Visualizing knit cables in color 2_ using Numbers and Gimp

Though this post presents cable movements in colors using multiple stitches, the resulting repeats may be knit by hand or at times on the machines in single color textures and the number of stitches in any column may be reduced or expanded, keeping the direction of the cable crossings the same.
Though DIY charting may not be your goal, perhaps the charts themselves will inspire similar stitch movements. Segments of any of the charts may be clipped, saved, and manipulated for easy versions of other options.
My first published experiment with cables created in vertical columns of alternating colors was in 2012A quick way to imagine variations of the same pattern is to choose segments of the swatch photo and alter their direction and/or placement Using the spreadsheet, shifting crossings are imagined, adding a half-drop variation, creating secondary shapes. A variation doubling the width of the cable crossing in a half-drop repeat In machine knitting, one is looking at the purl side, and the ability to move stitches is often limited by the fact that their placement on a metal bed is fixed distances apart. Simpler repeats can be executed as isolated vertical bands on solid color or striped or even FI grounds, adding the ribber for even more complexity in execution.
Hand knitting makes moving multiple stitches possible more easily, and because the crossings are usually made with the knit side facing, it remains easier to keep track of directions in which to move the stitches.
There are other choices in charting for either, cable crossings happen as a row progresses in hand-knit, and in machine knitting, knitting stops, and crossings are made before continuing with the next row. If color changes are planned every two rows then cables need to have multiples of 4 rows between each set of crossings. Hand-knit possibility on the left, with expanded charting for machine knitting I continue to be fond of visualizing results in color in a spreadsheet prior to knitting swatches. As usual, as the sample charts multiply, the techniques often evolve as well for creating them.
Without access to Excel, I am presently using Numbers 11.2 in macOS Monterey 12.0.1, a version with several changes from the previous. Working with shapes does not remain my preferred method, but shapes are useful and worth considering in drafts of charts for many stitch patterns outside this topic.
Notes on my process: to start with,  a table is created with enough cells to accommodate more than one repeat of the planned cable crossings in both height and width. I prefer working on a cell size of 20X20 pixels and using magnification if needed to make work details more visible, decreasing it before screengrabs for illustrations here.
The choices for cell border styles may be made both in terms of colors and line quality or eliminated altogether  To add a shape, in the toolbar, search for shapes and select a category on the left, then click on the shape or drag one onto the sheet to add it.
To browse all shapes move the pointer over the shapes pane and scroll down.
It is possible to create and save custom shapes.
To make a shape editable
1: click on a shape to select it
2: choose Format, Shapes and Lines, Make Editable from the format menu at the top of your screen, handles will appear. In this case, a red square in each corner, and a small circle on the left side  3: double click a white handle to change the line from curved to straight, handles represent different types of lines
Squares with a red outline: lines that connect to this point are straight
Circles with a red outline: lines that connect to this point are curved
4: click outside the edge of the shape when done editing it
Saving custom shapes
1: Click a custom shape to select it, then choose Format, Shapes and Lines, Save to My Shapes (from the Format menu at the top of your screen). The shape is saved in the My Shapes category of the shapes library, which appears only when you have custom shapes. Shapes appear in the library in the order you create them, this order cannot be changed.
2. Type a name for the shape in the field that appears below it, or click the name to change it.
To delete a custom shape, Control-click it in the shapes library, then choose Delete Shape.
Color choices are the same as for any work with colored cells, for the default palette, left-click on the marked area, and choose from current fill selections Choosing custom colors: left-click on fill, then on the colored globe, new selections appear, click on any one of the pencils to select the new color, it will move up from other selections, the change will be reflected, can be undone and repeated several times Creating the first cable crossing shape: choose the square from the basic shapes, if the first plan is to work across 3 cells, change its size to the width of 60 pixels, 20X3, and single height of 20 pixels, also changing colors if desired. To do so, left-click on it, uncheck constrain proportions, and change values to desired ones Change its color It is a good idea to copy and paste a few shapes outside the table in case they are needed
A: place the shape on the cell grid
B: make the shape editable
C: click on the left upper corner of the shape on the small white square, it will turn red, drag, and place it where desired, and release it
D: repeat with the small white square in the lower right corner, release
E: check image size, adjust to 60 pixels wide, 20 high, make editable again if tweaking is needed,
F: the first crossing shape is completed Right-click on the final shape, copy it,  and paste it several times on the sheet away from the table.
Copying and pasting shapes on a single cell will fit any image within its borders, to remove it choose the cell, color fill, no fill, from the format menu To use the shape, left-click on it, drag it into the desired position.
Cable crossings are usually in pairs, so a companion shape will be needed, 60 pixels wide by 20 high, in a contrasting color, the results of making the larger image editable

