Stepping in front of the camera again...

This time we decided to try taking some photos of me without a wig wearing Nettare - just me and my uber short thin grey hair - to see how they looked.

And you know what? I’m pretty OK with them! Considering how uncomfortable the camera has always made me, the panic attacks that have followed whenever I’ve tried to model, I reckon I’m doing OK. No panic attacks at all, only some mild anxiety and overwhelm from all the positive comments on Instagram and Twitter.

Which is seriously good going! Testament to the power of having the right diagnoses - ADHD and Autism - and to intensive EMDR therapy, courtesy of everyone’s support via the GFM campaign Tom set up.

The comments and feedback I received which were the most helpful were those saying they were on the fence about buying the pattern, but seeing me in the photos, someone who looks more like themselves, swung it. And that’s my aim.

I’ve been slowly working away at trying to use a wider range of models, this is something I’ve talked about before. But it’s not always easy, and trying to find older models - who weren’t me! - has proved tricky. Especially models with natural grey hair. I’ve been gifted a human hair wig which I’m in the process of bleaching then dyeing, which will give me the option of modelling with longer grey hair. It won’t be as glam and therefore as visually dominating as the cheap wig I tried before, which to me is a step in the right direction. It’ll look more real, being human hair, and it was free, except for the bleach and dye, so it’s very much worth a try.

But I still wasn’t comfortable with myself and my short hair. The wig places a little bit of distance between me as myself and the person in the photo. And yet, somehow, I took the plunge and took myself way out of my comfort zone and I’m doing reasonably OK. In fact, we’re thinking to try some more, in different environments.

Photoshoots can be expensive and time consuming. We’re fortunate enough to have a few good environments and locations nearby that we can use for free. Yet I still pay my models for their time, so they’re not free. More importantly, arranging photoshoots takes an awful lot of brain space - asking if someone’s available, arranging a date with them, arranging a location - then the make-up and hair discussions and more. That’s before any editing or photo selecting.

When we’ve a shoot arranged I can’t think or do much else for a few days before and after it, which impacts everything else. I get less creative time but more importantly I lose the flow of whatever I’m working on - hello, neurodivergent brain - which can take time to recover from but is also incredibly stressful. If we can work more with myself, Tom and Aran as models it’ll improve my work-flow as well as add us to the range of models. I won’t stop working with other models, on the contrary, but it does mean we can focus more on larger shoots with them and justify the time and money spent better.

Anyways! Went off on a bit of a tangent there. I came here to share the photos and also remind folks that the 15% discount on this pattern ends tomorrow night, 5th November 2022. Use code code SweetNectar here, and in my Ravelry, Etsy and Payhip stores.

Ravelry and Etsy both provide direct links with the coupon applied:

Ravelry: https://www.ravelry.com/redeem/woolly-wormhead?code=SweetNectar
Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/WoollyWormheadHats?coupon=SWEETNECTAR

Hope you enjoy the pattern, I’m looking forward to seeing what you make with it!

Forestry, revisited

With the great rephotographing and great reformatting projects, some patterns have had more of an overhaul than new photos or the shiny new layout. Some are getting new sizes, some getting written instructions to match the charts. And some are getting whole new styles added.

If I said this was my Forestry pattern, would you recognise it?!

Originally published in Yarn Forward magazine as a lace beanie, Forestry has long since held the potential to be a slouchy Hat. In fact I’ve found myself explaining how to do it a few times and when I started the great reformatting, I realised I had the opportunity to not only write in a slouch version, but knit it a fresh new sample and get shiny new photos.

And it’s surprising how different the same Hat looks when you tweak the brim slightly and throw in some increases! The rest of the Hat is exactly the same - the crown hasn’t changed at all, and the repeat section in the body remains the same, it’s just worked for a little longer. The key difference, besides the cast on number and the increase at the brim, is the amount of times the motif is worked around the body. Because it would need that to create the volume a slouch Hat needs, and it really does make a difference visually.

This is the original beanie, rephotographed. And doesn’t it look different, even though it’s almost the same? That’s the beauty of Hat shaping and something that I’ll forever be fascinated with!

The original pattern, given it’s wide motif, lacked some sizing options. With patterns like these I’ve written in extra notes to help you achieve a wider size range through tweaks in either yarn or need sizes. Because this Hat is constructed with a series of vertical panels, adjusting the number of panels makes for easy size adjustments. Grading with gauge is a mighty useful skill and one article I’m hoping to get finished pretty soon is about just that. My plan is to add it as a tutorial download with the patterns, so you can check your size and work out how to achieve the perfect size for you.

A new look for Kilbride

Why yes, I’ve been ploughing through my mountain of photo editing!

