Japanese Knitting Resources

Japanese knitting patterns and symbols

• Marsha’s tutorial - NeedleArtsBookShop (pdf)
• Japanese Knitting Basics
• Japanese Knitting Symbols
• Charting lesson
• Translating Japanese Knitting patterns
• Illustrated Japanese Knitting Symbols
• Japanese Knitting Symbols Learn
• Knitting Symbols With Videos
• Pierrot’s Knitting Symbols and Video files

Japanese Knitting Groups

• Knitting In Japan Yahoo Group
• Knitting Japanese Wannabees

Knitting Blogs

• Japanese Knitting Patterns
• Ishi-Knit
• Am Kamin KAL
• Knitting Elegance KAL

Knit Japan Style Flickr Group

A new Flickr group for Japanese Knitting and Japanese Crochet patterns has been created, Knit Japan Style.

Pictures of finished items complete with the ISBN of the Japanese Knitting Book or Japanese Crochet Book for the pattern are included. Join and share your own creations.

Japanese Knitting Flip-Flop Book

I came across this Japanese Knitting Flip Flop book on Amazon Japan. I must make some of these!

Cast On For Japanese Cable Vest

I cast on for my Japanese Cable Vest for the KAL that is going on at the Japanese Knitting and Crochet site on Ravelry the other night. I was a little stumped about the stitch pattern for the bottom band since I can't read Japanese and the picture isn't big enough to really tell.

Luckily, I have a friend, Emiko, at my regular Wednesday night knitting group who speaks and reads Japanese. She was impressed with how much of the pattern I could desphir without knowing Japanese. But, of course, the Japanese make it really easy to do that with their great charts and schematics.

But sometimes it is nice to have some things translated. And what Emiko told me was that the bottom border is Garter stitch. This makes sense since the rest of the vest is in reverse stockinette. The two stitches look relatively similar so they are a good match.

I did the math so I knew how many stitches to cast on. Here is what I figured for a size 44 inch bust measurement:

Instead of casting on 70 stitches for the back and 39 stitches for the two fronts, I need 84 stitches for the back and 41 stitches for the two fronts. I've decided to knit the fronts and back all together instead of separately so that I'll have less seaming to do. So in all I needed 166 stitches for my cast on.

I used a cable cast on because I like how it looks compared to a long-tail cast on, plus you don't have to guess how much yarn you need for the tail.


The other thing I realized about the pattern once I got the 4 rows for the Garter stitch border done is that the charted cable pattern is flipped on each of the front sides so that they are a mirror image of each other.

This makes it a little more tricky, but I've been using the top diamond as a guide on how to mirror the bottom diamond and vice versus. Plus I have my swatch as a reference.

Another change I made was to do the main body of the vest in stockinette instead of reverse stockinette. I am purling the two stitches after the chart on one front and two stitches before on the other, so that the twisted knit stitches on either side of the diamonds on the chart are more pronounced.

The last change I'm making (for now ) is that I'm not going to do waist shaping on my vest. I'll be knitting straight up to the armholes without any decreases. At that point I'll separate the fronts from the back and work on each separately.

Cable Vest KAL Swatch

Here is the swatch I did for the Japanese Cable Vest KAL on Ravelry.

This is my second attempt. I had a hard time with the chart for the top diamond because one of the symbols used wasn't in either of the Japanase symbol books I have. Luckily, I was able to figure it out and this swatch looks much better.

I'm using Lion Brand Wool Ease on size 10 1/2 needles. The yarn is little more of an oatmeal color then this picture shows.

Next up: converting the pattern to my size.

Figuring Out Yarn Requirments

Yesterday, I wrote about the new Japanese Vest KAL that is going on at the Japanese Knit and Crochet board on Ravelry for a Japanese Vest Knitting Pattern. One of the questions that came up was how much yarn is needed to make the vest.

There are several challenges in determining how much yarn to use to knit the vest with the language barrier being the biggest! But even if you get past that, there are still several other challenges. First, Japanese knitting patterns are usually sized for one, at best 2, sizes. Second, the yarn that is used in the patterns is typically not available in the US. And third, the needle sizes used in Japan are different then the metric or US sizes.

