2016 Ambitions

I have decided, 2016 is going to be the year when I become an adult. I've hit 30 now and it really is time I started cleaning my room and organising my life. And I'm serious, I've tidied out my yarn stash and my emails, my workspace is looking shockingly organised, and I've purchased a shower cleaning spray that promises I'll never have to scrub it again.

Here's why: I have a seriously stressful full time job on top of my knitting design work and it is starting to take its toll on my health. I teach Maths in one of the most deprived areas in the country, and whilst I absolutely love the time I spend with the kids and love seeing the difference a devoted teacher can make, the amount of rubbish that comes with teaching these days is almost unbearable. I love teaching, absolutely love it, but I've spent the last six weeks with a virus and am getting dizzy spells from stress. Enough is enough. I need more balance in my life. 

So my plan is to sort out the knitting business properly, to the extent where I can go part time with the teaching - best of both worlds! My business model so far has been largely based on knitting what I want and writing up patterns for around half of what I knit. I'm a real Maths nerd and love the challenge of grading a pattern, working out colourwork and lace patterns for different sizes, and making the image of a garment in my head into a reality. It's a happy-go-lucky business model, publishing this and that as I go. For 2016 I'm going to need to be more serious and organised about it if I want to make it a real success. 

So I've been reading all the "New Year, New You" articles that abound at this time of year a bit more seriously and I've come up with some aims:

1. Get more patterns published by third parties. All my patterns so far have been self published, but I feel it's time to get my name out there a bit more, and (maybe, just maybe) make a bit more cash in the process!
2. Be more proactive on social media. I can be a bit of a social media hermit, and only post when I've got a new pattern out or a sale on. I'm really going to try to be a bit more consistent with the blogging, tweeting etc.
3. Start up a Ravelry group. I really should have done this by now, but better late than never! I'm going to try running a few knit-alongs and run my test knitting from there too.

So fingers crossed this will all work out and I won't be posting the exact same thing this time next year!