This last week I received some lovely photos from one of my customers. She had asked for a custom design back in May 15, a knitted bolero for her wedding in October 15.  I thought today , it would be nice for me to explain a little about the process we went through. Mostly by sending photos and agreeing things via email, meant that we could complete the process without having to actually speak or meet with each other. I'm adamant that I double check things as I progress through my thinking and creative process. What I don't want at the end of the day is a customer who is upset at what I'm producing for her and is unable to tell me so. We need an open discussion between ourselves and that is what I endeavoured to do with this customer.

Her 1st contact came in and she nicely explained that she wanted a bolero similar to one I had listed on Etsy.

She loved the yarn it was knitted in but wanted more clarity about the colours she could choose from. I sent her some samples by post so she could feel the quality and more importantly check out the colour against the dress and the shoes she was thinking of buying. That part of the process was pretty straight forward and she chose a lovely soft silver grey which looked stunning on the day.

She wanted the bolero altering in that she wanted the gap down the front widening so it showed off her lovely wedding dress. She even sent me a photo of the dress so I could appreciate what look she wanted. The one thing that I immediately noticed about the dress was the  feature low back and I felt that we could make of a feature of it even when it was covered by the bolero. I suggested that we did some lace detail down the back of the bolero and that perhaps the leaf detail on the original bolero was changed to something more appropriate, a simple flower perhaps. Once she had agreed what she wanted , then we set to work sending measurements to each other so we could agree them. My customer started by sending me a simple diagram (a lot simpler to explain than in words) of her measures. I sent a similar one back with more measurements on that we had agreed by email.

I could then start the knitting, sending her photos along the way. These set of photos show the lace flower detail down the back , along the bottom and at the sleeve edge.

And when I had nearly finished I sent her photos showing the measurements so she could check them against the earlier measures we had agreed.

 My customer seemed delighted with the finished result. So much so , she sent me photos of her special day.

So chuffed that one of my knitting pattern ideas got accepted by Simply Knitting a few months ago (in fact 4 ideas did ! but more of that another day). I have had to keep my design under wraps since the very day the editor Kirstie said "Yes" . Its a simple idea, bringing together some of the best qualities of knitting. Come this time of year I love cables, I love knitting them, I love wearing them so the idea had to have some cables. It also had to have some mosaic knitting incorporated in. This is a new style of colourwork that I only came across a few months ago and I think its ace! And those two knitting techniques combined with two really soft colours in the really soft baby angora yarn bring us ------

Readers , if you knit the cowl you must let me know how you get on.