Well I had planned to have freshly dyed yarn to show, colored using my new dying pot, but it seemed the pot was destined for other purposes. That purpose namely being holding the rain water coming in through our apartment's bubbled out ceiling. With more rain a possibility in the near future (the first real rain we've had in months coincidently) it seems the dyefest will have to be on hold. Or at least until the contractor finally gets out here.

So, I cast on for Teva Durham's Lace Leaf Pullover after completing my self-promise to finish a deadline knit first. I'm using KnitPicks Sierra in Bud, which is a bit brighter and less limey than the sample photo but still a nice obnoxious color I like.


I've seen several people in the blogsphere looking to substitute yarn for this pattern. Especially as the yarn called for is rather difficult to find. Sierra is very close to the required gauge but not quite there. I'm knitting this on size 11's and getting 3.25 per inch vs. the 2.5 called for in the pattern. So yep, here's where that dreaded math comes in, but not to fear- it really is quite easy. The painless formula to recalculate an entire pattern is just Your Gauge/Pattern Gauge = Stitch Ratio. Then you simply take your stitch ration and multiply it against all the numbers in your pattern. You can now knit from the pattern as you usually would. See? nothing beyond the 3rd grade.

So, in practice-
3.25 (my swatch gauge) /2.5 (pattern gauge) = 1.3

If the pattern calls for casting on 96 stitches. We simply take 96 * 1.3 = 125 (you will need to do some rounding up or down). So I cast on 125 stitches and continue with the pattern.

You do this each time you come to a number. If there are a lot of broken up sections (such as 6 sts for front shoulder, 7 for back shoulder, 23 for back of neck, etc) in one round be sure after you multiply each number and round up or down as needed you double check your total against the pattern total.
For this pattern, there's also the lace panel sections to take into consideration. For example, the leaf design is 15 sts wide. I can't apply my 1.3 ratio directly to this section as this would distort the lace. However, I still need to calculate 15 * 1.3 = 19.5 (round to 20). Now I need to know the difference in stitch number from this section than the original. A simple 20 - 15 = 5 shows that 5 sts need to be added in. So I will distribute these 5 evenly around on the other sides of the lace insert. Now I have an accurate total!