If you recently found the Hub, welcome! I am really glad you are here. This Hub is all about helping *you* find success as a yarn pattern technical editor from any direction that works.
Hey, I'm Sarah: a knitting technical editor, author, and sweater nerd. I like coffee (currently cold brew), birdwatching (have you seen The Listers?), many books all at once (finished two today), and a good sniff of yarn fumes.
For those of you who have been here for a bit, it's been a long bit since I sent a newsletter. I apologize if you were expecting words from me, and they didn't come. Life hit me hard this last year, and there were days where I could only knit 10 stitches at a time. But hey, that eventually makes a blanket. Here she is:
Start small, keep going, get something colorfully big and snuggly.
I am better every day. Eventually I graduated from only managing garter stitch to one-pass two-color brioche. I wanted to edit that technique, so I learned how (yay!)
It was quiet in your inbox, but not in the Tech Editor Hub Community. It seems like all the world-wide happenings put a fire in me for real, kind, supportive human connection. I hosted:
52 Monday livestreams and chat, each on a different tech-editing related topic
13 roundtable sessions (today we talked about invoicing and testing)
13 guest expert presentations (AEO/AIO, less social media anyone?)
And a local yarn shop opened in my town. I dove in to that glorious-ness and taught 34+ knitting classes (socks, sweaters, intarsia--oh my) and many one-on-one lessons to some really cool people. I worked in a booth at my local Fiber Fest for 4 days. I edited a lot of patterns, and I coached some designers.
Participating in all of this has given me very interesting perspective of what it means to be in the yarn industry now as a tech editor. I want to share that with you, because patterns are still the life-blood of everything yarn. If you are already working as a tech editor, I am here to say that you matter to designers and publishers, a lot. I’ve also been thinking a lot about the overlap between experienced crocheters/knitters and tech editing, because there’s a specific kind of maker who’s naturally really good at it.
We can’t not notice when something is inconsistent or unclear in a pattern. And grumble about it, maybe.
We work a section and think, “Wait…something's off. Why is that number/abbreviation/symbol there?”
We (cough cough--uh, I) rewrite whole patterns so they work better for us on the hook/needles.
And yet, I have been hearing: I am not sure I have the confidence for this. I am scared I'll mess up. If that’s you, you’re not alone.
For the next couple of weeks, I'll be firing up the email servers a bit more than the previously advertised once-a-week. Kind of like when I drove my uncle's VW Rabbit diesel at 90mph from Columbus to Chicago to "burn off the buildup" in the engine. You'll be getting emails from me every few days until this little stack of topics on notecards here on my desk runs out. I'll do my best to not bore you.
And if you want, hit reply and tell me a win *you* have had in the last year. Is it pretty and snuggly like mine? Does it involve a new technique or a yarn shop?
I read every email, and I'll reply back.
Love and yarn,
Sarah Walworth
p.s. I am sending this email to everyone on my list, so if you are like, "Why is Sarah emailing me?," and you don't want to hear about technical editing, hit unsubscribe at the link below. No hard feelings.