August 2020: When losing a client is a good thing

I celebrate each and every one of my new (and existing) clients - but here’s what I learned from the ones I stopped working with

Hi there,

when I last visited my parents I found a business card in my old things. It was the first one of my former colleague from the (tree) nursery we both did our apprenticeship as gardeners at. That nursery was always struggling - they never had enough money and were always just one step away from being bankrupt.

For me this experience confirmed my self-belief that I wouldn’t want to be self-employed or have my own business ever. My colleague obviously didn’t have those qualms at all - right after getting his certificate he started his own business - which by the way is doing great (naturally I checked up on him and his business when finding that old business card).

Over the years I noticed I had problems with the same stuff again and again - no matter where I worked. I wanted to stay true to my values and that didn’t fit with the “vision” my bosses had of how their employees were supposed to work.

After the interview for my last job, I drove home and said to myself: “I don’t want to work for that man“ (the boss) which turned to “I don’t work for anyone“ after two thirds of the way. I should have taken this thought seriously but my head won and I worked there for over five years.

Now I’ve been self-employed for almost 3 years and I regret nothing. It’s not always easy and I could do with more work but I enjoy it immensely. The most important things are: 1. I can live and work according to my natural rhythm (I won’t start work before 9 AM but can happily work at 9 PM) and 2. I can do things my way and according to my values.

This is very important for all of us, being true to ourselves and our values, especially in our businesses.

I value every one of you who works with me and I want you to be aware of this. This is why I communicate with you the way I do: You’ll always get a reply to all communication and I try to answer your questions and help in any way I can. I don’t do this for money - I do this because this is important to me. I see you and me as a team, we work together on your designs to make them the best they can be, so you can feel confident and proud.

Although I could do with more work, i.e. more clients, I stopped working with three existing clients and the cases were quite different from each other. They illustrate different values I want to keep true to.

Obviously as a designer, you don’t work as a team with your customers but I think the following examples can help you too - not just in working with me or some other service provider but generally with how you can be authentic in your business - and people will recognise that and value you for it.

Not respecting my boundaries: One of my clients couldn’t respect my boundaries and expected me to do things I didn’t want to do, e.g. knitting their patterns to help with their self-esteem. And one situation showed that they didn’t trust my words. So I told them what my work includes and what my work doesn’t include. I was prepared to talk about the situation but they decided to stop working with me after gaslighting me about what happened. It wasn’t easy but I was relieved too. My boundaries are my boundaries for a reason.

I talked more about boundaries in this newsletter: https://urbanyarning.com/newsletter-archive/personal-boundaries

Terms of working together didn’t fit: In this case I decided to stop working with this particular client (a publisher). They complained about the quality of my work (indirectly in an email to all people involved in a rather big project) and held me responsible for not making sure the patterns adhered to a style guide which I never had. Jobs for them were always to be done preferable two days before the job came in, but patterns never arrived on time (sometimes not even in time for the deadline by which I should have sent them back) and they are slow to pay my invoices. Not optimal conditions to work together, so I decided to end this collaboration.

The slinking away client: They never said they don’t want to work with me anymore. They never said anything, except that they loved working with me and liked my work. We worked on a few projects over the years - but now I noticed them publishing several new patterns (independently, not in a magazine or book which is something totally different) which I never saw. And they talked about “their” tech editor (which wasn’t me) as an aside in a social media post about something else.

It’s totally okay to decide to work with somebody else! But please, if you decide so, let me know directly! I won’t be angry or mean to you.

Communication is so important!

Just this week I got some information from a designer I’ve worked with for a while now. It reminded me to do things I do anyway in a way which was insulting. I could see where they came from and how this came to pass and I know they are very happy with my work and it wasn’t meant to be insulting. But because I didn’t feel good with this, I let them know, we talked about this and everything is well again. It took us two not especially long emails to do so.

Because this means I lose potential jobs and therefore money, these decisions (if they were mine to make), were not easy to make.

But I want to be true to myself and authentic in my business and so I was able to make those decisions and that makes me very happy!

Talk soon,

Frauke

P.S.: There was one time in my last job when I was asked to apologised to an applicant who was very angry with my boss and sent me an email to give to them. The applicant mentioned in that email that they knew it wasn’t my fault. But my boss forced me to apologise in my name. After I did, the applicant called me and asked why *I* apologised, he had explicitly said he knew it wasn’t my fault and expected an apology from my boss. - I was made to feel like a small child by my boss. Things like that can’t happen to me anymore. I have a lot more responsibility now but I can handle things my way which is a very good feeling.

July 2020: Do you always use the "right" yarn?

Hi there!

Where I grew up there were two yarn shops, and one of those was the one my mother went to, so that’s the one I went to as well. (It closed a while ago and now she - and I when I’m visiting - have to go to the “other” one but it’s okay, we got used to it ;-))

As it isn’t in a big town, the shop was quite small. They carried a few brands (Lana Grossa, Lang Yarns, Regia for sockyarn, Rico Design Yarn) and had always the most recent collection in. They were happy to order other colours or bigger amounts of yarn just for you.

When I still lived at home, I knitted almost exclusively socks. But sometimes my mother got a small pattern booklet or a calendar with patterns because she was a good customer and I fell in love with a pattern. Either I persuaded my mother to knit it or I would attempt to make it myself.

I used the yarn they had in the shop which wasn’t always what was recommended in the pattern. But the yarn shop owner and the other ladies working there were very helpful to substitute yarns.

From the moment I started knitting I was used to substitute yarns because it was the 90s (no internet) and a small town as well. Also, I liked to use leftover yarns from my mother’s stash.

When I started university and later when I worked at the university, there wasn’t too much money to spend on yarn. If I really wanted something special or a bigger amount for a project, I asked my parents for it for my birthday or Christmas.

Later I discovered indie dyed yarn and had more money to spend, so I sometimes used the yarn which was recommended in the pattern. But it’s more important to me to use yarn available to me and which I like (semitonal in a small range of colours). Because I tend to run warm, I never use anything thicker than Dk weight for garments. I prefer natural fibres.

One of the currently discussed topics in the knitting world is yarn substitution.

Knitters who don’t use the recommended yarn and especially those who substitute a much cheaper yarn for whatever reasons, are looked down upon and often attacked for their choices.

That isn’t fair at all! Everybody should be able to enjoy our shared hobby and make things they love with the material they can afford - because most often the reason to not use the trendy, indie dyed yarn is a lack of money.

I saw the discussion derail to asking dyers to decrease their prices which is entirely beside the point and not fair to them. I guess they don’t take enough money as it is.

But where do you as the designer come in?

Designers are asked to include a list of yarns usable for the pattern, not just the one you used for knitting your sample.

I can see where this is coming from - but I don’t quite agree with this solution.

Don’t get me wrong: I see where this demand is coming from and it would be nice to give a long list of yarn recommendations for a pattern.

But (most) knitting patterns are too cheap anyway and I think it’s not fair to ask the designer to put even more work into a pattern - and since a lack of money is the source of this whole discussion, the designer couldn’t even take more money for a pattern without losing the gained plus of accessibility again.

Here are a few reasons why I think including a list of recommended yarns can’t be the solution:

• It requires research from the designer, so more time and higher costs - which you would to need to absorb yourself to avoid a loss of (financial) accessibility.

• Knitters everywhere in the world want to knit your pattern - but you can’t be expected to check if recommended yarns are available everywhere and sometimes it’s not even possible.

• How long should the list be? How many price points should be included? This is a bottomless pit.

• The pattern might be in collaboration with a company, a magazine or an indie dyer. You can’t include other yarns in these cases.

So, what to do?

First of all: Everybody should mind their own business - which doesn’t include what another knitter knits with! Everybody uses the best materials they can afford and if that’s a very cheap yarn, it doesn’t matter.

It matters that they make stuff and enjoy doing that and wearing the product. And even if they make stuff out of necessity and don’t enjoy it too much, it doesn’t matter.

It’s not a reason to attack someone or look down on them!

Obviously, it matters that there is poverty and we need to work on that, but that is beyond what we can do here.

There are resources out there: online courses, books, a nifty website (www.yarnsub.com), the knitter can google the yarn properties and try to find a similar yarn (with Ravelry inaccessible to many people this isn’t really easy at the moment though).

In my opinion, a knitter should be able to substitute a yarn without more help from the designer. But that’s not where we are moving towards, knitting patterns get longer and longer and knitters expect more and more things included in a pattern.

Overall we should encourage knitters to take back responsibility for their knitting (e.g. finding resources to learn techniques).

We can’t change that trend over night but we can help knitters by changing the way we word things in knitting patterns.

