The Knitting Fiend

I’ll be using two stitch patterns in my next “original” design for Jim’s sweater: “Welt Leaf Pattern” and “X-and-Diamond Border”. Both are fairly simple knit-purl combinations with 8 stitch repeats and appear on page 36 of Barbara Walker’s “Treasury of Knitting Patterns”.

Because I like following knitting charts, I charted out “Welt Leaf Pattern”, it’s shown below the right. (If you have trouble reading charts, refer to How to read knitting charts. If you scroll to the bottom, you can find all 7 articles in that series.)

I’m planning a simple drop sleeve sweater for Jim. The chest will measure 40″ around. So, the body will just be one big tube up to the armholes. Tonight, I plan to calculate out the body and cast on the ribbing.

Later this week, I’ll explain how to organize the two stitch patterns– which pretty much involves centering the two patterns. There’s not much to doing it, but my philosophy is: There is always a newbie knitter out there who wants to know. Why not post the tutorial?

Who knows, if I get ambitious I’ll make a podcast!

---

Blogging tip: I get about 600 visits a day when people search for knitting tips using Google or other search engines and I also make some money with this blog. Not a fortune– but more than most knitting bloggers. How does this happen? Well, it’s partly due to using few “tricks” Two are used in this article:

• Tip 1: Notice how I linked back to my previous article about reading charts? Linking back is helpful for the reader. It also reminds Google that page exists and is about reading knitting charts! (This is called a ‘SEO tip’ because it has to do with pleasing a search engine.)
• Tip 2: Notice that the first time I mention Barbara Walker, her name is linked her knitting books at Amazon.com? That link helps knitters find all her knitting stitch pattern books, which quite frankly, most avid knitters eventually buy. If they happen to buy after clicking my link, I make a few bucks.

  But neither of those two are the tips! The tip is this: I inserted that automatically using a free Wordpress plugin called “aLinks”. I described how to use aLinks at Big Bucks Blogger. (I can write a better tutorial at anyone’s request. ) Do you want to see how powerful that plugin is. Look at this: Elizabeth Zimmerman! I didn’t code that: aLinks did.

---

Tonight, I cast on!