Get creative with lace knitting stitches.

How you ever thumbed through a stitch dictionary looking for exactly the right stitch pattern for a knitting project that you had in mind? Perhaps you have found a stitch patterns that’s almost right but not quite there? Or perhaps you want to find a stitch pattern that’s different from any that you’ve seen?

In this post I am going to take a very simple lace pattern and give you some ideas for adapting it to create some variations.

First of all, here is the starting point.This is a classic Shetland lace pattern that is easy to knit. In the example above it is worked over a multiple of 10 stitches and 8 rows.

An obvious way to change this stitch pattern is to rescale it by either adding more rows and columns or by removing them. Here is an example that has been made larger so that it is worked over a multiple of 12 stitches and 10 rows;-

And here rows and columns have been removed so that is is worked over a multiple of 8 stitches and 6 rows;-

Note how changing the scale of a stitch pattern not only changes the stitch count but also changes the ‘look’ of a stitch pattern. For example, the smaller pattern has a much lacier look than either of the larger swatches. Here are all three swatches together so that you can compare them. All three are knit in the same yarn and with the same size needles;-

If you take a different lace pattern and resize it how do you know what it will look like? The best way to find out is to swatch. Swatch and discover.

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