Learning to Design Knitting Patterns

For some reason, changing knitting patterns has become a fascination for me. I have books and books of stitch patterns, all for flat knitting. I love circular knitting. I find myself spending hours on diagrams and charts, figuring out how to change a flat pattern to a circular pattern. Can you say 'glutton for punishment'?

The wrong side row has to be reversed and the stitches reversed...I love the challenge. Sometimes you have extra stitches used for spacing on a flat pattern that may or may not translate to a circular pattern.

I found a really useful book for all of this--Charts Made Simple: Understanding Knitting Charts Visually, by J. C. Blair. I highly recommend this book if you really want to get into designing knitting patterns. You should also use the Craft Yarn Council standards for knitting abbreviations or knitting symbols. There is also a great class on Craftsy--Pattern Writing for Knitters. Creating patterns is by far the most fun I have ever had!