I am how I knit.

I have been collecting pattern ideas over the last week on my quest to develop a line of kids clothes and accessories that have the potential to be fun to knit, to be fun to wear, and to become toddler-approved. I have been haunting lion brand's searchable pattern site, ravelry, the blogosphere and my own bookshelf for inspiration.

My ideas vary from PANTS (size newborn through 4T) in various materials and styles to a MOBILE with stuffed hearts and flowers hanging from it. I like the empire-waisted shirt/dress idea over leggings and have also found several patterns to start from there. Other dresses have caught my eye. I like the idea of little bags to put things in. It is hard to not put a link in my newly founded bookmark bar folder ... but I am trying to exclude things that are irrelevant or require a hoard of house elves. I am on the hunt for plain patterns that explain their guts and I can make fancy with my fanciful imagination.


Full disclosure: I cheat on knitting on a semi-regular basis with counted cross-stitch patterns. What is counted cross-stitch? Simply, it is needlework in which the cloth (linen, aida, whatever) does not have any guide to where the needle goes except the holes in its weave. The rules come from the pattern and the colors from DMC. More disclosure: I bought the entire DMC catalog and spent a morning or two pregnant with my daughter separating hundreds of embroidery thread skeins into 0-99, 100-199, etc. categories so I could find my colors later. Cross-stitch, for me, is an exercise in pattern recognition, exacting hand-eye coordination, and, er, humility. Actually, quite the opposite. I frame my work and place it where people have to see it and ask, "You MADE that? Wow." Humble? Not really.

Counted cross-stitch is meditative in its structure. The colors have to be what the pattern suggests or the image will look weird. I have no control over the pattern ... and I like it.

This means that I am a crafter (not just a knitter) who likes the structure of a pattern but wants to put her own stamp on everything. What do I do to resolve this dichotomy? Maybe I should purchase MacStitch 2010; or maybe, I just need a bigger set of needles.