Monica Knits

Leaf PatternI knitted the Leaf Bordered layette for a friend who was expecting her first child. This was definitely not your knit while watching TV sweater, but I will make it again. It was worth the effort and lovely when completed, but I had to concentrate when I knitted the sweater because the lace stitch pattern comprised 48 rows and the YOs, particularly on row 25, had to be watched carefully as they had a tendency to move. Before I created a spreadsheet to follow the pattern, I had to take apart the half-completed sweater; the leaves were complete, but incorrect. Using a spreadsheet to translate the words into a picture allowed me to verify the stitch pattern, prevented errors, and made following the pattern instructions easier. Read further to view the spreadsheet and an explanation of how it was created.

The original pattern was in a different gauge and used a cotton yarn that was no longer available, so I also had to reduce by 4 the number of stitches per row to accommodate the acrylic yarn I ended up using. This is easy to change when your pattern is graphed on a spreadsheet. The pattern has a garter stitch center front band, so I removed one stitch from each side of the center front band and, I removed 2 stitches from the center back section of the jacket. The height adjustment was accomplished in the stocking stitch rows that framed the leaf pattern.

The original pattern gauge was 6 sts/in and 8 rows/in. The revised gauge was 5 st/in and 7 rows/in.

An MS Excel^TM spread-sheet was developed to visualize the stitch pattern. I created narrow columns and alternated the row colors between white and green to distinguish RS (right side) from WS (wrong side) rows and improve readability. A blank cell represented a knit stitch, the dash a purl stitch and the remaining 3 stitches were represented by the built-in symbols, "geometric shapes". The yarn over (lace loop) was represented by a circle and the two decreases by different square shapes.

Follow row 9 of the attached spreadsheet, to see how the original pattern directions were translated into spreadsheet symbols: Leaf Stitch Pattern (link to pdf file). This chart is read left to right for the right side (RS) stitches and right to left for the (WS) stitches.

Row 9 Directions: K2, *(yo, k 2 tog through back lps) twice, k6, repeat from * across, K8.
Row 10 Directions:K2, *(k5, p2tog tbl, yo, p2, k1), repeat from * across, k3.

Click here to transfer to the Pattern Sources article for information on the Leaf-Bordered Baby Set pattern.

Click here to transfer to view the Leaf Pattern Stitch used in a baby bonnet.