in your left hand, you'll pick all stitches of both colors. Be careful to keep the dominant color to the left of the background color as you work. In this orientation, the background color will be the one closer to the tip of your index finger:

Right Hand (English/Throwing)

You can also hold both strands in your right hand, throwing all the stitches of both colors, and being sure that the dominant color is held to the left of the background color.

CHAPTER 3

FLOATS

A float is the strand of yarn that's not currently being knit into stitches, but is instead being carried along loosely behind the work. The length of the float is determined by how many stitches of the working color there are before you switch back to the other color. For example, if a chart calls for knitting 5 stitches of color A, then 3 of color B, the first float will be 5 stitches long (color B is being stranded behind the work as color A is knitted), and the second float will be 3 stitches long (color A is being stranded behind the work as color B is knitted). You may have heard that long floats can be problematic and should always be avoided.

This isn't necessarily true, but long floats do have consequences and need to be addressed.

What counts as a long float is subjective and knitters will disagree: 3 stitches is definitely not a long float, but any more than 5 might be considered long, depending on who you're talking to.

If a float is very...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Interweave
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1632505533
• ISBN 13: 9781632505538
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 168
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: SC; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/; ; CL MODESTO LAFUENTE 41; Madrid; Madrid; Spanien