Cabled Feather Cowl from The Studio - Day 4

Chart or List?  And a PRIZE for choosing!

Knitting patterns come in two varieties—the chart or the list.  If you’re very lucky, like we are the Cindy Craig’s Cabled Feather Cowl, you get both.  Each format has advantages and drawbacks, and most people have a preference.  Here’s my take:


Charts
Charts can convey a lot of information in a small space.  That’s handy if you’re traveling or if, like me, you take your knitting with you everywhere you go.  Charts also help you visualize the stitches—this purl sits atop that yarn-over from the row below, etc.—which can be handy to catch and fix errors, especially with repeats.  I find it much easier to get an overall view of a piece from a chart than from a list of instructions.  But there have been charts where the map key is so long I keep having to refer back to it to see what that little triangle means or whether that slashing line means make left or make right.  In this case, you’ve only got four simple stitch icons to know and the cable symbol—which in this case is visually helpful.

Lists
In most cases, they are just plain easier to follow.  Some of the “repeat from *” directions can get complicated, but there is an inherent clarity in having words walk you through the steps of each row.  I find lists easier to mark off, keeping track of what row I’m on.  Unless their are highly complicated abbreviations (not true in this case, but I’ve had some doozies that I had to write translations in the margins), there isn’t a lot of referring back to keys or glossaries.  I like written directions for cables because I’m forever forgetting which stitches go in the back and which go in the front.

I suspect if you are a highly visual person, you will gravitate to charts.  If you are a detail maven, lists might suit your taste.  Wise is the designer, however, who gives you both so that you can choose what you like.  I have often found, however, that sometimes I keep foot in both camps—conferring with charts and lists to give me the clearest picture of the pattern I’m working.

What about you, DestiKNITters?  Chart or List?  Chime in and you can win a free copy of my historical knitting novel, HOMEFRONT HERO. I’ll choose a winner from the comments next week.

“Selbucozy” bottle cozy from The Sow’s Ear - Day 3

Coping with complicated...

Some projects require that you stay close to the pattern.  Detailed instructions, while they produce intricate, beautiful work, also demand attention to detail.  I find charts--common to most colorwork pieces--particularly taxing on my brain cells, so I’ve come up with a few coping mechanisms to help me follow instructions well.

1) ALWAYS work from a photocopy.  I generally write on complicated patterns, and the fact that they have to be out and in sight whenever I’m working exposes them to terrors like coffee, water, chocolate, dogs, leaky pens, you name it.

2) Cross off rows as you do them, but only with a single line.  I know knitters who use a highlighter as well.  You need to be able to see the details of the row you just completed, to know that the white stitch you just made ought to be sitting atop a black one.  Magenetic row markers, while cool gadgets, never seem to work as well as the trusty pencil.

3) Divide and conquer.  That yellow line you see down my pattern?  It marks every 10th row.  And it matches up to a stitch marker in my work.  That way, I’ll see a mistake quickly and won’t have to take out an entire row of intricate colorwork.

Complicated knitting is fun and satisfying.  It can also be frustrating when things go wrong, so it's best to stack the deck (or in this case, set the stitch) in your favor.

Knit Along: Schmetterling Shawl from Mia Bella--Day 2

Embracing my marked limitations...

I’ve reached the first repeat of my pattern, and I have to say this takes a fair amount of concentration.  I have to read the chart frontwards AND backwards--that’s asking a lot of my approaching-holiday brain cells.  It took my a dozen rows to get used to how the pattern is a row essentially folded in half--I’ve never seen that before.  And every repeat of the chart adds two repeats of an internal section.  There’s only one way to handle such a cerebral task:

Stitch markers.

Call me middle-aged, but I can only handle about fifteen stitches worth of organization at a time.  Okay, twenty if I’ve recently been to Starbucks.  Which is smarter? Pretending I’m so skilled I don’t need stitch markers? Or botching rows on a regular basis out of pride?

Call me humble, but I’m reaching for the markers.

Lucky for me, I’ve got a nice collection.  For big projects on mid-size needles, I like my pretty beaded ones.  For lace work, I like the small plastic circles because they they’re right size for fine work and won’t snag the fiber.  I have enough of different colors that I can use them to signify something, but in this case they don’t need to do anything but mark off the pattern repeats.

I embrace my limitations--and I like shiny accessories.