These are the things currently routinely included in the yarn section of a pattern:

• Yarn company, name of yarn

• Composition of yarn

• Weight of yarn (including the length of the unit the yarn comes in)

• Amount of yarn needed, mostly in skeins or balls (or other unit)

• Colour(s) used for sample

• Gauge

Which may look like this:

YarnCompanyName YarnName (x m/yds per xx g / xx oz ball/skein; x% fibre1, x% fibre2, …)

x (x, x, x, x,…) balls/skeins used; sample uses colour x.

x sts /x rows /rounds = 10cm / 4in in stocking stitch, blocked

But we don’t lose any information by changing it to this:

xx weight woollen / cotton / acrylic / xx yarn, xx m / xx yds per xx g, in x shades/colours

A xx g

B xx g

etc.

Yarn used for the sample:

Rainbow Heirloom Heritage DK (75% Bluefaced Leicester; 25% Masham British Wool) in colours

A Wicked Pacific

B Submarine

But we could gain a knitter feeling that it is totally okay to substitute another yarn because what you used was “only” your choice for the sample.

We could make substitution even easier by including a bit more information:

In the pattern romance we could talk about what we want the knitted fabric to feel like, how it should drape or hold the shape a bit and why we use a specific yarn for this design.

To better describe the yarn weight we could include WPI (wraps per inch) if that’s available.

Knitters ask for giving the amount of yarn as meterage / yardage for a pattern. We need to be careful with this though: It looks more exact than it is. As you as designers know, this is always an estimate however you calculate it. You are used to include a buffer to allow for swatching and small differences in tension but this won’t always absorb the little differences between yarns.

What you can and should include is the information whether a skein / ball isn’t used in its entirety - contrast colours in colourwork, a partly needed second skein / ball, etc.

I’m sure there are other ideas to make the yarn section of your pattern more inclusive or provide help for substituting yarn elsewhere.

Did you already think about what you can do to help with this?

Let me know by replying to this post!

Frauke x

May 2020: How to say you want to do it again ;-)

Hi there,

if you are anything like me, you have quite a few plans in the back of your head or noted down somewhere.

But with our busy lives it isn’t easy to find the time and motivation to work on those plans.

I think I know what you’re thinking: “Oh no, somebody else to talk about productivity and how to achieve your goals. I can’t hear it anymore.”

But fear not, my friend, far from it, I just want to talk about something which gets me moving ahead with those plans “for when I have time“ (as if!).

It’s laziness or better convenience:

After last month’s newsletter, I was asked for the first instalment of that very short series of book reviews. And because I had looked it up and sent it to quite a few new designers I started working with lately, I thought: “That’s it! It’s time for the newsletter archive on my website“.

It was a public holiday here in Germany and I used the time to upload all useful and/ or entertaining newsletters of 2018 to my website. Last week I added the highlights of 2019’s newsletters (I had forgotten that there were that many which fitted the above description).

I had planned that for a long time. I put time and effort in my newsletters so I wanted to store them somewhere people can go and read them and where I can send people to find specific information I already covered in a newsletter.

So this newsletter contains “real“ news this month ;-) Everything older than 6 months will be there - it has to be advantageous for you to be on my list after all :-)

Yay for chipping away on big plans!

Another thing I repeatedly write regards pattern writing.

So, unto today’s topic:

On writing repeats - which I want to avoid so this will be in a newsletter and later in the archive, so I can re-sent this or point designers to my website ;-)

There are quite a lot of methods how to write repeats in knitting patterns. I selected a few which should cover most types of repeats you need.

Let’s talk about the word “repeat“ first. Some people understand it to mean that you have an instruction and then do it for another / a further x times, so you have 1 + x rows / rounds in total. Other people understand it to mean that the first instruction is included in the number of times it is worked, so you have 1 + x-1 rows / rounds in total.

This is a bit of a philosophical question and my stance is that you can only repeat something which is already there, so I’m in camp 1 + x rows / rounds. I won’t start discussing this with you though.

I highly recommend either giving the total amount of rows / rounds you want to have worked as well, or an added “another“ or “a further“ like I did above, so the knitter will understand what you mean by “repeat“.

Now to the different types of repeats:

1. The easiest type of repeat is to repeat a whole row or round, obviously. This is simple:

Row 1 / Round 1: K47, p3, k2tog, k1, ssk, p3, k47.

Repeat Row 1 / Round 1 another x times for a total of y times.

Naturally, it works accordingly if more than 1 round / row is to be repeated.

2. For something to be repeated for a whole row or round l like the use of parentheses around the instruction like this:

Row 1 / Round 1: (K47, p3, k2tog, k1, ssk, p3, k47) to end of row / round OR across / around.

Another simple example is ribbing:

Row 1 / Round 1: (K2, p2) to end of row / round OR across / around.

3. I recommend using parentheses as well for instances where part of a row / round instruction should be repeated for a certain number of times, like this

Row 1 / Round 1: K47, p3, (k2tog, k1, ssk) twice, p3, k47.

4. If only part of a row / round instruction is to be repeated to a specific point, I recommend using the asterisk like this:

Row 1 / Round 1: K47, p3, *k2tog, k1, ssk; repeat from * to marker, slm, p3, k47.

As an aside: Obviously, I could have written that instruction without a marker like this:

Row 1 / Round 1: K47, p3, *k2tog, k1, ssk; repeat from * to 50 sts before end of row / round, p3, k47.

I don’t recommend that because it’s not knitter-friendly: who wants to count that many stitches at the end of the row / round? I don’t.

But you can write it like that, if it’s only a few stitches which you can see without actively counting - not more than 3 stitches, I’d say though.

You can find it written like this too:

Row 1 / Round 1: K47, p3, *k2tog, k1, ssk*; repeat from * to * to marker, slm, p3, k47.

I don’t recommend that at all! The same symbol is used for the start and the end of the phrase to be repeated. That can make it difficult for the knitter to see where they are and what the repeated bit is, especially when it comes to more complex instructions.

5. For more complex instructions you can put all of the above together and use different types of brackets to make it easy to spot.

Row 1 / Round 1: K47, [p3, *k2tog, (k1, ssk) 3 times; repeat from * to marker, slm, p3] twice, k47.

I hope this is useful for you! And I hope I don’t see too many double asterisks in the future ;-)

Did I forget a type of repeat?

Talk soon,

Frauke x

April 2020: My professional bookshelf: Another one of my three most used books

Hi there,
how are you?
I mean that question in all honesty, if you need to talk, just reply to my email and we can chat. It doesn’t have to be about knitting or the current situation.
We’re all affected by it and I’m here to lend a sympathetic ear or two if you need it / them.

In quite a few ways, I am quite predictable: I am drawn to very specific hues of very specific colours (a friend calls them “Frauke-Farben“ (Farben - colours)), I will order „Maracujaschorle“ when out for dinner (passionfruit juice mixed with sparkly water) and if I want to inform myself about a new to me topic, I get a book.

Quite a while ago I started a series in which I plan on showing books I find useful as a knitter, designer and technical editor. I thought it was time for a new instalment as I don’t think you can call it a series with only one :-)

When I learned to knit, I was taught two types of decreases and no increase at all (as I knitted mostly socks I didn’t need those anyway). The two decreases I learned were “k2tog” and ”(sl1, k1), pass slipped stitch over knitted stitch”. As k2tog leans to the right and the other one leans to the left, I could do paired decreases.

As an aside: I disliked knitting two stitches together, so I always used the other decrease which is very visible. Even in my first jumper which I freestyled, I used that visible decrease and my mother telling me that I shouldn’t have used that one only lead to me being more determined to do it my way. It’s an interesting effect - I wouldn’t call it design feature because I did the decreases entirely randomly but “interesting effect“ is a good way to put it (and I still wear that jumper).

When I started knitting lace patterns, I learned some increases at last and the ssk decrease. And when I got more systematic in my approach to knitting, I encountered this book which now is one of my most used books:

Judith Durant: Increases - Decreases. 99 Step-by-Step Methods
The tagline reads: “Find the perfect technique for shaping every knitting project.“
Isn’t that a great promise and a dream come true?

I love this book. It is very practical in more than one sense:
The book itself is ring-bound so you won’t lose your page because the books stays open where you want it. I love when people pay attention.
There is a content page and every part has its own introduction. Lists of common abbreviations and common symbols as well as an index are included.

As the name suggests, there are increases (36) and decreases (43), some are neutral, some are leaning. They can be open or closed. You can pair them to get mirrored increases or decreases. There are single ones and double ones, and even more (e.g. reducing 4 stitches to 1 in one go).

Every technique has lots of photos: One shows a swatch of the technique and for every step of the instruction there is a very clear photo to illustrate that step.
There is a short introduction to every method and characteristics and uses are stated. This is what I find most helpful. The characteristics will remind you in which direction something leans, so you can easily find a paired increase or decrease for both sides of your knitting. The stated uses give you a first idea how to use them.

