Finally made it ! I'm a Knitwear Designer
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Phew! little did I realise, that when I met up with 2 other knitting craftsy people last October in York that with their help I would make it in to the word of Knitwear designing , yet here I am!
I met Emma and Nicola on the Etsy site (all 3 of us sell knitted goods on the site) and as the 3 of us lived in Yorkshire we decided to meet up, just for a little chin wag over coffee and cakes and also to have a play at "yarn bombing" .
Things progressed for me from our chats that day.
I've made changes to my web site to reflect ideas that Nicola gave me about her sucessful web site Truly Scrumptious knitted Food but most importantly I took on board both their comments about writing up and selling knitting patterns on-line.
You see, about 90% of all the knitting I do to sell in my Etsy shop and now here on my web site are all my own designs, I conjure up a design in my head, scribbling notes and calculations down as I knit along.
So how I take those ideas and scribbles and transform them in to well tested and documented knitting patterns?
Well I used some of the skills I already had and used them to my advantage. I have spent most of my working life in Information Technology, analysing and developing computer programs , testing them, writing up user guides and training people how to use them. I could simply transfer those skills to the development of knitting patterns. Instead of writing instructions in a computer language I'm writing instructions in knitting jargon and all the time making sure that all the maths still made sense, still added up. As long as the finished article fitted and all the people that tested the instructions got the same end result then that was a success. Ah Ah !
It was Emma that pointed me to the Ravelry site, where I now sell on my all patterns. She showed me how I could find test knitters, those people that were willing to test out my patterns for me. She explained the process I needed to go through and tested one or two of my patterns for me.
Since October 2014 til now in June 2015 I have managed to self publish over 20 knitting patterns. Some were existing patterns where I had sold the finished garment on Etsy and had knitted a few times, others were new designs. In the process I have even taught myself a new knitting techique and come up with some brilliant unique designs using this technique. I will talk about these in further blog postings on here, maybe throwing in a few free designs for my readers too.
And then at the end of last month, 2 of my patterns were published in issue 48 of the UK knitting magazine Knit Now. You can find out more about that here and I'm sure I will natter some more about these 2 patterns, they are simply stunning don't you think.
I believe that truly takes me in to the word of knitwear design. I wonder what I will conjure up next? Coming back to find out?
And as this is my very first blog posting on my web site, I thought I would join in the hand craftng communities "Handmade Monday" crafty linky party , to join in the crafty fun. Want to join me?
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