Knitting Robot
Draw a knitting chart, and a pair of metal hands knits it one stitch at a time: in through the loop, wrap the yarn, pull through, slip off. Each new loop is pulled through the loop below it, so the fabric is built from those links. Yarn overs open holes, decreases pull stitches together and lean, cables cross, and a second colour floats across the back.
1. Chart
2. Hands
3. Fabric
Scenes
Paint the chart
Reading the chart
- One square is one stitch as it looks from the front. Row 1 is at the bottom.
- Right-side rows (odd numbers, numbered on the right) are worked from right to left. Wrong-side rows (even, numbered on the left) are worked from left to right with the work turned over, so a knit square is purled there and a purl square knitted: both look right from the front.
- Blank: knit. Dot: purl. Circle: yarn over. Slash: knit two together (leans right). Backslash: slip, slip, knit (leans left). Λ: centred double decrease. Long diagonals over four squares: a cable. Grey: no stitch.
- A row must use the stitches that are on the needle. Every yarn over adds one and every decrease removes one or two, so lace pairs them. A row that does not add up is marked in orange; the hands knit any stitches left over plainly.
How it works
Knitting is a chain of loops: each new loop is pulled through a loop of the row below. The page records exactly that. A yarn over makes a loop with nothing below it, so the fabric has a hole there. A decrease pulls one new loop through two or three old ones, which squeezes them together and makes the stitch lean. A cable pulls loops through parents two columns away, so its stitches cross and the fabric draws in. The loop positions come from springs along each row and along each link, with the loops on the needle pinned in a line. That stand-in for yarn tension is enough to make feather and fan hang in scallops under its decreases and to open eyelets where the yarn overs are. The fabric is then drawn from the graph: knits as V's of plied yarn, purls as bumps.
The hands knit "English" style: the right index finger throws the yarn around the needle. Each stitch is four moves: in through the loop, wrap, pull the new loop through, slip the old one off. Purls go in from the other side with the yarn in front, yarn overs only wrap, decreases go through two or three loops, and cables park two stitches on a short cable needle in front or behind.
Not covered: brioche and double knitting, which need a different structure, knitting in the round, and real yarn mechanics.