Writing the Pattern, part II January 24, 2012

Once the basic text for the pattern has been completed, I start working out what technique diagrams will be needed. Some are already done from previous patterns, so I can just extract them to re-use them, new ones have to be drawn in Adobe Illustrator. I love this program. It’s so cool to be able to draw a piece of yarn and then smoothly bend it to my will! Thanks to Cat Bordhi’s wise and insistent urging for me to move in this direction, as well as the lifesaving tutorial videos from Lynda.com, I can now do most things I wish to in this program.

I have developed a system of files containing specific techniques that I have already drawn: Cast-on methods

A selection of cast-on methods drawn in AI

, Tubular edges, Needle sets, Tassels, Splicing, Scissors, Picots, Pockets, to name but a fraction of them. From these general files I extract the precise ones I need for a particular pattern and collect them in a pattern-specific file (or series thereof), so that when importing them I don’t have to search all over the place.

It does amaze me how often diagrams have to be modified or started anew: there are so many different circumstances in each pattern. For example, the single colour tubular cast-on is similar to the cast-on used in Venus Rising, as well as that used for Paintbox and Bubbles, but not exactly the same! So the cast-on was redrawn (and this version added to the cast-ons section) and also included in the group used for the Snowflake pattern.

All the diagrams for the Lucky Number Hat

I often sit with big yarn and needles performing the steps so that I can draw them. Is slow but very absorbing, and I suspect I look very funny. It is a real score when an existing diagram can be used as is! (Of course, at the rate I am going I will eventually have drawn just about every knitting permutation and combination of yarn and needles there is, and will never have to do another diagram.) That’ll be the day!

Writing the Pattern Begins January 20, 2012

My assistant Mr. Cuddles supervising

My knitting and my keyboard are never far from each other, so I’m not precisely sure at what point in the knitting I begin to start typing in notes. This is the start of my proto-pattern. My hand-written notes, started even before I start the knitting, are distinctly scrappy and somewhat fragmented, because I keep changing my mind; so I try to make notes in a word program every now and again to nudge my ideas into some kind of order (especially details that I will forget, such as needle size or the starting weight of yarns). I forget a lot these days; having things written down is a sanity-saver!

Once I’ve settled on a name (or even a temporary working name) and pattern number, I pull out a recent InDesign pattern template and start trying to fill in the various areas of the pattern. I cut and paste some of my text from the word processing program (I use Pages), as I find spell-checking text easier in the word processing stage. I add the new typos directly in In Design!

I write some of the tricky technique stuff as I knit, to be sure to fully describe the process: that of course makes for a lot of hurry-up-and-wait episodes.

This is where both the knitting and writing takes place.

While I’m writing I’m trying to be consistent with naming the yarns, diagram numbering, watching for typos newly introduced and trying to keep the layout fluid so that I will later be able to add pictures, diagrams, charts and web links without messing the whole thing up. I print off bits of the pattern so that I can check them as I knit. A great irritant has been that, since I changed to a Mac with the Lion operating system, I can no longer print directly from ID and have to print screen shots. (Mac has really fallen off in their support for Adobe products!) It is retrograde step, but at least I have a work-around.

The knitting continues.

Part 3 – Let the knitting commence! January 16, 2012

Newborn size Snowflake DK Bonnet in Natural/Damson

Having solved some of my technical issues (at least on paper), the actual knitting could begin. After loading up the wood stove, I settled in comfortably with needles and my box of sample balls of Cat’s Pajamas, the obvious candidate for this project. (I have a system for storing open balls of yarn so that when the urge to knit a sample strikes me or when Diane is test knitting, we don’t just grab a new skein from stock, or I’d end up with an awful lot of unsaleable yarn).

Owing to the spidery (thin line) nature of the snowflake motifs on the hat, our eight shades of hand-paint wouldn’t be suitable here. Hand-paint generally looks best when the motifs are more solid – they would look fine in the Mysterious Disappearing Dots Scarf, for example. It would have to be the mottled solids, then. Since we have about fifteen mottled solid colours of Cat’s Pajamas, the choice was not easy!

Which ones would suit a baby? Just to make the decision easier, I chose two ‘sex-linked’ colours: warm turquoise and hot pink. Since the hat is fully reversible, it can be worn either ‘boy-side’ out or ‘girl-side’ out. For those not in thrall to gender-appropriate colours for baby hats, there are many other wonderful combinations possible.

Doing the actual knitting is always the best part of a new design. I loved knitting this hat. In fact, I can’t knit just one! Here I rationalize: I really ought to try other colours and sizes, just to make sure it all works!

It is a superb non-boring project: it has easy repetitive bits (such as the I-cords and the ribbing) that can be knit under the influence of Christmas pudding, a glass of wine or other distractions, and an entertaining bit of double-knitting for brain-candy and full engagement, and gets finished in a reasonable amount of time. The trickiest bit, I found, was remembering to knit the cord at the edge twice before each row. (I’ve included this in my notes, but you’re bound to forget to knit twice at least once!)

Snowflake Bonnet - reverse side Damson/Natural Cat's Pajama's