Standards
Every now and then, someone writes to me and says something along the lines of “why don’t you use the standard chart symbols?” More often, I’ll see someone say on ravelry some variation of “gee, I like her patterns, but I wish she’d use standard chart symbols.” The only thing I can think in response is what standard chart symbols?
There is really no such thing. Not even a little.
In fact, chart symbols (and charts in general) are staggeringly different from one book to the next. I pulled a handful of books off my shelf, they all use different conventions. The differences are a bit amazing. They don’t agree on what symbols to use for various stitches. They don’t agree on whether to show wrong side rows. If they do show wrong side rows, they don’t agree on how to depict them (as they’re seen from the right side of the fabric, or as you’d work them when the wrong side of the fabric is facing you). They don’t agree on how to depict maneuvers that involve more than one stitch. There’s really not much they do agree on.
They’re different enough that I want to actually show you a few examples, just to demonstrate how dramatically things change from one book to the next. We’ll start with the basics, plain old knits and purls.
That’s a knit/purl only pattern from Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns. Knit is a vertical line, purl is a horizontal line, the dots are ‘garter’, and the blank squares are ‘work as set.’ So there you’ve got four symbols to represent two stitches.
This is from The Knit Stitch Pattern Handbook. Here, knits are blank squares and purls are dots.
One more, this time from 1000 Knitting Patterns Book. Here we’ve got the knits as blank squares and the purls as horizontal lines.
So, not a lot of similarities, even in the most basic stitch patterns. What happens if we look at decreases?
This shows basic decreases in The Haapaslu Shawl. Solid triangles lean whichever way your decrease goes (also for those keeping track at home we’ve got yet another way to represent knit stitches now, solid squares).
This book, Beautiful Knitting Patterns, uses a totally different method. Here the number 2 is used (either the expected way or reversed) to represent basic decreases. On other charts in this book, 3 is used the same way to represent double decreases.
This chart, from Knitting Patterns Book 300, may look a little more familiar.
But let’s not forget Omas Strickgeheimnisse. Deep breath. Knits are circles (a whole new way to represent knits). Purls are horizontal lines. Yarn overs are (somewhat surprisingly) slashes. Right-leaning decreases are Xs.
Ok, so there doesn’t seem to be a unified way to show decreases either. What about something a bit more specialized, how do one over one twisted cables look in different places?
This is again from Beautiful Knitting Patterns. The diamonds are twisted stitches and the long diagonal lines show how the cables cross.
Twisted-Stitch Knitting follows a totally different convention. Twisted stitches are shown as 8s and the arrows tell you how to move stitches from one row to the next.
There’s yet another method used in Aran Knit Patterns 100. Here the twist stitch symbol and the cable direction indicator combine into one symbol. Oh and note the little symbol at the bottom saying that in this chart, blank squares are purls.
I know that was a giant wall of pictures (and thank you for sticking with me if you’ve made it this far). But I hope it shows that there really isn’t any such thing as standard anything. Pretty much everything varies tremendously from book to book (and even sometimes within books).
What people often mean when they ask for some non-existent set of standard symbols is “the symbols I’m used to.” If a knitter has primarily used only one designer or one company’s patterns, it’s really easy for them to assume that the symbols they’ve seen there are the right ones and anything else is wrong (or at least non-standard). But if you work from a wide variety of patterns, you’ll see that there really is more than one way to present the same set of information.
This becomes even more important when patterns use a wide variety of stitches (which mine tend to do) or unusual stitches (I like to do that too). I don’t think there is any symbol I could use that would instantly convey to everyone ‘right-leaning, twisted double decrease.’ But sometimes, that’s really the stitch you need! That’s why there is a key (and instructions) right there telling you exactly what the symbol means and how to do the stitch. I promise everything you need is there!
And I do try very hard to keep my symbols and explanations consistent across my own books and patterns (one of the many advantages of publishing my own work). But I fear there is never going to be any such thing as a set of standard chart conventions, no matter how convenient such a thing would be.
A note about the images: I used photos of small portions of the charts from a variety of the stitch dictionaries I own (and listed where each one came from). None of the pictures show the whole chart, and none of them show the what sort of fabric these stitches would make. Given the very small part of the original works shown (portions of single charts from books that contain hundreds of charts) and the nature of the post (hopefully educational!), I feel like this qualifies as fair use. Of course if you are or represent the copyright holder of any of these works and you want me to take it down, just get in touch and I will.