Even more about that you can find in the third part of the book called “Combinations and special circumstances“. If you want to do more than just shape your fabric, this is the part you need. Here you find how to use increases and decreases for decorative effects like bobbles (if you find those decorative ;-)), ruching or lace.

And the special circumstances show you how to shape in patterns whether they are textured, lace or colour patterns. This is especially great for everyone starting to design their own patterns. There are very useful tips in there although the book with its 256 pages can’t go into too much depth, obviously.

I can wholeheartedly recommend this book. It will be a very useful addition to your knitting library.

Which book do you find particularly helpful? Let me know, I’m always on the lookout for new books :-)

Talk soon,
Frauke


P.S.: If you are not (yet) interested in nerdy books about a very narrow topic in knitting, this could be an argument to at least look at the book in the library: For you as a designer this book might proof especially useful if your pesky tech editor insists on you explaining how a ssk is worked ;-)

Judith Durant (2015): Increases Decreases. 99 Step-by-Step Methods. Storey Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-61212-331-8

March 2020: A day in the life of *this* tech editor

I don’t want to give you the perfect tip or let you know that I have figured it out - take from this what might help you and leave the rest


Hi there,
two, not three things I hope are true for you:
You’re
* still healthy
* at home
* still working
like me.

How many emails did you get giving you lists of the best resources for online learning, the best tipps for working from home, the best free offers in these weird times?
If your inbox looks just a bit like mine, you don’t want any more lists.

So I won’t give you another list - because I don’t know the “best” of anything anyway. It depends so much on who you are and how you tick. So now I’ll do what I was told not to: I’ll use this newsletter to talk about me :-)

For me not a lot has changed: I work from home all the time, I live alone and since I have to be careful with money I haven’t a lot of activities outside my home. I meet with my friends and family living in the same city - and that’s the only things which changed for me. Now it’s messaging and video-calling and regular calling on the landline (yes, I still have one of those).

It helps me a lot to know my biological rhythm. I’m not a morning person at all but I don’t have a problem working in the evenings. Depending on how much work I have, some days are not really filled up and I have to be careful not to get the holiday feeling, going to bed later and later - which means getting up later and later as well.
But I’ll always keep to my own rhythm - what is the worth of working for yourself, if you can’t do it on your terms?

I have a routine in place: My alarm is set (not too early) and while I air my flat, I can go back to bed and check messages or do my language course, then I’ll get up and do some exercising. I need to have it done for the day quite early in my day because otherwise I won’t do it. And I do need a low threshold to start it, so I do it at home. It doesn’t take too much time this way. After that breakfast, emails and deciding what needs to be done that day.

Work organisation: As I work on patterns in the order they arrive in my inbox, I have a list for the week and then decide how many to do on a given day. I can always move things around but I never put too much on a day, so I’ll be able to check off everything I planned for that day. If I see I have time left and wouldn’t mind doing more, I’ll do that.

For me, the key is to avoid making my day look like I wouldn’t have time for the things I enjoy - knitting, reading, talking to friends. If I get the feeling it’s all work and no fun, I won’t want to start with work at all. So I let my days look like there is a lot of time for those enjoyable things. That’s what I “have” to do - but I end up doing more anyway - because nobody expects me to, I enjoy work and have fun checking things off my…

….Lists: I love to do - lists. No, that’s not the whole truth: I love to check off things from my to do list.
I have a weekly to do list from which I will move items to daily to do lists. The items are always small enough to finish them quite quickly. I even started a habit tracker with the smaller things I want to do daily. Having them written down means I don’t have to think whether I’m in the mood to do them. I decided to do them beforehand and it’s very satisfying to cross them off.

A few weeks ago I started a cleaning routine as well. I found one with daily tasks which I put on my habit tracker (or they were already there) and weekly tasks each of which is assigned to one day, so you never have to do a lot. It works great.

I’m very generous with breaks: Most days I have a nice lunch break with included knitting time.
Working from home means I might have put laundry on, so when the washing machine starts to shout about being finished, I take a break and hang it up.

If I need to get groceries or go to the post office, I’ll do that in the afternoon. And I might go back to work afterwards. Sometimes when something is difficult, I’ll just have a break and then continue to work after some knitting or reading a chapter in one of my current books.

It’s important for me to do things I want to do but I won’t particularly enjoy (like exercising) early in the day, so they are done, are crossed off and I can do the fun stuff for the rest of the day. And yes, my work as a tech editor totally counts as fun stuff.

I mentioned low thresholds before but I want to elaborate on those a bit: For me, working from home is ideal. I know people who need to go somewhere else to get the work done. For me it’s the opposite: I need to be able to start work whenever I want to - if I would need to get dressed and go somewhere else first, I know I would work less.

Another example for my system of low thresholds: To avoid being overwhelmed on Mondays, I decided very early on that Mondays are my administration days. I write my invoices only on Mondays, I do my filing on Mondays, pay invoices on Mondays - you get the picture. And if it’s a slow Monday with my motivation doing something else, that’s enough. I worked and I am “allowed” to stop working after that. But most Mondays I do some other stuff as well - because I don’t have to ;-)

Unlike other people I don’t have to wear office clothes to feel like working. Actually, I started to call my launch clothes work clothes because that’s what happened :-) It’s important that I’m comfy and I’m always wearing clean clothes - you never know, there might arrive a package or someone might Skype without asking beforehand :-)

I follow my own rules. I hate rules given to me by other people but my own rules are totally okay. And even though I call them rules, the only rule I never break is that I never *have* to do anything, I can do everything but I don’t have to do it. This increases the probability of me doing it :-)

I think the most important thing is to know how you tick and work around that. These things are what works for me. In April, I’ll be turning 40 (no celebrations then, sadly - but I’ll celebrate later) and I started to work when I was 19. There was a break for university in my 20s. And the only time I was able to work in my own rhythm was when I was able to write my diploma thesis from home. I discovered many of the above tricks then.

And now I can do it again and that makes me very happy and well-balanced.

Do you know what works best for you? Do you have a great tip to share?

Stay healthy and talk soon

Frauke xx

February 2020: How dare they?!

Hi there,
I got a Ravelry message once from a guy who invited me to a group for people in the region I lived in at that time. So I checked this guy out (as you do) and noticed he had patterns for sale. Curious, I went to his store and saw a basic hat pattern and a basic baby sock pattern.

I couldn’t believe my eyes: The simplest shapes of the most basic accessories - and he wanted money for the patterns. Even worse - there were projects for these designs, so there are people who might have paid the money.

I was quite angry. I’m still a bit angry. How dare he *sell* these basic patterns (since then I found a lot of plain vanilla sock patterns, some of them for sale as well). Yes, obviously the patterns contain important information for people who never knitted a hat or baby socks. But come on, there are free resources for that.

My anger is bigger than the “offence” warrants, I give you that. But why?

Easy: I was/am jealous that some guy - who didn’t even have that much knitting experience at that point - just published a pattern and valued his work enough to sell it instead of giving it away.
You might agree with me that in this instance this was a bit over-confident but it is a general problem.

Let’s stay with me, shall we? I have quite exact ideas of what I want and I have friends who are the same. We all work under the assumption that when it comes to knitting, I can do anything. And mostly I find a solution - even when my brother asks me for a blanket-like something they can put around a child in a sling with integrated closures or a friend wants a scarf with an integrated hood.

When friends asked me whether I would publish a pattern for something like the above I would reply: “It’s nothing special. I just did this thing and added that thing and everyone can do it. Nobody needs a pattern for that.”

But here is the thing: There are a lot of knitters who feel better when following a pattern, they don’t want to do their own thing. They have the knowledge and experience but lack the confidence or the willingness to develop their own pattern.

So if you have, like me, an idea for a design but think that nobody would be interested because it’s easy (for you!), try it. Write the pattern down, go through the development process and publish the pattern. There are always people who didn’t have the ideas and don’t know how to find solutions constructionwise. They will be grateful for it.

Value your time and work and take money for the pattern - it doesn’t have to be too much (I saw a tank top pattern without variations offered for $20 - which might be a bit too ambitious). But people tend to value things which cost money more than free things too.
Men are much more confident in this regard and women need to catch up!

So, tell me about a design you ended up not publishing because you thought it wasn’t worth it. I promise to tell you about another one I didn’t mention in this email in return :-)

Talk soon,
Frauke x

P.S.: Do you feel your design ideas are nothing special and everyone could do it? Do you end up not publishing something because of that? Go for it, see it as an experiment: Write it up and publish it. See what happens - and don’t forget to value your time, work and expertise by selling it, not giving it away for free.

January 2020: If you are a bit like me, you will love this

Hiya,
Happy new year!
January is almost over and I’m back. I hope you had a great festive season. Mine was filled with family, candles, biscuits, knitting and jigsaw puzzles and ended with a massive head cold (present of my wee niece).
Fingers crossed for a bit more light in February so I might have a chance to be properly awake at some point this year.

