Considering Classism in the Fiber Industry

This is a subject I’ve been trying to untangle my words about for a very long time. After recent discussions around pattern prices and more on Twitter, I reached out to two friends in the industry to see whether we could work on something together.

The event is listed on Eventbrite, and you can click through here to reserve your place.

The event is ticketed and we’ve asked for a donation to help us cover our costs and because, well, our time and expertise has value! We’re keen to keep it free so that anyone can attend but if you’re able to donate, it would be very much appreciated.

If you’re able to make a donation it’ll be much easier for us if you make that donation through the Eventbrite page. I’m incurring costs hosting the event, as zoom isn’t something I’ve had the use - or internet capacity! - for before now, and that cost is proportional to the amount of attendees. For this event to happen, donations will need to cover any additional costs as well as pay ourselves. We don’t have sponsorship I’m afraid! We’ve had queries from folks wishing to donate by buying patterns from each of us, which is great suggestion, but it would make it tricky to sort out the paperwork and admin.

From the event listing and booking page:

About this event

Woolly Wormhead, with special guests Karie Westermann and Shannon Okey.

As experienced knit designers and publishers we're coming together to share our views and experiences on how classism plays out in the yarn industry.

With discussion ranging from professionalism, costs and wages to exploitation, we aim to highlight just how challenging it is to earn a living wage from the content we create and produce.

Date and Time

9th March 2022; 9pm Italian and Central European time, 8pm UK and GMT time and 3pm US Eastern Standard time.

Playback

I will be recording the discussion panel within zoom and will make it available afterwards for everyone to watch.

This is my first zoom hosted event and as it’ll be evening time for me our internet may be intermittent but I’m working on back up options just in case. I’ll be joining live from my studio and I’m really excited that Karie and Shannon will be joining me. I hope you’ll join us too?

An Open Letter to Knitting.com

You’d closed comments and shut down your original post before I, or many others, were able to respond. You realised you’d walked into a community that is strong and progressive, and that we are far more diverse than you imagined. But I still don’t think you’re listening. You’ll find the comment that I wanted to share on your latest post below.

The image shows the crown of my Traversa pattern. It features the post title “An Open Letter to the Owners of knitting.com”

I'm a knit designer, I've been a professional in this industry for 17 years. I'm also disabled and provide my family's only income solely from the work I do in this industry. I’m far from being the most well-known knit designer, but I’m not unknown and I’m respected and established.

One key reason why I, and many others, have struggled to earn even a halfway decent living in this industry is because people like you believe that making good content is easy or quick or cheap, which only serves to devalue the work we do. You believe that our thoughts, ideas or skills don’t have tangible value.

You seem oblivious to the fact that creating good content - whether it be patterns, tutorials, workshops or articles - takes skill, expertise and experience. That it takes time to build a reputation and gain the trust of our customers. And that creating good content is essential to the growth of the community and industry alike.

Had you done sufficient research you'd have learnt that many of the content creators in the yarn industry are marginalised. We're not all white middle class women choosing to do this because we can. You'd have learnt that we're tired of our work being devalued and tired of our incomes being kept artificially low because someone with more privilege than us can afford to take the hit, or because some dude wants to throw money around to make a quick buck.

By failing to take all of this into account you're not only hurting marginalised creators like me, but the knitting industry and community as a whole. We don't need another race to the bottom.

If you’re still reading, can I make some suggestions?

What we need is recognition of the hard work, skills and expertise that already exist in this industry, and not just of those folks who shout the loudest or are savviest at marketing or photography. We need accessible resources and websites. We need those with privilege to lift up folks who don’t share their good fortune.

And we need the people who don’t bat an eyelid at $80,000 for a domain name to research their new market thoroughly, and to not only pay the kind of rates that similar skills and expertise would garner in other industries - because clearly they can afford to - but we also need them to take the experts in their new market seriously.

eta/ this post was updated on 11th March 2022 with a new post graphic. The image shows the crown of my Traversa pattern.