The combined images may be created in a paint program such as Gimp and the resulting file, in turn, may be used in a spreadsheet. Pngs can be custom filled with any color of your choice in Gimp or its equivalent To draw a straight line in Gimp when applicable, select your preferred brush tool, click the point that begins your line, hold the Shift and Command keys in a Mac, drag the cursor to where you want the line to end. Click the endpoint, this creates a straight line between the two points with your selected brush. After the line is drawn, release the Shift and Command keys.
When charts are for personal use only, individual preference guides visualization methods, considerations for publishing may be different.
Yarn colors may be used in the charts, moving wider columns of stitches may be difficult if not impossible on a machine, but hand knitting opens a different world of opportunities for pattern use.
Working in a spreadsheet is easier for me than only using Gimp.
Seeking out a method for better definition of cable stitches to facilitate following crossings visually, cable crossing rows here are now double-height for added clarity; other choices include showing grid or not, and using BW for stitches crossed to the front in any direction.
Disregarding the grid, each column of color could be any number of stitches wide, while having the grid allows for easy counting of rows. Any chart may be used in knitting using a single color as well. Fair isle repeats: when working cables in FI, in addition to tracking cable directions, the needles must be placed in the proper needle positions B and D for correct patterning to continue.
A series of cables executed along vertical lines of the same color. The red border surrounds the full repeat.  These illustrations are as they would appear for hand knitting, with crossings made as knitting progresses along the corresponding chart rows on the knit side of the fabric Fair isle on mixed striped ground  Fair isle with repeat changes, expanded further by mirroring An expanded MK illustration A FI sample shared in 2015From Slip stitch patterns with hand transferred stitches, single bed   2/21
When using fair isle patterning as a guide to forming cables on the machine, crossing directions matter more since one is no longer simply placing color on like color: this chart transitions from the original idea to the placement of the crossings, a full repeat with their direction reversed based on which color is wanted to travel to the knit side is drawn, and on the far right, the look of the final FI repeat  Adding a third color, possible intarsia knit as all over pattern or isolated as a panel. Even in hand-knit, the latter may be in a contrasting gauge and joined to pieces of the garment after their completion. These repeats may be worked as vertical panels between rows of plain knit or rib Symmetry is not always needed, MK, adding the ribber: one of the things that may lead to confusion is the use of the term every other needle knitting. If one is working on every needle on both beds, the needles on either bed are centered between those on the opposite one, thus patterning occurring on either bed that becomes EON. Colors are used to track the movement of stitches, not colorwork, which happens on the same needles, either bed, or the plaiting feeder may be used to produce the illusion of additional colors. Part of an experimental swatch using the ribber and tuck settings In attempting brioche on the machine the color changes happen every 2 rows, so a minimum of 4 rows or a multiple of 4 rows are planned between moving any stitches. Although the same color will be used in the crossings each time, using 2 colors for cable segments may make the chart easier to follow Using the ribber, one of the crossings on striped grounds: Slip stitch patterns with hand transferred stitches, double bed.  2/21A range of experiments with associated samples:
Some cables to try, hand-knit  1/15
A hand-knit stitch tale 2: a bit of cables and lace, charting, HK to MK   7/14
Chain cable HK experiment  1/13
Machine knitting cables: single bed, 1    12/14
Machine knitting cables: single bed, introducing the ribber   1/15
Some “real” cables on KM  1/12
Hand to machine, symbols 4: cables  2/13
A simple braided cable (and card)  1/12
Machine knit cables: using patterning as a guide to transfers  2/15
Using punchcards to track cables and twists in pattern 2   12/11
Using punchcards to track small cables in pattern 1   1/12
Holding and “cables”   12/11
Pretend/ mock cables 4: revisiting i-cords   1/13
Pretend/ mock cables 3   7/18
Pretend/ mock cables 2   1/14
Pretend/ mock cables 1: i-cords, holding   1/12
A few i-cords and more to try   1/12
Cables with lace transfers   12/11
Cables in color   2/15
Visualizing knit cables in color_ Excel   1/15
Knit charting in Mac Yosemite; visualizing knit cables   11/14

