Finding Knitting Patterns

Knitting patterns have been used for year to make simple and complicated things for the house and lovely garments for all the family.

These usually show a few sizes and will have the smallest size first with the following sizes usually in brackets.

The wonderful part about knitting patterns is that they can look really complicated but they can be very easy to knit.

There are such a lot of patterns that use the basic knit and purl stitch and by altering the way these are knitted or slipped as the pattern will show results in more patterns.

These also can be altered to fit as people vary in sizes, arm and body lengths so remember to buy more wool if you are going to make the garment longer than the pattern suggests.

These can be bought from wool shops, on line retailers or many come free in magazines.

Knitting Patterns Explained.

The front cover of the pattern shows

• The picture of the item to be made in this case a baby cardigan
• It would also show the ply of wool needed and the type.

• On the inside of the pattern it would have the sizes and the amount of balls of wool needed for the design or designs if there were more than on on the pattern.
• It would also show the size of knitting needles required and any buttons required.
• It would give the abbreviations needed to make the garment.
• There would be an advise section on getting the right tension so the garment isn't too big or small.

Then the pattern will give you the steps for each of the section of the garment usually starting with the back.

Then it will give the steps for the left and right front in a cardigan or just the front if making a jumper. 

This will include a pattern example if there is one and it can look like this:

Row 1 "K.2, y.fwd. sl. 1, K.1,p.s.s.o. K.3, K.2 tog, y.fwd, K to end"

Row 2 "K.3  y.fwd. sl. 1, K.1,p.s.s.o. K.1, K.2 tog, y.fwd, K to end"

etc to the end of the pattern

The smaller size is usually at the front of the brackets with the larger ones following on inside the brackets. In this example as there were only 3 sizes one size is in round brackets and one size is in square brackets.

At the end of the pattern it will give guidance on how to join all the pieces together.

This 4 page leaflet really holds a lot of information and once you get to learn all the type of stitches, abbreviations you may be making patterns up of your own.

Many shopping outlets have patterns and wool for inspiration. 

Enjoy your knitting patterns.