The past few nights I’ve been knitting into the wee hours of the morning working on a cardigan I’m designing. Normally I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything about the design because it would be for a book or magazine. Not this time! This time I can tell you all about it because it’s going to be published by me.

For the past couple years I’ve been playing around with the idea of self-publishing my knitwear patterns. I’ve finally decided to stop thinking about it and do it. I’m enjoying designing so much. There’s no one telling me what yarn to use, changing elements of my design or stressing me out with ridiculous deadlines. The designs come out exactly as I intended, even better because I’m able to make them up as I go.

So far one design is complete. It just needs to be test knitted, photographed and the pattern edited. I hope to have it available in June. I’m thinking of releasing the patterns monthly, but I’m not sure yet. We’ll see how things go. If I make this commitment but then miss getting a pattern published one month, I’ll beat myself up. This is one of the reasons it took me so long to self-publish. Maybe sporadic releases would be better for me.

Anyway, back to the design on the needles. Here’s a couple peaks. It’s a raglan cardigan knit from the top down. It was going to have 3/4-length sleeves, but after putting it on Fiona (my dress form) this morning I’m thinking little cap sleeves would be cute. Maybe I’ll offer both on the pattern and let you decide.