A Knitter’s Blog

Yesterday, I spent the day converting Cable Needle Freedom into an e-book. I approached the task with dread. In fact, I had been avoiding it for weeks. I knew that I would spend hours copying and pasting text, arranging graphics and all all the other annoying task of changing the format of the written word.

By midday, I found that I was enjoying myself. Paragraph by paragraph I was reminded of what I learned in writing the booklet.

For a long time, I have been able to read knitting charts as I would read a book. The symbols have become a second alphabet for me. I can look at a chart and visualize the knitted fabric.

However, this wasn’t always the case. When I wrote the first version of Stitch & Motif Maker, the symbols used to represent the knitted stitch might as well have been written in an ancient language.

As I was developing the software, I had to memorize each symbol. I can remember having a cheat sheet by the keyboard, that I used constantly.

At some point in time, I started to see the relationship between the lines in the symbols and the stitches that we use in knitting. I don’t know when this happened, but I do know it was gradual.

By the time Stitch & Motif Maker V3 was in development, I was able to recognize a symbol instantly. It was then that I started to analyze the strokes and see how they were related to the specific stitch represented.this point, you may be asking yourself, “What does this have to do with Cable Needle Freedom“. I would answer, “Everything”.

One can be taught to work cables without a cable needle in a matter of minutes. In fact, Leah knit her first sweater with a cable panel up the center front. She had never knit a cable, and when I taught her, a neophyte knitter at the time, I taught her how without the use of a cable.

Working cables without a cable needle is the central issue in Cable Needle Freedom, I believe that the most important section of the booklet is that section which describes how to relate a knitting symbol to a knitted stitch and how to visualize the stitch from the chart.

My sense of satisfaction yesterday, was reminding myself, that I had written about the process of chart reading. I had reduced the knitter’s lexicon of symbols to simple terms. In order to do that, I had to analyze how I had learned.

The ability to read a chart of knitting symbols has enabled me to create my own designs, to knit a complicated cable or textured stitch in my mind before I ever pick up needles, and most wonderfully, to be able to spot errors in charts before I ever start a project.

Filed under: Knitting by cwulster