To get past the language barrier I use the translate feature on the Google toolbar on IE to help me. Here is what I get when I translate the page:



For the yarn requirements it states that you need 7 balls of the yarn used for the pattern. The yarn is 40 grams with 54 meters. So to knit the pattern for the size on the pattern you will need about 280 grams or 378 meters. So converting 378 meters to yards, I get about 413 yards.

413 yards doesn't seem like a lot of yarn. But then you have to remember that this is for a size 36 inch bust or really smaller because you have to figure in ease which in this case should be 2 to 4 inches. So we are talking a 32 to 34 inch bust measurement. I wear a 42 inch and with 2 to 4 inches ease, I need a vest that is 44 to 46 inches so that I can wear it over shirts and still be comfortable.

The yarn that is used in the pattern appears to be a worsted weight yarn. I can only guess this based on the needle size recommended for the yarn which is an 8 to 10 Japanese. Using a needle conversion chart, I see that an 8 to 10 needle is similar to 7 to 8 US needle. If I look on the Standard Yarn Weight chart, it suggests that a 7 to 9 US needle is used for #4 Worsted, Afghan, Aran yarn.

So knowing that I need to use worsted weight yarn, I need to figure out how much yarn to buy for this pattern. I could convert the pattern and try to estimate based on that, but I'm not ready to do that. So instead, I'll use a yarn estimator from Elann.com.



The chart is the amount of yarn needed to make a sweater and they suggest using 20% less for a short sleeve one. Since this vest has cables on it which uses more yarn then stockinette stitch, I'll use that to make a conservative estimate.

So for me, using worsted weight I need 1800m to 1600m for a sweater and 20% less is 1400 to 1280 meters. In yards this is 1531 to 1400 yards. If I use Aran weight I need 1600m to 1425m for a sweater and 20% less is 1280 to 1140 meters. In yards this is 1400 to 1247 yards.

So now I know that I need about 1300 to 1400 yards worsted weight yarn. I'd like to find one with wool/nylon blend like in the pattern but I don't know of one off the top of my head. But if I was to use a 100% wool yarn like Cascade 220, I'd need about 6 skeins.

Okay, enough for the match today. I started on a swatch of the chart last night and ran into problems with one of the symbols. So I need to figure that out next.

Japanese Cable Vest KAL

On the Japanese Knitting and Crochet Group on Ravelry a KAL has been proposed for this cabled vest knitting pattern which is a free Japanese knitting pattern available on the Woolmark Company, a Japanese yarn company, website.

I haven't started the first vest I thought I'd would yet, so the idea of a KAL to get me started and motivated seems like a good idea. The pdf for the pattern is only one page! It still amazes me that the Japanese can write their patterns in so little space. The same pattern written out in English would be at least 3 pages.

Here is a picture of the chart:



Now, really it isn't as scary as it looks. Luckily, I have a couple of Japanese knitting symbol books to help me out.

The space on the graph that has a has a smaller chart to the left of the main chart



This means that those 2 blocked out stitches are work as the smaller chart. It looks like some kind of bobble. We've decided that we are not going to do this part of the chart. I'm not much into bobbles plus if you look at the photo, the bobbles land right on the bust of the model and look like nipples! No, thank you!

The first thing I'm going to do for this pattern is find some yarn to swatch the chart. But that means I need to translate the chart. So I'm off to find those Japanese knitting symbol books now! Oh and a yarn that gets gauge of 15 stitches and 22 rows in 10 cm as the pattern calls for.

Feel free to join the KAL even if you aren't on Ravelry (they are still in beta and you need an invitation to join which you can get by signing up from a link on the main page of the site). You can post comments here and on future posts that link to your progress on your blog.

Free Patterns on Pierott

There are some great free Japanese knitting patterns but if you don't know Japanese then it can be hard to find them or to know what the links to the pages say.

Luckily, I've been able to find some sites through Ravelry's Japanese Knitting and Crochet group and Yahoo's Knitting In Japan group. If you are anywhere interested in Japanese knitting and crochet patterns, I highly recommend both groups. The people on the lists are so nice and there are some fluent Japanese speakers that are often willing to help with translations of parts of patterns.

