Designing - On The Needles Or On Paper?

I don't know what I thought designers did before I decided to try being one. In fact, I'm not sure I really know now. I mean, I think there must be as many ways to design a knitting pattern as there are designers. I certainly hear people talking about completely different methods of getting a design from their heads onto the paper.

Some designers talk about "designing on the needles". They try stitches as they go, experiment with shaping, construction and colour combinations and rip back over and over until they get what they're looking for. And then they write it down. Well, then they try to. The most common thing I hear from designers is that when they're designing "on the needles" they invariably make scribbled notes, later forgetting what on earth they've written and not remembering what they've done they have to reverse engineer their design to make sense of the illegible writing (or no writing at all) and numbers (or none at all). "Must make better notes" seems to be a common resolution. It seems fairly universal that we fail to remember specifics of what we've knitted once we've finished, no matter how obvious and easy it seems to us at the time.

Another type of designer plans, swatches and meticulously practices various parts of their design in advance. Writes the pattern and then picks up needles to knit the sample. And "boom" life is easy and they're done. I like that type of designer. I rather long to be that type of designer. Unfortunately, I fear I fall smack between the two types of designers I describe.

I start well, swatch, practice, knit ideas and try things out. Then, I sit down and write the bare bones of a pattern. Often I make charts and knit from those, adding the written instructions later. But, usually, a wee way into my knitting, when I start to see things coming together, I change my mind. I start designing "on the needles". And, it's slippery slope from there into the chaos of scanty notes.

It's easy to get caught up in the ideas and the yarn and the needles and totally forget to write it down. Or, almost worse, make tiny amendments to the existing pattern in front of me, in pencil that is barely legible and smudges easily. And, then make another note - draw an arrow to a blank space on the page and draw a big star in a circle (because that will surely mean I absolutely know that this is the right bit) and scribble something else. Sometimes, I forget completely to cross out the first (now wrong) amendment. Other times I change my mind yet again and with a quick p.t.o. turn the page and write something else that doesn't quite match up with what I had before ... and then the kids run in ... 

My efforts with my computer haven't been that much better. Sometimes I change my mind and decide that actually, what I had first was better. So I want to revert to the original but oh dear, I have rewritten and already saved the new version ...

One of my goals this year is to "make better notes." Hahaha ....

p.s. If it takes me a little while to respond to your comments don't panic. This post will reach you after I've headed off on holiday ... I thought it would be nice to keep my blog posts ticking along so I've written a couple of posts in advance. I'll be back soon!