Part 4 - A Simple Knit Lace Chart

This is essentially the same procedure as the crochet lace chart except the symbols will be different. You can refer back to this blog entry for instructions on getting the worksheet set up.

Some of the symbols that I use for charting knitting stitches can be seen in this screen shot, and can be found in the "Symbols" menu.

Now I'm ready to copy and paste the symbols from the legend in to my 21 stitch x 20 row "digital swatch". I've chosen "Old Shale", a pretty traditional lace pattern that is probably familiar to most readers. I'm using Mary Thomas's Book of Knitting Patterns. The first thing the pattern tells me is that I need a number of stitches cast on that is divisible by 11, so I will need to insert a column so that I have 22 stitches to work with. Here is what the finished chart looks like.

Once you have charted the first four rows, you can copy and paste them as a whole (ie select the entire area of 22 stitches by 4 rows) the rest of the way up the chart.

Be sure to read all the previous entries in this series for more detailed instructions on some of the more basic operations in Excel.

So far we've only graphed "digital swatches", but the next and final lesson will be setting up garment shaped templates for use (and re-use) so that you can chart texture or colour patterns over the entire garment. This is very useful in design so that you can ensure that patterns are centred properly and work well in relation to one another.

As always, comments welcome.

Plausible Posers

I'm a fan of Phil Plait (the Bad Astronomer) , I read his blog every day, and never fail to be entertained AND learn something new at the same time. Of all the things I might expect to learn from Phil, and he does cover a diversity of topics, I might be forgiven if I had "crochet" on the bottom of such a list. But I should have known better!

Check this out:
Oh, yeah, it's Adam and Jaime, my favourite Mythbusters, rendered here in crochet! And, no disrespect Phil, but I do think they are a remarkable likeness, although Adam's hairline probably isn't receding quite that much! Check out PaperheroesNet for the lowdown, and while you're there check out some of the other figures (Star Wars, Superman, to name a couple). They've even included the YouTube video for Discovery Channel's "Boom-de-yadda" commercial, which makes me smile every time I see it.

The world IS just awesome!

Part 3 Simple Crochet Lace Chart

For this tutorial, you can open a new Excel file, or just use the same one and work on Sheet 2. We'll use a 20 x 20 area again, the same as in Part 2, with the same cell sizes. You can refer back to this entry for instructions on setting up the sheet.

The next thing to do is to set up a Key or Legend to define the symbols we're going to use. You can put this anywhere on the sheet, I've chosen to put it just to the right of the area that I'm going to chart. Here is what my Key looks like.

For the heading, I merged eight cells together, shaded the resulting cell, and drew a border around it. I then inserted the symbols that I wanted using the "Symbol" menu icon seen below on the far right.

When you click this icon, the following comes up:

You can see from the screen shot above that my "recently used symbols" include the items in my Key. Explore and see what you can find among the fonts on your computer, and when you find symbols that you like, click on them and then click "insert" (make sure that you have selected the cell on your worksheet where you want the symbol to be first).

Once I have completed my "key" I draw a border around each symbol. I also change the colour of each symbol so that they show up on the chart a little better, but that is a personal preference. To do this, you use the text colour function, not the paint function (paint changes the cell background colour, not the contents). Once I have all of this set, it is then simply a matter of copying and pasting each symbol where I want it in the chart. Below is an example of a chart for a small swatch done in a mesh or filet crochet pattern.

You can see that I've also added a stitch count across the bottom, and row numbering up the side, as well as "direction of work" arrows for further clarity.

And speaking of "direction" - you may notice that in the symbol menu the symbol I chose for the turning chain 2 is two small ovals horizontally oriented, but in my key they are vertically oriented. You can change the orientation of text with this menu icon:

I touched on "aspect ratio" in a previous blog entry, it can become even more important with crochet, especially when using double or treble crochet stitches, where clearly stitches are much taller than they are wide. In my chart above, I kept the cells square, so the aspect ratio is 1, however, here is the resulting swatch:

The stitches and rows are exactly as charted, but as you can see I have a rectangle that actually measures 4.5 inches wide and 7.5 inches long, which would make an aspect ratio of 1.67. Therefore, if I wanted my chart to represent the true proportions, and my cell width is 26 pixels, then I would have to make the cell height 43 pixels (1.67 x 26).

As always, comments, feedback and/or questions welcome!

Part 2 Addendum

First, I have just realized that I had quite a few restrictions on the comment section, so I've opened that up. Nothing like inviting comments and then making it nearly impossible for people to do so - duh.

Second, and this is probably obvious, but just in case, don't forget to save your worksheet regularly. There is nothing worse than doing a whole lot of work and then having the power go out or something and realizing that you didn't save anything. Ask me how I know this.

Third, to inspire your "doodling", I've done more simple examples below (perhaps somewhat lacking in inspiration, but it's early in the morning). You can use colour charting to audition colour combinations, make sure your design placement is centred, will fit within the area, etc. I should also note here that, particularly if you want to knit a picture, knit stitches are taller than they are wide. This means that if you use squares in your chart, your knitting results might distort the picture (it will be taller, but not wider, than you might expect or want). In the tutorial, I had you set the square size at 24 x 24 pixels. If you are designing a picture for a knitted item and you want a truer representation of how the chart will translate to the knitting, you might wish to set the cell size at 34 pixels high and 24 pixels wide. This will give an aspect ratio of 1.4. You may have to experiment a bit with that - there is an excellent explanation of how to determine your aspect ratio here.