I tried Knitting from a Japanese Knitting Pattern.

These fingerless mitts came from a Japanese knitting stitch dictionary and the most interesting part isn't this fun stitch pattern. It's the knitting pattern itself. Japanese knitting patterns are not written the same as English language patterns. They are very very different and that was one of the most interesting parts of knitting this pair of mittens. Hey nerdy knitter Tanya here. I'm a certified knitting instructor and a master hand knitter and I want to help you knit garments that fit whether that's a sweater or fingerless mitts. Now I've been feeling the need for learning something new and I have just been diving off the deep end with some new different things. One of those things is exploring the way other countries write knitting patterns outside of like the standard English or European style of writing. Some places are more concise, some places are very wordy like the US standard, some places like Japan very very short on words. This whole pattern was one page total and most of that was a chart. The actual written instructions was like one little paragraph and that was it but I thought it would be interesting to talk about that today. What is the difference between a Japanese knitting pattern and the standard English style that we're used to here in North America and even that like we've got patterns from European countries that I mean they're sometimes much more brief on instruction. I'm working on an Icelandic sweater right now and the whole pattern for technically four different sweaters and a bunch of different sizes the pages I think there's maybe four pages in the whole pattern so it's still pretty brief not like some of the the self-published patterns we see today that can be pages and pages long. But Japanese patterns take that to another level completely. I've seen even a lot of the sweater patterns will be maybe four pages and most of that is charts for the stitch patterns. Now these fingerless mitts it was one page total for the whole pattern most of that was a chart one little section of instructions the details about the yarn and needles and a little schematic that had like stitch counts and things and that was it the whole thing on one page and I wanted to see if I could knit from that and with the goal of I have some other Japanese knitting books that are in Japanese they haven't been translated to English with the goal of picking a pattern from one of those books and knitting that so it's totally in Japanese so that's even a step up like the book I have has been translated into English so the pattern comes from this book the 280 Japanese lace stitches I use this book a lot so it's a Nihon Vogue and it's been translated by Gail Rome so if you have probably any Japanese knitting books on your shelf she's probably the one who translated them so she seems to be the one who is most known for translating Japanese books into English and highly recommend so even if you because you can find Japanese knitting books as well and I have some of those but the stitch dictionaries will often have patterns in them as well here's like some examples of the there's the fingerless mitt some different patterns that are in this book like it is a stitch dictionary but they also include patterns as well so I figured this would be a good place to start it's translated to English and it's got charts and it's got instructions for the charts even for there's a couple symbols like I didn't know what was going on I had to look them up and figure out how a stitch was worked but it's actually not not that hard I would say if you've never knit fingerless mitts before I wouldn't start with something like this knit with like a pattern a style that you're used to before you dive into something but I have knit so many fingerless mitts I can knit them without a pattern I know the actual garment itself wouldn't be the problem the thing I would want to focus on is like how is this written how can I you know I need to follow these instructions that I'm not sure like how they're going to be written and how that's going to work but it was a good test for my brain and it was very interesting and now I am ready to like take on another I think a bigger garment in in Japanese in a book that hasn't been translated and see how I can do with that but this was a good place to start but I want to talk about like what the difference is between like the the standard patterns that we're used to compared to these Japanese patterns now Japanese patterns they rely mostly on charts like everything is going to be charted they will have a schematic with lots of information on that schematic and then standardized symbols so Japan does have a standardized system for knitting not like here in North America where but we do have the craft yarn council that has kind of created some standards for us but some people don't use those and they create their own things so there's not like anybody telling them you have to use these in Japan if you're going to publish something there then they do have standards that you would probably want to follow because that's what people use in Japan and it is really based on those two things that's charted they have chart symbols that are standardized for everything and then a schematic that they use to explain the construction and the stitch counts and everything there will be some written instructions as well but very very brief and most everything you need is going to be within that schematic or in that chart so everything is very very visual so you've got the chart that you're following and that schematic that shows you exactly you know the stitch counts and what part is where um and then like very brief instructions and for for these mittens in particular it's exactly one page like one that's the whole thing for the whole pattern um for larger projects you might get a couple pages there's a shawl and different things well there's a shawl right beside it one page um something that is larger depends on it really depends on the size of the charts the charts are what's going to take up the most of the page they're not going to have more written instructions if they have more pages they're going to have