Behind the Scenes of Patty Lyons’ Knitting ER, Part 3: Meet Technical Illustrator Linda Schmidt
In Part 1, Franklin’s illustrations gave Patty Lyons’ Knitting ER: A Step-by-Step Guide to Fixing Your Knits, Before and After Bind Off its characters and its heart. In Part 2, Anna Wade pulled every piece together into a book that looks and feels like one family. But when you’re halfway through a fix with a dropped stitch in one hand and a crochet hook in the other, the drawing you’re staring at is Linda’s.
It’s time to talk about the unsung hero of my knitting books: my technical illustrator, Linda Schmidt. Linda made over 200 drawings for Knitting Bag of Tricks and over 300 for Knitting ER.
The Process
For Knitting Bag of Tricks, Linda worked from photos I took of each step. Sometimes she asked for a video so she could really understand a trick. The incredible thing about working with Linda is her intense desire to make her drawings perfect. She isn’t only a talented illustrator; she’s also a knitter. She cast on for every trick to make sure she understood it before she drew it, and she would occasionally suggest adding a step I hadn’t thought to include.
We knew the plan going into Knitting ER. This time, though, the knitting was a lot more complicated.
Cables, Brioche, and Lace, Oh My!
It was really important to me that these illustrations be so accurate that if you could bring them to life, you could unravel them. That’s one of the reasons I prefer illustrations to photos: they can show close-up detail that a camera just can’t.
Early on, Linda told me she was a bit nervous about the lace fixes. She felt ready for brioche, cables, short rows, and colorwork, but like so many knitters, lace was her nemesis.
So she had a brilliant idea. Before drawing a single fix, she would master drawing intact lace, both RS and WS. It’s exactly how it works in our knitting: we have to understand our stitches before we can fix them.
I sent her some videos. She knit the swatch and sent me a drawing. I could see three main things to fix, all about the path of each RS and WS row. So I wrote back:
Me: I made some drawings, but also REALLY trace the path of your own knitting.
*Click the thumbnails to enlarge and see all of Linda’s incredible details up close!
1) With decreases, the row that pulls the two stitches together is the row BELOW the decrease row. Your WS row.
2) The YO is the yarn moving between one stitch and the next over the needle (RS row), so it ends up crossing ABOVE the new row.
3) There will always be a new column of stitches growing directly out of the YO.
After a bit more knitting (and tinking), Linda was getting so close. I annotated her next drawing and wrote back:
Me: SOOOO close, but the decreases are on the wrong row.
Think about the K2tog. You bring together two stitches on the needle (stitches made on the previous row) and pull a single stitch through them. So the stitches coming together will always be grey, and the single stitch that emerges will always be green, the same color as the YO. That means you can never have two rows in a row with stitches coming together. The very nature of a decrease is two (or more) stitches becoming one.
Make sure you really think through RS and WS. There are 5 YOs, not 6. That’s why the top of the CDD is off.
Then came a three-word email that made me soooo happy:
Linda: I see it.
And right after that, Linda had her most brilliant idea yet:
Linda: I knit the swatch with two colors to see the RS and WS interaction. I should have thought of that sooner. But I finally understand the “WHY.” Talk about a fight.
Me: AHHHH. Why didn’t I think of that!! Brilliant. Your swatch shows perfectly how the decrease row doesn’t overlap the stitch next to it. That’s the tiny tweak I was talking about. THANK YOU!!!
On a Friday night at 10:17 pm, an email landed with the subject line Well Shoot: How about this Lace Swatch. No text. Just this perfect drawing.
My response was simple:
Me: Chef’s kiss. I’m going to sleep. xxoo
What came next was 30 lace-fix drawings, covering fixes on and off the needles, before and after bind off.
Why It Matters
In a world of fast fashion and AI slop, I think there’s something inspiring about work made slowly and carefully by a true artist.
Knitting ER, by the numbers:
- 6 months
- 305 drawings
- 412 emails
- 1 hero
Watching Linda refuse to give up on lace inspired me. To borrow from President Kennedy, she chose to draw the lace fixes, not because they were easy, but because they were hard.
When knitters hold this book, they’ll be focused on their own knitting, as they should be. But I want everyone to know there were real knitters behind the scenes, struggling to master their craft just like you. And they did!
This wraps up our peek behind the curtain of Knitting ER. A book like this is never a one-woman show, and I’m so lucky to have Franklin, Anna, and Linda in my corner. If you’re just joining us, start from the beginning with Part 1 and Part 2.
Can’t wait to get your copy? Pre-order specials on Patty Lyons’ Knitting ER: A Step-by-Step Guide to Fixing Your Knits, Before and After Bind Off run through October 15, 2026!
My website is out of stock now, but never fear! I’ll be at Rhinebeck, so you can pre-order from Merritt Book Store for pick-up, or order for shipping from my Amazon author link, your LYS, or your local bookstore (upload your receipt on my webform either way).
I am looking forward to Knitting ER. I can’t wait to explore all the new ways to do fixes in my knitting. I ordered from Amazon and uploaded my receipt so I could be eligible for the additional goodies. Thank you!
Annette Winters
So excited to have received my copy of Knitting ER last week!
Question: in the first book, you point out that knit stitches are fatter than purl stitches, and that’s why stockinette curls. Online, I’ve seen people say that they use a smaller needle on the purl side – but shouldn’t it be the opposite? “Skinny” purl stitches should use the larger needle and the smaller needle should, instead, be used on the “fat” side (the knit side)? Second question (should perhaps have been my first one): why use different sized needles for stockinette? Thank you!
Switching to a smaller needle is to help with the TALL part of the purl stitch. It’s to help with row gauge.