Yeap, no excuses for my absence. None what so ever.
Of course I could have said that I was busy, but who is not?! And it’s not like it’s going to get less busier! There are some very good “things” that “happen” to me that will keep me very entertained for a while now. There are some things that I can share and some I can’t.
You might have noticed that “New pattern Monday” has stopped. That’s because I had some patterns in works and drafts that I have more of a long term use for. And there is a bigger reason for that as well. I have been thinking for a while now abut what I want for my crochet career. There is a lot of knit and crochet designers out there and for the most part they choose one of the two paths: self-publishing and being published by a publisher. It does not mean that some designers don’t do both, but one will always prevail.
Self publishing is just that publishing your own pattern by yourself. I said it before and I will say it again. There is a lot of work that goes into putting together a GOOD pattern together. There are coming up with an idea, sketching, finding the right yarn, swatching extensively, drafting the pattern, making a sample, writing a pattern, tech editing the pattern, photographing the sample, putting a pattern together in a pretty layout, testing it, publishing it. Then the marketing of the pattern begins. I have a lot of respect for self published designers! They wear so many hats! It’s incredibly time consuming. The benefit of this is that the designer has full control over the pattern: the style, the layout. They get to pick the yarn and color they thing is best, and in mos cases what they had vision for. All the rights stay with the designer, and she is free to do anything she wants with it.
3rd party publishing usually means being published by a magazine (physical or online), book, or yarn company. Designers main responsibility is to design and come up with a pattern. They usually start with already predetermined concept for the design. It can be “mood board”, or specific yarn. In most cases swatching and sketching happens first. Then, if a publisher likes the idea, they will provide the yarn. The designer will then have to write up the pattern in a specific style and create a sample in specified size. Once that is done, the publisher will take care of pictures, editing, layout, and everything else. The benefit of being published by someone else is that a designer get to do just that – design! There is no other hats to where. In most cases the designer is selling all rights to the pattern.
That’s what I’ve been doing for the past few month – trying to figure out what path to take and what will work for me at this point in my life. I am still thinking, but having a full time job, teaching in the evenings, and planning a wedding, leaves me very limited time to work on my pattern line. So I am leaning towards 3rd party publishing.
That post got a bit longer then I expected, so I will share the news in the new one.
