There is absolutely nothing wrong with using stitches from your stitch dictionary. Still, if you want your knitting to reflect your own personal style, it’s a fantastic idea to challenge yourself to create new knitting stitches.
To create something interesting and different from old stitches, even if occasionally you can use those beautiful stitches, you have to work on it! And it’s much easier than you might think.
Here’s how my design process works.
Mood board
I’m a big fan of mood boards, so when I’m designing, I gather images on Pinterest that evokes the look I want to create. Then, I single out a few images that I could translate into a new knitting stitch. I can use colors or texture for that.
Chart
I chart the image in several ways. I use Stitch Mastery for all of my charts. This can easily be done on graph paper or even excel.
When I turn the result into a knitting chart, I like to play with symmetry. I use it as the basis for most of my designs because I like how the results work.
By the time Iโm done, sometimes the result looks similar to the original, other times doesnโt look anything like it, but I like it anyway!
It can take a little while to figure out the pattern and how it could repeat, expect to make plenty of edits to the chart before it is ready to swatch!
Swatch
You can knit a big swatch with yarn chosen, maybe for stitch definitions or for color combinations. After a firm steam blocking, the design should really come out. If you are pleased with the design detail, good job, you’ve created your first stitch! If not, start over and don’t despair!
I know it sounds much harder than it is, but it feels so exciting to create new knitting stitches from inspiration to swatch!