One of the best places to find free Japanese knitting patterns and Japanese crochet patterns is on the Pierott (Gosyo Co.,Ltd) website. The first time I got on the site, I was a little overwhelmed because I didn't know where to click for the patterns.

I use the Google search bar with the Translate feature turned on to help me read the words on the pages that aren't images.

Here's a list of some of the them:

Fall and Winter Patterns, Volume 1:
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/gosyo/new/fw_knit1.htm

Fall and Winter Patterns, Volume 2
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/gosyo/new/fw_knit2.htm

Fall and Winter Patterns, Volume 3
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/gosyo/new/fw_knit3.htm

Bags (knit and crochet):
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/gosyo/new/bag.htm

Amigurumi (crochet)
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/gosyo/new/amigurumi_tawashi.htm

Motifs (crochet)
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/gosyo/new/motif.htm

Caps, Mittens, Scarves (knit and crochet)
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/gosyo/new/cap.htm

Scarves
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/gosyo/new/muffler.htm

Tops (knit and crochet)
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/gosyo/new/fw_knit3.htm

Tops, vests, ponchos (mostly knit)
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/gosyo/new/fw_knit2.htm

Tops (knit)
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/gosyo/new/fw_knit1.htm

Kids and baby (knit and crochet)
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/gosyo/new/baby_knit.htm

Men's (knit)
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/gosyo/new/mens_knit.htm

Shawls and stoles, with tops and a couple of suits (mostly
knit)
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/gosyo/new/hight_knit.htm

Short sleeve tops (knit and crochet)
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/gosyo/new/ss_knit.htm

Shawls, Scarves (knit and crochet)
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/gosyo/new/syole_knit.htm

Interior (Zakka)
http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/gosyo/new/interior_zakka.htm

Just click on an image and you'll be taken to the information page about the pattern. There are usually 4 sections next to the garment patterns.

The first section is the yarn information. The second section is the needle section (Be careful! These are Japanese needle sizes, not US or metric. Use the Basics of Japanese Knitting page for a conversion of needle sizes). The third section is additional items needed. And the fourth section has the link to the PDF pattern.

Unfortunately, the PDFs don't have pictures of the items. So I just print out the information page and the PDF and keep them together.

I could spend hours looking at all the patterns and I have quite a few I'd love to knit. Hope you have fun looking through them too!

Online Japanese Knitting Pattern Websites

Every time I find a website on the Internet about Japanese Knitting patterns or Japanese Knitting books, I create a bookmark in my favorites. Here is what I've collected so far:

Crafting Japanese Knitting Books
This is the knitting section on the larger Crafting Japanese website dedicated to all kinds of Japanese crafts. Each blog entry has a picture of the cover of a Japanese Knitting book as well as links to photos from the book.

ABC's Of Knitting
This site has some great resources that I use all the time to help with figuring out my Japanese knitting patterns:
How to Read Japanese Graphical Knitting Charts
The Basics of Japanese Knitting

Knitting Elegance KAL
This a Knit Along blog about Japanese knitting patterns and the beautiful designs from the Japanese 'Let's Knit Series' books. There are some book reviews, photos of knitted swatches, and finished objects by members of the KAL. The posts I've found to be the most helpful are the Samples of Japanese Knitting Symbols - blog posts

Japanese Knitting Symbols
Has pictures of pages from the Clear & Simple Knitting Symbols book.

Japanese Knitting Books
Has pictures of and reviews of several Japanese Knitting Books.

Habu Textiles Japanese Knitting Diagram Help
Shows a partial knitting diagram and explains knitting direction, number of stitches to cast on, and how to read increases/decreases.

Interpreting Japanese Knitting Symbols and Charts
This is the most comprehensive online resource for reading Japanese knitting patterns that I've found on the Internet. I highly recommend it because it translates several of the most important Japanese knitting words, has a needle conversion chart, and walks you step-by-step through a Japanese knitting pattern. It is available in PDF.

Sizing A Japanese Knitting Pattern - Part I

After doing all those conversion of measurements the other day for the Sleeveless Sweater Vest, I've been thinking about how to apply the measurements to a top that will fit me.

I've decided to go with 2 inches of ease for a total of 42 inches at the bust. This works out to approximately 107 centimeters around or around 53 centimeters for the front and the back. I'll round up to 108 and 54 because I like even numbers.

