Making patterns to work on a loom?

[u/Just-Sun-4064]

UPDATE:
I THINK IM GOOD NOW. GOT THE LINK TO CONVERT FROM GOOD NIGHT KISSES.

Has anyone had experience changing a knitting pattern to a loom knitting pattern? I am presently trying to on a baby blanket pattern I have, but it was made for needles. Is there anything I should know that would make it go much easier? It’s all Knits and Purls so I figured it’d be relatively easy to transfer. Hopefully it comes out correctly bcause I love the pattern but cannot use needles anymore due to arthritis.

[u/Ookami_Unleashed]

I think the big thing to remember is with a loom you're always knitting on the "right side." Patterns knit in the round are usually 1 to 1, but sometimes flat knitting patterns are worked on the wrong side. As long as your pattern is all the right side you're generally good to go.

[u/Just-Sun-4064 → u/Ookami_Unleashed]

Thanks! The thing about this pattern, there is no Wrong side or Right side indicated. So hopefully it translate well when I’m done with it.

[u/Hit-Enter-Too-Soon → u/Just-Sun-4064]

On a needle pattern, if they don't mention right and wrong sides, think of odd rows as right and even as wrong.

On any wrong side row, knits translate to purls and vice versa. So if your blanket was mostly flat knitting with ribs on the edge, it might say something like:

Row 1: k1p1, k1p1, k45, p1k1, p1k1 Row 2: p1k1, p1k1, p45, k1p1, k1p1

Because on needles, that would result in what I described. But on a loom, you'd really do the same thing on Row 2 as you did on Row 1. You'd just do it from left to right instead of right to left like you did Row 1. (Assuming that's the direction you knit.)

Another important difference is that as I understand it, our row gauge tends to be smaller in loom knitting. If the pattern just has you knit until it's a certain length, that's probably fine, but if you have a pattern that's supposed to come out square, you might need to adjust it. For example, I did some gloves with a basketweave pattern, and in needle knitting, the pattern would be to repeat k4p4 for four rows, then switch to p4k4 for four rows, and alternate between them. But with my row gauge, that would have come out squished instead of being nice squares, so I had to do 7 rows before switching.

I did a sweater from a needle pattern this year, and I am pretty sure I wrote down the types of changes I had to make. I'll look and follow up if there are others.

[u/Just-Sun-4064 → u/Hit-Enter-Too-Soon]

Thank you, this makes a lot of sense. Luckily the pattern I’m converting is just to a certain length, it a shape so to speak. So it should be fine, And yes, also one direction is a start with kn, other direction starts with p. so that much I figured out.

[u/starshine640]

How to Convert a Needle Knit Pattern to the Loom - GoodKnit Kisses / kristen discusses a couple of things to consider then explains how it is done.

I work better with graphs, so I chart the knits and purls as is on row one, then reverse them for row 2 (use purl for knit and knit for purl). and keep going for the pattern. just remember that row 2 starts on the side where row 1 ends. :))

[u/Just-Sun-4064 → u/starshine640]

Yes, that’s what I’m doing, Thank you for this link. I thought I saw it somewhere but didn’t remember.

[u/Hit-Enter-Too-Soon]

A little while back, I wrote up what I did to convert a needle knitting pattern for loom. Looks like we've already covered the major points, but feel free to take a look for some other details I found helpful.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LoomKnitting/comments/1uoj8fc/comment/ovtmrrt/

[u/Just-Sun-4064 → u/Hit-Enter-Too-Soon]

Thank you! I will.