I go different ways depending on the project type: for single-size accessories, it’s a question of choosing or molding the stitch pattern or concept to be easily writable and readable. If I love a lace pattern but it’s going to take 80 rows of charting, that’s a no go! If I were knitting it for myself, I might be fine with it. But once we start talking about approachability and ease of knitting for someone else, I want to find a simpler common ground. It otherwise can really limit the audience for a piece—and take up a heck of a lot more pattern writing time!

For garments or multi-size accessories, I grade everything out for all sizes before I start writing a pattern or knitting a sample. That way, I know that whatever I do is going to work for all sizes, especially if it’s a unique construction. I learned that one the hard way—there’s one sweater pattern I knit parts of three or four times because only *after* I knitted the sample did I realize that the shaping wouldn’t work for all sizes. I will still make some changes during the knitting process, but not huge structural ones without checking that it’ll work for everyone.

There are a couple sweaters that will never see the light of day! Most of the time it comes down to right idea, wrong yarn. I tried a really interesting draped construction for a sweater once in a farmy yarn, which unsurprisingly didn’t have the right drape to make it work! I ended up steeking off the extraneous bit and seaming it together for a pretty basic wardrobe staple. The steeked parts show up in my garden—the cut strands are a perfect length for tying up tomato plants! But the idea is still in the back of my mind to revisit in a plant fiber or silk blend to see if it will cooperate. 

Even with unconventional shaping, fit is super important to me. The most important parts of that are shoulder width and armhole depth—they can take a garment from fitting properly to awkward very quickly! They’re also where a lot of the garment tension and weight hangs from, so making sure they’re stable means that the piece will stay in good shape for longer. Once those two are set, I also think a well-fitting back neck width on a cardigan can make a huge difference. We’re a lot narrower up there than people think, and it’s the difference between a sweater staying on and spending the entire day pulling it back onto your shoulders!

It always comes back to the shoulders! Our width from underarm to underarm—often known as the cross front or the cross back—doesn’t expand at the same proportion as full bust circumference does. That means something like a drop shoulder construction, where the body is worked straight up from the underarm split, will look wildly different on smaller sizes than larger. It seems counterintuitive, but for a drop shoulder to have the same shoulder proportion on all sizes, I may end up adding stitches in the armhole shaping for the smallest sizes but decreasing stitches for the larger sizes! Or if it’s a complex pattern that doesn’t lend itself to shaping, at least making sure the sleeve length takes that additional shoulder overhang into account.

Most of the time, there is a logic to what is happening in stitch patterns or construction. In lace, for example, typically the increases and decreases will move across the fabric at the same pace, or one will stay put while the other one moves. Figuring out “okay, every right side row my decrease is going to move one stitch to the left” means you can spot errors and understand your fabric a lot more easily than working line by line. Likewise, things like shawls often have an underlying mathematical structure to them: you will increase X stitches in these locations every Y rows. Figuring out what that structure is means you have the ability to predict what’s going to happen or even change it to suit your style better. Finding that logic in the pattern is a huge step towards agency and independence as a knitter!

Architecture, both on a small scale and a large are huge sources of inspiration for me. From the shape of bridges to the pattern on bathroom tiles, I love seeing how I can translate the logic of these structures to the logic of knitting. I also love looking to any other kind of craft: weaving, quilting, woodwork, baskets—how can I translate that into knitted form? Even if I don’t take it all the way through to a published design, it’s always an excellent thought exercise.

Construction for long wear is very important to me! I try my hardest to put patterns together that marry yarn choice, construction, and stitch pattern to create something that will hold its shape for a long time. Do I want to do a seamless construction? Then I need to either choose a stitch pattern with some stability to it, like cables or slip stitches, or a lightweight or woolen-spun yarn to create a strong fabric. Seamed constructions give me the opportunity to play with more open stitch pattern or more fluid yarns. It’s a tricky balance—there’s a fine line between knitting something long-lasting and creating something you don’t actually want to wear because it feels like armor!

I have a checklist for every pattern I do, which includes multiple re-checks along the way. For a garment or multi-size accessories, I’ll write the pattern and do the math for all sizes, then knit the sample and make edits along the way. Once everything is knitted, I double-check the wording and numbers based on the final product, edit for clarity, and then it goes to tech editing. Even after tech editing, I usually do one more full run-through after I’ve laid out the pattern to see it with fresh eyes in its final format. It’s not foolproof, but I often catch stuff even at the very end!

For single-size accessories, I’m a little freer with the design process. I don’t necessarily always have it all planned out ahead of time! Something like a shawl or a cowl can be a really fun place to play with construction or pick motifs and stitch patterns as I go. I love the logic of garments and the satisfaction of getting all the numbers set at the beginning, but I also love a bit of spontaneity too!

Something like the Winterlong Cowl or the Mailou Mitts from my first book, Knitting Outside the Box. The former is a really fun play on shaping within the knitting—it’s a long cowl that features a large-scale motif almost like a bud or blossom opening. It’s one of those patterns that I look back at and wonder how I figured it out in the first place! The Mailou Mitts were an exercise in design restraint. I wanted to work with short rows in them, but it’s difficult to work with short rows on a small scale without it becoming gimmicky or more about form than function. I’m not usually one to brag about my work, but I actually feel like I nailed that balance with Mailou, while keeping them super functional and fun!