Resist: a free chart for stranded knitting and other crafts

On Saturday I went to the nearest Women’s March; not the one in Washington, DC. It was a moving experience, and it derailed my plans for today’s blog post.

Below, you’ll find a chart for stranded knitting based on the word Resist. I turned the letters into numbers, and then charted the numbers to make this pattern. The result isn’t exactly secret code, nor is it meant to be recognized by other people as a sign of your political affiliations. But if you want to make something you can wear unobtrusively as a reminder to  yourself, this is a stitch pattern for you. Here is a lace version of Resist.

(Added later) If you’d like more overt signs of resistance, here’s some patterns for you:

  • PussyHat Project,including patterns for knit, crochet, and sewn hats. You could probably adjust the pussyhat to use my stitch pattern, if you liked.
  • Resist hat (Ravelry link) from Donna Druchunas’s free ebook, Knitting as a Political Act, which includes links to other designers’ work as well.

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Resist: a free chart for stranded knitting or other crafts
Notes:

  • This pattern is a repeat of 12 + 1 stitches and 12 + 1 rows. Rows 1 & 13 are part of the encoding; if you remove them, any remaining possibility of this being code will be gone. (But do it if you like.)
  • I made this chart for people to use in needlework; you don’t need my permission to use it. I’d like credit, but won’t be offended if you don’t give it.

Watch out for the strands on rows 2, 6, 8, and 12 that are more than five stitches long. I tried out the STUART method invented by TECHknitter in a couple of places to deal with those strands.  I am not certain if I did it correctly, but I’ve only tried it this once.

I think this version of the chart ought to work for knit/purl texture knitting as well, but I haven’t tried it yet, so I don’t know how the central motif will come out:

Resist: a free knitting stitch chart

Notes:

  • I need to redo the chart – this does work, but it needs alternating plain rows. I’m in the midst of knitting it as a band on a pussyhat; photos when done.

Abbreviations:

  • k: knit
  • p: purl

Row 1 (RS): knit. [1
Row 2 (WS): k1, *k1, p9, k2; work from *.
Row 3: *k3, p1, k5, p1, k2; work from *, k1.
Row 4: p1, *(p1, k1) x 2, p3, k1, p1, k1, p2; work from *.
Row 5: *(k1, p1) x 2, (k2, p1) x 2, k1, p1; work from *, k1.
Row 6: p1, *p4, k1, p1, k1, p5; work from *.
Row 7: *k2, p1, (k1, p2) x 2, k1, p1, k1; work from *, k1.
Row 8: p1, *p4, k1, p1, k1, p5; work from *.
Row 9: *(k1, p1) x 2, (k2, p1) x 2, k1, p1; work from *, k1.
Row 10: p1, *(p1, k1) x 2, p3, k1, p1, k1, p2; work from *.
Row 11: *k3, p1, k5, p1, k2; work from *, k1.
Row 12: k1, *k1, p9, k2; work from *.
Repeat rows 1-12 as desired, ending with one more repeat of row 1.
Forward together, not one step back.

Encoding explanation for the curious:

The first thing I did was to turn the letters of resist into numbers, using base 7: 24 05 25 12 25 26. (I picked base 7 because I liked the resulting charts.)

Then I charted them in various ways, and picked this one:

resist chart process 1.png

I started in the bottom right corner, because so does knitting. The first digit of resist is 2, so I counted two squares and marked the next square to the left with black. The second digit is 4, so I counted four squares. There is no square to the left, so I marked the first square of the next row. The next digit is zero, so I counted no squares and marked the next, and so on.

Then I mirrored the resulting grid once:

resist chart process 2.png

And again:

resist chart process 3.png

I removed the extra column and row from the middle:

resist chart process 4.png

Finally, I rotated the whole thing by a quarter turn.

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