Zöllner shawl - pattern publishing

I've been plugging away at trying to get my City and Guilds assessment pieces published.

I published the apple seat pad on Ravelry, despite it not being test knit.  I figured it was a good way to figure out how the system works etc.

Since then I've been working on the accessory assessment piece, which was a shawl I designed and made for David.  I had the same person tech review it and this time I was able to find a few people who were willing to test knit it for me.

My version of the shawl came out like this:

 It has a geometric zig zaggy pattern at differing scales across the whole thing created from twisted stitches.  It's interesting without being too feminine.  The zig zags are inspired by an optical illusion by German astrophysicist Johann Karl Friedrich Zöllner.  

One aspect of the shawl that I was keen to have it be is reversible.  I think it's nice when you're able to put a scarf or shawl on and not have to worry about which way round it is, or which way the ends are twisted etc - so I took quite some time during the designing phase figuring out the stitch so that it is reversible.  This does make it a bit fiddly to knit as there are no easy rows and you're often knitting into stitches which have been twisted on the row below.  It's also a bear to correct mistakes on as my test knitters discovered!

I published the pattern on Ravelry last week and have already had a few sales - which I'm pleasantly surprised about.  I'm now waiting for requests for pattern support and hoping to see some more finished shawls out there.

The next assessment piece I'm going to rework and try to get published is an inset sleeve sweater.  I might change this one a bit and actually make it sleeveless.  At the very least I need to grade it into more sizes than just mine.  I'm quite looking forward to having a go at that.

Apple seat pad pattern publishing in progress

One of the things I'd like to do is to try to publish the patterns that I wrote as part of my City and Guilds course.  I had to produce 4 assessment pieces including writing the patterns for them: an interior item, an inset sleeve sweater, an accessory and a cardigan/jacket.

For the interior item I produced a seat pad for a kitchen chair using my sister-in-law as my client and using a tile in her kitchen as my inspiration starting point.

The apple on the tile is quite simple and I wanted to find a way of making the apple remain an apple but be more abstract.  After some trial and error and art making and swatch knitting I came up with a mosaic stitch pattern with "apples" on the seat pad upper and then just "leaves" underneath.  

 

To make it City and Guilds  -worthy I decided to seam it together using I-cord and also have a buttoned opening underneath to get the cushion in and out.  

It passed the assessment and made my sister-in-law's chair more comfortable.  So that's a double tick.

When it comes to publishing it - I don't know that it's that "commercial" a pattern.  I think it might be fun knit in some non-apple colours to make it even more abstract.  Or maybe even just knit the leaf pattern?

I've rejigged the pattern layout a little and have had it tech reviewed and am now trying to find test knitters through Ravelry.  I haven't had any success finding a test knitter so far, which I think confirms what I thought about its commerciability - but it's interesting to figure out the process of getting a pattern published.  It's been a while since I did this module so I don't feel so personally attached to this as I maybe did straight after I'd finished it, so am happy to take my time and use this to figure out how things work.  If I don't find a test knitter I'll probably publish it on Ravelry anyway to see how that side of things works.