Not me, I’m a very long way from wanting or being able to afford that! But a few eBooks will be soon.

Front cover of the Going Straight eBook

Front cover of the Bambeanies eBook

As I’ve been reviewing every single pattern and eBook over the last couple of years, rebuilding the business from the bottom up, I’ve been preparing to retire a number of patterns and eBooks. Some of those single patterns have become free patterns - such as Urchin Cap and Trenza - and others will simply be removed from sale, especially if they’re part of a collection.

Most of the single patterns that I planned to retire have been already, and it’s possible going forward there’ll be a few more - if I can convert them to free patterns all the better, but I won’t promise that as I’ll review each one of an individual basis.

What I want to talk about today is the eBooks that will be retiring.

Front cover of the Wee Woolly Toppers eBook

Front cover of the Hatopia eBook

These 4 eBooks - Going Straight, Bambeanies, Wee Woolly Toppers and Hatopia - will be retiring within the next month.

It feels quite monumental, considering that GoingStraight was my very first book, and has been revised and updated more times than any other! And Wee Woolly Toppers was my second book, with the designs developed just after Aran was born.

There’s a few reasons for saying goodbye to them, but the biggest one is that going forward, with the new website, I not only want to present the products that I’m proudest of - both in a design and photography sense - but also ensure each product makes sense with the new business structure that we’ve been working on back-end. There’s a lot of things I’ve needed to simplify in terms of the new database, pattern and eBook formats and layout, ISBNs, pricing and much more. And it’s with this in mind I’ve decided it’s time to say cheerio to these collections.

This doesn’t mean that everyone’s free to share the copies they have - they are still my copyright and I will still defend that! I know that it’s no fun running across a pattern that you like only to find it’s no longer available. And that’s why, where possible, I’m keeping as many of the single patterns within these eBooks available. The most popular patterns in Going Straight were revisited in GS The Remixes for example. A number from Hatopia are now free, or otherwise still available as singles.

With this is mind, I wanted to give everyone plenty of warning that they’re going to be retired! I will have a retirement sale a little nearer the time, and if you’re a member of The Woolly Hat Society you’ll not only hear about the sale first, but also get a deeper member-exclusive discount - if you’ve not signed up already, it’s free to join.

Going forward, all new eBooks will be in the same format as the recent collections from Circled onwards - I really like this zine-like feel and layout, and it works well for me in a few ways. It works in print and print wholesale as well as digitally - they’ve a collectable feel about them and folks seem to enjoy that. Sales wise their figures are stronger and I think that’s because I can deep dive and get much better designs when I’m focussing around a technique or construction method, compared to trying to achieve 10 or 20 designs under a lose theme. And in turn, I’ve noticed knitters are keener to knit through them all, completing most or even the whole collection! Overall, I’m delivering much better designs, much better books and eBooks with better tutorials and layout these days, and this new format has a lot to do with that. Not that it’s really new any more, it’s been just over 5 years now since Circled was published? Where does the time go!

Anyhows, keep your eye out for a newsletter in the next couple of weeks - this will be the last chance to get these eBooks, I’m not likely to bring any of them back.

Posted
AuthorWoolly Wormhead
CategoriesBooks

Thanks to everyone who took advantage of the special budget booster sale, the website build is underway with the new developer!

It’s been incredibly busy back-end as the new build gets underway. I’ve managed to get back some of the deposit paid to the previous developer, and I’m relieved that things there have ended amicably.

Since signing with the new developer, we’ve had several meetings about needs and requirements, and I have learnt so much! We’re getting regular updates to our Slack group and being kept in the loop about everything. That communication is going a long way to reassure us and honestly, all of us involved in the project management and data juggling that’s been quietly ticking away for the last two and a half years are feeling the relief.

The build is estimated to take 3 to 6 months, and that includes testing, so all being well we should be live for the coming winter season in the northern hemisphere!

