Graph pattern question

[gapeach519]

Hi there, new here and have a question.  I am fairly new to crochet.  I've made a few blankets and a few hats.  I recently watched a video on youtube about making a graph in paint so I thought I would give it a try and make my boys a Seahawks blanket.  I pulled the attached picture into paint and magnified the pixels by 800%  Each pixel should have been a single crochet stitch.  I made my graph 256 stitches by 256 stitches and expected my blanket to come out relatively square.  Now I know my SC are not square.  LOL  My blanket was wider than it was long so I had to add the word 'SEAHAWKS' to the top.  I managed to save the blanket and am actually quite pleased with how it turned out. But you can tell that the actual blanket design is a little distorted.  So, my question is, how do I make graphs in the future and guarantee they will be to scale?  Does that make sense? 

[redrosesdz]

Wow!  It doesn't look wonky in the picture.  It's very impressive, especially for someone fairly new to crochet!  Seeing the picture I would have thought it was done by someone with years of experience.  It's really stunning!!

 

There are calculators, like http://stitchboard.com/pages/pattern/freePatternWizard.php, that will convert a picture into a graph for yarn/thread creations.  There is also downloadable crochet graph paper, like at the bottom of http://tapestrycrochet.com/. 

 

The thing about crochet is that it is always on a bias.  If you're right-handed, then the right side of your work will be slanted to the right.  When you turn, it evens out the bias.  However, the stitches are not right on top of each other.  They're more like ...

 

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Normal graph paper has the blocks on top of each other.  If you use it, then things may be distorted.  Also, don't use knitting graph paper, because the ratio is different.

 

Hope that helps!

[gapeach519]

Thanks so much.  It was definitely a labor of love.  All of the bobbins I had to manage while doing the letters almost made me throw in the towel.  I understand the slanted part.  That's not the part I'm talking about.  The blanket looks a bit smashed compared to the graph.  For example, the green eye in the picture is more square or even, as tall as it is wide.  In the blanket the eye is wider than it is tall.  The letters a shorter and fatter than they were in the letters I pulled into the graph.  It turned out not to look bad in this particular blanket but I'm wondering if  I were to do something with a circle for example, would it turn out to be more of an oval.  Wondering how people compensate for that?  

[redrosesdz]

Usually stitches are taller than they are wide.  It sounds like you crochet tightly.  There are a couple of things you can do to make your stitches as tall as they are wide.  The first thing you need to do is crochet a swatch at least 6" square.  Measure the middle 4".  This will tell you how many stitches and rows you crochet.  It's your gauge. 

 

When you have the same number of stitches horizontally and vertically, then your stitches are exactly as tall as they are wide.  However, getting them to be the same height and width is very difficult.

 

1. You can fill in a graph to match your gauge.  So, if you have more stitches across, add rows to your chart or vice-versa.

 

2. You could loosen your crocheting by paying attention to the "golden loop."  When you insert your hook and draw the yarn through, it's called the golden loop.  It determines the height of your stitches.  For sc stitches, the golden loop should be the height of a single chain.  Pull the loop up until your hook is horizontal with the top of stitch.  The loop should be past the skinny throat, so that it is the same height as your hook's width.

 

3. You can switch to hdc.  Hdc is a chain higher than sc.  This will make your rows slightly taller.

 

4. You can increase the size of your hook.

 

The point is to play with making gauges until you're happy with the results and feel like you can translate your gauge to a graph.

[gapeach519]

Thanks so much redrosesdz. I will work on those tips.

[Tampa Doll]

Can't do any better than redrosesdz with the information.  I do want to say that I love your afghan.  I am sure any Seahawk would. 

 

I usually make my graph ghans to be 170 stitches by 260 rows with an I hook, it gives you an afghan that is usually 5x6.

 

Oh and redrosesdz thanks for the website.

[Granny Square]

You might try extended SC as well, it's in between the height of SC and HDC.

 

The operative word is try (swatch), because it really is all about one's personal tension (the Golden Loop thing).  I make squatty stitches, too.

 

If you notice the example gauge listed on ball bands, it's always got more rows to make a 4" square than it does stitches across.  Example,a handy skein in my project bag says 12 sc across and 16 rows with an I hook.  So, it's assuming that the average person makes SC stitches 75% shorter than the width with this yarn (because you have to make 25% more rows to match the same distance as the number of stitches for the width).

 

I have to say, I'm not noticing the distortion in your blanket, I think it looks fantastic.  

 

But to answer your question for future projects (if you don't want to use taller stitches)

(1) Measure your gauge in the blanket and find out how much shorter your SCs are than the width.  Take fractions of stitches into account - I like to use the metric side of the ruler, it's easier.

(2) In Paint or similar, take your graphic and (carefully) stretch it vertically to match your gauge differential.  Save the file with a different name, in case you need to make more than 1 pass at this.

(3) Graph your distorted file.  Your graphed picture will be distorted on paper, but because your stitches are shorter the crocheted piece should be close to being right.  I'd test it by graphing a smaller thing - a circle as you suggested would be perfect.

 

Aside-how did you graph it in Paint?  I use an empty graph I created in Paint with square grids, using the 'bucket' tool to fill the grids one by one - is this what you did?  It's a little tedious, but I mainly do outlines and copy/paste groups of blocks to fill in large areas of the same color, so not so bad.  

[gapeach519]

More good stuff.  Thanks Granny Square.  I followed a video I saw on youtube on how to make a graph in paint.  I just pulled my websized picture into paint and then changed the scale from inches to pixels and then magnified it to 800%  Each square was a stitch.  Parts were tedious like the letters but for the most part I could look at the line and say 'ok, this row has one more white stitch here or one less blue stitch there...'.  Then, as I finished each row I would change the graph to different colors.  I attached a screen shot of my graph in progress.  And here's the youtube video link https://youtu.be/Q1aO_GUDfb4

[Granny Square]

Thanks for the link!