HOWTO knit a skeleton cardigan

This week's CRAFT magazine video podcast shows how to make a knitting pattern for this killer skeleton cardigan. In the podcast, Becky Stern details how she takes an antique anatomical illustration and uses Photoshop to convert it into a gridded knitting pattern. Next week, she'll show how to make the back panel of the actual sweater.
Link (Thanks, PT!)

• [whizgirl]

  No. Not at all. All knitters live in a vacuum, never interacting with anything that is not knitting related. Oh, and we don’t have *any* other interests other than knitting. Yup. Knitting is my life. Only knitting.
  /sarcasm

  Sheesh.

• [Vin Edsel]

  that sweater is crap, you can’t even tell what it is hardly…

• [Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator]

  Vin, it’s taken from an antique anatomical illustration, the kind that has lots of fine black-and-white line work. It’s not a conventionalized representation of a skeleton.

  The method used to produce it is what’s interesting. Knitting stitches aren’t square. They’re taller than they are wide. If you just take a gridded image and knit it into a sweater, it’ll be distorted. Becky Stern has figured out how to make Photoshop turn images into undistorted knitting diagrams.

• [Patrick Dodds]

  I’m NAK (not a knitter) but to my eye that jumper is fugly. Sorry and all, but it really is.

• [Jeff]

  That’s right, instead of saying, “Yes, I’m a knitter,” the knitters get their knit panties all in a bunch. How typical. I was only wondering because most of the nerds I know, don’t knit.

• [Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator]

  JEFF, THIS IS THE MODERATOR. STEP AWAY FROM THAT KEYBOARD AND PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR.

  I’m just trying to protect you from making any more unfortunate remarks about people who carry spikes in their bags. It’s a good thing you didn’t say all that on Ravelry or YarnHarlot.

  I take it you’ve somehow managed to not notice the geek affinity for knitting. Your penance is to look at some links:

  Geeks with Pointy Sticks
  Beyond the Mobius Scarf: Mathematical and Topological Knitting
  Thomasina’s Guide to Geeky Knitting
  Geek Knitting
  KnitML, the Knitting Markup Language
  KnitML (the post that started it)
  Making Mathematics with Needlework: Ten Papers and Ten Projects
  Ignite Portland presentation on why knitting is a good hobby for geeks.
  Knitting in Craft
  Xtreme Dinos and Nautiloids.
  Knitting Finnish Trekkies.
  Geek knitting (crochet too)

  …

  Just so you know, the first thing I did when I got my first Palm Pilot was knit a padded leather carrying case for it.

• [Sue Grant]

  #1 do a search for knit or knitting on Boing Boing and you will see there have been quite a few posts of cool patterns in the past. I’m not sure how you are classifying people who knit but it doesn’t sound like you are well informed. Knitting and craft have resurged to become hugely popular these days, have a look a http://www.ravelry.com for an example of a fabulous social networking site specifically aimed at people who knit and crochet.

• [Antinous]

  Man, you gotta be brave or stupid to tangle with someone who carries a pair of spikes in his/her m/purse.

• [Jeff]

  Are there actually any knitters that read BB?

• [knitter]

  That seems like a really bizarre comment. Why on earth wouldn’t knitters read this? Is it because you think knitters don’t blog, read blogs, or use computers? Try googling “knitting blog” and see what happens.