In-the-round or back-and-forth?

Pretty yarn to make you smile!

I’ve been wanting to write about this for quite a while, and I was just reminded of it again today so I thought I’d put it out here to see what you all think.

As a knitter, do you prefer to knit in the round (circularly) or flat (back-and-forth)? This is one of those questions that always prompts an outpouring of adamant opinions on knitting message boards, and the discussion always frustrates the designer part of me.

There are those who insist they “avoid seaming like the plague”, and will reject a pattern outright unless it’s designed to be knitted in the round.  There must be people who prefer flat knitting to circular too, but they aren’t as vocal about it…if they really exist.

So I wanted to talk a bit about the pros and cons of each method, realizing that many of these are subjective and your opinions may vary.  In fact, I revised my original draft of this article because it came off as a bit judgmental, and that’s not what I’m going for here.  I DO have opinions as to which is “better”, but they’re my own opinions.  Ok? Alright, here we go.

Circular knitting benefits:

• It can be faster for some types of projects.
• It’s easier to maintain your gauge throughout the project, especially for stockinette stitch projects.
• It reduces the need for seaming, usually on the sides of the garment.
• It makes stranded colorwork much easier to work.

Circular knitting disadvantages:

• Once you get to the armholes on a garment, you’ll be required to manage a bulkier piece of knitting in your lap, flipping it over dozens of times as you work the top portion back and forth.
• Your gauge can be significantly different on the parts where you knit back and forth vs. where you knitted in the round (this is very common, and may or may not be noticeable).
• Sometimes the side seam can be an important structural element of the garment, so if you omit it by working in the round you risk getting an end product that doesn’t fit as well as it should.

Flat knitting benefits:

• Garments are worked in pieces, meaning that you’re only working with small amounts of fabric at once.
• If you make a mistake and have to frog your knitting, you’re ripping out fewer stitches.
• Possibly makes it easier to block your garment in pieces before sewing them all together.

Flat knitting disadvantages:

• It’s harder (for most people) to maintain a consistent gauge when knitting this way. It’s most noticeable on stockinette fabric because of the differences between knit and purl stitches.
• You have to sew the pieces of your garment together at the end.

So those seem pretty clear-cut to me, but give me a shout in the comments if you have more to add to any of them. Ok, here comes my opinion.

Let’s say you’re knitting a vest in the round. You happily work around and around up to the armholes very quickly.  Then you have to either use steeks (eeks!) for the neckline and armholes so you can continue in the round (I don’t mind steeks myself, but this isn’t meant to discuss the steek issue…), or divide the vest into front and back and work those parts back and forth (i.e., flat). Sounds easy enough, right? But my problem with that is that now you have to keep flipping the entire vest over on your lap dozens of times as you work each row. Doesn’t this bother any of you I-only-knit-circularly knitters? It drives me nuts!

Vertigo Vest, worked in the round

As a designer who is very much aware of this issue, I’m sometimes conflicted when I’m deciding whether or not to write the pattern in-the-round or flat.  Sometimes it’s dictated by the design, as it was with my Bias Baby Cardigan, or Radiance Vest, which both make use of bias panels and couldn’t be worked circularly to achieve the look I wanted.  But in the case of, say, the Breath of Fresh Air Vest, it could be worked either way.   I chose to write it for flat knitting with side seaming because the yarn was rather heavy and I couldn’t imagine having to flip it over many times on my lap once I got to the armholes.  (But I know quite a few people have worked it in the round anyway, to avoid having to work those side seams.) With my Vertigo Vest, on the other hand, I wrote the pattern to be worked in the round so it would be easier to work the colorwork portion.

I know this probably won’t change anyone’s opinion, but I thought it might help to be aware of some of the pros and cons of each method.  In MY perfect world, all knitters would be eager to learn new skills so they could knit any project they wanted to, without regard to how it’s constructed. But I have to remind myself that not everyone comes to knitting for the same reasons, and each of us is entitled to enjoy our craft in the way we want.  But one of the main reasons I personally enjoy knitting so much is that there’s always something new to learn.  But YOU may love knitting because you can knit the same garter stitch scarf pattern over and over without thinking about it much.  You may not want to try different techniques, and that’s fine if it makes YOU happy.  Knitting serves many different purposes in our lives, and they’re all equally valid.