Pattern affordability

Financial accessibility is a discussion that’s risen to the forefront a few times in recent years. I’ve a lot to say about it, especially as someone who’s both disabled and working class, and who doesn’t have the financial support that it’s assumed designers have.

This is a hard industry to make a living in and most folks who stay the course usually do so because they can afford to not rely on pattern sales income. Yet it’s often forgotten that there’s a small group of us who don’t have those same privileges and it’s from that perspective that I want to write more. There’s a lot of words to be untangled before I’m ready to publish but whilst I’m working all that out I thought I’d post a reminder about the options I offer, both for folks who could use the help and for those wanting to help.

The image shows the crown of my Pleated Beret pattern. It features the post title “Financial Accessibility Options, Knitting Patterns”

Pattern Discounts

Exclusive member discounts available through The Woolly Hat Society is the most effective way to buy Woolly Wormhead patterns, books or workshops at lower than usual prices.

Membership is free and all that’s needed to maintain membership is to open the newsletters regularly, but even then folks can re-join should their membership slip, or leave whenever they choose by simply using the ‘unsubscribe’ button. You don’t need to provide any details beyond your email address when you join, not even your name.

Using the exclusive discounts offered to members via the newsletter is anonymous, which is important. I know what it’s like living on the breadline and having to justify or explain your choices is hard.

Community Pattern Fund

Simply put, the Community Pattern Fund was set up as a way for folks who have the means to help folks who don’t.

A number of my forever free patterns have been formatted into convenient eBooks, bundled with the relevant tutorials, and are available at different price points. Folks can buy what they can afford and those purchases are converted to credits.

To hear of what credits are available, join The Woolly Hat Society. When new patterns, books or workshops are released a newsletter goes out to all members and if there are credits available they’ll be offered through the newsletter by way of limited 100% discount codes.

The free copies do go quickly and I often hear from folks who’ve missed out and are disappointed. I appreciate that this isn’t a perfect system and I’m working to improve it, feedback is welcome! For instance rather than offer credits in every newsletter, which might only be one or two, I save them up so that when I’ve bigger new releases, such as eBooks or workshops, I can offer a greater amount of free copies and there’s less of a rush.

The CPF patterns were only available through Ravelry but I’ve recently started to add them to my Payhip store. For my own admin’s sake I’ve needed to limit where the CPF patterns are available but having them only available on an inaccessible website is counter-productive, hence I’ve been adding them to Payhip as well whilst we wait for the new website.

Gift Purchases

Ravelry provides the option to gift patterns or eBooks to another knitter, but it’s not the only platform to do so. I recently posted about how you can do this via Payhip. Gifting patterns or eBooks is a great way to help someone out if you know they’re keen to make something but can’t quite stretch to purchasing the pattern right now.

One thing I want to say is that I’m not keen on collecting details of folks who would like something but can’t afford it… I see it often and I know the intentions are good, but asking folks to get in touch to claim free copies or be matched with someone who can grant their wish leans into the whole shame and guilt thing about being poor. Even worse encouraging folks to post publicly about things they’d like to be anonymously gifted. We have enough of that to deal with already, y’know?

Free Patterns and Tutorials

I offer so many free patterns and tutorials! There’s near on 80 of each so far, at least? Or thereabouts, I’ve lost count.

I no longer offer these as PDFs to be downloaded freely however each blog post can be converted to PDF by right-clicking within your browser and selecting the print options. I’ve purposefully kept any chat on these posts towards the end so that you don’t waste ink when printing them out, likewise I’ve done lots of tests on image sizes and scaling to help ensure you have a range of options. The options on this site are limited as I’m currently using a very old version of Squarespace; there’ll be even more options available when we’ve finally moved to the new website.

All of my free content is supported by my Patreon supporters, and you will find the details about that at the top of each free pattern or tutorial post - it’s important that my supporters are credited and that folks know that these things aren’t free to produce. I’ve always offered free patterns and tutorials but some time back it all got unmanageable and I needed to look at ways of getting the free content covered financially - it was either that or remove it all and Patreon works really well.