I am a knitter and a tech editor. I look at a lot of patterns, for fun and for work. I like a lot of them - but I won’t knit them all. I never thought I would need to make that clear because I thought it was logical. There are weeks when I work on more than 10 different patterns - it’s just not possible to knit them all.

But there was someone who was offended I didn’t knit their patterns. Okay, I can understand that you might feel a bit let down by that because nobody thinks about the sheer amount of patterns going over my desk and it would be a nice thing.

They accused me of not being supportive enough. I would only say they were a good designer but I wouldn’t knit their patterns. So obviously I was lying.

We could say a lot about this but today we will stick with one thing: This is not professional behaviour. I’m sure you agree with me.

So lately I thought a lot about what *is* professional, more exactly: What is a professional mindset? How does a professional think?

Here’s what I came up with in my brainstorming session:
+ takes themselves seriously
+ knows what they are doing and why
+ wants the best for their customers
+ is objective and business-like
+ wants to deliver high quality
+ is aware that it’s human (and unavoidable) to make mistakes
+ is good at receiving criticism
+ knows that criticism isn’t directed at them as a person but at the thing criticised

What do you think? Do you disagree with anything? Do you have something to add?
Please brainstorm with me and add your thoughts in the comments!

Thanks for your input in advance,

Frauke xx

November 2019: I don’t have time for this

Hi there!
Do you feel the holidays coming up? I noticed a definite increase in promotional emails over the last days. And an increase in invitations for events and festivities.
A lot of people are in a rush right now and mildly to severely stressed about it. I hope you’re not among those people!

We all have deadlines and I am all for keeping those deadlines. But what about self-imposed ones?

You might need the pressure to get things done. I feel you. I always pack my bags the night before I leave for a trip. This newsletter gets written one or two days before it’s due. I intend to update my website, I try to put a deadline in for that but it doesn’t work.
The difference? I’m not that easy to be tricked into believing something. It has to be convincing - and “I should’ve updated my website by next month“ is not believable for my brain. It’s an arbitrary date and I know it. Never works.

And then there are deadlines I want to keep but I can’t influence the workflow because other people are involved.

An example: At my former job scientists who submitted a proposal always wanted to know when they could expect a decision. And they asked me. The first few times I gave them a specific date I thought I could make. I allowed for the time my superiors would need to read my report and come to a conclusion. I even checked the calendar for times they weren’t at work. And then something happened and I wouldn’t make it. I played dead and hoped against hope that the scientist would have forgotten what I said. Guess what? They never did. And so I had to apologise and tell them a new date.

I did that twice. Then I avoided giving them specific dates, all they got were estimates - generous estimates because I learn from my mistakes. And here is how I do it now as self-employed tech editor:

If you already worked with me, you know I let you know when to expect your edited pattern back.
I can do that because I know what is on my schedule and it’s only me and my willingness to work that deadline is depending on. Mostly the deadline is generous and I will send back your pattern earlier.

I organise my jobs (your patterns) like this: They get done in order of appearance in my inbox. First come, first served, easy as that. I have a schedule but it is not set in stone. I don’t need your pattern a week (or any specific period) in advance. That saves both of us a lot of frustration and stress.

If you have a bigger project (a collection, a book(let), in short more than one pattern at a time), it’s always better to ask about my schedule beforehand. Maybe there is a deadline with a printer or a publisher you’ll need to make. I can tell you when I can fit it in and I can reserve time for it as well. And I will do my best (and till now I always managed) to get it done in time.

If you have a single pattern with no deadline attached, the probability is high I can fit it right in. There are always small gaps in my schedule. Just send the pdf for an estimate or the pattern for the edit (depending on how we work together).

Please, don’t tell me you’ll send a pattern by a specific date if you don’t know if you can do it.
I will keep that pattern in mind when planning my weeks and to be honest, it makes my planning difficult and stressful. Your pattern will be here when it gets here. And I will edit it as soon as possible - which at the moment is probably within the next 5 business days.

Do me (and yourself) a favour: Stop mentioning exact dates when you don’t know if you can stick to them - it will make your life a lot easier.

Talk soon,
Frauke

P.S.: If you need a job done fast, there’s always the possibility to talk to me and for a 50% rush fee I will edit your pattern ahead of the queue.

October 2019: I’m quite useful

Hi there!
A few years ago I travelled with a friend around Ireland. Whenever we got to a new place, the first thing was a walk around to get to know our new surroundings. On a day like that at dinner my friend asked if we wanted to go to a pub afterwards.

”There is one with life music, starting around 9pm, on the street leading to the cathedral“. My friend looked very surprised and asked how I knew that.

The answer to this is: I read (almost) every sign I see. And I have a very good memory. It worked out for deciding to which pub to go in an unknown city but you will probably benefit from this as well.

As your tech editor my most important job is to edit your pattern, with everything that includes. (If you are not sure about that, have a look around on my website.) But there are quite a few questions around writing and publishing a pattern.

Working with a tech editor means you have a go-to person to ask these questions, at least if that tech editor is me. I see our collaboration as teamwork and for me it’s a given to be there for my clients.

You can always ask me anything. And as you probably suspected by now: I have boundaries and I will defend them but chances are high that your questions won’t overstep any boundaries.

No question is too basic. Among the designers I work with are some who just started out, some who have a bit of experience and some who have a lot of experience. All of them need advice from time to time.

So here are a few examples for the kind of questions I get:
* How can I explain the repeat box to knitters new to shawl knitting?
* Where can I find test knitters?
* I was contacted by a customer and she is unhappy. Nothing I say helps in any way. What would you say? (that turned into a newsletter as you might remember :-))
* Do you think the photo and the chart show the same cable?
* How can I have a discount for my pattern on Ravelry?
* Can I use this name for my design?
* Can you help me with the wording for this round in my design?
* A yarn company wants to pay me for a design. For how much money can I ask?

I like to talk about every aspect of knitting and discuss these kind of questions. Do my friends a favour and give me the opportunity to talk shop with someone who is really interested ;-)

Waiting to talk to you,
Frauke

September 2019: Who are you? And who am I?

Hi there!
So, do you remember that I talked a lot about personal boundaries lately? I’m sure you do, they appeared over and over again. And this month brought the chance to practise defending mine.

I seem very open and prepared to share personal stories. And to some extent I am exactly that. I am known for always having a story to tell, finding examples for a lot of behaviour you can observe and to having an opinion most of the time.

Business advice for very small businesses like mine talks about you being “your brand“. I don’t want to go into detail on this but essentially it means you put a lot of yourself in everything that identifies your business.

It helps people, potential customers, to identify with your brand / business. This is a good thing: You want them to do so to be able sell them whatever you sell (but marketing is not today’s topic ;-)).
But it bears the risk that your customers feel they are your friends as well.

Before I started working in a funding agency (my last job), I worked in research in plant breeding. This isn’t a big field, so you get to know all the players, a lot of them are colleagues and friends. My field of expertise at the funding agency was plant breeding as well. So I got research proposals from friends. Luckily, I shared that topic with a colleague and we could avoid conflicting interests by dividing the proposals between us according to personal connections or the lack thereof.

One day I was called by a former colleague who said they would send a proposal and could I make sure they got the money. I had to because I was their former colleague, the proposal was just formality. When I said, I would check everything and would come to a conclusion based on the facts and they would hear from us, they got angry and told me that this was unfair and I knew they needed the money and my friend (a second person) would lose their job if I didn’t make it happen.

No, I didn’t invent that story, it happened. And they didn’t get the money. It was very unsubtle and I could see the blackmail attempt very clearly. But my former colleague really thought I could and would just send the money when they asked because we knew each other.

I am very clear about what I can and can’t do - in my old job but in my own business as well.
And this is important - sharing personal stuff, being open and friendly when working together can lead to the assumption the business relationship is a friendship. And it never is. (You can work with friends, but that is a whole other story.)

Isn’t being friends a good thing though?
It is - but in a business relationship friendship only works if you keep in mind that what’s connecting you is the business. You need to be able to separate friendship and business. It can get very difficult if there are problems and one or both of you can’t separate friendship from business.

To avoid awkward moments and situations, think about what you want to share, to what degree you allow a business relationship becoming a friendship.
Because a time will come when you will need to defend your boundaries. If your customer thinks you have a friendship, they will expect more than you will be able to give. If you didn’t define your boundaries for yourself beforehand, this situation will be very difficult for you. It will be difficult to explain that you can’t do what your customer expects from you.

But if you know from the start where your boundaries are, you will see when your boundaries are overstepped and can find clear words to defend them. You don’t need to communicate the rules you defined for yourself but you need to have them so you can enforce them when someone oversteps. And it prevents you from getting to a point where you never planned to be without noticing.

