May 09, 2004
Tricky counts, yep!
This should have been obvious to me, but I hadn't really analyzed it until this afternoon. The reason that fiddling with this chart is particularly tricky is because the stitch counts do not stay the same from row to row. Here is a photo of the basic "Building Block" of the chart (terminology of the building block from Myrna Stahman), charted in MS-Excel.
click for larger view. (will open in pop-up window)
The little gray squares mean "no stitch," and as you can see, there are more or less of them in each row. The stitch count of an individual row varies from 26 to 36 stitches. All over the place, one might say! While you're knitting, this means that you are subtracting stitches on some rows and adding them back on other rows, and requires paying careful attention. It also makes moving bits and pieces of the charts from place to place, and recombining the sections in new configurations, a bit more complicated.
Another issue is that the full-size diamond contains the leaf forms mostly in the top half and mesh in the bottom half. But the split isn't exactly at the half-way point, so there are bits of the leaves extending down into the bottom mesh of the diamond. In the tablecloth, there are also plain mesh diamonds that have no leaves, and which are charted separately. I want to use those diamonds in several places: at the top of the back panel, so there aren't leaf points at the beginning, and at the sides of the back panel, so I don't have half leaves trooping down the sides of the back panel. But that means I need to extract the relevant pieces of those mesh diamonds and integrate them into my existing charts. Whew!
At this point I think I have at least four charting problems left to solve:
- Integrate bottom half of plain mesh into the top of the back panel
- Make sure the first row of the back panel makes sense and can be knitted (I can tell this is a tricky bit by looking at some of the adjustments to the first rows of back panel charts in Myrna Stahman's book.)
- Come up with two mesh half diamonds for the sides of the back panel. I need a left and a right one. Hopefully they will just mirror image!
- Draft the side panel charts (this looks relatively straightforward, but we'll see)
And there may certainly be problems lurking that I haven't yet spotted. I was thinking that it might be wise to knit this up in a heavier weight yarn first, mainly to test the charts. Two or three repeats in length would make me more confident about the charts, and also I could get to know the pattern better (I knit the swatch about three years back). I suppose I could make a small shoulder shawl, or just have a really big swatch!
It does feel really good to be engaged with this again. Really learning to chart lace and arrange things to suit myself is something I've long wanted to accomplish. And I think I needed a knitting challenge! My mother reminded me that this was supposed to be a 'non-stress' project, so I will try to relax, keep at it, and see how it goes.
Happy Mother's Day!
Posted by Shelda at May 9, 2004 05:03 PM