Work continues on the Springtime charts. I think I'm getting there! I'm pretty sure the basic building block that I came up with in the last entry is the correct one. Yeah! I also have the mirror image mesh half-diamonds drafted. I need to check them and be sure the counts are correct.
I came up with a handy little worksheet to test my charts. (worksheet will open in pop-up window).
For each row of the pattern, I first check how many stitches the row uses, and then check how many stitches the row results in. As I mentioned before, the stitch count for this pattern varies (from 26 to 38 per row, as it turns out). If row 1 results in the same number of stitches that will be used in row 3, everything is copacetic (row 2, and all even rows, are knit plain).
I did these counts by hand, although I imagine there is a way to get Excel to do them for me. I have an email from a knitter on the knitted lace list, describing how she uses the find and replace feature to replace all the symbols with their numerical result on the stitch count. A K2tog, for instance, uses 2 stitches, and results in 1, thus reducing the count by 1. So she replaces all the symbols for K2tog with a -1 (and does all the other symbols likewise). Then she creates formulas to add up the rows. Since I'm using so many plain squares, and gray squares for "no stitch," and both of those "symbols" would be difficult to replace, I think this method might not work easily with this pattern.
Counting manually didn't really take very long. I counted the rows of the building block, which came out perfectly. Now I need to count the mesh half-diamonds to make sure they work as well. At least I'm on the right track, and there is movement!
Posted by Shelda at May 16, 2004 06:17 PMI'm just beginning to explore knitting weblogs, and especially lace knitting blogs, and when I read yours, I felt inspired to write about my own experiences with counting pattern stitches in knitted lace (that's the kind with pattern stitches on every other row, right? As opposed to lace knitting, which involves pattern stitches on every row - I don't think I've done any of that yet). I'm maybe at the beginning of the intermediate level, having done a knitting stitch sampler of some 60 to 80 stitches many years ago, and more recently a number of Feather and Fan projects and some beaded work prior to my first Gloria Penner medallion.
Anyway, do you have any photos of your finished projects? I'd love to see them.
Thanks, Karen
Posted by: Karen Mattern at June 4, 2004 02:48 AM