Since the little man is old enough to fall asleep without me now, I negotiated with my husband and got to go to the knit night at Kiwi Knitting. It was wonderful to be able to relax, knit, and have grown-up conversation without any mention of diapers or toy recalls.
But the real excitement came on the way home:
Really, what are the chances?
When I tackled my first charted knitting project (Trellis) last summer, I had to rip out the first part at least four times before I figured out what was going on. I looked online for help on how to use these diagrams, and was frustrated to find a lot of little bits of information about knitting charts, but nothing really explaining how the charts work, and why they work that way.
Of course I figured it out, and now I love charts with a deep passion. I would rather knit from a chart than written directions any day. But I want to help others avoid my early mistakes, and so I am going to condense what I have learned about knitting charts. This will be split into four lessons:
Knitting Charts 101
Knitting Charts 102
Knitting Charts 201
Knitting Charts 202
I am working on a pattern that will be in Knotions Magazine this fall. The lovely people at KnitPicks sent me oodles of yarn to make the sample, plus extra yarn to make some mini samples for other color options.
The yarn is Swish DK, and it’s going to be my new go-to yarn for baby and child items. It’s incredibly soft and nice to work with, and the colors are great. They are a bit bright for adult garments, but perfect for kids. I hope it holds up well as well.
This of course only reinforced my husband’s notion that I have way too much yarn. He found a scrap ball of dishcloth cotton and got Jasmine to play.
This has to be the fastest sweater ever. I just finished my Tomato from No Sheep for You. I wasn’t going to jump on this particular bandwagon, but I had five skeins of Blue Skys Alpaca Organic Cotton, and I desperatly wanted to make something from a pattern rather than knitting and ripping and knitting and ripping as I try to design.
The original Tomato was done in red, with a little colorwork. Mine has the colorwork as well, but all the juice got drained out by that vampire bunny, so now it’s all white.
The sweater is a teeny bit big because my gauge loosened a little. I think I’m going to have to actually toss this thing in the washer and dryer and allow cotton to do that shrinking thing that it does.
I am really happy with the sweater, and love the pattern. I’m thinking of re-working the pattern so I can work it at a smaller gauge. I think a tomato out of CotLin would be something I would wear every day. I’ll have to ask the designer, Wendy, if I can make that pattern available.
This is part three of a series on Waist Shaping.
Now that you have determined your gauges and the number of stitches you are going to use throughout the body, it’s time to make your final plan. You need to make one more sketch of your garment. You no longer need to worry about the width measurements, but now you need the “height” measurements. More specifically, the distance from the bottom of the garment to the narrowest part of your waist, then from your waist up to the widest part of your bust. Keep in mind that you will probably also need to work in the under-arm openings somewhere in this range, but that’s beyond the scope of this tutorial.
My measurements worked out to be nearly symmetrical. The garment should be 20 cm to the waist, and 16 cm from waist to bust. I included a ribbing portion at the bottom, and then made my divisions symmetrical up the garment. You can play around with your measurements and number of bands depending on how many needles sizes you need to use. Come up with something that works for you and create a little sketch like the one below.
Notice that I included the height of each “band” as well as the total height up to the top of that band. This is very important, since you will not be able to measure each band individually as you go!
Once you have this sketch, you are ready to go. Cast on the number of stitches you determined in part two with the needles listed in the lowest section, work for the length given, switch needles, work until the piece measures the new height, and keep flying up the body. When you get to the top you will have a body shaped to your measurements, no increases or decreases needed!
Begin with your actual body measurements. Make a sketch of the garment and include at least your bust, waist, and hip measurements, as well as the vertical distance between these points. Be sure to measure the vertical distances straight down, not along the curve of your body.
Now decide on your desired ease. I prefer to have a few centimeters of ease for the bust and waist, and a few more for the waist. The amount of ease you want depends on how you want the garment to fit. If you want a tighter garment that really shows off your assets, you’ll want no ease, or maybe negative ease. If you are in doubt, measure a garment you already have the fits well.
Now we need to do a little more math. Make yourself another chart with your desired garment measurements listed down the side, and with the needle sizes (and their st/cm, as calculated last time) along the top. Grab a calculator again, and multiply the measurement times the st/cm for each box. For example, 107×1.894=202.658. You can follow the rules of rounding, or just chop off the decimals like I did.
You want whole numbers because this chart is showing you the number of stitches you would need to work in order to get the desired measurement with the given needles. So in my case, if I wanted to work the bust on size 3 needles, I would need to work 202 stitches in order to get the 107 cm measurement.
