The Knitting Fiend

A reader recently asked me some questions about charts which motivated me to write yet another article in the “How To Read Charts” series. This time, I’ll discuss charting short row heels, similar to those in two of my sockulators.¹

To begin: imagine you’re working a sock and have been knitting circular over 24 stitches. When the circular bit reaches some stated length, the directions would tell you to divide the work, placing 12 stitches on a stitch holder; these 12 stitches would be the instep. You would then begin working the other 12 stitches back and forth, in short rows following the chart outlined in yellow below.

My chart shows how to work the 12 heel stitches that are now on the needle. Each box on the chart represents 1 stitch. The symbols inside each box tells you what to do with the stitch; a legend is provided to explain the symbols.

Let’s begin to work from the chart. Of course, you already know you must begin from the bottom of the chart. Remember that when knitting in the round, the right side (RS) of the work is always facing you, so you always read from right to left. Since row ‘0′ in the chart indicates the last round, it is read from right to left. I didn’t show the final 12 stitches on round 0, so you’ll have to understand that you would have worked all the way around those 12, arriving back at the right hand side of the chart.

You will know follow the directions in “row 1″ of the chart. You worked around in a circle, so the right side of the work is facing you; once again, you read from right to left. Examining the symbol chart, you see the vertical red bar is a “knit” stitch. The blue circle with the green line is a wrap and turn. Because wrapping and turning involves some slipping, I concocted a symbol that spans to rows.

Row 1: Knit 11 stitches, wrap and turn. (Recall, the wrap and turn will be, bring yarn forward as to purl, slip stitch, bring yarn back, turn, slip the stitch. See how it spans what you might consider 2 rows? That’s why I made the symbol tall. I chose the green line to indicate the “wrap”.)

Now, you are ready for row 2: The wrong side of the work is facing you, and the wrapped stitch is already on the right hand tip. Now, examine the legend: the vertical bar now means “purl”. Here’s what the directions turn into:

Row 2: Purl 10 stitches. wrap and turn.

Notice the “X” symbol for “don’t work”? That meant “don’t work.” And notice if you followed the text directions, you didn’t work the stitch in that “box”.

I know it may seem obvious that “don’t work” means “don’t work”, but the question that prodded me to write this article was what to do when a chart says “no stitch”. Just as “don’t work” means “don’t work”; no stitch, means “there is no stitch in this box; so don’t do anything with the non-stitch. Just skip to the next box!”

But, I digress. Still, you now understand the whole chart, don’t you? Row 3 is right side facing, so:

Row 3: Knit 9 stitches, wrap and turn.
Row 4: Purl 8 stitches, wrap and turn

Row 5: Knit 7 stitches, wrap and turn.
Row 6: Purl 6 stitches, wrap and turn.

Now, glance up to the photo at the top of this article. Notice the slanted green line shown on the heel? You have now knit up to this point. The back of the heel is longer than the front because you knit more rows over the center stitches. Nifty, right?

Now you are now going to reverse the shaping. In my normal sock directions, I explain how to pick up wraps. Picking up the wraps is entirely optional, so for this chart reading exercise, we’ll skip that. Here goes:

Row 7: Knit 7 stitches, wrap and turn.
Row 8: Purl 8 stitches, wrap and turn.

Row 9: Knit 9 stitches, wrap and turn.
Row 10: Purl 10 stitches, wrap and turn.

Row 11: Knit 11 stitches.

Hey, you’ve finished the short row heel! There is still a stitch wrapped on the far right hand side, but don’t worry about that.

The directions would tell you to pick up the instep stitches from their holder, and begin knitting around and around.

Ok, so now, you’ve seen the text directions for a short row heel and you’ve seen the chart. You can decide which type of pattern explanation you prefer.

Guess which I prefer? Charts. They seem to “reveal all” to me. In fact, I always chart out on graph paper before writing text directions. I also often whip out the graph paper and make a simplified chart when reading other peoples directions! So, you can guess I’m a chart-kinda-gal.

Yet, I write my pattern out in text. Go figure!

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1. Note, the heels on my sockulator socks are somewhat different from this lesson. I do a few non-conventional things to avoid holes.