Dear Designers,

It has come to my attention (because of a few conversations recently) that some designers are tempted to use my stitch patterns in their designs, but feel shy about doing so.

At first, I was startled. I put the designs out there because I wanted people to use them! For anything — including published designs, as if my blog were a stitch dictionary. The free ones to be freely available, as if they were traditional stitch patterns.

I was secretly feeling a little sad that nobody was using them for publication, nor were many people using my “secret code” methods (that I knew of: after all, maybe they were keeping it secret). Maybe they weren’t any good? Oh, self-doubt.

Further conversations and a little thinking about role-reversal shed some light on the situation.

Designer Interview: Barbara Benson

I’ve been following Barbara Benson’s design work for a while now, and was delighted to see her involved with the Giftalong. She has a knack for combining techniques that I wouldn’t have guessed would go together, such as mosaic knitting and lace. (Who knew!?)

Designer Interview: Justyna Kacprzak

Justyna is primarily a toy designer – she has a lot of really cute crocheted amigurumis (and a few knit ones) and measuring tape covers, among other things. Her blog is full of delightful adventures – her crocheted “mini-me” took an international trip and she hosted a crochet mystery featuring the evil villain, Dr. Hookenstein.

Designer Interview: Jean Clement

I’ve been participating in the Indie Design Giftalong on Ravelry. This is a group of people who are all knitting or crocheting patterns from participating designers and talking about it together. It’s a lot of fun, people are making things for other people or themselves, and there’s a lot of sharing going on. (There are also prizes.) It’s not too late to join in!

One of the things I’ve enjoyed about it is the chance to work on a large project with other independent designers – there’s a lot of camaraderie involved, along with the chance to learn about each other. We’re also enjoying interviewing each other and sharing those interviews with our readers.

I was pleased to interview Jean Clement. (Ravelry link) We were both working on the same part of the Giftalong project: pinning all the eligible patterns on Pinterest. I’ve also admired her Pelerine Dolman sweater since it came out.

These are just a few of the patterns she has included in the Giftalong, enough to give you a taste: