Writing a knitting pattern

In my job I get to look through a lot of patterns. In my spare time I read a lot of patterns while knitting. Occasionally I even write my own patterns. Ergo, I spend a lot of time with my nose in patterns and I enjoy every minute of it, mostly...
A lot of patterns are very professional and nicely presented whereas others can be a nightmare and the only way to get a useful garment is to divert from the pattern. Whether you are a newbie knitter, aspiring designer or professional designer/tech editor, here are some of the things I look for in a pattern.

Photos

You need photos and you need good photos. No photos or bad photos does not sell. Make sure you have several photos from different angles, use a friend to model the garment (or take the photos and model the knits yourself), use natural light if possible. Indoor backgrounds can be boring, try going outside and show the knits in use, not just posed. If you don't have access to a model/photographer, hang the garments in trees, over fences, thrown over a statue... A garment lying flat is very informational and can be included, but don't forget to add some nice photos showing the garment in use or in an unexpected place. Close-ups on details are very nice too, did you just make the best looking button band ever? Show it off! We love to see fancy knits!

Fonts

Looking to be original and Times New Rowan or Arial feel boring? Feel free to try something new but keep to the standard fonts, with serifs for printables (those little 'flags' on top and bottom of t, k, l, m, etc, example Times New Roman), sans serifs for anything intended for screens (for example Arial). And remember, there is nothing wrong with good ol' Times New Roman and Arial, just add photos and nice layout and the pattern will look amazing.
Avoid anything that is hard to read for the text mass. Titles can be in a fancy font but keep to standard  fonts that are easy to read for the pattern text.

Layout

Save space, use columns! We all have different preferences when it comes to using paper patterns or on tablet/computer/smartphone, but long text rows are just as tiring and hard to read on any device/paper. Make the rows short and easy to read.
Make sure the whole paragraph gets on the same page, never let a single sentence get lost on another page. The people who wants a printed pattern will be much happier with a pattern on 2 pages than a spaced out pattern on 7. But still, don't go under 10 points in size of the text, use the space wisely but still easy to read.

Check your pattern

It is so annoying when a pattern has mistakes, even typos will set off comments from knitters. Run a test knit of your pattern and/or have a technical editor going through your pattern. What makes sense to you does not necessarily make sense to someone else. Hopefully all mistakes will be caught in a test knit/tech edit and the knitters will be happy!

I hope that you find my tips helpful! Do you have more tips, please leave them in the comments!

New job!

I've had a slow autumn applying for lots of jobs and not hearing back from any of them and was actually starting to loose a little faith in myself. 3 weeks ago I finally got an interview, and then a follow-up interview and then I was offered the job! All in less than a week.

I started my new job a week after the first interview and have now done 2 weeks. It is so nice to be back in the rhythm and get a change of scenery every day. 

Unfortunately I don't have as much time to knit anymore, but at least I get to spend my days surrounded by yarn, needles and patterns. I am really enjoying my new job and my nice colleagues.

Mr A gave me a gift for getting a job, which arrived with great timing on the day I started the job. Two skeins of merino/silk 80/20 fingering in Metallurgy from Northbound knitting, absolutely gorgeous! I am thinking a shawl and lots of garter stitch, it is going to be fab!

Espalier

A couple of weeks back I test knitted a shawl pattern for a friend. It's a triangular shawl in fingering weight yarn, knit top-down.
The pattern is reverse stockinette with a leaf pattern that climbs on a trellis. I absolutely love leaf patterns, they're fairly simple to knit and they look amazing. The moment I saw a photo of this shawl it go right on the top of my knitting queue. The pattern however, did not exist yet so I had to wait for a few weeks and then I had the opportunity to test knit the shawl.

Last week Mia Rinde published the final pattern of Espalier and I can tell you it's a gorgeous shawl! I love my shawl and use it a lot.

The pattern is quite straight forward, lace pattern on the right side, relaxing rows back. No tricky techniques, just a little focus on keeping track of where you are in the pattern. I only used stitch markers to mark the centre stitch since the middle sections kept growing and stitch markers to mark the repeats would have to have been moved around a lot. I did one more repeat than the pattern suggested and ended up with a shawl in the perfect size for me. I can wrap it around my shoulders as well as wear it as a scarf. I used up 120 grams of Cascade fingering, most of the test knitters landed somewhere 100-150g of fingering weight.

Viajante

Imagine a poncho. Now imagine a shawl. Now imagine they're one and the same garment. It's a Viajante!

Viajante is a genius pattern by Martina Behm. It's a versatile garment that can be worn as a poncho or a shawl in various styles. I knitted my Viajante in 2-ply Shetland wool in graphite grey, I'm not sure about the meterage but the finished garment weighs 270 g.

I have gotten a lot of use out of my Viajante, it's still warm enough to wear it over a sweater and let the jacket stay in the wardrobe.

Crafternoon

Friday afternoon I felt like crafting a little and got out some of my crafting stuff. I had a bracelet to repair and a jar of assorted beads that I got from a friend, perfect time to sort through them a little. Very soon the table exploded of crafts supplies. Mr A just laughed at the mess that just appeared from nowhere.

I get the Mollie Makes magazine and with every issue there's a small crafty gift and I decided to make two of them, one of them was supposed to become a mug cosy in felt. I liked the design but have no use for a mug cosy, so I made a needle book in the same design, I'm really pleased with the result!

I had a small piece of felt left over from this project and some bicycle inner tube which I cut small squares from and fastened together with mother of pearl buttons to create a supereasy but cool bracelet. The earrings in the photo are from last year and are small tassels made from inner tube from a bicycle as well. Such a fun material to work with! I have so many ideas but I need to get more tubes before I can continue. Watch this space for more to come!

Lastly I got out another freebie kit from Mollie Makes and made a cool bracelet from felt and faux leather. I must admit a was a little sceptic when I first saw it, but it looks really awesome, I have every intention on wearing it a lot!

The Yarn Fairy came for a visit

This week has been a bit low for me, for various reasons, the dark evenings is one.  Yesterday I was even lower with a cold trying to kill me. Lucky me the Yarn Fairy came for a visit and left some yarn for me. Cascade 220 fingering for a shawl and lots of Drops Fabel for socks. I am going to have warm feet this winter!

I also got a Knitpro Thames bag, to keep needles, cables and other notions in. Even a small project would fit in it. It feels a little like an old fashioned doctors' bag, but with all the tools you need for knitting! I can't wait for an excuse to use it! And all the yarn certainly made my day a little better and the cold seems to be going away!

Knitpro bag model Thames

Space for needles, cables, measure tape, stitch markers and more

Cascade 220 fingering and Drops Fabel

Grey Monday

Mondays always seem to be a bit greyer than all the other days, today is not an exception, grey skies and rain. I'm waiting for replies to job applications and my head hurts. At least I have hand knit zebra socks and a couple of knitting podcasts to cheer me up and of course 2 skeins of Wollmeise twin that just made it to my door!

Pimlico - my first pattern published

Yesterday I published my first pattern Pimlico on Ravelry! I'm so excited and have to sneak a peak every now and then to see how many people have faved the pattern and how many downloads. This morning I woke up to see the first project had been started! I am so happy to see such lovely response to my first pattern!

The pattern is a fairly easy hat with contrasting stitches creating stripes which and the decreases create a twirl in the stripes. It may not look like it, but there's not much purling in knitting this.
Check out my free pattern here! 

Restart

I have really been a bad blogger and I'm intending to make up for that. It's easy to make promises to be better at posting more photos, or more knitting, or less private posts or to actually post more regularly. I am promising no such thing, my only promise is to try and take myself and life less seriously. I am going to post when I feel like it and I'm going to write about whatever I want and I'm going to do it because I feel like it.