I’m starting to get a bit off-topic here, so I think this is enough for today.  As Robert Palmer sang, “It takes every kinda people to make the world go round.” We knitters are as diverse as they come, despite stereotypes that persist among people who don’t know about our awesome fiber world.  (The muggles, if you will.) So we are circular knitters, we are flat knitters, we’re scarf-only knitters and we’re free-pattern-only knitters too (ouch). Without all of us interacting in the ways we do on message boards, knitting retreats, and fiber festivals, this would be a much less interesting world, wouldn’t it?

New Designs

To thank those of you who’ve read this far, here are two new designs that’ll be published at KnittingMatters.com in the next few days…hope you like them.  (P.S. They’re worked in the round.)

Dotty Handwarmers

Roller Coaster Stripes

Thinking out loud

Gratuitous feel-good picture...do you feel it?

I’ve been trying to convince myself to submit some designs to the magazines, and there are several submission deadlines coming up in the next week or two.  I’ve got a few great possibilities that would work for the themes that are scheduled for each particular issue, but I’m still hesitating.

The main reason I’m dragging my feet is because I know that if I submit these designs, I’ll then have to keep them under wraps as I wait (and wait…) to see if they’re accepted for publication.  I’m not good at waiting.  Really NOT good.  When I get inspired by a new design, I want to publish it NOW.

And, as I’ve always self-published my designs so far, I’ve become accustomed to working on my own timeline too.  But I can deal with that if I have to.

And lastly, I chafe at the idea of giving up control of how my design is initially presented to the knitting world. From talking to other designers who have been published in the mags, I know that the editorial staff often dictates the yarn you use, as well as the colors. I’m sure they usually choose well, but I’ve seen some atrocious color choices in some cases. (Not that I’m perfect in that area either, but at least if I make a poor color choice, it’s my mistake.)

Then I ask myself, what are the pros of being published in a mag? Well, first there’s the payment. In most cases anywhere from $50 up to a few hundred dollars.  That’s nice, but in many cases I can make more than that on a pattern in the first year or two after I self-publish it.

Another positive aspect of being published in a mag would be that my design and my name will be in a mag that many knitters will save for years and look through many times. So it’s a form of advertising actually, and to a much larger audience than I can get on my own.  You can’t really put a value on that all-important name recognition factor, and that’s the one thing that keeps nagging at me to go ahead and do these submissions.  Designs that are published in magazines tend to get more exposure on Ravelry too, as more people post their projects for others to see. And if the mag is a “free” one, like Knitty, the sky’s the limit when it comes to a pattern taking off in popularity.  I’m pretty good at marketing, but I can’t match that.

Reading back over this now, I can see that I need to get over my control freak-ishness if I’m going to do this.  So, off to the shower (just finished my workout – yay!), where I can mull it all over.  Warm water should help me make a decision, don’t you think?

Before I go, just want to say something to Mother Nature: Please can you nudge the storm so we don’t get the predicted 6-10 inches of snow tomorrow night? Pretty please? I recycle…..

Breakfast at Chickadee’s

This little guy was filling his tummy at our suet cake today. I also got some shots of a cardinal, and a couple of woodpeckers, but this was one of the few “shareable quality” pics that came out of my photo session today. Yep, I took over 100 pics and this is what I got. I can’t wait till the weather warms up so all of my photos won’t be through a window!

(As usual, clicking the picture will take you to my Flickr Photostream, where you can see the largest version of the pic by clicking “All sizes” just above the picture.  And if you’ve never seen the hairs on a bird’s chin, you might want to check it out!)

UPDATE: After I posted this I was informed by my friend Tam that this is a nuthatch. Duh, I used to know the difference between chickadees and nuthatches…must have had a senior moment. (I hate those senior moments.)  So I stand corrected, but I’m keeping the title ’cause I like it!

Just LOOK at this picture I just took!

