How I Became a Crochet Designer

Anyway - by some miracle Claire commissioned this sweater and I had to teach myself how to write a crochet pattern following a style sheet and how to grade for multiple sizes. It was a steep learning curve, but with a lot of googling and book reading I got there.

The next year I invested in Shannon Okey’s Tech Editing course - which was wonderful and improved my grading skills no end,  but unfortunately I don’t think she does it anymore.

As I got more experience, my pattern writing and designing skills improved and so did my submission pages! These are from a fair few years ago now but this is how I would probably do a magazine submission today - one sheet with all the information on it, sent as a PDF attachment via email (unless the magazine has specified a particular way of submitting).

As a side note - neither of these particular designs were ever commissioned, so if you're interested in getting into desgining - know that sometimes your designs just won't fit with the themes or style of the magazine and try not to get too disheartened (I'm particuarly proud of that tunisian swatch - it would have made an excellent sweater in my opinion!).

If you want to get into crochet design then I think magazines are the perfect place to start - I won't lie, generally the pay is not great verus time put in, but the benefit of working with magazines are pretty good especially for a newbie. They will generally arrange yarn support for you and though you are expected to produce a well written pattern, they will have it tech edited for you, plus you know from the outset how much money you will earn from your work as this will be agreed before you begin. If you're self publishing this is much more of a gamble and you'll need to front all the costs of publishing yourself (tech editor, yarn, photography etc). There are definely benefits to self publishing too - but personally I think magazines are great for getting started.

Another side note - if you are an indie designer in need of yarn support - please feel free to shoot me a message - I know I used to find asking for yarn support terrifying - as someone who has been there I'm always open to enquiries as a dyer now - contact me

If you've got this far then you're probably pretty keen on the idea of getting into crochet design yourself and if so then I can highly recommend The Crochet Project's new course.

Joanne got into designing the same time as me and has been an incredible inspiration in this industry, carving out her own place and changing the face of crochet design. I'm very proud to call her a friend and collegue (of sorts) and know how passionate and particular she is about crochet and therefore know this course will be incredibly useful for anyone who wants to up their crochet game.