Copywriting

My mother has always envied my ability to write at the keyboard. I learned to do this at my first job as a legal secretary in a busy office in a small-ish county prosecutor's office (criminal division). I could compose draft letters and legal documents for my bosses based on previous similar document and, over time, from scratch. I'm a good writer, but I think I am probably a better editor.

But for the last several years I've been trying to describe my patterns (in 75 words or less--and if you read this blog you are probably aware that I don't get to the point that quickly). Frankly, I am not good at it. I have other language to describe my actual facility, but I'm not going to use it here because at some future date I might be embarrassed by my bad language.

A couple of weeks ago we recruited a copywriter to write copy for us. It is amazing what a real wordsmith can do! At least I know that I was correct that I'm not good at doing it and that it can in fact be done in an interesting and compelling way if you know what you're doing. Sarah is a knitter too. She actually reads my patterns!

So we're all good at various things. When you are a small business person you often do things you aren't really meant to do because it is cheaper than paying someone who is qualified to do it. Long story short: not always the right choice!

Look forward to fabulous text on the reformatted patterns, on the web and wherever else we can put it.

We Aim to Please

We don't always get it right. We try, but we don't. But we do try to be responsive whenever someone has a problem with one of our patterns. I got an email on Wednesday when I was out of the office about an error in a recently released pattern. I looked at the pattern on Thursday and sure enough, we'd missed something--both the tech editor and I had missed it. So I fixed the pattern and emailed new pages to the shop owner. I changed the version number on the pattern so we could let anyone who had purchased the pattern know about the problem and make sure no more of the original version go out. Because we self-publish and print on demand, we can pull any hard copies and update our pdf downloads very quickly.

The shop owner is making multiple samples to sell at a local event (she got our permission to use the pattern for this purpose) and didn't like the way a certain piece looked when not on the body. I arranged to call her Friday morning and we talked about her issue and I gave her a new way to do it over the phone and sent her written instructions (more new pages) for the change. Heard back later that the change was just what she wanted. Everyone is happy. I assume everyone else will like the new version, so that is now in the pattern.

My sample of the project was knitted in two colors because I was using up leftover yarn. I assumed that people would want to do it in solid colors, so didn't specify how I had used my two colors. You got it. I put that into the pattern too.

We're happy to try to make you happy, so if something isn't right, let us know. Please be nice; we didn't mean to be anything less than perfect.

Band is called Aim to Please.

Photographs for Reformatted Patterns

The next step is new photos for the patterns we have been reformatting. Saturday we are having a photo shoot. I have recruited anyone I can find (my spouse has indicated he will be working at his office and is not available) to help out:

Ashley who took the cover photo for YNotKnit will use her photography degree once again by being the photographer.

Adam is going to help with detail photos and then help me with photo editing.

Maureen will be co-Stylist with me.

Kristen will be in charge of continuity and making sure we get all the photos we need.

I have two models coming.

I need to get out props, buy lunch, get cash to reimburse everyone for their out-of-pocket expenses, and pick up key people. I have high hopes and large trepidations. If all goes well we'll have about 40 projects photographed and be that much closer to actually issuing patterns in the new format. Otherwise I may be crying right along with our darling little toddler model for the Natural Baby Collection. ; (

The new pattern format is awesome and I still love the way it looks (after doing this I think that's amazing--and Kristen claims she has a newfound fondness for purple and orange--but this was a pretty big project and I look forward to the reissuing stage!

ReNaming Patterns

We are reaching the end of part A of a pattern reformatting process here at Y2Knit. We started in February and are just finishing the actual process of moving the patterns into the new format. My assistant Kristen has done an incredible job, probably reformatting about 45 of the 51 patterns in this first round. I can tell by the way she clicks the mouse when she is reformatting. She enjoyed the process at the beginning. I think we are probably all a little tired of it right now. I've had other helpers who do checking and cataloging for me while I try to make everything pretty and hopefully consistent.

Some patterns have required new schematics or charts and again, Kristen has done much of the work. I am fortunate to have someone working for me who can do so many pieces of the process.

