Designing a Simple Sweater Knitting Pattern- Knitting in the Park

What it was like designing a simple sweater pattern for knitters

Hi! Maggie, the knitter behind this little site. If you have been following along with my posts, you’ve probably seen the two versions of the Plain Jane Sweater (and Sweater Dress) that I’ve recently published. These are newly redesigned but the pattern is one that I made a few years ago. So it’s been a while since I’ve designed a sweater, even a simple one. In this post, I’m going to share what it was like designing a simple sweater pattern.

Plain Jane Sweater Dress Knitting Pattern

Sweaters were something that I’ve stayed away from because they seemed daunting, and time consuming. If I invested a bunch of time into designing even a basic sweater pattern and it didn’t come out, well that’s a big waste of time and yarn. Now this is where I differ from other knitters, some of them at least.

There are different types of knitters, some are process knitters and love to play with yarn and patterns. For them, it’s all about the time spent making a project. I’m more of an end result kind of knitter. Yes I love the process of kitting, but I’m addicted to the end result. So designing a simple sweater pattern was a bit of a risk for me. But I did it, and it was time well spent.

What was the design process like?

The most basic of sweater patterns are raglan sweaters. They start off with knitting the collar in the round, and use four strategically placed increase sections to form the shoulders and set you up for the sleeves. Other sweaters will require some short rows and working back and forth before joining in the round to shape the neck and shoulders. The benefit of a raglan sweater is that it’s faster and easier. The downside is that there is no difference between the front and back of your garment. I don’t really mind that so raglan was perfect.

I grabbed some Lion Brand Yarn called Ferris Wheel which has lovely color and almost like a roving. I’ve been wanting to play with this yarn for a bit now but I’ve been stuck in the land of cables. While this color is great, it isn’t the best for cables and really detailed patterns. In a basic sweater though, it’s perfect!

Eeek! Starting to draft this sweater I was nervous…so much so that I either forgot to write down my math and notes, or I lost it. I can’t even remember which travesty actually happened. I’ll get to that later. Fynn has hit a stage where he wants to be with my constantly, so I was knitting like this:

And like this:

What Elements to add:

I hemmed and hawed about how to make this sweater and what design elements I wanted to put into it. How I wanted to size it, and whether or not to make it a cropped sweater. So. Many. Decisions!

Initially, I had planned to make a wider, cropped sweater but ended up saving that idea for a different yarn. Then, once I decided on the raglan increases, I wanted to repeat them at the bottom of the sweater…alas, the stitch count I had didn’t work with that.

I was a bit nervous about the sleeves and how they would fit but after a few mid project try ons, I was happy with the fit.

The end result is different from what I initially envisioned but I have to say, I’m pretty happy with it.

The Aftermath of the Design

Now if I could only name this one….My inspiration/creativity must have been sucked dry with this pattern. It’s funny after a project is off of my needles, I’m usually scrambling to post it.

There was something about the process with this pattern that left me exhausted mentally. I mentioned earlier that I either lost or forgot to write down most of my notes. I was stuck counting stitches and doing copious amounts of math in order to be able to confidently write the pattern. If you know me, you know me and math aren’t on speaking terms.

As a result, I’m fairly certain one sleeve is longer than the other, and that one of the cuffs is one row taller than the other – but those minor details aside, this was a great experience for me. It really pushed me out of my comfort zone as a knitter and a designer.