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06/13/2006 Archived Entry: "Knitting Flat or In The Round"

Kim Salazar writes one of my favorite knitting weblogs at String or Nothing. She's entertaining and scholarly! Right now she's doing a series of posts on issues regarding knitting in the round vs knitting flat.

• Part 1: "To go from round to flat, there are two big things to take into consideration - the garment shape and the knitting texture or colorwork pattern used. In order to transform a seamless thing into a knit-flat thing, seams must be introduced. Sometimes figuring out where to put them can be a challenge. The sweater I'm working on now is of very simple construction, but even it presents a challenge."
• Part 2: "As in so many things, ideology does play a part. You can find books written in the 1940s through 1960s that sniff at knitting in the round, calling it 'peasant work' or noting it in passing as the dreary ancestor of more modern applications. And you can find books written by knitting revivalists that excoriate the torture of imposing tailored seamed construction on a medium that has so many virtues in its most simple form. I'm dogma-agnostic. I use whichever method is best for me to produce the project at hand. Which brings me to the real reason why I think patterns are written one way or the other: It's what the pattern's author/designer is most comfortable with."
• Part 3: "In general, first I'd begin reading the pattern and noodling out how to deal with it's tougher parts. This sounds like a dumb thing to say, but I know lots of people who knit with the 'headfirst off the pier' approach. They grab needles and yarn and start in without taking the time to work through the piece mentally and to make sure they understand it. While this step can be less intensive if you're knitting something verbatim as written, if you're translating between flat and circular knitting not taking the time to really understand the original can be fatal to your project. I'd also point out that if you are knitter who rarely reads ahead, you are far more trusting than I. I've found lots of patterns that were poorly written or confusing. At the very least, knowing ahead of time that rocks are in the stream makes the the rapids less of a surprise."

(tags: KimSalazar, Knitting, StringOrNothing)