more charts so i have some other books and there are some sweaters in there and most of them maybe four pages at the most and it's because they have so many charts not because there's more written instructions for you to follow so very very few written instructions maybe a paragraph my fingerless mitts has one little paragraph at the top and that was it but i do want you to see the sections of a pattern now i can't show you the pattern because this would be copyright infringement and i'm not going to do that but i'm going to take a picture of this page and then show you parts of it and blur out the important details but just so you can get an idea of what a japanese knitting pattern looks like and i think it's an interesting experiment if you have been knitting you know you've knit a couple of garments and you're looking for something new to try finding a stitch dictionary check your local library see if they have a japanese knitting stitch dictionary and see if there's any patterns in there and even just read through it but if you have got some scrap yarn or some yarn in your stash and it is a worthwhile experience to knit from a different style of pattern than you're used to i just think it's a good learning experience but i'm going to take a picture of this and we're going to walk through the different parts that you're going to see now the first thing you will see is like the materials the yarns the supplies the finished measurements and the gauge so this i can show all of that i mean because that is pretty standard to any knitting pattern no matter what language it's in we need to know what kind of yarn we're using the needle size maybe some other things that we might need the finished measurements for the project so that would be the finished not the like this one says around hand it's not measuring the hand it's measuring the mitten or the fingerless mitt this is the finished measurement of the mitt and then the gauge that you need for that project so you have to have the same gauge as the designer so your finished garment will be the same size as the designers so like we have in english speaking patterns we are going to have this same information the gauge the yarn information the needle size but what's different here is of course the yarn and the needles japanese yarns can be very different from american yarns so i just was checking to see okay what is the gauge that they're expecting because i'm probably not going to be able to find the japanese yarns but if i know what gauge the pattern is then i can find a yarn that would be a suitable replacement because i know you know if it's going to be like the gauge for a sock yarn then i can just use a sock yarn that i have in my stash another difference is the japanese needle sizes so i have this gauge i think i got it from knit picks this is clover japan actually and there was another piece in the middle that's for crochet hook so i put that with my crochet stuff but these are the knitting needle sizes so on this side we've got the u.s and the millimeters and then across the top we have the japanese and i think again the millimeters their sizes are slightly different than ours um so like a u.s one which is 2.25 millimeters is the japanese one is a 2.4 millimeters and then their japanese two is a 2.7 so the they have the millimeters on here and you can see they're like on either side like the millimeter sizes for ours are usually like on the you know it's ending on a zero or a five theirs are ending on like a zero a three a six a nine a two oh and there's a 4.5 so their size eight is the same oh nope their size eight is a 4.5 millimeter which is our size seven so their needle sizes are slightly different as well but what was helpful with this pattern is it tells you um so it said knitting needles in japanese size four which is approximately u.s three or a 3.3 millimeter which we don't get a 3.3 millimeter we have a 3.5 and a 3.25 so even their their knitting needle sizes are different so i think someday i'd like to go to japan and when i do i'm going to go to a yarn shop and i'm going to be buying some japanese knitting needles because i just think it would be cool to have all of such a range of sizes you know like we've got our metrics system and then they've got some sizes that are in between even those sizes that we have so give give me more choice when it comes to choosing the right size or maybe too much choice i don't know but even their needle sizes are not quite the same so you have to find an approximate size um but that is one thing that i have noticed in these books especially the ones that have been translated is they will tell you like the u.s equivalent or the metric equivalent so you can find something that would be closest to two but might not be exactly the same because their sizing a little bit different now another thing that this pattern had was knitting notes and it had just one short paragraph basically it's telling you how many stitches to cast on with your smaller needle join to work in the round and then work your two by two ribbing for how many number of rounds and then following the chart that they have on here which is mostly stockinette and then it's got that stitch pattern like up the the back of the the arm or the the hand right there and then the rest of it stockinette but that whole thing is charted even the stockinette stitch because they do have placement for your thumb you're just doing a little afterthought thumb so you put like some waste yarn right there for that thumb and then later on you come back and you remove it and put your thumb in there um so the whole thing is absolutely charted out the ribbing is charted out on the bottom and then you do a section of decreasing and then you knit the body of the mitt and then you do like the the edging at the top and garter stitch but there is like there is this the note telling you how many stitches to cast on um and then like telling you where to put your decreases and then work the chart and then it explains the thumb placement and taking the waistline like using the waist yarn method you're going to knit to this many stitches with that smooth waist yarn then slip them back and knit with the main yarn again