Tips for Making Charts Easier to Read

1 day ago

Written by Grey Lundy

1 day ago

Written by Grey Lundy

Are you finding it difficult to work with knitting charts? It's very common to feel hesitant about a pattern that is "charts only", especially when you're getting used to a new knitting technique.

In general, these tips for making charts easier to read are all about minimizing how much information you are processing at once. Whether that means changing the colors on the chart (so you're not guessing which yarn to use), or blocking out extra rows (so you don't have to keep finding your spot again), here are our Top 5 Tips for making colorwork charts much less scary!

Brand new to using colorwork charts? If you've never used a colorwork chart before, head over to How to Read a Colorwork Chart to get all the basics down first!

TIP 1 MAKE THE COLORS WORK FOR YOU

Most colorwork charts (including Doodles) are designed in black, white, and grey. This is used because it has a nice high contrast, which makes it easy to tell the different color squares/stitches apart. But these aren't necessarily the best colors for an individual knitter to work from! If you're having trouble translating the black and white to your specific project, why not try customizing it!

Invert light & dark colors

Many charts use white as the background and black/grey for the design. But if you're knitting with a dark main color and a light contrast color, it can be very easy to mix those up! Good news is that ALL Pacific Knit Co Digital Patterns include inverted versions of every chart! Just use the one that matches your dark vs light yarns, and it will be MUCH easier to knit from.

Make the chart match your yarn

If you're struggling to remember which of your yarn colors corresponds to which shade of grey in a standard chart - switch it up! Try making the chart in your actual colors to match your personal yarn color palette!

Try one of these options for re-drawing the chart to make the colors work for you:

OPTION 1 Redraw on paper

Our FREE Blank Doodle Master Chart is designed specifically for Doodle knitters to re-draw charts in custom colors. It even comes with a palette key you can fill in, so you know exactly which of your yarns go where!

OPTION 2 Redraw on a device

If you're feeling a bit more tech savvy, you can play with your charts in a digital app, such as Knitting Chart app, Knit Companion, or Stitch Fiddle. These apps can create blank grids that align to the Doodle Standard 24-stitch chart and you can re-draw your selected Doodle Charts in the right colors digitally.

TIP 2 SPLIT THE CHART INTO BITE-SIZED PIECES

All Doodle Charts are set to a standard 24-stitches wide. But sometimes, for some knitters, that can still feel like too much to keep track of. And that's ok! Why not break it down into easier-to-handle sections, so that there is less to manage!

Use extra stitch markers/lines within a chart

To make a wide chart more approachable, try putting a stitch marker at the halfway point (every 12 stitches for a Doodle Chart). That way, you only ever have to count to 12, instead of 24! And, as a bonus, it helps you catch any mistakes earlier, because you're checking in on whether your last stitch of knitting matches the last stitch on your chart more frequently!

Alternatively, try a different way of dividing the chart that works for you! Maybe 10 stitches feels more natural than 12 - so add a line on your chart and/or add a stitch marker at 10 and 20 stitches, to keep yourself on track!

Find a smaller repeat within your chart

While the standard Doodle Chart is 24-stitches wide, many of our charts can actually be broken down into even smaller pieces. In the example below, the Wave chart is really only 6-stitches wide! Finding a smaller repeat to keep track of can help limit how much mental work you're doing to not lose your place in your chart!

TIP 3 ONE ROW AT A TIME

The biggest challenge I had when I first started using colorwork charts was keeping track of my rows. There are lots of different methods that different knitters use to make sure they always know which row of the chart they are currently working.

The example below shows how you might just cover up the other rows so that you are only ever looking at one row at a time. Maybe this can be done using sticky notes on a Doodle Card, or by adding some rectangles on top of your chart if you view your charts digitally. Many knitting chart apps have this feature built right in!

Some people find it sufficient to block out only half the rows (like all the rows above, or all the rows below, but not both sides). You could use sticky notes for this too, or you could zoom in on a chart on your phone and keep the top row aligned with the top of your screen!

Try a few ways of playing around with this and see what works best for you!

TIP 4 PLAN OUT CATCHING YOUR FLOATS

If you're struggling with managing where to catch floats - why not mark it out on your chart before you start! This is a great way to make charts more approachable by reducing the number of things that you have to keep track of. Instead of trying to count stiches AND guess where to add a caught float, you just catch every time you come to a square that has the marker in it.

You can do this digitally (as in the example here), or use a highlighter on a chart you printed out. However you choose to mark it up, if you do this work before you start, then you don't have to think about it at all while knitting!

Note: This example shows catching the float in the middle of a 5-stitch wide section, which is more often than some knitters find necessary. This is just an example on a simple chart, plan yours out however you like!

TIP 5 WRITE-IN NUMBERS TO AVOID GUESSING

Our last tip is great for knitters who might have trouble translating a block of squares into a number when looking at a chart. If there is only one or two stitches in a color between switching, our brains are pretty good about making sense of that. Past 4-5 stitches though? It can get harder to "see" the stitch count, and we find ourselves guessing and double-checking.

If you have stretches of a single color that are more than 4-5 stitches wide, why not try writing the actual number on the chart? This example shows stretches of 5 stitches, but the higher the number, the more helpful this is. Instead of trying to tell if it's 11 -vs- 12 grey squares - if I write it down, it's one less thing to think about while I'm working that row!