How To Incorporate a Stitch Pattern into Your Own Knitted Creation

Design 101: Stitch Pattern Incorporation

Today I want to teach you how to incorporate an existing stitch pattern into your own pattern design.

Many of us have looked through stitch pattern reference books or seen published patterns and loved a specific part of a stitch pattern and wished we could turn that part into something else: a shawl, wrap, sweater, headband, or skirt. Perhaps you’ve seen a commercially manufactured sweater and thought you’d love to have a sweater made completely out of one of the recognizable cable elements in that sweater. Maybe you’re feeling especially creative and want to make something no one’s ever made before.

All of those can be accomplished easily once you’ve mastered the skill of incorporating stitch patterns. In fact, once you’re comfortable with this skill, you’re well on your way to designing patterns to share with and even sell to others.

a simple stitch pattern as an example

You can see that this stitch pattern is made of alternating 2×2 blocks of knit and purl stitches.

Let’s say you want to make a set of dishcloths with this stitch pattern, and you’ve knit a gauge (or sample) swatch in this pattern, measured it, and found your gauge to be about 4.5 stitches/inch.

A quick note on gauge: Gauge—how many stitches per inch you have, most often measured horizontally—is a measurement that is personal to the knitter. It varies depending on whether you happen to knit tightly or more loosely. Gauge is often inconsistent until you’ve had lots of practice. Gauge doesn’t matter much with dishcloths, because, really, who cares if your dishcloths are a precise measurement? The same is true with blankets, shawls, and wraps, unless you have unique circumstances that demand a specific size. However, when you knit a sweater, you want to have your gauge nailed down, because being a few inches off on a sweater can have a heartbreaking, disappointing impact. Yup, I’ve been there.

As I mentioned, the size of your dishcloth isn’t a big deal, but have an idea of the size you’d like your dishcloth to be. We’ll come back to that measurement.

Find the Smallest Repeating Section

Let’s take a closer look at our pattern chart. We want to find the smallest repeating section of the pattern chart for our purposes.

Most stitch pattern reference books do this work for us and print only the repeating section without anything extra. It’s less space and ink for them to spend in printing, after all. However, sometimes they’ll show more than is needed, so it’s always good to be careful and check.

I often find inspiration from the clothes I see people wearing. I sometimes ask my patient friends to hold still a sec while I photograph their cardigan. In those cases, I have to chart the pattern myself and find the smallest repeating section.

In our example, the smallest repeating section is the 4×4 block at the bottom right of the chart.

Adjust for Symmetry

You could set up your pattern to just repeat this chart, row by row, and you would get the pattern represented by the stitches. To make your piece just a little bit better, though, you can set up the pattern so that it is symmetrical.

In this case, we’d make the dishcloth pattern symmetrical by adding 2 more columns at the very end so that we can end each row with the same “block” we start with.

Math Time!

At this point, you are ready to go back to that measurement of your ideal dishcloth. Let’s use 10 inches as a random starting point. Using our gauge measurement of 4.5 stitches per inch, I multiply 10 inches x 4.5 stitches/inch and get 45 stitches.

Our stitch pattern is sometimes written in pattern reference books in the form “multiple of 4 + 2.” We get that because we’re repeating the same four stitches on the chart (1-4) as many times as we like and then adding the last two stitches (5 & 6) for symmetry. Some of the totals that follow that formula are:

(9 x 4) +2 = 38
(10 x 4) +2 = 42
(11 x 4) +2 = 46

Borders Count

I like to have a border around my dishcloths when I’m using a pattern like this, and I think a garter stitch border will act as a nice frame to set off the stitches inside it, and it will keep the edges from rolling. For those reasons, I would choose to go with the first of our 3 options: 9 repeats of our 4-stitch pattern, plus 2 for the symmetry section, plus 8 more stitches to be split evenly, 4 and 4, at the beginning and end of the rows, for the garter stitch border around the charted pattern.

(9 x 4) +2 = 38

4 border stitches + 38 center pattern section + 4 border stitches = total 46 stitches

Because I’ll have 4 garter stitches on each side of my center, I’ll work 8 rows (4 ridges) of garter stitch (knit across all rows) to start and end my dishcloth.

Final Pattern

Our written pattern would look something like this:

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Now you know exactly how many stitches to cast on to get a dishcloth as wide as you want, with a centered, symmetrical stitch pattern that you’ve chosen and charted because it appealed to you!

I’ve done it for the special baby blankets I’ve created for each grandchild, and I love knowing they have a totally unique blankie designed and made by their Granny K.

Our example was very simple, and many of the stitch patterns that appeal to us are very complicated, but the same principles and steps apply.

10 simple Steps for Incorporating a Stitch Pattern

1. Chart the pattern if the chart doesn’t already exist.
2. Look for the smallest repeating section.
3. Examine the chart carefully to see if symmetry or any other factor requires additional stitches to be added to the last repeat.
4. Knit a gauge swatch.
5. Really. Knit the gauge swatch unless the gauge doesn’t matter. Don’t forget to experiment with needle sizes if you need to adjust your gauge. If you notice that you’re just slightly off the gauge you want, try wood needles instead of metal, or vice versa to see if that makes the slight difference you need.
6. Multiply your gauge by the number of stitches in your pattern repeat section and calculate your options for the number of repeats that make sense for the finished size you want for your item.
7. Consider whether you want or need a border for your piece. Remember that garter stitch, seed stitch, and lace borders can help “flatten” pieces that want to roll.
8. Calculate the total number of stitches to cast on (stitches in pattern repeat x number of repeats) + additional stitches needed for symmetry or stitch architecture + border stitches.
9. Remember border rows at top and bottom of piece.
10. Enjoy making your unique creation!

I’d love to see what you make with this method! Just send me a note here.

Happy knitting!

Kiersten J

P.S. If you’d like a free, printable PDF of this dishcloth pattern, just click this button.

If you would like to download the entire How to Incorporate a Stitch Pattern into Your Own Knitted Creation guide, including this tutorial, the dishcloth pattern, and a guided worksheet for incorporating stitch patterns into your own designs, simply click the button below: