Stitches in Knitting

Dear users, dear authors,
Would you like to share some information about common stitches in knitting?

Wow, it looks great 💙! Anyone who has you as a colleague is lucky. 
Is it all knitted in knit stitches? The top pattern looks really challenging.
Best regards 
Karola 

She must be a very dear colleague to receive such a beautiful gift.

Best regards, Marlies

@Marlis
that’s it 😉. I had free rein as far as the pattern was concerned and no time pressure either. She picked the colors herself, and off we went with the experiment. The main thing was that it had to be big enough to snuggle into, and slip stitches were the requirement 😉

@Karola
it took me a little while at first to understand it. There are good patterns and not-so-good ones; I find written ones especially difficult (because of the knitting chart — one person writes out BOTH the right-side and wrong-side rows, another only the right-side rows 🙄). After trying it out a bit, I think slip stitches are simply brilliant.
Two colors (two rows of each solid color, or mixed with a gradient, as in my case) show the patterns off best.
But it also works subtly in a solid color (I personally prefer the contrast; you can play around with the colors 🙃).

Since the repeat in these patterns keeps repeating and (apart from the slip stitches) everything is knitted, it really is a TV-friendly pattern too, once it has clicked.
Every now and then, because of the increases, you have to check whether the pattern is still lining up, but by now I’ve internalized it.

At the beginning I bought myself a few books (for inspiration, also because of the possibilities with the different shawls/shapes — centered, deep, flat ...), but by now I can already convert quite a lot just by looking at it! 😇

Give slip stitches a try; they’re addictive and can be incorporated almost anywhere.
Plied yarn is easier at the beginning than unplied gradient yarn (just as a tip)

It all started with this shawl Moira - triangular shawl with slip stitches (crazypatterns.net) and a “swap package”; then it took on a life of its own, and somehow ever since then I can hardly manage to knit a shawl without working in some kind of slip-stitch pattern 🙃

Check this out—maybe something to try out for slipped stitches
Equilibrium—Knitting Pattern for a Dishcloth or Washcloth (crazypatterns.net)
Staircase Sock Pattern (crazypatterns.net)
Simple Zigzag Pattern “Series Junkie” (crazypatterns.net)

Thank you so much for the explanation, Susanne. Your enthusiasm really comes through. Great!