Designing can be such a hit or miss proposition. Ideas that I have in my head or in my many notebooks don’t always translate to the stitches. Things I think would be beautiful or interesting turn out warped and not pretty at all. Things that are simple yet innovative tend to do the best.

Of course getting from idea to design isn’t always a straight line. I have some design ideas that are absolutely fabulous but that I haven’t even attempted to swatch. And some that I’ve swatched over and over again to always have them come out like square pegs. You know. Always. Never. Quite. Right.

I have goals. With the designing. But I’m not sure again how to get from point A to point B. I think I have some plans, and I want to do amazing things. But also, sometimes, I feel like I can’t get enough sleep ever. Which of course does not encourage the whole idea to design to famous kind of process.

So I spend my time with graph paper, notebooks, piles of yarn and needles, and stacks of stitch dictionaries. And I look for a way to reinvent the wheel. Or at least to carve out a little niche in the knitting design world that I can call mine.

What do you do when you have a big dream? How do you get there?