Club in Hexagon

Club in Hexagon is the third in the collection in Furballs' Deck of Cards.  It is also most dragged one to write for me.

Club has even more details than spade, and to limit in a framework of Hexagon of a certain size (I need to fit the size to the other coasters in the set), and I was doubting I could do it.  Just like everything, anticipation is 90% of the whole thing lol.  Once I started, I did not find it too hard to make up an illusion pattern that I like and look like a club.

To my surprise, the difficult part is not the club shape but the hexagon frame work.  Although on the chart, it looks hexagon, when knitted out, it looks more like oval than hexagon pre block.  So May be I should call the pattern "Club in Oval", so blocking is recommend to obtain shape.  For hexagon shape to make it perfect, I think either to knit it bigger in flat or do short row one with center point.  The short row one will be perfect without blocking but I do not even knot where to start with the illusion pattern lol

Club in Hexagon is now available in my Ravelry store.

Happy knitting :)

Spade in Triangle

So with the Heart in Circle completed, I went and worked on Spade in Triangle.  In this pattern, I tried to put a slightly more delicate illusion image in a piece of knitted fabric other than a square or rectangle.

I do not know why but when search for spade and illusion knitting in Ravelry, nothing came up which mean 90% chance that it is not being done before in published pattern there. Could it be because of the difficulty of the making up an illusion pattern for that shape or for some other reasons I do not know?  Oh well, I said to myself let tried it out. Do something that is "not popular" might be a challenge and I really think making the coaster / dishcloth in a set is really nice idea.

The shape of a spade has finer details than a heart and it really took me a few trials to find the fine balance between the size of the spade and the details shown. Obviously a spade is an upside down heart with a stalk, and it is the attachment of this stalk that took me the longest time. 

This pattern is very easy to follow and option to use basic stitches is given (yes, there is the "proper" version and the "happy keep going" version lol)

Spade in Triangle is now available in my Ravelry store.

Happy Knitting :)

Heart in Circle

It all started with an abstract concept dishcloth.  I had chosen the stitch pattern and knitting techniques, and that included illusion / shadow knitting.

Now, my experience in illusion knitting was just knitting up a scaredy cat dishcloth following a free pattern on Ravelry.  At the time, the link between the knit and purl combo and the pattern it created was not there.

So in order to make my dishcloth creation reality, I went and tried learning illusion knitting.  After watching a video on illusion knitting, and slept on it for a night, I went and wrote up the heart pattern from scratch.  Got it in my second trial :) It is heart in a rectangle.  I wrote down the pattern for my own interest, but since there are so many heart in rectangle illusion knitting patterns, free or paid, out there. I will not join in the circus lol

And then ambition rose, and naturally tried my hand on some other images.  Spade, club and diamond came to mind immediately.  Once I made up the spade, I then relooked at the heart one.  After a little research on illusion knitting and dishcloth, I find that illusion knitting patterns for dishcloth / coaster are usually in square or rectangle.  So I think it will make a contribution to the knitting pattern world to write and publish illusion knitting (no matter how simple the pattern is, things always start small) outside of the square and rectangle, and there came the Heart in Circle.

Heart in Circle is the first of the four (4) patterns in the collection, Furballs' Deck of Cards.  The illusion heart is centre in a flat knitted disc to make a medium size coaster good for beer mug or bowl for snack during a friendly card game.  It does not take a lot of yarns to make and good to use up those small yarn balls left with big projects.

Heart in Circle is now available in my Ravelry store.

Happy knitting :)

Calico Furball

Calico Furball was written up in December 2017 and tested later but never got to the revision stage.  So finally, taking a break from knitting and creating, I took another look at the pattern with a fresh eye. I made some improvements with the goal to make it easier to follow and less guess work for inexperience knitters.  With that, I redid some of the photos to accompany the new instructions.

It uses modular knitting technique by adding one triangle after another to form the square.  To give this piece a modern look, I avoid using the traditional edge border to tame the curling edges but instead use "selvedging" in such a way that the curling is within control and forming a near to cliff like border (above).  It also added in stitch patterns for the triangle to make the piece looks more interesting, not just visually, but also for the knitting experience.  The patterns are specially chosen to match each other in stitch length and height so as to maintain a square appearance.  Each triangle is knitted a bit different and thus so many pages in the pattern.  The surface texture is very rich and the ridges make it a good a scrubbing type dishcloth.  It is also suitable to be used as hot pad  / coaster.
 

