Nice stitch II

I love to find new useful stitches, it can really help you come out of a "knitter's block". This stitch is called linen stitch and I love it because it gives the feeling of woven fabric. The knitted piece becomes very dense, you might want to use a larger needle size than you normally do. Because of the density the stitch might not be suitable for garments. But I do recommend it for pieces like bags, shoulder straps for bags (or guitars!), placemats or even rugs.

It's quite simple too, like this:
Cast on an uneven number of stitches.
Row 1: [WS] K1, *p1, slip next stitch purlwise while holding yarn to the back, repeat from * to last 2 sts, p1, k1.
Row 2: [RS] * K1, slip next stitch purlwise while holding yarn to the front of the piece, repeat from * to the last st, k1.
Repeat Rows 1 and 2.

Right side

Wrong side

The other needle II: Crocodile stitch

I would like knit an airy top for kids with some crocodile stitch added too it. Why? Not sure... I don't remember how I came up with this idea. But I decided to give the crocodile stitch a go, it's been a while since I crocheted. I prefer the looks of knitted items but crochet works great for details and brims. And it's fun! Almost as fun as knitting...

I looked around and decided to use this tutorial by Teresa to learn the crocodile (or petal) stitch.  Even though it's not ideal to use a multicoloured yarn when you want to give a clear demonstration of a somewhat complicated stitch, I still think that she does the job and you quickly get the hang of it.

It was great fun to crochet this stitch and I got a little carried away, the swatch turned into a scarf.

Make your own yarn

Recycle t-shirts you don't use! Would love to try this. Only I don't have any t-shirts...

(letbirdzfly.blogspot.com)

Nice stitch!

I love this stitch but haven't tried it yet. I wonder what kind of pattern it would look good in? Would like to see it in something with a classic cut...

The Herringbone stitch:

Tutorial at newstitchaday.com.

Enter Entrelac

Except for knitting faster than I can do today, there is two more things that I really wish to improve. One is to master color knitting, to be able to knit with several colors at once. I never get satisfied with the result, it is quite uneven and bumpy, not to mention that the different strands always get tangled and make me nuts. Until I get better at it, I sometimes use self-striping yarn to make something really colorful.

The other thing I want to learn is the entrelac knitting. I've tried it once and didn't quite catch it. It just didn't work out, and I use to LOVE complicated patterns. So I decided that I should try another tutorial. There are quite a few instructions for entrelac on the web and I've singled out this one, it looks great, easy to follow and is free.

Entrelac Scarf Tutorial from KnittyOtter

AND then I made a search for both entrelac and self-striping yarn and found great examples of a successful combination. Just look at this beautiful entrelac scarf by Hikko. She made this with yarn from Noro. Knits like these really inspire me.

Entrelac Scarf by Hikko