We Asked Designers How Long They Spend on a Single Design
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There’s no surprise that across the board, designing knitting patterns is very, very time consuming! What’s interesting is how long each process involved takes, and how much that truly does vary from designer to designer.
Naturally different designs require different workloads, but we asked designers to focus on garment design only when answering. Of course this won’t help the fact that a simple stockinette sweater usually takes less time to write up than an intricately patterned one, but we asked them to generalize about their answers, to think from the experience of their many designs rather than focusing on one. We gave them multiple choice answers of ranges of time spent to choose from. We still find these answers thought provoking and hope you will leave us a comment to continue the discussion. We all appreciate the creativity of those who design our beloved patterns, but are we really giving them enough credit for the time they spend?
Here is what we found out:
1. Designers often spend 2-3 hours on the initial sketch
Our exact question:
How many hours do you generally spend coming up with an initial design idea, and getting down a sketch or a note about what it will be?
The results:
2. Designers often spend 30-60+ hours knitting their samples!
Our exact question:
How many hours do you generally spend knitting your sample?
The results:
I’m a stay at home mom, and can only work on designs when I’m “kid free,” which is only like 3 hours a day. —Lindalou Holley, Knits by Lindalou
My process involves refining the design on the needles which means I will invariably knit and reknit a single design many times. —Woolly Wormhead
3. More than half of designers spend 3-5 hours on the first draft of their pattern
Our exact question:
How many hours do you generally spend writing out the first draft of your pattern—Not counting grading/sizing—the next question will deal with that separately for the purposes of the survey.
The results:
The first draft is very rough, just to get enough to be able to start. I write as I work on the sample then rewrite when the sample proves worthy. Then I knit a full sweater. —Debbie Coleman, Compuknit
I generally write out a VERY general idea to start and then write the actual pattern as I knit it. —Heather Showstead, Knitstrategy
4. Sizing and grading takes a long time but varies widely by designer
Our exact question:
How many hours does it GENERALLY take for you to do sizing/grading math? (Again, we separated grading from pattern writing for the purposes of this survey)
The results:
I always start my designs with all the sizes graded from the beginning, on the sketch. All measurements take into account pattern repeats and methods of shaping. —Michelle Porter, Fondle Patterns
Again, sometimes this is quite a complicated process. I (almost) never design all-over stockinette sweaters, and so getting the lace/cables to line up well for every size can be extremely time consuming. —Prefers to remain anonymous
5. Coordinating test knitters varies in its time commitment
Our exact question:
How many hours do you generally spend managing test knitting (looking for test knitters, communicating with test knitters, incorporating their feedback, etc)
The results:
6. Tech editing usually takes about 3-5 hours
Our exact question:
How many hours does it generally take for you to have the pattern tech edited (on the designers side, not the tech editors)? Think about finding them, communicating with them, and incorporating their feedback.
The results:
7. Time spent on photography varies
Our exact question:
How many hours do you generally spend on photography?
The results:
8. Designers struggle to find time to promote their patterns
Our exact question:
How many hours do you generally spend on marketing your pattern?
The results:
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