Anyway, as I was knitting this new dishcloth I was watching the design pop up so nicely and I started thinking about the various emails I get about knitters having trouble with the design showing up. It’s usually a variation of the same theme: they can’t see the design. The purl bumps don’t pop up.

I have given this A LOT of thought over the last year. And done quite a bit of experimentation. With my normal knitting style, I have no trouble whatsoever getting the design to show up. When I block my dishcloths, I don’t need to pick at the purl bumps to pull them up into place to see them better. I am just blocking them to make the corners a little more square and so they will lay flat for a photo. The design is already nice and puffy.

A couple of years ago I was having test knitters help me out and I had a couple of test knitters whose dishcloths were simply gorgeous! I asked them, what are you doing to make the design pop out so well? The answer was nothing! They didn’t use small needles, they didn’t use special blocking techniques. One test knitter said she barely had to block her dishcloth at all.

I began experimenting with knitting the dishcloths. My usual style to knit my cloths is to use size 6 metal needles. Specifically, I use Knit Picks Options Interchangeable Nickel Plated Circular Needles. I have the set. I also have several additional short cables and size 6 tips.I should mention that I knit with the 6s even though I recommend the 7s for my patterns because I am a loose knitter. I knit Continental Style because it is much quicker and my tension is very even, but it is loose. I often have to go down a needle size to obtain the proper gauge. Way back when I first started designing the patterns I figured I should recommend size 7 needles since I use size 6. I have recently begun putting size 6 on my patterns but I may change all of that after all this experimentation.

I began knitting dishcloths using smaller tips: 5s and 4s and even went larger up to a 7. I tried using the Harmony wooden tips (I have the whole set of those as well) in a variety of sizes from 7 down to 4. I knit normally; I knit tightly.

Here is what I found:

The tighter you knit, the harder it is to see your design.

The smaller needles make a tight fabric. And you can make it even tighter by pulling the yarn tight. I tried it several different ways. But when you have a tight fabric, your purl bumps are also tight. They simply do not have enough give in them to pop up. As you knit you need to pull up on the loops of the purl bumps just enough to make them sit up on top of the fabric. You need to learn to knit just a little looser. Not a lot looser, but enough that you are not pulling the purls tightly and pulling them flat.

Some other  interesting things I found out:

Try knitting with metal needles versus wooden needles (if you’re using the dishcloth cotton yarn).

This one may just be specific to me. But I sort of think not. Cotton yarn is very “grabby” and simply refuses to slide along on the wooden needles. I found that I knit much tighter on the wooden needles. The purl bumps wouldn’t pop up at all when I knit with the wooden needles. I was pulling them flat because my knitting was tight. With the metal needles, everything slides along nicely and I was able to pull the loops up reasonably.

Smaller needles will get you rectangular cloths.

This is just more of a note for those of you who are using smaller needles to knit my dishcloths. I have not designed them to be knit that way. You will end up with a short rectangular cloth because there are not enough rows to compensate for the smaller needles. Every time I knit with the size 4s or 5s my dishcloths ended up rectangular. It was very annoying. Blocking helped some, but if you are going to use those super small needles, you should add a row or two of stockinette on each end between the border and the design.

It is possible to knit too loose to see the design.

I tried knitting very loosely. And I tried knitting with 7s. For me that’s pretty loose. Knitting with size 7s, I could still see the design, but only OK. Knitting super loose with size 7s things started to fall apart. I would estimate that would be the equivalent of  a knitter with regular tension knitting with almost 9s.

All of this comes down to individual knitting style.

I know that I will have knitters telling me that there is no way they will be able to see the design if they use larger needles (such as 6s or 7s) and others saying they just have to pull the yarn tightly. This was my experimentation. Done over a large number of cloths with a variety of needle sizes and two types (wooden and metal). I knit quickly in Continental style with a very even tension although it does tend to be loose. If you are having trouble seeing the design, try a different needle size, but don’t automatically assume you need to go smaller. Or check your tension. Change your needle type to help you loosen up. If you are a new knitter, try to train yourself to knit looser. It does get easier.

And now a picture I promised:

This is one of my latest designs. It’s from my new baby collection of dishcloth patterns. I’ve had this in the works for over a year now. I typed up the set of patterns in October; I just haven’t had a chance to knit them up until now. You can see this is unblocked and in progress and notice how the design just pops out. This wasn’t taken with any fancy lighting or camera. I just snapped it with my iPhone (no flash available) and I’m pretty amazed at how great it turned out.

Here’s another one:

I took this one with the tape measure because I get some email saying how my cloths aren’t 9 inches square – that they are much smaller, less than 8 inches. This is unblocked, unstretched, in progress. I’m using size 6 needles to knit it. Again taken with my iPhone so nothing fancy. It’s a little hard to see (if you click on the picture you’ll see it larger), but the tape measure shows that the cloth is very nearly 9 inches across.

Happy knitting everyone!

I know that I’ve been fairly quiet lately. I started a new full time job after Thanksgiving and that’s been a bit of an adjustment. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been teaching full time (over 9 years actually!) but I love my new job and I’m settling in.

I’ve started knitting up some new  dishcloth patterns and I have a bunch that are almost ready to add to the website and a lot more that are just waiting to be knitted up. I have to block some of the dishcloths I’ve knitted and take photos of others. I may have to resort to my old method of scanning the cloths for now, but I will take some decent pictures at some point as well.

I haven’t done a full count, but I think I have 7 or 8 new designs about ready to add to the site. I’ve been a little unorganized lately and I have to track them all down on the mess that my desk has become. For those that know me, you wouldn’t recognize my desk! I’m never as unorganized as this!

The mailing list….

