Canadutch
My dear crochet friends, I love you all, but seriously… we need to talk.
There’s something I’ve been wanting to write about for a while, but I haven’t been sure how to approach it. I don’t want to offend or upset anyone, and I don’t want anyone to think this is specifically pointed at them. This is a collective issue that has been going on for quite some time, that I’ve encountered a lot across all platforms, so I have no one person in mind when I write this. Please bear with me, keep an open mind and remember that these are my feelings alone and I do not speak for all designers, only myself.
Right, so… “We need to talk”, these are probably the last words anyone wants to hear, aren’t they? Nothing good ever follows, and most people will feel themselves deflate the minute they hear them. There are few things that will take the wind out of your sails as swiftly as those four little words.
That is, unless you are a knitting designer and the first comments you see after every pattern release are:
“Is there a crochet version?”
“Pity it’s not crochet”
“Oh, boo, I thought it was crochet”
“I love this, but I wish it was crochet”
“Can you tell me how to crochet this?”
“I’m going to make this in crochet!”
“Look I’ve figured out how to make it in crochet!”
This is what I am met with every time I release a knitted pattern, without fail, and it really doesn’t feel awesome, you guys.
Before I get further into my feelings on this, I need you to know that I do realise a few things:
- A large part of my crafty tribe are are crocheters, it’s just worked out that way, and any other time time I love it.. but this causes me to come up against this particular issue more than other knit designers.
- Many know me from my Read Between the Lines and Crochet Between the Lines patterns, which may lead them to think that I am happy to recreate all of my knit patterns into crochet. What you don’t know is that the CBTL only exists because I caved to the pressure on this issue, and while I’m happy so many people enjoy it, it was actually very stressful for me at the time. This was the exception for me as a designer, not the rule.
- None of these comments are meant as insults, or with any bad intention, and in most cases it’s the exact opposite of that. It’s people liking the pattern but wanting it in their preferred craft medium. I get it, and I appreciate the love.
These things considered, I do understand why this happens. I also appreciate that people see some of my designs, like them and feel inspired by them. I am aware that my efforts to put people onto knitting by creating structurally easy, beginner friendly patterns, is biting me in the ass. By doing so, I am also creating patterns that people think are easy, and acceptable, for them to re-create.
Here’s the thing, though. It suuuuuuuucks to reveal a knitted pattern and have so many reactions be about how people wish it was crochet, then have others see that and jump into action to re-create my design, sometimes before I even get the chance to release the original!
I don’t mean like “Oops! I just dropped my toast jam side down” kind of sucks, I mean full on banged your little toe and your funny bone right at the same time while being punched in the nose kind of sucks.
Imagine this for a minute… humour me with this analogy.
You are an aspiring chef who owns a chicken farm. You decide to throw a dinner party and invite all your friends and family to share a new chicken recipe with them.
They love to eat and you love to cook, it’s perfect, right?!
You spend weeks preparing, making decorations, planning the meal and tweaking the recipe to get everything just the way you want it. You have the presentation just right, and are so proud of what you’ve created. You can’t wait to share it with your people.
You sit it the dish on the table and hold your breath…
There’s a moment oooing and aahing and a few people mention how eager they are to dig in. This is the moment you’ve been waiting for and it feels so great!
Then one of your friends says how pretty it looks but…ugh, they really wish it was beef.
Then another friend says, yeah…actually, they would have preferred beef as well.
Another friend at the end of the table chimes in about how it could easily be made with beef instead.
Then suddenly, before you know it, your brother’s girlfriend is off to the kitchen exclaiming “Give me a half hour, I’ll be back with a beef version that looks exactly the same and will be delicious!”. You silently shoot daggers at your brother, and you can see he is fearing for his life, but she’s cute, so he’ll risk it.
Your friend next to you leans over and says “Oh this looks delicious, I can’t wait to have some, I love chicken!”, and you smile and thank her.
A while later, the brother’s girlfriend reappears. “TADAAA! See, it can be made with beef and it looks almost exactly the same!”. Your beef loving friends cheer and dig in, telling her what a culinary genius she is. A little part of you dies inside, and your brother won’t even look at you now.
Sure, some of your friends are eating the chicken and enjoying it, but it’s still not quite the party you had in mind.
Why did all these people expect a chicken farmer to serve beef?
Why did you spend all of this time working on this recipe, just for your brother’s girlfriend to dig through it for ingredients so she could re-create it and steal your idea and your thunder?
You sit quietly at the table, while all of your friends and family go on with the party, blissfully unaware of how sad and frustrated you are. You remind yourself that they don’t get it, they don’t understand the work that went into it and how much it means to you, and you don’t say anything because you don’t want to make a scene.
You try a few more times, to have other parties, with other new recipes, but different versions of the same thing keep happening. You find yourself feeling pressured to still have these parties, but you no longer look forward to them.
You try to make sure to sit next to the friends who do enjoy your meals, but the voices at the other end of the table are so loud, you can’t escape them.
One time, your brother’s girlfriend even shows up with her beef version of your new recipe that she put together ahead of time from looking closely at your prep photos on Instagram! Why is he even still dating her?!
