I may have misunderstood the question - I assumed the poster meant could you put a pattern into a sketch.
Ken - you can pattern sketches or elements within sketches in the part environment but you have to have a solid feature first.
When you start the pattern command the default is to pattern a feature.
Just change the drop-down to single or chain and you will be able select sketch elements.
bc.
Core i5-3570 @3.4GHz , 8GB RAM
Quadro FX4600. W7 Pro 64-bit.