 

It is written for one colour only, but do not let it stop your creativity.  Adding colours is possible (above), and to me, the lazy way out is to use variegate (above) or striped yarns (below) :)
 

 

Calico Furball is now available in my Ravelry store.

Happy knitting

High Level CopyFurball

Think I am knocking out two patterns from one though I am not saving any creative juice nor time to write up the pattern.

High Level CopyFurball is conceived as a dishcloth pattern to highlight (guess in a very strict term, copy and reuse) the chaotic woven fabric stitch which I fall in love with.  I like the look it builds up and it retain the feel of tradition woven fabric stitch.

It will be too boring to just have the stitch pattern repeated so many times to make a square dishcloth.  I wanted more excitement and gave it a new look comparing to where it morphed from (More Heart from Furballs).  So I tried to pair it up with another stitch pattern and it was not that easy.  The woven fabric stitch has the characteristic of shrinking at all direction so when merging with another pattern, special care is needed to retain a straight edge up and down.  I finally took the easy way out and decided on linen stitch.  And with linen stitch, I just could not but knitted it in at least two colours.  It is a match in heaven. 

The free and disorganized chaotic woven fabric stitch contrast well with the highly organized and delicate linen stitch.  The best part is that they are both in the category of woven fabric stitch, so maintaining the tension and stitch number across the row to knit into a square / rectangle piece is a breeze.

If you like the fabric feel of the linen stitch, but are tired of knitting the linen stitch every time, and want some variation, High Level CopyFurball is for you.

The pattern is now available in my Ravelry store.

Happy knitting

Love is in the Air

Maybe it is springtime, my furballs (although they are both fixed) would love to send out more love to people around them.

More Hearts from Furballs is a continuation from another dishcloth, From Furballs with Heart.  The latter I have not published yet.  I do not know why but do not think it is good time for it.

There is a long story in the creation of More Hearts from Furballs.  Starting with some negative energy from the virtual digital world, I tried to prove that creation / design is not about copying old stitch pattern and giving it a different colour work.  There is no added value in those patterns whether they are free or paid, and if they are paid patterns, (sigh).

After doing a little research, I found the woven fabric stitch.  I think the characteristic is that there will be yarn in front of the slip stitch in the stitch pattern and thus creating a woven pattern.  The stitch also makes a very nice feel in the hand.  I then proceeded into some causal and random knitting of the stitch to try out some strange combination and eventually settled with the woven fabric stitch in More Hearts from Furballs.  I was totally captured by the texture this stitch created visually and that it retained the classic woven fabric feel.  I named the stitch Chaotic woven fabric stitch because I can not yet find a visual or pattern match to mine.  It might be known as something different to you.

The next step was to pair it up with other stitches to create an interesting surface and this proved slightly more challenging.  After several trial, eventually came up with a nice heart edge to finish the cloth. I also added in colours to make the cloth visually more interesting.  The piece could be knitted in one (1), two (2) or three (3) colours.  The pattern is basically written for three (3) colours with six (6) yarn tails to weave in.

Half of the dishcloth is in the Chaotic woven fabric stitch giving a very interesting look, the other half is mainly the interaction between stockinette and reverse stockinette stitches.  I also put in picot stitch to highlight the hearts motifs and stop the stockinette rolling with some beautiful hatch stitches. To top it up, the two half pieces and the edge is knitted in different direction, so the Chaotic woven fabric stitch look even more intrigue.

This dishcloth knit pattern is now available in my Ravelry store.

Hope you enjoy this new pattern and happy knitting :D

My Sprouting Catnips

Spring time should be here any minute and My Sprouting Catnips is a way to celebrate the warmer weather to come.

I love the curves in the pattern that is framed by a garter stitch edge square.  I love the curves so much I decided to squeeze in three stalks - one full and two partial, instead of two full stalks.  The reverse stockinette leaves wonderfully stand out from the background and fit well with the slip stitch cable stalk.

When I was designing it, I had a confidence problem knitting the wrong side rows.  This pattern is very compact and busy, so it does not have any rest row and each row, be it the right side or wrong side, has a change in stitch pattern.  It is not that difficult when knitting the right side as I can see the change, but the wrong side, oh well, it is like turning the piece every few stitches to make sure all the knits and purls fall in the right place.

This pattern is now available in my Ravelry store.

Happy knitting :)