Loom-Knit With SCALES
Oct. 9th, 2014 08:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenEver since I discovered the amazing knitting with scales done by Crafty Mutt, I've wanted to do it with crochet or loom-knitting, since I don't needle-knit. I looked in vain for a similar crochet tutorial as to the knit tutorial, but all I could find were these Etsy instructions that you had to pay for. And nothing about loom-knitting. (Yesterday, after I had already done my first experiment with loom-knit scales, I found this video about crocheting scales done by someone else. Timing, huh?)
But I have figured it out, all on my lonesome!
Look!
This was my 6th attempt.
Done on: AKB Sock Loom 2
Yarn: Bendigo Woollen Mills Murano "8-ply" purples
Scales: TRL small Aluminium scales, small black plastic scales.
How is it done? No, I'm afraid I don't have a video or a photo-tutorial for you. I'll just have to describe it.
1. Cast on however you like.
2. Do a few rows of rib stitch (KPKPKP...) (I did three in my sample). This is just to have a bit of an edge so that the scales don't dig into you. You can skip this it you like.
3. Do a row of your favoured knit stitch. I did e-wraps.
4. The First Scales Row!
I was doing this in the round, and I did half a round of non-scales and then half a round of scales.
a) Half a round of knit stitch.
5. The First Scale!
a) Start a traditional knit stitch: that is, hold the working yarn above the yarn which is on the peg, stick the pick up through the peg-yarn, and pull the working yarn down through the peg-yarn, making a loop.
b) Pull on the loop to make it longer.
c) Take a small scale and thread it onto the loop. That is, pinch the loop between your fingers so there's just a bit of it sticking out (as if it were folded piece of string) and poke that bit through the hole in the scale, then pull it through. If you prefer, you can thread the scale onto a crochet hook, and pull the loop through the hole in the scale with the crochet hook. Make sure that the convex side of the scale is facing towards you when you do this.
d) Push the scale down towards the pegs
e) Lift the stitch off the peg as you would with a traditional knit stitch. Lift it high enough that the scale is above the peg.
f) Move the scale behind the peg, and shove it into the gap between the knitting and the board. This is so that the scale will now be at the front of your work, not dangling somewhere in the back or sideways. This part can be tricky on a rectangular sock loom when you are on the corner, but you can use the pick to help you push it back and down.
g) Put the dangling loop over the empty peg.
h) Pull on the working yarn to make the loop snug.
i) E-wrap the peg (the same peg) and knit off. This extra stitch is so that the scale will have a little more wiggle-room and thus lay flat, instead of sticking up like a porcupine. If you want it to stick up like a porcupine, omit this step.
6. The Next Peg.
E-wrap the next peg and knit off.
7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 to the end of the row.
8. Do a round of your favoured knit stitch.
9. The Second Scales Row.
This adds scales the same way as above, but offset by one. That is, on an even-numbered scales-row, you add scales to even-numbered pegs and on odd-numbered scales-rows, you add scales to odd-numbered pegs.
That's about it.
It isn't perfect; there's a bit of a gap between some of the scales and they do wiggle a bit; I thought the wiggling was better than the porcupine. The gaps are probably a combination of the wiggling, and the fact that the gauge of a loom is fixed, and this loom is possibly just a teeny bit too big for the small scales. I certainly wasn't going to try this on my "Knifty-Knitter"-style looms, they would be way too big. They might be okay with large scales, though. Dunno.
I stuck with trying the loom-knitting instead of the crochet idea because I want to make scaled arm-warmers/bracers, and knitting is more elastic than crochet, and thus would stay on my arm better.
But I have figured it out, all on my lonesome!
Look!
This was my 6th attempt.
Done on: AKB Sock Loom 2
Yarn: Bendigo Woollen Mills Murano "8-ply" purples
Scales: TRL small Aluminium scales, small black plastic scales.
How is it done? No, I'm afraid I don't have a video or a photo-tutorial for you. I'll just have to describe it.
1. Cast on however you like.
2. Do a few rows of rib stitch (KPKPKP...) (I did three in my sample). This is just to have a bit of an edge so that the scales don't dig into you. You can skip this it you like.
3. Do a row of your favoured knit stitch. I did e-wraps.
4. The First Scales Row!
I was doing this in the round, and I did half a round of non-scales and then half a round of scales.
a) Half a round of knit stitch.
5. The First Scale!
a) Start a traditional knit stitch: that is, hold the working yarn above the yarn which is on the peg, stick the pick up through the peg-yarn, and pull the working yarn down through the peg-yarn, making a loop.
b) Pull on the loop to make it longer.
c) Take a small scale and thread it onto the loop. That is, pinch the loop between your fingers so there's just a bit of it sticking out (as if it were folded piece of string) and poke that bit through the hole in the scale, then pull it through. If you prefer, you can thread the scale onto a crochet hook, and pull the loop through the hole in the scale with the crochet hook. Make sure that the convex side of the scale is facing towards you when you do this.
d) Push the scale down towards the pegs
e) Lift the stitch off the peg as you would with a traditional knit stitch. Lift it high enough that the scale is above the peg.
f) Move the scale behind the peg, and shove it into the gap between the knitting and the board. This is so that the scale will now be at the front of your work, not dangling somewhere in the back or sideways. This part can be tricky on a rectangular sock loom when you are on the corner, but you can use the pick to help you push it back and down.
g) Put the dangling loop over the empty peg.
h) Pull on the working yarn to make the loop snug.
i) E-wrap the peg (the same peg) and knit off. This extra stitch is so that the scale will have a little more wiggle-room and thus lay flat, instead of sticking up like a porcupine. If you want it to stick up like a porcupine, omit this step.
6. The Next Peg.
E-wrap the next peg and knit off.