This little guy kept looking in the window at us, so we put out a pile of peanuts for him. Mickey and I watched him for about 20 minutes as he grabbed each peanut and ran. Then he started sitting still to eat them, and I grabbed my telephoto lens and started shooting. I just love this! (Click on it to see it even bigger with all the gorgeous details.)

And I even got a good closeup of Mickey too.

Today’s treadmill reading

(Oh yeah, there’s knitting content at the bottom of this post…)

First, I want to say “You Go Girl!” to myself for getting on the treadmill again.  Now I can go through the rest of my day without that nagging guilt about being a slug at the computer for hours on end.  It feels great!

Now on to today’s treadmill reading material. This is another one pulled from the bottom shelf of my studio bookshelves, behind a basket of knitting needles and a yarn swift. But don’t let that seemingly bad location fool you, this is a fantastic book.  It’s called “The Magic of Thinking Big” by David J. Schwartz. I have the 1965 edition, but I think the latest revision is from 1987.  Before I tell you why it’s so awesome, look at these pics of my personal copy and see if you can tell if I’ve used this book much:

I can’t remember when I first acquired this book, but it was most likely in the late 80’s or early 90’s when I was devouring self-help books like Oreos. I was apparently in love with my blue highlighter back then too, because almost every page is covered in blue lines.

Anyway, as I skimmed through it today during my 30 minutes on the treadmill, my mind was working overtime and I kept jumping off the treadmill to type out great ideas on my computer. I keep a text document opened on my desktop for quickly writing down stuff like that before it evaporates into the ether of my mind. So I’m not sure if it was the content of this book or the stimulation of exercise (or the combination) but I’ve got some new and really fun ideas to play with for my business now.

One page had the corner folded down, so the book automatically opened to that page several times. I took that as a hint to read it. It was the first page of a chapter entitled, “Manage Your Environment. Go First Class”. In it, Dr. Schwartz talks about how “mind food” influences our habits, attitudes, and personality. He says, “The mind reflects what its environment feeds it just as surely as the body reflects the food you feed it.” This leads him to a discussion of how important it is to make sure you live in a first-class environment: Surround yourself with people who want you to succeed and are not jealous when you do, make friends with a variety of people with different interests and views from your own, and other ways to “guard your psychological environment.”

There’s also a section where he emphasizes the importance of believing in yourself and not allowing that little negative voice in your head to talk to you. This has always been tough for me.  As a child and teenager I  had my mom’s constant praise and encouragement (you’re so smart, you’re so pretty, etc), but once I moved away from home that began to change. I’m not sure why I have difficulty believing in myself without external validation from others, but it is what it is.  Except for occasional spurts of confidence and optimism,  I’ve got rather low self-esteem and a lack of self-confidence.  Those things sometimes cause me to distance myself from friends as I struggle with self-doubt and fears. I hate that part of my life, and if I could change anything about myself it would be to have confidence and self-esteem every single day.  I’m still working on improving those things, though, so there’s still hope for me!

Anyway, I know a cynic might think that all self-help and motivational books are the same, and to some degree that could be true, but for some reason this particular book always affects me strongly. I think that’s reason enough to bring it back up to one of the top shelves for a while, don’t you?

Um, isn’t this a KNITTING blog?

Oh yeah, I should talk about what’s going on in that part of my world too, huh? Let’s see…  I just gave away the first monthly Sophie’s Choice Award in my Ravelry group, and the winner chose a gift certificate to Webs.  Lucky girl!  (That reminds me that I still have to send those hat patterns to Webs for their online store…yikes!) My two new hat patterns are selling well, and I’ve got another hat and a pair of handwarmers to be published this month.  I’m also trying hard to get my act together to submit a design or two for the fall magazines, but I’m running out of time.  I’ve also opened a Cafe Press store with some cool designs featuring Sophie the Blue Sheep.  I don’t know if people will like them enough to buy the t-shirts, travel mugs, or other stuff, but it was fun to do.

Happy 5th anniversary girls!!

