When people imagine knitting designers, they often picture someone sketching an idea and then immediately picking up their needles. It sounds wonderfully simple: draw it, knit it, done. But designing doesn’t work like that. There is a stage between the sketch and the knitting, and it’s the part nobody sees. It’s the thinking stage.
Once you’ve drawn your idea, your brain has to work out how that drawing can be turned into fabric. That isn’t instant. You might know how to knit the main body of the piece, but the details, the shaping, the angles, the construction, the features that make the design come alive — those take thought. Sometimes a lot of thought.
You might believe you’ve found the solution. You try it, and it turns out to be wrong. That can feel like wasted time, but it isn’t. It’s part of the design process. Trial and error is how designers learn what works and what doesn’t. Every failed attempt teaches you something. You tweak the stitch count, adjust the shaping, rethink the angle, or try a completely different approach.
Sometimes the rethink is literal. If knitting bottom‑up isn’t giving you the shape you want, you might try knitting left‑to‑right instead. There is always more than one way to achieve a shape, and part of designing is discovering which method suits the idea in your head.
This is normal. Designers don’t sit down and knit everything perfectly on the first attempt. We try things, we reject things, we rethink things, and we keep going until what we have created matches the sketch and looks the way we imagined it. The thinking stage is not wasted time; it is the foundation of the finished piece.
If you are designing at home and feel frustrated because your first attempt doesn’t work, or your second attempt doesn’t work, or you feel like you’re going round in circles, that is part of the process. It doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’re designing. Keep trying, keep adjusting, and keep giving your brain time to work things out. Eventually the solution appears, and the knitting can begin.
Article by Suzy Cowper, knitting designer and entrepreneur at TeaCosyFolk
