Japanese pattern-reading tutorial: Lesson 4a crochet

For the final lesson, I’ll assume you’ve worked through the entire circular chart and are now ready to move on to the brim portion of the chart. The crucial part is knowing how the circular chart (the top of the hat) and the chart arranged in straight lines (the sides of the hat) are connected. It’s shown with dotted lines, which I’ve augmented here with orange lines:

The reason the pattern switches to showing symbols in rows rather than in a circle is that for several rows, you’re just going to work even (i.e., no increases), and then you’re going to decrease. It’s hard to chart both increases and decreases in a circular chart, hence the switch to lines. Anyway, just trust the chart! After slipping to join the last round of the circle chart, chain 3 as shown in the first round of the straight chart (labeled 9 over on the right side of the chart). Then dc in each of the next 4 stitches, work your bobble cluster thingy (yes, very technical, aren’t I?), and continue. You should see that the stitches align exactly with the pattern stitch you’ve already established for the top of the hat.

Decreases begin on round 14 and continue in round 15. After that, the chart lines have been renumbered, starting with round 1 and going up to round 5, presumably to show that this is a new section (the edging). Renumbering just seems to be up to the whim of the pattern designer – sometimes they’re renumbered when a new section starts, sometimes not. Anyway, the important thing here is that we have four rounds of single crochet (just the plain X on the chart), followed by one row of crab stitch.

This isn’t a terribly good photo, but this is how the edging works up:

When it’s finished, it should look something like this (although I didn’t have a kid’s head handy to model it, sorry):

Up until I did the rounds of single crochet, this hat actually fit my huge head. I didn’t cast off, actually, because I’m planning to undo the single crochet and leave this as a beanie so that I can wear it myself.

The only thing left in the chart is the pompoms. I’m not planning on making the pompoms, because I prefer a plain beanie look, but this is what we’re shown about a) where to put the pompoms and b) how to make them. These aren’t the typical pompoms made by wrapping yarn around something a bazillion times, cinching the middle, and then cutting the edges. Instead, they’re crocheted spheres that are stuffed with fiber (or waste yarn). The first image is a simple diagram of the hat showing that you need two pompoms and where to place them. Underneath that is a simple crochet chart – again, with international crochet symbols – showing how the pompoms are made. (For crochet symbols, please see: Hass Design | Craft Yarn Council of America | Select Yarn | Tezukuri Town | Two Radiant Is.)

On the left is the chart, and on the right, they’re showing you to stuff the pompoms. The messy lines I’ve circled in pink represent the stuffing, with a helpful arrow showing where it goes (although I’m pretty sure we can all figure out where stuffing goes!). The blue line is showing that you’re supposed to use your working yarn to pull the sphere shut. No detailed information is given on how to attach the pompoms to the hat. The Japanese text in the diagram merely says “attach pompoms”, so the designer assumes you’ll choose an appropriate method. Personally, I would either sew it on or slip stitch the pompom to the hat before cinching it shut. It’s really up to you, though.

So that should be everything you need to know to work on this pattern or nearly any Japanese charted pattern. Please let me know if you have any questions, and thanks for tuning in.

Japanese pattern-reading tutorial: Lesson 3b knitting

Ready for the knitting pattern tutorial? I’m afraid this one isn’t as in-depth as Monday’s crochet tutorial, but that’s mainly because the sweater pattern is so simple that there isn’t really much to talk about. I’ve already started on mine, and it’s mainly a lot of stockinette:

I’m using the suggested yarn, Pierrot Yarns Junmo Namibuto2, in a nice egg-yolk yellow color, and US 8 knitting needles.

The first step in working the pattern is obviously seeing what exactly it is that you’re supposed to do. If you look at the pattern, you’ll see a schematic of the back piece on the left and the front piece on the right. This pattern is very simple – no shaping, no sleeves, etc. – so the front and back are nearly the same. The only difference in the schematics is that the front shows the neck opening. Then at the bottom, there’s a diagram showing how to attach the fringe to the neckline (as seen in the photo).

