Knitting Letters into Patterns

By Cathie Beck

This book shares with you the letter patterns created by the author, Cathie Beck, using the basic knit and purl stitches. It will also explain how to use these patterns to make your own personalized scarves and blankets for your family and friends, which everyone always seems to love.

Be creative, and have fun with these patterns.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781499081404

Cathie Beck

Cathie Beck learned to knit when she was about twelve years old. She watched her mother and grandmothers make blankets, scarves, and quilts, and she wanted to learn herself, so her mother taught her to knit. She learned just the basic knit and purl stitches, and she had all she needed for the next twenty-five years to make the letter patterns in her scarves and blankets for family and friends.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Cathie Beck. 686566

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014918831

ISBN:   Softcover               978-1-4990-8139-8

             Hardcover              978-1-4990-8138-1

             EBook                    978-1-4990-8140-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 07/07/2015

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Scarves

Blankets

Other Ideas

Bonus

Letter Patterns

Number Patterns

Why Us

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my parents, Jerry and Diana; my husband, Chris; and my close family members who have encouraged me for years to do this after receiving many of their own personalized blankets and scarves from me.

Thank you for believing in me.

Love always

Introduction

Introduction

This book is for people who already have a basic knowledge of knitting and doing the knit and purl stitches. These are the only two stitches you will need to make all the letter patterns in this book. The patterns are on pages 42 to 79.

The knit stitch has a smooth side on the front and a bump side on the back of the project; while the purl stitch has a bump side on the front and a smooth side on the back of the project. The knit and purl stitches are also called reversible stitches, which means the front side and the back side of a project are the exact opposites of each other. This is why these two stitches are perfect for any pattern you create in a scarf or blanket with no true hidden back side, like a sweater.

After learning to knit I made a couple of rather plain blankets so I started playing around with making patterns with the knit and purl stitches like: 10 x 10 alternating squares of knit and purl; and a square inside a square pattern. Then I decided I wanted to make a blanket for my dad for a present but I wanted to personalize it somehow. I wanted to write in it but I was not sure how. I had made my own patterns for my 10 x 10 squares, and square inside a square patterns so why not make my own patterns for the letters of the alphabet, so I did.

The letter patterns are based on a rectangle 12 stitches wide and 16 stitches long and are all capital letters. The letters consist of two parts: (1) the letter part and (2) the background part. When I make my letters I prefer to make the front side of the project with the letter part as a purl stitch and the background part as a knit stitch. When you do it this way the letters are raised up off the background. If you do it the opposite way, with the letter part as a knit and the background part as a purl, then the letters sink into the background. Either way you wish to do it is completely up to you and based on your personal preference.

Letter part is the portion of the 12 x 16 rectangle that actually makes the letter, represented in the letter patterns by the color RED.

Background part is the portion of the 12 x 16 rectangle that is the empty part or extra space of the rectangle and does not include any part of the letter, represented in the letter patterns by the color BLUE.

From now on when talking about the letter patterns we will refer to them as their parts: (1) the letter part and (2) the background part. The reason for this is twofold: (1) your personal preference of using the knit and purl stitches and (2) the front side and the back side of the project the stitches switch. What I mean by switch is if you do the front side of the project with the letter part as a purl stitch and the background part as a knit stitch then on the back side the letter part will be a knit stitch and the background part will be a purl stitch.

Important things to remember when knitting these letter patterns:

A) If you start row 1 of the pattern knitting from left to right then row 2 of the pattern you will be knitting from right to left and row 3 will go back to left to right again. This seems like common sense when you already know how to knit, but you are also used to looking at letters in a regular view. Half the time you are knitting the letters you are looking at them in a mirrored view or backwards!

You need to remember to READ the pattern the same way you are knitting it. If you are knitting the name MATT and row 1 is going from left to right then you will knit MATT the same way. But for row 2 you will be knitting from right to left and the name will be knitted as TTAM, mirrored! So remember to Read and Knit your pattern in the same direction. This will make more sense when you actually do it, I promise.

B) When we all learned to write letters we learned to start at the