To mesh or not to mesh 9: more on mock filet design

Previous posts with some related information:
A lace mesh series: using GIMP  8/17
To mesh or not to mesh 1  5/11
To mesh or not to mesh 2  5/11
To mesh or not to mesh 3  5/11
To mesh or not to mesh 4 5/11
To mesh or not to mesh 5 7/17 a collection of mesh design repeats
To mesh or not to mesh 6: chevrons 6/20
Lace knitting tips, to mesh or not to mesh 7  7/20
To mesh or not to mesh 8: more Numbers meet Gimp 5/21
Unconventional uses for punchcards 2: thread lace cards for “filet” mesh  8/17
It is hard for me to imagine a decade or more has passed since I began to blog. My approach to post content has evolved since then as has my shifting familiarity and use of software programs. Periodically topics resurface to my attention. Lace is one that crops up every few years, resurged after my purchase of Dak and my experiments with testing the lace module, and has persisted, so here I am once more looking at superimposing shapes onto a preferred mesh repeat.
There are always multiple ways to achieve a goal. Punchcard knitters are not excluded from the processes and without spreadsheets, similar planning may be executed on graph paper using colored pencils.
My go-tos now for planning out my charts on a new iMac with M1 chip and OS12 are
Mac Numbers 11.2
Gimp 2.10.24, Rosetta required
ArahPaint 6.0
img2track for download to a 930 to knit swatches, presently from a Windows 10 PC
InSync for file sharing between the Mac and the PC