A perfectly fine solution would be to share nothing of yourself and avoid this problem. I can’t work like that because that’s not me. But being your own brand includes being very private too.

Are you clear about to what extent you want to share personal stuff? Think about it, make notes and keep your boundaries.


Talk soon,
Frauke

P.S.: If we work together, I probably will like your designs. And I will tell you if I do. That doesn’t necessarily mean I will knit them though.

August 2019: This is the sound your customers don’t want to hear: The sound of crickets which is to say: silence

Hello!
Since you already know that this month’s newsletter’s topic is customer service, let’s dive straight in.

Four years ago I was part of a year-long yarn-and-pattern club with bi-monthly deliveries. The designer was in another country. All went well till the summer when the German postal service was on strike. We didn’t know when or even if we would get mail and when the strike would be over.

The yarn package was one which didn’t arrive and before I went to pester the poor people in the post office, I wrote to the customer service of the designer to ask if they had a chance to learn exactly where my package was at that timepoint because it was possible that it hadn’t arrived in Germany.

And then again I waited, for my yarn and for a reply to my email. I knew they had a lot to do and only three people working there, so I gave them time. Three days later the yarn arrived safely - but still no reply to my email, I couldn’t even be sure it had arrived.

But because I wanted to help, I wrote again (with my first email attached) to tell them, the yarn had arrived and they didn’t need to do anything anymore. And then I got a reply. It read something like this: “Oh, we are so happy we could help you.“

I was quite angry, and frankly I still am. (Nobody ever said I was the forgiving type, did they? :-)) Six months later I was at their stall at a festival and I could see the designer being lovely with customers - but their staff was rude to me and other people.

A few newsletters ago I talked about the customer being king or queen but to keep your boundaries in place as well. This still applies to this more general topic of customer service.

Simply said: Without customers there’s no business so you really need them and most of us can’t afford to lose them by being arrogant or rude or just uninterested.

It is a lot easier to keep a customer than getting a new one.

Read that sentence again. It’s the one to remember from this email.

How customer service should look like depends on your person, the size of your business and on what you’re offering but there are a lot of small(ish) things (by which I mean they don’t take too long and/or could be automated) we all can do.

Take my example above and you have the first few things:
1. Let people know you got their email - even an automated response is better than silence.
2. Reply to all emails with questions people can’t find the answer to anywhere else.
3. Don’t pretend you helped if you know you didn’t. Be honest. Sometimes you can’t help.

And here are some more:

4. Have a clearly named and easy to find section on your website or Ravelry group with FAQ where you can send people to for very common questions. Keep this up-to-date.
5. Put your contact data anywhere, make it really easy to find.
6. Be consistent: If you committed to doing something (reply to an email in the next 3 working days, write a monthly newsletter), then do it and keep doing it. You can always change your parameters if you notice you can’t manage. But keep your word.
7. On social media (Ravelry included):
* like posts about you or showing projects made from your patterns - I think this is the least you can do
* comment if you really like something - it doesn’t take long but it feels great to be noticed by a designer
* if you share projects, don’t discriminate against anyone when you do - Appreciate all your customers, not only those suiting your aesthetics. It’s hurtful not to be noticed and recognised.
8. Be clear on what people can expect.
9. Don’t get defensive if you’re being called out on a mistake. Mistakes happen but how you handle (or not handle) the situation can seriously harm your reputation - as shown just this week on Instagram.
10. You need to spend time on your customers. It’s work but it’s more work to find new customers!
11. Our community is small. Things are being talked about. Keep that in mind.

You see, some things are quite small but they work. And not doing them can seriously hurt your business.

Talk soon,
Frauke

Remember: you can’t have a business without customers so let them know that you appreciate them.

July 2019: I never thought I’d ever say this

Hi there,
the last few weeks social media reminded me of a then-friend (we’re not friends anymore - not related to the story I’m about to tell though) and what she said about her partner.

When I told her that another friend always said she loved her husband but sometimes she didn’t like him and that I can relate to that (although I’m not married but you know what I mean :-)), she replied - without thinking about it: “No, I like my partner all the time. He could never do anything I wouldn’t like.” I don’t think that is healthy.

In the knitting community are people like that as well. I’m sure you’re aware that we have our stars and idols as well. And for some people those stars can’t do wrong.

Here are a couple of examples:
Stephen West condemned racism in the knitting community this month. He explained why he hadn’t done so before and said that he wanted to change it and not stay silent because that would cause more harm.

At once his fans were there to defend him, no, I should say to excuse him: “Oh Stephen, you do so much for this community already, you don’t have to change. I can understand you feel the pressure but if you don’t feel like it, you don’t have to say anything.”

Note: All comments along those lines came from white fans, naturally.

Then Andrea Mowry talked about her new extended sizing. It might have gotten lost but there is a discussion about size inclusivity going on as well and she was asked to do better and offer a bigger size range for her patterns. So she introduced a new extended sizing (most designs now have 7-9 sizes).

At once her fans were there to absolve her: “You’re doing so much, you don’t have to do this.” “Oh, that is so kind of you, thank you so much.” (I just had a look and some of the comments are deleted now but you get the picture.)

Note: All comments along those lines come from - I’m sure you guessed it: smaller people. (And it isn’t kind but good business to have extended sizing.)

In both examples, those were not the only kind of comments, to make that clear.

What I wanted to point out by using these examples is this:
You can always get positive feedback for everything you say, especially if you’re famous and have a lot of devoted fans.

But in cases as these it isn’t important what people say to whom your statement or action didn’t apply. It doesn’t matter if white people say, you are not racist or if skinny people say your actions are not fatphobic. What you said doesn’t apply to them, so they can’t “absolve” you. The only people who can, are people actually affected by your statement/action/policy….

This year, a lot of discussions (for want of a better word) started and a lot of people started to become aware that not all is as well as they thought. Others knew that for quite a while but now they are louder and people pay attention to them.

This won’t “just go away“ and we can’t just “go back to our knitting“ - which is a very good thing.
But this means that you as designers in this industry/ community will come to a point when you make a mistake or you might come late to a discussion.

The only way to handle it is to listen, apologise and do better in the future. Everyone can make mistakes, it is human to do so. But what really matters is how you deal with it.

And how did Stephen and Andrea handle those comments?
Stephen moderated his post and made clear that it is his place to insert himself into the conversation and use his platform and his influence to change the situation for people less privileged than him.

Also, this showed that he used the time since the discussion started to educate himself and really read, listen and learn. He didn’t just use this as a general statement but he put it into action by moderating his post - which is very important as we saw this month when an inflammatory post wasn’t moderated and what could have been a silly poem almost ended in physical assault at a yarn festival.

In case of Andrea’s post there was no visible reaction to those comments.

However important the subject in question: As designers, to deal with situations like these is really customer service.

And here we’ve come full circle and I have to say what I never thought I’d say: Be like Stephen - learn in your own time and put what you learned into use, kindly and clearly.


Talk soon,
Frauke xx

P.S.: I like some of Stephen’s designs and I admire him for his persona. But I’m not a fan and my friends know how I like to make fun of his super-fans (and I have a few stories about those). So that’s why I’d never thought I’d use him as an example ;-)

June 2019: No, I don’t read in a church

Hi there,
at the beginning of the month, there was a big party at my parents’. They like to collect reasons for parties and this rounds’ list looks as follows: my father’s 70th birthday, my mother’s retirement and their 40th wedding anniversary.

Because I’m too old for people to say: “Oh, you’ve grown a lot since I saw you last” (that’s why we have my nephew and niece ;-)), my job was talked about a lot.

I expect people to know what an editor does, I don’t expect them to know what I do as a technical editor for knitting patterns though. What I never expected was to be asked why I would say I’d read from the bible at church services when explaining my job.

In German, an editor is a “Lektorin” but this can mean a person reading aloud too but it isn’t an commonly used word. And this person I was taking to was only familiar with the latter meaning though. It took a while for me to notice that we were talking about two completely different things. It’s still weird :-)

But I thought, I’d talk about my job a bit this time:
So, you send me your pattern for editing. What do I do with it?



First of all, here is what I don’t do (I think that should go without saying but just to put it here):
* Publish it in my name
* Use your idea in a design
* Knit it without paying for it - and only after you released it anyway
* Talk about it and show it to all my friends
* Show it on social media before it is released

In short, all the information you send me (before, during or after a job) is treated confidential.

