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This is the best explanation I’ve ever heard on ease. Thank you Barbara! God bless.

Thank-you kindly for your insights. I love the organization of consistency of your style sheet ideas

I can't find the free pattern... Love your work and the way you teach ❤

Graphic communications - what a neat degree!

WOW! And I thought keeping track of what I knit in order to write it up or duplicate it was tedious! Thank you for again, sharing the behind the scenes work.

This was so helpful!!! Thank you! 🥰

I’ve been thinking I’m the worst knitter and crocheter in existence because it takes me half the time I should be starting a project just to meet gauge. To know now that it’s BLOCKED gauge has changed my life 💀😅 I swear, I’ll be so close that my final thought is always “Screw it, it’ll match after blocking when it’s done.” Good to know I had the right idea there 😂

Thank you Barbara! I’ve been knitting for 15+ years and just came across a set of charted and written nested instructions I could NOT decipher. With careful counting and watching this I was able to get them down correctly. This is about 80 rows into a lace scarf 😅. So thank you again!

Would love to hear about the tech editors job. Thanks for the behind the scenes peaks.

I like your more complex designs.

Bought some bamboo rayon and really need to learn about this fiber.

Barbara you make no assumptions about what a knitting newbie knows. Excellent instructor!

Made it through to the end. I really appreciate the information you've given. It cleared up several questions I had. If you want to know about silk, contact Michael Cook. He's Worm Spit guy, and he teaches about silk all over the place. He lives in Texas.

Great job as usual!!

Hi Barbara! This post was brilliant and offers priceless advice to designers just starting to publish their patterns. Although I couldn't design my way our of a wet paper bag, I do love to knit some interesting and challenging projects. Your post explains why I gravitate to my favorite designers and avoid others even though their projects look amazing. As a senior who has made 72 trips around the sun, I find many patterns, even from some of my preferred designers, printed in a font size that challenges my vision. I often need to create a "vision friendly" version of the pattern by cutting the text from the PDF and pasting into a Word document and then reformatting it using a larger font size. This also allows me to avoid depleting my printer ink supply by eliminating the pictures from my cheat copy. This process, although tedious, forces me to get up close and personal with the pattern before I actually start knitting. And that has saved a lot of frustration and frogging. I would encourage designers to consider us golden oldie knitters when they make document formatting choices in their published patterns. I always appreciate your thoughtful and in-depth analyses of topics. Please keep them coming! P.S. - I love your giggle!

Do you have a template that you would be willing to share for those of us that aren't great at formatting?

Thanks Barbara! Very informative and helpful, both for those thinking about designing and for those knitting/crocheting because it helps them know what to look for and not to simply accept anything and be frustrated.

Hi, Barbara, I enjoyed your presentation explaining the importance of formatting the pattern document because I also experienced the frustrations that you described. I am struggling with a pattern right now because of the unclear instructions. I tried to contact the designer, but so far, no response; therefore, my project is on hold until I can figure out what I am supposed to do. Very frustrating! Please, do more presentations along this topic. Love your knitting labs also and your books! Keep up the good work!🐑🦙🐑

Really enjoyed this video and yes I would enjoy a video about style sheets. You always have an interesting perspective and explain things very well. It’s very nice to hear about aspects about designing that are not commonly discussed. ❤

Yes, more videos like this, please.

Such an interesting topic! I’ve bought patterns I could not follow. Very frustrating! But maybe it wasn’t my skill set, it was my learning style. 🤔

I appreciate this a lot. I am almost certainly never (okay, at least not in the next 10 years) design anything or release a pattern design. But I am going to consume them. And there are things that I detest in patterns and things I love. The serifs thing is 100% on point. And the 'don't be held to advertising/magazine standards'. I do 99% of my knitting/crochet digitally. PDFs on screen or Knit Companion on my phone. So I'm actually VERY BAD at taking notes. Which would make your patterns interesting in that I wouldn't need the extra space but white space is handy for resting the eyes or attempting to learn. =]

This video is really enjoyable to listen to. Thank you for sharing your ideas and skills for us. Would love a video based on a style sheet. I love your pattern sheets

Thanks Barbara. Now I know why I love knitting your patterns and why I find other patterns much harder to follow. I find your patterns so easy to read - the 2/3 column. I use the side bar to write my notes in and I always use the bubbles. And I love it being so easy to find the wool, needles and gauge information. So once again thank you for taking the time to think about these things.