Now, normally a Japanese knitting pattern will also have stitch charts at the bottom. This pattern doesn’t have any fancy stitch patterns, so there are no charts. Instead, the names of the stitches used are written onto the schematics. That’s where the photo and a Japanese knitting glossary come in handy. From looking at the photo alone, it seems we have a garter stitch hem, a long stretch of stockinette stitch, and then ribbing up top. We can confirm that by looking up the terms written on the schematic in a Japanese knitting glossary such as this one.

From the photo, it looks like the hem is garter stitch, so what does the schematic say in the hem area? ガーター編み. So look up ガーター編み in the Japanese knitting glossary, which confirms that it’s garter stitch. The schematic then changes to a big section labeled メリヤス編み, which we already suspect is stockinette from the photo. Once again, it’s right there in the Japanese knitting glossary. Then at the top, we have a section labeled 2目ゴム編み flanked with two strips of garter stitch (ガーター編み). Since we know from the photo that it’s some kind of ribbing and the gauge information told us gauge for k2p2 ribbing, let’s assume it’s k2p2 ribbing. Once again, the handy Japanese knitting glossary confirms this. In summary, we have:

• ガーター編み (gaataa ami), garter stitch – borrowed from English
• メリヤス編み (meriyasu ami) stockinette stitch – borrowed from Portuguese
• 2目ゴム編み (futame gomu ami) – literally “two stitch rubber knitting” – the rubber obviously comes from the fact that ribbing stretches like, well, rubber.

UPDATE: I knew I was forgetting something! I didn’t mention how to tell how many stitches to cast on. D’oh! Sorry about that. Most of you have probably figured it out already, because it’s pretty clear, but here’s how to go about it: look for a number followed by 目 at the hem. That number is the number you need to cast on. So, for example, in this pattern, it’s 62目 = cast on 62 stitches.

Also note that there’s an arrow pointing upward from the hem, which quite simply means that we’re knitting from the bottom up. Some patterns have an arrow going down, meaning that the edge is worked downwards after the body of the sweater is finished. Finally, inside the hem portion of the diagram, and again in the body portion, the needle size is written. Here it’s a bit redundant, since we were told up top to use Japanese size 8 needles (4.5mm). That means the hem and body are both done with the same size needle, but that won’t always be the case. So look for a number followed by 号針 to confirm the needle size. In this pattern, we have 8号針 in the hem area, 8号針 in the body, and 8号針 in the shoulders/neckline area. So we need to use that (Japanese) size 8 for the whole sweater.

Now, this pattern doesn’t have anything beyond basic stitches that people already know – garter, stockinette, and ribbing – so there are no knitting symbols in the pattern.* But if you want to know the Japanese knitting symbols, check out the basics on these sites:

• ABCs of Knitting
• Tezukuri Town (Nihon Vogue’s website) – this is in Japanese only, but it’s got step-by-step illustrations for each knitting symbol, so you can see how to do it regardless of what it’s called in English.
• Jessica Tromp’s Japanese knitting symbol website – extremely thorough, including some very complicated and rarely used stitches

In a later lesson, I’ll show you a pattern with stitch symbols and go over how to interpret it. I think it’s best not to mix more than one pattern per lesson, though. Later I’ll also go over how shaping is indicated in Japanese knitting patterns, since this pattern doesn’t have any shaping to speak of.

Anyway, I’ve told you enough to get you up until where the ribbing starts at in the chest portion of the sweater. Next time I’ll show you what the symbols at the top of the sweater mean, including casting on some additional stitches. Then we’ll go over what the pattern’s telling us about finishing, particularly the tassels on the neckline. That should about wrap it up, because I think two lessons may be enough for this simple sweater. Later lessons can be about other patterns if people are interested in continuing.

* OK, I lied: there are some knitting symbols, but only two: knit and purl. They’re in the schematic where the body of the sweater changes from stockinette to ribbing, and they’re there to tell you how the ribbing should be aligned (k2, p2 at the right edge, ending with k2 on the left edge). More on this next time.

Japanese pattern-reading tutorial: Lesson 3a crochet

So, everyone have their yarn and hooks ready? First, let’s take a good hard look at the pattern and see what it is the pattern wants you to do. We have a diagram of a hat with two pompoms attached to it, and an arrow pointing down from the crown the head. Let’s assume that means that the hat is worked from the top down. Then we have a big circle full of crochet symbols, and above it we have some rows of crochet symbols.

