Following and Creating Knitting Charts

Sometime in March of this year, I took an online class through Craftsy, a knitting class using stranded colourwork techniques. The class project was perfect for using some of the yarn I had reclaimed from sweaters.  While I have done colourwork and Fair Isle in the past....I had not taken the time to learn the proper way to do it and my work was never as neat as it should have been.

Once I got used to a different way of holding my yarn, I picked up the technique quickly. This Cowl was the provided pattern from the class (which you can find here) 

look how neat it is on the inside

of course....now I wanted to see if I could create my own charts. I accomplished this with the help of an app I found, called 8BitPainter (it is meant to be used for drawing simple pixel art) but it works great for creating needle work carts too.  In the photo below, you can see the chart I created with the app on my iPad mini, and the cowl (in progress) I knit following my chart.

Such fun to be able to combine needlework techniques with modern technology.