And here is what I do:
I check
* consistency: is this pattern consistent in itself? is it consistent with your other patterns?
* style: does it fit your style sheet if you have one?
* spelling, grammar and punctuation
* the wording: is it clear? is it unambiguous? is it understandable? even for a beginner or non-native speaker?
* all numbers: do they make sense? do they add up? do they lead to your final measurements? do you have enough stitches for what you’re instructing to do?
* measurements: do they fit with your numbers? did you include metric and imperial measurements? are the conversions correct? did you round numbers consistently?
* all stitch patterns: do they work? do they fit with the numbers? do chart and written instructions say the same thing? are they the same as the ones in your sample (photos)?
* layout: is it logical? Is it easy to follow? can the knitter find all the information they need at one glance?
* readability: is the font readable? is the font big enough?
* yarn: is it still available? did you copy the information correctly? Will the amount be right for the sizes?
* needles and notions: did you list all of them? did you list some not used?
* abbreviations: did you list all you used? did you list some not used? Are the explanations sufficient and clear?
* Finishing instructions: did you include everything (sewing on buttons, closing seams etc)?

It’s a lot and I bet there is more because I leave no stone unturned. And if you worked with me before, you probably experienced this first hand :-)
I mark everything I think you should check again. Most of the time I put a comment too to explain why I marked it. I might put comments on things I really like to let you know as well. Sometimes you’ll get suggestions or recommendations how you could change something to improve it.

Usually, I work in the pdf version of your pattern.
If you’re an experienced designer and we have a trusting relationship, I’m happy to work in a word/pages version as well.
This would mean I could change typos, inconsistencies with your style sheet or clearly wrong numbers (not rounded or correctly etc) for you. However, I won’t ever change anything which isn’t clearly an error.

Do you have any questions I didn’t answer? Feel free to ask in the comments.
I’m always happy to talk about my job :-)

Talk soon,
Frauke xx

May 2019: Of course you’re perfect. But what to do if somebody doubts it?

Hi there,
when I published my first patterns, I was very excited. I kept an eye on them on Ravelry - I was like a mother hen. And then it happened: My first ever message about my designs.

There are only three designs published yet, it’s a winter accessory bundle and I used a very well-known snowflake pattern - or so I thought.

See, the very considerate person who took it upon themselves to enlighten me, told me that I was wrong, traditionally this motif was meant to be flowers, tulips or lilies.

Honestly, I was baffled and didn’t really know how to react. Their tone told me that they were very convinced that they were right. Also, they started with: “Just in case you care--& possibly it doesn’t matter to you” which didn’t feel very friendly to me either.

I learned that in business, the customer always comes first. In Germany we even say: Der Kunde ist König (the customer is king). And I’m of the opinion, if you choose to do that job, you should embrace it. Working in service and providing services means that you are a servant in a way.

But what about your personal boundaries? I myself learned quite late in my life where my boundaries are and how to defend them. I don’t want to give them up, only because I love working with people. And I’m sure that you feel the same way.

How can you combine these two opposing practises though? You don’t want to lose customers but you want to stay true to yourself as well.

Here are my favourite solutions. Of course they won’t fit for every situation and every person but I think they can help you find your way of handling complaining or weird customers (or even people compelled to tell you what they think about you and your designs).

1. Don’t engage with idiots, trolls and people who only want to shout to let off steam.
You can recognise those. And you won’t change their mind. They don’t want to understand, they don’t want your help or a solution. They have problems with themselves and want to put the anger and frustration they feel on you. But you don’t need to take it. Just keep quiet and don’t reply. You can’t destroy future business here because they wouldn’t want to buy your patterns anyway.
In my example above, a very experienced designer I know told me I should have just deleted the message because it was obviously nonsense.
Being me and that being my first ever message about a design, I replied.

2. Get into contact, engage them and show them you understand them and want to help.
Customers who are angry about something you did or wrote (or didn’t do), want a solution. This is a chance. They could have just kept quiet and put you on their list of designers to never again buy from (totally guilty of this one :-)). But when they get in contact, they haven’t given up on you yet. Take this chance and engage with them. Show them that they’re the queen or king and you are there to help them. You can make them a special offer to apologise for your mistake. Be generous with your time, your patience and maybe even money (e.g. pay back what they paid for the offending pattern or gift them another one). You want to do your best to keep them as a customer - but if they turn into idiots, trolls or shouting people -> see above.
In my example: I told them that I was interested, that I didn’t know of the flower thing and would like to learn more. I asked if they could point me into the direction of sources.

3. Be clear about what you are prepared to do and what you won’t do.
Here your boundaries come into play again. Be clear for yourself what you are prepared to do. How far are you going to go? At which point will you need to put solution 1 into practise? And then make this clear to your customer/ commenter as well. Be friendly and kind but very clear about it.
In my example above: I told them that everyone can see what they want in this motif. To me, it is a snowflake, to them it might be a flower, to someone else it might be a star or something completely different. We can’t influence associations. And even if I was wrong and the motif traditionally was meant to be a flower, I wouldn’t change the names of my designs.

In general: Keep in mind that the customer might be queen or king but they can loose their crown.

So what do you think? Did I get a reply to my answer?
How do you handle unhappy customers/commenters? Do you have a great trick or strategy?
I love to hear from you, so get in contact and tell me!


Talk soon,
Frauke

April 2019: The order of the Sleeves - First anniversary newsletter

Hi there,
this is my 13th newsletter, I just checked: I sent out the very first newsletter in April 2018. It was quite fitting since this is my birthday month too.

A year ago, I talked about the name of my business and a little bit about my background (about which you can read on my about me page here https://urbanyarning.com/about) so I thought I’d tell you the story about how I decided to start tech editing.

After finishing the project I did while working at university, I had another job at a funding agency.
I needed to finish writing my doctoral thesis beside working that full time job which was boring quite soon after I started.

I had doubts about what I wanted to do and thought about it a lot. I found an online course about doing what you love and worked through it.

One exercise was a new kind of cv including everything you did in your life (not just to earn money but your hobbies too) and look for the common elements.
I found none, it was like a lot of threads running parallel but not crossing, not even touching each other. This was very frustrating.

The course recommended an online marketing course (opening once a year) if you wanted to start your own business and go deeper with everything we learned. But it is expensive and I was sure I didn’t want to start a new business.

I was on the lookout for a new job, if possible in a city I knew people in. And then my uncle died very suddenly. He was a farmer and had retired only 5 years earlier. He started to enjoy his life, travelling, making even more music and planning to learn to play the guitar just then because he didn’t have the time for it before he retired.

I’m very glad he could do the things he loved for a few years but I didn’t want to start living only after retirement. And then my favourite colleague wanted to talk to me. She started by saying: “You need to find a new job now. I’m pregnant.” - She knew it would be unbearable for me at work without her.

So I left my job without a plan except moving here. I thought about opening a yarn shop and took a class for women wanting to start a business. In that class I learned that a shop wasn’t likely to work in my current situation and so I needed a new idea because I had fallen in love with the idea of working for myself.

At that time I saw an advertisement for an online class on becoming a tech editor. Again and again I had thought about becoming an editor because I have a talent there. When I learned that there was a technical editor for knitting patterns I was curious and tried to find out how to become one. And then there was this class.

I took the class, liked the work and became a tech editor. And you know what? When I wrote my about me page I noticed that now all the things I did in my life fit together: The threads have become a fabric (knitted, obviously :-)).

What let you to designing? I’d love to hear your stories!

Talk soon,
Frauke

P.S.: And I’ll explain the subject line of this newsletter another time, promised :-)

March 2019: Steeeeeeephen <3 - 6 lessons I learned at Edinburgh Yarn Festival 2019

Haló, a h-uile duine!*
So, last weekend the Edinburgh Yarn Festival took place and I was there.

The good thing about having your own business in a field which is your life anyway is that you can go to a big event and declare it a business trip (even for tax purposes). To get that out of the way: Yes, I met clients and potential clients. I run out of business cards and also my postcards on my second day at the festival with one more to come.

I won’t give you a full report about my time in Edinburgh but here are 6 lessons I learned.

1. I flew to Edinburgh on Wednesday very early in the morning. I have to change planes in Amsterdam and like last year that was when I spotted the first knitters. While I was waiting for boarding two ladies sat opposite of me, both wearing very elaborate hand knitted shawls and one was knitting on a very involved shawl too. I knitted a very simple sock because that is my go-to travel knitting project. Another lady in that row of seats knitted on a blue hat.
Some other knitters came over and talked to the shawl lady, very excited about her great knitting. I and the hat-knitter weren’t worth even a smile.
Lesson: Knitters are show-offs. Only very complicated looking projects will be admired.

2. When boarding was almost completed, a tall man with a knitted hat walked through the aisle. You could hear gasps, very excited whispering and then: “Steeeeephen!” Yes, it was Stephen West. He smiled and even was kind enough to listen to a very confused story about the friend of one of the fans who told her that she might be on the same flight as Stephen.
At the booth of the shop he co-owns, was an extra area for fans to queue up to meet him. Only the red carpet was missing.
Lesson: It can’t be easy to be Stephen West. Be careful what levels of designer stardom you dream of and want to achieve.

