Dayflower is a really pretty pattern in Barbara Walker's Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns, but it only has written directions. I was looking for a challenge for my charting skills and this one looked like a good one. It took me a while, but I figured it out. Here are some of the steps I used. Charting 'Dayflower', originally uploaded by fuzzyjay.
I photocopied the picture of the Dayflower pattern from Barbara G. Walker's Treasury, then drew circles over the yarn-overs, then blue lines to join the yarn-overs on the same row. Next, I used red lines to show stitch-columns and decreases, referring to the written pattern. Eventually, through several iterations, I transferred this to graph paper. The trick was to find where to distribute the "no stitch" squares in the graph of the pattern.
Straightening out the lines that represent rows, with no regard to spacing of stitches:
Eventually I got to this point where I could arrange the stitches on a chart. The trick there was to figure out, based on the photo and the previous
attempt, how to move the rows back and forth for best alignment of the
stitch columns.:
Once I had the stitch columns aligned properly vertically, I could do the more-detailed stitch diagram. This one shows the path of the yarn through all the stitches, but not the actual over-and-under crossings of the yarn as the stitches are made. It's a bit sketchy because I only did one half of a repeat, then used Photoshop to flip and copy the repeats, and my Photoshop skills are not the best:
As I've said before, I'd rather figure out 5 ways to diagram a knitting pattern than knit it. I'm all about understanding the architecture...
I am grateful that iLoveButter on Flickr has shared this photo under a Creative Commons license so I can show you the pattern used in a garment (before blocking, which will open up the lace):
This would be nice as a decoration made of cotton and starched. The example is knit of worsted-weight acrylic. I don't really recommend acrylic for this. The tips of the star tend to twist, and it's easier to block cotton or wool.
Preliminaries
Materials and tools: a small quantity of yarn, with circular knitting needle and crochet hook to suit. A length of smooth, contrasting-color yarn. For the example, 8 inches (20 cm.) is about right.
Right Twist (RT): Knit 2 together, leaving stitches on left needle, then knit the first stitch again and drop the two stitches off the left needle.
You will be knitting five units. The second unit is picked up from the left edge of the first unit, the third from the fourth, and the fourth from the third. The fifth unit is picked up from the left edge of the fourth unit and its own left edge is joined to the cast-on edge of the first unit. The star is finished with a crochet border.
Ignore the brackets if you are knitting a star the same size as the example. The algebra contained within brackets is only useful if you want to make a smaller or larger star. The base number can be any odd number n >= 7. The example uses 11 for n.Cast on 12 [n+1] stitches.
Unit 1
Row 1: (Right side) *YO, RT, K2 [(n-7)/2], K2tog, rep from *. Row 2: Lay a contrasting piece of yarn from back to front over working yarn, purl to end of row. Rows 3, 5, ..., 21 [2n-1]: Repeat row 1. Rows 4, 6, ..., 20 [2n-2]: Repeat row 2.
Leave the last row (21 [2n-1]) on the right needle. Sanity check: there are 11 [n] lace eyelet holes going up the center of the unit. There are 10 [n-1] loops being held by the contrasting-color yarn.
Units 2-4
Pick up loops held by contrasting yarn onto left needle, from the previous unit's left edge, starting from the bottom left to the top left corner. Remove the contrasting yarn, and use it while turning the rows for this unit.
Row 1: (Right side) *YO, RT, K3 [(n-7)/2 + 1], rep from *. Rows 2-21 [2n-1]: as for Unit 1.
Leave the last row (21 [2n-1]) on the right needle.
Unit 5
Unpick the cast-on and place the freed-up stitches on the left needle, so that the right side of the first unit is facing you (you start picking up loops from the lower-right corner of the unit toward the lower-left corner). There should be 11 [n] stitches on the left needle. Then with the left needle pick up stitches held by the contrasting yarn. There should now be 21 [2n-1] loops on the left needle.
Leave the last row (21 [2n-1]) on the right needle.
Finishing
Crochet *chain 1, single-crochet in a stitch or yarn-over loop, repeat from * in each stitch or loop around the star. When you get to the inner corners, gather three stitches/loops together into one sc. Finish with a slip stitch into the first single crochet. Block flat.
The "Ladybird Stitch" from Marianne Kinzel's lace knitting books has long interested me. Scroll down to Figure 6 in this embedded excerpt from The First Book of Modern Lace Knitting to see a picture of the fabric:
I have found it useful in graphing my own patterns to sometimes
represent groups of stitches that usually are shown as several symbols
as one symbol. This has helped me, for example, to understand better the stitch
structure of the “Ladybird” pattern. If you replace the “yo, k1-b,
yo” group with a single symbol, it makes for a more compact
chart that more clearly shows the proportions of the knitted piece.
Here’s a graph of the ladybird mesh to show what I mean (edge stitches
aren’t graphed correctly):
A
full repeat of the ladybird pattern (shown on the graph inside the heavy
lines) when knitted really is approximately square. And using the “yo, k1-b,
yo”symbol
means that the placement of the yarnover symbols in the chart more
accurately represents what is going on in the knitted piece. The “yo, k1-b, yo” group is approximately equal in size to the
single yarnovers since the latter are strained horizontally by the
sudden decrease in stitches on the rows in which they appear.
