How to Overcome Perfectionism as a Knitting Pattern Designer

If you’re a new or aspiring knitting pattern designer, you might be familiar with perfectionism and the way it affects your design process. It is extremely common and, left unchallenged, can hold you back from ever reaching your potential as a designer.

As a recovering perfectionist myself, I know about the “all or nothing” mindset that perfectionism creates. At one point, my fear of failure was so bad that I’d almost rather do nothing at all than do something imperfectly. As a result, I would procrastinate.

Does that sound familiar?

Perfectionists tend to get bogged down in the minute details of a task, feeling anxiety over every step. They are also highly critical of themselves, which often results in poor self-confidence. Not a great environment for creativity, is it?

So what can you do if perfectionism is holding you back from sharing your designs with the world?

In this blog post, I’ll share several things you can do to knock perfectionism on the head and start building more tolerance for “failure”.

Image description: Graphic saying “How to Overcome Perfectionism as a Knitting Pattern Designer” in white letters over a close up photo of a red marl cable-knit pullover.

Notice When Perfectionism Kicks In

There will be times in your life when your perfectionism is triggered more than others. For me, it’s when I’m feeling a bit insecure about my ability to do something on my own. It leads me to agonising over every detail of the task, taking me far longer than it should.

For example, when I’m working on a difficult pattern, I can find myself checking my spreadsheets over and over and over again to try and find any errors before sending it to tech editing. This is fine when you’re doing it just a couple of times, but when it’s stopping you from moving forward, it becomes a problem.

When does this happen to you? Try to notice whenever perfectionism rears its head and consider ways you can protect yourself from it.

For example, if you find yourself getting caught up in comparison, setting unachievable standards for yourself, after using social media, it might be worth taking a break for a while or limiting your exposure.

Compare Yourself to Yourself

It’s so easy to compare yourself to other knitting pattern designers, but that is not remotely helpful, especially when you are battling perfectionism. Instead, start to compare yourself to…yourself.

Even as a beginner designer, you have come so far. Did you imagine you’d be able to design your own knitting patterns when you first learned to knit? This alone is a big deal.

Acknowledge everything you have learned along the way, no matter how “small”, and this will help you to understand that more growth is still coming. You’re not perfect - you never will be - but you’re learning more about knitting pattern design with every new project and that is worth celebrating!

Image description: Graphic with a photograph of a garter stitch WIP in mustard and cream on bamboo knitting needles next to a cup of tea, and underneath it says “Knitting Pattern Design. How to Overcome Perfectionism. www.sistermountain.com”

Be Kind to Yourself

Perfectionists have a tendency to talk badly to and about themselves, so why don’t you come up with something you can tell yourself to challenge those negative thoughts?

Rather than thinking, “Why would anyone want to knit my designs anyway?”, tell yourself, “I have an interesting design perspective that is valuable to other knitters”.

Instead of, “I’m not talented enough to publish my knitting patterns”, think, “Good is good enough!”

Thoughts aren’t facts so if you start challenging the negativity with truthful statements, rather than believing every thought that pops into your head, you will be surprised by how much it frees you up to move forward with your designs.

Take a Reality Check

If you find yourself setting impossible goals and holding yourself to unreasonable standards, such as designing a pullover even though you’ve never even knitted one from someone else’s pattern, it’s time for a reality check.

I’m not suggesting that you don’t challenge yourself (challenges are good!) however, I do want you to take a realistic look at your current skillset and set yourself healthy design goals that allow you to start where you are at, without getting discouraged.

Don’t be afraid to simplify a knitting pattern design you’re having trouble figuring out in order to make it more appropriate for your skill level. It doesn’t make you a bad designer - I promise!

Embrace Your Mistakes

If you are new at knitting pattern design, you are going to make mistakes. I’m NOT new at this and I make mistakes all the time! It’s just part of the process.

Mistakes don’t make us terrible knitting pattern designers. They just alert us to areas where we can learn more and grow our skills. When you look at it this way, mistakes are a good thing; not something to be afraid of!

This is something to particularly remember when you’re putting your pattern through tech editing and test knitting, as you are likely to receive some critique on your pattern. If you can avoid getting upset and taking it personally, this is a wonderful opportunity to learn something new and become a better designer.

Image description: a sock heel in grey and beige variegated yarn is being unravelled, with a pile of yarn “spaghetti” next to it.

Follow a Standardised Design Process

If you find yourself getting stuck in the design process, trying to achieve perfection at every stage to the point that you don’t know what to do next, you might find it helpful to follow a clear design process that you repeat every time you design a new knitting pattern.

Following a clear design process breaks the whole thing down into mini-goals, allowing you to keep your expectations at an appropriate level, complete the task and move on to the next. 

Trust the Process

If you’re following my design process, your pattern will be going through tech editing and test knitting before it is released.

You should absolutely do your best when writing your knitting pattern draft, but there is no need to agonise over achieving perfection. Trust that your tech editor and test knitters will help you find and fix any potential errors or areas of confusion - that’s why we work with them.

Design, Knit, Repeat

When you’re dealing with perfectionism, it can be tempting to give up when the going gets tough, but unfortunately, this will only reinforce the negative thoughts that tell you that you aren’t good enough to be a designer.

If you keep chipping away at your pattern, simplifying where necessary, you’ll boost your confidence as a designer. And thankfully, the more patterns you design, the more confident you will become in your design ability and the less you will feel the need to hold yourself to impossible standards.

Don’t Let Perfectionism Hold You Back

Perfectionism will make you so fearful of making a mistake that you don’t allow yourself to thrive as a knitting pattern designer. Instead of believing your inner critic, take the time to notice when these thoughts come up, show yourself some kindness and take action to keep moving forward with your designs.

READY TO DESIGN YOUR FIRST PULLOVER?

If you dream of designing and releasing your very first sweater pattern, I’d love to invite you to my free on-demand workshop, How to Confidently Design Multi-Size Sweater Patterns - Without Worrying About Whether Your Ideas Are Unique Enough to Stand Out Amongst Other Designers.

In this workshop, I’ll be sharing 3 simple strategies you can use to generate countless stand-out sweater design ideas makers will want to knit, even if you are worried you don’t have enough experience or originality.

To grab your free ticket to the workshop, sign up here.