Patreons and members of The Woolly Hat Society get early access to new free patterns and tutorials, and also get them in a convenient PDF format.

Patreon

This might not seem like it fits under a financial accessibility umbrella, yet there are financial benefits to becoming a supporter. Besides supporting all of the free content and translations, members also benefit from extra discounts. For instance the $1 per month tier, which can also be purchased annually at around $10.20, gives you a 20% anytime discount on ALL of my patterns, books and workshops. If you’re a knitter who buys around 10 Woolly Wormhead patterns per year this tier will save you money straight away. The higher the tier the higher the discounts, and the upper tiers also get a coupon to the value of a single pattern that folks can use however they wish.

So whilst Patreon isn’t free it can offer ways to save money.

Public Sales

I don’t run general or public sales often but it’s worth keeping an eye on this blog, following on Instagram or joining The Woolly Hat Society to get the latest news. When I do run general sales members of The Woolly Hat Society and Patreons are the first to know, and they also get deeper discounts.

Payment Options

I knew there’d be something I missed when I first posted!

Teachable, where my online classes are currently hosted, offer payment installment options. My $50 workshops have two payment options - pay in full or 2 x $25. My $75 workshops have 3 payment options - pay in full, 2 x $37.50 or 3 x $25. And the $100 bundle has 3 payment options - pay in full, 2 x $50 or 4 x $25.

I opted to not add interest to these because I didn’t want the workshops to end up more expensive if folks can’t afford to pay outright. I know offering installments costs more logistically, with fees and such or the risk of someone not completing payment, but raising the cost of installments to cover these is essentially what’s known as a ‘poverty tax’.

No other platforms offer payment options at the moment that I know of, at least the ones I’m using, but it is something I want to look into for the new website.

VAT-inclusive Pricing

And a 2nd thing I forgot when I first posted!

This is a contentious issue and some would argue that it doesn’t belong in a post about pattern affordability or accessibility, but to my mind it does - let me explain.

VAT is generally around 20%, sometimes as high as 27%, which is a LOT when it’s added on top, and it usually wipes out any benefit from promotional discounts. Many European governments have started to drop the rate of digital VAT, depending on the product, but not all of the platforms charge the current rate - Etsy and Ravelry, I’m looking at you - which means customers end up paying even more VAT when they don’t need to should shops go with VAT-exclusive pricing.

On every platform that will let me - and Etsy and Patreon are the only ones that currently don’t - all of my prices are VAT-inclusive which means folks who live in Europe don’t pay extra due to where they happen to live. I’d really like to offer the same to folks in Australia and New Zealand for GST - I was disappointed in Ravelry for not offering a GST-inclusive option when it was introduced - but I should be able to manage that on the new website, if all goes to plan.

If it helps any, I shared a couple of posts about different VAT options on Payhip - VAT-inclusive pricing and enabling VAT B2B sales. As far as I know I’ve on average more European customers than other designers; I’m also an EU business with an accountant who reports and submits my VAT for me. I feel pretty strongly that my flat prices should be the same for everyone, regardless of where they live, and that these kinds of taxes are the costs of running a business, but I know not everyone agrees.

Options I’m Not Considering

I know these’ll come up, they always do, so I’ll save us all some time and pre-empt a few questions or suggestions!

Folks have often suggested a pay-what-you-want system but it won’t work for me for a few reasons. Firstly, there aren’t any platforms that offer the kind of functionality that a system like this really needs. To try and make it work on all the platforms I sell on is impossible, and on those platforms where I can control the discounts and price it’d be a ridiculous amount of admin when you’ve 250+ products like I have. Payhip does have a way to set a minimum price so that folks can pay more but it’s the only one that does, and my minimum prices wouldn’t be a lot different to my regular prices anyway.

Secondly, a pay-what-you-want system offers a moral dilemma and I’m not sure everyone’s aware of that aspect. When you’re poor, or just about managing, having to choose what you pay can trip you into another guilt or shame spiral. Do you spend the extra dollar on that designer, knowing their pattern is worth it, or do you save that extra dollar to spend on something else you may need or want? Having a flat price or a flat discount removes much of that.

