Friday, March 14, 2008

Let's try it again

I'm not going to show you my "button band" attempt. A very lame attempt to fix the reconstituted sweater. However, my lame attempt has prompted another brilliant idea (hahaha). I think I'm going to have a closure at the top end of the ribbing then pick up and knit a very wide collar. I'm going to make a split in the collar at the center back...for 2 reasons....1 - I think it will look great and 2 - in case it looks like dog doo I've only wasted 1/2 as much time. But I'm feeling good about this. I really want to get this finished so that when my books arrive I can get crackin' on the VK project.

Speaking of VK, I read on someone's blog last night how much they HATED one of my designs. It was really kind of mean. I don't think that everyone understands the process of magazine or editorial knitting. Sometimes a publisher will pick a submitted design as is. They will provide the yarn. It may or may not be the yarn that you sampled it in due to their commitment to advertisers or others. There might be changes to the design either on the publishers part or on your part due to the revised yarn being used. Or that they simply want a modified version of your submission. Other times the publisher will provide you with a swatch and yarn and you interpret that swatch as best you can. You knit a sample and write the pattern. Sometimes the swatches are gorgeous and sometimes they aren't. It your choice as a designer to take the job or not. I'm obviously speaking for yarn companies, magazines, books, etc. The process is all pretty similar. Once you complete the sample and write the pattern for the sample you have to grade that pattern to fit a very large range of sizes (possibly a bust measurement size ranging from 32 through possibly 50 or 52) while keeping the integrity of the design. Not always an easy task. I've spoken about this in the past so I won't here. Most of the time it works. However there are times when it doesn't. As knitters we have to understand our bodies and our experience and pick appropriate projects.

I think it is extremely unnecessary to hack away at another designers work, publicly. Of course there are plenty of times where I think a design is shit. It's my job to read through a pattern and decide my course. Knit as is or make changes. I think it's important to take responsibility for my work. If I'm not so confident I'll pick easier projects. If I want a challenge I'll pick a challenging one. But that's my choice and if I don't like the results it's my fault.

Anyway, it just sort of sucked the way this person was talking about my work. I'm pretty thick skinned but in general I think everyone should think before they "speak" on the internet. I've seen it happen so many times where the snarky comments snowball and someone's work is completely trashed for no good reason. It's just mean spirited behavior.

Well, I'm off to rip out some useless knitting!

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