Knitters, Ask Me a Question About Your Knitting!

Sometimes we get stumped in the middle of a knitting work in progress.  Beginners and advanced knitters alike.

Let's keep the needles clicking and ask your knitting questions here!  I promise I will answer your question or point you in the right direction if I can't!

Post in the comments below!

Nin 😀

Tips For Aspiring Knitting Designers

This post was originally written by me on one of the designing groups over on Ravelry.com.  If you are not a member, you should be!  So much excellent advice given freely by designers at all levels of achievement.  You can't beat that!
You love to knit.  You love the idea of creating your own patterns and selling them to other knitters.  But, where to start?
As a knitting designer (http://www.nindesigns.ca/), and as a technical editor for knitting patterns, there are definitely things I would have done differently starting out on my designer journey.

First, I'd like to say that if you are knitting patterns by other designers, you are way ahead of the game.  (I didn't do that.)  That is an excellent spring board for gaining new techniques and understanding *why* they decided to do what they did with their design. (I only read them, not knit. Knitting them is great practice and helps you discover what you love to knit, and potentially design, thus helping to establish yourself as an expert your customers can trust. Think of Cookie A and WoollyWormhead, two ladies out of many designers I greatly admire.)

That said, ALWAYS look at a design you admire and ask yourself WHY. Why did they use a raglan sleeve instead of a tailored set in sleeve? Why did they knit it in the round? Why did they use that stitch pattern?

Then, you follow up with **WHAT** would I do different with this design? That is the tough question, but a great way to get the creative juices flowing. Have a notebook or a sketch book and draw/sketch what your answer. Set it aside, then ask yourself later when you come back to it, WHAT would I do different with this design? And sketch that.

Another thing you can do is look at clothing in your or your child's closet. (BTW, Debbie Bliss taught me this trick at Vogue Knitting Live NYC2014.) You know what your favorite shape/garment is. Think how you could reconstruct that shape by knitting. What stitches would you use to spice it up? Is there something that you don't like about the real garment that you'd love to change? Sketch it out in your design/ideas/dream book.

Sketching is really important to document your journey in design. But so is SWATCHING. 

Never, ever, use the gauge on the knitting ball as the gauge for your design, even if you use the suggested needles. Swatch. Your "hand" is different when you knit in the round or flat. Your hand is different from my hand. If you do not swatch to figure out your hand for your design, it will make it very difficult for your customers to recreate your beautiful sample shown in your pattern glamour shot. Customer frustration can/will lead to a negative connection to your design brand. YOU DON'T WANT THAT!!!!

And set goals. Hold yourself accountable for them. 

Vision Boards and Bullet Journaling are great for helping you to stay focused!  

 Here is a sample of people talking about vision boards.

And Bullet Journals...

This young ADHD woman is so funny!

And Boho Berry, the queen of bullet journaling...

Say you want to publish 10 patterns in 2017. Break it down. 52 weeks in a year, so you have 5.2 weeks for each design. Say you want to have 3 weeks for test knitting, (that's pretty generous, but shawls/sweaters might take that long) and 1.5 weeks to have your tech editor work with you to make the pattern as error free as possible. So, that might give you only 1/2 week to come up with the design and write it out. 

(What!?! 1/2 week to come up with a design, write it out and knit a sample?)

Well, yes.

So let's think about what could you do to speed up that writing process.

•  Make friends with spreadsheets; they make grading and math for your increases and decreases so much easier!!!  "Sizing Knitwear Patterns" with Faina Goberstein on the Craftsy.com platform is where I learned to use OpenOffice Calc (free program) effectively.  Faina use Excel, but much transfers to OpenOffice.  By the way, this course is AMAZING!!! 

• Having a **style sheet and a pattern template** is a huge help too.   It makes it easier/faster for your TE to correct your pattern if you already have your consistency of wording/abbreviations right before you hand it to them, a long with your style sheet. This will save you time, which is MONEY.

• Keep your swatches for each yarn, needle size that you love to work with and favorite stitch pattern in a swatch binder or file. Make sure you mark the gauge and keep the yarn band details! This saves time because you don't need to swatch, and you can plug the math into your design elements, thus making a bare bones pattern to knit from.

• If you design as you knit, make sure to write down each step! You don't want to have a gorgeous finished item and have no idea how you did it.

Remember, while you are guiding your test knit or waiting for your TE to get back to you, you can be sketching/dreaming of the next design. That makes that 1/2 week goal MUCH easier to adhere to. Plus, some designs might not take 5.2 weeks to complete and publish. And as Norah Gaughan once mentioned in a class I took at KNIT EAST, reuse elements of a great design you came up with in another design, but be creative with it! If it was a cable on the front, what about a scaled down version on a cuff? Hem? On a mitt? You get the idea.

And when you don't have a design in mind or having designer's block, swatch an interesting stitch pattern from a dictionary. Add it to your swatch binder/folder. Who knows? It might spark a design!

