Blog Tour, Stop #2 is up!

Go visit Carol over at Go Knit In Your Hat for a great review of Toe-Up! and a chance to win your very own signed copy.

Twisted video interview is up!

I really hate watching myself talk, but I actually had fun watching this - the kick-off post of my blog book tour. Thanks so much to Shannon & Emily from Twisted, our fab Portland sock-obsessed LYS, for hosting such a fun interview!

Hello, knitters!

ETA more blog tour confirmed dates!

How ya been? I'm getting a bit loopy from ink fumes and plastic sheet protector residue. This past week has been all about sleeving patterns and getting them in the mail to shops who ordered at TNNA.

We're also gearing up for the Toe-Up! blog book tour, which is finally almost ready to commence. We've still got some unconfirmeds, but here's the lineup we've got so far:

Twisted - Jan 27th (video interview at the place where it all started)
Go Knit In Your Hat - Jan 28
Stitch Marker - Jan 29th
We Heart Yarn - Feb 1 (coincidentally, I will have Donna Druchunas' blog tour stopping by here on that same day with her upcoming lace book - it's blog tour-o-rama around here!)
Grumperina - Feb 4
Knot Another Hat - Feb 8
Bulldog Knits - Feb 10
Knitspot - Feb 13
Frottez - Feb 16
The Designer's Studio - Feb 18
Yarn Thing (podcast - live call-in show!) - Feb 23
Twist Blog - date TBA
Bee Bonnet Report - date TBA
At the Kitchen Table (podcast) - date TBA


There may be a couple more in the pot, so stay tuned. I will be tweeting each post when it goes up, so check there or on the GYW fan page on Facebook for up-to-the-minute announcements of tour happenings.

While I try to survive post-TNNA, book tour and pre-Visionary Retreat madness (yes, it's that time of year again for Cat Bordhi's awesome retreat for self-publishing authors), I am in fact getting some knitting done.

Here's a peek at the first sock design for my next book, which will feature profiles of and socks designed for indie dyer yarns.



I know, blurry and unspecific, but I'm trying to keep it mysterious. It's a lovely skein from Serendipitous Ewe, who's quickly becoming one of my new fave indie dyers. I'm kicking around the idea of releasing a few patterns from the book ahead of time as $5 downloads, like Janel Laidman does with her books. What do you all think? Would you be interested?

I'm also spending lots of time thinking about knitting - people often ask where I get my inspiration, and a lot of times I have it sitting on my desk! Here's what the top of my scanner looks like right now:



The front three are waiting for me to turn them into socks and a lacy something for Sandra Singh (these are exclusive vampire-inspired colorways, also from Serendipitous Ewe). The lovely dark yarn cake in the back is from Abstract Fiber and will also go in the new book, once I figure what in the world to do with it. It is unbelievably gorgeous, but the rich, saturated color is not necessarily the easiest to design with (or photograph!). I'm up for the challenge, though!

As I stare longingly at these lovelies, I'm working diligently to get the last couple TNNA-released patterns graded and to my tech editors. Wanna see my notes?



Such fun! This is what I go through to make sure everything's nicely centered on all sizes of Valencia. Don't you wish you could have that much fun? You can - volunteer to do this grading for me so I can go watch Season 3 of Nip/Tuck, which I just got from the library! The only thing that saves it from crazy-making is the fact that someday it means you all will be able to knit this for your own selves:

Lordy, lordy, look who's 40!

Courtesy of my graphic designer brother-in-law...

Happy birthday, Bill! Love ya, honey!

Time for a blog post, perhaps? And fundraising for Haiti!

Well, I survived TNNA. I tried to go into it with a really positive attitude, and even though it's the worst show we've had (although it's always hard to tell what will happen after the fact), I had fun and came out of it feeling good. I'm still not 100% sure we'll go to Columbus, but I'm leaning strongly in that direction.

It helped to go over my accounting for last year and realize that wholesale pattern sales were by far the biggest chunk of GYW's income. Sure I'd only have to sell 1/3 of the patterns at retail download to equal my wholesale sales, but at this point in time I'm nowhere near that. My download sales would have to grow by like 5,000% to match my wholesale revenue. That's a bit of a wake-up call, as is the fact that the little experiment I did with posting a pattern for sale on Ravely in early January has resulted in exactly 1 download - my whole marketing strategy would have to change dramatically to focus on downloads, and I'm not ready to do that. I'd rather be knitting!

I also can't help but think that if I keep on soldiering through this recession, I'll be in a good position to ride the crest of the wave once the next boom period hits. GYW is now self-sustaining (of course, that's with both Donna and I working basically for free, but at least it's not eating through cash like it was a few years ago), so for the moment, we're good to go for as long as we can stand it. I'm feeling refreshed and re-inspired, so we should be set to carry on for 2010.

