KnittedDayDreams

If you’ve had a little nosy at my pattern page, you will have seen that I currently have four patterns available. One free pattern and three paid for patterns.

The free pattern is my Mermaid Notebook Cover, and it was my first official knitting pattern.

Created as part of a competition by Cygnet Yarns, the brief was to come up with an item made using one 100g ball of their Utopia DK yarn. I received two balls, one to practise with, and one to make the item with.

I remember at the time having so many ideas about what I could create, but I ended up choosing to create a notebook cover as I wanted to make one for myself as well.

We had to write up the pattern and could release it as a free pattern if we wanted to, so I chose to upload it onto Ravelry. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I did enjoy having a look at the download number going up, every once in a while.

I planned to design more patterns, but I guess life happened and knitting design didn’t really happen!

In August 2024, I was tagged in a makers Mermaid Notebook Cover on Instagram, and it was exactly the push I needed to get going on designing. I guess it’s that saying that goes a bit like ‘life will happen anyway, so you might as well do the thing’. I’m definitely paraphrasing there, but hopefully you get the gist!

I came up with three new designs in the later part of 2024, but my first design kept coming into my brain.

I know that if I discover a new designer, I like to have a look at their free patterns, if they have any, to see what their pattern writing style is like. I’ve purchased a few patterns from independent designers without knowing what their style is like, and then tried to knit the pattern and found that I can’t understand how their pattern works.

Very disappointing when that happens, especially if you LOVE the item and really wanted to knit it, but the pattern just doesn’t make sense to you.

I realised that my free pattern wasn’t written in the most cohesive way, a bit rough and ready, and could definitely be improved!

When I started designing again last year, I created a template that I can use for my future patterns, so all of the formatting is already done. All I have to do is input the information into it, meaning that if you buy one of my patterns, you will know the layout and formatting that I choose to use.

Why it took me so long to update my only free pattern, I have no idea! But, I have now done it!

The new and improved Mermaid Notebook Cover is already available to download from either my Ravelry page or Payhip store, links are also in the ‘My Designs’ section at the top of the page.

Jen x