(I’ll get to the title reference further down, but first this–)

Today I had enough self-discipline to get on the treadmill (yay!), but didn’t want to go in the next room and get my Kindle so I’d have reading material.  I think I was afraid that if I went into the other room I’d get distracted and never get back to the treadmill. Happens all the time….

Anyway….so I scanned the bookshelves in my studio (that’s where the treadmill is), and picked up a book I’d purchased when it first came out but for some reason never finished reading.  (Yes, apparently I got distracted by something else shiny and new….sigh). But today I decided to read it while I walked on the treadmill.  The book is called “Changing Patterns.”  It’s written by a two-woman team, Daena Giardella and Wren Ross.  The second half of the book is the part I was most interested in — it’s about using knitting as a form of meditation to enhance the power of the creative process.

The author talks about tangled yarn as a metaphor for difficulties in life, and says that how you approach a tangle in your yarn can reflect on how you deal with life’s problems. Do you tug at it, making it tighter? Or do you patiently loosen it until it comes undone? There’s a whole chapter on the symbolism of knots, and another about the psychology of “start-itis”. There’s talk of the messiness of creativity and how to ignore your inner critic. I find it all fascinating.

But the reason I mention this book is that while I was thumbing through it today I noticed some mentions of how knitting builds community and inspires people to bond over fiber. And it reminded me that this week just happens to be the 5-year anniversary of my weekly knitting group (we call ourselves the BG’s…long story). We started meeting every Thursday night back in February of 2005.  We connected in a Yahoo group for Michigan knitters looking for local friends to knit with.  We started meeting at a Borders coffee shop and seemed to hit it off right away.  We set up a private email group so we could chat during the week about meeting locations and all sorts of “life stuff”. There have been a few members who’ve come and gone over the years, but the core group continues to meet (almost) every Thursday night.  Some of us show up more regularly than others (I personally tend to go through anti-social periods and don’t show up for a few weeks at a time…and I always regret what I missed.) We have an annual holiday party at Tam’s house, and an anniversary party usually hosted by Sharon.  Some of us have gone to knitting events together and made road trips to yarn stores. We’ve celebrated new babies and grandbabies, supported each other through hard times, and enjoyed sharing our love of yarn and knitting. I love the BG’s and am so glad that I’ve been able to be friends with all of them for so long.  It really enriches my enjoyment of my craft to be able to share it with friends who love it as much as I do.  And not only that, but the girls in our group are all interesting, unique, and strong.  I’m lucky to know them!

So, in honor of our 5-year anniversary, I wanted to tell each of the girls what they mean to me…sort of a Valentine to my BG’s. But I don’t want to violate their privacy by identifying them on my blog, so I’m just using their first names here.  They know who they are….

Sharon — I always feel happy just seeing her smiling face. She’s my strongest supporter in difficult times, willing to overlook my weaknesses and tell me I’m ok the way I am.  And she’s also a very inspirational knitter, whipping out intricate lace, entrelac, domino knitting, and much more.

Elaine – She’s Sharon’s sister and has only been coming to the group for a couple of years (right?). But I feel like she’s my sister too, and I love her sense of humor, determination, and strength. And her beautiful daughter Sarah (who knits with us sometimes) is proof of what a wonderful Mom she’s been under trying circumstances.

Tam – Tam is our group caregiver, the one who’s always ready to make you a pot of soup when you need it. She puts her heart and soul into throwing us a fantastic holiday party every December, baking things that have us drooling by mid-November. (If she ever stops serving that brie, I think we’ll have an uprising.) Despite being the youngest of all of us, Tam takes care of everyone.

Trish – Trish has always inspired me as a fellow designer and someone who has creativity oozing out of her pores. And now that she’s a grandma, her huge love for her precious granddaughter is inspiring as well. That’s one well-loved baby, let me tell you.

Linda – Linda, as well as having a great sense of humor, is fun to be around because of her easy laugh and calm demeanor. And she seems to “get” me, which is a rare pleasure for me. And whenever we have a baby visit our group, Linda is the one the baby wants to be with, hands down. I find that so sweet.