One of the frustrating things about being an indie designer, a one-person business, is that it’s hard to get photographs of different samples on different models. This is the same for all indie designers, yet Hats bring up different concerns to that of, say, garments.

The size range in my patterns is usually wide. Like baby up to large adult kinda range. Not always, but nearly always. Hat sizing has always been a thing of mine since I first started writing patterns - explaining why “one size fits all” is a myth, and encouraging folks to provide more than one size in their patterns and provide accurate head or Hat measurements.

Unfortunately there’s still a fair amount of misunderstanding about sizing for Hats. Just because a Hat is modelled on a child or adult, or vice versa, doesn’t mean it’ll only fit that age range. It’s something we all do, humans are surprisingly visual - if we don’t see the item shown on someone who looks like us we might not think or want to read on and find out more.

When it comes to Hats, there’s a huge overlap in sizes - Aran had a larger head circumference than my mum when he was 18 months old, for instance. One of my most frequent customer service emails has been “will this Hat fit my baby/child/mum?”. Admittedly those queries have slowly become less frequent over the years but it is still something that gets asked a lot, and one way to mitigate that, besides highlighting the size range and linking to my Hat sizing page, is to show the samples on different sized heads of different ages which different hair types, and preferably on different genders. Which is a mighty tall ask of one person!

One Hat that’s flown under the radar is Kilbride. I’ve been wanting to reknit it forever but I’ve needed to wait until my shoulders were up to the task, and be at a point where I could give them a period of rest afterwards, as a beret in sock yarn isn’t something me and my upper mobility issues can pull off so easily!

Eventually I got there, and finally this design has some shots modelled on an adult. What do you think of the new photos? I’ve lost the ball-band for the yarn already and I’m not sure which yarn it is, but I’ll need to hunt it down for the new pattern layout, as that’ll be getting updated too. I’ll let you know the yarn details when I find it!

A new look for Dulcie

Expect a fair few of these posts over the next while!

If I had all the time in the world, I’d reknit and re-photograph all of the Hats in Going Straight. It was my first book, I was using stash yarn, and it was done on a seriously tight budget.

The book is also 15 years old, and file quality and digital photography standards have changed a lot since then, and I’d really love to give the whole thing a make-over.

But I don’t have all the time in the world and that book has been updated and tweaked more times than I can remember! And besides, there isn’t enough interest in most of the patterns to make it worth my while.

For the patterns where there is interest, I’m making time for them.

Dulcie has continued to be a popular and well-worn Hat. I suspect it’s shaping - a brimmed beret of sorts - and simple sideways knit reverse stocking stitch gets the blame for it’s wearability and knitability. It is a soothing knit and watching a hand-dyed or hand-spun yarn unfold as you knit through the panels is rather fun.

I reknit this one in Malabrigo Rios. It’s a fairly yarn thirsty Hat, given that room in the body and the depth of the wide brim - so larger sizes may wish to keep a 2nd skein to hand. It’s the ideal yarn for it and I’m chuffed with how it turned out and photographed.

As always, once the new site is live and the reformatted patterns ready, you’ll be able to access the latest versions via your original download links. There’s going to be so many new things landing all at once that it’ll be impossible to warn about every new thing, so I’d suggest keep one eye on the blog and one on my newsletter for details of when everything drops.

As with all the new pattern photos, thanks to Tom for his photography! I really need to build him a portfolio website, eh.

A new look for the Rhinebeck Hat

It’s hard to believe my Rhinebeck Hat will be 4 years old soon!

I designed this Hat in a matter of days, and knit the sample super quick, as I wanted to have a pattern ready for my first ever trip to Rhinebeck. In turn that meant a super quick photoshoot, too, and given that it’s one of my best selling patterns I figured I ought to get it some fresh new photos.

We took a LOT of photos during our recent great rephotography project and I was chuffed to get some good shots of the Hat on Aida. Doesn’t it look more refined, even sophisticated, on her against this concrete wall? Concrete walls have always been a favourite of mine to take photos against but at times I get a bit bored, so mix things up with murals. Yet this is exactly what this Hat needed.

We’re - finally - heading towards the finishing line for the new website. Once it goes live, there’ll be a new version of this pattern available with it’s shiny new photos AND written directions to match the chart. My short row maps have proven really popular and rather useful to knitters who wouldn’t normally work from charts, yet we’ve aimed to make all of my patterns available as both written and charted instructions. Which is easier said than done with these short row colourwork Hats as there’s a lot of rows, and that means a lot of room for error. So it’s been slow going but they’re almost ready.

There’s an awful lot that’s almost ready; I’m not sure I’ll know what to do with myself once those things are done and off my to-do list…

I hope to share more of the photos we’ve redone, although there’s so many of them that it might end up as a huge surprise when everything drops!