Knitting Charts 101

Jack's How-to Guide: Reading Knitting Charts

Do not be fooled by knitting charts. They are out to confuse you. Like any good magic show, most things on the pattern that you are likely to be working with are not as they seem. A few good examples from my own escapades in working knitting charts:

1. "A dot is a dot is a dot"- many charts will use solid dots and empty squares to indicate "knits" and "purls." But beware that if a dot on the RS indicates a "purl," it does NOT indicate a purl on the WS. On the WS, a dot is a "knit." Very tricky, I say.

2. "Knitting charts are bilingual"- Reading knittinh charts is not like reading English. Nor is it like reading Arabic. It is like reading English and Arabic at the same time. What's important here is to see that the chart you are using should be an exact copy of whatever is hanging off of your needles. To create this effect, read the RS rows as you would Arabic (starting from the right). Read the WS rows as you would English (starting from the left). You know you've got it right when your eyes move, not like a type writer, but like a snake, winding back and forth over the chart (just be sure you are winding in the right direction).

3. "Look before you leap"-most knitting charts don't include selvedge stitches (ie. the knit stitches that bookend the each row to keep the edges straight and clean). Its helpful to write these knits into your pattern. If you don't it's easy to forget they're there and jump right into the pattern, mistakenly.

4. "Just do it"-mistakes are inevitable, especially with nasty, hard charts. But stick too it; keep going; it's not worth reworking the same three rows over and over again and letting one misstich stop you. The odds are, no one will notice anyways, and patterns only become fun once you truly get going.

That said, discovering knitting patterns, bashing my head against one for hours on a long Sunday, and then conquering it late into the evening, opened up a whole new knitty world. Patterns complete the picture; you can finally see what stitches make what designs. And once you learn how to read patterns, not only can you knit them, being to see how you can create your own designs. Get knitting, you nazy critters!!

naked needles

Tomorrow is the big day; but in anticipation, I've decided to introduce my new blog about all things lovely: knits, design, prints, fashion, food, novels, and senior year in college, as a preview and coping mechanism to cage my excitement. My knitting needles have been shoved to the back of my book case for over a year but the frenzy of my roommates knitting has inspired me to pick them up once again.


The problem is that I've no yarn to begin with, which is why tomorrow is so important to this new project. Yarn shopping-for anyone who hasn't been, it's orgasmic. Seeing and touchy so many soft, sometimes not so soft, bundles of yarn is one of the more the inspiring parts of knitting. Misguidedly turning sock heels is not. But a good yarn is lovely and I'm of the philosophy that any good project starts with a good yarn.


This is not to say that I neglect the bargain bin. In fact, it's usually my first stop for purchases. There is nothing like coming across gorgeous colors (colors you probably wouldn't have though of on your own, but now that they're hanging out in the bargain bin at 50% off it seems worth the leap) and designing an entire project out of a few hundred yards of serendipity.


Three projects are on the horizon: a lovely turtleneck sweater without the body (a "naked sweater" for lack of a better name), a pair of pink socks (accented with juicy red at the heel and toe, for Vday), and a collegiate man scarf. Pictures pending a trip to the library to scan them!