It’s almost like learning a new language every time one encounters different knitting symbols. Well, at least that will help keep my brain sharp?!
Indeed! But I do try for some themes (left-leaning decreases use symbols that lean left…right-leaning decreases use symbols that lean right…yarn overs are circles). And I try amazingly hard to stick with the same symbols from pattern to pattern, so you only have to learn my version of things once.
Besides, knitters are amazing clever. We’re up for the challenge!
There are a vocal minority that don’t seem to want to think through a pattern, or maybe do a little studying on the side…maybe it’s the innate student in me, but I want some projects to challenge me!
Please don’t listen to the squeaky wheel–you don’t have to explain your pattern from cast on to bind off…we, as knitters, are creating something–you wouldn’t ask a chef to tell you how they stirred the pot on their recipe, designers shouldn’t be asked either.
I’m in total agreement. I actually get irritated with too much hand holding. Have a little faith in people’s abilities and they’ll usually live up to it!
Wow! That was really interesting. I’m new to your blog after falling in love with and buying a copy of Curls at my LYS. What a fascinating brain you have!
And you didn’t even mention StitchMap, which adds another dimension to charting. (Very cool looking, but I haven’t tried anything with it yet.)
Yes, this is exactly why we have a key for our charts. Sometimes I take the symbols in my charting software and re-purpose them with new names and stitch definitions, because they make visual sense. But I always provide a key, and directions if the stitches are exotic.
Yup, Stitch Maps is a whole new level of magic. There are actually stitch maps for curls linked to in the eversion of the book. I’ve got a post on Stitch Maps coming up soon. But when I started trying to talk about the two together, the post got way way way too long (and given how long this one ended up, that’s saying something!).
I do not have a problem reading charts with different symbols. Once you get in the rhythm of your project, it really doesn’t matter the symbol used.
I also want to let you know that I’m doing my first Curl project and I LOVE IT!!! I’ve probably got a 20″ wingspan currently on my Gridelon. Woot! Woot!
I was just thinking about this last night as I started knitting Caesious. I was having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around the pattern at first, and the vertical and horizontal lines you chose to use in the book to represent knits and purls were not what I was used to, adding to the confusion. I did really like the stitch map you provided, and that helped me understand what I was doing, which was very simple once my brain adjusted. It helped that I did end up re-writing the pattern on my own chart paper, using a dot for purls and a K for knits. Since it is just 4 rows it was not a huge consumption of time, but if it was a large chart I may have copied it and colored in the different stitches with colored pencils. That has helped me with unfamiliar/complicated charts in the past.
That’s a beautiful example of how different knitters just like to see their charts differently. I suspect that if I stared using Ks for knits, an awful lot of people yell at me. But if that’s what works best for you, then it’s exactly what you should do!
I totally end up rewriting charts if the conventions they use don’t mesh with my brain (that Omas book up there with the Os for knits being a prime example). I actually find the process sort of a good introduction to the chart, a way to get to know it before I get yarn and needles in hand.
While it’s clear that patterns in those books show a variety of ways to represent stitches, and I agree that there is not necessarily an Official Standard Way to create charts, I have to admit that I’ve had similar thoughts about your charts. Your charts are always well explained and clever, however, I have a hard time reading them because of the symbols used for knit (vertical line) and purl (horizontal line). I think many knitters these days primarily learned using patterns they download from Ravelry (vs stitch dictionaries) and a LOT of those tend to use blank boxes to represent K on RS and P on WS with a dot in a box representing P on RS and K on WS. In my mind, these stitches make it a lot easier to visualize the fabric. When you’ve grown accustomed to viewing the little v’s of stockinette as blank space, and you can kind of see that the purl bumps look a bit like dots, it’s confusing to try to read off a chart with vertical and horizontal lines instead. I haven’t done an exhaustive search or anything but of the designers whose patterns I’ve used, the line symbols are quite rare and in my opinion, make the chart harder to read. I end up recharting any chart that has such symbols so that my eye can follow it more easily.
I hope that sheds a little light into why people might make such comments!
It is always interesting to hear how other folks process something like a chart. I see about half dots and half dashes for purls, and dashes are just what I prefer.
As for the blank or vertical line for knits, in addition to just liking it better, there are actually a few reasons I prefer vertical lines.
