Tag: Knitwear Design

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Unravelling

How’s your week going? Mine’s going quite well.

I’ve done most of what I can with my design submission until I get the yarn. Hopefully that will be quite soon as I’d love to crack on with it.

I’ve made a few different sourdough recipes – the last loaf was fab and the hot cross buns were amazing! The smell of cinnamon and nutmeg in the house was divine.

A well-risen sourdough loaf on a cooling rack.
Sourdough loaf
A dozen homemade hot cross buns sitting on baking parchment.
Hot cross buns

I’ve also re-recorded a chapter of my latest Craftucation course (not yet published) where my hands kept disappearing off the screen. Most distracting!

My Little Orme Hat took on a life of its own during the week and I’ve finished the medium size, started the large one and written up the pattern. It’s quite possibly the most comfortable hat I’ve designed so far and I’m wondering whether that’s because of the brim. The folded, ribbed brim extends the knitting time considerably, but it’s so worth it! The pattern will be out soon!

A blue-haired middle-aged woman (me) looks at the camera over her glasses wearing Little Orme Hat, a stranded colourwork hat with a striped folded brim. She is sitting in front of a patchwork blanket.
Little Orme Hat
A top-down view of the crown of Little Orme Hat being worn. The wearer (me) is holding their arms up as the camera is above their head.
Little Orme Hat crown (Medium size)

Despite all this progress, something is niggling at me.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere that, although my patterns are all listed on Ravelry, I don’t recommend you visit the website if you have a tendency towards migraines or any kind of visual impairment. That includes common issues like astigmatism (which I have). The design of the site was completely overhauled in June 2020 and caused many people problems, from eye strain to migraines to seizures in some cases.

After a couple of weeks they introduced ‘Classic’ mode which was supposed to be the old version of the site that people could toggle back to if they ‘didn’t like’ or couldn’t use the new version of Ravelry (NuRav). It’s not quite the old version though. I switched to ‘Classic’ as NuRav was making me queasy after about 10 minutes, but I still need to limit the time I spend on there if I can. Which is a shame and a pain, since most of my pattern sales are made through Ravelry.

Yesterday I spent about an hour adding the Payhip link for each of my patterns and adding Lovecrafts as a clickable source and my eyes were very relieved when I was done. By adding these links I’m trying to make it easier for people to access my patterns through Payhip and Lovecrafts even if they originally found them via Ravelry. I’m not adding links to Ravelry here for what I hope are obvious reasons.

I haven’t said much about the whole Ravelry re-design previously (apart from cheering on those who have been trying to push Ravelry to hire an accessibility consultant and raise awareness of the real harm being done to some people), so why am I raising my voice now? Possibly, selfishly, it’s because at the end of this month ‘Classic’ Rav will disappear (be retired) and the only option will be NuRav. I don’t know how much I will be able to use it and that worries me. I’ve already told my (largely inactive) Ravelry group that I won’t be using it as a social forum in future and will be focussing efforts on my website/newsletter and social media instead.

As a concept Ravelry is brilliant and for over 12 years it’s been the go-to place for designers to host their knitting and crochet patterns as a selling platform, for knitters and crocheters to log all their stash, projects and notes (and for others to search them) and a social forum that was a lifeline for many. We were probably far too reliant on it in retrospect, but it was so damned convenient.

If you buy knitting or crochet patterns, from me or anyone else, and you usually get them via Ravelry, please consider buying them from other sources if they are available elsewhere.

Right, I shall now step down off my soap-box and go and transcribe some videos.

Take care folks and keep knitting, K x

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It’s a Good Day

My Little Orme Cowl was published last Friday on all the platforms I use; here/Payhip, Lovecrafts and Ravelry – be wary of Rav if you have any visual sensitivity, it’s caused lots of problems since the redesign in June. I’ve done the calculations for cast-on numbers for the three sizes of hat and the charts are also done. I don’t have a deadline for getting the hat out there, but it would be nice to finish the collection sooner rather than later. However, something rather exciting has also come up. 😊

I had some great news yesterday. It was particularly pleasing as I had pretty much decided I wasn’t going to get a ‘yes’, but I did! I had a design submission accepted for a UK knitting magazine later in the year. It will be published in October, which sounds like ages away, but there’s so much to happen before then.

The deadline is June 1st. Between then and publication it will be checked by technical editors, the pattern will be laid out by professional magazine people and the garment will be photographed to its best advantage. Any queries will come back to me to answer and I will make any corrections to the pattern and send it back to be re-checked.

Between now and June 1st is even more exciting! I have put in my yarn support request and should get notice of what yarn I will be using (and then receive it) within a couple of weeks. See how time is ticking already? During that ‘wait’ time I can do some maths. Maths, you say? Why, yes, there are a lot of numbers involved in designing a garment in nine sizes, especially when motifs are involved. I know what size I’m required to knit and although it will be too small for me to wear afterwards, it will certainly be quicker to make than a ‘me-sized’ one. I’m sure it will fit a friend!

So, there’s writing the pattern, calculating the numbers for the different sizes (this is called grading), typing the pattern up according to the magazine’s style sheet (they all have their own particular ways of doing things), knitting the design and posting it to the magazine’s office. Suddenly June 1st seems awfully near.

This is when I become ever more grateful to have my journal. One of my tasks for today is mapping out all the different elements I need to do and to tie in all the other plates that I’m determined to keep spinning as well.

I have now successfully recorded one section of An Introduction to Lace Knitting, my third Craftucation course, (Knitting for Beginners 1 and Knitting for Beginners 2 are here) and I have finalised (and slightly simplified) my plans for the main project involved, as well as knitting a sample version of it. My initial plan was to get this published by the end of April and I would still like to achieve this, but as a self-imposed deadline, there can be flexibility.

Happy dance for being busy – especially with some of them being things that will/could pay! It’s a really good incentive to cut back on the online scrabble too.

The sourdough baking is going quite well, incidentally. There are some sesame-topped buns proving in the kitchen right now. One of the benefits of this type of baking is there are decent stretches of time in between stages so they can be used as blocks of knitting, planning, writing or recording time. And then there’s something lovely to eat at the end of it – with any luck.

I’ve only spun once in the past week, but I do intend to keep going with that as well. I think that if I can get into the habit of little and often with it there will be more improvement than doing an hour once a week.

Something will probably have to give at some point and it will undoubtedly be the dusting that goes first! I’ll let you know. 😉

Keep knitting / doing what makes you happy and stay safe, K x

P.S. It’s a Good Day sung by Peggy Lee is a great song and is quite likely to get your feet tapping.