Debbie – Debbie has a laugh to beat all laughs, and you can’t help but feel happy around her. But I also admire her lack of fear about speaking her mind, and I love to hear the latest story about her escapades.  Oh, and did I mention that she’s a fabulous professional photographer?

Debi – Although Debi has known Trish for ages, she only joined our group recently (maybe a year ago?). She’s a prolific knitter who actually wears sweaters she has knitted — imagine that! Debi has also been very supportive of me and has even knitted one of my patterns (which makes me SO happy).

Clare - We don’t get to see Clare as often as we’d like because she’s another busy mom.  But when she shows up she’s the life of the party, always smiling and warm and ready with another great story.  She’s one of those people that makes you feel like you’ve known her your whole life….she’s probably never met a stranger in her life!  And… I love to watch her knit.

Maureen - Oh how we miss Maureen. A few years ago she married and moved a bit too far away to come to our weekly gatherings. Now that she’s the mother of a young child, her life is really busy and we don’t see her much.  Luckily we get to keep up with her on Facebook, seeing pictures as her daughter grows into a little girl, and laughing at Maureen’s witty posts. (I automatically love someone who can make me laugh.)

Those little blurbs hardly do justice to their individual strengths and how much these girls have meant to my life, but I just wanted to give them all a shout out on this special occasion. Hugs to you girls, and thanks for being my friends!

New yarn and more biz-talk

O-Wool Legacy (bulky in pink and dk in greens)

Look what arrived in my mailbox yesterday…some O-Wool Legacy! The 2 shades of green are the dk weight, and they’re going to become a new handwarmer design. The pink shade (Desert Blush) is the bulky weight, and it will be a new hat.

I always feel so virtuous when I knit with O-Wool. (You know, ’cause it’s organic…) I know some people have turned away from it after feeling it in a shop and deciding that it feels too rough in the skein, but those people are making a mistake, IMHO. True,  it’s not the softest yarn “in the skein”, but just wait till you wash it the first time…nice!  And I’m happy to see that Vermont Organic Fiber Co, the producer of O-Wool, continues to add more colors to their yarn lines.  That should give us more inspiration, eh?

My cute fuzzy black sheep stitch marker

I forgot to show you my newest stitch markers, given to me by my friend Deb in our knitting group gift exchange this year.  There are three white ones and this little black one with blue eyes.  Isn’t he adorable? I forget the name of the shop on Etsy where she bought them…I’ll have to ask her again.

Update on the Indie Designer’s Conundrum

Since I wrote about my plans to change the direction of my business earlier this month, I took advantage of my hyper-motivated state and got right to work.  I’ve set up a Knitting Matters support group on Ravelry where I’ve started connecting to those of you who knit my patterns. I’m giving away monthly prizes too, so check it out here if you want to win something.

I’m also in the midst of a major overhaul of my website right now, updating my shopping cart and reorganizing some of the resource pages, etc.  Since I do all of my website coding manually with my limited skills, I know it takes me longer to do some of these updates than it would take someone who has current skills.  I taught myself how to write HTML from the book by Liz Castro (it’s fantastic!), but that was about 5 years ago. I know HTML has changed since then, and there are other advanced things I’d like to be able to do (like set up a database for searching patterns by yarn weight, etc.), but I’m plodding along for now at my own pace. Heck, I’m exceedingly proud that I can make my own imagemaps and am slowly getting more proficient at using Photoshop to make my own graphics…(that’s been a long, hard learning curve, let me tell you). Overall I’m happy with my website, even though I know it’s far from perfect. And I get a great sense of accomplishment when I finally upload all the changed files and see them go live online — it’s cool!

Giddy

Thirdly, I’ve released 2 hat patterns – Giddy and Cupid’s Arrow. You can buy them on Ravelry right now, and on my website as soon as I upload the revised files (probably/hopefully on Sunday). The Cupid’s Arrow hat is available at a special introductory price of only $3.00 through Valentine’s Day, so you might want to grab it now, even if you don’t plan to make it in red or pink! Both of these hats use about one skein of worsted weight yarn too, so you probably have stash yarn you can use.

Cupid's Arrow, just in time for Valentine's Day gifting!

