Combining vertical bands

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Part of what was running through my mind when I was working on all those extracts from the Quirky charted design is that they would be great for playing around with different arrangements. They’d be well suited for the purpose because of all having come from the same original.

Separately, while some of the variant layouts would have the same stitch counts as the original, they could be put together to fit different stitch counts than the original layout would.

Note: I’m not providing proper charts or any written instructions for any of the designs below. It would have taken too much time and space and would have been confusing. If you would like me to turn any of them into a proper chart, please let me know in comments and refer to the figure number so I know which you mean.

37 stitch possibilities

For instance, say I’m knitting something with a section of stranded knitting that I need to be 37 stitches wide. The charted design that I posted for Quirky is a multiple of 18 + 1 stitches, so that would certainly work as written:

Alternating bands of vertical designs: one band is simple square outlines. The other is a an elaboration on the square boxes - prongs stick out the sides, and there’s an illusion of curvy lines framing the boxes. There are vertical borders between the bands that are lines with regular blips in them.
Figure 1: original pattern
click image to enlarge

However, what if I don’t want the half-bands at the edges of Figure 1? The half-bands are each 6 stitches wide.

A variant on figure 1: the complex bands at the two edges have been replaced by more of the bands made of repeating square outlines.
Figure 2: ornate edges replaced with Quirky excerpt 2
click image to enlarge

Happily, excerpt 2 of Quirky is a repeat of 6 + 1 stitches, so the half-bands at the sides can be replaced with excerpt 2.

Alternately, what about the half-drop version of excerpt 3?

The ornate edges from Figure 1 have been replaced by multiple repeats of the borders from between the original vertical bands. Half of the repeats have been slid downwards by half a repeat to make the blips alternate with each other.
Figure 3: the ornate edges from figure 1 have been replaced by excerpt 3 from the original chart.
Click image to enlarge

This makes for a nice progression from side to side. All the pieces go together, but there’s variation that makes the whole thing interesting to look at while feeling less busy (to my eyes, at least).

Multiple of 24

Multiples of 12 or 24 are more versatile than multiples of 18. What if I wanted something that looked similar to figure 1, but was a multiple of 24?

Much the same as figure 1, but with two repeats of the columns of squares between a single repeat of the more ornate column.
Figure 4: extra square columns
click image to enlarge

Adding an extra column of the squares to that chart makes a multiple of 24, and isn’t very different from the original

39 stitches wide

What if I needed to add two more stitches?

Figure 1, but one stitch wider to either side; the extra column is filled with the stitches that would be there if the stitch pattern were continued
Figure 5: 39 stitches
click image to enlarge

I could just extend the stitch pattern to either side by one stitch as in figure 5, but I don’t quite like it.

Figure 1, but with one column of blank space added to either side of the central ornate column
Figure 6: 39 stitches, but with extra white space in the middle
Click image to enlarge

This is a trick I learned from Hunter Hammersen. I added a single blank column to either side of the ornate column in the center in figure 6. This leaves the edges looking the same as the 37 stitch version, and doesn’t interrupt the pattern anywhere because all the bands have a vertical separation between them.

Furthermore, I like the way the white space emphasizes the ornate column and makes it easier to see.

Adding patterns together to see what happens

Another option is to mix and match the different excerpts to see how things look. This will make for a variety of changes in the resulting pattern sizes, so there might need to be tweaks depending on what’s wanted.

In this next section I’ve combined the excerpts from Quirky in a variety of ways so you can see what I mean.

Three repeats of the ornate column, with a complete border to either side of each, plus one more border between each pair, dropped half way from the others.
Figure 7
click image to enlarge

The ornate excerpt 1 has been placed in alternation with excerpt 3 version 2. This also makes a repeat of 18 + 1, but it looks rather different from the original

a new column made by putting a complete border to either side of the ornate column. There are three repeats of this new column; the middle one is dropped by half a repeat.
Figure 8
click image to enlarge

Figure seven made me realize that I could make a variant of excerpt 1, but with a complete version of the border. This made a band that was 15 stitches wide, but then when repeated, it looked better if alternating columns had a half-drop

The column of squares is in the middle. On either side of that column are three repeats of the blippy border, where the center one is dropped by half. On the edges of the image, there are a lot of scattered four-petaled flowers made by deleting some of the connecting lines of the borders.
Figure 9
click image to enlarge

Here I wanted to make a complex band but without using excerpt 1. I started with excerpt 2, added some of the half drop version of excerpt 3, and then had a realization. If I deleted some of the connecting lines from excerpt 3, I would get a perfectly standard stranded design that makes scattered four-pointed stars or flowers. I liked it very much as a background for the vertical band made by the combination of excerpts 2 & 3.

That’s all for now! I hope it will inspire you to play with putting vertical designs together. Note that it’s easier if their vertical repeats are the same, but it’s certainly not required.