I’m lucky to be part of the behind-the-scenes process of bringing knitting patterns to life. My job is to check all the math and instructions to make sure the pattern actually works, so that by the time someone is knitting, they have an error-free pattern to work from.

Knitting is a great hobby for stress relief, but not if the knitting is causing more stress as you work through errors. I look at a lot of patterns throughout the year, so I wanted to share some of my favorites to give you some options for patterns you know will be correct, clear, and fun to knit.

A breakdown of all the information that should be included on the first page of a knitting pattern, before the actual pattern instructions. This includes info like sizing, yarn, needles, gauge, notions, and abbreviations.

Like most tech editors, for most of my career I’ve charged an hourly rate for my services, until I had the thought a couple of months ago to switch to a per-word rate. I feel like this isn’t a super common pricing structure for tech editing, in fact I’ve never heard of another editor doing it, but surely I can’t be the only one!

I’ve really been enjoying the new structure, and so I thought it would be fun to write a blog post about it to talk through why I made this decision, what the benefits are, and how I came up with the rate I use.

By employing a two column layout, you can ensure your pattern is easily viewable for knitters working from their phone.

Some knitters love the visual clarity of charts, but there are also reasons to include written instructions as well. In this post, I talk about the benefits of each, why written instructions are important for accessibility, and when you should include both formats in your pattern.

Sometimes I think people assume tech editing is only needed for complex patterns where there are multiple sizes to be checked or complicated stitch patterns involved. After all, how much could go wrong in a simple scarf pattern? Now that I’ve been tech editing for nearly four years, I can confidently say A LOT.