Ply and Burl

Cruising Ravelry (as a girl is wont to do), I found this thought-provoking line from brella:

[I] quickly understood logic of pattern, no need to refer to chart or instructions

Now, I’m not going to wax poetic on this one, but I think it bears noting that some of us knitters do this: we don’t memorize the pattern, or follow the chart the whole time. Instead, we learn how the pattern thinks — how it moves, where its goes out to and returns, where it stops and starts again. I often don’t figure it out until a few repeats in (at least on a complicated pattern) and feel liberated when I finally do. Finally able to knit without keeping the creased pile of xeroxed pattern papers at my side!

So a thought for pattern writers: How about adding a section called “Pattern Logic” to hasten the learning process for those of us who don’t need to follow the directions line by line. It would be a huge help! It could be a simple pattern hueristic, such as “every five rows, cross the cable” or “every other row, inc 1 at start of repeat, dec 1 at end. Or, it could be something more explanatory for those of us looking to learn techiniques from the pattern: “each round increases by X sts to keep the piece circular” or ” alternating inc 2 and dec 2 several stitches apart gives the fabric a zig zag pattern.”

Just a thought…

This entry was posted on Monday, December 29th, 2008 at 6:37 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.