basically putting that like waist yarn in there for your afterthought thumb and then some instructions on the last five rounds to work the garter stitch at the top and then some notes about how the thumb is worked now what i found interesting was when i was flipping through like right beside this is another pattern a shawl pattern there is like four lines of notes like the the hand warmer these uh hand warmers they call them here are these fingerless mitts they actually have quite a few instructions compared to some of the other patterns um another shawl just a page over has a very short section so lengthwise the notes for this these mittens are actually pretty long compared to some of the other patterns in here but i'm guessing it's because of the waist yarn and the thumb and that whole thing so they've got instructions basic construction notes for you and that's it like just one little section of notes and that is it for the notes like just how many you're going to cast on the ribbing like maybe not even a whole sentence about that and then the chart and the decreases and then a good section on the thumb placement and then a few sentences about like the edging on the top and then picking up the stitches for the the thumb and finishing that and that is everything it has for like written instructions now instead of long written out instructions what japanese patterns have are schematics and they are very detailed schematics the one for the mittens i'm gonna have to blur out a lot because they've got a lot written here but how many rounds for the cuff how many rounds for the body of the mitten up to like where we put the waist yarn for the thumb and then the number of rounds after that the number of rounds for the cuff at the top the needle sizes for the bottom and then the top and the body and then the number of stitches you have in each section because this pattern is divided it's i mean you're knitting in the round but you have like stitches like that all these stitches are charted out and then a chart for this part of the hand as well and of course that's where what you're really paying attention to is this stitch pattern along the back of the hand um but the whole thing is charted out the cuff is charted out it's all a big chart but all of the the notes about that are in the actual schematic so how many stitches in each part how many stitches in the bottom you know the palm of the of the the mitt compared to the back of the mitt and it is a different stitch count i believe so the schematic takes that chart but gives us a lot more detail like it spells out so you don't have to count the number of rows in the chart you know the the schematic tells you how many rows between each section or rounds in this case rounds in the cuff rounds in like from the cuff to where the waist yarn has to go for the mitt for the thumb and then from the waist yarn up to the edging and then the number of rounds for the edging all of that and then the stitch counts for each of the sections so we've got a stitch count for the the back or the palm side of the mitt and then the stitch count for the top of the mitts divided into three the stitch count we need for that center panel and then the stitch count we have at either side all of that is written out in the schematic so that is really that is probably where i spent most of my time when i was like studying this i spent a lot of time looking at the schematic and figuring out okay so this is number of stitches here and this there and this is what's happening here like everything is written there you've got a few notes but most of the information you need for knitting your pattern is in that schematic now of course the main part of a japanese knitting pattern is the chart because they chart out everything for your knitting whenever you are knitting the it's all charted out there's no written instructions there's no line by line you know knit one purl one whatever everything is a chart so if you prefer having line by line written instructions japanese knitting patterns are not for you because everything is going to be in a visual chart the first thing you want to do when you have a chart is to think about what the background stitch is now this is where japanese patterns are different and one of the things that i really like about them because in our patterns if the background is reverse stockinette like the side that's facing you is reverse stockinette you're going to see a whole lot of black dots because that's showing you the purl stitches that are facing you japanese patterns don't do that but they have a little thing at the bottom of all of their charts that will tell you it's got a little symbol so if it's a knit it's going to have a straight vertical line if it's a purl it's going to have a horizontal line and it will say in that bottom part of your chart it'll say the blank box in your chart it's either going to be a knit or a purl and it will tell you by if it's that vertical line that means the blank boxes on your chart are knits if that little if the little chart at the bottom or the little key at bottom has that horizontal line it's telling you all of those blank boxes on that chart those are actually purl stitches it's just so much easier to look at a chart that isn't full like it's much easier on the eyes if it's kind of just plain and the main thing is like this the the charted symbols are there but the background is just it's plain empty boxes but you have to go look at that key at the bottom to know whether is that background are those boxes going to be all knit so it's on a background of stockinette or is that background purl stitches which means it's going to be a background of reverse stockinette one thing you could do i mean if you're not sure how to decipher that is to like look at the picture of the stitch itself like the stitch pattern that you're looking at and you can tell right there oh is this background reverse stockinette is it stockinette then that's your clue but they do and i love this about these patterns that they keep it as clean as possible and they tell you with this little key at the bottom of the chart whether the the background of that chart whether it should be knit or purled without