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knitting on looms
Nov. 5th, 2009 12:50 pmSummary of situation to date: because of physical restrictions (i.e. I can baaaarely brush my fingertips together) and a complete inability to knit continental, I have switched to using knitting looms.
The end product is pretty much the same. The process is completely different.
I started with a hat (that I will probably never wear) and the basic stitch for looms, which I think translates to a twisted knit stitch. Or something. It was fairly easy to grasp conceptually, took a bit of practice to get right in practice, and the tension in the hat is uneven and the gauge is horrid.
You can't really control the gauge much, because the pegs are fixed in position, and if you use (as I did) worsted-weight yarn on a loom that is really meant for bulky-weight, you end up with big gaps between the loops. It comes out looking kind of like k1p1 rib, except it's not, because there wasn't any purling.
The basic stitch is easy. Given a row of existing stitches on the pegs, you loop the yarn around each peg, lift the old stitch over the new stitch and off the peg, and the new becomes old for the next round.
Doing a proper knit stitch, or a purl stitch, is a lot less easy, and almost reminds me more of crocheting, which I cannot for the life of me do, than knitting.
Doing any sort of trick stitch -- increase, decrease, any kind of lace or pattern stitch -- isimpossible extremely not easy.
I've found http://loomknittinghelp.com/ which has instructions for different sorts of cast-ons, stitches, and bind-offs, which is useful ... but still not useful enough. Especially for lace patterns. I could probably manage (yo k2tog) without a problem, because it's just a matter of moving a stitch over, wrapping the empty peg, and wrapping the double peg as one stitch. Even feather-and-fan, which involves just k2tog and yo (but not adjacent), is probably doable; before working the row, adjust the old stitches appropriately.
But what about, say, lace patterns that have different numbers of stitches depending on the row? Do I start out with empty pegs in the middle of the knitting (and if so, doesn't that rather result in gaps and weird tension stuff), or do I double up stitches on pegs, and if the latter, *how*? do the top stitch, move it over one, do the bottom stitch, and move the top back?
... argh, etcetera.
The end product is pretty much the same. The process is completely different.
I started with a hat (that I will probably never wear) and the basic stitch for looms, which I think translates to a twisted knit stitch. Or something. It was fairly easy to grasp conceptually, took a bit of practice to get right in practice, and the tension in the hat is uneven and the gauge is horrid.
You can't really control the gauge much, because the pegs are fixed in position, and if you use (as I did) worsted-weight yarn on a loom that is really meant for bulky-weight, you end up with big gaps between the loops. It comes out looking kind of like k1p1 rib, except it's not, because there wasn't any purling.
The basic stitch is easy. Given a row of existing stitches on the pegs, you loop the yarn around each peg, lift the old stitch over the new stitch and off the peg, and the new becomes old for the next round.
Doing a proper knit stitch, or a purl stitch, is a lot less easy, and almost reminds me more of crocheting, which I cannot for the life of me do, than knitting.
Doing any sort of trick stitch -- increase, decrease, any kind of lace or pattern stitch -- is
I've found http://loomknittinghelp.com/ which has instructions for different sorts of cast-ons, stitches, and bind-offs, which is useful ... but still not useful enough. Especially for lace patterns. I could probably manage (yo k2tog) without a problem, because it's just a matter of moving a stitch over, wrapping the empty peg, and wrapping the double peg as one stitch. Even feather-and-fan, which involves just k2tog and yo (but not adjacent), is probably doable; before working the row, adjust the old stitches appropriately.
But what about, say, lace patterns that have different numbers of stitches depending on the row? Do I start out with empty pegs in the middle of the knitting (and if so, doesn't that rather result in gaps and weird tension stuff), or do I double up stitches on pegs, and if the latter, *how*? do the top stitch, move it over one, do the bottom stitch, and move the top back?
... argh, etcetera.