I learned to knit during a time when they didn’t have knit charts. Only line-by-line instructions in knitting patterns.

Knit Charts – Love ‘Em or Hate ‘Em?

When charts started to become popular, I was not a fan. Give me line-by-line instructions every damn time. I even avoided patterns that only had charts. Knitter-friends constantly assured me that I’d learn to love them. “Charts make it so much easier to visualize the pattern” they’d say. But I held strong.

Until I found Herbert Niebling. I became immediately smitten with Niebling lace designs and I was compelled to knit them. Unfortunately, the instructions were ALL charts. And even worse, often there was one key to the chart symbols on a completely different page than the charts themselves! But there was no choice for me. I had to knit these amazing lace designs. So I forced myself to work with charts.

My knitting-friends were correct as it turned out. I learned to love charts and eventually found them much easier.

Whether you love or hate charts (or anywhere in between), if you are a knitwear designer, publishing your patterns for sale, you patterns should ALWAYS include a chart…and line-by-line instructions. A few reasons:

• Knit Companion has eliminated the issues of chart keys on different pages than the chart.
• Your pattern will be available the widest audience of knitters.
• Probably most importantly, you can tag your patterns on Ravelry so that they’ll show up in more filtered search results if knitters are looking for either a chart and/or line-by-line instructions.

I mention this in the overview of ways to create knit charts, but one of my patterns absolutely did not need a chart (the Activity Cap with Earflaps pattern). So I just charted the short-row section of the headband (completely useless chart in my opinion), so I could tag my pattern as having both charts and line-by-line instructions.

Knitting With QueerJoe – Overview Video of Creating Charts

Short video on 3 ways I’ve used to create charts for my knitting patterns.

Readers’ Comments/Questions

Michèle writes, “Will you go in southern France in june?”

Unfortunately, no. The itinerary looks amazing, but I only have so much time away from home/husband for knit-related activities. And next year I’ll have two retreats of my own to coordinate.

Current Knitting

I’m quite happy with how much progress I’ve been able to make on the Murky Striped Pullover.

From the cast-on edge, that’s about 7 or 8 inches. I need to do about 10 more inches before I start knitting flat to do the sleeve openings.