The original pattern size is 92 centimeters around and 46 centimeters for the front and back. So I need to to increase the width of the sweater by 16 centimeters. This is 8 centimeters each on the front and the back.

The gauge is 19 sts and 24 sts in 10 centimeters. This works out to 1.9 sts per centimeter. If I multiply this by the 16 or 8 centimeters I need it equals 30.4 or 15.2 more stitches I need to cast on.

I'll probably knit this in the round so the total stitches I'll need to cast on is 206. (88 * 2) + 30 = 206

So just to be sure this calculation is right, I'll check it another way.

206 divided by 1.9 sts is 108.42 centimeters which equals 42.7 inches which is almost an inch more then my original size but that happens with rounding sometimes.

The center panel on the front of the top is 48 stitches. I'm not planning to change this. I'm going to put the extra stitches on both sides of the panel.

Since 206 divided by 2 is 103 which is an odd number, I need to either go up 2 stitches or down 2 stitches with my cast on. I've decided to go down since I don't want the top to be any bigger. So that is 102 for the front and the back or 204 around.

102 - 48 = 54 / 2 = 27

So, all that math boils down to:

---

Cast on 204.

On round 1, Knit and place markers after stitch 27 and after stitch 75.

The stitches between the makers will be where the cable panel goes.

---

Well, that was a lot of math and enough to get started but there are other measurements I going to need to calculate like the length and the waist shaping. I'll do that in my next post.

Men and Women's Knit

I saw a really cute vest from a Japanese knitting book call Men and Women's Knit on Agnes's website.

I love the diamonds going across the front. Here's the link to Men and Women's Knit on YesAsia.com

Orlane also has some pictures from the book here. The hoodie vest looks great too.!

I may need to look for this book the next time I'm at Kinokuniya (where I need to stay away from right now because I need to spend money on gifts for OTHER people!)

Converting Japanese Knitting Pattern Measurements

I've started the process of converting the Sleeveless Sweater pattern. This is from a free Japanese Knitting Pattern for a vest and a set of wrist warmers.

The first thing I have done is convert centimeters to inches in the measurements. The pattern has a diagram for both the front and back of the sweater vest.

Front:


Back:


I used Google to calculate the values for me using their "convert" search. For example, if you enter "convert 46 cm to inches", the search result will be:
46 centimeters = 18.1102362 inches.
Pretty cool, huh?

I rounded the measurements two places. I will wait to do the final conversion to fractions of an inch once I do the conversions to my size.

As you can see, the bust measurement is approximately 36 inches. So the next thing I need to do is convert the pattern to fit my bust measurement of 40 inches. One of the things I can't tell from the measurements is what the ease is. I think I'll add 2 inches for ease so that the top isn't too tight. What do you think?

Look for the next step in the conversion process later this week.

Keito Dama Winter 2007 Magazine (#136)

I picked up a copy of the Keito Dama 2007 Winter #136 knitting magazine at Kinokuniya in Seattle today along with some other instructional knitting books that I'll write about in a later post. Three of them are about reading Japanese knitting symbols and the last one is a Japanese knitting pattern book.

I think the Keito Dama is a magazine rather then a book. From what I've read on the internet it comes out 4 times a year. It has ads and articles (which of course I can't read because they are in Japanese!) like a magazine, so that's what I'm calling it: a Japanese knitting magazine.

I paid $16.80 for my copy. YesAsia.com has it for $15.75 which isn't to bad because you get free shipping with orders over $25. But I do like flipping through the magazines at the bookstore so I can decide if I want to purchase them or not.

There are over 64 different knitting and crochet patterns. Jenny has pictures of several of the patterns in her post about this issue.

Here's a couple of pictures from the Knit Index on the back cover. Click for a bigger image.

Sleeveless Sweater and Wristwarmer Patterns

Free Japanese Knitting Patterns for Sleeveless Sweater and Wrist warmers

Yarn - Worsted Weight, 300 grams (10.58 oz), 653 meters (714 yards) Gauge - 19 sts and 24 rows in St st Needles - 2 Japanese Size 5 needles, 2 Japanese Size 7 needles for the Sweater Vest, 4 Japanese Size 5 DPN for Wrist Warmers Notions - Cable Needle, tapestry needle

Knitting Pattern PDF

The thing to note about the Needle sizes is that they are Japanese and are not the same as US or Metric needles. In this case a Japanese Size 5 needle is approximately a size US 4 needle and the Japanese Size 7 is approximately a size US 6 needle. I used the needle size chart from The Basics of Japanese Knitting to come up with the needle sizes.

