Blast from the past

 Almost a decade ago now (oh my gawd), there was a fibre arts challenge that went 'round the Internet called "The 12 in '12 Challenge". The idea was that you would pick something to make twelve of during the 2012 calendar year, and then go do it. What you picked depended completely on what would be a challenge to you personally. I saw people committing to make twelve pairs of socks, twelve sweaters, twelve completed projects in general, etc. etc.

I've no idea why this challenge captured my imagination, but it did. I wanted to do something, but I couldn't think of any item that I genuinely wanted to have twelve of at the end of the year that would be an actual challenge to me to do in twelve months. So as a fledgling designer trying to get my name out there, I spun the challenge on its head a little bit, and decided that I would submit twelve proposals to magazines, for brand-new designs, in twelve months.

I met the challenge (actually I think I did 13 or 14 in the end), but this design - which was accepted, to my giddy delight! - was the very first one I came up with.

© Christa Tippmann, Jane Austen Knits, used with permission

This is the Beloved Baby Bonnet. It was published in the second edition (summer 2012) of Interweave's Jane Austen Knits magazine. It represents the first time ever that my work appeared in a print magazine, and an incredibly popular and high-quality issue at that. It was a thrilling experience, especially since the pattern came out exactly how I wanted it, I was so pleased.

© Christa Tippmann, Jane Austen Knits, used with permission

After the magazine went off the shelves, Interweave made it available as a single pattern purchase through their independent revenue program, and I got royalties off of sales of the pattern there. When Interweave restructured to avoid bankruptcy, the rights to sell the pattern got bought by Long Thread Media, and I got royalties off of sales of the pattern there. However, LTM has recently decide to change their business model a bit, and are reducing the number of royalty-incurring patterns in their online store. As a result, I now have the right to sell the publisher's version of the pattern myself!

Thus, I'm absolutely thrilled to make it available here on my website. To my knowledge, there are no errata contained in the publisher's version (there were issues with the first version published in Jane Austen Knits, but I have compared that with the version I'm selling and the errata have been corrected in the PDF, so yay). I have reduced the price from what LTM was selling it for, to bring it in line with my own product pricing structure. If you'd like to view more details about the pattern, I have a Beloved Baby Bonnet product page.

Buy now $4.99US

Everything old is new again

Recently, I started using Payhip as a new sales channel for my knitting patterns (as a result of the Ravelry accessibility problems). Their service is super-interesting because it allows me to integrate pattern buying into my actual website. And that means that I can finally start selling some of my past patterns from magazines! Today I'm making the first of these available:

This is Juicy Fly, a hairbow pattern originally published in The Unofficial Harry Potter Knits. (And yep, that is what my youngest child's hair looks like in natural light; isn't it amazing?) It knits up super-fast and if it's a bit big for your tastes (finished size given is 5" wide), it's easily resizable just by using thinner yarn and smaller needles.

Buy now $3.99US

More blast-from-the-past patterns coming in the future; but they will take longer because I've got to knit all-new samples for the photography.

New pattern: Minerva Shawl

Very pleased to announce the release of a new lace shawl pattern!

 

"Minerva" is worked all in one piece, border and body together, from the tip out. This was done on purpose to maximize yardage usage - there's information in the pattern about resizing if you want to use less or more yardage than the pattern calls for. But if you've got two 100g skeins of worsted weight in your stash right now, you should be good to go!

This pattern came about because I wanted to make a holiday gift for my middle daughter's grade seven teacher: an elegant woman who looks great in strong colours and who, I was told, loves owls. I had some worsted weight in my stashed in a colour that really suited her, so I designed this shawl to use up as much of its yardage as possible. 

It's $4.99US, but if you buy it on Ravelry in the first week (i.e. until the end of May 16, ET), you'll get an automatic 10% off!

Buy now

(Edited July 4 to remove Ravelry link)

I certainly like knitting

Pattern release catch-up time!

In September, the October issue of I Like Knitting came out, and I was in it!

(c) 2016 Prime Publishing LLC

This is the "Checkmate Cowl", which is exactly the sort of pattern which comes along when I learn a new technique (like entrelac) and start thinking about how to make it more complicated in cool ways (like adding intarsia).

In this case, the checkerboardish nature of the squares in entrelac inspired me to try and design something like a chessboard all set up for playing.

(c) 2016 Prime Publishing LLC

Once I had the idea, all that remained was the execution. Unsurprisingly, this one took a whoooole bunch of trial and error, but by the end of it I had a cowl which made me feel like an extremely clever person! :)

Info for pattern buyers in the European Union

For those unaware of it, starting January 1, 2015 (i.e. tomorrow), there will be tax changes in effect in the EU. Basically, it appears that their Value-Added Tax (VAT) needs to be collected based on the location of the buyer as opposed to the seller, and apparently, electronically delivered goods like my patterns count for this sort of transaction.

I am in no position to be able to collect VAT myself, so this is a problem.

Fortunately, Ravelry has come up with a solution that will allow me to continue to sell patterns online there without having to worry that Big Bad Tax Officials might come after me if any of my buyers are in Europe. Starting tomorrow, absolutely nothing will change for people trying to purchase my patterns through Ravelry who aren't in the EU. For buyers in the EU, however, the purchases will be routed through a company called LoveKnitting, who will handle all the collection and forwarding of the VAT and it will be tremendously simple. Ravelry and LoveKnitting have even set it up so that EU buyers who are routed from Ravelry through LoveKnitting for their pattern purchases will have those patterns in their Ravelry library! (Ebooks, however, are an exception.)

Got questions? More information for customers is available here [link removed for safety, as it went to the Ravelry website].

Unfortunately, however, neither Etsy nor Craftsy have done anything similar for their sellers, nor even provided any kind of tool that would allow me to continue selling to non-EU people so that at least some customers wouldn't have to be affected. Therefore, I've had to take down my patterns from those websites. My sincere apologies if this inconveniences people. :( I promise that if the VAT rules change or if either of those platforms do start providing tools or alternatives for sellers, I will certainly put my patterns back up for sale there as soon as I can.

All that being said - and I do mean this unironically :) - Happy New Year, everyone!