First, I think it keeps a better relationship between how a knit stitch looks and how decreases look. That is, if you’re used to seeing a line for a knit, and then you see a slanted line for a decrease, that feels like a pretty close match between the chart and the fabric. Much closer than with blank stitches. The same thing holds for double decreases. If you’re used the idea of ‘lines are knits’ and then you see some version of a caret (the wee ^ symbol), the idea of ‘I’m going to bring three stitches together’ is a pretty easy step.
You can see this particularly well in something like stitch maps, where lines of knitting move around and you can trace out actual columns of stitches.
Second, and this gets more important the more complicated your chart, I like lines for knits because there’s no chance of mistaking them for a no stitch symbol. This is especially important if you’ve got some colored stitches otherwise. A colored empty square meaning knit, and a differently colored empty stitch meaning no stitch, could get confused pretty easily (especially if you bring in black and white printing).
I often have shaded stitches in my charts (and say something like work the unshaded stitches for a small and all stitches for a large). If you’ve got that, and no stitch symbols, you really need to be sure those remain distinct. Having a mark of some sort to represent knit accomplishes that.
Again, everybody gets to have the style they like best! And if some folks really dislike one style, that may mean they decide not to use those patterns. But I have given it a lot of thought and intentionally chosen the way I do things because I think it is the best way to represent the range of stitch patterns I use.
Please don’t listen to negative comments, your patterns are amazing. I have learned in my business there will always be one, ok maybe two unhappy folks. Besides, the time you took to write this lovely post you probably could have come up with a lovely new sock pattern!
Oh you’re very kind. I’m really not upset though. Most people aren’t actually being mean, they just may really not realize how many versions of ‘standard’ are out there!
And I figure it’s better to have one nice thorough explanation (with pictures and examples and everything) rather than answer one by one as it comes up.
I never thought twice about your charts until I saw a review on Amazon saying your knit squares should be blank or some thing. In my opinion, you use / for right leaning decreases and \ for left leaning ones and those are the only two I have strong feelings about. I love your patterns and have not found your charts to be difficult. Course, it’s possible that my brain thinks your charts are the standard. : )
This is a great post. Thanks for the visual examples! My friend Angela also uses different symbols for knit, purl, etc. and it causes a lot of grumbling when folks are using her charts. Me, I just happily knit whatever you tell me to (or whatever the chart says!).
xo xo
What is important to me is the legibility of the chart. some are so small and poorly printed, often using almost indistinguishable symbols, that you are hampered before you start.
I’d rather have a variety of symbols to learn than an overly wordy pattern that has no chart – now that is agony, and I just end up making it into a chart so that I can see what I am doing.
Love this! I am always frustrated when helping or teaching knitting by the folks who seem not to understand the pattern simply because they haven’t taken the time to read the key/abbreviation section provided. Sure, sometimes these don’t provide enough detail on an unusual stitch, but more often than not if you match the symbol with their instructions it comes out right!
Truth 1: I often use your chart key instructions if I can’t ‘get’ another designer’s way of explaining the same thing.
Truth 2: Slip 1, K2tog, PSSO in my world almost always becomes a Slip 2, K1, PSSO because I like the look more. It’s delicious to ignore instructions sometimes.
Hah, love it!
And really, there are left-leaning, right-leaning, and centered versions of double decreases…and you can pick which you want!
I like left and right if they’re continuing a line, and center when they come together!
Amen! After I knit my first project from a chart, I was super pumped to knit ALL THE THINGS THAT ARE CHARTED! Only to find that each new pattern I came across had a different key for the symbols represented. I looked around on Rav and generally just googled it to find that (like you so effectively pointed out) there is no standard. I’ve decided to take this as an exercise for my brain. By learning the individual stitch symbols for each new chart, I take it as learning a new language and stretching my brain. I appreciate your frank approach & that you make such an effort in your patterns to be consistent 🙂 Happy Knitting!
PS. Can’t wait to see your new book of Grays!!!! Those are my favorite!!
Holy moley, is this ever fascinating! I am fairly new to charts and in the short time I have been using them, it is already apparent to me that it is like learning to read music and is a bit like programming which I did back in the day when Fortran and mainframes roamed the earth. This opens a whole new window on knitting and makes my brain feel all revved-up (that’s 2 v’s together, not 1 w ;-)). How glorious – just the act of moving needles agilely through yarn seemed like pleasure enough, but adding the visual interpretation of what will happen to the stitches before I finally arrive, and working through the puzzle, is like reading the most gripping novel or solving the most challenging integral. Three cheers! Heck, four cheers!