Bonus: Rotating even-count grid designs

antics with even count designs

Cart-wheeling Shamrock

Because of the “square” nature of beaded garter stitch, our little beaded shamrock design  can easily be rotated 90° or 180° or 270°, as though it were doing cartwheels.

Since the design is not exactly symmetrical, each rotation will look a bit different.

Cart-wheeling Shamrock

So, as a bonus, here is a chart for the knitted sample above with 3 different versions of the shamrock: the original as given in the Irish Coffee Cozy pattern, the shamrock rotated counterclockwise 90°, then counterclockwise another 90°. This gives you the 3 beaded repeats you need for a cozy, but they are each slightly different for those of you who get bored doing the same thing. (Who, me?!)

Note: The symbol key for this chart is the same as  in your Irish Coffee Cozy pattern, or  the Beading Hearts Friendship Bracelet pattern from last year’s KAL.

The yellow area of the chart depicts the 15 x 15 grid that is rotated. Do you see how the edge stitches stay constant?

Actually, the beaded border around the shamrock looks the same after it is rotated, since it is symmetrical both horizontally and vertically.

However, since the shamrock itself is not symmetrical, it becomes very obvious when comparing the chart and the knitted sample; i.e. what is on the left of the chart appears on the right of the knitted sample, and vice versa. This is because beads are placed from the WS (and the chart depicts those WS rows), whereas the knitting is viewed from the RS on which the beads appear. Thus, the shamrocks appear to the cart-wheeling clockwise in the knitted sample.

If you are designing your own things, this left/right and counterclockwise/clockwise stuff is something to keep in mind, especially if it matters (e.g. if you are doing text).

Can YOU Cartwheel?

You could do yet another rotation of the shamrock if you wanted to knit a 4th beaded repeat for something larger (maybe a headband?). I haven’t charted that 4th version, but you could give rotating the shamrock a try.

You can either re-chart as I have done above so you don’t have to think later about it much. Or just rotate the piece of paper your chart is printed on (or your iPad or whatever), and knit it on the fly while keeping the edge stitches constant but working the interior in the rotated orientation.

More Possibilities for Even-Count Designs Adapted to Beaded Garter Stitch

Other adaptations of even-count designs can be carried over from simple cross stitch, filet crochet, etc. because of the “square” nature of garter stitch i.e. 1 row ridge = 1 stitch (where a ridge = 2 rows).

In fact, it’s similar to last month’s discussion of even count designs in knitted filet lace, but now we are working with beads only.

I invite you to have fun with this!