![\"DragonHide\"](\"http:\/\/www.knitbot.org\/BlogHTML\/2007\/DragonHide\/DragonHideBlanket-sm.jpg\")
<\/a>\n<\/div>\n\nThe story is that I started out by thinking of making something Time passed, and the baby for which it was intended became more Two key facts drove my pre-design thinking:<\/p>\n I might have thought of doing something lacy with it, but for the fact So, I let the yarn lounge in my office for a while, hoping that it Which just left me with the small question of how to implement said Back to knitting… doing intarsia lozenges would have worked, but Of course, this meant I had to look up how to do entrelac (never having Here is the test piece, in progress:<\/p>\n Essentially — you knit each set of one colour rectangles across a row, This project travelled — it had at least one trip to Europe, and To clinch the dragon motif, I wanted to do the edging in triangles, \nNo, that is not<\/span> a logo<\/a>.<\/p>\n Finally, done, I tried it on my local dragon to see if I thought it had I’ve posted This baby blanket is a finished object from (much \ud83d\ude42 ) earlier this year… The story is that I started out by thinking of making something interesting with the knitting machine (and, at the time, I only had the standard … Continue reading
\ninteresting with the knitting machine (and, at the time, I only had the
\nstandard gauge machine — which meant I had to use very fine
\nyarn). So, I settled on a mess of Dale Baby Ull yarn in these,
\numm, vibrant<\/span> colours.<\/p>\n
\nimminent. At some point, it became clear to me that I and my
\nknitting machine were not going to be in the same place for long enough
\nfor me to do anything (interesting or otherwise) with it for this
\nproject. So, the question was — what to do with it by hand?<\/p>\n\n
\ngreat for a sock-sized project, but somewhat daunting for a 32″ blanket)<\/li>\n
\nthat my imagination was not coming up with anything that didn’t
\nemphasize the colours to the point of baby-frightening garishness. <\/p>\n
\nwould tell me a thing or two about what it wanted to become.
\nPresently, the notion of “dragon hide” wafted out of the bag of
\nyarn. Dragons are naturallly colourful creatures and the scale
\ntexture could add a lot of interest. <\/p>\n
\nscale effect… My first inclination was to try various shell
\neffects in crochet, but all I could produce was something akin to angry
\ngranny squares:<\/p>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\nwould have been fiddly and, I thought, too “flat”. Not so much
\nhide of dragon as sock of argyle. I knew “entrelac”
\nwould produce a basket weave effect. <\/p>\n
\ndone it). And very shortly thereafter, I was educating myself on
\nhow to knit\/purl backwards, so as to avoid having to flip the work for
\neach row of 6 stitches or less. Cool! Two new techniques in
\none project!<\/p>\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n
\nand then fill in the slots with the next colour, coming back the other
\nway in the next colour. Each rectangle is knitted as its own
\nunit, and is attached to the adjoining rectangles (working live
\nstitches or picking up edges) as you go. Pretty funky!<\/p>\n
\nprobably more than one cross-continent trip. And I wasn’t
\nentirely sure I was liking the progress as I went: still too
\ngarish? I’m not afraid to knit in public. But I wasn’t sure
\nI was ready to show anyone this particular project…!<\/p>\n
\nlike the ridge down a dragon’s back:<\/p>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\nachieved the desired dragon hide effect:<\/p>\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n
\nthis<\/a> in my drafty gallery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"