I've always described myself as "too left-brained to actually design something." I have no problem tweaking a pattern to make it my own (especially when sewing); I love troubleshooting patterns, which is part of why I do a fair bit of pattern testing. I've even done some amount of tech editing. But to come up with my own pattern? Nope. Have never been all that interested.
I think that a lot of it has to do with originality. I have no interest in creating a pattern for the same old stockinette stitch sweater, or a scarf with boring cables. I could combine different lace patterns into a new shawl, but, with so many lace shawl patterns out there already, what would I be adding to the knitting world?
I want something original. That's where my left-brainedness comes into play - I can't come up with anything that hasn't been done to death before, so I don't bother, and instead knit, support (by buying), and help others who are able to.
Well, that may change soon. I've gotten a bit of a designing bug this spring, perhaps the only good thing to come out of this long New England winter.
It started when I bought some yarn for a Dreambird shawl: Malabrigo sock in golden tones and Zauberball in browns, burgundies, bricks, and occasional golds. Nice phoenixy colors. Then I started knitting it, making a few suggested modifications (knitting the between-feather spaces in stockinette, for example). I finished my third feather and look at it. The garter stitch looked so... ugh! It looked sloppy with all of the short rows. From a distance, no problems. But being up close, it was just so unpolished. I frogged it, restarted with a different short row type. Yuck. Frogged again, tried incorporating different stitch patterns. Still no good. Which means I'm trying to find a nice lace pattern that will show off the gradient of the Zauberball, with fire! I haven't had any luck finding the "right" pattern on Ravelry. Most of them are worked side to side, which won't make the best use of the Zauberball. I know I'm being picky, but I have a vision, and nothing is matching it.
So my proposed pattern will have a feather-like body, in the gold, with a perpendicularly-worked edging made to look like flames. I haven't figured out any details yet. I want the edge wide enough to take advantage of the gradient shifts, while not causing the whole thing to stripe instead.
After dreaming this up (and not making any progress for various reasons), I looked at one of my favorite skirts (a lightweight cotton, twirly, not knitted). It would make a really fun knit. It's a little more involved than "knit a tube" and hope it looks okay over what I lovingly refer to as "the baby flap". I've worked out how it needs to be constructed. Again, it's just a matter of doing it.
But that, too, has been put on hold. Watching Once Upon a Time on Netflix, I've been inspired by a shirt worn by Tinkerbell. And this one, I'm seriously excited about! I'm not sure if I'll try for publication first, so haven't posted any pics at all anywhere yet. But I'm thinking it will probably be self-published on Ravelry. I bought the yarn for it last week. I have sketches. I have gauge swatches and even some preliminary charts. It's not a design I've ever seen before (not that this doesn't mean it doesn't exist - I just haven't seen anything like it in my travels). It will use triangles (and geometry!) to achieve some shaping - think of the top as being fairly fitted, but the bottom flaring out, with cabled wings built into the back. Light and airy in a loose gauge. It'll be awesome! If you're interested, keep an eye out for more details.
