As I mentioned last week, one of the most pleasant new fashion trends this year is the move towards fresh and feminine florals. I love the light loveliness that florals bring to everything from floaty tunics to boho denim jackets. It’s a fun and interesting challenge to think how we might bring the floral trend into our knitting.
Things that have been catching my eye lately are the rich and whimsical embroidered knits popping up here and there, both as commercial products and as embellishments for hand knits. They range from tiny gardens of naive flowers to fantastical studies in riots of color.
DUPLICATE STITCH
The most common way to add color to the surface of knitted fabric is the tried and true duplicate stitch. It’s easy and can be added as an afterthought to hand or commercially knitted pieces. Applied strands of colored yarn mimic the look of knitted stitches, effecting the appearance of fair isle or intarsia knitting. Duplicate stitch is often used for monogramming or pulling forth little details, but can often be inventive and exciting when combined with traditional techniques, as with the Blackberry Socks.
You’ll want to use a blunt needle to avoid splitting the knitted stitches and you’ll want to work in yarn that is the same or similar to the knitted yarn in order to maximally cover the existing stitches. Here’s a great tutorial on the Duplicate Stitch.
CLASSIC EMBROIDERY
Traditional embroidery and crewel techniques evoke the hand-art traditions of the middle East, India and Native America and the connections that gave rise to the memorable “hippie” look of the 1960’s. Often used effectively on flat fabrics such as Stockinette stitch, classic embroidery techniques can be combined beautifully with other knitted techniques such as cables. For me, embroidery is a sweet memory of poking my fingers while learning the lazy daisy and blanket stitch at my Mother’s knee or in Home Ec class.
Remember these standard stitches? I gave my memory quite a work out as I embroidered my Jardin Fingerless Mitts. MyModernMet.com offers some very cute free embroidery designs in a variety of stitches.
Here’s a great resource for some classic embroidery stitches. Want to go a little further? Check out this great new book, “Boho Embroidery” by Nichole Vogelsinger.
No matter how far you want to take your embroidered knits, here are a few useful tips:
- Choose the weight, texture and content of embroidery yarn very carefully. Too thin a yarn will sink in to the knitted stitches, too thick a yarn will stretch and distort the background fabric.
- Make sure the care properties of the embroidery yarn match those of its host.
- Not too tight! Keep checking your work to make sure embroidery is not causing base fabric to pucker.
- Don’t use an embroidery hoop. This tends to stretch the knitted fabric.
- Use a non-fusible stabilizer on the wrong side of the design. Baste it in place, then cut it away once embroidery is complete.
- To transfer complex designs, use water soluble stabilizer on the front of your work. This product comes in a few incarnations. Choose one in sheet form with a peel-away backing; they’re compatible with your computer’s printer. Once printed or hand drawn, you can cut out your design leaving a margin and stick it right on to your knitted fabric. Stitch right through it, then peel off the excess. The rest will dissolve when you block.
Til next time, Happy Knitting!
