Twinkle Twinkle

The grand kids are all too big now for little baby things and my circle of friends are mostly beyond babies but I had a craving to make a cute little something anyway. So a little baby sweater was begun with the intention of making a quick pretty shop/vending sample. The picot edge went beautifully  as I showed you in Dither and Yon but then the directions confused me. I quickly emailed Melissa who wrote back just as quickly with the needed explanation. This got me through the slipstitch section but once  the seed stitch and smocking prep area began I ran into more confusion.

With a bit more back and forth emailing yours truly became the pattern’s editor. I write patterns and certainly try them out myself but being an editor is a different headset. I like to be more right brained than left so editing is an effort for me what with making sure every instruction is clear and accurate. Good thing I have a math background too. And yes, I had to stay mostly left brained when I taught but it is not my preferred state of being. I have much more respect for what Bonnie A does for my sock patterns now. You rock Bonnie!

 I had never smocked before so this was an excellent test of Melissa’s final instructions. They worked beautifully.

So a quick knit turned into several weeks. The pattern grew from an 8.5 x 11 folded pamphlet into an 8.5 x 14 twice-folded pamphlet. Yikes! Plus Melissa was getting ready for MD and another vending with the patterns still not fully edited. She was wonderfully flexible too. Finally, finally, we had a completed pattern just in time for RI.      YAHOO!!!!!!

While at my sister’s I thought a little hat would make a great addition to the sweater plus there was yarn left over. So this little number was hatched. It uses both yarns as striping and the slipstitch pattern to tie it all together. At RI I offered the hat pattern as a free bonus with a purchase of the pattern and yarn. We just about sold out of patterns that day. As it was so popular it is now offered on the Melissa Jean patterns page too.

Back to the cable clog sock with Knit Visualizer. I sure hope the expense turns out to be worth it. I am looking to cut time from making the chart on Excel and also time from converting it to line-by-line directions. In the past it has taken me 2+ weeks to get them right with Bonnie’s help. So I have high hopes for this bit of software.