I could support the free content on this website with advertising but I generally find adverts intrusive and they generally make everything more inaccessible, especially pop-up videos or things with instant sound. I’m not convinced that advertising on a niche site like mine would be that beneficial, either; it certainly wouldn’t remove the need for me to charge for premium stuff! I’d much rather use Patreon and be transparent about funding.

And finally…. nope, lowering prices is not the way to go. This shouldn’t be a race to the bottom. This industry has long suffered with the notion that patterns should be free, or cheap, or that they’re quick to produce or are only useful for selling yarn. There’s too many folks who don’t need to rely on pattern sales offering their patterns for free or next to nothing, and all they do is devalue the work that goes into a pattern and make it harder for anyone to make a living. This is one topic where I want to untangle my words and get a longer post out so I’ll leave this there for now.

I’m sure there’s a few things I’ve missed off this round-up - I’ll edit this post if I think of any!

This post might read a lot like “sign up to get the free stuff!” and I know folks aren’t always keen to sign up just to get free stuff. For a long time I wasn’t happy doing that either, I get it. But I can’t afford to offer everything free just like that.

Joining The Woolly Hat Society really is the best way all round to benefit and all it takes is an email address and reading the newsletters - nothing else. I’m not interesting in mining your data, I’m simply trying to run my business in a way that works for me so that I can support my family. Folks are probably bored of hearing me say this by now but we need to remember that financial accessibility isn’t a one-way street.

eta/ this post was updated on 11th March 2022 with a new post graphic. The image shows the crown of my Pleated Beret pattern.

It's been a while, I know

An update on the new website build is long, long overdue.

I’ve dreaded sitting down and trying to write a summary of what’s going on - what’s happened, what delays there’s been, what we’ve needed to do, what changes we’ve needed to make and what we’ve achieved.

This project has become something much bigger than I ever imagined. I knew it would be big but having never done anything like this let alone outsourced and brought a team together, I really was clueless.

Image description: close up detail of a pile of yarn oddments in bright and variegated colours

First things first - the website build itself has seen a lot of delays. Nearly all of them pandemic related, either directly with folks catching covid, or indirectly due to the knock-on effects of just about everything that the pandemic touches. We’re a small team and when one person needs to take time out I’m not going to not let them. But it does also mean that we can’t always just pick up where we left off, and this is a side to project management that’s been a tough lesson. It would’ve been nice not to learn all this the hard way with the weight of a pandemic but there we go.

The new site skeleton is in place, we’re working through kinks in the data that we’ve put together and how that codes with the site. There’s a lot of back-and-forth going on but we’re getting there, albeit slowly and in a non-linear fashion. I really want to give you a date but I don’t have one, and I’m not sure it’d be wise to entertain one at the moment anyway.

We’re also going through to check and refine the data that we’ve collected and sorted for every single Woolly Wormhead pattern. Which is a LOT. That task in itself has been huge but I’m really glad we’ve done it as we won’t ever likely need to do it again. And it’ll make for a much more functional database and website. There’s still a lot to be worked out but I’m continuing to remind myself that every delay, every new hurdle, is a chance to do things better. I’m sure I’m not the only one whose patience wanes or whose motivation falters at times, but we are continuing with that premise in mind.

Image description: close up detail of a pile of yarn oddments in bright and variegated colours

On the front end you may have seen a few changes filtering through. One of the biggest changes is to this blog, with the featured articles and tutorials and such.

I made the decision a while back to archive a truck-load of old blog posts, primarily those that were more personal, less work related. It was really strange reading back through them, trying to determine which should stay and which should go. And it was sad, if I’m honest, as I miss talking openly in this space. I miss all the interaction we used to have years ago when I first started blogging. But it all made me feel really vulnerable too. I’m a different person now to who I was then; Woolly Wormhead has changed and grown so much since those early days. And I figured it was best not to remove all of the posts and my voice completely, but to stick to Hat and yarn and knitting related topics. I still want to be myself here, but giving myself guidelines and boundaries feels really healthy.

