The word I drew from my word hoard for this stitch pattern is Sweetheart, suggested by Rebecca on Patreon. Sometimes in the past when I’ve had a word with smaller words as part of it, I’ve encoded them as multiple stitch patterns that could be combined to make a bigger one. Because sweetheart is longer than my usual words, and since it would therefore take rather longer than usual, I decided not to do this. So I was amused when I picked this particular code layout to realize that the encoding splits in the perfect place to turn this into two more coordinating stitch patterns! I guess it was bound to happen. Here are Sweet and Heart.

Each month, my Patreon backers have the chance to suggest words for me to encode as knitting stitches. I make two of these into knitting stitches each month: the first is drawn from the collection of new words; the second 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.

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