Another part of the process has been renaming many of the patterns. I don't often have a huge name connection to my designs (I didn't name dolls and toys either), so they often just get named after the stitch pattern or shape and our Marketing Consultant thought we should do better than that.

After a lot of fits and starts we decided to use travel/geographically related names. So I have had a lot of fun (and some frustration) finding names that met our MC's other criteria (not hard to pronounce or spell and NO Italian words). I've learned a lot of things in my quests. I do most of my research online because I can do it at my desk. I am sure I could do better if I had time to go to the library, but this is not something that you can do in bulk. I often have to do several separate searches to find what I think will work because I have to find what I originally thought of and then work off tangents from there. I have learned a lot of things I didn't have any reason to know and probably have no use for but I've enjoyed much of the search.

This process has made me much more conscious of naming my designs--at the beginning!

Organizing Knitting Needles

 I was visiting Sandy yesterday afternoon to take in the spectacular woodland garden of yellow Woodland Poppies, pink Bleeding Hearts and blue and purple Virginia Bluebells.  The sun finally came out and cast lovely light on this colorful scene.  I'm still not carrying a camera with me, so just imagine.  Now add three black and white kittens to the picture and it's beyond perfect.

 I got a great idea from Sandy when we sat down to knit.  She has two kinds of needle storage units for circulars and I admired her wallet style one from Ashland Sky.  I had yet to add one of these to my collection and mentioned that.  She pointed out that she has put all her 16" needles in the wallet case.  HOW BRILLIANT!

I have now done the same.  I'm organizing my 24 and 32" circulars in my other case, with separate pockets for each length.  I'm feeling pretty on top of the needle organization!  I already have my interchangeable in a case and my long and short dpns each in their cases.

That's my spring organizing for today! 

Peeps

This has nothing to do with knitting, though maybe that's not entirely true.  I've talked to a number of knitters in the last week or so that have a (sometimes secret) love of Peeps.  Their true confession usually expands to telling me that they like them when they are stale and chewy.  So, the ritual seems to be to acquire the Peeps, then open the package and let them sit for a couple of days to reach the right consistency. 

My fascination with Peeps includes liking to eat them:  stale, bunnies, and eat the ears first.  I also look forward every year to the Washington Post's Peeps diorama contest.  Such creativity!  I'm not detail oriented enough to tackle a project like this, but I do come up with some concepts.  Yesterday I was walking and listening to NPR's Fresh Air interview with Donovan Hohn about his book Moby-Duck.  His writing started with wanting to explore what happens to shipping containers and their contents that fall into the sea while in transit.  His focus was on a container of rubber duck bath toys.  Can't you just see that diorama?!  The yellow chicks could be the ducks.  Blue tissue for the sea and mock up a ship and shipping container (this is where I stop as I can't imagine taking the time to do that).  Alternatively, undersea creatures and ducks/chicks bobbing above them.  Anyway, I found other things to do with my time.

I have placed a few Peep bunnies on toothpicks stuck in a piece of the Passover horseradish.  They will remain in the open air until Social Knitting tomorrow where I plan to poll participants as to their preference.  Take my poll at the right and let me know yours!  This is anonymous.  No one will ever know. . .

Pure Bliss

I had a half an hour yesterday before I had to leave for a haircut. That turned into 45 minutes when I got a call that my haircutter was running late. I was staring at the copies of the Natural Baby Collection patterns and a list of topics on subjects I could expand upon when I found myself launching Illustrator. For some reason, doing illustrations just makes me happy. It is probably the only drawing I do these days, and it is just pure joy to try to figure out how to communicate something. I get to think about the shapes that I see, not what those shapes are, then try to find a method in two dimensions to make that real to someone else without getting too caught up in the total reality of the drawing.

I came back from my haircut and got to work for another 45 minutes, and now I've worked about 45 minutes today. I've got the bits for a series of drawings to illustrate the flat 3-needle BO. I can probably easily create the illustrations for the 3-needle BO from the same drawings, then these components can be used to create illustrations for other techniques.

I've got so much other work to do that I can't dwell on this any longer today, but it was indeed Pure Bliss.