Comments on: Decreasing To Taper A Sleeve

By: christine

christine — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 17:28:14 +0000

Lucia!
I swear, your blog is the greatest! You are a total god-send to the knitting community! Thank you so much for sharing everything on here! I had you linked a long time ago, and I thought that your blog was dead! So now I have ALOT of reading to do, catching up! Thank you again for being so incredibly cool, sharing, smart and informative!
I would definately like to buy some software, but am totally lost. If you have any suggestions.. Is there one that I can put in my ideas and it will do the math for me? (I’m terrible with math) I don’t want one of those “you HAVE to choose from these 2 styles” one..
I was just given an ez-knitter, I have NO idea what to do with it!!!!
Love, Christine

By: lucia

lucia — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 17:39:53 +0000

It was dead! I started in April… then did nothing. Then, I started blogging again. I think it took me a while to really figure out what to blog about. So, I just show what I need to do as I knit. I also read questions that come up over and over again on the knit list.

Thanks for the compliment on the blog.

As to software…

There’s really nothing that just “takes an idea” and comes up with a pattern. But, some software lets you have more choices, and some less.

I have an old version Design a Knit (DAK), but I rarely use it — that’s mostly because I want to write up these generators for people. My version of DAK doesn’t write out directions in words, just diagrams and row-stitch count charts. Machine knitters often love this, but I don’t think hand knitters like it.

I haven’t tried any other software!

But, out of curiosity, what are you wanting to design? I could step you through it.

By: christine

christine — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 21:04:59 +0000

I just wanted something that would do the math for me.
But, however, I WILL be taking you up on your offer with help! Although I have nothing in the works right now, my hands are killing me the past few days…But I will be sketching out some things this week or next.
I’m having trouble with lace and decreasing, any suggestions? Every time i try to decrease (usually on the outer edges) it comes up wonky and with the same amount of stitches!
What is you shimmery yarn? I knitted that top with bastard patton’s brilliant, only to find out that Rowan makes a WAY nicer one! Drat!

By: lucia

lucia — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 21:15:09 +0000

The shimmery yarn is 1 strand of Sinfonia mercerized cotton knit with 1 strand of “Omega metallic nylon thread”. This ends up just a little shimmery. The metallic sort of glints out of the ivory.

This stuff is inexpensive! I definitely like inexpensive, especially for summer. I don’t want to wear something expensive (or difficult to wash) at most summer events.

I rarely hand knit lace, but when I do, I make sure I add an extra selvage stitch. What to do exactly about the increase? I guess it depend on the lace pattern. But, mostly, I leave the added edges stitches in stockinette until I have enough to finish a pattern repeat. (Or, at least fall somewhere in the repeat where I can “know” what to do. )