The final repeats created with any of these methods need to be checked or edited to make certain they observe the rules for placement of punched holes or cells on proper rows for the specific brand and model knitting machine being used.
If the aspect ratio is particularly important, then more cautious planning may be needed.
For an indeterminate reason, the shape for superimposing on a mesh in these experiments is a heart, plotted out here in Gimp for use in a 24 stitch wide limit repeat. It is good to begin on a canvas longer than the estimated motif, magnification to 800-1800X with a 1X1grid and snap to grid make the execution and filling in of small-scale designs easy to plan and view.
In terms of drawing tools, the bucket-fill paint tool may be set to fill with the foreground color, background color, or pattern. The pencil tool normally uses the foreground color. If switching between the two tools, remember to choose the proper tool before continuing to edit repeats.
The heart was plotted out and cropped to 21 stitches by 15 rows, on a 24 stitch grid, and the image was saved, it is deliberately planned for an odd number of rows in width and height.  My chosen lace mesh repeat is 2 stitches by 6 rows. Planning a base mesh in Gimp with the above repeat saved as a pattern and used to bucket fill the canvas: The overall mesh repeat png is saved. Blank areas in every third row in the first and every third row will be skipping transfers in those areas and knitting the stitches composing the shape. The heart shape itself needs to be superimposed onto the mesh base. It is relatively small, with increases and decreases forming it easy to follow, so in the simplest method, red squares for each pattern row are filled in on the grid transfer rows, using the single-pixel pencil tool and working in RGB mode. If satisfied with the placement of the shape, use bucket-fill set to ground or foreground to eliminate red cells by filling them with white, and the mesh design is ready. If working with a card, punch black cells only. This placement is tested and kept in mind in other explorations. Using a spreadsheet: the same sort of chart may easily be created quickly in Numbers. In this instance, my table is still planned for 24 stitches in width, but 54 rows in height. An extra column is added and used on the far left to mark rows to be hidden. Beginning at the bottom left two rows were filled in a different color, the third row is left blank, all 3 cells are selected. When multiple cells are selected, depending on which side of the selection box one hovers over with the mouse, a yellow dot/  handle will appear. The tool acts on the selection. Clicking on it and dragging it with the mouse will, in this instance, repeat the selection until the mouse is released. This may be done in any direction and quickly fills in whole tables. It is not necessary to perform this extra step before hiding rows, but I find having that extra color makes it easier visually, especially when working on long repeats. It also makes for easy return to selection if hiding rows is done in shifts.
Beginning at the top of the table, holding down the command key, select rows marked with yellow cells, in this version of Numbers, table row numbers are green rather than blue,   continue to the bottom of the chart, and under the Table menu, choose to hide 36 rows. With rows hidden the mesh repeat shrinks from 6 rows to 2. A new 4 cell table is created. The 4 interior cells were chosen, copied, and pasted in the lower-left corner of the reduced height table. Once pasted, selecting the repeat again will allow one to use those yellow handles to fill the contents first toward the top, then to the right. The image on the left shows the results, with only the numbers for the unhidden rows shown on the left. In turn, the heart was the pencil tool to draw it using a third color in the chosen location. The unhiding rows function produces the expanded repeat with all knit stitches in red on the mesh grid ground. The column with the yellow cells is deleted before converting the Numbers repeat to an electronic or punchcard, the how-to discussed in other posts. Comparing the hand-drawn heart in Gimp alone on the left, to the spreadsheet results on the right, there appears to be a difference in the starting rows, and in only one other row, two black cells appear that can easily be altered in either repeat. Brother machine knitters would need to shift those 2 blank rows at the bottom of the repeat on the right to its top or to to start lace patterning on row 3.  Keep in mind that lace patterns in particular, with their infrequent markings, even in color reverse, grabbed from a spreadsheet and scaled in Gimp to final repeat size, often require a lot of “clean up. This repeat, intended for use in another post shows the difference between these 2 different programs once more. Superimposing shapes onto the same mesh requires that they be elongated X3. Gimp does not do this well, while ArahPaint does so elegantly. The result using Gimp, with the image Mode converted to 2 colors indexed and scaled in height X3 is shown on the left with marked error areas. The Arah YX3 result on the right is correct, created, and saved More choices exist, continuing to place the heart 3 rows up from the bottom, and not using multiple layers. For the heart to be pasted in place on the mesh, its white background needs to be made clear/ transparent. That is achieved by using Layer, Transparency, Color to Alpha, The layer-to-alpha image may be saved as a png with transparent background for any future use.
Work using 2 windows, A simple copy and paste will fix the image in an arbitrary location. Instead, click on the rectangle select tool, selecting and copying the heart image, paste it on the ground in the second window, where it remains as a floating selection that can be dragged to the desired location and is not anchored until the mouse is released. This may be undone and repeated multiple times.  A, copied and pasted in place on the ground, B, resulting in C
Even easier, working with the full-color, white ground heart repeat placed 3 rows up from the bottom, Aset red as the foreground colorand then use the bucket fill tool B to fill its ground with the mesh pattern, seen in C
