Mapping your knitwear design process
Everybody has their own unique approach to designing a knitting pattern. We all have unique relationships with our knitted creations, the process of knitting and the technical elements of design.
When we design as a business, it is important to have some idea of how that process works for us. This will help us plan ahead, communicate with our tech editors and test knitters, and manage our own expectations of productivity. As a designer, you are now project managing your knitting!
Let’s talk about how we can map our creative process.
There are so many elements of the creative process that create room for our own twists and approaches. Each of the elements will have different implications on the time it will take to create a design and how much focus it will draw. Knowing which way you lean in all of these elements will help you create a structure for managing your time and communicating with those you work with.
Sources of inspiration
This is the most flexible of the elements and also the one with most potential to influence design duration. If your source of inspiration is a stitch pattern, it may lead to a design forming quicker than you can knit it up. From a stitch pattern you may decide “yes, a jumper!” From there, choices on construction will be guided by your pattern. That moss stitch might just scream “form fitting minimal positive ease”. The time may slip away again when it comes to grading if stitch counts don’t leave much wiggle room.
On the flip side, if you are most often inspired by yarn then it may take much longer for a design to come to fruition. Yarn may not narrow down the type of garment or project as decidedly as a stitch pattern. Nor will it tell you what ease might be best. Each of these choices take time and deliberation.
Is your source of inspiration a particular intarsia design? Well, your time sink will me on the needles rather than in your notebook. You may have a lot of trial and error on your hands!
What this means for project management?
You will need to allow more time for the creative process of the design depending on what your source of inspiration is. If you’ve got something that you know is going to spend a long time stewing in idea form, there will be a knock on effect to your publishing schedule. With this in mind, it would be good to then think of a more straight forward project to design alongside so that it pops out of production quicker to fill those pesky gaps! I have a complex cabled jumper that I know is going to take a long time to grade, so I will also start desiging some colourwork mittens.
Here enters the Gantt chart! A Gantt chart is a tool to track projects through their different stages. You make estimates of how many weeks each project will be sat at each stage. When you add your cabled jumper to your Gantt chart, you might plan for the initial designing to take one month but then add two weeks for the grading. Your schedule is now dictated by what inspires you most. Around that, you can pepper designs that work with this flow and give you time to let that big inspiring project brew.
Paper or digital
Or a combination of both! If you are take meticulous notes on your knitwear design in that gorgeous notebook, you will need to allot time to type that up. If you’re a digital only person, you might not need to consider this at all in your timeframes! And if, like me, you are a scattered combination of both, you will absolutely need extra time to make sense of it all.
What this means for project management?
Paper only designers: You ought to have just the one notebook for designing! Flicking wildly through pages of several notebooks and leafing through loose paper to find that one note you took on how best to decrease stitches is not going to do you or your creative process any good. If you have multiple designs on the go, leave a couple of pages blank between each design to allow room. Keep an index in the front pages so you can find everything. Sometimes you might have “Sparkly Jumper: pages 1–3 and 7, Flower Socks: pages 4–6”, but that is better than “Sparkly Jumper: pages 1–3 and also the back of an envelope somewhere”! Ultimately, everything will end up digital, so you will need to be able to find it all!
Digital only designers: A central location is still key! Use Evernote or KeepNote or Word or whatever else: the emphasis here is on OR not AND! If your chosen note taking location has the ability to label, use them consistently. In Word, have a sensible file management system. In everything, title or name files/notes effectively and consistently.
Paper and digital designers: Again, consistency is key. Name and store all digital files effectively. In the notebook pages for Sparkly Jumper if the colourwork motif is in an Excel file, write it down in the notebook. Likewise, make a note in digital files as to where the physical copy can be found.
Solo or support
Will you be designing, knitting, grading and formatting your pattern completely unaided before sending it out to your tech editor? Or do you use a sample knitter? Or outsource your grading or formatting? Or perhaps you make these decisions on a case-by-case basis.
What this means for project management?
If you do it all yourself, you will need to know how long each of these steps take and allot time for it. If you know how long each step takes, you can plan around your regular publishing schedule dates.
If you outsource these steps, not only do you need to know how long they take, but you need to know when they might happen. That way you can communicate well in advance and plan accordingly. It would be a shame if you got to the point where you’re ready to get a sample knit underway but your favourite sample knitter is on holiday.
Having your creative process mapped out will also help working out which projects you might want a helping hand with grading, formatting or other steps. You will know well ahead of time what months you might have more on your plate that you would like and won’t be running around last minute trying to outsource.
Plans don’t have to be rigid to be helpful! Having a plan, even one that may change with aid you in making all many decisions that the design process throws up. It will also give you time to work on that big passion project without throwing your whole publishing schedule out the window!