This is my life in designing right now… I keep throwing parties, my friends know what I’m going to serve, and yet it all goes down the same.
I’m starting to wonder why I keep throwing dinner parties, ya know?
Don’t get me wrong, as I said, I do realise that this is not done with bad intentions, and maybe the dinner party is a rather odd analogy, but the resulting feeling is the same.
I’m not going to lie, designing is not easy, at least not for me. I’m still quite new at it in the grand scheme of things and I’m still learning. I can be disorganised, and sometimes it’s hard to herd all the hamsters in my brain into cooperating, to make the idea into a reality. This is still all quite hard work for me. There’s so much behind the scenes that the average person doesn’t even think about. Designing is not just the idea and the knitting… it’s also organising testers, solving problems, photography, photo editing, pattern writing, creating PDF’s, blogging, social media, etc.
Every time I tear up a page, frog a piece of work or start over from the beginning, I remind myself that it will all be worth it. It will be worth it because on the flip side of that coin is the moment when you stand back and look at your finished creation. It was your idea, your hard work, and your determination that made it into an actual real thing!
That’s such a cool feeling and I want to hold onto that for as long as I can.
The problem is that, when I put it out into the world, I lose that feeling very quickly. Unfortunately, rather than appreciating it for what it is, a lot of the comments I receive are about what it isn’t.
It isn’t crochet. Why isn’t it crochet? Why can’t it be crochet??
I just isn’t, it’s just simply not crochet and that’s ok. It needs to be ok.
There are so many incredible crochet designers out there, there are more fantastic crochet patterns in existence already than any single crafter could make in their lifetime. There’s a lot out there to keep you busy.
I love that you like the look of my design and want to make it, and if you want to learn to knit, I GOT YOU. I have all the time in the world for you and will do whatever I can to help you learn.
If you don’t want to learn to knit, that’s absolutely fine too, but it’s not ok to bombard me with messages about how disappointed you are that it’s not crochet, and it’s not ok to take it upon yourself to create it in crochet without at least chatting with me about it first. It’s especially not ok to recreate my knit designs into crochet, and release a pattern as your own idea, without even mentioning where your inspiration came from.
Just because a pattern exists, or is released for free, does not mean it is yours to take and do what you please with it.
We, as designers, do not owe you the time and effort it takes to make a pattern into what you want it to be. We are giving you something, and you can either choose to take it and appreciate it, or not. If you choose not, that’s ok, tastes differ, and it’s ok to go off and try something else without telling us why you don’t like it.
I understand that, in most cases, this is just not something people think of. They are excited about a project, get carried away, and don’t realise how much work designing can be, or how deflating their comments and actions can be a times. People don’t realise the impact these things have on a designer before making comments or offering an alternative of their designs to the world.
That’s why I’m making this post. I am telling you that this is the case, at least for me, and it is starting to affect how I feel about designing.
My close friends and crafty tribe know how I feel about this, they have known for a long time, because they are my sounding board. Last night one of them told me that there will be no change without education, and that’s why I am here posting this now. I don’t want to sit at the table silently anymore, reminding myself that this is all happening because people don’t know any better. I want you to know better and I want you to know why why it’s not ok for you to come to my chicken farm, sit at my table and complain that I’m not serving you beef, because you like it better.
I need you to give me a minute, when I release a new pattern. Let me enjoy the moments that make all of the work worth it, because those feelings are what feed creativity and give me the energy to eagerly move on to the next project. I have so many ideas, so many cool and fun things I want to make, but it’s getting to the point where I spend a lot of the time I’m creating dreading the release, because it feels a bit like a race horse shooting out of the gate and straight into a brick wall.
Perhaps I’d feel differently if I was given some space. If I was allowed to just take a beat and enjoy chatting about my new patterns with knitters, or aspiring knitters, and soak up that creative energy. If I were allowed to have that just for a little while, maybe I’d be more open to your comments later. If you wanted to create a crochet version, maybe if I were less of a raw nerve on the issue, I could be more supportive of your project and even help to promote it… but that’s not where I am with this right now and I won’t be, unless we can can change this situation.
This hasn’t been easy for me to write, because I don’t want anyone to feel like I am pointing at them in particular, this is a collective issue. I don’t want to create drama, or upset an entire sub-section of the craft community. I also really don’t want to give the impression that I am trying to speak for all designers, as their feelings are their own. I can only speak to mine and I really need you to hear me and understand.
It’s easy to forget that designers are people, and that we often feel vulnerable when we put our work out there. It’s so easy to just have your thoughts come straight out your fingertips on the internet, without a thought of what it feels like on the other end, so I’m just asking that you take a minute to think about if you really need to give your opinion, and if it has to be right at that moment.
I’m not giving up designing, I love my crafty tribe and the circles I travel in, and I’m not trying to start any kind of movement. Nothing is going to change in regards to who I am, where I hang out or who my people are. I just felt this needed to be said and am asking for a bit of space and consideration, so that I can still enjoy my designs and my design process too.
I am going to leave the comments closed on this post, as I’d rather avoid debates or discussions, and so we can all move on and continue to share in our love of all things yarn.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope you understand. Much love to you all! x