So, Sarah and I have been laboring over the phrasing,
charts, directions, abbreviations, etc. on the patterns we have been developing
for out layette workshop and some other up-coming classes (as well as some we
want to market on Etsy and Ravelry).  I
felt pretty good about it as we were knitting up the pieces since we made good
notes all along (something we tend to do anyway).  And as we refined pieces, we re-wrote the
notes.  So, you would think we were in
good shape when it came to actually writing everything up – you know, just type
up the notes, right?

Writing knitting pattern instructions – wow!  More challenging than I had thought (I
confess).  Especially as I have been
frustrated in the past – rather loudly sometimes – with poorly written patterns
and have vowed that any patterns I
would write for others to use would be: 
Clear, Concise, Correct.

Well, writing clear, concise, correct knitting instructions
is rather like writing incredibly detailed directions for baking brownies from
scratch – not just “pre-heat oven to 350” etc. 
More like:

“Take two large eggs and crack each one down the middle and
let the contents of the eggs fall into the mixing bowl.  Discard the egg shells.”

Step-by-step directions with definitions (Egg shells: the
hard white outer layer of the egg) and lots of numbers and measurements — and
schematics and charts, as necessary.  We
fuss over the wording to keep it from being ambiguous – conversations like:

“Do you think people realize that you break one egg first
then the next one or do you think they would try to break them both at once
unless we tell them – of course, if they want
to break them both at the same time, I guess they could…kinda messy, but
do-able.”

And, remember, if eggs were yarn we would need to list the eggs' farm of origin and breed of chicken — and, okay, I am not even going to try to figure out the egg equivalent of gauge!

Then, reading for errors. Re-reading for errors.  Freaking out a bit if we find one.  Re-reading everything again.  Worrying a bit if we don’t find any errors.  Re-re-reading again.

Photos and fonts.  Putting
it all together.  It has to be easy to
work from – and professional – and kind of jazzy and exciting.  Is it Clear, Concise, Correct?!

Okay, on to the next one.