Swatches, sketches, submissions, and knitting

I'm getting back into the swing of knitting.  It's easier on the days that Abby naps well.  Truthfully, I should be cleaning the bathroom right now (I'll do that as soon as I'm done this post), but I wanted to get one more swatch done while she napped.

I have a confession to make.  I'm actually a very bad artist.  I'm not actually much for sketching.  I swatch and knit.  I don't really sketch my designs.  However, sketching is a necessary part of design submission, so I am learning to do it.  I am sketching a bunch of gloves, but I had to sort of cheat.  I took a photograph of my hand and turned it into a sketch in my photo editing software, then I shrunk it down, printed it off, and traced it to use as a croquis (fashion blank).  I'm still terrible at turned stitches into drawings, but I think I can get the point across with excessive labelling.  I did discover inthis process that sketching makes swatching easier.  A small 4"x4" square combined with the drawing is ultimately less work than knitting a small sample for every project.  It also gets the point across nicely.

I'll be pounding out about 35ish of these designs over the next month or so, to include with my book proposal when I resubmit.  I don't plan on the book being a 35 pattern book, but I'm hoping that having a large selection of possible patterns will encourage a publisher to pick up the book. 

It's an entirely new process for me and not at all the way I usually design.  I suppose everyone has their own process.  Mine is to get a picture in my head and, because I don't draw very well, just start knitting it.  In all honesty, that's how I did the Sense and Fashion handwarmers for Jane Austen Knits.  I did the design before the "sketch", and was very nervous about my submission as the sketch was really incredibly crummy, so I just included the entire glove as my swatch.  ;)

If I'm going to continue getting really serious with my designing, I might actually take a fashion drawing course.  There's one offered at the local college.

Happy baby

This face makes it all worth it!  The waiting, the infertility that came before, the tears, the pain, the hopes, the prayers.  The swollen ankles, the stretch marks, the gallstones.  The sleep deprivation, the walking, rocking, bouncing, begging her to please sleep.  The fight to learn how nurse, the feedings at 3am, the late nights, the early mornings.  The complete lack of time to knit because she just wants mommy to hold her.

When she smiles and you know she's smiling at YOU, you want to move heaven and earth for her.  I keep waiting for it to become normal, but it doesn't.  Every time I see her, awake and happy, tired and fussy, or sleeping peacefully in my arms... it doesn't lose it's magic. 

Jane Austen Knits

I have been absolutely DYING(!!!) to make this post and show off these pictures.

Jane Austen Knits is now available for download in electronic format.  It will be hitting the shelves at your local bookstore any day now.

In it, you will find a pattern by yours truly:  Sense and Fashion Handwarmers. 

Jane Austen Knits volume 2 is scheduled for 2012.  Yes, I will be submitting again.  Fingers crossed that I make the cut.  I expect the competition will be a lot stiffer this time around, since many new designers who did not know about the first publication will be submitting to the second.