I have to frog the self-designed cardigan. It turned out wrong. Very wrong. The top half was extremely wide and floppy and the bottom half was misaligned. I'm not even sure how that happened. The eyelet row does not line up properly and just looks weird. Sigh... I'll chalk this up to learning experience. I think I'll just knit other people's patterns for now.
At least the wrap I'm knitting for sis is not a disaster. Actually, it's turning out pretty nicely. The green-ness of the yarn makes it look quite tropical.
So, it's not all doom and gloom after all (although I felt like stabbing myself with my needles last night).
The design process is a pretty tough one. It's all well and good when I have several ideas in my head but the execution is rather overwhelming. At this moment, I only know how to cast-on and knit in my size. This comes from experience and feels a little more intuitive. However, when I try to figure out how to write for other sizes, my brain goes a little dead. I have looked through The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns and the Designers' forum on Ravelry, and good-golly-gee, the most basic pattern offers at least 5 different sizes?
So, I thought before I even think about going to different sizing, let me just get this one size right.
I'm calling this "Unknown" for now because I do not know what name to give it. I used to laugh at Vogue Knitting and their naming conventions, eg. Basic Sweater with Buttons, because I thought they were so uncreative but I now find myself wanting to call my pattern Basic Cardigan with Buttons.
Which brings me to another issue... at least 50% of the yarn in my stash are discontinued. I got them at really good discounts and they were cheap(er) for a reason. I guess I can recommend yarn substitutions and since this is a free pattern (of which I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to share), it shouldn't p*ss too many knitters off :-)
Yep, this is just great... my first pattern will be for one size only using a discontinued yarn.
