Photoshop class is starting....

Okay - here I go again, back to school to learn a bit about photoshop.  I am so scared (3 hours long...I wonder if I can listen and knit???) and excited all at the same time.  Business has hit an all time low so this is really an ideal time for me to catch up with the times.  I have 2 new spring patterns being released this week - thanks to my trusty and quick test knitter Sherri Hazen.  I'm also finishing up the Zealana Aspire - Tui cardigan for TNNA in June.  I'm expecting to be done with the sweater by this week.  So I'm feeling fairly good.  I even managed to get some heavy yard work done (weeding, pruning, planting gladiola bulbs and some veggies...shelling and snow peas/carrots/beets/lettuce) over the weekend which basically gives myself a green light to knit for the rest of the week in between classes.  The plumber comes over  today for the beginning of our bathroom and laundry room remodel so a ton is going on at the moment - all good though.

I'm excited to put my photoshop skills to use - so don't be surprised if I start uploading some zany images to my blog...we'll call it extra credit homework!

My first design in a magazine

 

Knit Simple, Spring/Summer 2010, photo by Paul Amato

on sale April 6th

My very first magazine and I didn't even submit anything!  This vest went to TNNA/Long Beach with the

Zealana yarn company.  The yarn sisters showed it to the Vogue team and before I knew it, they were asking permission to do a photo shoot.  How do you say no to that!  Luckily the pattern had been finished but not published at that point.  This vest was designed as a uni-sex vest and looks equally handsome on a woman.  I'm anxious to see the rest of the magazine.

photo by Paul Amato

Knit for Fun Club

In this economy - you have to think outside the box.  You have to reach out and target new markets - new knitters.  So Crown Mountain Farms and I came up with a plan....to create a Knit for Fun club for his sock yarn.  Crown Mountain Farms is known for his fibers.  Most of his clientele buy his hand dyed fibers to hand spin.  He has a ton of spinners following him.  His other following are the sock knitters.  Those who knit socks - love his sock yarns.  What he's missing, however, are the everything but sock-knitters.  So between the two of us, we decided to launch the Knit for Fun Club which is a club using his hand dyed sock yarn - in other projects outside of socks.  The club started this past January and I began with The Shorty Tam.  This hat uses the sock yarn double stranded.  It's the perfect hat for those of us who don't wear hats well - like us short haired people who look bald when wearing hats.  It sits back off of the face and is quite attractive on.
It also happens to keep your head warmer than I expected.  I never wear hats -because of my short hair...but we had a few cold mornings where I would throw on this shorty tam and head out to the bus stop.  Surprisingly, it didn't feel like I was wearing a hat and surprisingly, when I took the tam off, I could definitely feel the difference.  This pattern is available through www.crownmountainfarms.com

Knit for Fun club has its 2nd release this month.  Featured project will be the fingering spring gauntlets.  It only uses 200 yds of sock yarn - which means the other 200 yds could be knit up in some darling spring pedicure socks.

Organizing accepted submissions

A month later, and several emails sweating over lost yarn...I finished my deadline with not a moment to spare. 

It's always a huge stress reliever to mail off the project and pattern and clean up the aftermath which takes over my office floor.  I collect the aftermath in a large mailer envelope for safe keeping.  All accepted submissions envelopes are labeled with the publishing house, the name of the project and the book it was designed for.  Inside the envelope is the contract, submission sketches, swatches, pattern writing guidelines, yarn labels, snippets of yarn, pay stubs, postal service receipts, any communication with the tech editors/yarn companies and all rough drafts of the pattern.  This way, if there is a technical question down the road or any question for that matter, I can pull out the file and hopefully find what I need. Down the road, this too will probably need improving... but for now, it has worked well. I now need to find a file drawer that I can dedicate to these bulky mailers. The above submission can be found in Circular Knitting Redefined.