7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 to the end of the row.
8. Do a round of your favoured knit stitch.
9. The Second Scales Row.
This adds scales the same way as above, but offset by one. That is, on an even-numbered scales-row, you add scales to even-numbered pegs and on odd-numbered scales-rows, you add scales to odd-numbered pegs.
That's about it.
It isn't perfect; there's a bit of a gap between some of the scales and they do wiggle a bit; I thought the wiggling was better than the porcupine. The gaps are probably a combination of the wiggling, and the fact that the gauge of a loom is fixed, and this loom is possibly just a teeny bit too big for the small scales. I certainly wasn't going to try this on my "Knifty-Knitter"-style looms, they would be way too big. They might be okay with large scales, though. Dunno.
I stuck with trying the loom-knitting instead of the crochet idea because I want to make scaled arm-warmers/bracers, and knitting is more elastic than crochet, and thus would stay on my arm better.
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no subject
Date: 2014-10-09 05:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-09 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-09 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-09 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-09 09:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-09 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-10 10:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-10 11:36 am (UTC)I get the scales from The Ring Lord, though there are a few other places that sell them too.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-10 10:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-11 12:34 am (UTC)However, I'd better give you more options!
The Ring Lord, based in Canada, cheapest price per scale, but the scales start at bags of 100 scales (good for making armour with, but a bit too many for jewellery). Postage is $$. Notable exception to the bags-of-100-scales is their high-end scales; precious metals such as gold, silver, and the absolutely gorgeous Anodized Niobium: these are sold per-scale.
Blue Buddha Boutique, based in the USA, highest price per scale -- you could get a single Anodized Niobium scale from The Ring Lord for the same price as BBB sells Anodized Aluminium scales. However, the AA scales that BBB sell are not the same colours as TRL and they are very shiny, so they might be worth looking at. Like TRL, the postage is a significant factor.
Aussie Maille are based in Australia (as one would gather by the name), so the postage should be better than for the US or Canada. However, I think they are just re-selling TRL and BBB scales, so they are priced accordingly. AM sell their scales in bags of 10 or 20, which is a quantity better suited for jewellery.
Another alternative would be to buy scales which are not designed for chainmaille. Apparently, when modern maille-makers were first playing around with scales, they were using "spinner blades" (aka Spinnerbait blades) which are used to make fishing lures! Like the maille-scales, these are leaf-shaped, but the hole is MUCH smaller. But suitable for jewellery-making, since you'd still be able to string them onto things. That is, the spinner blades have a hole which is big enough to put one jump-ring through, but not two. Since scale-maille armour-making requires a hole big enough to get four jump-rings through it, that is why the scale-maille scales have such big holes. I have bought myself some spinner blades, but I haven't made anything with them yet. Another thing with the spinner blades, they come in a lot more shapes and sizes than the scale-maille scales. The colours... well, for standard blades, they're only in silver and gold (and sometimes in copper or gunmetal-black). However, I've come across a couple of US-based fishing-tackle sites which have beautiful coloured blades designed to confuse fishes by looking like other fishes, so they're in graduated shades of blue etc. Of course it's hard to tell from a photo as to whether those blades look as pretty in real life as they appear to on the screen -- they may actually look horribly cheap and fake when close up, I don't know. I haven't tried buying any of those coloured blades (yet).
The tricky thing with buying spinner blades is finding somewhere that sells the blades rather than just the lures that are made with the blades. I just did a quick google for .nz sites, and I can't find any that sell the blades themselves. 8-(
I thought I had bookmarked the Australian sites where I bought my blades, but I appear to have deleted the bookmarks for some reason. 8-(
no subject
Date: 2014-10-12 09:00 am (UTC)Thank you so much! I think the Aussie Maille scales might be different from the Ring Lord ones as they have uncoloured edges. I also got distracted by looking for patterns for necklaces and bracelets. I'll have to figure out what I want to make and what colours I want before I order anything, but that's incredibly helpful! [bookmarks]
Nico
On 11 October 2014 13:42, kerravonsen - DW Comment dw_null@dreamwidth.org wrote:
no subject
Date: 2014-10-12 09:20 am (UTC)Aussie Maille scales might be different from the Ring Lord ones as they have uncoloured edges
No, both the Ring Lord Anodized Aluminium scales and the Aussie Maille Anodized Aluminium scales have uncoloured edges. This is due to the way they are made; first the strips of aluminium are anodized, then the scales are punched out of them. Whereas with the Blue Buddha Boutique scales, they are punched first, and anodized afterwards, so the edges are coloured. TRL are slowly introducing the same kind of post-punched-anodized scales, but only with their large scales, not their small ones. And TRL also have lots of scales in other metals besides aluminium, and of course these ones don't have uncoloured edges, because they are their natural colour.
The reason I think Aussie Maille is buying from both sources is because Aussie Maille have a separate entry for "High quality Anodized Aluminium Scales", and these look like the ones from Blue Buddha Boutique.
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Date: 2014-10-09 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-09 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-09 04:09 pm (UTC)I am coming to the conclusion that You Tube is The place to go to for learning crafty stuff. REeading instructions are all very well but actually watching how something is done is far more instructional.
Having jumped on the loom band wagon I'm looking at your sock loom thing and thinking - so I can use the loom to crochet too!
no subject
Date: 2014-10-09 07:28 pm (UTC)It's good, yes, but I also like having written instructions as a reference, when I need to remind myself of a technique rather than learning it for the first time.
I'm looking at your sock loom thing and thinking - so I can use the loom to crochet too!
Um, no? What gave you that impression? I'm sure I didn't say that!
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Date: 2014-10-11 12:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-09 07:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-09 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-09 08:32 pm (UTC)