Compelled to respond

Thanks to Abigail who pointed me to this editorial on KnitNet.com. In it Sharon Airhart writes,

If there has been one shocking surprise for me in six years of editing a knitting magazine it's that a significant percentage of the patterns sold out there are, at best, poorly written and, therefore, unintelligible or, at worst, full of numerical inaccuracies that make it impossible to create the garment as shown.

This is not the case if you're looking at Vogue or Knitters or the Interweave Knits magazines, KnitNet or the patterns published by the major international yarn companies from Rowan to Lion Brand.

Whoa. Stop the presses. Remember the Flame Stitch Cardigan? Click on this link and read the "Related posts". Almost all of them are about pattern errors.

And what about the dress that Cookie knit? She writes about her experience here and here and says

So pretty much everything in this pattern is wrong except the number of stitches to cast on and the rows on which to decrease.

And how many times does a Vogue Knitting pattern show up in the Knitter's Review Forum, "Errata in Knitting Patterns"?

I was compelled to respond to Sharon and let her know that I wholeheartedly disagree with her generalizations. Yes, there are designers who have bad patterns out there. But to hold up Vogue as an example of patterns done right?

Come on.

Get real.