Meanwhile, here's a couple of my knits since May

Big Apple

In the middle of May we packed our bags and took a big jump over the pond to New York. When we got to the apartment where we were going to stay we discovered that the whole street was closed off for an international food market over the weekend, win! The atmosphere was through the roof.

We enjoyed 10 days of walking around Manhattan, seeing most touristy places, enjoyed the view from Rockefeller centre, walked over Brooklyn bridge in dusk and watching the skyscrapers come to life in the night sky, cycling in Central Park, enjoying the vibrant city.

We went to McSorley's Old Ale House, a proper spit and sawdust pub, where we could choose between dark or light ale. At the table next to us sat uniformed US marines enjoying Fleet week.

One of my favourites was walking on the High line. The high line was a raised railroad track for freight trains used between 1930's and 1980 and now transformed into a park. The high line park opened the first part to the public in 2009 and now about a mile of the old tracks are open.

The last 4 days we also went to a swing dance event, Frankie100, to celebrate one of the pioneers of lindyhop. Some of the remaining golden oldies from the era joined the younger stars and put on an amazing show at the Apollo theatre in Harlem and we got to dance at the Alhambra ballroom. It was a weekend of dance and joy and we were part of something really amazing and special. 2500 dancers can't be wrong, lindyhop is amazing!

Busy bee

The last couple of weeks has been busy in a number of ways. I still have a lot of time on my hands since I'm mostly at home during the day, but we've been visiting friends and family and done a lot of stuff at home.

I've started to run around the park with a podcast called 5K101 which will get me to run for 30 mins without the need to stop for rest. I'm on week 4 of 8 now and so far so good, it's starting to be tough to keep up but I'm determined (plus I bribe myself with yarn after each completed level). I hate running and think it's so boring, but the podcast is coaching me and I have improved and my body has started to respond to the workouts. After the runs I also add some arms and abs exercise, just for good measure. I'm impressed with myself, I never ever thought I'd be able to drag myself out in the park 3 times a week, several weeks in a row!

April knitting has been on the socks and shawls theme. I've finished my Zoe - 'if it moves, shoot it' shawl, it's huge, cosy and gorgeous! I'm still working on Pop Spots, the rows are so looooong now, almost neverending.

I've knit 1.5 pairs of socks, just started on the 4th sock. I'm participating in 2 KAL's to knit socks this year. It's surprisingly satisfying and fairly quick to knit. I squeezed in a small hat in the midst, an easy lace slouchy hat, a new favourite!

 

 

Language - so much more than words

Speaking a language is not just knowing the words and what order to put them in to make other people understand what you want. Language is cultural and historical. A lot of expressions that makes sense to all the natives could be gibberish for a newcomer, even though the newcomer know the words.

I've come to accept that I won't get all the cultural or historical references in English. If someone tells a joke and everyone around me laughs, I'll smile politely and try to remember it so I can ask someone later. I won't ask in a group, that will give me too much of the spotlight and make me too self-conscious. But I'm not embarrassed to ask a friend what something means when we're alone. Friends help each other and I sometimes need help with this foreign language they speak in my new country.

Last Friday we went to see Spamalot. Even though I know the story and am fluent in English I knew that some jokes would be lost on me through language barriers, both cultural and in pronunciation. I was right, I got 95% of what was happening on stage, but every now and then a word or a reference would fly past me without me realising what it meant.

The show was still highly amusing and I don't feel like I missed out on the lost jokes. The same goes for the stand up comedy show we went to a couple of weeks ago, I had to ask A on a couple of cultural references, but I didn't feel like I missed much. The part I understood was hilarious!

A visit in the Blues Garden

This past weekend we went to Gothenburg, Sweden, to participate in The Blues Garden event. A whole weekend of blues dance and catching up with friends. It felt a little weird to be on a visit in Sweden, but good at the same time. So far I don't miss it that much, only the people.

The weather was cold compared to what we've had in London lately and we wrapped up warm in sweaters and coats. Gothenburg tried its best with sunshine and a warmish early spring day, A got to see a little bit of the city. We enjoyed two evenings of blues dance and lots of friends to catch up with. The venue was transformed into a garden with lots and lots och flowers and it felt like spring even though it was a bit chilly outside.

