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Friday, September 9, 2011

On Trusting the Design

Remember Eight Godmothers?  The lacy collar that uses a Victorian edging pattern (Godmother's Edging) interspersed with wedges of stockinette?  The design I posted free on Ravelry?

To date it's been favorited 145 times, downloaded 469 times.  (Hmm, let's see:  if it had been priced at $4.00, by now the revenue would have been . . . ) 

Anyway, I've had two people private-message me asking if I forgot to call for casting on 4 stitches at the beginning of each new "godmother."  One person even went ahead, without messaging, and just cast on those 4, assuming I'd overlooked it.  (Her finished project looks noticeably different than my prototype:  her "godmothers" protrude beyond the stockinette wedges farther than they should.)

So, here's the thing:  as each "godmother" develops, it adds a stitch on every knit row (the final yarn-over).  By the end of the "godmother," 4 stitches have been added in this manner. 

Those 4 stitches are then bound off at the end of the "godmother," and the stockinette wedge proceeds as before.

Designers do make mistakes; patterns do come out with flaws.  But sometimes we just have to trust that it's going to work out.  Suspending judgment for a while, patiently following the letter of the "law," can get us where we're supposed to be.