I’ve been stumbling more and more over posts from fellow creators — knitting pattern designers, textile artists, potters — that express exactly what I felt just before summer:
I didn’t go into a creative business to make fun videos, find trending reel audio, or chase the latest Instagram algorithm updates.
Oh boy. Those words summed up everything I’d been feeling: stressed, incompetent, and questioning the side business I started six years ago.
In the beginning, when I started to design, it was fun. I learned how to write knitting patterns, geeked out over Excel grading sheets, discovered I needed testers, found my first tech editor. I was thrilled when a magazine published one of my patterns, and when a yarn company gave me a commission. Every single step was slightly daunting, but once I’d managed it, it was so satisfying and made me feel like I was really growing.
I never made it into the big publications like Laine (yes, every designer’s dream), but it still felt like progress. I told myself over and over again, baby-steps, one day at a time, steady wins the race, … you know, all this stuff you tell yourself to keep going and keeping up the motivation and hope.
And then, my submission for a magazine actually made it into the print! Only, that same magazine closed down a few months later. The visibility I’d been counting on? Gone. That boost in visibility and break at “making it”? Nope, never came. I had quite some patterns in my shops, a decent website that I had redone (still a diy job and it looks the part, but not too bad either), but sales never really took off, only peaked randomly once a year, and for no clear reason. Some months, not a single pattern sold.
Let’s be honest: pattern design isn’t just about knitting. It’s:
Each step chipped away at the excitement I once had. And my spare time I desperately needed to recover from a taxing daily life.
By this summer, my knitting mojo was gone. The joy I used to feel at a new idea, that spark that made me drop everything to work on a design and cast on yet another project, had just vanished. I would see someone wear a style I liked, but immediately thought to myself: nope. Not doing it. No more running back towards a desk and scribbling bad drawings, sketches and notes to make sure I remembered this design idea that could just be the ONE that made my work visible. I didn’t have any spontaneous ideas that just dropped onto me at weirdest moments (in the shower, while driving – anywhere where you can’t possibly have a notebook or at least should ideally not…)
I didn’t want to stop knitting. I didn’t want to do anything dramatic like close down my website and pattern shops, or even my social media profiles. But I did need to stop forcing myself through a process that had stopped feeling creative, reinvigorating and stimulating and had transformed into a source of overwhelm and anxiety. As I was packing my suitcases for a long summer vacation, I actually felt no joy choosing a project to knit during those two weeks where I knew I would have ample time to knit. And as I was there, I had a hard time taking up the needles at all.
So I decided to take a break from designing. To put all the deadlines, the half-finished projects, the almost finished patterns aside. I looked for patterns from designers I admire or wanted to try out, and started knitting patterns that were not mine. Without feeling guilty (or trying very hard to at least). I started writing again, something I really love to do too, but never do since it doesn’t seem a reasonable way to spend my time. So I drafted blog posts about knitting, about designers, about knitting inspiration, and got loads of ideas of topics I want to share with my fellow crafters.
This break has been the best decision ever. This week was the first week again that I actually was inspired by future projects. Felt a tingle at opening old excel sheets from forgotten designs again (yes, I’m that kind of gal that loves spreadsheets). So we’ll see what my next knitting season brings me, but definitely stay tuned.
