While there are thousands of Doodle charts to start with, you are also encouraged to adapt or alter the charts to suit your design needs. This can include anything from adding or removing stitches, to swapping parts of motifs, to knitting motifs in unexpected colors for a unique effect!

Below are basic guidelines and ideas for some of the ways you might consider modifying a Doodle chart.

ADD OR REMOVE CC STITCHES

Does your chart have too many long floats? Consider adding a few stitches in your contrast color within those stretches. This can reduce the need to catch floats, creating a simpler chart to follow. “Dot” or “Plus” shaped motifs work really well for this!

Is your chart too busy? Many of the charts are intentionally designed with “dots” in between the motifs to reduce long floats. If you’re comfortable with catching longer floats, you are welcome to reduce or eliminate these extras contrast stitches.

CHANGE THE NUMBER OF COLORS

Not ready for 3-colors at a time? No worries! That can be something to build up to in your skillset. Often, the more complex, 3-color charts can be simplified and knit using just two colors. 

In this example, we have removed the third color by making those stitches either match the main color or contrast color instead, while still maintaining clarity in the design.

Want to enhance a simple chart? You can add extra color and depth to some of the simpler charts by intentionally adding a third (or fourth) color. 

In this example, while the motif was originally all one color, we changed the top of the Umbrella to a third color to suit our design needs.

 

COMBINE DIFFERENT CHARTS

Like parts of two different charts? Some Doodles work really well for combining (or swapping) parts of two different charts together, such as the bottom of one ice cream treat and the top of another, or any of the pots and plants from Garden, Desert, or Botanical Doodles.

NOTE: This works best when combining charts vertically, i.e. not disrupting your horizontal chart repeat.

Want 2 different charts in the same round? While this can be a little harder, it’s still possible to combine charts within the same round. You’ll want to look for characteristics like similar height and similar colors within the rounds to make this successful. If you end up with too many different colors per round, it’s going to be a lot more complex to knit.

WORK HALF OR PARTIAL CHARTS

For the smaller circumference Base Patterns to have a range of sizes (ex, socks, mitts, etc.), many of the sizes are designed to work with 12-stitch repeats or “half charts”, rather than the typical 24-stitch repeat that the Doodle charts are based on. 

Here is an example of a chart that has a 12-stitch repeat or "half chart." You can usually tell because there are two motifs within the chart, rather than one.

For more information, see Doodle Repeats

Some charts are technically a 24-stitch repeat but it’s actually just a mirror image or other “almost” repeat of the first half of the chart. In this case, you can reduce that chart down to a 12-stitch repeat and not have any issues.

Happy Doodling!

Want even easier access to all of our Doodle resources? All of this (and more) is available in our DoodleHQ app! 

 

Blog written by Jamie Lomax.