Knitting

Free Patterns, Tutorials and Project Ideas

Pin of the Week: Drop Stitch Primer

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drop stitch knittingI think this may be the first time my pin of the week from my Knitting Pinterest board is actually something I pinned in the last week, but I’ve had lace knitting on the brain lately, and working with drop stitches is an even easier way to get an open, lace-like look, without the effort of keeping track of yarn overs and decreases.

Daria at Diary of a Creative Fanatic has a great roundup of resources and patterns using drop stitches, which you should check out if you’ve never used drop stitches in your knitting before, and even if you have. She covers a few basic ways to make drop stitches (including one of my favorites, seafoam stitch) and links to lots of free patterns using the technique.

I think I may just have to add that drop stitch tunic from Vogue Knitting to my to-knit list really soon. Too cute!

Have you ever used drop stitches? I’d love to hear what you think of them.

Comments

  1. I think your picture and explanation of the stitches and very clear and concise. Thank you for the information. I may work up the courage to try them now.

  3. Thank you so much for the shoutout to my site “Diary of a Creative Fanatic.com”.
    I appreciate the support and will be posting more knitting stitch primers in the future as well as crochet.

Have you read?

Knit a Log Cabin Blanket with All Your Scraps

I guess I must have had this pattern on my mind, because I had chosen this log cabin blanket recipe to write about, promptly forgot about it and a couple of weeks later started knitting a log cabin blanket using all my pink yarn. 

It might stay pink if it makes it to baby blanket sized, or I might add in some pastel green and blue, too, to make a bigger blanket. We’ll see. I’m also holding several strands of yarn together to make a kind of bulky yarn, which means it’s deeply satisfying how much yarn is used even as the project is still relatively small. 

In Kristen Finlay’s version, DK weight yarn scraps (or fingering/sock yarn held double) are used to make a simple scrappy log cabin blanket that’s lighter weight than my version. Log cabin is a great technique for knitters of any skill level because it’s worked in garter stitch. The only not completely basic technique you need for log cabin knitting is picking up stitches. 

If you’ve never worked a log cabin knitting project before, this is a good introduction, and it is really nice to use all your yarn scraps in one big project you’ll use for years to come. 

If you use a lot of DK weight yarn you can keep building on it whenever you finish a project, or if you use more worsted weight you can do the same thing with it, it will just be a little bigger starting out than the pattern calls for. How big it gets is totally up to you. 

I have really been enjoying working on my log cabin project, and it’s my current sitting at my desk and need a break knit (do you have one of those or is it just me?). 

Ready to start your own log cabin blanket knitting project? You can grab the free pattern from Kristen Finlay on Ravelry. 

Need more log cabin inspiration? Check out more log cabin knitting patterns. 

[Photo: Kristen Finlay]