Design it Yourself Sweater Project | Getting Started

Have you ever wanted to knit a sweater for yourself from scratch without a pattern?

Even if you're comfortable with knitting large, time consuming projects, you may think the idea of designing a garment is best left to designers. The reality is, no matter how skilled a designer is at transforming an idea into a graded knitting pattern, there is no single sweater pattern out there that will accommodate every knitter's style, size and yarn choice. However, if you can knit and have an adequate understanding of middle-school math (and some time and patience) you can probably design your own sweater.

Over the next few months I'd like to demystify the process of planning, designing and knitting a sweater as I make a garment that's perfectly tailored to suit my needs. I'll document each phase so you can hopefully use the series as an inspirational guide to plan, design and knit a garment that's perfectly tailored to suit your needs.

Usually when you knit a sweater, the first step is choosing a pattern. (Although some knitters may choose their yarn first then find a pattern suitable for the yarn.) Then it's necessary to figure out your measurements so you can make the appropriate size. For this project I'm taking a slightly different approach.