And last but not least, a picture of my baby Mickey, just because he happened to sit still long enough in good lighting to snap a nice pic. Isn’t he a good looking boy?

My shadow -- I call him puppy-kitty because he follows me around like a dog.

Eating healthier, for a change

Before I talk about the great new recipes I tried last week, I want to say how glad I was to get such wonderful feedback on my previous post about the new direction I’m taking my Knitting Matters pattern company. Now that’s how the blogging experience should be — interactive! Thanks for all who put their 2 cents in, and I’d love to continue that conversation if anyone else is interested.

Now on to the food….

When I picked up the book Eating Animals last month, I hoped it would motivate me to once again cut meat out of my diet.  I knew I’d be reading some awful details of how animals are “farmed” (warehoused is a more apt word…) and butchered, and boy was I right.  So many times I wanted to stop reading the disgusting parts, but I forced myself to finish it. And immediately started searching for some new meatless meal recipes.  When I was vegetarian before (almost 15 years ago), I tended to eat lots of potatoes, beans, and cheese. All good foods, but I know I need more variety if I have a hope of sticking to a meatless diet.

I found a couple tofu dishes that sounded good (on SparkPeople.com), so printed them out and added the ingredients to my grocery list. I also wanted to try a roasted cauliflower recipe I’d read about on Crazy Aunt Purl’s fantastic blog.

All 3 of the new dishes I tried were absolutely fantastic, and it actually wasn’t as bad as I’d thought to eat whole meals based on tofu. I’ve always liked tofu, but have usually eaten smaller amounts of it in any one meal.

This is Mandarin Ginger Tofu:

The orange juice really gives it a kick!

And this is Chili Lime Tofu

Chili Lime Tofu

I substituted cayenne pepper for the chili flakes.  Turned out yummy! And Popeye would be proud of me — look at how much spinach went into these dishes:

Bring it on, Brutus!

I forgot to take a picture of the roasted cauliflower, but it should suffice to say that my husband and I practically fought over this stuff. I think it’ll become a regular meal in our house. Thanks Crazy Aunt Purl — you definitely know your comfort food! (Although I’m still not convinced by the argument for beets…ick.)

Oh, let’s not forget some knitting talk here….

I’ve got my first HAT design on the needles right now, and hope to have it published next week.  Yay!

And I’ve got 23 members in my new support group on Ravelry now, so I’m not totally humiliated.   I know this is supposed to be my “year of no fear”, but I can’t help being afraid that my little group will languish there with nobody interested enough to participate in discussions.  After all, I’m just one indie designer among the thousands on Ravelry, right?  [My self-worth is not determined by how many people join my Rav group...my self-worth is not determined by how many people join my Rav group...my self-worth is not determined by how many people join my Rav group....]

The Indie Designer’s Conundrum

As the new year begins, I’ve once again been thinking about my business model and whether it should be revised to keep pace with changing times. (It seems I’m always thinking about this issue….things change so quickly nowadays!)  And my motto for 2010 is “Have No Fear”, so I have to step up and be brave.

[Before I go further, here's a little background on my current business model so you'll know where I'm coming from as I write this. For the past few years I've been self-publishing my Knitting Matters pattern line and selling the printed patterns to local yarn shops across the US.  My full pattern line is currently sold in downloadable format by Webs as well.]

While keeping in mind the limitations of any user-generated information resource, I rely on the forums at Ravelry.com for some of my business research. I make it a priority to try to keep up with the LYSO (Local Yarn Store Owners) and Designers forums especially. Today I came upon one interesting thread, and soon found myself following links into another thread, and another one, and so on.

What caught my attention today was talk of yet another tempting new venue for selling digital patterns online. Combine this with some other pieces of information I recently acquired, such as one designer reporting that she sells exclusively online and earns over $900 per month from that activity.  Heck, I’m not too proud to admit that I don’t come close to earning that much in an average month by selling hardcopy printed patterns to yarn shops. In fact, I have yet to make a profit at all with my business, although this year I’m projecting that to finally happen, after I take some direction-changing and cost-cutting steps.

