The Benefits of Knitting Other People’s Patterns

Hey Friends, It’s been a few months. In fact, it’s July and I just starting on my second toy design of the year. How did that happen? Now that I’ve realized it’s happened, I’m a little embarrassed.

But here’s the thing: I tried something new at the end of 2018 and it left me a little burnt out on knitting. I churned out a full-size sweater for an adult human person for the first time in ten years. I knitted my boyfriend a sweater, the beautiful Oxbow Cardigan from Andrea Mowry. It took me two months.

Ain’t he a cutie?

And then I made like 10 hats in three weeks for all of my family for Christmas. I would show you pictures of the hats, but there are only terrible selfies of me on the couch, swaddled in blankets, scowling up at my creations as I wear them on my tiny head.

I did nothing but knitting for the month leading up to Christmas and it was really hard to spend that many hours doing the physical act of knitting, and on a deadline no less!

But it was also a relief to cruise through a well-written pattern without having to think about  designing. And an opportunity to flex some different design muscles.

I knit very small one-size objects, so it was an adventure to figure out how to track different decreases at different rates at the top of a sweater. If you have good Android app suggestions for that, I’d love to hear them! 

It’s also helpful to read how other knitters describe sewing and finishing techniques. I haven’t read anyone else’s words on that front in such a long time, and it was nice to get out of my head.
It’s also cool to see how other people write and format their patterns. Andrea Mowry had some nice icons that I really liked. I always wonder when I write my own patterns if people like breathing room on the page, or if you just prefer as few pages as possible.  Right now my patterns have lots of extra space and are single column, but I keep wondering if I should go back to the two-column style. Opinions, dear Reader?

I’m back at it now. Working on some more things for a client and then I’ll be back to making some things for you :)

More soon. Much love.

R