29 September 2009 · No Comments
The winner of the lovely Shalimar Yarns Zoe Sock is…Kerri at number 14! Thanks so much to everyone who entered. I’m officially sold on these giveaways and will do my best to offer them when I release patterns in the future. Thanks to everyone who entered.
Come back Thursday morning for a link to the first part of the pattern for a mystery knit along on Ravelry!
28 September 2009 · 1 Comment
It is, for the first time this fall, officially cold enough that I reached for a pair of thick fuzzy handknit socks to keep my feet warm. I grabbed Slant, and I’m pleased to report they are working quite well. My feet are definitely warmer and there is now no need to do anything drastic like closing the windows.
On the business front, the winner of the giveaway will be announced tomorrow, and a new pattern will be released on Thursday.
15 September 2009 · 2 Comments
Wow, you guys like yarn! The site has been up for about six months and I had almost as many comments on the yarn giveaway post as on all the others put together. I won’t keep you in suspense, the results, as generated by the random number generator on random.org is Ellen at number 31. I will send you an email today to get your address and will have the package in the mail tomorrow or the next day.
This has been fun, I’ll have to see if I can do more of these yarn giveaways in the future. The next socks to be released should be the Xanthophyll socks, and then a free pair for a knit along on Ravelry. More details to come about both as they get closer.
10 September 2009 · 41 Comments
Bines is live!
To celebrate I’m having a giveaway. The Schaefer Yarn Company has graciously donated a skein of their lovely Heather yarn in Dian Fossey (that’s the yarn I knit them in, just to be clear), and I’m giving away a copy of the pattern (or a copy of a different pattern if that’s what the winner would prefer).
If you’d like a chance to win the yarn and pattern, just leave a comment on this post. I will leave comments open till Monday evening. On Tuesday I’ll randomly pick one person from the comments and contact them to get their address and mail them their loot. Just be sure you use a real email address when you leave a comment, or else I won’t have a way to contact you. Don’t worry, I’m not organized enough to do anything nefarious with your email and no one else will see it.
9 September 2009 · 1 Comment
The pattern for Bines is finished, and I will be releasing it tomorrow. Bines was knit with one of the yarns that Schaefer gave me in return for a pattern I designed for them. When they saw Bines, they liked them, so this pattern will be getting added to their library as well.
To celebrate the pattern release I’m having a little give away. The folks at Schaefer have graciously offered to provide a skein of their Heather yarn in the color Dian Fossey (the same color and yarn I used to make the original socks) to one of my readers. I’ll provide a copy of the pattern (or any of my other patterns if you prefer) to go with it. I’ll post the details here tomorrow when the sock pattern goes live.
22 August 2009 · 2 Comments
Sock Summit was pretty much made of awesome on all levels. I can’t possibly do it justice and so won’t try to describe it. I would blather. It would be unseemly. Instead, I’m going to talk about one tiny aspect of the awesome.
As I was getting ready to go to Sock Summit, a few of the vendors working there contacted me to ask about creating patterns for them with their yarn. I was flattered. There may have been a bit of undignified squeeing and perhaps a few goofy grins. I’ll never tell. I’m still awfully new at this, and it feels fantastic when people like my work.
We talked. Plans were made and agreements reached. I got to Sock Summit, found their booths, and wandered around molesting admiring their pretty yarns. Then, and this is the part that still feels like crime, I got to pick some out and bring it home. It was all the good parts of yarn shopping with none of those pesky bills at the end.
All of the yarns will be getting made into socks over the next few months (I might have tripped and cast one on already). You’ll be seeing and hearing more about them as they go along. In the meantime, I can say with certainty that free yarn is by far the niftiest part of this designing thing. I could get used to this!
20 August 2009 · No Comments
I think the time has come to explain a bit about the testing process and how I approach it. I’m doing this in part because I’m still new at this and would love to find out more about how more experienced designers do it and in part because I have gotten a few messages that seem to indicate that there are some hurt feelings when I don’t pick someone to test for me.
I find testers in a few places. Some of my testers are people who have knit my other patterns and told me they particularly enjoyed them. Some are people who left comments about the sock in progress and volunteered to test them. The majority of my testers come from the testing forums on Ravelry.
I post the call for testers in the testing forum along with information about the project. I ask people who are interested to get in touch and to provide me with some information about their sock and test knitting experience. Then I wait to see who volunteers. Much to my delight, I usually have lots of volunteers. I find it very gratifying that so many people are willing to help me with my patterns. The only downside, is that I have to make some difficult choices. I generally only need two to four testers. That is usually plenty to check for errors. Working with any more than that just presents too many organizational challenges.
So how do I pick? Well, I generally give first priority to people with whom I’ve worked before. Next, I look at the volunteers and see who might be a good fit. I tend to pick people who answered my question about their previous experience over those who didn’t. I tend to pick people who have lots of projects posted in their Ravelry notebooks over those who don’t. I try to be sure that at least half of the testers are native English speakers, though I am perfectly happy to have non-native English speakers as well. Basically, the more I know about a person’s knitting experience, either from the messages they send me or the work they show on Ravelry or their websites, the more likely I am to pick them as a tester. Even with those sorting methods, I still tend to have at least five times as many volunteers as I can use, which means I have to say ‘not this time’ to some people.
So what do you do if you really really really want to test? Well, give me lots of information to use when I’m making a choice. Knit lots of socks and be sure you’ve got them listed on your Ravelry notebook. Take and post lots of pictures of your projects. Tell me about any other testing experience you have or why your past knitting experience makes the current sock a good match for you. Our communication will be in writing, and I’m asking you to check something I’ve written, so try to show me that you can express yourself clearly when you write. Finally, if you see I’m working on something you just love beyond all reason, let me know while I’m still working on it, and we may be able to work something out.
I never mean to hurt anyone’s feelings when I pick someone else. I’m always flattered when people offer to use their knitting time and their yarn to help me improve my patterns. I just can’t take everyone. I do, however, have every intention of designing more socks, so if it doesn’t work out this time please come back next time!
