How I Express Myself Through Craft

LoveCrafts.com is holding an Indie June contest for Independent knitting and crochet designers.  So, here is my application essay, and friends who design, you can also enter on Instagram.

Techniques charm me.  I write patterns for garments, accessories and housewares that are the sanest application of those techniques. Often the techniques are ones I have developed myself. It makes me feel like I am discovering beauty and order; and I want other crafters to enthuse with me about it.

It’s debatable whether patterns or blog posts generate more discussion, but patterns have the potential to pay for themselves, and since they must be technically edited, they are often a clearer presentation of technique.

My work almost always starts with a sketch, then * Stitchmastery charts, swatches, a comparison with the swatch to the sketch, repeat from * until it looks right. Looking right sometimes leads to blog posts, occasionally all the way to written patterns, there are a few ideas still camping hopefully in my sketch book. Most innovations take 15 iterations before they do look right. I have worn out sketch yarn by re-using it too often before I give up on frogging and sew the swatch into my leftovers afghan.

Inspiration is the easy part, I can’t stop thinking about how to rotate patterns upside down, or how to make a non-tacky realistic animal motif in ring cables or embossed leaves. I made ribbing go sideways so I could make Arabian Ogees. I blogged about a lace edging from Mary Thomas, and adapted it into an applied edging that enables a knit join as you go. I adapted tape lace and yo-yos from crochet. Drawing them in my notebook, and sketch swatching them does get the ideas out of my head but they still clamor for further actualization. They want to show up in other people’s knitting. They want to make the hobby more cool. More whacky. More Simple.

Actually, that last part is a lie. Very few of my ideas simplify anything, most are just as fiddly as they look. But so, so cool.

When I blogged about the Christmas Tree Increase that I ‘unvented,’ on my homeschool blog 10 years ago, I noticed more continuous cable patterns on Ravelry, some of which used the Tree Increase. I still want a ring cable dog, and I don’t care if I chart it, or someone else does. There are lots of hits on my knitting blog series about the Miniature Herringbone Stitch, I hope we see some more patterns using it soon.