Snowflake Counterchange: a charted design for any craft

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Last week I posted a variant of the Bubble charted design and remarked that it was not quite a proper counterchange pattern. So of course I had to work out how to make it into one.

I looked closely at the wavy columns and realized that the difference was that the blue columns had more padding at the edges than the white ones. First I tried taking out the extra blue padding, but I didn’t care for it because it made everything look crowded. So instead I added more white space to the white columns. Much better!

Here’s the result:

A drawing of how the Snowflake counterchange chart might look as two-color knitting. It looks like alternating columns of large beads on strings, where blue bead strings are nested between white bead strings. There are blue snowflakes on the white beads and white snowflakes on the blue.
  • Snowflake Counterchange has a repeat of 12 + 1 columns and 10 + 1 rows.
  • In the written instructions, color A is the light squares above, and color B is the dark.
  • The written instructions below are formatted for stranded knitting, but it is my hope that they could be translated into instructions for other crafts. For instance, if working filet crochet, 1A could be one open square and 2B could be two filled-in squares.
  • This pattern is written in rounds, but because each row has mirror symmetry, the colors can be read in flat rows as written. If knitting, just work purl stitches on alternating rows instead of knit.
  • Designers, please feel free to use this in your patterns (no need to ask). I’d like credit but won’t be offended if people don’t give it.
  • My blog posts and 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!

Round 1: work knit as follows; 1A, *1A, 3B, 1A, 1B, 1A, 3B, 2A; work from *. (13 sts)

Round 2: work knit as follows; 1A, *1B, 1A, 2B, 3A, 2B, 1A, 1B, 1A; work from *.

Round 3: work knit as follows; 1A, *3B, 5A, 3B, 1A; work from *.

Round 4: work knit as follows; 1B, *2B, 3A, 1B, 3A, 3B; work from *.

Round 5: work knit as follows; 1B, *1B, 2A, (1B, 1A) × 2, 1B, 2A, 2B; work from *.

Round 6: work knit as follows; 1A, *1B, 3A, 3B, 3A, 1B, 1A; work from *.

Round 7: work knit as follows; 1B, *1B, 2A, (1B, 1A) × 2, 1B, 2A, 2B; work from *.

Round 8: work knit as follows; 1B, *2B, 3A, 1B, 3A, 3B; work from *.

Round 9: work knit as follows; 1A, *3B, 5A, 3B, 1A; work from *.

Round 10: work knit as follows; 1A, *1B, 1A, 2B, 3A, 2B, 1A, 1B, 1A; work from *.

Work rounds 1-10 as desired, ending with round 11:

Round 11: work knit as follows; 1A, *1A, 3B, 1A, 1B, 1A, 3B, 2A; work from *.