like having a little purl dash or dot in every box for the background it just is so much nicer to look at when it's nice and clean and empty and you can focus on like whatever your decorative stitch pattern is and just knowing that that background is either going to be knit or purl and you have to pay attention to know which one it is so for the example of my mittens there is a totally like a separate chart at the bottom that is just a chart of two by two rib that's all it is is just a chart of all of the stitches for that two by two ribbing and then it reduces down there's a decreased row at the bottom and then the chart is mostly like plain boxes and when i check my key at the bottom it tells me that those plain boxes are knit on right side purl on wrong side so i know that the background is going to be stockinette stitch for my my mittens and then i can look at my chart and the really the only part i have to pay attention to is this stitch pattern i know the rest of it's going to be knit so i don't have to count all those boxes i can put markers where i need to so i know exactly where my my stitch pattern is and the rest is just going to be knit and i can focus on that stitch pattern without like really looking at every every little thing in that chart all the time and in the chart as well well for this pattern specifically it does have like the thumb placement it's telling you for the left thumb there's a dark line for the right thumb there's another dark line and that's telling you you know go refer back to your notes because you're going to have to knit eight stitches with waste yarn and then slip them back and knit them again because that's where you're going to put that thumb in that particular point on the the mitten pattern but other than that like the chart it's pretty basic if you've read a knitting chart before then you'll be familiar with this but the one thing to pay attention to is what's the background stitch and the key is going to tell you that and then look at the stitches that are used because some of them are a little bit different for the most part i just had yarn overs and like a knit through the back loop and ssk's and knit two togethers but there were a couple that i had no idea what they were i had to look them up but these uh stitch dictionaries they all have a very helpful key in the back with the um they'll they have a picture of that symbol and then they tell you what it's called and then they've got instructions for it with like detailed drawings so you can figure out what's happening for this one i had somewhere you know like you had one stitch and you're turning into three which is not that big a deal but there were a couple where you are decreasing and then you have to increase in that very same stitch um so that was that was interesting because i had never i was trying to figure out how in the world do i do that but then it it tells you exactly like how you have to do that it just kind of explains it wasn't really clear to me when i was doing it but i've tried it and i figured it out and it wasn't so bad but basically every time like you're switching right here there is this decrease you're decreasing a bunch like three or five i think five stitches but then you have to increase in that same stitch right away so you can you know get back out to that same shape so that was like one one stitch that i wasn't sure what i was doing but figured it out and that was all right and there was another one too um that was a little bit iffy but you just kind of have to like play with it and if you're not quite sure test it out and see how it looks and it worked out just fine but there were a couple like that that i was not very sure but it really does produce like just such a pretty design it was lots of fun um but yeah that's what you're going to see with these kind of patterns so it's that chart look at the stitches look them up if you're not sure what the symbols mean like the yarn overs and the decreases are pretty similar i mean they're the same as what we have but there are probably going to be some different stitches in there so you're going to want to look those up and check them out maybe even test them on a swatch to make sure you know how to work them now this one even had um a chart for the thumb which i thought was really funny so i'll show you that because it's just stockinette it's just stockinette stitch but they charted it out because that is how they do their patterns here um and there is a tiny schematic as well for the thumb in particular like pick up how many stitches how many rounds you have to knit how long that should be the needle size you should use for that so there's this tiny little square schematic just for the thumb on these fingerless mitts so um really interesting to do i just find it so neat the way they're very concise but all the information you need is right there maybe not like super clear if you're not used to some of these little the decrease stitches that they use or something but definitely possible to figure out now i want to share a few tips if you're going to knit from a pattern like this um definitely like read through the whole pattern there's not going to be a lot to read anyway there's going to be a short section of notes you know like look for the needle sizes and which size would be like closest to a japanese size and the yarn the best way i mean you could google the yarn and see if you can figure out what the yarn weight is but i i ended up just looking at the gauge what is the gauge they're looking at here then i knew like i mean there's not that many yarns you would find one that would fit within that same gauge and that's probably about the same similar yarn weight um and that worked for fingerless mitts maybe for a larger project i would want to be more precise and look up the exact yarn so i know what i'm really looking for but for this project that worked just fine then i would look at the schematic study it because that's where all of your information is going to be look through the chart look at like the the symbols for each of the stitches see what the background stitch is make sure it's like knitting or purling so you know what what your background is going to be