I’ve worked hard in recent years (and yes, I think I’ve worked smart) to promote my brand name with advertising in print mags ($$$) and online, have sent (expensive) postcard mailers to yarn shops, sent out regular e-newsletters to my retailers and to consumers, have joined the major trade organization (TNNA) ($$$) and exhibited at the June trade shows for the past 2 years ($$$).  I bought a high-quality printer and spend hundreds of dollars on ink for it in a year so I can print attractive, full-color patterns ($$$).

I’ve made progress with some of these techniques, don’t get me wrong.  And I know the conventional wisdom that it takes several years to show a profit with a new business.  But it’s maddeningly slow and expensive to grow this business the way I’ve been doing it, and I think there are better ways to do it in the rapidly-changing world we live in now (as opposed to the one we lived in way back, oh let’s say 4 years ago…sheesh).  In addition to the high printing and advertising costs, I struggle with the environmental impact of printing and shipping patterns. (I especially don’t like using mountains of those stupid plastic page protectors.)

I know some of you will say, well, why not be more creative and give yarn shops a better way to display and market your patterns? I’ve tried to do that, but for some reason I can’t get much feedback from shop owners.  Sure, several shops have hosted small trunk shows featuring my garments, but they weren’t profitable events for me.  Maybe it’s just that my name isn’t enough to draw customers into a shop, or maybe it’s because the shops often don’t promote the shows well enough, I don’t know.  I guess I just don’t know how to generate enthusiasm among yarn store owners, who themselves are small business owners and are being pulled in a thousand different directions at once.  Being a one-person business myself, I feel I’m spread too thin already, so maybe I’ve just decided to back off of the marketing to yarn stores for a while and see how things shake out.

Now I know some yarn shop owners may feel slighted by this new direction, and I’m sorry about that. I may be punished for making this decision, I don’t know.  But as I said above, I’ve tried HARD to reach out to yarn shops by loaning out my model garments, and by providing merchandising tools to help sell the patterns. While those efforts worked to a degree, I find that yarn shops don’t have much incentive to actively promote my patterns over those of any other designer.  And it seems that many shop owners are buried in mountains of patterns they can’t sell already, and are reluctant to buy more. So I have a depressing image in my head of my patterns buried in bunches of 3-ring binders among thousands of others…not very encouraging.

(Aside: I know a few designers are experimenting with a business model where they allow the yarn shop to buy a license to print their patterns directly in the store, but I haven’t done it for a few reasons.  I don’t know any yarn shops that are set up to handle this type of arrangement to my satisfaction — it requires them to have a secure way of storing my digital pattern files, it requires them to have some automated way of tracking how many of each pattern they print before they have to renew their license, and it requires them to have a good quality printer.  All of which is virtually unverifiable from my end.)

And whenever I think of the relationship between a yarn shop and an independent designer, I realize how lopsided it is. Sure, I get about $3 per pattern from the shop, but the shop also gets at least that much too, PLUS the profit from the yarn they sell with the patterns. See what I mean?  Doesn’t take much to see who wins in this equation, does it? After all — if we’re honest here — the reason I’m in this business in the first place is to sell my patterns to knitters.  The reason a yarn shop buys patterns is because the patterns get their customers to buy yarn. See, my product is a tool for them to sell yarn, a store decoration if you will. A  yarn shop cares much less about selling patterns than they do about selling yarn, and I don’t blame them one bit.  They make lots more money on yarn!

And one more thing before I go. (Are you still reading this? Well bless your heart!)  Too often we independent designers are so thrilled to see our names in print or to have a yarn store place an order for patterns, that we forget that we need to make a profit at this in order to keep doing it.  Sure it feels good to have your ego stroked, but it doesn’t pay the bills. Most online sales outlets allow me to make more profit per pattern, which will give me more money to spend on pattern development, thus growing my business with less expense.  (Which means I can donate more money to Farm Sanctuary each year too!) I know I have great designs and high quality pattern instructions, and I’m determined to take charge of my destiny this year, gosh darn it! (As I was drafting this post, I came across a post by fellow indie designer Chrissy Gardiner about her struggles with this exact issue too. We must have been in each other’s heads!)

