A little epiphany
By JC | April 1, 2010
Over the past few years, I’ve drawn a lot of charts: for tech editing clients, for my own patterns, and just for my own use. My tool of choice is Illustrator—nice, sharp, vector graphics and complete control over every aspect of the charts, from colors and fonts and line widths to the actual chart symbols. Yes, I’ve had to draw the symbols myself—they didn’t come as part of some canned package—but that was fine with my inner control freak.
At the same time, my inner consistency freak has wondered why my chosen set of symbols is inconsistent. If 
makes sense (to me) for k2tog and 
for p2tog, why do I use 
for purl rather than 
? If 
is k3tog and 
is sl1-k2tog-psso, why is sl2-k1-p2sso a “tailless” 
instead of 
? And so on.
And then, a few days ago, I had a little epiphany. The symbols I draw in Illustrator match the ones I draw in pencil on graph paper. Occasionally decorating a k2tog with a dot to turn it into p2tog is fine, but when you gotta draw field of purl stitches? A bunch of dashes is way faster (for me) than dots. And a neat when you’re drawing in a hurry, anxious to get an idea down on paper? Not gonna happen.
So there you have it. When it comes to my chart symbols, laziness and impatience trump consistency. Who knew?
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