Knit Designers – do you plan out your releases in advance? Or do you just knit willy nilly and when something is ready, out it goes? I know the “willy nilly” bit sounds judgmental, but trust me, it’s not. I literally just cast on for a design this afternoon, that I decided to do last night,  and designed it on the fly this morning. But I do have plans and a purpose for this cowl.

So last night one of the things I was doing while the man was watching trash TV (I get a lot of work done in the evenings that way) was planning out what I wanted to release in 2023. This was made easier due to the fact that in 2022 I only put out about half of what I wanted to. So, I could repurpose a lot of those 2022 items and just had a few blanks to fill in for 2023.

In general, I want to put out about a design a month in 2023. I have a lot of designs that are finished, totally knit, even some that the pattern has been written and edited – shoot I even have one left that all the fancy photos are even done – so that makes this plan less ambitious than it sounds. But I do have a collection of five pieces I want to release this fall (two of which are done) so I am working around that too.

I was texting with Rebecca of RevelCrochet as I was making these lofty goals, and luckily for me, she is good about bringing me back to reality.

And lest you think she was being negative, the fingering weight yarn for the top in question hasn’t even been swatched or wound yet. I mean I think it needs size 4 needles, and there is a nebulous concept floating around in my brain, but that’s it. So June is a way better idea.

So in the end this is plan I came up with for 2023. 16 designs, most of which will come out later in the year. I make the most money on pattern sales in the fall and winter anyhow. But I wanted to talk a little bit about *how* the plan came together.

 Basically, I had a list of things that were finished and not published, and then yarns that I really wanted to work with this year. Plus, I had the five pieces for the collection that will come out in October and November. So then I started eliminating things – my first list had about 25 things and that is just not happening – I tried that for last year and it wasn’t sustainable, even with a lot of them being finished objects.

And then I filled in information about their status and the category. I’m a very slow knitter so there are a lot of smaller pieces in there. In fact, of the 16 items, 7 of them are hats or cowls. There are 4 shawls in the mix – 2 of them are already knitted, and of the remaining two one is big project (3 skeins of fingering) and one is a faster knit (bulky yarn). Then I have five sweaters. One is done besides the collar, one is completely done (and has photos), and then I have one bulky pullover to knit and 2 fingering weight sweaters. One of which is the June sweater and the other not until December.

The other thing I considered when setting up the calendar is the colors. Releasing a pumpkin orange cardigan in May might not be the best strategy – that’s why you will see that one in October instead.

So that’s how my plan for 2023 came together. Are you making a plan for your knitting design releases this year? Do you have overly ambitious goals like me? Or are you just taking things one knit at a time?