A Colourful Frost

One of the very best things about designing and sending your pattern off into the big wide world by itself is seeing all the wonderful projects that it generates.

Following on from last weeks blog post "It Takes a Village..." social media gives an amazing ability for designers to interact with their customers and see their projects take shape.

Recently a group on Ravelry started a KAL on the theme of Hoar Frost and adopted my Hoar Frost socks as one of their chosen patterns. It is has been great fun to chat along in the thread and see so many fabulous socks spring into life.

It never fails to amaze me that the same design can look totally different when knit in different colours. The design now has 80 projects on Ravelry and it is fun to see how many knitters have chosen to use 'frosty' cool colours of blues, greys and neutrals. Others have spoken before about how certain words evoke certain colour associations (eg green - leaf/vine) and blue water/ocean/sky) which subconciously or not tends to influence our decisions when picking yarn for projects and it is a subject which I confess I find fascinating.

I have loved seeing all the 'non-frosty' colours too and picked a few that really jumped out at me just to create a fun collage. Daylight and sunshine is still in short supply here and so these socks gave me a much needed colour boost this week.

It Takes a Village...

There is a popular saying that It takes a village to raise a child.

I found myself pondering that as I sat in our local village Crafternoon the other day. We were a fairly diverse group of women ranging in age from 16 to 78 and engaged in a variety of different crafts.

We had card makers, cross stitchers, needle felters and of course, knitters. My enabling has proven very effective over the months and at least 3 ladies now permanently have a sock or two on the needles.

Conversation ranged widely during the afternoon on Christmas, holidays, crafts in general and extended to revision and learning techniques as one of our younger members is coming up to A Level exams. We talked about mind maps, bullet journalling, spider diagrams and shared our experiences of them. Afterwards her mother commented that her daughter had probably learnt more about revision techniques that afternoon than she had in her time at school and even though she (her mother) had said much the same thing, her daughter seemed more receptive to new ideas through the group than via her long suffering mum.

@Sarah Clarke, The Sheep Shop, Cambridge UK

We talked about how it takes a village...etc and I also watched as one of our older ladies (well into her 70s) sat with another teenager helping her to get her tension even as she wrestled with a particularly ambitious bit of colourwork knitting. Shared wisdom, shared experiences and knowledge all help us to grow in our craft.

I would also include social media in this category. Although it is easy to become a little overwhelmed by the constant feeds from social media platforms, there is such a profusion of knowledge, cameraderie and warmth on craft-related social media sites that it is hard not be drawn into the wonderful and vibrant online knitting community that we have.

Whether you prefer the wonders of Ravelry, the immediacy of Twitter or the visual appeal of Instagram or Pinterest, there are so many ways in which we can reach out to and be inspired by fellow crafters. Sharing experiences through knit-alongs (KALs), attending yarn festivals, joining in with hashtag events (such as #operationsockdrawer or #yearofmaking) all help to build and strengthen our community.

So, why not make 2015 your year of building your own online community? What KALs or other events are you planning to participate in? Are you going big with a year-long committment or aiming for smaller goals? Leave me a comment - I'd love to know.

And if you haven't already done so, please do join me on the various social media streams. Just follow the links in the sidebar.

Year of the Sock

A belated happy New year to you all

New Years Day in Buttermere

My new year started with a wet, windy and wonderful walk around Buttermere in the Lake District, battling the elements and having fun with the family.

A lovely, chilled out time was had by all with plenty of knitting and outdoor activities

A sunny day in Borrowdale

Lots of sock knitting in particular was done, despite me leaving all my beloved long circular needles at home. But even with DPNs I managed to come away with the makings of a lot more sock designs.

I am aiming to knit 15 pairs of socks in 2015 with 12 of them being my own designs. I have a cunning plan to base some of them on walks we did in the Lake District recently. With 3 or 4 socks per collection (or walk) they will guide you through some of the wonderful scenery on offer, and of course like all good country walks, will end in a sock named for a local pub :)

The first 2 pairs are on the needles and will be ready for testing soon. So dig out your walking boots and waterproofs (it isn't called the Lake District for nothing) and get ready to join me on Walks in the Lakes - Part 1.

Word of the month project 2015

Rather than going for a word to inspire me in 2015 I have decided to go with a specific word for each month. A year is a heck of a long time and last year I felt that the word I chose at the beginning of the year didn't really fit later on.

Word of the month:Indulge

So this year I will pick a word each month to give me focus and help to inspire me.

As January can be a cold, bleak month here in the northern hemisphere I have decided to be kind to myself and to indulge a little. Like most people I have grand plans involving getting more sleep, drinking less coffee etc but I can also find ways to indulge myself a little and remember that I deserve to be treated kindly too.

