How a Sweater Becomes a Pattern

Ann comments:

Now. I don't know anything about how patterns come into the world, so help me out. Berta designed this, but left the writing of the pattern to you? Did she say, "I . . . see . . . spots. And sleeves. Make up a pattern for this." I always thought that the pattern wasn't a pattern until it was written. How does a person know whether a stitch pattern will make a good sweater without actually writing the pattern and, um, knitting it up? If you're writing up the pattern, then aren't you largely the one who's creating the thing?

Signed Puzzled in Nashville

Dear Puzz,

This is an excellent question, about something that garners confusion even from my husband who sees me working on patterns all the time. Many, probably even most designers write their own patterns. Even knit their own samples. Berta, however, usually does neither.

What typically happens in Karabellaland is that Berta (or sometimes another designer) will come up with an idea for a sweater design. She will swatch the stitch pattern with the yarn, work out the dimensions, and basically figure the whole thing out. Then she'll give it to another knitter to knit, with a pretty explicit explanation and/or schematic. The knitters she uses are mostly little old Russian ladies who speak little or no English. They are amazing knitters who really don't need much by way of a pattern in order to make a gorgeous sweater to Berta's specifications.

Then when the sample is finished, Berta will hand me the sweater, the Russian notes about how many stitches, inches, decreases, what needle size, etc. (fortunately it's all numbers, since I don't know any Russian), and she'll decipher anything I don't understand. We discuss the sizing, and then I'll go figure out how to do all the sizes and write the pattern in English (or more accurately, knitterese, i.e. knitting pattern language).

Sometimes if the sweater is very complicated, she'll give me the yarn to test knit my pattern. Or I'll test just the hard parts. In the case of this sunspots sweater, I could have done the pattern from the sample sweater with just some swatching, but I really wanted to make one for myself so I'm testing the pattern as I knit it.

So there you have it.

Comments

[Ellen]

This is interesting! Thanks for sharing this! I'm sure many people have wondered the same thing....And the pattern is beautiful.

[Ann]

THANKS, Alison! Who knew? You have shed light on something I've wondered about for ages.

I'm sure Berta is a really great person and all, but how'd she get out of doing all the math? And shouldn't you get a co-author credit? You can politely demur at any point here--I don't mean to stir the pot too much.

Where will I find this Sunspot sweater pattern? It really is interesting.

Signed, Not Quite As Puzzled

[Alison]

Thanks for trying to stick up for me, Ann, but I actually do think the arrangement is fair. She is the designer, responsible for creating the design, and even figuring out how to execute it - I just crunch the numbers. I'm paid a decent amount for doing so.

But I don't mind your stirring the pot! So many aspects of the knitting business *are* unfair - most of the time, knitters are not paid anywhere near a decent wage for making samples, and even designers, I'm told, aren't getting paid what they used to. It is not a lucrative business, except possibly for yarn distributers. (Even Debbie Bliss told me at a book signing once that she never made any real money until she had her own line of yarns.)

And in answer to your last question, the pattern will be a Karabella pattern, probably available in the next few weeks. You can go to their website www.karabellayarns.com to find stockists in your area. School Products does mail order but only on kits (i.e. you buy the yarn and they send you the pattern for free.) Or just e-mail me and I'll send you a copy of the pattern when it comes out.

[elisabeth]

alison, in this case you are something akin to a "knitting dramaturge," don't you think? i found this whole post fascinating, especially since i have dipped my toe in the world of pattern design!