the wonders of modular knitting
Oct. 21st, 2006 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snugglekittySo, I have been doing a little experiment with modular knitting. I read the book Modular Knits which turned out to be very cool. I had made plans to try making a shawl out of an old sweater. The sweater was a variegated rose, with thick and thin yarn, bulky weight. Very nice. From the minute I saw it, I knew I had to have it. I wanted to try a new technique with it, so I decided would do modular knitting. (What is that? How does it work? Basically, you make a bunch of pieces that are the same size and shape and then connect them in order to make whatever it is you want to make.) The cool thing about this is that it's very flexible. You can make major alterations to the project right up to the point where you connect the pieces.
So, I started making half-squares. According to the quilting books I've perused, half squares are the most flexible of all quilting shapes. There are so many ways they can be put together. I started by casting on one stitch, then adding a stitch at the end of each row. This makes a right triangle, the cast-off edge is the hypotenuse. I stopped the first triangle when the height was six inches, and counted the number of stitches on the needles - 24. I cast off. For each subsequent triangle, I just kept increasing until I had 24 stitches on the needles.
I knitted up most of the frogged sweater this way, and discovered that I just didn't have enough to make a shawl. However, I do need a new scarf to go with my new (to me) winter coat. When I laid the triangles in a scarf configuration, rather than a shawl configuration, there were plenty to go around.
Today I went out and bought yet another sweater to frog, to use as a contrasting yarn. I will use it to sew the pieces of my scarf together, and to make a fringe. I'm hoping that I have enough rose yarn to make myself a matching hat. If I don't, I will at least use it as a contrasting yarn on a hat and mitten set with the brown yarn. We'll see what happens.
So, I started making half-squares. According to the quilting books I've perused, half squares are the most flexible of all quilting shapes. There are so many ways they can be put together. I started by casting on one stitch, then adding a stitch at the end of each row. This makes a right triangle, the cast-off edge is the hypotenuse. I stopped the first triangle when the height was six inches, and counted the number of stitches on the needles - 24. I cast off. For each subsequent triangle, I just kept increasing until I had 24 stitches on the needles.
I knitted up most of the frogged sweater this way, and discovered that I just didn't have enough to make a shawl. However, I do need a new scarf to go with my new (to me) winter coat. When I laid the triangles in a scarf configuration, rather than a shawl configuration, there were plenty to go around.
Today I went out and bought yet another sweater to frog, to use as a contrasting yarn. I will use it to sew the pieces of my scarf together, and to make a fringe. I'm hoping that I have enough rose yarn to make myself a matching hat. If I don't, I will at least use it as a contrasting yarn on a hat and mitten set with the brown yarn. We'll see what happens.
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Date: 2006-10-26 02:51 pm (UTC)