After my last post, I received a number of emails requesting the pattern for my 2-Hour Newborn Chipmunk Hat project, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to debut a new style of PDF pattern I've been working out. The pattern is free to download, so I would love your feedback on this new thing I'm trying.

I'm so excited to share what I've been doing, but first let me explain where it's all coming from. When I wrote my book last year, I included a ton of extra content that explains some of the special knitting techniques I use. I really loved sharing some of the little tricks I've picked up along the way. I decided that when I finished the book, I wanted to incorporate this kind of content into my independent patterns too.  It occurred to me that the best way to do this would be to produce short videos and embed them inside my PDF patterns.

So now, I'm working on a new format where I embed video links in the page layouts of my knitting patterns. These links appear in handy locations throughout the patterns which make the videos super easy to access.

Over the past few weeks I've had a lot of fun producing these instructional knitting videos and posting them on YouTube and Knit Darling. My goal is to help my fans take their knitting skills to the the next level. So far, the videos cover a number of topics that a lot of you have asked for advice about. Mostly they explain techniques that knitting patterns tell you to do, but don't explain very well. These are things like attaching buttons, weaving in ends, and how to use short-rows. I have a ton more in the pipeline already, but I'd also love to hear if you have any videos you'd like me to do.

Here's a recent video I did about blocking:

http://youtu.be/GPeD0ksXZWI

I'm planning to update a some of my old patterns with video content, but moving forward I plan to incorporate videos into all my new Knit Darling patterns. The Chipmunk hat only has 2 videos,  but my more complicated patterns will certainly have more. I should also note that the videos are just an extra supplement to the patterns, and are not essential for completing the instructions.  I'm really curious to hear what you think about this new pattern design idea, so please let me know in the comments below.