keeping your promises
Is being ‘perfect’ being the most beautiful, most correct, most popular, most cleanly done, or can it be what is most honorable, simpler in some ways to attain, yet most important? In patterns it is.
My co-author and close colleague Sarah Walworth and I were interviewed by Roxanne Richardson this month in a special episode, talking about the value of technical editing to knitters. As you can imagine, we had plenty to say!
Toward the end of our time with her she asked, ‘Is there such a thing as a perfect pattern?’ We discussed the virtues of what makes a great pattern, and how patterns serve different needs and different audiences, but ultimately Sarah said that really what is most important about a pattern is that it delivers on its promise to the maker.
This is it, friends. This is really what it is alllll about. If a pattern you make and are selling (!) doesn’t produce what you promise, what even are you doing? Misleading your customer - sleazy. Right? Come on. This newsletter exists to foster and encourage better patterns for knitters, to help designers keep their promises. It is the thing.
So take time when you are grading and designing to make sure that:
- What your marketing is selling
- What your pictures show
- What your gauge is
- What your pattern info says
- (what you know the knitter expects from what you show and say)
Is real.
This is how every pattern can be the perfect pattern; it is what matters most, and you might find that with this focus, all those other things we strive for will fall right into place.
