The first word I drew from the words suggested on Patreon this month is Xeric, suggested by Susan C and Bookwyrm, Patreon supporters. I noticed a while back that the letter X was the only initial letter not yet represented in the words encoded for my blog, and challenged my supporters to suggest words starting with X until the random number generator picked one. And finally, here we are. (There’s a bunch of other good words starting with X in the pool of past suggested words that I call my word hoard; some of them might appear in future too.)

Xeric means characterized by, or adapted to an extremely dry habitat. If you’ve ever encountered the word xeriscaping, it’s from the same Greek root. A good word!

Each month, my Patreon backers have the chance to suggest words for me to encode as knitting stitches. I make three of these into knitting stitches each month: the second and third (posted on the first day of the next month) are drawn from the collection of new words; the first is drawn from the collection of unused words. A random number generator helps me choose these, and then I get to work, first turning the letters into numbers, then charting the numbers onto grids in various ways. Finally, when I make the chart into lace, I turn the marked squares into yarnovers and work out where to place the corresponding decreases. (I usually make lace; occasionally I make cables instead.) I also make a chart for any craft that uses a square grid for designing; this goes in a separate post.

The stitch patterns are not meant in any way to look like the original words; the words are the seeds of my creativity.

The word I drew from my word hoard for this stitch pattern is donut, suggested by Susanne V., a Patreon supporter.

I picked the base chart for this lace because it looked remarkably like a donut. In the end, I only used the bottom half of it, but the arrangement still has a slightly skewed donut in it! I think this is the only time I’ve ever tried to do this on purpose with one of my code laces. Fortunately, I also really like the results: the wavy, lacy bits between the donuts make me happy.

Each month, my Patreon backers have the chance to suggest words for me to encode as knitting stitches. I make three of these into knitting stitches each month: the second and third (posted on the first day of the next month) are drawn from the collection of new words; the first is drawn from the collection of unused words. A random number generator helps me choose these, and then I get to work, first turning the letters into numbers, then charting the numbers onto grids in various ways. Finally, when I make the chart into lace, I turn the marked squares into yarnovers and work out where to place the corresponding decreases. (I usually make lace; occasionally I make cables instead.) I also made Donut as a chart for any craft that uses a square grid for designing; this goes in a separate post.

The stitch patterns are not usually meant in any way to look like the original words; the words are the seeds of my creativity.