Once you have your chart, it’s time to make some decisions. What you want to find is one number (one stitch count) that occurs in all three (or two, if your bust and hips are the same) rows. If you end up with exactly the same number in all three rows, great! That’s the number of stitches you need to cast on.
But more likely you’ll end up with a situation like mine. You have some numbers that are close, but no matches. I see that I could work 183 stitches on #6 needles for the bust and 184 stitches on #3 needles for the waist. Those are very close! But the closest I have for the hip measurement is 188 stitches. I have two options — re-swatch with #7 needles and see if that gets me closer, or average out all the numbers and loose a little of my shaping.
Since I actually already did swatch with #7 needles and found the fabric to be too loose for my taste, I am going to go with option number two. I have to pick a stitch count that is “close enough” for all the measurements. Since I know I already added more ease to my hip measurement than to my bust measurement, I decide that I would rather loose a few stitches at the hip than add a few stitches at the bust. And so I decide that I will use 184 stitches throughout the body.
Think through your measurements and desired ease, and pick one number that will work for all of your measurements. You will most likely have to add or give up a centimeter or two in a few areas, but you will end up with some very easy shaping!
Next we’ll look at how to divide up the sections of the garment, and finally cast on!
Of course everyone in the online knitting community has discovered Ravelry. I’ve been on since July, and the site has helped turn me into an obsessive knitter. The community on there is amazing, and the wealth of information on thousands of patterns, yarns, and techniques is overwhelming.
This month is Ravelry’s one year anniversary, and so Julia decided to hold a little fund raiser to help Ravelry buy a new server. I volunteered to create and host an ad to run in the forums to encourage people to give. The main motivation for giving was all the many prizes.
Well, the original goal was to raise $10,000. The information went up on April 4th, and the donations started rolling in. Then flooding in. Let’s just say that Casey has bought his server, and could buy two more if he wanted.
I’ve been producing all sorts of ravatars for people to use after they have donated, and it’s so wonderful to see them pop up all over the site. And I have been constantly updating our donation thermometer. We’ve busted the first two I made!
I started these socks back in December, but second sock syndrome tool hold and I never started the second one. I finally got around to it a few days ago and now have a pair. Just in time to stick them in the drawer until October. Oh well. 
The socks are toe-up, 4×1 rib for the top of the foot, a basic short-row heel, 4×1 up the leg, and a little 3×2 for the top. The yarn is Claudia’s HandPainted Yarns in Ingrid’s Blues. I bought it from Knitty Noddy back in December. I love the colors, but I’m not thrilled with the striping. But it’s still pretty.
I am nearly finished with a cotton tank top for myself, and I want to share how I calculated the body of the sweater. I wanted to add some very subtle shaping and decided that changing my needle size would be the best way to do this. This series of posts will walk you through determining your gauge and creating your own garment with waist shaping.
To begin with, you must swatch. Must. Not optional. And you have to swatch with several needles. I think three different sizes is the bare minumum. Use the size recommended for the yarn, plus one size down and one size up. Of course, if you know yourself to be a tight or loose knitter, adjust your sizes accordingly. Keep in mind that the more different sizes you use at the beginning, the easier it will be to customize your sweater.
The goal is to create a swatch that looks similar to this:
The swatch shown is in stockinette, but you can use any lace or stitch pattern you would like! Start with a garter or seed stitch border, work for at least an inch, then begin your desired stitch pattern. Work a few purl stitches to remind you of the needle size you were working with, and then work for and inch or two before working a purl “break” and switching sizes. Continue the process until you have used all of your desired needle sizes, then work another inch or so in garter or seed stitch.
Next, wash and dry the swatch exactly how you intend to treat the garment. That might mean a trip through the washing machine, or gentle soaking and pin-blocking. Don’t skip this step!
Now you get to measure your gauge. To do this, lay the swatch flat on a table, and lay a ruler flat on the swatch. Place a pin in the fabric between two stitches, and lay the ruler so that this pin lines up with the 0 centimeter mark. Now, without counting stitches or measuring anything, find a spot where the space between two stitches lines up with a mark on the ruler. (See the image below) Don’t worry if the mark doesn’t match up with a full centimeter! Slide a pin in to mark the space.
Carefully measure the distance between the two pins (in this case, 8.4 cm) and then count the stitches between the pins (15 stitches). If you end up with your pin splitting a stitch in half, just count it as a half-stitch!
Repeat this process for each needle size, and create a chart similar to the one below:
To calculate the stitches/cm column, use a calculator to divide the number of stitches by the distance measured. In my example, that would be 15/8.4=1.78571… Write down three numbers after the decimal place, and don’t worry about rounding.
Once you have created this chart, you are half-way to casting on! Next, I’ll walk you through determining how to use your own measurements to customize your sweater.
