What is a Stitch Pattern?

For machine knitters, a stitch pattern is a series of instructions for your knitting machine that controls the position of the needles.

As you knit, the position of the needles is controlled by the buttons and levers on the carriage (cam) to form stitch patterns.

Whether you are planning to use a punchcard machine or electronics*, the basic creation process is the same, but by identifying your machine in DesignaKnit, the software will assist you in creating the stitch pattern as appropriate for your machine.

For example:

If you've told DAK that you are using a 24 stitch punchcard machine and try to print a design that is 50 stitches wide, DesignaKnit will warn you and remind you that this stitch pattern will not work for your machine.
If you try to place a row of tuck stitches side by side, DesignaKnit will remind you that you need to change this.
If you create a stitch pattern with more than 2 colors and and haven't identified a color changer, DAK will warn you.

Are you starting to glimpse the power of the software?

*You can use DesignaKnit to create stitch patterns for hand knitting or for manually manipulating stitches on the machine. The actual design and editing of stitch patterns would be the same, but the focus of this course is automatic patterning on the knitting machine

Creating Stitch Patterns

To graphically design stitch patterns in DesignaKnit, you will work in a gridded workspace.

You will "draw" the design on this grid.

With over 40 tools at your disposal, it's easy to get overwhelmed at first, but think of all the tools as pencils, markers and erasers. Many of the tools are designed to eliminate tedious repetition.

Using your markers you can draw in color or you can draw with stitch symbols. Show the workspace in either format.

Once you have your design created, you can print a punchcard template to punch or download the design to your electronic machine.

This is great for overall stitch patterns. But what if you only want a portion of the design to be used for your garment? Maybe you want to put name on a kids hat, or put a single motif on the front of a sweater, or add a a decorative border at the hem of a tunic. By using the Integrate feature of Stitch Designer you can easily do this. Position the stitch pattern precisely, based on your stitch and row gauge. Plan for stitch multiples so the design matches at the side seams .... all of this using the tools in your Stitch Designer Toolbox.