How To Draw Simple Lace Patterns

After making some initial decisions about colour, shape and concept (discussed in the previous post), you need to start choosing stitch patterns for your shawl. Flip through stitch dictionaries until you find some charts which appeal to you. This post will explain how to create charts and come to a deep understanding of the lace pattern you want to use in your design!

HOW TO CHART OUT A SIMPLE LACE PATTERN

Once you have picked a few patterns to try out, you will need to make swatches to test them out, and convert them into charts, so that you can work with them in your design. Today we're going to look at how to chart a simple lace stitch pattern. This pattern is simple because: all wrong-side (WS) rows are simply purled, and the stitch count remains the same on every row. This makes it quite easy and clear to chart. In a future post I will give my process and tips for working with more complex lace patterns. All the abbreviations used in this post are listed here.

Little Leaf Lace – multiple of 6 stitches plus 1

Row 1 (Wrong side) and all other wrong-side rows: Purl
Row 2 (RS): k1, (k2tog, yo, k1, yo, ssk, k1) repeat to end
Row 4: k2tog, (yo, k3, yo, sl2-k1-p2sso) repeat, ending last repeat ssk instead of sl2-k1-p2sso
Row 6: k1, (yo, ssk, k1, k2tog, yo, k1) repeat to end
Row 8: k1, (k1, yo, sl2-k1-p2sso, yo, k2) repeat to end

Charts are a visual representation of knitting instructions. Each stitch is represented by a symbol in a square. As a general rule, charts represent how the stitches will be knit/look when viewed from the right side (RS) or front of the work. You read, and write, all right-side (RS) rows from the right hand side of the chart to the left-hand side (in the same direction that you will be knitting the work). You read, and write, all wrong-side (WS) rows from the left-hand side to the right-hand side.

To begin, you will need graph paper and a pencil. First choose the symbols to use in your chart, and draw your chart key. I used these ones, which are very common.

First you will draw a horizontal line to define the bottom of your chart, and a vertical line to define the RH edge of the chart. The Little Leaf Lace pattern is written so that the first row is a WS row:

Row 1 (Wrong side) and all other wrong-side rows: Purl

A purl stitch worked on the WS is a knit stitch on the RS, so we simply leave the first line of the chart empty, and proceed to the second row.

Row 2 (RS): k1, (k2tog, yo, k1, yo, ssk, k1) repeat to end

Starting at the right-hand edge of the chart, number row 2, and insert the appropriate symbols into the graph squares one by one, working from right to left as the pink arrow indicates. I put little vertical lines in the chart where the brackets indicate a chart repeat. I also find it is best to chart out at least 2 repeats of a pattern to begin.

After you have done that, proceed to chart out the rest of the pattern in exactly the same way

Once you have completed the charting, you can see that the little vertical lines that indicate the repeats line up. Draw heavy lines through them, to indicate the pattern repeat.

Notice how all the WS rows are empty? When you have a pattern like this, you can eliminate these rows from the chart, and simply include a note to purl all WS rows. I also prefer for the RS rows to have ODD numbers, so I'm going to renumber my chart, making the first RS row Row 1, instead of Row 2.

Now the chart is much more compact and the decreases line up. The structure of the chart now resembles the form of the knitted lace itself. I also like to chart out an extra repeat or two to see the overall effect of the pattern.

Once you do this, you can begin to see the structure of the lace, and analyze how it is formed. This will also become more and more clear as you knit your swatch, and 'get to know' the lace properly.

What you will notice as you knit the swatch is that the lace is really formed of two rows, which are offset half a repeat (3 stitches) horizontally from one another. This is what causes the offset motif. Lovely!

Once you have charted a pattern, and knit a sample, you will have intimate knowledge of how the lace is formed. This is crucial for the next steps in the shawl design process; because you will need to shape the lace in order to make it into a shawl, and transition from one lace stitch pattern to another in a seamless / elegant way.

SO WHAT DO YOU WANT TO CREATE? As Diane and I work together on our collaborative shawl design, I will continue to write about the shawl design process, swatching, charting, and shaping lace, choosing borders, and adjusting stitch patterns.

This is a very in-depth design process so I can only work directly with one person, but I would love to have you join in, ask questions, and work alongside us to develop your own designs. A great place for this conversation to happen is on the Tin Can Knits Ravelry group – check it out and join us for design debates. And as always, we love to hear from you, so leave a comment, or pop us an email!

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