Comparing the all in Gimp Drawing to either of the last 2 patterns, two differences appear, an extra row of transfers before removing transfer stitches to start the heart shape, and those 2 extra black pixels/eyelets Committing to the first design, 24X60, Proof of concept for the single repeat: Tiling the repeat before knitting helps one visualize secondary shapes that will be formed by it, here those pairs of extra dots are removed in areas marked with red lines, helping to make the decision about keeping them or not Developing brick repeats or half drop is possible with offset and brushes in Gimp, but, to my mind, easier in Arah. Using the Arah drawing in repeat, the design is now 24 stitches wide by 120 rows high in a brick arrangement offset by 12 stitches. The same heart, in half drop repeat, offset by 30 rows, now double wide, 48X60, suitable only for an electronic machine Changing the background grid for other stitch types: the heart is rescaled for use by 2 or 4 times in height. Again, the differences between Gimp’s incorrect scaling, A, and the Arah drawing in repeat, B The differences between the clear ground heart image dragged and dropped onto the new background or navigating between 2 windows and using the rectangle tool as described to copy and paste. Possible applications This begs the question of working on larger images. For use on a lace mesh, simpler designs apart from overall size are best, but if a mesh base is not your favorite fabric or goal, tuck, slip stitch, thread lace or even fair isle patterns may be created with more overall flexibility, using the same principles on backgrounds.
Thread lace, depending on the yarns and tension used, can provide the illusion of eyelets behind images of any size. The steps: image to alpha selected and pasted onto the ground, color reversed The final png is 129 stitches wide by 172 rows high This is the first attempt at a partial repeat test proof of concept. I have been telling people serger monofilament withstands ironing and light pressing, and periodically I test advice I have given formerly. To start with, the darn monofilament, which I even used in double bed garments, but nearly 2 decades ago, refused to feed properly or at all. Because it is nearly invisible, my knitting started with it pulling too tight, and I wiped out 12 needles out of 72 in different places on the needle bed in a single carriage pass. Determined, I sorted how to hand feed it, got the rhythm, complete a swatch. A marks an error I made in loading the second track in img2track, resulting in an added, wrong pattern row. The holes, B, C, and D were nonexistent until I tried flattening the fabric a bit with an iron, and the monofilament simply melted in various places. Other observations: there is some bubbling in the all knit areas. With ironing, that effect was lost and the areas with more mock holes widened as can be seen at the side edges. In thread lace, the end needle selection is canceled so as to have the paired yarns knit the end stitch, but pattern needles can still be selected, so if end needles are forward in pattern, it is best to push them back to B position by hand. One way to eliminate having to do that, which also reduces knitting time, is to create vertical all-white lines on either side, as in this version of the repeat now 144 X 200 pixels. I had interesting issues with having needle selection visually appear correct throughout, and the pattern itself appearing correct when checked at 1800 magnification. While the smaller sample was accurate until the filament began to melt, here I had 2 needles not knitting the yarns alternately but together, and an odd change in the center that looks as though yarn selection in those areas was reversed. The thicker yarn here is cotton, the thinner rayon. Troubleshooting is required. Unplanned tucking is a sign of damaged needles, but because the second yarn used herd is so thin, the effect was not obvious until the vertical pattern in the same area on the bed became apparent.
I am using a punchcard carriage on an orphaned 930 for the thread lace, and have not knit on more than 90 center needles in the past. Some days both operator and machine need a break. The cam buttons and undercarriage were oiled.  The first selection tests involved programming this as an all-over design. When only using part of the needle bed in a pattern, the center of the needle bed needs to be cleared by the knit carriage for the pattern selections to advance and knit properly. Doing so on part of each side of the center in thread lace and changing the culprit needles eliminated those single stitch issues. Before committing to a large width of fabric in thread lace, perhaps a practical, visible, and easy place to start for checking patterning and needle selection is to knit the ground in this pattern as a fair isle pattern before proceeding with the intended large-scale design. The finished test swatch: because of the disparity between the number of all knit stitches vs patterned ones where one of the colors is slipped on every pattern row for every other stitch, the fabric shrinks dramatically when off the machine. The knit areas pop out a bit, and a lengthwise tug makes enhances the effect  If the goal is a flat fabric panel, then blocking is a necessity. Here the piece is casually pressed, no pins, letters point out issues:
A: knit rows before any pattern selection
B: an attempt to knit stitches with a cast on comb, and no weights, lots of uneven float loops on the reverse
C: changing the amount of weight; if knitting in multiple tracks using img2track, remember to be outside the set mark with the knit carriages before selecting the next pattern row to avoid selection errors
D, E: there are occasional improperly formed tuck stitches
F: “My piece is almost finished, the weights are touching the floor but I have just a few rows left, too lazy to move the weight”, the price: some messy loops on the reverse again to match the start
G: all knit rows again, the latch tool bind off around single gate pegs was a bit snug The mesh effect was noticeable after resting, the piece measures 25 inches in width by 25 inches in height.
When moving weights up, using a ribber cast on comb carefully poked through the knit may cause less snagging and issues than using the single bed cast on comb.
This fabric evolved because of a discussion that began with a knitter who is working on sculptural shapes emerging from textured backgrounds.
I see thread lace as having potential for developing all sorts of blistered, 3D elements that have nothing to do with flowers or wearables and am planning follow-up posts using the technique for texture rather than mock lace. To be rendered usable, this piece would definitely need blocking, maybe even starching in order to be stable enough to hold its shape over time.
I have blocking wires, but over my decades of knitting have maybe used them twice, my blocking has been far more casual.

