The story of my business

Recently I’ve been seeing folks on Instagram introducing themselves for a photo challenge and I’ve been really enjoying these posts! (@fiberuaryChallenge / #Fiberuary if you’re interested.) I’m not feeling inspired to do a challenge this month, but it did make me think about sharing more about the story of my business and how I got where I’m at since it isn’t really something I’ve done lately or maybe at all. So here’s a brief history of my little pattern design company/my adult life.

Andrea is walking away from the ocean, smiling as she knits a striped sock with a ball of colourful yarn in her shorts pocket.
I chose this picture as representing a lot about me, including my love of knitting while walking outside and sensible sun protection. This was last summer in Tofino; I am not currently on a beach vacation.

A Long Time Ago

When I started making patterns, I was living with my partner in a tiny studio apartment on Queen Anne hill in Seattle. Before the sun was up most mornings I would walk a single block to open up a tiny local coffee shop and make fancy lattes and cappuccinos for my neighbours, knowing most of their orders before they even walked in the door. After the morning rush when my only customers were the millionaire sitting by the window with his laptop all day and my co-worker dashing in during his morning run, and the only sound was Lily Allen on the speakers, I would grab the chair closest to the bar and settle in with my knitting, spending hours stitching sweaters and scarves in between espresso shots and milk steaming.

That job was an in-between place for me, a chance to just be a little bit after having made the difficult decision to leave my teaching career for who-knows-what. It was in that little coffee shop that I started designing knitting patterns. Because I visited so many yarn shops all the time and needed more work (that is, more money), I started teaching knitting in any context I could. Somehow I ended up as studio assistant for Hazel Knits yarn, winding skein after skein in one of the most soothing occupations I’ve ever had (unless the yarn tangled, in which case, the stress!). All these weird half-jobs, including making patterns, came together to make about as good an income as I’d had teaching, but it was really all over the place and I started to feel like I wasn’t making any progress.

Full Time

But then my partner and I moved to Vancouver Island for his work, to another tiny studio, this one just up the hill from the ocean. And I decided not to try to get employment, but instead just see if, given a full-time job’s amount of time, I could make pattern designing into a real job. The question of whether I would ever be able to make enough money to live on gave me this sensation of hot pressure in the middle of my chest, like it might just push my sternum all the way out. But with the encouragement of my partner who did actually have regular income, I decided to give it a go.

I tried to think of it as the same as any other business. It’s well known that new businesses can take many years to be profitable; why should pattern design be any different? If we were frugal, we could at least try. So like lots of folks, I relied on my partner’s income to pay the rent and buy the groceries for years while I worked way too many hours, trying to make it up as I went along, knitting and typing on my laptop by myself with the sunlight streaming in our big windows.

A Book!

After I’d designed lots of patterns for magazines and yarn companies and to publish on Ravelry, Interweave Books reached out to me about making a book and I was shocked and thrilled. Clearly something I was doing was working enough to get a book publisher’s attention! I would have had no idea of how to even approach such a thing if they hadn’t come to me. We made Rugged Knits together, a collection of so, so many patterns inspired by my love of being outside and doing rugged things. Now I think it was too many patterns, but I was ambitious and a hard worker and I couldn’t think of any of the designs I wanted to cut. I’ll tell you now that book didn’t sell very well at all, but it felt amazing to have my work in print like that. I’m proud of that work, though the main lesson it taught me was that sometimes there can be too much.

And Then

Two things changed my business, one right after the other. Before these things I felt like I was pushing hard every single day with very little to show for it, and now my company is mostly thriving (and I don’t work evenings or weekends!) The first was publishing AlterKnit Stitch Dictionary. It was my partner’s idea, who’s got all these clever thoughts about patterns and motifs and has always been an artist. He made all these motifs and I knit them and we pored over them together, trying to decide which ones to keep and which to trash. It turned out to be such a bright, cheery, silly, adorable book! I couldn’t believe how perfectly the design team at Interweave had implemented our vision. It was far better than I imagined. And my first royalty check brought buying a little condo in reach for us. It made me feel like finally, finally, what I was doing was making enough money to be as good as a job. Finally! I had been working full time as a designer for five years when AlterKnit came out.

