Guide to Chart Reading

Scarves come in many sizes and can be knitted using everything from ribbing to cables to lace—the latter being a classic and popular knitting technique. Most lace patterns are best represented in chart form, which actually makes them fairly easy to follow. Here’s a tip on how they work, from Lace One-Skein Wonders by Judith Durant.

How to Follow a Chart Pattern

If you have a fear of charts, now is the time to free yourself from that fear. Because charts mimic the pattern that they represent, it is much easier to find your place on a chart than in a long string of written words should you get distracted. Each symbol used in a chart represents a specific stitch or combination of stitches, and they are designed to look like the finished stitch: for example, a yarn over is represented by a large circle and a k2tog is represented by a right-leaning symbol.

Because knitting progresses from the bottom up, you’ll begin following a chart on the bottom-most row, and since we work from right to left, the first stitch of the row is the rightmost stitch in the bottom row. When knitting back and forth, follow all right-side chart rows from right to left and follow all wrong-side chart rows from left to right. When knitting in the round, all rows are right-side rows and you’ll follow all rows from right to left.

A good way to keep track of where you are is to use a Post-it note on the chart–place the note just above the chart row you’re currently working and move it up when you’ve finished each row. Placing the note above the row you’re working allows you to see all the chart rows that you’ve already knit, and this should look very similar to the work in your hands.

Lace One-Skein Wonders features 18 patterns for luscious lace scarves. For a simple yet lovely lace scarf with only eight rows in each pattern repeat, check out A Spray of Lace, designed by Paula Papoojian, on page 164. For a more involved ruffled lacy delight, try Judith’s Butterflies are Free Scarf on page 145.

For more projects like this, check out Lace One-Skein Wonders edited by Judith Durant—just $3.99 for the holidays!

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