If you’re not already familiar with symbol crochet, the important thing to know is that one symbol = one stitch. Starting with the big circular part of the pattern, we can see the symbols are arranged in rounds that grow increasingly larger (please excuse my terrible hand-drawn lines – my photo software doesn’t do circles).

The わ symbol (pronounced wa) in the middle means that you’re supposed to do a magic loop, but really any method you know for creating a round in crochet will work. Also note that you work the rounds counterclockwise. Even without knowing the crochet symbols yet, you know a lot about the construction of the hat: it’s made in rounds that grow successively larger. Makes sense, right?

Ok, one more thing before I get into the actual crochet symbols themselves: how to identify the stitch repeat. Not only is that useful for keeping track of where you are in the pattern (it is fore me at least – don’t know about you guys), if you know the stitch repeat, you can easily make the hat larger or smaller. The stitch repeat is marked on the diagram with a bracket in the top right corner (where it says １１目１模様 “11 st 1 pattern repeat”). But even if it weren’t labeled, it’s pretty easy to spot the repeat, don’t you think?

If you want to make it larger or smaller, just add/remove one or more stitch repeats. If you remember from the first lesson, this beret has a head circumference of 45cm (17.7 inches). I’ll use myself as an example for how to increase. I have a huge 24-inch head – bigger than most men’s heads. Sigh. Anyway, if I wanted to resize this child’s hat for myself, I would want approx. 61cm instead of 45. As written, it has 9 pattern repeats, which we can see from just counting on the chart. So each pattern repeat accounts for about 5cm of the hat’s size. In my case, I need to add about 16cm, so I would pick the closest multiple of 5cm, which is 15cm. So if I add three more pattern repeats – working 12 repeats instead of 9 – then the hat should fit. I’ve done this with other Japanese hat patterns, both knit and crochet, and it’s really that simple. [ETA: You can change the size of hat another way, too. Instead of changing the stitch repeat, simply add more increase rows until it fits.]

OK, so let’s get down to nuts & bolts now: international crochet symbols. Japanese crochet (and knit) symbols are actually standardized by the Japanese government (JIS, section L textile engineering), so you’re not going to find that pattern authors use different symbols to mean the same thing. (The only exception is the single crochet symbol, which has two possible forms – more on that in a sec). In my experience, Japanese patterns tend to use a few really common symbols such as chain, single crochet, and double crochet. If they use any really unusual symbols, they usually have an explanation of the stitch somewhere in the pattern. Also, Japanese crochet symbols are the same as ones used in other countries, so they really are international. (I think Japanese symbols were the basis for international ones, but I don’t really know the history.)

Below are some sites that show what crochet symbols are (you’ll find most or all of these in the Pages tab of the Japanese knitting & crochet group on Ravelry). Some of the pages are Japanese, but they include illustrations, so you can see exactly how the stitch is worked.

• Hass Design
• Craft Yarn Council of America
• Select Yarn
• Tezukuri Town (Nihon Vogue’s site)
• Two Radiant Is (yes, that’s really the name)

Note that most of them use US terms, not British ones. The websites with illustrations are especially useful if you want to make sure you’re using the right stitch.

So which symbols do we have in our pattern? Well, all we have to do is look them up in one of the symbol charts I linked to above. As I mentioned earlier, there are two commonly used variants of the single crochet symbol: it can be either an X or a + (same shape, just rotated a bit). For convenience’s sake, these are the ones used in this pattern (hope I didn’t miss any!):

Note: there was a mistake in my table, but it’s corrected now. The sc symbol with a tilde over it is crab stitch, not sc through back loop only as I had accidentally written. The symbol for sc through back loop only is a sc symbol with a line above or below it, but a straight line.  Sorry about that! They look so similar. (Also, some of the British terms were left blank because I’m not certain what they are. Do you use shell and cluster to mean the same thing in British crochet terms? If you know, please enlighten me.)

