Knitting needles

Category: General GemStone IV (Players' Corner)
Topic: Game Mechanics
Message #: 10
Author: Nilandia
Date: 09-21-2007, 12:07 PM
Subject: Knitting Verbs

I wrote a long post for the officials a while back detailing how knitting needles are to be used. Rather than rewrite it, I'll post the original. The original post referred to someone selling a set of knitting needles that knitted all patterns. Needles sold off the shelf can only make one pattern.

Note: the knitting rows may have changed, but I know the yarn skeins have changed from the merchant events. Skeins sold at events had 15 rows and custom yarn had 20, but the yarn sold at the shop on FWI only has 10. I also know that some of the stats for the items has changed since I made the post.

Greetings,

I own another set of the knitting needles and use them frequently, so I've been able to work out how they work for the most part. I'll give a general guide so you know what you're getting into if you want to buy them.

First off, you'll want to decide what you want to make. Since these needles will let you knit any of the patterns, you can choose. You'll LOOK at the needles to find out what they're set to currently and TURN them to the setting you want. Available projects are: bag, pouch, sweater, satchel, scarf, muffler, hat, socks, mittens, gloves, stockings and shawl.

Changing the pattern looks thus: You turn the end of the ivory knitting needles and hear them click! The etched print of a pouch now appears on the end of the ivory knitting needles.

Now you'll want to decide what sort of yarn you want to use. The type of yarn you use will decide what your finished project will look like. Using silk yarn, for example, will result in "a knitted silk <item>." There is a way to have more than one yarn style appear in the finished product, which I'll get into later.

Once you've decided on your yarn, make sure you have enough. Most unused yarn skeins have enough for 15 rows of knitting, but some projects use more than that. Satchels, for example, use 40 rows.

To start your knitting, have your needles and yarn out and PUSH your needles, which when done correctly will look like this:

Using your needles, you loop several stitches of your ebon yarn onto one of the needles as a beginning to knitting the pouch.

Now, you're ready to knit. You will need to have a free hand to knit, otherwise you get the message:

Come on, the needles are not that good. You need both hands free to knit.

To knit a row, you want to DIP your needles. Once you do, you'll either knit a row with a healthy amount of roundtime, or you'll slip an extra stitch in, which will force you to pull out the row you just made.

Trying to knit without any yarn will give the message:

Before you start again, you'll need to add some more yarn.

Knitting a row successfully looks like so:

You <begin/continue to> work on your pouch, the needles moving along with a magical determination that requires your complete attention.
Roundtime: 74 sec. 

(Roundtime can vary between in the 30's up until around 80 or so.)

Getting a stitch stuck will look like:

Your ivory knitting needles click along at a nearly dizzying pace, speeding out of control and throwing an extra stitch in the last row! As if they had been bound with a spell, the needles refuse to move any further; perhaps you should remove that error in the last row and try again? 

(This step has no roundtime.)

If you try to continue knitting after messing up, you'll see:

Try as you might, the needles won't budge. You might need to remove the error in the last row first. 

(This also has no roundtime)

To pull out a row of stitches, you just need to PULL your needles, which will look like:

You undo the last row you completed on a pouch. With a sense of relief, you note that undoing that last row took out the error, too.
Roundtime: 39 sec. 

(Roundtime for removing a row seems to run similarly to successfully knitting a row)

You can also PULL out other rows you've completed, which will look like:

You undo the last row you completed on a pouch.
Roundtime: 47 sec. 

(Roundtime also seems to run along the same time frame as completing a row)

If you need to pull off the first row you completed, you will have the same roundtime and the yarn you used will empty into your free hand and you can PUSH the needles to start again. The messaging for what exactly ends up in your hand also appears to be slightly bugged, as I've seen nouns other than "yarn" message as going to my hand.

To check your progress, simply LOOK at your needles. In the middle of working on a pouch, mine look like:

You glance at some slender ivory knitting needles etched with trailing vines of lightly-tinted rosebuds, noticing the ivory knitting needles are in the middle of making a pouch. At least 1 rows have been completed, out of 5 rows for the a pouch to be complete. It looks like there's enough ebon yarn for another 14 rows. Seems that it's been recently since the ivory knitting needles were used last.

Once you've completed your project, you will automatically remove it from your needles and it is ready to use immediately. The extra yarn will be left on your needles.

Now, say you want to get creative with what your project will look like. It is possible to have two separate styles of yarn appear in your finished project. What you need to do is start with one style of yarn and knit through the entire skein without completing the project. Then, you'll need to add another skein of your second style and finish your project. When you finish, your project will be along the lines of, "a knitted <first style> and <second style> <item>." I, unfortunately, don't recall which order you put the yarn on will correspond to the order of the styles in the finished piece.

You can also put three or more styles into a piece, and the finished project will come out multihued.

Now, for stats, these are what I know.

Stockings take 25 rows and are legworn, no pockets.
Satchels take 40 rows, are shoulder worn and hold a medium amount with no item limit.
Sweaters are chestworn.
Bags take 10 rows, are belt worn and hold a small amount.
Pouches take 5 rows.
Gloves take 20 rows, are pinworn and have no pockets.
Shawls take 15 rows.
Scarves and mufflers are neckworn, no pockets.

Regarding replacing your yarn. From what I remember in chatting with Wilmea on the Wavedancer, there is a possibility of a yarn shop opening somewhere, either temporarily or permanently, so we can replenish our stocks. It was also mentioned that there is a shop in Solhaven that carries yarn and that maybe Wilmea might want to look into carrying her stock there, but nothing definite was determined.

Good luck, and have fun!

Gretchen
Last edited by Nilandia : 09-21-2007 at 12:08 PM.