
Updated: February 2018.
Lee Meredith, of Leethal Designs, has come up with a clever idea for knitting called Game Knitting. The concept is a cool one, that can be adapted to needlepoint.
If you have ever played that drinking game where you take a drink whenever someone does . . . you know the inspiration.
Basically the idea is you look for something recurring in a game show and change something in the knitting every time that happens. You could expand it to work for other shows as well. Choose the laugh track for a sit com, someone clapping on a talk show, a penalty in a football game. With the Olympics going on, you could easily pick something from them.
Pick something that happens often, but not too often. You want to have variety but not so many changes that you can’t make progress.
The key is randomness, something harder to do than you might think. As long as the action happens repeatedly but not at regular intervals it’s perfect for this.
After you’ve decided on your event, you need to decide what to vary. Stitches or threads work best. If you vary stitches, make a list of stitches the same size. if you vary threads, pick your stitch and pull out a pile of threads.
When the event occurs, change, either to a random choice or to the next one on your list. In my case I decided that whenever a person used another person’s name in a TV show, mostly 30 Rock, I’d change the stitch. I like this because it works for lots of different kinds of shows. If we’re not watching TV, I’m going for when the cat mews, but only if it’s been awhile.

I picked this vintage mini-sock from Mindy. Because I want the background to shine, I am not doing the cuff. The ribbons and snowflake will not have this kind of background. I used one thread, Gumnut Poppies, for the background and varied the stitches (the random background post a couple of weeks ago has a method to change threads on backgrounds).
I decided on stitches that are 4 threads square and made a list of eight. They are: Crossed Corner, Pillow Scotch, Split Scotch,Reverse Scotch, Mosaic-Rice, Divided Scotch, Cashmere Brickwork, and Framed Mosaic. I chose a shade of Gumnut Poppies for the background to get some variation in color as well.
You can see the finished stocking at the top of the article.
This is so much fun I’m looking for a project where I can do it again!
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
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