Netting - Making a Flat Piece
Now that you can make a knot, here are some additional situations you may run into when netting a flat piece:
| Keep in mind that you will be working diagonally from one corner.
Therefore to start the piece you need to build up the net by one loop, starting with two
loops on a starting loop. The outside loops of a flat piece will flatten out to become a double-strength border. |
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| Each row of the piece is worked in the same direction (left to right, for right-handed netters). The work is turned at the end of each row so that the working thread is now towards the netter's gauge hand. |  |
| Always remember to start with the working thread in front of the gauge! |  |
| The first loop of each row will be the tightest squeeze for your shuttle.
You may find at the beginning of the row that you have chosen a gauge that is too small
for your shuttle, or overloaded your shuttle. For a gauge that is too small, start over. You've only made two knots so far; you can do that again. For overloaded shuttle, unwind thread until you can fit the shuttle through. Pull the thread through, being careful not to let it tangle. After the knot is formed, re-wrap the thread on the shuttle. |
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| When you pull the first loop of each row tight, only worry about the
position of the forming knot relative to the gauge. Do not pay attention to the size of
the loop around the gauge. The first loop you make on each row will be overly large because the string has to travel down from the previous row. If you pull those loops tight around the gauge, the outside edge of your net will be too tight, preventing you from stretching the rest of the net out flat into squares. |
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| Netting into the next loop of the row. |  |
| In order to keep your flat piece growing, you need to knot 2 knots in the
last loop of each row. The picture to the right shows the second row completed. |
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| Third row completed |  |
| Fourth row completed |  |
| I've decided the net is large enough and want to start decreasing it now.
I will do this by netting the last two loops of each row together. The picture to the right shows the tip of the netting shuttle going through two loops at the same time. Everything else about the knot is done the same as a regular knot. |
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| Fifth row completed; note the loops on the right side knotted together |  |
| Sixth row completed; now both sides are decreasing. If I had wanted a long skinny rectangular piece I could have continued increasing on even rows and decreasing on odd rows. Unfortunately I ran out of string at the end of the sixth row and never completed this little piece. (Sorry!) However, it would have come out as a 3 mesh by 4 mesh rectangle. Because of the geometry of netting, it is impossible to make a perfect square. So if you want a 10x10 square, knot until you have 10 completed meshes counting down the side from the corner, then on the NEXT row begin your decreases at the end of each row. You should end up with a 10x11 piece. You may feel you've "lost" a mesh off the end of each row because of the manner in which the outside loops double. |
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