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Norah’s Knits: Knitting Stars

I hear a lot of talk about knitting stars (celebrities), but it’s geometric stars that I’m talking about today. A few years ago, when I just couldn’t stop knitting hexagons and pentagons, I expanded my explorations to include 3-D shapes. Celestine is made of 10 pentagons all knit on to each other forming a dodecahedron. Then, there’s a  twist, the triangular sides of each pentagon have been elongated, so it’s a stellated dodecahedron.  It’s a star.  If you put few straight rows between the decrease rows you can make a soccer ball shape (well, almost, soccer balls actually have mostly hexagons, but that’s another story).  If you put more rows in-between the dec rows, your star will have longer points.  Here it is shown as a tree topper.  I under-stuffed one point so it could be inverted to help it stay on the tree.
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I think more knitters have made them as toys. Here is a link to the 467 projects in Ravelry and here are 434 more, files as Celestine Sox.  I love that you can make so many different versions from the same pattern. We have a crocheted version, too.
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Celestine Sox, Celestine Crochet

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Our free pattern Starlet, is made by working a pentagon from the outside edge in and then picking up around each ‘finger” and working outward to form the points. I was thinking “starfish” when I knit Starlet, and then I realized that it would make a great ring holder.  

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Wouldn’t it be fun to make a bunch of white Starlets for the tree?  At 11″ across, it’s large, but still delicate.

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And while I’m at it, I have to mention Bright Star, a garter stitch throw inspired by patchwork quilts.  Simple garter stitch squares are sewn together to form a star pattern that looks almost 3D when you use two shades of the same color to form the star motif.

Are you a star-obsessed knitter too?

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