What’s coming in the ‘ber’ months! And what happened to me?
Well, summer vacation went by way too fast! I definitely had more plans to release the plethora of patterns I have stored in my tablet, but as they say: Best laid plans…” If you’ve been with me over the years, you will already know some of this, but I do like to remain as transparent as possible with everyone who takes time out of their day to support me and my patterns.
So, my day job is teacher. This year only marks my 3rd year in elementary and the 2nd time since 2012 that I have taught the same grade level for the 2nd year in a row. As you can imagine, this doesn’t make it easier on the teacher in terms of making sure I know the new objectives and skills I need to know, but I typically have resources I can’t use from one grade to the other- and I have switched rooms every year since 2012! Even this year, I will be moved to a new room, so I have no idea how much time I will devote to decorating and getting it look inviting and comfortable.
So, last year on the last day of school and our wedding anniversary, my mother-in-law died. We have spent the last year since then trying to help my ailing father-in-law make it through mentally. This involved much travel as they lived in the coastal region of Texas and we live in central Texas. To say it wasn’t easy would be an understatement. My poor husband has been through some really difficult times with a not so easy parent, so I have spent any time I can trying to support and help him. I won’t get into to specifics because, well, it’s not my place to tell, but suffice it to say that we tried everything, including moving him up here, to help. Unfortunately, my father-in-law died last week. We have been kept busy with trying to deal with all the things you have to deal with when it comes to a parent’s death in addition to the grief. We also inherited a little dog- you have seen her before when we had her for the 6 months we were able to convince FIL to work to get better up here. It’s been an adjustment for her as well, but I think she is starting to settle right in and make this her home, and us her humans.
“What about the crochet?!”
As for crochet, I have been able to find some time to get back to it, but haven’t had a lot of spare time! I did make some decisions business wise and also focused on improving the quality of my pattern files. You may have noticed the changes if you have gotten any of my latest patterns. I hope you like the new style and format. I also finally decided to move on from the cute logo my husband had drawn for me years ago and had a new one designed.
August will be an extremely busy month for me, so I have only a few tentative publish by dates for some new patterns. We currently have quite a few patterns in various phases of testing, and some just completed. As some of my testers may agree, I kind of changed my drawing style and content this summer as well. I felt that I was not being true to the reasons I began designing in the first place, and this stems from some issues that occurred in this niche crochet world of mosaic. The biggest issue was people trying to say that not only had they invented the negative stitch, but were trying to market it as something you had to pay for. You may have been unaware, but I actually had to spend some time dealing with a couple of designers for the last couple years regarding this. People then trolled my youtube page-which is why I deleted all but my original negative stitch tutorial and haven’t made any more videos to post.
The negative stitch issue
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The negative stitch issue 〰️
In case you didn’t know- my grandma showed me the technique in the 80s when she taught me my first mosaic overlay pattern. When I started designing patterns, there wasn’t anything on youtube, or in any of the groups showing this, so it was an unnamed technique- or at least with my weeks of searching and research on mosaic- I never found anything at that time. And because I was a photography nerd and felt like the negative image of the front of the design was created on the back, I named it The Negative Stitch. It is something you should never pay for. It is not exclusive to one designer’s patterns. It will remain free on all my social media for as long as that social media exists. But these designers never gave credit, referred people to the original tutorials by me, and used it to market their patterns. I would see so many people talking about the negative stitch and nowhere did I see my name, or Spanish Clover Crochet included in the conversation as those designers treated it as their own creation. Two designers were so rude and ugly and kept insisting it was their original creation, so I went on a deep dive and found comments made by those designers on my very first post regarding the negative stitch all those years ago and other things that proved otherwise. One of them even commented: “Genius!” And then went on to claim and market as their own. I’m from the FAAFO generation, so I don’t just stay quiet when people lie about me, or try to use me without even talking to me. I am very chill and laid back, but eff around…
“So, what happens next?”
All of this obviously left me with a sour taste regarding the mosaic crochet world and I kind of stepped away from it all for a minute in these last 2 years. No one stood up for me publicly, or even privately. No one even said anything except a couple of my testers who I know have always supported me from the beginning. You may notice that I don’t really post in any but one of the mosaic crochet groups and to my own social media. I’m not sure if this will change. I have enough to deal with as a teacher and adulting, and while I love designing and crocheting, it is not a big moneymaker for me. I just find it super fun and I love to draw! I will be continuing to draw and design, and as long as someone would like to crochet my patterns, I will keep publishing. And to be open, the one group I have always felt comfortable posting in is Mosaic Crochet Universe, and that is mainly due to one of the designer admins. She has been so welcoming and supportive, and that is kind of new to me. I appreciate her kindness so much. I won’t post her name here, but if you interact in that group, you definitely know of her positivity and support of designers and crocheters.
Though it may not appear so, I have come back full force. I needed this to wake up my creativity that sometimes, a lot of times, gets smothered by teaching. I guess it isn’t really that my style has changed. It is more that I am drawing things I want to draw and not trying to draw competitively, or just copy copyrighted or now free clipart, as I want to try to be as original in my designs as is possible in this day and age. I have come back to the roots of the reason I began drawing in the first place. I used to constantly surf all the mosaic crochet groups on facebook and instagram and everywhere else. I now only see what comes through my regular feeds and spend that doomscrolling time designing and crocheting instead.
Upcoming
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Upcoming 〰️
One of the things I will be doing these last months of the year is reducing all pattern prices by about 25%. Some may be combined into bundles, but my goal is to make patterns more accessible to everyone.This is the reason my latest 25% off sale is through the end of August. A majority of my 100+ patterns do need to be updated to the new layout style I’ve created and those will be posted as they are retested and completed. Currently, I probably have close to 30 patterns in testing and can’t wait to get some of those out to you! If you take a look at the picture below, you will get a clue as to what I currently have on my hook. It is a design I have drawn multiple times in the last few years, but never finished because it’s not something I see being made and I didn’t think it would have any appeal to anyone! But I finally settled on a finished product and am loving it! It will also include color coded graphs and written as well. I have been asked recently about making some tutorials on how I color change. And apologies if I can’t get to it in the next couple days because then it will have to wait for at least a couple months, more than likely. If I can make it to row 60 in this current project by tomorrow, then I may be able to post how I do mine. Please remember that this will be how I learned from my grandma in the 80s, so it may not be correct, or the way you would do color changes!
Don’t forget to post your gorgeous projects somewhere for us to oooh and ahhh over. Any time I run across someone’s creation using my pattern, I feel like an excited kid and can’t wait to show my husband. I love it.