So, since the numbers seem to be telling me that I’d be better off with a more digital-focused sales model, watch for my patterns to be available in more locations online very soon.  I’m preparing to start a Ravelry group to support knitters of my patterns too, so keep an eye out for that in the next few weeks.  I’m going to spend more time trying to connect with individual knitters in person and online, because even though this is my business, I’m also a knitter and I LOVE to talk about all things knitting-related!

Your comments on this whole thing are feared welcome.  BTW, I just opened a fortune cookie that said: “Take the initiative and others will support you.”  I sure hope so!

“Picturing” my future

Near Aurora, NY

Or rather I should say, taking pictures is in my future.  Over the past decade or so I’ve become more and more interested in improving my photography skills.  I often go to local parks to take photos of trees, flowers, or wildlife.  And my husband has gotten accustomed to me asking him to turn the car around and go back so I can get a picture of a decrepit building or old barn. He’s even started to point out possible subjects for me to take pics of…I think he enjoys the pictures as much as I do.

Canon PowerShot S3 IS

But even though I have so much fun taking the pictures, and I DO get some good ones, I still keep wishing I understood the settings on my camera better and didn’t have to rely on the automatic functions all the time. A couple years ago I got a Canon PowerShot S3 IS, and I attempted to learn all its capabilities by reading the manual.  But that quickly felt overwhelming and I resigned myself to ignoring the potential of all those buttons and whistles.  Occasionally I’ll buy another digital photography book, but they quickly end up on the shelf gathering dust while I continue to use the auto shoot button and just click away.

Near Cayuga Lake, NY

Last week we got a mailing from the local community center about adult education courses for the coming months, and of course there are 2 photography courses coming up.  I want to take one of them, but the “beginner” level seems too easy, and the “intermediate” one seems too advanced.  I know I’d probably learn some things I don’t know if I took the beginner class, but I hate being in a class where they spend too much time on stuff I already know.  So, I’m stuck in my decision-making process again.  But I really really want to learn how to take better pictures.  So I’ve just spent an hour or so with a digital photography book and my camera manual, practicing with the different settings.  It feels like it’s starting to make more sense to me now, so I think I’m going to get a new tripod (my old one just refuses to stand up anymore) and set aside some time each week to practice using the aperture and shutter speed settings, etc.  I’m lusting after a telephoto lens too, especially since we just decided that we’ll be vacationing in Yellowstone National Park this summer.  I’d love to get some wildlife photos I could really be proud of, so that might be enough to motivate me to work harder at this.

Here’s a link to my favorite photos from my Flickr account in case you want to see more.

Sunlit tendrils

More About Books….

If you read my previous post you might be interested in this little update regarding my relationship with books. Remember how I said that book covers are great selling tools?  Well I was almost taken in by that today at, of all places, the grocery store!  I say almost because even though I did buy one book there (Devil’s Punchbowl by Greg Iles, one of my fave authors), I did not buy the Fern Michaels book with the pretty cover that was beside it.  I picked it up and almost put it in my cart, but then remembered what I’d just written and put it back down. Not that it didn’t sound like a good book, but I’ve just accumulated a small pile of new-to-me books to read and I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself!

Just before the grocery store I had gone to Borders to redeem my $15 in rewards and coupons, and bought several books there.  I got a couple books about Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks, a half price calendar, Everything Matters, by Ron Currie, Jr., and Eating Animals, by Jonathan Safran Foer (hoping to make another stab at eliminating meat from my diet — a good gross-out factory farming book always helps me turn away from those addictive fast food places).

I finished Fluke (by Christopher Moore) on my Kindle last night, and immediately downloaded another one of Moore’s books.  I believe I’ll be reading all of his books now — very entertaining.

When this month ends in a few days I’ll be back to writing mostly about knitting stuff, but I hope to sprinkle in some more variety like I’ve done in my last couple of posts.  It’s fun to write about other parts of my life from time to time — hope you enjoy it.

Can’t wait to see 2009 in the rear view mirror — how ’bout you?   Wishing everyone a better, brighter, and much happier New Year!!