3. When we landed, we got an extra announcement after the usual stuff about weather and time and such. “And to all people visiting the Knitting and Wool festival: enjoy your time in Edinburgh.”
Lesson: EYF is famous and everyone knows about it - even KLM flight attendants.

4. If you knit the trendy patterns and know the right people, you might get into the in-crowds. But you could end up being seen as trying very hard and not worthy. You can try to meet all the people whose podcasts you consume or follow on Instagram and come across as quite a fangirl. If you’re lucky, they even remember you on the second day :-) Or you could just go there, enjoy your time, buy the yarn and talk to like-minded people you meet at the table you have to take refuge at because it is all a bit too much.
Lesson: The knitting community has the same structures as every other community, it’s quite a bit like school. I was always the alternative girl and except being a woman now, nothing has changed. But you can have a lot of fun nonetheless :-)
I don’t judge: Choose the way that suits your personality.

5. Actually, that isn’t entirely true (except the fun part, obviously): If you have a business in the knitting industry, you can’t just wait for people to notice you. You have to brag a bit (see 1.). You have to show off your own designs, tell people that you work with Kate Davies as her tech editor, have an opinion in classes you take so people will remember you, taking a class which fits with your goals as a business is a plus (guess what? There are a lot of new-ish designers in a class called “get published!”).
Lesson: A yarn festival/show is full of colour, designs, flashy stuff. If you want to be seen, you have to be special in some kind of way. And you have to talk about what you do and about how good you are at it.

6. On my last day, I spent some time in Princes Street Gardens, sitting on a bench and knitting my socks. A lot of people stopped and talked to me: “That is like a superpower.” - “Those are the best socks.” - “You are very industrious.” - “Are you foreign? British people are much too lazy to knit.”
Lesson: Obviously, EYF isn’t that famous and not all people know about it. Outside our very small bubble knitting a plain sock is impressive. Perspective is the magic word ;-)

I had a great time and calling it a business trip is justified.
There are two or three more topics I’ll go into in the next newsletter(s).

But now I want to know: Who is your knitting designer superhero(ine)? Who would you look at with heart - eyes and call their name like a teenage girl? - tell me, I won’t judge :-)

Talk soon,
Frauke

P.S.: I couldn’t meet her this time, but I got to Skype with my knitting superheroine several times already. I even work with her, which is a dream come true. And it is Kate Davies.


* Hello together

February 2019: Testing - testing ——hello, hello? - do you hear me?

Hi there,
I didn’t want to imply that you don’t read my newsletters (because I can see the opening rates ;-)). Rather, this is what I remember most from all bigger meetings I went to: A guy standing awkwardly in front of a microphone and having to talk to test it but nothing to say except: test, test….

During my time working at a university, the department I worked in organised a conference. The man in charge was very perfectionistic, especially about the technical side of things. There was a screensaver with the program or the location of the coffee during break on for between sessions. There were two screens for the technical staff to line up the following talk during the one before so you wouldn’t see how the next speaker was desperately looking for their presentation. Things like that.

They seem like small things and they are - if you look at them one by one. But together they made the procedure much smoother than anything I experienced before.

Attention to detail pays off. It is a mark for good quality.

When you first start out as a knitting designer, you are in an awkward position - not like the guy at the microphone because you don’t have to stand in front of an already assembled audience but you

* don’t know if anyone will like your design and buy the pattern;
* don’t want to spend money on your pattern;
* maybe don’t even know how it all works but listened to your friends to “just write the pattern”

to name a few descriptors. Maybe you’re in a better position because you are/were a pattern tester for other designers and know about the process of testing.

You can imagine that I as a tech editor say that you need to have your pattern edited and tested.
But to get you started and motivated to invest in the quality of your pattern, I’d say to start out with only pattern testers is okay for the first few patterns.

Please remember this though:
Testers are more or less experienced knitters. They may even be experienced testers. But they don’t do the work of a tech editor (If you need a refresher what they do: have a look at my website :-))
You need to make sure you agree with your testers about the following:

- how you communicate with each other

- deadlines

- who provides the yarn - compensation (or not)

- ownership of sample
Testers make sure that your instructions work. They knit following your instructions and the goal is that their results match your photos :-)
They should find unclear instructions, identify problems with the pattern and communicate their experience with the knitting process.

How to find suitable and willing testers?
If you’re lucky and have a large following on social media, you could even get “applications”. (Actually, I had one and I have less than 200 followers on Instagram and 3 published patterns - I guess they were a bit confused about what a tech editor does.)
* You can post on social media. I see that quite often and I’m not quite sure how well that works if you’re a new designer.
* There are dedicated Ravelry groups where test knitters look for new “jobs”.
https://www.ravelry.com/groups/the-testing-pool
https://www.ravelry.com/groups/2017-18-pattern-testers
* You can establish a test knitting pool yourself and only ask members when there is a new pattern to test.
* A quite new alternative is Yarnpond. This is a platform to bring designers and testers together. As of this writing, they have 5039 testers and 476 designers. It’s not free to use for designers. For more information see here: https://www.yarnpond.com/

Organisation and communication of your testers go hand in hand:
* You can establish a group (Google, Ravelry etc) with the advantage that everyone sees all the questions and answers which therefore could mean less work for you.
* You can have a Dropbox folder for everything: Each tester has a folder but has access to the other folders as well. You need to let the testers know what you need them to write down for you.
* You can develop a questionnaire and send that out to your testers via email. Communication would take place on a one-to-one basis via email.
* On yarnpond, there are forums to keep in touch.

And a word about compensation:
I think to have testers who take their job seriously (there are a few who just want to knit the pattern first and don’t really give feedback) you need to compensate them. It is a given to send them the final version of the pattern.
But you should think about what you can “pay” them on top of that. I tested for some well known designers: Some paid in cash, some provided the yarn and some just sent the final pattern. I myself decided to have giveaways among my testers four times a year until I can pay them. Some designers send little presents each time. Think about what you can afford and what you are comfortable with.
Keep in mind that you can expect better quality of feedback the more you pay them.

Frauke x

P.S.: Test knitters test your pattern. They are not the designer! You decide about design questions, even if they think a stocking stitch background would be preferable to a garter stitch one.

December 2018: The end is near 😯

Hi there,
are you awfully busy? In case you are, I’ll make it short and sweet today. - Okay, I knew I couldn’t fool you. I’m the one with lots to do on my list before I leave tomorrow for a week off over the holidays.

One thing *not* on my list is making new year’s resolutions. Maybe you already know I like lists, plans and schedules (made by me, not those coming from other people though). So why don’t I like resolutions?

First, I don’t feel the new year has to be celebrated. It isn’t a new start really, that’s not how time works. Time is linear and all those constructs of months, years, even days are there to give us a structure to measure time. As nice as that would sometimes be: There is no new start. It’s just one line.

Second, I experimented with making new year’s resolutions in the past. It didn’t really work for me. If I want to accomplish something or form a new habit, I work on that whenever I decide it’s time. But only after having the same resolution year after year and never accomplishing the thing due to interference from other people, I gave up.

Third, you don’t have control over everything in your life. And as well as destroying your hope to put that damn thesis behind you this year, this can also work in your favour. And that’s what I’m bursting to tell you about :-)

What about things you can’t plan, imagine or even dream about because they are so unlikely?

Do you have a model who you look up to? A favourite person in your field of expertise?
I’m sure you have a favourite designer at least.
I have one; very well known, very experienced, very “equipped with (a) tech editor(s)”…

When they looked for test knitters for upcoming designs, I applied because I thought I could add “being a test knitter for x” as proof of the quality of my work to convince more designers to work with me. I was lucky enough to be picked out of more than 400 applications. I had fun with the knitting, commented on everything I noticed in the pattern without doing a full edit and waited for the pattern to be published to be able to talk about it.

I was very happy about that and felt lucky because they usually don’t work with test knitters. Even if my story ended here, this would have been something I wouldn’t have had on any list because it was so unlikely to happen. Never in almost ten years of designing they looked for test knitters (as far as I’m aware of).

A few weeks after finishing the test knit, I had an email by the designer themselves (communication before was with one of their team members) asking if I had time to work with them over the next months on a couple of projects. And when I replied that I was interested, they thanked me and told me they were so happy and lucky. We had a Skype call and are now working on a big, exciting project.

From the moment they contacted me, it wasn’t a question of if we would work together but how we would do it. They had decided to work with me based on my test knitting feedback. And they think themselves to be lucky that I had time :-D

This is like a fairytale and more than I would ever have dreamed of! After a few weeks of working with them I can say that I believe it now but only just :-) It would have never have been on any list to try to get them to work with me, not even in a few years time.