You are so right. I purchased so many patterns, beautiful patterns but the explanation doesn’t make sense or translate well.

I’m watching to feel validated in missing a repeat section. I have to rip back 20 rows

I would love more topic like this. In regard to fonts, I have had to ask a designer to change their pattern to a san serif font. I very much appreciated her willingness to do that for me. I'm dyslexic and the more serif thingies the more distortions I have; and therefore, the harder it is for me to read. I like that you use a font with few serif thingies. I agree that the numeral one should have that serif hat. I love your pattern layout.

Yes so much to consider . Working on a pattern now that is frustrating because there are bold instructions with in each row but the row number is in the same non bold text and column with no spaces so they get lost. On the other hand I could be a smart user and 60 seconds with a highlighter would fix everything.

I love your way of making patterns. I had to get used to it, but it works great for me.

This video was great. An important topic that is not often discussed. I would love to hear you thouights on style sheets in the future.

I would love to hear you info dump more on this subject! As a tunisian chrocheter, i find myself "winging it" for most of my makes because the pattern just doesn't exist. Hearing your thought processes has given me so much more insight on how to leave myself better notes. Thank you!

Would enjoy more on this topic. I had never emailed a designer till I did you, as I Loved the bubbles and hint layout so much I had to say thanks.

These are important things to consider when putting anything out there there is one pattern that i just recently did where they put important notes and hints, but they put it one line too late to be of any use. I had to rip back or come up with mitigating strategies

Seriously it took me FOREVER to find an explanation of how these are different. THANK YOU.

Do you do the twists the same if you are combination knitting? Thank you for the great tutorial! 😊❤

This is going to make binding off for shawls so much easier. Thank you so much!

Linda muestra de puntos. Magnífica para un chal❤❤❤❤

Thank you for this! I am a beginner and mistake number two was driving me nuts! Know I know❤❤❤❤❤

Thank you!! This is perfect! It should knit up quick and I'll be able to send to my best friend before she's done with her Radiation! I'm using glow in the dark yarn. 😅

So... Im getting more suspicious the problem with my socks that seem to have no memory and get saggy/droopy straight off the needles is mostly about the yarn. I think I just need to get hands on actual sock yarn for once and then I'll know, A for sure what is really going on and B how to spin my own. Careful out there, folks. It seems vendors at shows have no problem selling fingering yarn as sock yarn... 😅

Un placer ver tus videos amiga. Que desafío 😂😂😂allá vamos❤❤❤❤

Love your laugh 😂😂😂

Thank you so much! I must have watched close to 100 videos on how to cast on using the long tail cast. Yours was the clearest, slowest and best demonstration! I feel much more confident going forward.

I have spent a week to knit a katia poncho with a pattern- such a mess- looking for another pattern

Very informative

Was waiting for the actual tutorial for the whole 15 minutes that you spent talking. Definitely not knitting instructions more like a discussion on picking up stitches. 😂

I would have said a low intermediate knitter but according to this I'm an experienced knitter. Thats eye opening, and nice.

Great video on Shibui Twig! Purchased several skeins after hearing Twig was being discontinued and so disappointed about that. Questions: 1) Did you swatch with 20 stitches 2) how did you wash Twig swatch and 3) can this yarn be machine washed and dried - I have only hand washed and laid flat to dry. Used Twig to knit Yume in 2022 - got 24 st with 3.75 mm needle.

Very helpful video. Colour choice for me is difficult. I'm a black & white type of person...definite colour changes!

I just love the Ataraxy pattern you shared with us, but I can't figure out how to buy the pattern. When I click on the link to the designer's website, I get an error message saying the site is private. Any advice?