Join Me for a Pattern-In-Progress?

My Zinnia blanket is garnering so many likes and passionate requests to knit it  that I’ve started to think of releasing the pattern-in-progress whilst the blanket is still being created. I’ve never done this before, I don’t even know if it’s a good idea.

It will be months before Zinnia is finished, washed, blocked and photographed. But RIGHT NOW is of course the ideal time to start one (for Northern hemisphere knitters). It would get bigger, and cozier on your lap throughout the winter months!

My Zinna is several weeks old now. Its speedy growth has been aided by several long waits in the hospital Emergency department and a couple of road trips. As the rounds get longer, the visible growth of the blanket will slow down. (I hope too, to be spending less time in Emergency, but I am keeping extra yarn, future colours and needles in a bag ready to grab at a moment’s notice.)

I love having this project always on hand without any imminent decisions to make. Once the first few fiddly rounds are done, it’s a very intuitive knit.

After having finished the Sunburst Blanket, I missed its constant companionship and its always-there-when-you-need-it-ness.

I held out for a full 6 weeks, during which I knit a couple of fleeting items, but the hankering remained for another big project. In desperate need of some travel knitting, I cast on another Sunburst as I flew to Cornwall Yarns in New York. Naturally, I couldn’t resist making a few changes, based on some of my smaller circular experiments, to see how the design would grow.   Zinnia happened!

With so much interest in the blanket, I started thinking of ways to make the pattern accessible to other knitters sooner.  Here is what I’ve come up with:

We could offer the pattern and tutorial videos to customers who are registered users on our website. Interested customers would contact us ( at info@lucyneatby.com), and we would organize payment.  We would then place the current PIP (pattern-in-progress) into your Notebook, to be updated as the PIP is further refined. Eventually, it will evolve into the ‘real’ finished pattern complete with photos. It wouldn’t be available as a ‘regular’ pattern on the website until its completion. It would be an ultimate knitalong! We could even start a Ravelry thread together –  I can hardly wait to see other people’s blankets growing.  Ultimate gardening!

Pros:

You can start knitting right away!

We can form a knit-along group to share progress reports.

You’ll get to see the growth and progress of a pattern from the designer’s perspective and hear about the stages of its development.

Cons:

The pattern won’t have many/any pretty pics just yet.

You may knit faster than me and have to wait a bit.

Let me know your thoughts! Would you like to join my  Zinnia PIP experiment?

PIP has now gone live visit the Club page for information.