It sounds overly simplistic, but to make the hat, you just work the symbols in the order they appear, starting at the center and working counterclockwise, like so:

1. make magic loop, and work 2 chains from it. Now work 8 hdc into the magic loop, and cinch the loop shut. Slip stitch into the second starting chain to join the round.
2. round 2: ch2, work 2-hdc shell into each st around, hdc into base of ch-2 that started the round, slip stitch into chain to join round.
3. and so on…

Finally, a word about the little table full of text in the lower right corner of the pattern. Basically, you can ignore it. It’s just a chart telling you how many stitches you should have at the end of each round. On the left of the table, we have the round number. For example, 1段め is round #1. On the right side of the table, we see 9目, which is 9 stitches. That helps you keep track of where you are, but it’s not strictly speaking necessary. Use it if it helps you, ignore it if it doesn’t.

In the next lesson, we’ll cover how to go from the circular chart to the one above it, which is displayed in rows rather than rounds of symbols. The two dotted lines connecting the two show you where they should line up, and if you look closely, you’ll see that the top rows don’t have any increases. We’re still working in the round, but they’re arranged in rows because there are no increases. I forgot to take photos while it was still light outside today, so I can’t show you my progress right now. But I’ll get photos tomorrow if I can. Feel free to post your own progress photos in the Ravelry tutorial thread.

ETA: Here’s my progress up through round 11:

Pierrot Yarns review: Soft Merino

This week I’m reviewing Pierrot Yarns Soft Merino (store link || Ravelry link). It’s also available in fingering (UK 4-ply) weight, but the one I’m reviewing here is sport to DK weight. (Note that the store website lists it as “chunky,” but that’s just a result of direct translation from Japanese. It gets 23 st per 10 cm, which is squarely in the sport weight category. Which reminds me that I should probably write up a post about Japanese yarn weights one of these days.) These are my two skeins of color #8, wine red:

Here’s what you’ll find on the label [English translation in brackets]:

• 毛　100%（メリノウール） [100% merino wool]
• 約４０g玉巻（約９５m）[approx. 95m per 40g skein]
• 棒針　６号〜８号 [recommended needle range: Japanese size 6-8 knitting needles (3.9-4.5mm)]
• カギ針　５号〜６号 [recommended crochet hook range: Japanese size 5/0 - 6/0 (3.0-3.5mm)]
• ゲージ　２３目３０段 [suggested gauge: 23st and 30 rows in 10cm (stockinette)]

Knit swatch (before washing/blocking):

Knit in stockinette on US 7 (4.5mm). My gauge before washing was 22.5 st and 30 rows in 10×10cm. Being such a tight knitter, I’m amazed I got so close to the suggested gauge – never happens!

No pilling as you knit it, and I didn’t experience any splitting. The yarn was nice to knit up – very soft! I wouldn’t hesitate to use this for baby items (keeping in mind that it’s not superwash wool).

Knit swatch (after washing/blocking):

Knit in stockinette on US 7 (4.5mm). My gauge after washing was 19 st and 31 rows in 10×10cm. So it grew just a bit, especially in width.

It was hand-washed in cold water with mild detergent, then rolled in a towel to remove excess water. I blocked it loosely with pins and left it to dry. The dried fabric is very soft but has no visible felting after one wash. It also didn’t bleed when washed, which surprised me with a red yarn (other colors may bleed when washed, of course, so always be careful when washing).

Crochet swatch (before washing/blocking):

Double crochet (US) with size D hook (3.25mm). My gauge before washing was 22 st and 6 rows in 10×10cm. I cheated a bit here and didn’t make a huge swatch, so I measured over 5cm and just multiplied everything by two.

I found that the yarn split occasionally while I was crocheting it, but nothing too frustrating. With this hook size, I got a nice, soft fabric that holds its shape but isn’t so stiff it’s bulletproof.

My impressions:

• The name Soft Merino is truth in advertising – this yarn is very soft. Very nice on the hands while knitting or crocheting, and the resulting fabric is smooth like butter.
• Comes in a lot of colors, which is good for anyone wanting to do colorwork.
• A bit splitty if you’re crocheting – not a problem when knitting.
• Blooms nicely in the wash, but pay attention to difference in gauge after washing.

Overall, I would highly recommend this yarn. Now to decide what to make with my remaining skeins!