For those of you who don’t know about it, I have a new mailing list. I have signed up with MailChimp to handle my mailing list and I LOVE them! It is so easy to use and it is easy for people to subscribe or unsubscribe (I hope you don’t want to!) at will.

You might want to sign up for the mailing list if you haven’t. I don’t email out very much and I’ve been considering setting up a Spring Fever sale – I am so tired of all this snow! If I run a sale that’s the only time I’ll send out a few more emails than usual (a couple a week versus almost none the rest of the time). You’ll be notified if I add any new patterns to the website, when I put patterns on sale and you’ll get exclusive coupon codes good for the website to take additional percentages off on your purchase.

You can sign up on the mailing list to the right of this post ———–> where it says “Newsletter Signup”. Your email is all that is required, but if you enter in your name then your emails will come to you as Dear____ with your name filled in. Fancy, right? I love new toys. And of course I will reassure you that I would NEVER sell, rent, share, or give away your name or email address to anyone. I hate spam just as much as you do.

As you can see I’ve given my site a beautiful makeover. I love the new colors and layout. To get to the pattern shop click on the link to the right and that will take you to all my patterns that I have for sale.

I have all the Holiday Patterns on sale right now….go check it out!

I’ll let you know about the Free Pattern of the Month first, since I’m sure that’s the one you’re all interested in.

Here’s a quick peek at it:

This is a rather cute – I think – little snail. I thought that everyone might like him here at the beginning of the summer as you’re getting ready to plant your gardens. We put our garden in this past weekend. Maybe knitting a snail will keep the little critters away from your garden! You can download this for Free by clicking on the picture above or by going to the Free page.

Here are some peeks at the other patterns that I added this evening. They are available to purchase for $1.49 each. You can find them all listed on the New Patterns category page.

Party Hat Dishcloth

Teapot Dishcloth

Ambulance Dishcloth

Dove #2 Dishcloth

Eighth Note Dishcloth

Sixteenth Note Dishcloth

Piano Keys #2 Dishcloth

Baritone or Tuba Dishcloth

I hope you enjoy these new patterns!

But I know that you are going to love the new designs! And I have a great surprise for you. One of the new cloths will be added as the Free Pattern of the Month.

I’m so excited to revive my tradition of giving away a new pattern each month. I know that I’m probably setting myself up for a bit of craziness announcing it out like this, but I love being able to have the Free Pattern of the Month.

For this month, I’m just going to post it on June 1st. Believe it or not, the pattern is actually already written and typed, tested and blocked; I just have to photograph it. I’m just going to tease you about it for these couple of days. But my goal is to get back into doing the monthly KALs that I once did to launch the free patterns. We’ll see if I actually make it that far. It’s always an adventure around here!

Check back in a couple of days to find out what the free pattern will be. I think you’ll like the picture. He’s just a cute little guy going along on his way. No more hints though…you’ll have to wait to find out!

I started my test knitters on whipping up the first batch of dishcloths. And as usual, there are already mistakes to fix and designs to correct. But I think by early next week I’ll have a nice new set of Musical themed dishcloths to add to the website.

The Spring sale that has been going on for the last month or so will be ending soon! If you’ve been eying some of those Springy patterns that are on sale, now is the time to grab them. I’ll run the Sale through Friday, and then the patterns will go back to regular price.

I’ve been super busy designing lots of new patterns. There will be a handful of music-themed patterns, a few more animals, and a couple of party patterns just to name some.

But when you do this much designing, eventually you have to type them up. So today I have to type up EIGHTEEN patterns!! Yes, that’s right. Eighteen new patterns are coming. I should add a little side note — I’ll have all of them provided they all look good once they are knitted up. You never know exactly how they are going to look until they have been knit.

This next week will be a knitting week!

I’ve been hard at work designing a big pile of new patterns. I have had a pile of designs that have been in half finished states for a long time.  Some of them have been nearly finished for over a year! One of them has been half test knitted and still on the needles for that long. I don’t even know where it is. I’ve spent the week sorting them out, getting them all into some state of organization and then realized I had quite a large pile of designs that were nearly done. I might need to call on some test knitters soon!

I’ve also been spending a significant amount of time working to redesign the Dishcloth Calendar website. I not only contributed a pattern to this year’s Calendar, but I help out Janet by maintaining the website. I love this new shopping cart that I’m using on my website that I want to switch over the Calendar website as well. And at the same time I’m trying to design a funky new look for it too.  We’ll see what I can come up with. If you haven’t checked out the Dishcloth Calendar, you might want to head over to the site and take a peek. It’s a wonderful collection of dishcloth patterns. We’re already beginning to think about the calendar for next year!

Since we’ve had so much snow lately where I am, I wanted to look forward to Spring. I’ve put a selection of Spring related patterns on sale. I picked some flower patterns and some of my favorite Springy patterns to help banish these Winter blues.

In designing news, now that I’ve gotten the website up and running and all the bugs worked out (fingers crossed!), I can get back to designing new patterns. I’m currently working on a series of music related patterns. First up will be a series of music notes, followed by a series of musical instruments. It’s been a long time since I’ve worked on any new patterns and I’m really enjoying it. I hope you’ll like them once they come out.

I have been working on making many changes to the site for the past week or so. You will find all of my patterns here; they have been re-categorized and tagged to make them easier to find. I also have a slightly different web address: both designs-by-emily.com and designsbyemily.com will work now.

One of the biggest changes is that my blog now shows up on the front page. This way I can make announcements and show off new patterns and customers won’t have to go digging for that information. Other new features to the shopping cart are the ability to put items on sale and a more streamlined checkout process. The download page keeps a record of all your downloads and how many times you have left available to download.

I’m very pleased with the changes to the site and I hope you will be too!