A great way to learn about creating and writing knitting patterns is to deconstruct a number of them and put them back together according to your actual body measurements. I have done this many times in the process of teaching myself what goes into developing and writing patterns today. Quite inadvertently I have found the one thing that truly calls to me: vintage patterns. Whether they are knitting or crochet, there is nothing like them to drive me nuts. And I prefer to drive myself nuts instead of having the world do it for me.
I love a good vintage pattern that provides as little information to go forward with as is possible. It is a challenge I can’t resist. The language of vintage patterns is a code of communication unto itself. Almost nothing means what it should and a fair bit of it usually makes no sense at all. Information that would be considered crucial today is always missing. A pattern I chose to work on when I was just a neophyte kept repeating “throw yarn”, which I finally did. I hurled yarn and needles right across the room. Later, when I calmly reflected on the instruction, I realized it indicated a way of looping yarn around needle to make a knit stitch. I find it deeply rewarding when I finally know what someone many decades ago created and how she created it. It’s as if a hand has reached out over the decades to say “I was here. This is what I did.”
I want to give a quick shout out to Salpal, you can find the Salpal blog here. I totally misunderstood the question. I bought the lottery ticket today. If you want to know what the question was go to my previous post on the question what would you do if….
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