Hi Everyone ~
Thank you for your kind comments and thoughts on my post about Charlotte. I deeply appreciated it and I know many of you have experienced loss of fur-babies. My heart goes out to you also.
This post is kind of a big deal! Katrina of Crafty Jaks Boutique and I have some news to share with you all! If you are a patron of the community, you may already know from listening to the most recent bonus episode of Wool n’ Spinning Radio (an audio podcast with interviews from people like Jillian Moreno, reflections from the community and more that is available exclusively to all patrons!) that we have the proof for our book in hand.
If you are local, we will have a copy of the book with us at Fibres West, which starts today at 9AM PST in Cloverdale, BC. I am also speaking about socks at 1PM so please join us!
As of this morning, Katrina and I will be taking pre-orders for the book. If you are local, there will be an option to choose local pick-up for the book if you’d like to save on shipping. The link is live now and we will be taking pre-orders over the weekend with plans to order the first run on Monday. If you pre-order, you will receive a SIGNED copy!
Pre-orders really help us to know how many we should order – when people choose to self-publish, pre-orders inform the number of copies that will be printed since theoretically there will not be a run as large as the first ever again. For those who prefer e-books, we are working on making that live in the next couple of weeks so please stay tuned!
For the past 2.5 years, Katrina and I have been working on this project together in the background. We’ve discussed it on the podcast, radio show and in The Thoughtful Spinner content. At the outset, we had the chance to start another tier on Patreon that would help to fund the book, which was what The Thoughtful Spinner turned into! The PDFs were downloadable blog posts about any number of subjects. For the first year, Katrina and I took turns writing it each month but over time, it morphed and changed into something I really loved to write so I took it over. We gave out a free pattern from the book at one point, shared the layout at another, and posted the original reveal there.
The process took on a life of its own over time and due to family circumstances, starting new businesses and life in general, the book took longer than we thought it was going to but we learned so much so neither of us see this as a failure. Some of the things we learned?
- That our friendship is incredibly strong and can withstand a lot,
- That having a plan and timeline in place is integral to completing projects like these because it is too easy to get off track (and remain there!), and
- Having the confidence to share your work with the world is incredibly difficult so having cheerleaders in your life to encourage and support is vital. A few of those people for Katrina and I were our husbands, Kim McKenna and Felicia Lo. There were countless others, near and far, and we want to send them special thank yous as well.
One of the things that I really had to overcome was the fear of designing patterns for knitting. I am not a knitwear designer and I look at some of the designers out there whom I admire, knowing that is not the job for me! I used to knit many more patterns than I do now because I weave more, as well as spin way more but I still have a lot of respect for those out there designing. It is incredibly demanding work.
As I worked with our handspun yarns and thought about this process, two designs eventually came to me. I am very pleased with them and I hope you enjoy making them. We included a variety of accessories in the book, as well as, one toddler cardigan (2T & 3T) that is modeled by Norah at age 3.
Writing, editing, photography and layout – these are the things that make a publication. Working together, with our friend Catrina helping with spinning, knitting and pattern designing, we were able to create something that we are excited to share with you all! I hope you will consider pre-ordering and telling a friend about the book so that we can circulate it as widely as possible.
The book includes a section about Colour Theory and spinning techniques that we used in the book, the breakdown of spinning analogous and complement colourways with many photos to help you navigate spinning choices, patterns to accompany the yarns we spun, and finally, a discussion about socks as samples. We hope you find it informative and interesting, as well as, inspirational and encouraging.
To pre-order your copy, please click the link here.
We appreciate your help and support getting the word out there about this book – thank you in advance for your pre-order & we will be sure to sign it for you!
Warmly,
Rachel & Katrina
