One of the questions I get asked a lot is “How do I get into designing?” As someone who kind of accidentally fell into it, I kind of smile when I hear that. But after over a decade of designing and currently working on my 166th pattern (as of the time of this post. Depending on when you read this it’s probably more!) I do have some advice for you if you are desiring to step out to the pattern writing side of knitting.

1. Master Your Craft

Now hear me out, I’m not saying you have to know everything, because that’s impossible, but I am saying get really good at the basics. You have to know how to find gauge, you have to understand how to shape a garment/item, know your basic stitches and their standard abbreviations, etc.

Things like brioche or intarsia, especially if those looks aren’t your style, aren’t required. But what you do love, know it like the back of your hand. Because people will ask you for help and you will need to be able to explain things to them. May of your customers will be knew knitters so being able to explain how you did something is super important.

2. Find Your Niche

This is the most important part of becoming successful as a designer in my opinion. What do you love? Colorwork, brioche, simplicity, mixing textures, mixing yarns, vintage styles, contemporary styles, etc. The options are endless really. Like any other business, finding your niche is super important. And as an artist this applies not just to a certain demographics but to a certain style of knitting.

Find designers you love. By love, I mean you would make every single thing they publish because it’s just so you. Don’t copy them but figure out what it is that you love about them. Is it construction techniques, mixing of textures or colors, the aesthetic, etc.

Now, after figuring it all out write it down like this (I’m using me as an example): My focus used to be newborn photography props with a vintage simplicity aesthetic. But as the years have gone on I have shifted to vintage simplicity for the whole family but mainly focused on babies and kids. Some of my favorite designers are Petite Knit and Knitting for Olive.

3. Don’t Be Afraid to Make Mistakes

This one is a hard pill to swallow for some, but fear will keep you from stepping out in faith if you let it rule your decisions. And when it comes to new designers the biggest thing I see holding people back is fear of making mistakes or fear of imperfection. I’m going to be that friend who gives hard truth: YOU WILL MAKE MISTAKES. Yup, I said it! You will NEVER be perfect no matter how many patterns you write. You will have typos and math mess ups that testers and editors will catch. And some that they won’t catch! Yikes! (I’m all kinds of telling on myself this week!) But I promise you, it even happens to the best.

Don’t let that fear paralyze you. I promise, there aren’t millions of people laughing at you or talking about your math mistake. Swallow your pride, fix the error, send out the edit email and problem solved. If you feed into that fear you will never move towards your dream. I desperately want to see you succeed and create so I’m telling you right now, kick fear to the curb!

4. Study and Make

Before you can design a sweater you have to know how to build a sweater. The same is true for socks, shawls, hats… everything knitting actually. I believe you should knit more from different patterns to learn more construction techniques. Use many different patterns to study different styles of construction.

Search blog posts for how to grade, sizing charts and equations/percentages for garments. Oh yes… I said math is involved. People have tried to fight with me that knitting is very little and simple math but those people always admit they have only ever followed patterns and not created one. When I tell you knitting is 90% math, I mean designing is so much math that after grading a sweater my brain feels like mush.

5. What the Heck is Grading

Oh, and for those of you asking “What the heck is grading?” it’s doing the math to size up and down a pattern. There are so many different ways to do this. Some people use google sheets or excel spreadsheets, some people write it down, some just bust out numbers on a calculator. I’ve done all the methods if I’m honest, trying to find the easiest and fastest way and still love the good old fashioned paper and calculator. It gets easier once you have a few patterns under your belt. You’ll know about how many stitches you need for a size and just make adjustments to fit your stitch pattern. So it does get faster as you become more experienced. The only way to find your preferred method is to try a few different ones.

I hope this helps you on your way to creating your first pattern. I truly want you to crush those fears and doubts and become a super successful designer. If you’ve been designing for a while, what would you add? If you’re still on the fence and are considering designing, what’s holding you back?