Happy New Year

Happy New Year Everyone!

We're celebrating with a 50% off sale on all our self-published patterns in our Ravelry store - use coupon code HAPPY2018 for half price patterns!

I really love welcoming the new year as a time to look back, take stock and make goals for the year to come. I've got into a bit of a habit of a new year blogpost, I think it's good for me to publicly make a statement about what I hope to achieve.

2017 was a year of a lot of ups and downs personally as well as globally. I started a new job back in the classroom teaching at a new school, finished my first year as an associate lecturer with the Open University, and got a crazy but very, very lovable rescue dog - all of which made 2017 a year of very low knitting productivity. Seriously, I only released two patterns last year which is my lowest ever in the 6 years or so I've been designing.

She's a very good girl, but there's not much time left for knitting!

But this year should hopefully be much calmer. I'm settled into my new jobs, and have three designs already knitted and at various stages of writing up. I would really, really love to go part time at my "real" job in 2019 and after crunching some numbers it's not too unrealistic. Even based on last year's numbers where I basically did nothing with my knitting business things are looking positive.

Some sneak peeks of 2018 patterns!

So basically, my new year's resolution is to knit more, design more and write lots more patterns!

It would be great to hear about everyone's crafting resolutions in the comments - and I hope a 50% pattern discount will help!
 

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!