I really like this sleeveless sweater (vest) and wrist warmers set, especially the yarn, made by a Japanese company, which has a tweedy look to it. I bet the Rowan tweed yarn would be a good subsitute yarn. I probably won't end up using the size 4 and size 6 US needles to get gauge. I usually have to go down a needle size or two.

The pattern has only one size for a 36 inch bust. It is 22 inches long. There is some waist shaping and a turtleneck.

I'd like to convert the pattern to fit me. Since the cable pattern only goes up the center of the sweater, I think I should be able to do it. I like to use the front section of Stitch 'N Bitch Nation that shows how to convert patterns. I just need to sit down with my calculator and figure it all out.

This should be good practice at converting Japanese knitting patterns and a good beginning pattern (after the neck warmer I want to do from My Favorite & Mens Knit).

Japanese Knitting Symbols - Basic Stitches

The Knit Stitch is represented by a vertical line or a blank box in Japanese Knitting Pattern Graphs.
Watch Japanese video for Knit Stitch.



The Purl Stitch is represented by a horizontal line.
Watch Japanese video for Purl Stitch.

Japanese Knitting Book - My Favorite & Mens Knit

Title - My Favorite & Mens Knits ISBN - 978-4-529-04458-5 Pages - 82 Style - Aran Patterns - 23

This Japanese knitting book is divided into 2 sections. The first is called, My Favorite, and has the following patterns:

1. Cap
2. Muffler
3. Muffler
4. Neck Warmers
5. Cap
6. Vest
7. Cap & Gloves
8. Cap
9. Hat
10. Cap
11. Muffler
12. Bag
13. Sweater
14. Bag
15. Shawl
16. Cushion Cover
17. Blanket
18. Room shoes

The second section is called Mens Knit and has the following patterns:

1. Cap & Gloves
2. Vest
3. Cap & Muffler
4. Cap & Muffler
5. Sweater

I really like this book because of all the great looking cable knitting patterns in it. The patterns include beginning, as well as, more advanced patterns.

There is also a section after the photos of the projects but before the actual patterns that shows what several of the more complicated stitch symbols mean. Each of these stitch pattern graphs are shown and then the steps for creating the stitch pattern follow with knitting diagrams.

More common, easier stitch patterns are diagrammed in the back of the book along with diagrams for casting on, binding off, making increases and making decreases.

I plan on making one of the Neck Warmers in this book as my first Japanese knitting pattern. It seems to have a relatively easy stitch pattern to follow and is a small enough project that I should be able to finish it quickly and be able to move on to a more advanced pattern.

Japanese Knitting Patterns

I fell in love with Japanese Knitting Patterns about a year ago. The patterns seem timeless and not trendy. They have a clean, classic appeal. I especially like the Aran style patterns with cables that seem popular in the Japanese knitting books.

However, when I tried to order some books from the Internet, I had difficulty getting past the language barrier. Most of the books have little to no English translations of the titles and since the descriptions of the books are in Japanese, I had no idea what was actually in the books and magazines except from the cover photo.

I did try ordering a few Japanese Knitting pattern books from Amazon Japan's English Language version website, but somehow my order didn't go through and I ended up not getting the books. And since it had been so difficult to find and order them in the first place, I just gave up.

Well, since that time more resources have popped up on the Internet regarding Japanese Knitting patterns and the book sites now include previews of some of the pages in some of the knitting pattern books.

I also moved to Seattle recently where there is a Japanese bookstore called Kinokuniya (here is a list of their overseas book stores). I was able to browse through the knitting books and I purchased 3 to start with.

Since there are still limited resources on the Internet when it comes to finding, reading, and knitting Japanese knitting patterns, I've decided to start this blog as a resource for other knitters who want to knit these wonderful patterns and to record my learning process.

I'm looking forward to my Japanese Knitting Adventure!