Saturday 23 September 2017

I've joined the 100 Club!

It's a remarkable thing to be able to say, but as of this month, I have 100 patterns in my Ravelry portfolio!

Back in February 2012, I made myself a phone cover (as a way of learning Judy's Magic Cast-On) and thought I'd write up the pattern and post it up on Ravelry (as Pandora), I had no idea of becoming a "proper" designer, let alone a published one. I was stuck at home with an illness and basically started writing patterns as a way to combat boredom, and shared them on Ravelry really to just see what others thought. I knew absolutely nothing about how independent pattern designing worked - I didn't even come across the Ravelry designers groups at first - and submitted my first idea to a magazine (Cecily) basically just to see what would happen, and was rather surprised when it was accepted. It turned out there may have been all sorts of strange reasons why it was, but this isn't the place to go into the history of that particular publication; from my point of view it did give me a bit of confidence, and this time I actually did a bit of research as to how to put a proposal together. The encouragement and support I got as an inexperienced designer from Kate and the team at Knit Now absolutely key to my learning to be something like a competent designer. My first batch of submissions didn't make it, but Kate took the time to say some nice things about them, and in the next submissions call I not only got a pattern into the magazine, but Talboys Wrap was the main design on the front cover!


I now found out what a tech editor was (no, I didn't know about them when I started!) and later that year made another Great Leap Forward when I discovered the wonderful world of pattern testing on Ravelry - the first patterns that went through the whole testing procedure were the designs in the Waters of Africa e-book. My testers are now some of the most important people in the design process, especially the people who have tested for me regularly and whom I trust to make sure my designs work for knitters. A lot of the early patterns I published have now had the benefit of the lessons I learned during my first couple of years.

Since then I've written lots more patterns for Knit Now and also started working with a great publication in the US, I Like Knitting, designed for yarn companies and published quite a few patterns myself, including some for charity (especially p-hop).

So here's a few stats about those 100 designs...

Most Popular by Number of Projects: Beaujolais Mitts

Most Popular by Number of Favourites: Myrtle Cowl (sadly no longer available on Ravelry since the demise of Artesano)


Best Seller: Santiago Cowl


Pattern I'm Most Proud of: Stefano Sweater

Design of My Own I Wear Most Often: tricky, but in the last year it's probably Lazy Eight Cowl

And what's the 100th Pattern? October Afternoons Scarf from I Like Knitting