I am SO looking forward to having closure on this. It’s dragged on way too long, occupied way too much brain space.

And honestly, I can’t wait for you to have a new site to use! To have access to hundreds of translated patterns - Czech is all done, Italian a good way through and French making progress! And all the reformatted patterns with their shiny new tutorials and download links - we’ve put an incredible amount of work into this, into updating the business and patterns, and we’ve not been able to shre much of it yet. I am seriously looking forward to getting all of this live. Once that’s done, I can dive back into getting select patterns ready for print distribution and start working on more large print and screen-reader accessible patterns.

And then, maybe then, I’ll have enough bandwidth left to start working on some new designs. Things are finally starting to look up.

Posted
AuthorWoolly Wormhead
CategoriesNew Website

It’s been a few months since my last update on the progress for the new website. You can read it here, so I won’t repeat it all! You can also learn more about the new website via the blog categories and read the website aims here.

After much thought and discussion, I decided to continue with the original developer despite all the delays. Some progress had been made, and with the budget concerns and my own personal challenges, it made sense to try and move forward. Until it didn’t. As I said before, this is nothing malicious, no intent to string us along. But all said and done, we've been left hanging again.

To be totally honest, I'm gutted that we’ve reached this point and there still isn’t a shiny new website. Everyone in the team has worked hard to try and get this done, whether it be yet more project management meetings or organising and reorganising the pattern data. I've worked incredibly hard on reformatting each and every pattern, getting fresh pattern photos, developing new tutorials and improving old ones. My translators have been doing a fantastic job and many patterns are ready to go in several languages. We’ve made the most of the delays to optimise everything, and all of the back-end work is done and it's looking mighty fine, but I can't share most of it until the website is finished. And we're all incredibly disappointed that we, as a team, and you, my brilliant knitters and supporters, have been let down so much. I am so sorry that we've not been able to deliver the promised shiny new website by now.

I've talked about this before, how the new website is critical in being able to launch the updated patterns and translations. This is especially true because of the way tutorials will be structured, which means I can't properly share the updates and translations until the website is done.

It's impacting print wholesale too. My wholesaler, Deep South Fibers, have been asking for my single patterns to go into print for a long time, and I'm really keen to do that! I've got a clever alternative solution for including tutorials in the print patterns, but again, I need the new website for those.

A lot of planning has gone into all of this and we’ve used the extra time to refine and streamline as many things as possible. I’ve relied heavily on 3rd party services and platforms over the years and at this point, with so many books and patterns published, the admin has become unmanageable. Hosting everything myself, on my own website, not only reduces direct costs going forward but it’ll save me on indirect costs, time and brain bandwidth, all of which are in short supply!

So, the time has now come to start again with a new developer, as things can't go on like this any longer. You need a proper functioning website and we need closure on this project. The good news is that I do now have a new developer lined up! They came recommended and building accessible websites sites is their specialty.

As I mentioned in the last update, the quote from the new developer is understandably higher than the original quote - it's pretty close to double. And unfortunately, the delays have come with a number of hidden costs. I have the amount for the original quote, less the deposit paid - which I hope to get back! - parked safely. Yet the extra things - such as monthly fees for services I should have been hosting on my own site, not to mention costs in project management, lost time that could have been spent on new designs, loss of sales and lower website traffic - have chipped away at funds that were reserved for pattern translations and creating more accessible patterns.

Getting the new website back on track will help ensure that I can continue to have patterns translated, and more importantly, give me the space I need to host them and make them available. And to get the website over the finishing line, I need to boost the budget.

So how about a special sale to cover the extra needed to finish the site?

The code BuildIt has been created to give you 50% off between now and 16th March on everything in my Payhip, Ravelry and Etsy stores! There's no limit to the amount of times you can use the code, so go for it. And please feel free to share, because getting the new accessible website finished, with its native teaching platform and multi-language options, is long overdue.