Today I experienced the weather difference again. I went out for a run, in shorts and t-shirt, the chestnut had started to get leaves. It's lovely with spring and the park is turning green. I saw tulips flowering and I feel happier for every sign of spring.

Spring time

Spring is certainly here, flowers are showing off their petal skirts and the park is full of people enjoying the sun. I've been knitting outside and realised that the sweater I finished Sunday is too warm to wear in this weather! Luckily I'm going to Sweden over the weekend and need warm clothes so the sweater can be worn.

When I went to the weekly knitting group the other day I was greated by a grin and a neon pink skein of Alafoss yarn, straight from Iceland. Lovely C saw the yarn on her vacation and thought of me. I'm pretty sure she read my mind because the other day I was planning a new project in neon pink and charcoal grey. And now I have the perfect yarn for it, thank you C!

Today I got two skeins of Blacker Yarn Blends 4-ply wool in the mailbox so I have all the yarn I need for a pop spots shawl. But it has to wait until I've finished the Firefly shawl I started Sunday.

Unravel 2014

Last weekend I went to Unravel yarn festival in Farnham with some of the ladies from my knitting group. I've never been to a yarn festival before but realised the danger of letting my debit card too close to yarn sellers. I made a list of projects I'm planning to do and listed quality and quantity of the yarn needed. I also made sure I had cash and could avoid using my card. It worked...more or less.

I bought yarn for the projects I had intended, just one skein of lace yarn that wasn't planned. And some needles.

I came home with a beautiful yellow yarn from Jillybean Yarns, intended for a Siri cardigan. A skein of lovely pink lace yarn from Easyknits. At the Easyknits stall I also met the lovely Visalisa, so nice to meet the person behind the blog and instagram that I'm following, lots of beautiful knitting there.

After a couple of hours walking around the stalls I made my way to one on the knitter and natter rooms where I found some of the others from our knitting group, tired and happy with lots of new yarn in the bags. The afternoon was spent mostly knitting and looking at the others purchases. Almost all of us came home with at least one cone of yarn from Uppingham yarns.

My finds from Unravel 2014

Shiny brioche

The last few months it's been a neon fashion trend and of course in knitting fashion. I've been planning to join in the neon game but haven't figured out what I want to do.
Another trend I've found in the knitting world is the brioche technique. I must admit it didn't appeal to me in the beginning but then I saw a couple of really cool cowls and hats on Ravelry and thought I'd give it a try and throw in some neon while I'm at it!

A trip to John Lewis resulted in white and neon yellow chunky yarn to knit a cowl in brioche technique. If I'm hooked I might make a pair of fingerless mittens to make a set. So far I've just knitted a few centimeters to learn the technique and it's looking good! The bright neon colour combined with the calm white is coming out really nice.

My hood

I thought I'd post a few photos from the last week. I've been to an interview at the Jobcentre Plus to apply for a National Insurance number, I've taken walks around Brixton and Herne hill to get to know the area where I live. I love living next to a park and it feels like spring in the air.

Urban wildlife in the park

First hayfever of the year after capturing this bumblebee in the tree

I'm wondering how much time I spend underground in this place?

Needles at work

My needles have really been working this last week. I've finished the cowl I test knitted, my January socks from the sock knitalong and a Winchester hat in reflective yarn.  It feels very inspiring when finishing several projects within a short period of time. But now I don't know what to knit now. I have my Sprig sweater that needs arms and the February socks in the sock knitalong. I've decided on a pattern but wasn't very excited about the heart pattern on them so I've been drawing replacement ideas. So far non of my ideas has worked out with the numbers of stitches I have. Even A helped and drew some ideas! Hopefully the inspiration will come soon!