for that project and then go look up any stitches that you're not familiar with so you can get a good idea of what's going on here so you're not completely like trying to figure everything out from scratch when you finally cast on now i'm not sure i would recommend a japanese knitting pattern for a brand new knitter like i think you'd be probably better served to like get used to knitting some just basic projects lots of different projects before you tackle something like this but if you're looking for a different challenge and you've knit you know lots of different things and you want to try something new then i recommend you give this a try it's it's just different enough and you might find oh that you really love this or oh you really don't like this you prefer your written out instructions but you won't know until you give it a try so um find a stitch dictionary or a japanese knitting book that's been translated into english check your local library that's where i found some before i ended up buying some i think i've got like four or five different japanese stitch dictionaries now and now i've started a collection of knitting books as well let me grab those i'll show them to you so these are all in japanese they have not been translated the first one i ever got was this one my daughter bought this for me she has these little figures they're called nendoroids um for different like she's in lots of different fandoms that she has anime and and stuff um and it's just a knitting book for little clothes for these little uh dolls these nendoroids and i did start i started this scarf but i don't even have the needles that are tiny enough for these like even my sock needle they're too thick so i did start one on sock needles with some like i think pallet yarn so fingering yarn and it came out well much bigger because that they wanted you to even have smaller needles than that so i need to get some like i'm gonna i want to get some japanese knitting needles next um but that is i want to knit some stuff for my daughter from here some tiny little things so that was the first one i got and then i picked up a handful of more this was a stitch dictionary that i got um flower knitting this one has now been translated into english i saw it recently so i'm not sure i'm gonna buy it because i'm kind of cheap and i already have it in japanese but if i'm really struggling with this one then i might go ahead and get the english version but this one is like a stitch dictionary that's all floral stitches so color work or texture it's all in here lace but just floral stitch patterns and then i got some more books that are um knitting pattern books i don't buy a lot of knitting pattern books um i i prefer to buy individual patterns as opposed to books but i was curious about japanese books i found a few the first one's a rowan book actually which is kind of funny because they have like martin story k facet jemma atkinson arnie and carlos there are patterns from them in here but they're in japanese and then they've got some japanese uh designers as well and i really loved the one on the cover like i just think that's absolutely beautiful um so maybe someday i will tackle that one and i'm gonna have to modify it because um their pattern that one thing is they don't they don't generally include a huge range of sizes um like we do which is pretty standard here um so i'm probably gonna have to do some modifying to knit that for myself but oh that is such a lovely sweater that's why got this one there's a couple sweaters in here that i really really like um so i got that one and i grabbed two more now i just looked on etsy i just looked etsy japanese knitting pattern books or knitting stitch dictionaries and this is what came up and i just wanted a few more so this one um daily and fashionable knitting vest is the name of it but it is it's just a bunch of vests i thought the one on the cover was really nice i like like it's got like this little panel at the side i thought that was interesting and then this one i didn't even see the patterns in this i just i thought they were kind of cute and i just wanted to see like some japanese knitting patterns so i i splurged and i bought a stack of books um so i don't know if i'm going to knit much from them but i just wanted to read about them and i do have i've got a couple things tabbed and a couple patterns in this one that i really really like so i'm hopeful like in the future i will probably do some more i think my next one is um i've got a couple in here that i liked this cardigan doesn't look too too crazy so i think that might be um maybe my next project so i can this one is from a japanese book but it's this the shape of it looks pretty simple and i mean once this one's i know what the stitch pattern is like i think i can figure out the rest but i'm hopeful um we'll see if not i know this one's been translated to english so i could buy the english copy of it if i had to but um it's definitely worth exploring trying like look at your library if you can and just you know look for a simple pattern now i'm not sure i have not researched like japanese designers like if they self-publish designs if they publish them so they're written like they would be in japan or if they do like a the english version where it's you know much more longer more words um i'm not sure about that but the books yeah the books are pretty standard and um they're just i think it's just an interesting thing to practice to try uh just to to see if you can knit from something that does not have all of the words and the explanations and the line by line instructions that we are generally used to here and i found that a good experience and i'm looking forward to doing some more uh japanese knitting um and then hopefully maybe buy some japanese knitting needles too in the future but i would love to know your experience if you've ever knit a pattern from a japanese style like knitting book or translated to english and how that process went for you or if that's something that you'd even want to explore maybe you're just not interested in that at all i'd love to hear your thoughts about that so leave them down in a comment below and i will see you in the next video