Happy New Year!
Hello! It has been awhile, but I am still here! Continue reading to find out what’s been going on and an upcoming tester call.
As for many, 2024 was a shit of a year. We had death, disappointment, illness, and a whole myriad of terrible things we had to slog through. It was not easy and sure wreaked havoc on my mentality and on what I wanted to do in my minimal free time. As is evident, I have not published a pattern in awhile. There are a few reasons for that. For the first 5 months of this school year, I have been ill about half the time. There was a probable cause found in my classroom and I was finally moved to a new room and things started to improve. I was left with one final illness for the year that disallowed me from spending time with my family for Christmas. It sucked, but tbh, I was not surprised in the least. I am still recovering from it. Since these illnesses put me down for weeks at a time, it obviously impacted every facet of my life. Mainly, it has made me not want to work on my business side, or to even crochet. I think what the last month evidenced is that I needed a real break from everything.
About the crochet…
I have a ton of patterns drawn, charted, and awaiting testing, but they remain locked in my laptop waiting for their turn. This has caused me to rethink a lot about my business and make some more decisions. I don’t think I will ever stop drawing and turning them into patterns no matter what. What holds me back is not being able to have patterns tested and promotion. I can only crochet so much in a day and I really only do weekends while teaching is in session. While I do have a little over 100 patterns already published, I could easily double that if I published all the untested patterns. I have had some of the most amazing testers here with me since the beginning of my design venture- and they are still here as February 1st will mark the beginning of my 4th year designing. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate them and all the help and guidance they have freely provided to me. It is humbling and I am amazed each time they are able to find time in their busy schedules to choose one of my designs. I don’t think that feeling of: “Wow! Someone likes my drawing enough to volunteer to create it! “ - I get each time they they choose to test will ever fade.
While I believe I will be publishing some patterns without having them crocheted, they will all have gone through the technical editing where directions, Xs, and all parts of the written are checked by 2-3 people, or more depending on schedules. I will be opening up my testing group once again, but am currently updating procedures. If you are interested, I currently run testing through a private group on Facebook, but am looking into opening up a couple different ways to host testers in an effort to offer more options for those who do not do facebook. I will update when ready.
Though this coming year is extra stacked with uncertainties, I do know I will continue trying to make this design venture a success. I will continue drawing and creating patterns. I will look forward to every break I get from school. lol.
I wish all of y’all the very best of luck and happiness this year. Thank you so much for your support over the last 3 years- none of it has gone unnoticed, nor unappreciated. Cheers!