Over the years the blog has moved to so many different platforms and with it all of it’s drafts and archives and posts. All of the free patterns and tutorials were blog posts until they weren’t; I hid, archived or deleted so many when I converted everything to free PDF. Now that everything’s going back to blog posts - and I’m trying not to kick myself for messing with things so much over the years! - I’ve been trying to put everything back to where it was historically.

I’ve been conflicted about this, as back-dating didn’t sit easy. Yet most of the drafts still existed and whilst some of the URLs have needed to change and I haven’t got all of the dates 100% correct, they’re close. And I think I’m OK with that. It wouldn’t feel right to suddenly post them all as new things when loads of old comments are still there on the drafts or archives. It’d also make the blog pretty top heavy on recent pages, not to mention be confusing if publication or copyright dates of existing versions out there in the wild don’t match the blog dates.

It’s been a huge mess to sort out yet pretty cathartic at the same time. There’s no doubt going to be a few broken URLs and some inconsistencies or references to posts that are no longer visible, and in time I plan to go through and tweak where needed - I probably won’t be able to do most of that until we’ve completely moved over to the new site and platform. But for now it’s all looking a lot leaner and a lot better organised.

Image description: close up detail of a pile of yarn oddments in bright and variegated colours

The next huge HUGE task that’s been finished is the pattern reformatting. I only finished this last week!

Long story short - and I really do need to get this into a blog post - is that I’m now an Estonian publisher. I was talking with my accountant about the differing VATmoss rates and they advised that the best way to ensure I’m not paying too much VAT was to get all of my publications ISBNs. I enquired and it turns out that yup, even my single patterns qualify. It surprised me, and no doubt surprises you too, which is why I need to get all of the info into a post!

However, to make sure that each one did fully qualify I wanted to change the pattern layout a little. We’d planned changes anyway to make them more downloadable and printer friendly and this was one extra step to that. Every single pattern now has a front cover and a back cover, where the back cover provides all the links to the various help pages, groups and more. All the patterns have links for all of the specific tutorials that are needed, so that you can download in-depth photo tutorials that cover far more than the current illustrated ones. And they’ve each been made printer friendly - in that the written and charted instructions have been separated. This was the bulk of the work, easy.

From a database perspective, written and charted instructions can mean different things if they’re not fully defined. I know folks who search for charted patterns on Ravelry or elsewhere often end up disappointed when they find that a pattern is still mostly a written pattern with a tiny chart that can’t work by itself. So I figured that I’d make as many as possible fully charted - which means the chart page, or pages, can function entirely by themselves, or with perhaps only a minor reference to the written instructions at worst. I’m really excited about this but I’m not kidding when I say that it’s been a serious amount of work. The vast majority of my patterns that had any kind of chart are now fully charted - there’s only a few, less than a handful, that had say a chart for a simple stitch pattern that have now lost that chart.

In addition to this, I’ve added notes to 95% of the patterns explaining how to adjust the pattern to your needs, and how to achieve different sizes outside of the range given and or work with a different weight yarns. The few that don’t have these extra notes are mostly those that already include 5 or more sizes, or are easier to adjust, and I’ll be providing a few blog posts about grading by gauge - i.e how to achieve different sizes via changes to yarn or needle sizes - to help with those.

None of these new pattern versions are published yet as we need to host the tutorial downloads on the new website, and I won’t let them go live without tutorials. The few new releases that have gone out in the new format have temporary links but I’m not keen to do that for the rest only to have to re-publish and re-upload all 220+ of them again to however many platforms and online stores - that’s a logistical nightmare, especially on our internet connection.

Image description: close up detail of a pile of yarn oddments in bright and variegated colours

The tutorials are the other big changes I’m wanting to talk about today, and they relate to both the blog changes and pattern changes.

Most of the old tutorial blog posts have been put back, and they’re in the process of being edited to not only make them clearer but also to make them screen-reader friendly. At some point the free patterns will get this treatment too, though that’s linked into the accessible pattern formats we’ve been working on that I had to press pause on that for a while as there’s only so much I can do, and I need to finish the pattern updates first.

