Okay, awful pun, but I couldn’t resist. And it harkens back to the seventh Harry Potter book. You know what I’m talking about.
Anyway. At the Ignite Craft conference I got to talking to Diane Ivey, owner of Lady Dye Fiber Arts. She was giving a presentation as well and we spent some time trading ideas before the audience showed up. Of course, since we were both about to present at a conference put on by a fiber guild, we started talking about knitting. I told her about my knitted canvasses and asked if she had any suggestions for patterns. I had brought a pair of needles and some yarn, assuming that I would start knitting something new that night.
After naming a few I had tried, Diane told me to do this: yarn over, knit two together, knit one across the row and then purl on the way back.
I had seen something like this online before (of course I can’t find it now) but as soon as I started knitting and saw holes I assumed that I was doing it wrong. With Diane there to show me, I quickly saw that I was actually doing it right, that I was actually taking my first stab at a simple lace pattern. Over the past week or so I’ve completed my next canvas. I took a few liberties with the pattern, reversing it in the middle to get a nice zig-zag, and finally cast off tonight.
I’d thought of doing a lace pattern for my knitted canvasses before but I’m not sure how exactly I would paint on a canvas with holes in it. Then again, I wasn’t sure how I could paint on a canvas that I knitted either. Sometimes there isn’t an answer until you try it.