Friends lately have asked about skulls over thread lace mesh, this is an electronic repeat with room for resizing or border additions, keeping in mind that in thread lace the white areas knit both yarns, the dotted areas create the illusion of holes. The design was initially created working in black and white, with an alpha channel added a new file was opened, bucket-filled with the ground 2X2 pattern, the above was copied and pasted in the chosen position, resulting in this
The 100X92 png which in turn needs to be color reversed for use as a thread lace pattern

Machine or hand knit symbols DIY charts with copy and paste in Gimp

Over the years I have accumulated different knitting fonts, some not now compatible with Mac OS 12 or long since unavailable, while others are from encounters with less common fonts, Webdings, and Windings, or self hand-drawn.
Knitters interested in creating simple charts with no access to spreadsheets or with symbol-producing design software, but with some familiarity with photo editors such as in this case Gimp, may find this an alternative way to produce knitting charts, working on large grid units to start with or with magnification.
This first image is 12 cells wide, and 28 high, composed originally in my spreadsheet program, Mac Numbers, using cells 50 pixels wide and high, the final table image was screen grabbed and opened in Gimp, it is rotated here for sake of space. To use it, click on the image, a larger scale version will open in a different window, save that image by whatever means you prefer, and open it or copy and paste it in Gimp. Use image, transform, to rotate 90 degrees clockwise to change its orientation to upright, check scale, adjust slightly if needed before continuing, it should measure 600 pixels in width by 1400 in height,  A grid of 50 pixels in width and height for the image can be configured and shown on top of the image to check the size and placement of the symbols. It is hidden in the original, the finer grid lines are used as guides for isolating the symbols that will be used in your chart.
Choose file new, retain the same size, and configure its grid to 50X50 pixels. At that point, the image may be trimmed to a smaller number of units to accommodate your repeat. Navigating between the two screens, use the rectangle tool to select symbols you wish to use in your chart, copy and paste them into the new image in the center of the appropriate cells. Another option if lots of symbols are to be used repeatedly is to copy each into a part of the new image that will not be a part of the final chart once, and then repeated copy and paste can happen from there on the single screen For more on grids and guides see Gimp update for Mac 2.
The image for use with a 26-pixel design grid when rotated it will measure 312 pixels in width, 728 pixels in height,  A few cable samples, the file is 390 pixels wide by 286 high on 26-pixel cells, not all these cables are executable on the machine, extra yarn lengths would be required to allow stitches to move over far enough on the metal bed for the next row to form knit stitches properly,  A sample cable with knit columns added to each side, colors, more symbols, and widths of repeats can all be adjusted. If the images are saved in the full size as pngs, the grids are lost. To retain the grid, the image needs to be screengrabbed and in turn rescaled to the desired size. more copy and paste to visualize a larger repeat An added note on Gimp: my blog posts are now created on an iMac with OS12 and M1 chip. Rosetta needed to be installed for the program to run. I have found some issues with the pencil tool not working at all or properly or commands no longer working after several steps. Quitting the program did not eliminate the problem. What appears to solve the issue is to go to Preferences Folders, and then to choose the reset brush folder command.  Of course, since the program is a new install, my previous collection of custom brushes will need to be recreated.

For an extensive collection of knitting symbols and their meanings, inspiration for adding your own as needed, see http://www.knittingfool.com/Reference/KF_Symbols.aspx

Hand to machine, symbols 6

WORK IN PROGRESS

This document is created using Mac Pages and Numbers, stitch illustrations have been borrowed from magazines and manuals long out of print and edited, the symbols and charts are self-drawn. Using shapes in Numbers now makes the process of creating DIY symbols in the spreadsheet significantly easier than in my early Excel days.
The transfers are illustrated as they would occur if hand-knit or tooled as opposed to created by automated machine functions, blue dots are associated with knit side facing, pink with purl side facing. This series observes single bed work

Cable crossings: To visualize cable crossing in the opposite direction, images can simply be mirrored horizontally More cable crossings including working double bed
Crossing stitches by pulling one through another, an alternative symbol for the same technique. The techniques may be used in variations, using 3 or 4 stitches. Yarn and tension are significant factors when any number of stitches are moved across a fixed span on a metal bed machine.

