A publication date for Elemental!

Indeedy! I've been promising the collection will be available during the first week of September, and I can now confirm that Elemental will be published on 4th September (which I believe is Labour Day in the US)

The eBook is now ready, and my next task is getting the print edition ready to go. 

To whet your appetite, here's a look at the back cover! Zabet has again done such a fantastic job of the graphics and it pleases me no end that the layout takes a break from the norm.

As I hope you've now come to expect, there's a whole bunch of tutorials in this book, including the new tutorial for grafting across a colour change (if you handled grafting slipped stitches you'll find this a total doddle).

It's really not long to go now until this special project goes live and I can't wait for you to see it! The response online, especially on Instagram, to these Hats has been overwhelming at times (in a good way) and I'm so hoping the book doesn't disappoint...

If you're a newsletter subscriber then keep an eye on your inbox this monday, and if you're not a subscriber, why not?!

Elemental - the cover revealed!

We're so close now to publishing the Elemental collection. The book is in the very final stages with the editors checking every last detail for you. There's three editors working away on this, each bringing a different perspective and expertise.

And now... here is the cover! We do hope you like it :)

pssst/ if you haven't already, sign up for my newsletter to have details of it's publication come straight to your inbox.

I can't wait for you to see it!

On relief, and gratitude

This week I've had my head buried in my end of year accounts. Online submission may not be due until January but I usually like to get mine out of the way as close as possible to the year end, and me being late this year getting going was adding to the stress. I always find end of year accounts stressful, for reasons that I hope become clear.

I knew this year had been a good year, and I'd estimated that my turnover had increased by about a third. In fact, it was more than that - a huge jump of 35% on my best ever year (not the 30% I'd originally thought). 

My questimates as to my earnings and turnover are usually optimistic and rarely accurate, and so when the numbers stared back at me and confirmed that I'd done better than I thought, it was a bit of shock to say the least. 

Besides feeling ever so grateful for the continued support I receive and feeling pretty chuffed to be doing so well from (almost purely) design work, the biggest feeling of all was relief. Relief that my hard work had paid off. Relief at having that much more financial freedom.  Relief at not needing to worry so much going forward.

You'll know that I've written a lot about how hard it can be to earn a living as a creative self-employed sort, especially in an industry that is notoriously underpaid and undervalued. And on top of that, how bloody hard it is to support a family of 3 on that. We've no second income, no state top-up benefits - what you spend on my work is all we have, and it houses, clothes and feeds our family of 3.

I know so few in a similar position out there and sometimes it feels quite isolating, although I try not to show it. It's often been said to me "you do so well!" or "how do you do it?" and what I want to say, but never do 'cos I don't wanna be rude, is "because I have to". When you're in this position, it forces you to make very different decisions. None of this happens by accident; from my deliberate want to stick to small, single, portable, 3-dimensional items in the form of Hats, my insistence on self publishing and maintaining control, and my steering well clear of tangibles.

The pressure of carrying this responsibility, of being the sole earner, has been taking its toll, especially over these last few years. I had strong words with myself recently about doing what I can to take some of the pressure off myself, and we are going to have that holiday to India now. But it's still up to me to make sure we have enough. This person who feels like she's falling apart physically, who battles with her mental health. This person gets frustrated at that and it invariably feels unfair that it's down to me. And over the last few years, that has slowly been turning into resentment.

I'm working hard on not letting this resentment show. I love what I do and would still do it anyway but I'd like to have the creative freedom to not need to publish all the time. I'd like to experiment and explore more. And so that resentment comes out during my weakest times.  

Part of the discussions - both private and public - that arise from this are about me trying to find my way in this industry, as I do feel lost and often disconnected. And I try to keep myself in check and not sound like I'm complaining all the time or not constantly be pointing out to people blunt truths about our differences. I don't want to be that person, but it's difficult sometimes.

And just like that, those numbers that stared back at me took an awful lot of this away. They didn't bring any answers, they bought a need to worry less. Those numbers released some of the binding and have given me room to breathe. This has had me in tears more than once this week.

My little Hat design business can now pay Tom a half decent wage for the photography and video work he does. It's paying me the best wage I've ever had from it. It's also allowing me to pay for some admin help.  It can afford to pay for professional layout work for my books. I'm finally in that situation, after 12 years of doing this, to be able to carefully invest a little and see a better return for my time and money. My little Hat design business is still growing. We'll still never got a mortgage but owning a small plot of land somewhere on the continent is not the distant dream that it was. Our combined income is still less than what I earnt as a teacher 15 years ago, but in our universe it's a small fortune.

