My first ever published knitting pattern wasn’t really a pattern. There was no specified yarn, no gauge, no sizes. The idea wasn’t to look at my sample and perfectly recreate it. Instead, I offered a (bewildering, to most) set of formulas (formulae?) that, if you plugged in your own gauge (with your favorite yarn) and your own measurements, would produce a t-shirt that fit YOU. There’s no way knitty would publish it now (and I’m so grateful that they did, back in the Wild Wild West days of no set sizes!)

A few brave souls plugged in their data and… it worked! They added stripes, they added cables – one lady even told me that my formulas were helpful when she was learning to design her own sweater patterns. This made me very very happy. Here, if you’re on Ravelry, you can see everyone’s projects.

Now, skip ahead to a little over a year ago, when I posted my most outrageously successful* knitting patterns. They’re not really patterns, either. Again, you use your own yarn, your own gauge, your own head size (or that of someone you love), and voila! A hat that fits. I think I improved on the T-shirt concept in that there are no formulas to fill out (hence the “no math” thing).

People have done all sorts of interesting things with them – I mean check out the creativity! (again, those are Ravelry links) I get comments like “I love this pattern! It is a little free-wheeling, but a great way to use up yarn.” This makes me very very happy.

Soooo (getting to the point at last) if you’re wondering (as I do at times) how someone goes from writing about knitting and designing knitting patterns to writing a book about weddings – well, there is a through line!

The book works the same way as the not-really-patterns. There’s a lot of fill-in-the-blanks, a lot of “what would YOU like?” It’s not a step-by-step guide for how to replicate something I’ve already imagined, but an invitation to put your own mark on your creation.

It is my fervent hope that the weddings that spring from this book are as varied, as unique, and as charming as all those hats and t-shirts. That would make me very very happy. (And that’s what it’s all about, right?)

*  by “outrageously successful,” I mean triple-digit loves and double-digit projects on Ravelry!