Cables, lace, puffs and clusters

The stitch pattern makers now go past knit, purl and the basic crochet stitches. In knitting, Rope Cable crosses four stitches every fourth row between purl columns, Horseshoe Cable crosses one cable to the back and one to the front so they curve apart, and Feather and Fan, also called Old Shale, uses decreases and yarn overs to pull the fabric into scallops. In crochet, Puff Stitch sets soft puffs into the spaces of the row below, and Cluster Stitch closes three double crochets into one top. Each has its chart, row-by-row instructions written from that chart, a yarn estimate and a complete square pattern, in all seven languages.

Samples to start from

• Generating…Rope Cable, crossed every fourth rowOpen with these settings
• Generating…The Horseshoe Cable chartOpen with these settings
• Generating…Feather and Fan, pulled into scallopsOpen with these settings
• Generating…Puff Stitch, set into the spaces belowOpen with these settings
• Generating…The Cluster Stitch chartOpen with these settings

New symbols, written out in full

Charts gain the standard symbols: a circle for a yarn over, slanted lines for k2tog and ssk, crossed lines for a cable, a wide oval for a puff and a fan for a cluster. The written rows name each one the way patterns do, as C4F or yo, k2tog, and the abbreviations explain how to work any the stitch uses. The tests follow each written row back into stitches, at every width and gauge, and check that it matches the chart and keeps the stitch count.

Swatches that look like knitting

The knitting stitch pictures are redrawn the way the crochet ones were: knit stitches as Vs, purls as bumps lying across, yarn overs as holes, decreases leaning their way and cables as bands crossing over each other. Each stitch on the knitting and crochet pages takes its own yarn color.