Crowns
So here's another example of what I mean by having a bunch of building blocks and putting them together different ways. These are the crowns of the two hats from yesterday's post. And hat crowns are (generally) just 'ways to decrease while maintaining some of the lines of the pattern.' So if you have a couple of different ways to decrease out of a given stitch, you can find yourself with a couple of lovely different hat crowns. The hardest part is deciding which you like best, which I, alas, am no help with. I'm hopelessly smitten with both! But [...]
Stack them up
Ok, I'm going to be Very Brave and show you some Very Not Pretty Pictures so I can excitedly explain the next weird idea... Remember when I talked about how the thing that I've come to really love in designs is letting all the bits of a piece flow nicely into one another? How that's what makes a pattern feel like it clicks in my head? Well I'm working on a way to take all those various pieces and sort of...package them all up together as building blocks so you can play with them too! So these hats are taking [...]
Flow
Ok, so I asked if we should talk about what changed between the first version of these (which were my very first pattern...fifteen years ago...when I did not know what I was doing) and the shiny new version that came out this week. And you said yes, so let's do that! So, the biggest thing is what I tend to think of as flow...how smoothly you transition between one section of the sock and the next. And this is a little nebulous and hand wave-y to talk about, but it's pretty easy to see. There's an instagram version of this [...]
Growth
So...I still have them. The first socks. From 15 years ago. And I have the shiny new version. Wanna see what's changed? First, a small caution, because my heart gets tender and squishy about things these days. My first inclination, any time I get better at anything, is to whisk away all evidence that I didn't always know what I know now. So showing the sock from my Very First Sock Pattern feels like showing you my teenage diary. There are lots of things that make me want to hide my face in my hands and groan in embarrassment. But [...]
Popped
Popped is back and oh, oh I have some feelings about this one! These came out fifteen years ago, and they were my very first pattern. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing—no clue how to write a pattern or take a decent picture. But somehow I talked myself into doing it anyway. And folks liked them, so I did it again. And again. And again. Now here we are, fifteen years later, and somehow those socks that I knit for my own amusement and wrote up on whim have turned into a career and a dozen books [...]
Blocks
I've figured out the plan for these! We've been talking all week about how the thing my brain REALLY loves to do is come up with pretty stitches, and then come up with ways to work with them, to slide in an out of them, to shape fabric around them. How that's a lot of what makes my designs look like my patterns. We also talked recently about how this month marks the fifteen year anniversary of Popped, my very first pattern. And quite a few of you playing along at home have noticed that the socks you saw [...]
Soon
Some, time very soon, I will show you the tops of these two hats, side by side. At that moment, our brains will, in glorious unison, go 'oooooooh, tiiiidy' and release One Precious Pellet of the good brain chemicals. This day is not that day. But that day is coming soon!
Options
So we've been talking about building blocks. How you can stack all the various parts of projects (ribbing, transitions, stitch patterns) up like building blocks to make different things (hats, socks, cowls, shawls). And, just like like building blocks, you sometimes have different shapes you can stack on top of each other. Like here, how I used a different transition out of the main stitch pattern and so the next little bit of this hat will do something different than the last one. Because if you have all the little pieces, you have lots of options. And who doesn't like [...]
Not a sock
See, very much not a sock! Instead it's ribbing, a transition from that ribbing into a main stitch pattern, the main stitch pattern, a transition from that main stitch pattern back out into ribbing, more ribbing, and then decreases. All neatly lined up and delightfully tidy. Which, if you stack them up right, become a hat. Though if you stack them up a little differently, they could also become a sock. Or mitts. Or a cowl. Or a shawl. Or a scarf. Or a whatever else your glorious heart desires. Because once you have all the pieces, you can just [...]
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