Fish: a mosaic knitting chart

Generally, when I’m making mosaic knitting charts from an encoded word, it works best with shorter words. So I’m not making a single mosaic chart for starfish. Instead, I made one for star last week, and this week, I’m posting fish. They have the same stitch repeat and can be used together.

A nice thing about mosaic knitting is that the charts are similar to the final appearance of the knitting, so I’m not going to provide a swatch. Mosaic knitting looks difficult, but it’s not as hard as it looks! Basically, knit two-row stripes, and slip stitches from the row below to make the contrasting pattern.

Here’s a detailed blog post I wrote about how it works.

This is a Barbara-Walker-style mosaic chart. Each row of squares in it represents two rows of knitting (which is why there’s a row number at each end). The square in the column to the right of the row numbers indicates the color of yarn being worked in that line. So in rows 1 & 2, all black squares are knit or purled, and all white squares are slipped with the yarn being held on the wrong side of the work. In rows 3 & 4, all white squares are knit or purled and all black squares are slipped.

Notes:

• This is a stitch pattern such as might be found in a stitch dictionary. This is not a pattern for a finished object.
• Fish is a multiple of 16 stitches and either 24 or 24 + 12 rows.
• The non-slipped stitches in the second row of each stripe may be either knit or purled, as desired.
• Designers, please feel free to use this in your patterns. I’d like credit but won’t be offended if people don’t give it.
• My blog posts and free stitch patterns are supported by subscriptions on Patreon or donations to my Paypal tip jar in the sidebar. If you appreciate my work, please consider helping out. Thanks!

Abbreviations:

• k: knit.
• p: purl.
• sl 1: Slip 1 stitch purlwise with yarn in back.
• sl 1 wyif: Slip 1 stitch purlwise with yarn in front.

Start by casting on and then knitting a row in color A (represented by the white squares in the chart), or by having at least two rows of color A before starting the mosaic knitting.

switch to color B

Row 1 (RS): *k1, sl 1, k12, sl 1, k1; work from *.

Row 2 (WS): *k1, sl 1 wyif, k12, sl 1 wyif, k1; work from *.

switch to color A

Row 3: *sl 1, k1, sl 1, (k2, sl 2) × 2, k2, sl 1, k1, sl 1; work from *.

Row 4: *sl 1 wyif, k1, sl 1 wyif, (k2, sl 2 wyif) × 2, k2, sl 1 wyif, k1, sl 1 wyif; work from *.

switch to color B

Row 5: *k7, sl 2, k7; work from *.

Row 6: *k7, sl 2 wyif, k7; work from *.

switch to color A

Row 7: *k3, sl 2, k6, sl 2, k3; work from *.

Row 8: *k3, sl 2 wyif, k6, sl 2 wyif, k3; work from *.

switch to color B

Rows 9 & 10: knit.

switch to color A

Rows 11 & 12: knit.

switch to color B

Row 13: *k6, sl 1, k2, sl 1, k6; work from *.

Row 14: *k6, sl 1 wyif, k2, sl 1 wyif, k6; work from *.

switch to color A

Row 15: *k1, sl 2, k2, sl 1, k1, sl 2, k1, sl 1, k2, sl 2, k1; work from *.

Row 16: *k1, sl 2 wyif, k2, sl 1 wyif, k1, sl 2 wyif, k1, sl 1 wyif, k2, sl 2 wyif, k1; work from *.

switch to color B

Row 17: *sl 1, k14, sl 1; work from *.

Row 18: *sl 1 wyif, k14, sl 1 wyif; work from *.

switch to color A

Row 19: *k3, sl 2, k6, sl 2, k3; work from *.

Row 20: *k3, sl 2 wyif, k6, sl 2 wyif, k3; work from *.

switch to color B

Rows 21 & 22: knit.

switch to color A

Rows 23 & 24: knit.

switch to color B