So, I won’t start making new year’s resolutions again!

Tell me: what is the best unexpected thing ever happened to you (2018 or any other year)? Reply to this email and let us celebrate together!

With the best wishes for a quiet and restful holiday season for you and your loved ones

Frauke x

May 2018: mmm, what are you wearing now? ;-)

Hi there,
this second issue is a chatty one as well but for the next issue I am preparing a review which should be interesting.
So, it’s time again for the newsletter. That month went fast, don’t you think? And here we had quite a hot May over here as well.
As it is May: Do/did you take part in Me-Made-May?
If you don’t know it: This challenge was created by Zoe of the sewing blog "So, Zo - what do you know?" And in her own words:

"Me-Made-May'18 (#MMMay18 for social media interaction) is a challenge designed to encourage people who sew/knit/crochet/refashion/upcycle garments for themselves to wear and love them more. This challenge works on both a personal and community level. The participants decide the specifics of their own challenge, so that the month is appropriate and challenging for them (more on this below), and aim to fulfill that pledge for the duration of May 2018. Some participants also choose to document their challenge photographically (though this is in no way compulsory for taking part) and share them with other participants." (original blogpost)

As knitters we are makers and quite a few of us do a bit of sewing too; I know I do :-)

The appreciation of the things we make is a topic very near to my heart. I have friends who are makers and friends in the knitting resp. making world and of course we are all different and individual. This shows in our behaviour and attitude towards our making and the things we make. Some are project monogamists, others handle multiple projects at once. Some make what they know to make, others want to learn something new with every project. Some make one or two types of things (mostly socks, interestingly), others make what they want to have.

Personally, I make things I need and want to have. This means that soon I’ll have run out of things I can knit for myself but there are still people around me for whom I can knit (a still growing nephew helps a lot on that front). My sock and accessory drawers have been full for a long time because that was what I knitted the most.
So that was the situation when I first heard of Me-Made-May (2013 or 2014). In Germany, May is mostly too warm for hand knitted socks and shawls, so it would be difficult to challenge myself (as I am sure my colleagues did appreciate me not challenging myself to wear wooly things in every temperature ;-) ). I didn’t take part but decided to give sewing another try.
Even before I took up sewing garments I decided against buying things I can knit myself though. As I know which colours I want to wear and which styles suit me best I knitted several very similar cardigans in different but always (semi-)solid colours. But I am not easily bored by my knitting so that is fine. I wear these cardigans all the time and only have two RTW (ready to wear) cardigans in cotton left.
But the seed was sown and I wanted to make a bigger part of my wardrobe myself: I started sewing.
When the next Me-Made-May came around, I didn’t have enough things to wear at least one piece per day or weekday so I didn’t take part. What I noticed though was that I preferred my handmade clothes to RTW anyway. I was and am proud of every piece I sew and wear them all the time.
Last year I took part inofficially and I saw that I could wear one handmade piece per day for a whole month with a bit of planning. So that would surely mean that I took part this year, wouldn’t it?
No, it wouldn’t. I gave this a lot of thought and I really love the challenge Zoe created and the momentum it got (there are more than 1,000 people taking part this year).
And as I mentioned before: I don’t need help to appreciate what I make. Since I know what I like, I like all my handmade things and wear them as often as possible.
You can make the challenge about whatever you like. Some people use this month to see where the gaps in their handmade wardrobes are.
I know my gaps: I have not too many handmade T-shirts. But that isn’t a real gap because I have enough RTW T-shirts so it wouldn’t be sustainable to sew more.
At the core of the challenge is the appreciation of your handmade things and therefore of the time and work (and money) you put in them. I think it is sad to pour all those resources in creating things you thought at one time worth it but then put them away and not use them.
If you knit something for someone else and they don’t appreciate it and throw it away (happened to me once), that is sad and annoying. But if they aren’t knitters or makers themselves, they don’t know the amounts of time, love, work and money which go into our projects.
But we know it and that’s why it is even sadder if we ourselves can’t appreciate what we made.

So let’s think about it and put on our handmade things with pride and don’t let them live in a dark drawer.

Talk soon,

Frauke x

wearing a handmade jumpsuit which reminds me: Making things made me more adventurous regarding my style and I surprised myself quite a few times.

P.S.: I appreciate and respect your work as a designer when tech editing your patterns. And you show appreciation of your knitters if you get your patterns tech edited. I have open spaces for new tech editing jobs. If you have questions or a pattern ready for tech editing, don’t hesitate to get in contact.

October 2018: Why it is actually a good thing that I’m not cleverer than you.

Hi there,
did the season already change wherever you are? Here it’s grey and rainy today. And start of knitwear season :-)
I released two patterns this month, a cowl and a hat, so great timing, I’d say.
Anyway, when I told a friend I had a pattern in the works but had to wait for the tech editor before sending it out to the test knitters, she reacted very surprised.
”Why do you use a tech editor? You are a tech editor!”
Yes, I am. And if you’ve worked with me, you know I’m thorough and detail-oriented.
So, why do I use a tech editor? For similar reasons, that therapists talk to other therapists. You might be great at your job but you can’t do both jobs in one project. You can’t be designer *and* tech editor. After a while you get blind for your own work. And having finished writing a pattern definitely counts as “after a while”. You know what you mean, you know what you meant to say. And that means that you don’t see mistakes anymore. Your eyes just swipe over it but your brain doesn’t register that there is a fragment of a sentence originating form a former version or that you wanted to say “from” and not “form”.
Maybe reading your work aloud would help. But I don’t know where you work on your patterns. This mightn’t be an option. And since this isn’t all I do as your editor, that’s where I come in.
I was told not to talk about mistakes and errors when I talk about my job. No, they didn’t mean that I shouldn’t tell other people about your hilarious error. Even if it would be a great joke for a party. (As I treat all information I get as confidential, that won’t happen anyway.)
No, they meant I should avoid using those words in describing what I do. As in “I’m here to ensure that your pattern is free of errors.” Nobody wants to hear that they make errors. But that is what I do. I *do* ensure that your pattern is free of errors (as far as humanly possible).
Yes, I know, it doesn’t feel great to open a document and see that you didn’t know how to write merion. Wait, merino. Yes, I chose that example because I know that I spell it wrong every single time.
It can feel embarrassing to make a stupid mistake. Like that time when I persistently addressed someone by their company name because that was a family name too. Let me assure you I never repeated that mistake!
But there are other mistakes too, mistakes which aren’t stupid or just spelling. But mistakes which could make your instructions very difficult to understand.
Here’s an example: I’m working on a pattern for mittens with two versions. There are full mittens and fingerless mitts. At first I thought I’d have to write separate instructions because I used two different variations of the colourwork pattern. I always start with making the chart. Due to the separate instructions in my head one chart started with round 1 while the second started with round 2. So I finished the charts and put them into my pattern template. I checked off *make different charts for mitten and mitts* from my list. However, when I started writing the instructions I realised I could write parts of them together for both versions. So I did that. And I totally forgot my first plan and that I should check if the charts fitted the new plan. The instructions and charts would result in mittens resp. mitts but with a lot of confusion at the knitter’s end.
And as a designer you want to avoid confusion of knitters at all costs. Luckily, the error was caught before I published that pattern.
See how easily something like that can happen. And according to the plan in my head everything was fine. My list was all done. I’d never have caught that error myself.
But a fresh pair of eyes will see these things.
As a tech editor that is exactly what I do: I see the instruction “work round 1 of chart 1A or 1B” and I’ll look at chart 1B and see: there is no round 1, there is a round 1 in chart 1A though. This doesn’t fit together so I’ll mark it and ask the designer to check this again.
Note that I don’t say “There is an error there, round 1 is missing in chart 1B”. Because I don’t know that. It could be that the instructions are wrong or I misunderstood them. However, I know there isn’t a fibre called merion so I’d make a note “merino” and leave it at that.
Because I know how it feels to make mistakes and how easy they happen to all of us, I won’t think I’m cleverer than you because I see it and you don’t. I think I’ve shown you enough examples that you know I’m not cleverer than anyone anyway.
As designer and tech editor we’re a team. I tend to feel connected to patterns I work on. I want them to succeed and be the best version this team of designer and tech editor can make them.
This means I’ll never give you a bad feeling about the things I mark in your pattern. I take into account how much experience you have and how well we know each other. I explain why I mark things and changes I propose. I never want to tease or anger you, I work with you, not on your pattern.
I have your back and you have time for the creative side of the designing business. And I bet I’ll become a fan of your work and cheer you on.

Publishing a pattern or even show an idea to somebody else can be frightening. I know that it needs courage to do so, so I value your trust in me. I’m direct and can be bold but I’m always friendly.

Take the next step and get an estimate for the editing of your pattern.


Talk soon,

Frauke x