2024: a knitting stitch pattern (and also a charted design for any craft)

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Happy New Year!

Every year, I design a knitting stitch pattern by charting the digits for the upcoming year. I almost didn’t this year, but I was noodling around with the numbers and realized that the second chart I drew would be a good fit for a particular kind of knitted texture.

I’m going to start with the final stitch pattern I made with knitted gathers, and then I’ll walk through how I got to it.

Notes:

  • These are stitch patterns such as might be found in a stitch dictionary. They are not a pattern for a finished object. You will need to add selvedges or some other form of knitted stitches to either side.
  • The underlying charted design has been used on multiple occasions by multiple people already and I don’t claim that it’s anything original. I just enjoyed playing with it as a representation of the number 2024.
  • My blog posts and free stitch patterns are supported by subscriptions on Patreon or donations to my Paypal tip jar in the sidebar. If you appreciate my work, please consider helping out. Thanks!

2024 with gathers

Groups of textured stitches make a horizontal zigzag line that repeats three times. The lines of texture are not solid -- it's like drawing zigzags with a dotted line.
Chart showing how to knit the 2024 gathered knitting stitch pattern by means of special symbols. Written instructions in blog post.
click chart to enlarge
  • 2024 with gathers is a multiple of 12 + 3 stitches and 12 rows.
  • The “6” and “9” in rows 1 and 9 of the chart are a count of how many plain knit stitches are between the edge of the repeat and the nearest gather stitch.
  • I recommend working two plain rows of stockinette before starting this stitch pattern.

Glossary:

  • 3-3: (3 into 3 gather) knit 3 together without removing from supporting needle, yo, knit the same 3 together again, then remove from supporting needle.
  • k: knit.
  • supporting needle: the needle holding the stitches from the previous row.
  • yo: yarnover. Bring the yarn forward between the needles so that it will make a loop over the needle when the next stitch is worked.

Row 1 (RS): *k3, 3-3, k6; work from *, k3.

Row 2 (WS): purl.

Row 3: knit.

Row 4: purl.

Row 5: *(3-3, k3) × 2; work from *, 3-3.

Row 6: purl.

Row 7: knit.

Row 8: purl.

Row 9: *k9, 3-3; work from *, k3.

Row 10: purl.

Row 11: knit.

Row 12: purl.

Simplest chart for 2024

Here’s how I graphed 2024 on a grid:

chart with the numbers of the year graphed on it. the rows (from zero to five) indicate the number being graphed, with no number on rows 1 or 3. There is one column for each digit in the year 2024.
click chart to enlarge

Because 2024 has four digits, I made a tiny graph that’s four columns wide, one for each digit. I numbered the columns from right to left because I knit from right to left.

Since 2024 has digits that range between 0 and 4, I made the graph 5 rows high and labeled the rows from 0 to 4. Then I marked the square in row 2 with a dark square in each column labeled 2, the square in row 0 with a dark square in the column labeled 0, and the same for row 4 in the column labeled 4.

I rarely use a chart graphed like this for lace design these days, but it’s always a possibility.

2024 charted design

When I have a chart like that, I like to think about how to make it look its best when worked as an allover design. In this case, I felt it would be best to add an extra column with another 2 marked at the very end of the horizontal repeat. Also, an extra blank row at the top would make it easier to knit flat and would look better if repeated vertically. It wouldn’t affect the encoding in any way. You can see how this looks in the charted design illustration at the bottom of this blog post.

click chart to enlarge
  • The 2024 charted design has a repeat of 4 + 1 columns and 6 rows.
  • In the written instructions, color A is the light squares above, and color B is the dark.
  • The written instructions below are formatted for stranded knitting, but it is my hope that they could be translated into instructions for other crafts. For instance, if working filet crochet, 1A could be one open square and 2B could be two filled-in squares.
  • This pattern is written in rounds, but because each row has mirror symmetry, the colors can be read in flat rows as written. If knitting, just work purl stitches on alternating rows instead of knit.

Round 1: work knit as follows; *1A, 1B, 2A; work from *, 1A.

Round 2: using A, knit.

Round 3: work knit as follows; *(1B, 1A) × 2; work from *, 1B.

Round 4: using A, knit.

Round 5: work knit as follows; *3A, 1B; work from *, 1A.

Round 6: using A, knit.

Turning the charted design into gathered stitches

Some textured knitting stitch techniques are more than one stitch wide or more than one row high. If I want to use one of those techniques, I divide the original squares in the charted design into the correct number of chart squares. I wanted to use 3 into 3 gather stitches, so I divided the original squares into three stitches horizontally and two rows vertically (since they do well with a plain row on the next row). In this case, since the odd numbered rows in the original chart are plain rows, I didn’t need to add the extra plain rows, but I didn’t think of that at the time.

Gather stitches are sometimes called star stitches or cluster stitches, but gather stitches is the common term I’ve chosen to use for them. I’ve written elsewhere about the technique name problem.

described in blog post.
click chart to enlarge

the design is now fifteen stitches wide (really 12 + 3 for repeat purposes) and 12 rows tall.

The charted design turned into a depiction of stranded knitting

The original chart has been redrawn as a depiction of two-color knitting. There are four zigzag dotted lines making almost-diamond shapes. The lines of texture are not solid -- it's like drawing zigzags with a dotted line.

Here is how the charted design might look as stranded knitting. I’ve added a plain setup row at the bottom because I thought it looked better.