Knitting

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Pin of the Week: An Awesome Stitch Pattern Calculator

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stitch pattern calculatorIf you’re the kind of knitter who hates math — and I think that covers a lot of us! — you need to know about the Stitch Pattern Calculator from Laylock Knitwear Design.

This is a really simple, powerful concept. Just plug in the number of stitches the pattern repeat you want to use has and how many stitches you intend to cast on and it will tell you how many full repeats of the stitch pattern you can do and how many stitches you’ll have left over.

To test it I put in a pattern (totally made up) with an 8 plus 1 stitch repeat. I suggested I had 50 stitches, and the calculator told me I could work 6 repeats and would have one stitch left over.

Even better, it tells me I could use either 57 or 48 stitches and have no stitches left at the end, which is what you really need to know so you can adjust your pattern as needed.

So much easier than using a calculator!

Comments

  1. Hate math, so one of these would be a blessing. Would like to get
    updated on knitting and learn some of the new ways since I knit
    (knit and purl) but never learned to knit socks

  2. so for example: If I am knitting a fair isle chart, would I input my chart repeat and then add the beginning and ending row stitches?

  4. Hi, I have a question, if I do have extra stitches, and for some reason can’t exclude these stitches, how would I integrate these stitches into my pattern? For example, I want to use two different stitch patterns on the same project. One stitch pattern requires an odd number of stitches and the other requires an even number. Is there a way to reconcile the two? Thanks for your help!

  5. I would probably just work any extra stitches in Stockinette stitch at the edge of the work. If it’s only one stitch difference you could possibly alternate which side you do it on but I’d want to test it on a swatch to see how it looks before committing to that for a full project.

Have you read?

Easy Knit Baskets to Use All Your Stash

For the past few years I’ve taken part in a Christmas in July blog hop that encourages people to get a jump on their making for holiday gifts. 

I love to use yarn I already have for these projects in the hope that people will consider what they already have that they can use to make projects for themselves or to give as gifts. 

This year it was a couple of knit baskets made using partial balls of yarn left in my stash from other projects. 

They use the same basic pattern but the first one is made with two colors of bulky yarn, and the second used two strands of worsted weight yarn held together, which made the gauge about the same, but I cast on fewer stitches to make a smaller version. 

The bottom of the basket is square, though you can make them rectangular if you’d rather. Then I just knit up the sides in rounds until I was about to run out of yarn. This gave both baskets rather short sides — maybe more like a tray than a basket — but you can keep knitting as long as you like to make the sides of your basket as tall as you want. 

They’re worked in seed stitch, which keeps the edges from curling and adds a nice texture to the baskets.

Of course this also allows you to use even more odd balls from your stash. I’d love to make a big one someday combining lots of different yarn. I mean, I’d probably use it to store more yarn, but that’s a fine thing to do. 

As it is, these little trays are great for sitting on your desk or bedside table to hold little things that always seem to appear there. I like to use one to hold the supplies for whatever project I’m working on, things like little scissors, my tape measure, a crochet hook, etc.

And they would make good gifts on their own or as a container to hold some other goodies if you like. 

You can find the free pattern for these stash busting baskets over at Our Daily Craft.