Mindful Knitting
If you are like me, knitting as a practice that fills you with peace and stillness. It takes the place that my poor neglected meditation app should be filling. When everything else in life is demanding the end product now (or yesterday!), knitting is there to allow me to indulge in the process.
When you make knitting your business, that overwhelming sensations of the immediate need for the product can detract from everything that drew us to knitwear design in the first place. The drive for productivity is only heightened if your knitwear is tangled up in financial security.
In short, blending your hobby with your business can be stressful.
Let’s talk about four joy killers in knitwear design and unpick how we can bring mindfulness back to our knitting practice.
Show and Tell
Being a knitwear designer in the age of Instagram, TikTok or whatever your chosen social media is can feel like an endless performance. It’s like being back at school, it’s show and tell day, but you have nothing interesting to show – only show and tell day is everyday, sometimes 3-5 times a day! I’m sure you’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of how many times to post, what time to post, if you need to do short videos to supplement your content…
And that’s where the shift happens. The second you describe your art as ‘content’, sharing it becomes another metric by which you should be measuring your productivity and your business success.
Rolling Deadlines
Have you set yourself a goal for your pattern publishing schedule? If you have, that is fantastic. Ambition is no bad thing in business and creativity. But that schedule doesn’t need to be set in stone.
As an independent knitwear designer, the internal pressure of deadlines is a complicated one. You have the internal pressure of having set a goal that would feel like a failing to miss. You may also feel pressure from your adoring knitters, expectant of your next pattern release.
Missing a goal isn’t a failing. Goals are ambitious. They help us plan and set expectations. But if situations change and the goals are no longer relevant or reasonable, it is okay to change them. The best part about being an independent pattern designer is that you can be flexible with your release schedule. Give yourself permission to set and change your own schedule at will.
Let’s talk about the perceived external pressure of knitters awaiting patterns. Nuance is a tricky thing online. Those people commenting on your knitting WIP photos claiming they “cannot wait for your next pattern!!!” definitely can wait. If the enthusiasm of your adoring knitters has become too much, take a minute to remember who you knit for. You! Your knitters get to enjoy the process and your designs with you. But only because you knit for you first.
Mindfulness can be brought back to your knitting when you remember that you are the only person in charge of your publishing schedule. If you need to push a goal date back, that’s okay. You will create better and more beautiful designs if you are giving yourself the time and head space to work on them and knit them properly.
Note: There is a huge external pressure to managing your knitwear design schedule: finance. This is a huge topic which we’ll talk all about in a future blog post.
The Bells and Whistles
Have you hit that panicked sensation that you’re not just a knitwear designer, but a small business owner too? You own a small business that publishes knitwear design. How cool is that!
But that does come with all the odds and ends of running a successful business. Who is going to manage social media? What about tracking finances? Do I really have to write compelling copy for every single webpage/pattern/bio?
Well, yes. Or at the very least, you do have to oversee these things.
A great way to stop business admin from sapping all of the joy from knitting is to be picky about it. As an absolute necessity, you must track your finances. Too much on your plate? Do at least that. When it comes to the extras, do what brings you joy. Don’t try to be everywhere, all at once. If you hate TikTok, don’t do it.
But some people just want to do it all. That’s where business support comes in. Alongside pattern tech editing, I offer a service to take all the emails, forum management, and social media schedules off your hands.
Hitting Design Snags
Are you the kind of knitwear designer with a strong background in maths? Or are you the kind of designer who dragged themselves through maths exams at school? Most of our design snags are incredibly maths based. This stitch pattern fits into so many stitches, the subsequent design element then needs this many, and actually the body we’re grading this pattern into needs these ratios! Your pad becomes more and more scrawled over with numbers and schematics.
The good news is, both of the designers above can handle the maths of knitwear design! But unfortunately, both can be stressed out by it. The joy of knitting that stunning raglan detail may slowly diminish by the fifth time you’ve frogged and reknit. Your knitting becomes less of a source of mindfulness, and more of a source of agitation.
Thankfully, the cure is as meditative as knitting! Simply whisper “Maths does not define me.” over and over again as you frog and reknit.
Okay, this advice might be a bit jokey! But in the grand scheme of things, keeping in mind that every designer gets stuck sometimes will make it feel less personal.
You absolutely turn your hobby into a business and retain all that you love about it. You just have to put a little extra effort into being mindful and intentional in all of your choices.
