Proof of the Pudding - Or What Do You Do All Day?!

I knit a lot but probably not as much as people assume. Like most knitters, I knit when I've finished work for the day and I need some downtime. The difference is that my day job involves writing, editing, and designing knitting patterns. The fact that I don't knit during my work day surprises people. Most of my day is spent on the computer answering emails, chasing invoices, entering data into a spreadsheet, and working with various software programmes (chart editors, layout programmes and word processors). Occasionally I head outside for photo shoots or teaching appointments, but mostly my work is desk-based in front of a computer.

Being my own employer, I have had to learn to do a lot of things because if I don't do something, it doesn't get done. This include things like payroll, marketing, customer service, distribution, procurement etc. Just because I am a one-woman business, it doesn't mean I don't have to think about how I do taxes, how I tell people about the things I do, how I can help people with any problems they may encounter, how I get my hard-copy patterns printed, where and when to buy office supplies etc. I have also had to learn how to put together a professional-looking layout and what changes I have to make from getting it ready as a PDF and a hard copy pattern.

A typical day runs from 9.30am to 5.30pm with breakfast & lunch at the desk. I try to deal with emails/messages at the start and end of every day. I could probably spend every single day just on emails and messages! I look at specific customer support requests - these range from "what do you think of these colours?" to "could you explain what a garter stitch tab cast-on is? I've looked at videos and still do not get it".

I then spend time on the latest pattern I'm designing (I'll talk about design process in a later post). I open up the chart editor and the spreadsheet. Depending upon the complexity of the design, I can spend a fortnight crunching numbers before it is time to start writing a pattern. I spend lunchtime catching up with social media - some people regard it as marketing but I think of social media as a great way to have social interactions with great people without leaving the house. Twitter is a lifeline of joy when you work on your own.

After lunch, I get back to my spreadsheets and my number crunching. I make sure to transfer key numbers from my spreadsheet to a pattern template so I can tell if a pattern makes narrative sense (no need to start talking about neckline numbers when people are still working the bottom rib - even if I need to know the basic neckline numbers at this stage). I double-check the chart in my chart editor and may correct the stitch pattern, so it will work with armhole shaping further up. Spreadsheets are magic, I tell you. I may also be working on other people's patterns as a technical editor.

I dip into social media and check my email to make sure I am not missing any urgent business. A yarn company may have emailed me to let me know they are out of a shade I wanted for a future design, and I have to open up my design proposal to see what I could use instead. A customer may have emailed me about problems buying the pattern and I have to liaise with Ravelry and LoveKnitting to solve the customer's problems. I try to get on top of emails by 4pm.

After 4pm, I focus more on the "soft side" of my work. I browse Ravelry to check out colour and texture trends. I spend time on Pinterest looking through recent pins (I subscribe to a number of trend forecasters' feeds). I look at dyers' websites to check out new stock and if I can see any colour trends. I also spend the 90 minutes between 4pm and 5.30pm on doodling and playing around with ideas in the chart editor or on paper. I browse RSS feeds via Feedly where I subscribe to a large number of blogs and websites ranging from knitting and fashion to art, design and technology. I don't always get my daily 90 minutes of inspiration because I may be in the middle of a complex project, but I love when I am able to set aside time.

By the time 5.30pm rolls around, my partner is home and we spend some time decompressing over a cup of tea. We get dinner sorted and by 7.30pm I am usually sat in the sofa with my work knitting. And that is another day over and done with. I work like this Monday to Friday but I may teach at a festival or at a LYS Saturday or Sunday, so my day off may fall on a Monday or a Wednesday instead.

This post was written in response to a 'what do you actually do all day long?' request from a couple of readers. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section!

Hello Byatt KAL (and Other Things)

Thank you so much for all the lovely words regarding the Byatt shawl. It is my first real stand-alone release after I completed the Doggerland collection and I was nervous about what people might think. Doggerland was all about a very pared-down design vocabulary and Byatt is positively decadent by contrast. I am relieved that people appear willing to tag along with me on my new design adventures and I cannot wait to see which colour combinations you choose. I have already seen quite a few people comment that Byatt is perfect for stash-diving (we all have those one-off skeins in our stash, don't we?) while other people have been searching on their book shelves for colour inspiration.

Here is the challenge for all of you going to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival: can you knit a Byatt before then? I have a few incentives in store for you. Firstly, you'll get a 10% discount on Old Maiden Aunt yarns if you show up in a Byatt knitted in OMA. Secondly, if you show up in a Byatt and you manage to grab a photo of yourself and me at EYF, you get a staggering 50% off my next pattern.

