How to design your own knits part 2

Saturday was spent at Get Knitted near Bristol doing Part 2 of the "Design your own knits" course run by Debbie Abrahams.
It was FABULOUS!
I don't know if you guys will remember me posting about part 1 of the course as it was a couple of months ago now but to re-cap quickly I came away from it feeling not disappointed, but as though we had only really covered stuff I already knew. What I hoped was that part 2 would pull it all together and make it worth something and it totally did. Part 2 was awesome. It involved spending the day chewing the ends off of our pencils as we worked our way through the maths but by the end of the day it had sunk in and its surprising just how easy it is. Debbie was wonderful and explained it all really clearly. She had loads of patience and went over and through things as many times as we needed and tried her best to answer all of the difficult questions that we threw her way. She was also really encouraging about our own projects that we where working on as part of this course and a good teacher. I could go on a bit more about this but I think you guys will get the point without me enthusing any more.
My new skill set now includes being able to draw a specification diagram for items, knowing what body measurements to take, how to convert an existing pattern into different sizes and sub in different yarns, how to build my own pattern, fit sleeve heads, draw necklines and extol the virtues of tension swatches. I really feel confident in myself about being able to get things to fit now which was something I really struggled with in the past. I had lots of great ideas but didn't know how to execute them. I've now made the first steps along this path- there are still gaps in my knowledge sure enough but this was a great start and good basis to build on.
Debbie has written a book that goes with all of this which is going for a bargain price on Amazon at the mo so I suggest that you all rush out and get yourselves a copy if this is what you want to do with your time.
Get Knitted in a wonderful venue for this course- well, any course really as the shop is a knitters heaven. I bought myself some fantastic sock wool in acidic yellows and greens that I will try to remember to post a picture of when I get the chance. I also got myself a mention on my friends blog for coming up with a brilliant justification for buying more wool. Remember people, it's all about the justification!