Now I'm ready to move on with fun stuff, like the blog book tour which is finally getting off the ground! I'll post the schedule as soon as I have it, but we've got some great bloggers (and a couple podcasts) lined up! If any of you want to participate and have a good readership, please let me know - we've got a few slots left. There will be drawings and other fun stuff happening in conjunction with the tour, starting the last week in January.

We've also got the new designs unveiled, finally! You can go to the GYW website to see them all, but here are a few highlights.

This first one is Valencia, and I think it's the best sweater I've designed in ages, if not ever (Cannon Beach and Knotty Wrap are contenders also - why is it that all my favorites are summer tops?).



It's all in the round, and the cap sleeves don't require any special grafting or picking up of stitches - you just bind off the underarms and cast on for the sleeve right on top. So easy! I also put one of my favorite cables up the back.



I'm still working on getting it all graded (it will have regular (XS-XL) and plus (2X-6X) versions), so it won't be available until March 15.

Next we have the Cuddly Baby Cardi, which was designed by our friend Yvonne from Lavender Sheep. It's an easy top-down raglan, and Donna found the world's cutest baby to model it for us. Yvonne will have her own little model in a few months, but fortunately that little bun is still firmly in its oven!



Finally, we have Birch, which got loads of attention at TNNA. We had it on our dress form over a dark top, held in place by a copper Plover shawl pin.



We are going to rephotograph this weekend since it's really hard to see the detail. It's an entrelac pattern with a lace panel in the center of each rectangle. It comes in three different widths from scarf to wrap. Here's a close-up of the stitch pattern:



We've also got a long-sleeved sweater, a vest, fingerless gloves and a new earflap hat, so look for them at your LYS very soon!

Finally, we've all heard about the disaster in Haiti, right? Well, I'm trying to do my very small part to help. All proceeds from downloads of my Hurricane Socks via Ravelry will be going to disaster relief for Haiti. $3 will go to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund and $3 to Heifer International. Click below the photo to buy the pattern and help the cause.





Since many of you probably bought this pattern after its initial release when proceeds were going to help victims of the hurricanes in the Gulf in 2008, I've got another way to help. Join the brand new Toe-Up! flickr pool and post a photo of a finished or in-progress sock from the book. For each sock posted, I'll donate $1 to Doctors Without Borders. Since I can't track sales of books directly, I figure this is a good way to do it indirectly.

Happy MLK birthday weekend, everyone!

Fun with business decisions...

As I head off to TNNA tomorrow, I'm finding myself really struggling with the direction my business should take. It doesn't help that I hear designers who I consider to be very successful questioning where the industry is going and whether or not there will be a place for professional designers. Are magazines going to continue to exist, or will webzines like Knitty and Twist Collective become the norm? Will yarn companies keep buying patterns from independent designers or turn to staff designers? Will a ridiculous number of knitting books continue to be published each year, making it harder and harder for each individual book to be financially viable? Will yarn shops keep buying patterns?

Yarn shops are struggling through the recession. While on the one hand, it's inevitable that a time will come when the weaker members of the herd are picked off, leaving the strong shops even stronger, on the other hand it's difficult to know if I should continue to put all my eggs in the LYS basket. I've focused my business plan on selling wholesale only, and while my business grew a lot in 2009 (and I can't complain too much about sales of my book, either, and I relied mainly on shops and Amazon to get my book out there), I'm wondering if it's sustainable. There are so many pattern lines out there - how do shop owners make a choice to buy my patterns over the gajillion others vying for their attention? For that matter, how do knitters?

I'm also suffering terrible burnout this winter. Usually the January TNNA show is the turning point, and we'll see how I feel when I come back from Long Beach. If we have a great show, it will confirm I'm on the right track with my business and I'll keep doing what I'm doing for another year. If it's a bad show...well...then come the hard choices. Do I turn my focus to pdf downloads? Do I start selling retail from my website and/or Ravelry? I'm conducting a small experiment right now with a couple of my patterns, offering them for sale on Ravelry to see what happens. I'd love to get beyond all the printing and sleeving of hard copy patterns, but I have a feeling I'd miss out on a huge market segment by not doing it.

See what fun it is to be a small business owner? And I bet you thought I got to knit and come up with new designs all day! If only. I won't even start on my bookkeeping rant (except to say I hate it so) - I've got packing to do!

If you'll be in Long Beach this weekend, stop by Booth 348 to say hi! As for the rest of you, stop back next week to see the new designs we've got for spring. There are some good ones, if I do say so myself!