Andrea is signing books at a table in a yarn booth at a fibre event.

The second thing that happened was Knit Stars.

Okay, I have to pause here and say that there was actually a third thing, which came first before AlterKnit and Knit Stars, and that was my email newsletter. I watched a few Creative Live classes about marketing because I’m always trying to learn about business as well as knitting and design, and the teachers told me to make an email newsletter right now! And to send it every week even if that seems ridiculous! (It very much did.) And I did what they said and it was ridiculous until it became the main foundation of how I make sales, and thus, what allows me to make a living. Not so ridiculous now! I had to put that in before Knit Stars because it was my very wonderful newsletter subscribers who bought my Knit Stars classes, which has been a big part of my income.

And now back to Knit Stars. Knit Stars is a series of video workshops and lifestyle segments from designer and yarn folks that’s really high quality and interesting. They’ve got a whole Facebook community and special yarns and all sorts of things now. I’ll admit that filming my workshops was harrowing, in that I couldn’t tell if anything I was saying made any sense because it was just me and the very skilled videographer in the room (not a knitter). I am apparently terrified to be recorded like that. But the team was incredible and thanks to careful planning and good editing, I actually taught workshops that I’m very proud of and think look amazing. And I loved doing the lifestyle section in which I got to ride my bike to my favourite park and hang out on the beach. Every now and then Knit Stars goes on sale and you can still get access to those very excellent classes from season 3! So of course I have to say, please sign up for my newsletter so you can know when that’s available. And thank you if you already bought them!

View from above of Andrea’s hands winding a ball of white wool yarn. A skein of yarn is draped over her knees.

So let me tell you about my business now: Last year 65% of my revenue came from online sales (that’s pattern PDF’s on Ravelry and my website) and 35% came from royalties (my books) and affiliate income (Knit Stars). 2023 will be my eleventh year as a full-time pattern designer and fourteen years since my first pattern, Hex, was published in Knitty in 2009.

My company is mostly just me because I don’t have actual employees, but nobody does everything themselves. Probably most importantly, I’ve had the help of expert technical editors, without which pattern designing is entirely impossible. Much love and gratitude to my current TE, Susan Moskwa!

My copy editor, Jessie Kwak is also a good friend and we trade services in that I read her sci fi novels before anyone else and tell her how great they are. I’m not sure that’s a fair trade, but I love her stories so I’ll take it! You should also go read her novels, so head to JessieKwak.com!

So many knitters have helped me test my patterns and every single time they come up with ideas to make improvements so that folks who end up buying the patterns have a better experience. Thank you to all my amazing testers!

I’ve worked with photographers and models who are incredible at creating the vision I’m trying to express. Recently I’ve started photographing my work myself, which is a special kind of joy for me, and working with models has become such a fun and exciting part of my job. Thank you to the lovely folks who are willing to stand in front of the lens and wear my knits!

I collaborate with yarny types who make wonderful materials that inspire me. and I’ll give a special shout-out here to Catherine Gamroth of Gauge Dye Works. We’ve been making yarn/pattern combos together for so many years now and working with her is such a fun adventure every time. She helps me think and design differently than I could on my own, and she goes climbing with me, which is frankly a big bonus!

And this year I’ve finally found someone to help me with administrative work! Elyce of Creative Clerical is the most organized person I have ever known. Their spreadsheets are a thing of beauty and I constantly find myself admiring the tasteful use of boldface and emojis in our email exchanges.

Finishing off that whole essay makes me feel like now I need to talk about the things I actually make — knitting patterns! I want to tell you about my philosophy of design and what my business values are, along with a little bit about how making patterns works for me. So that will be a post for next time. If you’ve read this whole thing, thank you!

Care to tell me a little bit about yourself in the comments? What’s the thing you love doing most that isn’t knitting? I think for me it has to be photography with hiking, climbing, sewing, baking, and cycling all tied for second. (I’m not very good at rating my loved activities, I guess.)

Hello, it's me!

The story of my business

A Long Time Ago

Full Time

A Book!

And Then

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