Slip stitch creates a short float where a needle is not worked and an elongated loop on the knit side of the fabric. There are patterns where the elongated stitch is removed and brought behind the float, to the purl side of the fabric Tuck stitch groups of stitches are gathered in needle hooks, commonly with knit stitches on either side of the gathers.
Tuck stitch with a twisted elongated stitch. The effect will depend on the yarn being used. More on tuck and slip stitch /2020/09/13/single-bed-tuck-and-slip-stitch-fabrics-1/

When combining techniques symbol placement in charts is often up to the creator. In the top sample, 1, a three-row pattern, the first stitch is pulled up, gathers it and the stitch right above it on the shank of the needle, in turn latching the third stitch through the first two, creating a purl stitch on the knit side at the top of the gather, and a knit stitch on the purl.
The next pair of images, 2, illustrates a simple picking up a stitch, stretching it, and hanging it on a knit stitch several rows above. This is also called ruching which may be done over any number of rows, not necessarily in vertical alignment, and may result in episodic pleated effects on the knit side.  Because no “tuck” loops are being combined in needle hooks in addition to the stretched stitch, multiple side-by-side stitches may be hooked up this way. Very short elongated loops ie for one or two rows as marked 3, are not as visible on the purl side and do not create very visible gathers on the knit side.
A single fully fashioned increase is illustrated in the charts. The same technique may be used in the body of the knit, moving stitches in any one row, leaving single needles out of work at regular intervals, and picking up from rows below as pictured on the right to “fill in” empty needles. Stitches may be twisted in the body of a knit on the machine by inserting a tool front to back through the stitch, twisting it to the right or left, rehanging the stitch in the same location.
This technique may be used with multiple stitches to create mock cables, and patterning, whether electronic or punchcard may be used in machines with needle or pusher preselection to track the placement of the twists. E wraps may also be used to cast stitches on side edges of the knitting, whether the result is satisfactory is determined by the knitter’s preference.

When vertical spaces are created between knit stitches, the term often used to describe the floats that are created is ladders. One can drop a worked stitch at the end of the knitting, or in machine knitting, a needle may be left out of work and as it is skipped, the ladder is created. Dropped, previously worked stitches create wider ladders than those with skipped needles When a ladder needs to be eliminated, there are several ways to deal with returning any empty needles to work. If an empty needle is brought back into work, the first pass to the opposite side will create a loop on the empty needle, the second pass will complete the stitch on that needle, and an eyelet is created. If one wishes to minimize the eyelet, one method is to pick up the purl ridge from the row below on either the right or the left of the empty needle, as illustrated in the fully fashioned increase chart, another is to twist the last ladder and rehang the twisted loop. If multiple needles are out of work, then an e wrap cast on by twisting stitches on every other needle is needed unless needles are brought back into work one at a time, creating secondary eyelet patterns. 

Blog posts related to or using symbols, in historical order:
Machine or hand-knit symbols, DIY charts with copy and paste in Gimp, 12/21
Symbols in knitting charts, 11/21
Revisiting lace repeats, symbols, and charting, 10/21
Punch cards to electronics: book symbols and samples, 12/17
More on charting, foreign symbols, and cables, 12/14
Machine or hand-knit symbols, DIY charts with copy and paste in Gimp, 7/14
Machine knitting symbols, 8/13
Hand to machine symbols 5: lace, 12/21
Hand to machine, symbols 4: cables, 2/13
Hand to machine, symbols 3, 2/13
Hand to machine, symbols 2, 1/13
Hand to machine knitting symbols 1, 1/13
Knit terms: translations 2/12

DAK is a program that allows for designing with illustrations created both as symbols, or unique to programs for in-home use, representing the intended fabrics as knit stitches, seen here for a lace repeat. The availability of the symbols does not necessarily translate to knittable fabrics 1, 2, more lace info Cable illustration as from the DAK manual, with single bed and knit and purl stitches represented Many cables that can be created in hand knitting are not executable on the knitting machine because of the fact that the yarn needs to move across fixed widths on a metal bed and the moved stitches need to be large enough to allow the knit carriage to form new stitches properly as it travels back to the opposite side on the following pass. There are techniques that can help to make wider cables possible, it is best to test crossing tolerance before planning or following full repeats whether published or self-drawn.
The same symbols may be used for hand-knit charts, taking into consideration whether working on 2 needles, in the round, with the knit or purl side as the public one, or the fabric is intended as having reversible surfaces.