Here’s
the same pattern when graphed as Kinzel does it in her Modern Lace Knitting books:
Done
this way, there’s no way to tell from the graph that the yarn overs
form 45˚ diagonals in the knitted piece, or that the proportions of the
pattern when knitted are square, roughly the same as garter stitch (one
stitch = two rows), though much less dense a fabric! The graph may be a
little easier to read, but that is a matter of taste, I think. And on
patterns like this one, where the stitch count changes from row to row,
one square in the graph can’t equal one stitch. Mrs. Kinzel uses blank
squares to address the imbalance.
It took a lot of practice and exploration for me to be able to do that latest, most detailed diagram.
About two years ago I was trying to figure out how to illustrate knitting stitch patterns in the old-school way, where it's all hand-drawn, showing each twist and turn of the knitted yarn. I did develop one method, shown here, that's most suitable for lace knitting, and even for knitted lace, where the shaping is done on each row.
There's a whole lot of idealizing and simplifying involved, but this kind of illustration is at least "topologically" accurate.
The key for me was designing and printing a type of graph paper that represents the approximate 3:4 height-to-width ratio of knitted stitches. Then I had to figure out the rather weird things that yarn overs do to the proportions of the knitted loops.
These illustrations show how an ideal knitted fabric would look when projected on a screen, that is, all of the three-dimensional quality of the fabric is lost. There's no information here about whether stitches are knits or purls nor whether the decreases are right- or left-leaning, only where the yarn overs and decreases are, and how the columns (wales) of stitches slant and flow into each other.
Still, they are much more faithful to the look of the knitted fabric than anything I'd been able to do up to that point. I could even knit from them, but I'm weird that way.
Eventually I started to do this on a computer, like the third illustration here. Still, I like the hand drawn ones because of the roughness. You'll see more examples of this kind of diagram in my Flickr set "Knitting Diagrams."
One of my beloved commenters requested a stitch pattern for the "Lace Twist-Stitch 'Argyle' Pattern" (please, for the love of Pete, think of a better name). I created this pattern a while ago, and knitted it from a rough diagram whose mysterious symbols were known only to me. With this post and the accompanying PDF files (see below) I hope I've given the instructions in a shape that other people can follow.
The goal in designing this fabric was to see if I could line up the twist stitches with the yarnovers in an interesting and pleasing way, using texture to give an argyle effect that's usually given with color. (Somebody, please, make some socks from this pattern!) To get the columns of stitches to line up right, I had to do some fancy twist-stitches and twist-decreases, so I made them up. I've actually used them for other fabrics, such as the Double Lattice Pattern, which see.
In addition to using twist stitches of my own unvention, of course I use idiosyncratic charting methods. (What would the world be with only five thousand charting methods?) I use only one square for the symbol for twist stitches, since to me it shows better how the stitch columns line up in the fabric. Diagramming them this way definitely made designing the fabric easier. If it helps to keep track, the stitch key's right column shows for all of the chart symbols the number of loops used from the row before and the number of loops that result from working each symbol.
Stitch-Pattern Diagram
Close-up Fabric Photograph
Written-out Directions
Cast on a multiple of 12 stitches plus 1. Stitch count varies. Stitch abbreviations are explained in the stitch key below.
Slip-Slip-Knit (ssk): Slip 2 as if to knit, insert left needle into front of stitches just slipped, and knit the 2 stitches together.
2-1
Slip 1 as if to knit, knit 2-together, pass slipped stitch over the stitch just made (sl1-k2tog-psso).
3-1
Right Twist (RT): Knit 2-together, then knit again into the first stitch on the left needle before withdrawing left needle.
2-2
Left Twist (LT): Slip 2 as if to knit, return to left needle, Knit 1-back into 2nd stitch from end of left needle, then Knit 2-together through back loops before withdrawing left needle.
2-2
Right 3-3 Twist (RT3):Slip 2 as if to knit, then transfer back to left needle by inserting left needle from right to left into both stitches at once and withdrawing the right needle. (Counting from the end of the left needle, the stitch order was 1-2-3, and now it's 2-1-3.) Knit 3 together, yarn over, knit 2 together before withdrawing left needle.
3-3
Left 3-3 Twist (LT3): Slip 1 as if to knit, slip 2 as if to knit 2-together. Return the 3 stitches to the left needle, then knit 2-together through the back loops of the 2nd and 3rd stitches on the left needle, yarn over, then knit 3 together through the back loops of all three stitches before withdrawing left needle.
3-3
Right-Twist Decrease (RT-dec): Slip 2 as if to knit, then transfer back to left needle by inserting left needle from right to left into both stitches at once and withdrawing the right needle. (Counting from the end of the left needle, the stitch order was 1-2-3, and now it's 2-1-3.) Knit 3 together, then knit 2 together before withdrawing left needle.
3-2
Left Twist Decrease (LT-dec): Slip 1 as if to knit, slip 2 as if to knit 2-together. Return the 3 stitches to the left needle, then knit 2 together through the back loops of the 2nd and 3rd stitches on the left needle, then knit 3-together through the back loops of all three stitches before withdrawing left needle.
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