Payhip have recently introduced the option to send a pattern or eBook as a gift, while also allowing promotional codes to be used at the same time, which is fantastic - that means you can send your friends a pattern and still benefit from the sale! So if you'd like to share the joy of a Woolly Wormhead pattern with a friend, whilst also getting a bargain and helping me get the new website built, Payhip is your best bet.

If you're thinking of other ways to support the website build, translations and accessible patterns, then Patreon might work for you - membership starts from $10.60 a year and you get exclusive year-round discounts and behind the scenes insights. And there's always the donate button, if that's your preference.

Posted
AuthorWoolly Wormhead
CategoriesNew Website
2 CommentsPost a comment

My latest new pattern, Riverbero, is now published!

As a special introductory offer, use code reverberate to get 25% discount in my Payhip, Etsy and Ravelry stores as well as here on this website.

If you can use Ravelry safely, here’s a direct link with the promotion already added:

https://www.ravelry.com/redeem/woolly-wormhead?code=reverberate

The discount code will give you 25% off until midnight 18th February Italian time.

I wrote a tutorial to help folks adding the discount code to this current cart or in the Payhip store:

https://www.woollywormhead.com/blog/2022/10/14/payhip-discount-codes

Newsletter subscribers will want to check their inboxes, as they’ve an extra special something.

Use the #WWRiverberoHat on social media so I can see what you do with the pattern? I do love to see your makes!


As a reminder, because I'm VAT registered and my business is a formally registered publisher - yes, I can publish works by other designers and authors besides myself, I’m officially a bonafide publisher! - I have ISBNs for all my e/Patterns, e/Books and e/Workshops. Which means you won't have any VAT added if you shop via my Payhip, Teachable or Ravelry stores, or through my website, because everything is either tax-exempt or zero-rated. And if you buy a pattern through my Payhip store or my website, you won't pay any GST or sales tax. Win!

Posted
AuthorWoolly Wormhead
CategoriesPatterns, Hats

There’s been a lot of life stuff happening over the last few months, in particular the last month - a LOT. I’m still catching up with myself and have plenty I want to talk about and share, but I thought I’d get things rolling again with a new pattern release. Meet Riverbero!

Riverbero is knit sideways, using slipped stitches for the colourwork, which is not difficult at all. It's all stocking stitch so you can use the regular grafting method and whichever your favourite short row method is.

What's really cool about this design, apart from that striking pattern and gorgeous crown, is that it's almost infinitely re-sizeable for any yarn, gauge or size!

Like all my other sideways patterns, it's constructed from panels. With this one the panel is slim and easily memorable due to the short slip stitch colourwork repeat. The short pattern repeat and narrow panels allow plenty of room for adjustment making it highly customisable.

I knit this sample in Ripples Crafts Yarn Merino Sport and I *love* the way Helen's colours work together. If you can't get hold of any, or have some other yarns in your stash that you'd like to use then you can - all you need to do is check your gauge & go from there!

This pattern was designed towards the end of 2020, and the photographs taken in February 2021. I've waited to release it, hoping to develop a video class to go with it, as I think it would make an ideal workshop pattern. However about 2 years ago we started experiencing problems that impacted my ability to work in my studio, and so video classes had to be halted as we struggled to get noise or interruption free recordings, which was a real shame. No matter what we did, we just couldn’t get a decent run without interruptions. Going forward we'll have the freedom to pick up online workshops again and produce new ones - which is one of the big things I want to talk about! - but I don't know yet when that'll be and I don't want to wait any longer so the pattern's coming next week!

Members of The Woolly Hat Society will get an exclusive discount - if you're not already a member you might wanna join now.

Patreon supporters on the 'Chullo' tier and up will be able to use their monthly members' reward code to get the pattern for free - the upper tiers each get a coupon code every month to the value of a single pattern, so it’s well worth the membership price.

Posted
AuthorWoolly Wormhead
CategoriesPatterns