Is that too pretentious of a title? Meh. Anyway, I have finished many things recently, but I am not ready to write everything up about them just yet. So instead, I thought I’d share a bit about how I go about designing patterns.
Most of the time, it starts with a swatch and a bit of math on paper. I have to write it out, and often a few different times, so I can see what is going to happen. With these socks in particular, I had to draw out the increases several times, and I am having to do that for each size because I cannot wrap my brain around it to just jump into it.
Other times, I can just measure a swatch and work from there. But that just means I have to do the piece over and over. Like with this blanket. I thought I was going to like the larger squares, but it was too much.
The second time I started this blanket, I still went too large with the squares. But I did find out that you can get a full scarf out of a single ball of Lion Brand Heartland Tweed yarn, in case that information is of use to anyone.
Third times the charm for this particular blanket. Once I finally make the piece I was aiming to make, taking notes on it all the way, I write the pattern up fully, wait at least a week, and then make one following the pattern exactly to make sure I’ve gotten all the steps down. That final version is usually the one I use for the pictures I include in my patterns, though I sometimes also include the one from which I wrote the pattern if it didn’t change much.
There’s a bit of a sneak peek into my design process. Hopefully it’s helpful for anyone looking to design their own knitting or crochet patterns.
Handmade by Casey Kay 