I am using the hash tags #wordofthemonth and #janindulge on Instagram and Twitter and will be posting random images and snippets. I'd love it if you would like to join in too - either here or via social media. And at the end of each month I will randomly select one or two posts to receive a free pattern or too as a thank you for joining in.

2015: Plotting and planning (Part II)

Following on from last weeks article on my bullet journal plans, my thoughts naturally turn to the projects that will require organisation and planning in 2015.

I am by nature a "jump in with both feet" kind of gal - and all to often my initial enthusiasm for a new shiny project wanes. With this in mind I am keeping the 2015 plans minimal but with an emphasis on expanding my creativity.

As a scientist by training I am analytical and methodical but the opportunities for creativity are distinctly lacking in my everday life. One of the things which I have so much enjoyed about growing my design and teaching business is that I can explore new ideas in creative and imaginative ways.

I love the idea of having a word for the year - something to give me focus and direction - and I have spent some time working on this and what I might choose. It might just be me but I find the idea of picking just 1 word quite daunting. What if things change? What if I move in a different direction? What if I get bored with that word?

With this in mind I have decided to have a word for each month. To me, this seems more achievable and it gives me the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances. I will be posting my "Word of the Month" on the blog and also my various social media - please do feel free to join in if you'd like to.

2015: Plotting and Planning (Part I)

It is that time of year when my thoughts inevitably turn to the new year and things I would like to do differently - or not - as the case may be.

I started using a Bullet Journal back in April 2014 (check) and so far have got through 2 Moleskine notebooks. I have to admit to tapering off slightly in Oct/Nov this year and I did briefly dally with printable templates and electronic systems such as Any Do and Tick Tick.

 

Moleskine Journals, ready for 2015

 

Ultimately I came back to the simplicity of good old pen and paper. There is something very grounding about doing a monthly plan and reviewing the previous months entries. I am a chronic procrastinator and can happily put some, seemingly trivial, task off for months at a time. The act of reviewing previous entries and seeing all the unchecked boxes - and having to write the tasks out again is a powerful reminder to adopt the Nike principle and "Just Do It".

Fortunately for me, my DH splurged on a few Moleskine notebooks recently before going back to his digital system, so I have a two shiny new journals to pick from. I'm not quite at the end of Bullet Journal No.2 but I think it is only right than 2015 should start with a new journal, don't you?

The challenge of the "day per page" approach is that if I'm going to use the Bullet Journal I have to use it for everything - home life, domestic stuff, design work, patterns, ideas, pending projects, daily writings/gratitudes. Things can get crowded in there. I am pretty bad at the discipline of indexing too, so things can get messy..and then I can't find things... you get the picture.

Again, I think the principle of "Just Do It" applies here and I just have to remind myself as part of my weekly schedule to update my index as it really does make my life easier as the month progresses.

 

So, I have the journals ready. I just need to think about my goals for 2015 now.

How the EU VAT changes will affect me

 Along with the UK's many other micro businesses I have spent the last few weeks quietly contemplating the potential impact of the proposed changes to EU tax law on my own business.

I'm not going to rehash what has been excellently written about elsewhere. For great background pieces on this please see:

Words that change the world

The Huffington Post

What is immediately obvious from the whole sorry saga is that changes for very small creative businesses are essential in order to be compliant by the 1st January 2015 deadline.

As a small and newly created business I am fortunate that the bulk of my current sales are via the wonders of Ravelry. Those same wonders have partnered up with the UK company Love Knitting and come up with a workable solution for UK based sellers of digital patterns. It is still a work in progress but it represents a very welcome and emminently practical solution.

I also sell a smaller number of patterns through Patternfish and thankfully, their proactive and helpful approach means that I am able to continue with this.

Craftsy is the third platform on which I sell patterns and at the time of writing, they have sadly been unable to address the concerns of UK vendors regarding this issue. It is therefore, with regret, that I will be closing my designer account with Craftsy with immediate effect.

There will inevitably be an increase in transaction fees associated with the new system of pattern sales and it is regrettable that this will make UK pattern designers less competitive than those in other countries. The majority of my sock patterns sell at £3 (equivalent to 4.70$ or 3.8 euro). To raise the price much further risks losing sales to other non UK designers and as a newish designer trying to raise my online presence I feel that this is a risk I cannot take at present.

I will therefore be holding my pattern prices at their current level for now and will be reviewing the issue after the first quarter of 2015.

That takes care of existing pattern sales. My plan moving forward into next year was to extend my pattern sales further - offering them for sale on my own website and possibly also through other third-party sites such as Shopify for Facebook. This aspect of my business plan will now be on hold for the next 3-4 months whilst I take time to assess the impact of the new changes and also wait to see whether common sense prevails and the HMRC finds a workable solution - I won't be holding my breath on this one. Maybe I'm an optimist but I remain hopeful that through the power of social media the many and varied voices within the UK's creative industries can bring pressure to bear on the decision makers involved.