This last year has seen me pull even further away from online discussion groups; I've turned my online activity as far down as I can at times, and have noticeably hidden away. Clearly this suits me. With a good support system in place via the forums and decent email management, I've been able to buy back some time, and you can see what I've done with that. In fact, I've enough designs finished or in the final stages of finishing to see me through for the next year or so, and that's the most amazing feeling, especially as I've spent less time at the computer due to my shoulders! I won't be chasing my tail anymore; I'm hoping it will feel like it did when I first started, that the creative side can be indulged without the business side of things dampening everything.

I know I need to give myself a huge pat on the back for this and allow myself to be positive, and not critical, about what I've achieved. This doesn't come easily, but I do know that I've done good, and I know that I'm strong.

Yet I also know that without knitters trusting and supporting my work, I wouldn't be here. Thank you.

On short row colourwork and 3D design

It's probably common knowledge by now that I'm not a fan of fairisle or stranded knitting, I know, I know, blasphemy and all. But, well, they're rather 2-dimensional. Nothing wrong with that, but I'm not a surface design sort; I never have been.

What I find with colourwork is that it demands the technique bends to create the colours; that the colours are more important than the construction. The colourwork techniques themselves don't manipulate the fabric per se but instead are are designed to ensure the pattern pieces on the surface fall into place (every knitting technique is a construction technique in the traditional sense a of constructed textiles vs surface design, but not every technique pushes construction beyond the surface). You can add other shaping to a stranded piece with increases/decreases/short rows, but the methods for creating the stranded knitting themselves aren't used to create the form. One exception might be where you deliberately pull the floats tight to create a vertical tuck like effect, although I'm not sure how structurally sound that would be.

Short row colourwork on the other handle demands that the colours bend with the technique.  The technique is the dominant factor. Whilst there may be an intended surface design as a result, it's actually a 3D technique that is put to play and that means that it can be taken beyond the surface. And that's why it caught my interest.

an initial swatch for the Elemental Hats

When I first chatted with Carol and subsequently LoveKnitting about this project, my MO was to create short row colour patterns, to do in Hats what had been done in shawls. I'd set myself an engineering challenge. 

There are some amazing short row colourwork patterns out there, and short row colourwork is inherently distinctive. But as with a lot of textiles that are 3D in a fabric manipulation sense (as apposed to a sculptural sense) they're invariably found on flat pieces. It's one challenge to manipulate the fabric enough to make it 3-dimensional in and of itself, it's another thing entirely to then form that fabric into a 3-dimensional item whilst still maintaining it's integrity. 

Short rows do provide us with the means, though. And working through these designs I was able to create the 3D shape - crown and brim, but in particular the crown - by using the colourwork itself. The short rows that create the pattern also create the form. 

To ensure a short piece works it wants to be balanced, which means that it wants to have the same amount of rows for each stitch, otherwise it becomes distorted. Once a balanced fabric is mastered, it can then be carefully and deliberately unbalanced. By omitting rows (or by adding more short rows) at any given point, we can ensure that our fabric has form (in a 3-dimensional sense, not in a "what's it been up to this time?" sense).

The design above is Toph, one of the 5 Elemental Hats. In this shot of the crown you can see how the short row forms, which represent leaves in this case, are used to create the crown. The entire Hat is knit sideways, consists entirely of short rows, without breaking either of the yarns. All of the Elemental Hats are created the same way.

It was quite an engineering challenge to achieve this, and I'm really pleased with the results. I have so many ideas now that I've got this cracked, so many things I want to create!

The Elemental collection

I'm awake way too early for day 2 of Pomfest and it's the ideal time to chat about a particularly special project I've been working on. Hints have appeared here and on Instagram and I'm itching to share more!

I've collaborated with Love Knitting and The Yarn Collective and produced 5 new Hat designs in their Bloomsbury DK, which is curated by Carol Feller. Her colours are gorgeous and were the perfect match for these designs. 

All 5 Hats feature short row colourwork, which is a method I've not seen used in Hat design. It's incredibly fun and magical and results in some pretty amazing knitting.

The patterns are due to be published in the first week of September and in the coming weeks I'll be sharing more about the designs, the yarn, the concepts behind them and the construction methods used.

These will be in the Elemental eBook and book (it'll have a similar size and feel to Circled, and be published via POD for print and wholesale) and each design will also be available as a single pattern...

Pretty exciting, huh?  You can see the Hats in the flesh at Pomfest today on The Yarn Collective stand. There's been a lot of interest in these Hats and so many comments and gasps and even tears (Jen AC, I'm looking at you) and I'm feeling on top of the world this morning. (I confess to being a bit of a show off yesterday at the show - I am so chuffed with these Hats and my brain for creating them). I'll share more soon, I promise!