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How to Read a Lace Knitting Chart

May 15, 2014 by Sarah White

sample lace chartOnce you have a few simple projects under your belt, you might want to try out some more complex lace knitting, and that often means that you will need to — or at least have the option to — read and follow a chart instead of text instructions.

I know knitting charts can seem intimidating, but they’re really just a visual representation of what your knitting should look like when you work it properly.

Yarn overs, for instance, are represented as Os. Decreases a slants that go the direction the actual decrease goes.

When you’re knitting flat, you work a chart from right to left on the right (or front) side of the work, while you work from left to right on the back/wrong side. Because that’s the direction you’re knitting in relation to the front of the work.

Sometimes in projects that are shaped or where the stitch count changes between rows you’ll see a shaded box that means there is no stitch there to work on that row. That’s easy; just ignore it and move on.

Charts often show just one repeat of the pattern along with the edge stitches, so make sure you’re reading it properly and know which part of it you’re supposed to repeat. (If you mess it up, you’ll know pretty quickly because you won’t have room for a full repeat at the end or your pattern just won’t look right.

It’s a great idea to start knitting from charts by using a pattern that has both written and charted instructions. Look at the chart and translate it into written instructions, then compare to the actual instructions. After you’ve done this once or twice you’ll be confident enough to work patterns that only have charts.

If you’re a lace knitter and you have tips for following charts, I’d love to hear them!

Next Pattern:

  • How Do You Read a Knitting Pattern?
  • Add Some Lace to Your Summer Knitting
  • Knitting Pattern - Baby Lace Shawl
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Have you read?

Knit a Hat with a Flock of Chickens

It’s well known (among knitters, anyway) that knitters seem to love chickens as a motif and a subject of our knitting projects. The Emotional Support Chicken and all the other chicken knitting patterns are just the beginning of our devotion to farmyard friends. 

For example, there’s Farmer Dennis’ Chicken Hat. This free pattern from Stacy Black is a simple worsted weight beanie sized for adults and decorate with a couple of little rounds of colorwork fences and a flock of chickens strutting around the body of the hat. 

You don’t need a lot of any of the colors for the chickens, their facial features or the fences, so this is a great project for using little leftover bits from other projects. The main color for the body of the hat is less than a skein using the yarn suggested, so you might just have everything you need in your house to start stitching up this hat right away. 

The colorwork is presented as a chart, with a 16 stitch section that repeats around the body of the hat. All the color changes are shown on the chart but I think it would be easier to knit the whole chicken in the chicken color and add the eye, beak and other features using duplicate stitch when the knitting is done. That way you don’t have to carry those yarns around the whole hat for just a few stitches. 

As the name suggests, the original hat was given to a farmer who shared their eggs, but anyone who raises chickens or just has a thing for the fowl is sure to love this cute hat. It wouldn’t be too difficult for someone new to stranded knitting or reading charts to make, either, so if that’s you, give it a try. 

The pattern is available for free on Ravelry. 

[Photo: Stacy Black]

Knitting Patterns for Little Chicks

Tiny Hens to Knit

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