G. Knerd

Remember a long time ago when I said I wanted to start writing knitting patterns?  And how I then managed to knit an entire pair of socks without writing down a single letter about how I’d done so?  You know, like almost exactly a year ago?

At least I’m not making the same mistakes again…

So, you see, a few weeks ago I decided that I would write up the Garden Party Socks pattern (as that’s how I’ve decided to name it).  I created a knitting font in order to make the charts, I played around with the formatting in Word way more than a sane person would have (including no small amount of swearing), and I wrote down the pattern as I created the first sock.  I figured I would be my first test knitter, so I (as far as it’s possible for me to do so) followed the pattern when making the second sock.

It seemed like no time at all that I had a pair of socks!  And a pattern to go with them!  Maybe this knitting designer thing would work out after all!

Except, it was when I was thinking about how awesome it would be to be a knitting designer that I realized something…the Chinese lanterns pattern that I’m basing this sock on was written for flat knitting, not knitting in the round.  That means that all the fussy bits are on the even rows, with the odd rows being simple “knit the knits and purl the purls” – but ultimately, that leads to imbalanced lantern tops in relation to lantern bottoms.

I immediately cast on a small section of knitting so I could compare the pattern as written vs the pattern as I think it should be – the two columns on the left are “as I think it should be” and the two on the right are “as written”.

Do you see a difference?  It’s hard to see if you’re not me, and doubly so when it’s in the picture above, but if you look at the bottom of the two lanterns you can kind of see that while the one on the far left is nicely curved the one on the right is a little jerky.

Or, at least, you can tell if you’re me.  The Blanket Thief swears that he cannot see a difference even when I put it two inches from his nose (note to self: he doesn’t really like having knitting two inches from his nose…).

However, it’s my first real pattern, and I want it to be perfect, so I’m fixing up the chart and knitting them again (in different, plain yarn, so you can actually see the pattern – sometimes I do make the same mistake twice).

I think they’re lovely as is, and it’s certainly possible that no one on the planet but me would notice, but I do notice, you know?  Plus, this is an excuse to have yet another pair of socks in my drawer…