A pair of Nutkins

Hat in Schachenmayer Lumio without flash, only missing a pompom

Hat in Schachenmayer Lumio WITH flash, only missing the pompom on top

Suitcases

When limited to just 'what I can carry' while moving it's tricky to choose what stuff to bring. Some things are necessary and just have to go in the bag, some things are necessary for making one feel at home, but not essential for existence and has to get a lower prio. Some things are just too loved to be left. Clothes, makeup, boring paper and shoes are of course essential, as well as knitting needles, crochet hooks, yarn, patterns, buttons, ribbons, gauge ruler, scissors, pearls, sewing thread and needles...the list goes on...

We now have an empty shelf in the living room where my stuff should've been if there had been space in my suitcases to bring them. Hopefully the postman will have a package to deliver to me soon so I can feel at home.

Meanwhile I have knitting to do, podcasts to listen at, a park to wander around in and a city to enjoy. And of course A doing his best to make me feel at home :)

Part of the stash that needs some sorting

Hello London

Snowdrops in the park

I've now been in London for a week. I feel lost, confused, excited, curious, all feelings at the same time. The contrast was striking, from 20 cm of snow, overcast and a couple of minus degrees to 8-10 degrees and sun, I've even seen snowdrops! I know it's warm for the season but I can't help but feeling like spring is on it's way (but we could just as well get snow here as well)

Me waiting for the flight to London

Monday we went to IKEA and survived both 3 hours in the warehouse AND assembling the furniture afterwards. Yes, you read furniture, me and A bought furniture together. Exciting, exciting!

The week has been spent trying to figure out the best way to store our stuff so that it feels like we're both living here. It's not the easiest thing when one of us has been living here for years and I had 3 suitcases with all my belongings coming here. I have managed to occupy the living room with yarn and needles without any loud protests from A though, so far so good.










Since I haven't got a job yet I have to make use of my days.
Monday I joined a test knitting of a lovely cowl pattern, I'll post photos and link when that's released.
Tuesday I went to Liberty to check out their yarn and crafts department. I must admit I got pretty excited in there and had to be strict on myself. I came out of there with only one ball of yarn, intended for the test knitting.
Wednesday I went to a knitting group at a pub nearby. Lovely bunch of people who meet every week to chat and knit. Actually there's a few people there not knitting, they still go to the knitting group and have a chat. I really enjoyed and my Wednesday evenings are now sorted.
Thursday I was ill and slept most of the day, I tried to knit but ended up having to correct mistakes half the time.
Friday I knitted on the tube to and from the city. I got a smiles of approvement and the ride was rather enjoyable. I also sneaked in a visit to John Lewis' crafts department. I started to get very tired late afternoon, otherwise I could've spent a veeeery long time there. Lots of nice yarn and also fabric and other crafts. I found some Lumio reflecting yarn that I intend to knit a hat from. Perfect to wear at night when out and about and wanting to be seen by vehicles.
Friday I also visited my local yarn store, small but nice yarn.

Trafalgar Square

Lord Nelson and the Blue cock

Almost empty Trafalgar Square

Bye bye Sweden

Yesterday was the last day at work and today I've returned laptop, phone and keys. It felt a little weird to say goodbye to my work since 5 years, both sad to leave such a fun job and excited about what's to come.
Sat on the bus I'm starting to feel bubbly excited! I'm not sure I've taken in what I'm doing. I'm leaving my country, my job, my family and my home. I'm going to become an immigrant, lost in a new world. Even though Sweden and UK are fairly similar western countries there are so many differences, not many big ones, but endless of small ones. The word 'please' doesn't have an equivalent in Swedish and I might appear rude because of a cultural difference in our languages. I'm trying hard to remember to say 'please' all the time.

There's a lot of snow on the Swedish west coast and I think I'm going miss it a little, even though my feet are constantly cold in the winter. I enjoy winter for about two weeks a year, then I it's time for spring. I've had my two weeks now and it feels ok to leave it. I'm also leaving rain from the side (backside of living on the coast), I might even get an umbrella now. Umbrellas are useless when on the windy coast but handy in London.