Sixth and Final Reason

Continuing yesterday's list of reasons to keep knitting the Sock Madness sock patterns, here is...

6. (Final reason) I'm afraid that without the Mad socks, this blog might get a little boring for a while. Hopefully, Sock Madness socks will provide blog fodder through what otherwise threatens to be a dry spell. I do have two other projects right now but after this post, it might be a while before they present any bloggy excitement.



This is the sweater I've started for Chris. (The Calmer is doing much better now, btw. I'm pleased with how it's knitting up and there have been no further catastrophes.) It's a simple, black, V-Neck, stockinette pullover. I have not gotten too far into it yet. However, even if I were further along, this picture would still be a just a pile of black stockinette. Until this sweater is finished (who knows when?), it's not going to make for very interesting blogging, unless something goes horribly awry (knock wood it doesn't). Which isn't to say I won't blog about it until it's done. I just suspect it won't be too compelling. But I'm not above boring you if I have to.

And here's a snippet of the other thing I'm working on:



The reason I'm not going to show or tell you more right now is I'm hoping to submit it to Knitty. According to the Knitty submission guidelines, any pattern you submit cannot have appeared anywhere else before.

I will tell you that I bought the yarn at Wildfiber, during the yarn crawl I went on with Leslie and Jackie.

I'll also tell you a little bit about how I've gotten started down this road. A friend of mine asked me to knit something for her. I was very flattered that she asked and I really wanted to be able to do it. But I hadn't ever seen a pattern for what she was describing. I looked around a little bit on the internet and in the stores. I saw things that were close, but not quite right. Actually, the closest patterns I saw were crochet patterns. But she specifically wants knit. And if I can do it, if I can knit her what she wants, it might be really cute. A cute knitted item, for which there aren't (m)any patterns? Sounds right up Knitty's ally, huh?

I really hope it works out. Mostly because I want to accommodate her request. But also, because I'd be pretty jazzed to design and write a pattern. Getting it published anywhere would be gravy. I've knit things without a pattern before, which is designing, I guess, but writing an actual, functional pattern is a whole other trick. One I have not been able to do before.

My design forays usually go like this: I see something in my head and just knit, frog and knit until I have created more or less what I imagined. But every time, there comes a point where I do some nonsense which I know absolutely would not translate into a written pattern (oddly spaced increases/decreases, eyeballed measurements, etc.)

I would love, love, love to hear from those of you who can write patterns. Do you write the pattern first and then try to knit it, making changes if necessary? Do you just start knitting and take notes along the way? Do you knit until you have what you want and then write down what you did to get there? Or some other approach entirely?

Also, has anyone reading submitted anything to Knitty before? How'd it go? Do you have any tips or advice to share?

Thanks!

To sum up, the Golden Purl forecast is mostly socky, with hints of black and white stockinnette.