When I used the word sweetheart as the basis for a stitch pattern, I accidentally encoded it in such a way that it was easy to split into its two component words. I’ve already swatched and published sweet; here is heart, which I think is even better! Any resemblance to hearts is purely coincidental.
I did make some minor changes to the decreases in the first row so that it would flow nicely when repeated.
The random number generator picked Summery for my first encoded word post of this month. It was suggested by Cathy, one of my Patreon supporters.
I usually develop a complicated knitting stitch pattern for each word, but I also like to provide a basic chart for any craft that’s worked on a grid: beads, cross stitch, whatever. I also try to provide an image of the pattern repeated all over not as a chart. It doesn’t necessarily look like a finished object for any particular craft, but I just want to give a sense of it.
If you look at this stitch pattern the right way, you might see that it is full of cicadas. This was not on purpose, but it is thematic, given that the word I used as a basis for designing this stitch pattern was Summery, suggested by Cathy on Patreon.
Each month, my Patreon backers have the chance to suggest words for me to encode as knitting stitches. A random number generator helps me choose a word every two weeks, 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.
When I designed sweetheart, I accidentally designed it in such a way that the chart could be split into to the two component words sweet and heart. Here is sweet.
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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.
This is a stitch pattern I designed at the same time as Lozenges, which means it is also not one of my encoded stitches. The two stitch patterns should coordinate well.
Why Alice? I spent a lot of time not being able to think of a descriptive name, and this morning the first name that popped into my head was Alice, so here we are.
Sometimes I start playing around with possible stitch patterns that aren’t based on my encoding methods. This is one of the results. I suspect this is the kind of stitch pattern that someone else might well have designed separately, but I haven’t seen it before. I called it lozenges because that’s another name for diamonds, and the paths made by the yarnovers make diamond shapes.
The random number generator picked Mermaid for my first encoded word post of this month. It was suggested by Ange, one of my Patreon supporters.
I usually develop a complicated knitting stitch pattern for each word, but I also like to provide a basic chart for any craft that’s worked on a grid: beads, cross stitch, whatever. I also try to provide an image of the pattern repeated all over not as a chart. It doesn’t necessarily look like a finished object for any particular craft, but I just want to give a sense of it.
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