And the final challenge is open to everybody regardless of whether you can make it to EYF or not: finish a Byatt shawl before March 31, post a photo and you enter into a really exciting prize draw. I'll be picking out a few goodies from EYF vendors and you get to help me design a shawl. I designed Byatt partly because a few people had told me they wanted a two-skein shawl. What would you like to see? Cables? Triangular shawl? Semi-circle? A shawl in a DK or worsted-weight shawl? You tell me.

Now , there is a very good reason why I let David take photographs of all my knitted things. I took the photo below and it lacks a certain je ne sais quoi. It was surprisingly hard to take a photo of the Byatt shawl flat - I have worn it quite a bit (so it's a bit crumpled) and it's rather big (so it's hard to capture in one fell swoop). Still, I hope this helps those of you who wanted to see the shawl shape (though a schematic is included).  

If you follow me on Twitter, you will have heard I got up this morning to a very cold flat (8°C / 46°F). It's really pretty outside with all the snow, but our old-fashioned (and very pretty) Victorian tenement flat has no double-glazing, very high ceilings and two badly-sealed fireplaces. I've turned on the heating and it's now a staggering 12°C/53°F. Hooray for wool! Yet again I am a complete convert to woolly socks, I'm wearing my old pair of Fetchings and my bedraggled Noro jumper which fits nobody (and especially not me). Nothing like winter to make me break out the old knitted things that are now so tatty I cannot wear them in public anymore.

Look! Baby Karie! So young & so pleased with her fingerless mitts! Awwww.

I hope you'll join me for the Byatt KAL and I am really looking forward to being gazoomped at EYF by you all. Stay tuned for colour combo suggestions and ideas. I'm off to speed-knit another pair of woolly socks.

Authors & Artists: the Byatt Shawl

After a few teasing posts, I am happy to say that the Byatt shawl is now available from Ravelry (and will soon be available from LoveKnitting too). The shawl is named after one of my favourite novelists, A.S. Byatt.  I first encountered her books when I was a young woman on the cusp of starting university. I read her Booker Prize-winning novel Possession in translation by Claus Bech. I later learned Bech had been awarded the Prix Baudelaire for his work, but that was no help to me as I diligently worked my way through dense poetry sections.

A few years later I read Possession in its original English and Byatt's book was transformed. While Bech's work was lauded, I could not connect with it in the same way I could connect with Byatt's own language. It was rich, layered, warm, gently witty, and wonderful. The book became a touchstone and I have read it eight or nine times now.

And so Byatt's novels became part of my life.

The Frederica Potter novels - The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, Babel Tower, and A Whistling Woman - kept me company as I grew from a young woman to whoever it is I am now. I read The Biographer's Tale whilst travelling around New Zealand (it remains my least favourite Byatt novel to date). And I curled up with her short stories - Angels and Insects and the Matisse Stories, among others, when I lived in a suitcase trying to figure out who I was going to be. Reading Byatt quietens that voice inside my head that urges me to be less bookish, less arty, and more .. normal. I owe her much for writing about quiet, creative people with complex inner lives who muddle through life trying to remain intact. We exist too.

The Byatt shawl takes its main design cues from the cover design of  The Children's Book. The rich teal and the golden brown are obvious nods towards the teal and gold found on the cover. Insects recur often as motifs in Byatt's books - the slip stitch pattern forms braids on top of the garter stitch, but the individual stitches can also resemble tiny wings or delicate leaves.

The horseshoe edging was my toughest design decision. I wanted the shawl to have an Art Nouveau feel, so I first added leaves to the edging. Interestingly, I found that very open lace patterns clashed with the remainder of the shawl and I experimented with bold chevrons until my eye was caught by the classic horseshoe pattern. Its light chevron feel and close/open movement worked both within the context of the fabric and also with the design inspiration. The edge is finished off with a picot edging which just adds a touch of polish.

I've had a few questions about the shape of the shawl. Funnily enough, neither my photographer, my tech editor nor myself even considered that issue, so I have uploaded the schematic to my Rav project page to tide things over until I can get my photographer (also known as David, the boyfriend) to shoot some photos. Many apologies for the oversight. On the other hand, it is the sort of feedback that improves my patterns, so thank you for getting in touch!

The only other issue is that I am currently waiting for my lovely friends at LoveKnitting to publish the pattern, so it becomes available in all EU countries. I am keeping tabs on the situation and am exceedingly frustrated that not all you lovely people can buy the pattern straight away. Maybe an excuse to go stash-diving or plan colour combinations?

Stay tuned for colour combination suggestions from Old Maiden Aunt Yarns. If you are planning on going to the Edinburgh Festival, you will want to stay tuned to learn why knitting a Byatt shawl might be a good idea. I did say plans were afoot, non?

