How A Challenging Project Changed My Approach To Knit Design and Publishing

I never thought I’d cut my teeth on short row sleeve caps by writing a short row sleeve cap. I always figured that I’d knit one eventually following someone else’s sweater pattern. Okay, let’s back up a little.

A few months ago, a cosplayer friend of mine commissioned me to make the three-legged baby romper from the end of 1991’s Addams Family movie. I loved this movie when it came out and I still regularly watch it. So, of course I was all in when she asked me about knitting it. When I went digging around for a pattern, I found people selling reproductions of the piece, but no patterns. That didn’t frighten me off though. If anything, designing a pattern from something I’ve enjoyed for so long made it a fun challenge. One that’s taken me far longer than expected, but I’m happy with the results. There’s just a bit more of a second sleeve to knit before the whole thing gets a soak and the final finishing touches.

For most of the pattern writing and knitting, the plan was to knit the romper and mail it off. That’d be the end of it. The Bearded One had other ideas, and has been pushing me to release the pattern. I brushed him off in the beginning, but I think I will publish the pattern. Not sure quite when yet, though With Wool Express subscribers will be the first to know.

For as long as I’ve been designing knitting patterns (both free and paid), the question of whether anyone else would knit the pattern was one of the first I’d ask. Designing and writing and laying out a knitting pattern, so that people can understand it is no small amount of work. If I was going to put the effort into publishing a pattern, I didn’t want to put my time towards something that would fall flat or be ignored. I have notebooks filled with ideas that never got beyond a few notes and a half-hearted swatch because I didn’t think anyone else would want to knit them. To be fair, those notebooks are also full of ideas that I fell out of love with along with a few nuggets that keep nagging at me years later.

Now that I have a young kiddo and far less free time than I did when I published my first pattern in 2009, my thoughts have changed. I have far less time to be weighed down by my own self doubt, anxiety, and endless questions. I have to commit what time I do have for deep, focused work to the stuff that I want to do. Even if that thing is a knitting pattern that’s not going to take the world by storm. So, I will be publishing the pattern for this three-legged Addams Family romper and whatever pattern idea consumes my brain next. Solving knitting puzzles with yarn is part of what grounds me and makes me happy, so I’ll continue to knit on and share my patterns. Not all of them will be as geeky as this romper, but they’ll be fun and varied.