Because I never work from written-out instructions: I use knitting charts.
I created my own knitting font, so the first thing I do is type up a project’s instructions as a chart (or charts, if necessary). Since I do my charts in my word processor, I always save early, save often as I’m typing them.
I hate sewing seams to assemble sweaters. If I wanted to sew, I’d crawl around on the floor cutting out fabric, then sit at the sewing machine.
Instead, I like to make sweaters in the round, whether bottom up or top down. When I make bottom-up seamless sweaters, I’m going to have to put stitches on holders at both underarms on the body and on each sleeve. If I don’t have enough needles of the correct size to leave all three pieces on needles until I can join them for the yoke, I put each sleeve and the body on holders while I work everything up to the underarm joining point.
Elizabeth Zimmermann’s astounding Baby Surprise Jacket (and its larger Toddler and Adult versions) rely on double decreases to do the first part of the shaping. Her recommendation is to put a coil-less pin through the two stitches that result after each of the two double decreases in the first decrease row.
When we bind off a project, we should almost always bind off “in pattern.” That means that as we work our way across the bind-off row, we work each stitch as though we are working the current pattern row.
My number-one rule for computers is
Save early, save often.
In case you didn’t know, “auto-save” too often results in “auto-lose.” I beg of you, please do not rely on your program’s auto-save “feature,” unless you really want to lose your work.
Most of us think that computers are just machines. I’m here to tell you, computers are organic. They’re alive. They can hear, and they can sense our moods.
If you are stressed, if you’re behind schedule, if you need your computer to do something right now, well, try to not say anything about it. Try to remain calm and cheerful. Because your computer knows when you’re agitated.