Hope some of this helps, and good luck!

Nin :)

Designer Tip: Kitchener 2x2 Ribbed Sewn Bind Off

This is a beautiful sewn bind off that matches a tubular cast on perfectly!  It's not hard to do and so worth the effort.

NOTE:  you will need a tapestry needle and an extra double pointed needle the same size as your working knitting needles.

Please end your ribbing with 2 purls so you can start the sewn bind off with the 2 knit stitches.
_________________________________________________________
Step 1:
Make sure your yarn tail is 3 times the length of edge to be bound off.  Thread your tapestry needle.
Step 2:
Place your purl stitches onto one needle and knit stitches on another.  Only place as many stitches as you can comfortably work with on the extra double pointed needle.  Hold the 2 needles parallel, with the knit stitches in the front.
Step 3:
Insert the tapestry needle into the 1st knit stitch as if to purl and pull all the yarn tail through.
Step 4:
Insert the tapestry needle into the 1st purl stitch knitwise and pull the yarn through.
Step 5:
Bring the tapestry needle to the front and insert it into the 1st knit stitch as if to knit, pulling the yarn through and dropping this stitch off the needle.
Step 6:
Insert the tapestry needle into the next knit stitch as if to purl and pull the yarn all the way through.
Step 7:
Insert the tapestry needle into the 1st purl stitch as if to purl, pulling the yarn through and dropping this stitch off the needle.
Step 8:
Insert the tapestry needle into the next purl stitch as if to knit, pulling the yarn all the way through.
Step 9:
Repeat steps 5-8 until all stitches are bound off.  Weave in end.

Learning to knit? How about hunting trolls!

I'm volunteering to teach knitting at my local school to middle school kids.  It's part of a knitting club that was formed.  What fun!  Seriously, it really is!

"I guess I'll learn to knit because it's too cold to go outside." This is what all seven of the little boys said when they joined the lunchtime knitting club. Middle school boys are so funny! I had to come up with a rhyme to help the kids remember how to make the knit stitch. Since they thought my traveling to Norway just to knit and look at trolls was cool, here is the knitting rhyme I came up with. "The troll dives into the cave and out through the back, Runs around the rock, and jumps over a crack! Stick your staff in the cave and hook him by the knee, Pull him out, pull him out, Opps! He's jumped free!"

A photo posted by Nin L. (@nin.designs.knitwear) on Nov 2, 2016 at 7:23am PDT

Do you need a tech editor?

"Don't let your knitters think they might be knitting ranch houses! I'm taking on more tech editing work for November. Let's make you patterns shine! I adore line-by-line charts to written instruction comparisons. And I excel at making patterns clear and easy to follow for the new knitter. So, if you need a tech editor like me, use the link in my profile to get in touch!"

A photo posted by Nin L. (@nin.designs.knitwear) on Oct 29, 2016 at 11:20am PDT

And don't forget to sign up for my free style sheet to help you with your knitting abbreviation choices!   You will also get a monthly newsletter stuffed full of helpful tips, information and great links for the knitting designer!

My Work Desk...

What my knitwear designing and knitting technical editing space really looks like... erm, after a LOT of tidying.  :)

What my tech editing/ knitting designer work space looks like! Just about to start work. Soon will be more yarn, graph paper and printed knitting patterns stacked up. How about yours? Share in the fun with #myrealdesk

A photo posted by Nin L. (@nin.designs.knitwear) on Oct 18, 2016 at 7:01am PDT

Get Your Free Knitting Abbreviations Style Sheet

A huge part of writing out a beautiful knitting pattern is consistency. 
Consistency, you may ask? 
Consistency.  Your knitter wants to enjoy the knitting experience.  They bought your pattern and just wanna knit.  If you are not consistent in your writing, it will distract the knitter.  Not a good thing!

Example: 
Round 1:  Knit two, p6, ktbl, purl6, k2.
Rnd Two; purl to the end.

Oh my.  That's pretty extreme, but you get the idea. 

This is where my new free knitting abbreviations style sheet can help.  Simply sign up for my monthly newsletter and get your abbreviations style sheet PDF right away.  (A link will also be delivered to your email.)  Once you have your free style sheet, simply go through each row in the table and circle the abbreviation you prefer. 

Let me show you:

In the screen shot above, I chose the form of "in" to use every time I reference to inches in my pattern.  Now, as I write, that will be consistent.  I'd even put that in my "Abbreviations Key" in my pattern, so that there is no confusion between my pattern and my knitter.  Bliss!

Why am I giving this abbreviations style sheet away for free?

It's simple.  I love helping knitting designers, especially new designers.  Giving away free tips, information and ideas to make writing knitting patterns easier and cost less makes me happy.

I'll also have links in my monthly newsletter to great tutorials I've created or found on the web.  Such as how to use free software to make stunning charts, schematics and layouts.  Free is good! 

So get your free abbreviations style sheet right now by signing up for my newsletter, and I'll talk to you soon!