The premium tutorials have all been updated and are in the queue for translation, with two languages done already! Go Czech and Italian!

The updates the premium tutorials have had are numerous. They’ve all got clear black and white photos, so they’re all consistent, which in turn meant some needed to be rephotographed. Most of them have been expanded and more details added. They’ve been through further tech and copy editing as well. They aren’t in a screen-reader friendly layout but neither are the patterns in the new print friendly ISBN format - the accessible patterns will get their own tutorials and shiny new layout.

A lot of the old tutorials that used to be available for download from this site will not be made available as PDFs going forward, and there’s a whole bunch of new ones been written. In short, if it’s needed to support a pattern then it becomes a premium download that’ll be linked within the premium patterns. If it’s not, or if it’s used in a free pattern, then it’s a blog post that everyone can access. The premium tutorials are available as blog posts, too, only they’re not all merged into one file.

I know a few folks weren’t happy about using the free patterns and tutorials on the current blog as it’s not especially accessible, and I am so sorry about the delays in getting the new accessible site up. But creating a new format, or even trying to re-animate the old versions, is going to add to the workload and end up delaying everything - I’d sooner we put our time and energy into the new site which will be better than anything we’ve done so far.

Image description: close up detail of a pile of yarn oddments in bright and variegated colours

Phew, so that’s an epic update self! I’m wanting to expand on some of this more, especially about the ISBNs and the new pattern formats and what extras they’ll include. For now though my eyes need a break and I imagine yours do, too.

Print wholesale is go!

It’s been a long while since any of my publications were available in print, and I’m proper excited to be sat here writing a post about new print options!

These 6 collections, from top-left - Circled, Elemental, Inversion, Convergence, GS The Remixes and Imperceptions - are now all available in print to purchase wholesale from Deep South Fibers.

Some of you may remember that many years ago my patterns used to be available in print through DSF, and that I used to go to TNNA to help promote them. I always had a good working relationship with DSF and used to enjoy going to the shows, but it was hard work and didn’t really pay off, so I stopped working with them because it was time to try different things.

Then when I moved my business to Estonia to brexit-proof ourselves I had to pull away from the print-on-demand systems I’d been using as it wasn’t compatible with the new accounting system. Late last year that changed and I was able to open up my Magcloud shop again, but it really felt like these collections needed a print push that I couldn’t give them.

I’ve personal copies of a couple of them in print and they very much have that zine-like feel that Zab and I first envisaged when we started working together on Circled. I wanted to take things in a different direction and we totally pulled it off - these collections, and the designs obviously, completely changed how my business was structured and that made me mighty happy.

Then one day I’d received a friendly email from Deep South Fibers about royalties for old stock they still had, like I often did, and I just thought - this is what I need to do, this is what these books need.

Their business has changed so much since I last worked with them, likewise mine. The print market is no different to the digital market in that it’s a constantly changing beast, but I know that DSF know their stuff. They know their market and I know I’m in safe hands.

After several months back and forth sorting out the various details, not to mention the great reformatting and getting everything ISBNs, the first 6 collections are ready to go.

If you’d like to see your local yarn store stocking my books then do let them know that they’re now available through Deep South Fibers! They ship worldwide, too - it isn’t just US shops that will benefit from this.

There will be more titles to follow, we’re currently polishing up Get Garter and Lateralis for print. And it’s possible that once the great reformatting of the single patterns is done - I’m almost there! - that some of my most popular individual patterns will make it into print, as some pretty big hints have been dropped about that! I can’t focus on that right now though, there’s enough to be done, but if you’d like to see more titles in print please encourage your local yarn stores and I’ll see what I can do.

Yey for the return of print! These really are rather special on paper.

eta/ I’m not listed under the ‘D2’ section on Deep South Fiber’s website because I can’t in good conscience provide download links to Ravelry only, given how inaccessible their new site is and the problems many users continue to experience. Once my new website is up and running I’m going to look into what options I have in terms of single use codes but for now, they don’t come with a digital download.