Introducing Byatt

The first pattern in my Authors and Artists series is called Byatt. It is an asymmetrical shawl that starts with just one stitch. Most of the shawl is knitted in garter stitch and it uses two colours of hand-dyed 4ply sock yarn. You never work more than one colour at any time, as the braided effect is obtained using a slip-stitch pattern. Byatt is finished off with a lacy edge in the contrast colour and a picot cast-off.

Hand on heart, I knitted most of Byatt during pub quizzes and knit nights. I found it a very soothing, relaxing knit - yet it looks quite complex when it is done. I chose to work with Old Maiden Aunt merino 4ply as I was after depth of colour and excellent drape. Several people had asked me to design a shawl that used more than one skein of hand-dyed sock yarn, and I was happy to comply.

The combination of a deep blue-grey main colour and a coppery brown contrast is not an accident. This shawl takes its name from the British novelist A.S. Byatt whose books are not just full of beautiful, rich details but are also beautifully designed. I shall write more about Byatt (the novelist) when Byatt (the shawl pattern) is released tomorrow.

I have had a very rough week, but I am very happy to say that working with some most excellent collaborators on this project has really made a difference. It is so incredibly nice when people come together in an organic way and all get aboard my rather vague concept of "contemporary pomo Victoriana but in a minimalist way". (Sometimes I wish I was more of a cupcake hat designer, but you cannot change who you are.)

More pictures and details and general Byatt enthusiasm tomorrow. Tomorrow!

Sneak Peek

Yesterday we went to Glasgow's Pollok Park to take in some much needed daylight. We also had a photo shoot of the first design in the Authors & Artist series. The pattern is off to its technical editor this week and I hope to release it this week (fingers crossed). I love how the photo shoot turned out and I cannot wait to share more photos with you. The new design is inspired by one of my favourite authors - someone whose work has kept me company for twenty years (or thereabouts). It is all about layers, depth, and richness of thoughts and emotions.

If you are heading to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival, you'll be able to see the shawl on the Old Maiden Aunt stall as it is knitted in two skeins of OMA merino 4ply. Lilith and I are also putting some suggested colour combinations together as we know many of you can feel rather overwhelmed when faced with all of Lilith's colours.

But more on all this when my excellent tech editor gives me the thumbs up!

Looking Forward to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival - pt 1

Outside is dreary: slushy snow, temperatures hovering around zero, the sky is dull, and we have precious little natural light. I am wearing enough layers to make me feel like the Michelin Man. Of course thoughts turn towards The Good Things Ahead. While I love February (it is my birthday month - more on that later!), I am really, really looking forward to March and the Edinburgh Yarn Festival.

Last time EYF happened, it was really quite special. The warm reception from the knitting community took everybody by surprise: the venue was packed, the vendors were shell-shocked, the on-site cafe couldn't cope, and the teachers (of which I was one) were taken aback by the interest. The organisers took time off to reassess and then came up with EYF 2015 which is bigger in every way imaginable. The venue has changed to the Corn Exchange, the vendors list has more than doubled, the teaching line-up is astounding (and I am there too), there is the innovative  Podcast Lounge  and there are other things happening which I cannot tell you about just yet. So, basically, it is bigger and bolder than before.

But the yarny events calendar is so full, I hear you cry.

Here's what makes EYF different: it is rooted in a very specific community and despite all the changes/growth, it keeps that community spirit. Central Scotland is a hotspot if you like your 21st century knitting. So many innovative designers and dyers live here - people who inspire and energise the online community every single day. I am big believer in creative clusters and we definitely have one right here. At the same time we are also fortunate to live with a strong Scottish textile heritage and knitting tradition(s). The first EYF fed off the marvellous synergy and I know this has continued with the 2015 event. It is more than just a place where we can buy gorgeous yarn - it is going to be inspiring, empowering, thought-provoking and damn fun.

Quite apart from my own plans, I am really looking forward to catching up with exciting vendors. I met The Border Mill at the last EYF and they have such a great story to tell. I cannot wait to see how they've expanded and what products they are bringing to the festival. Midwinter Yarns is a company close to my heart. Estelle is a fellow Scandinavian whose focus is to bring fabulous Scandinavian yarns to Britain. The Gotland DK is especially beautiful. A long-time favourite of mine, Eden Cottage Yarns will be bringing their new Bletchley-inspired collection with them. I hope to catch up with its designer Joanne Scrace during the festival. Weftblown is an innovative weaving company from the Scottish West Coast whose work is rooted in weather systems and landscapes. I have seen a tiny bit of Ange's work and am looking forward to learning more. And, as always, I am looking forward to catching up with dear friends (many of which are vendors, so I'll be waving in passing).

And now for the big question: what shall I knit? You may be interested to know that I have some design plans up my sleeve. That's for the next post..