Sun, Shine, and Sunshine: free lace knitting stitch patterns

This month, the random number generator chose sunshine, suggested by Natasha. I spontaneously decided to work up the component parts of this compound word, and encoded sun and shine separately. When they are stacked on top of each other, they spell sunshine. This is not something I’ll do every time someone suggests a compound word. It’s a very similar principle to my idea for making coordinating stitch patterns by taking an excerpt of rows of a bigger stitch pattern.

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 the word of the month, 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.

Notes:

• These are stitch patterns such as might be found in a stitch dictionary. They are no patterns for a finished object. You will need to add selvedges or some other form of knitted stitches to either side.
• All three are a multiple of 18 stitches. Sun is a multiple of 6 rows; shine is a multiple of 8 rows; and sunshine is a multiple of 14.
• I’ve made stitch maps for each of them: sun, shine, and sunshine.
• The swatch shows two repeats horizontally. I worked sun four times vertically, shine three times, and sunshine twice.
• If you work either shine or sunshine and then work sun above it, it’s important to note these two things:
  1. omit the 1/1 cable crosses from the last row of sunshine, instead working two plain knit stitches for each cable cross.
  2. work the first row of sunshine instead of the first row of sun when making the transition.
• Designers, please feel free to use this stitch in your patterns. I’d like credit but won’t be offended if people don’t give it.
• If you like my posts like this, please consider supporting me on Patreon or donating with my Paypal tip jar in the sidebar. Thanks!

Abbreviations:

• 1/1 LC: Slip next stitch to cable needle and place at front of work, knit 1, then knit 1 from cable needle.
• 1/1 RC: Slip next stitch to cable needle and place at back of work, knit 1, then knit 1 from cable needle.
• CDD: centered double decrease: slip the next 2 stitches as if to knit 2 together, knit the next stitch, then pass the 2 slipped stitches over the third.
• DSD: double slip decrease; ssk, slip the resulting stitch back to the left needle, pass the next stitch over, then slip the result. (Right-leaning double decrease. Substitute knit 3 together if desired; they are similar but don’t look quite the same.)
• k: knit.
• k2tog: knit 2 stitches together as if they were 1. (Right-leaning decrease)
• p: purl.
• sk2p: slip 1, k2tog, pass slipped stitch over. (Left-leaning double decrease.)
• ssk: slip each of the next 2 stitches as if to knit, then knit them together through the back loop. (Left-leaning decrease)
• yo: yarnover.

Sun:

Row 1 (RS): *k2, k2tog, yo, k1, yo, ssk, k4, k2tog, yo, k1, yo, ssk, k2; work from *.
Row 2 (WS): purl.
Row 3: *k1, yo, k2tog, k1, yo, ssk x 2, k1, yo x 2, k1, k2tog x 2, yo, k1, ssk, yo, k1; work from *.
Row 4: *p8, (k1, p1) in double yo, p8; work from *.
Row 5: *k1, 1/1 RC, k2, k2tog, k1, yo, k2, yo, k1, ssk, k2, 1/1 LC, k1; work from *.
Row 6: purl.

Shine:

Row 1 (RS): *k2tog, yo, k1, yo, DSD, yo, k6, yo, sk2p, yo, k1, yo, ssk; work from *.
Row 2 (WS): purl.
Row 3: *k1, yo, k1, DSD, k1, yo, ssk, yo, k2, yo, k2tog, yo, k1, sk2p, k1, yo, k1; work from *.
Row 4: purl.
Row 5: *k2, cdd, yo x 2, k1, ssk, yo, k2, yo, k2tog, k1, yo x 2, cdd, k2; work from *.
Row 6: *p3, (k1, p1) in double yo, p8, (k1, p1) in double yo, p3; work from *.
Row 7: *k1, 1/1 RC, k2, k2tog, yo, k4, yo, ssk, k2, 1/1 LC, k1; work from *.
Row 8: purl.

Sunshine:

Row 1 (RS): *k2, ssk, yo, k1, yo, ssk, k4, k2tog, yo, k1, yo, k2tog, k2; work from *.
Row 2 (WS): purl.
Row 3: *k1, yo, k2tog, k1, yo, ssk x 2, k1, yo x 2, k1, k2tog x 2, yo, k1, ssk, yo, k1; work from *.
Row 4: *p8, (k1, p1) in double yo, p8; work from *.
Row 5: *k1, 1/1 RC, k2, k2tog, k1, yo, k2, yo, k1, ssk, k2, 1/1 LC, k1; work from *.
Row 6: purl.
Row 7: *k2tog, yo, k1, yo, DSD, yo, k6, yo, sk2p, yo, k1, yo, ssk; work from *.
Row 8: purl.
Row 9: *k1, yo, k1, DSD, k1, yo, ssk, yo, k2, yo, k2tog, yo, k1, sk2p, k1, yo, k1; work from *.
Row 10: purl.
Row 11: *k2, cdd, yo x 2, k1, ssk, yo, k2, yo, k2tog, k1, yo x 2, cdd, k2; work from *.
Row 12: *p3, (k1, p1) in double yo, p8, (k1, p1) in double yo, p3; work from *.
Row 13: *k5, k2tog, yo, k4, yo, ssk, k5; work from *.
Row 14: purl.

Encoding explanation for the curious:

The first thing I did was to turn the letters of sun and shine into numbers, using base 6: 31 33 22 and 31 12 13 22 05. (I picked base 6 because I liked the resulting charts and because they worked to make a coordinating pair of stitches that had the same number of cast-on stitches.)

Then I charted them in various ways, and picked these two, because they were charted using the same method and had the same number of stitches:

I’ll walk through the charting process for sun; it’s the same method for both of them.

I start in the bottom right corner and work from right to left since knitting goes from right to left. (This is arbitrary, really, but I like to be consistent.)

The first digit of sun is 3, so I count three squares. Then I fill the next square with black to show that I counted 3 for the first digit. The second digit is 1, so I count one square, and mark the next. The third digit is 3, so I count three squares, and… oops! No more room on this row. However, I jump up to the right end of the next row and mark the next available square with black. The fourth digit is also 3, so I count three squares and mark the next. The fifth is 2; count two squares and mark the next. The last digit is 2 again: count 1, jump to the next row, count the second square, and mark the next. The remaining squares don’t matter for the code, since there’s not a black square at the end to indicate that they’ve been counted.

Once I marked out these grids, I mirrored them along the vertical axis. Then I replaced each black square with a yarnover, and spent a lot of time swatching to figure out where I wanted to place the decreases required to make a standard rectangular stitch pattern from the charts.

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