The design process

I've had a design in the works for awhile now for a 3 triangle shawl.  When I first started designing & knitting this shawl, I had in my head that it would look have a semi-circle shape to it.  However, after working out the details to the cast-on, it looked like the shawl would end up a cross of a crescent, triangle, & regular shawl.  One of the reasons I got hooked on the idea of this semi-circular type of shawl is that I was really curious to see how it would "fit".  I just had a feeling that it would fit more like a cape, but without being an actual cape.  I'm not sure that makes sense, but it will once you see the photos (stay tuned for a post on that!).

After picking out my stitch patterns, I settled on a shawl that would not only have 3 triangles, but 3 sections of lace as well.  The first section would be stockinette, the second section the main body of lace and the third & final section would be the lace edging.  Next, I needed to chart the lace motifs as well as decide the order they would come in the shawl itself.  My favorite order to put lace motifs in is to have a more open motif follow a more closed motif (see the photo of the swatch to make more sense of this).  I got my first round of charting done and then decided to rearrange the order of the rows in the lace motifs.  Well, this took a little bit of figuring, but I finally got it to how I wanted it to look, which I confirmed with a knitted swatch.  

Swatch in the process of being blocked!

Now comes the fun part.  Taking those charted lace motifs and putting them into the format necessary to knit a triangle, top-down shawl.  I love this part because it's like a puzzle that needs to be solved and only I know the solution.  And sometimes I don't even really know the solution until I'm charting it and working out the math and various lace combinations.  I'm not gonna lie - I can become a little crazy and obsessive during this phase of designing and as Mr. SpiderKate likes to remind me "You aren't working against a hard deadline", but I just can't seem to rest until I've "solved" the chart.

Merlin says "Did you make this for me to sit on??"

Once I've solved the details of the cast-on & the charts, it's now time to pick out yarn and needles.  For me, this is a whole other ball of wax.  There are just soo many yummy yarns that I want to knit with, that I can have a hard time deciding what to knit with!  Usually I have an idea of yarn weight & the fiber content that I'm looking for, so that isn't a problem, but more so which brand of yarn & what color.  There are just soo many fabulous brands AND colors of yarn!  I will spend quite a bit of time looking at yarns online, at my LYS, and even in my own stash to see if something speaks to me.   Maybe I should make it a goal to knit every design with a different brand/type/color of yarn every time so that I can experience more of them....hmmmm....I might be on to something here.  

Well, after I finally settle on a yarn & needle choice, then all that is really left is to knit the shawl sample.  Depending on the yarn & intended size of the shawl and what else I have going on, this can take anywhere from 1 week to a month.  Sometimes even longer if I get distracted, but it's never the knitting itself that takes long.  It's more I'm not giving it the proper attention to get it done because I'm working on either another design or another knitted item.  I think that the quickest I've ever designed & knit something was in 2 weeks and the longest being 4 months from designing start to knitting finish.  

And that's a peek at the design process for my next to be released shawl pattern.  The pattern is currently being technical edited and should be available for sale at the end of the month/beginning of next month.  Stay tuned for another post with more details and photos!