Almost here!

The twinset is almost ready. I have the bottom of the cardigan to finish, then trim it all out and weave in all the ends! Woo hoo!!

I worked on the cardigan all weekend (along with mowing the yard and trimming the jungle that is the backyard, which is great because before Houston I lived in Dallas where I pretty much had to water anything 24/7 and pray to the green thumb gods that the plants may stay alive and then it was only if they were in the shade most of the day because in Dallas? It. Is. Hot. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm just saying.)

Hefty Hefty Hefty

I also got up the nerve over the weekend to read the email from the magazine editor that returned two of my finished designs once she had seen them in person. (And thank you so much to everyone that encouraged me last week; y'all really helped me a lot!!) As I suspected it was a nice email full of good suggestions and a lot of encouragement to continue designing (do you think she somehow knew that the future of The Crochet Dude(tm) was in her hands and that her email would have influenced the entire industry as we may someday know it?)

Anywho, there was an underlying theme that I saw in her comments (and that I've seen with one other editor I've worked with) in that there wasn't complete, clear, concise communication between us. How critical that is!! For example although my swatch and sketch and design proposal showed that all parts of said design were to be felted, she never thought certain parts were going to be and therefore the finished item didn't "fit" the way that she expected.

The problem of course was that I didn't clearly state "all parts felted" or "felted parts will be: a, b, c, & d". The swatch had a sample of parts a, b, c, & d, and they were all felted, but I didn't actually say it. So from now on when/if an editor wants to buy a design from me I am going to be very clear about each and every minute detail of what they are expecting. I think I'm even going to send them digital photos as I make progress to verify that what I am doing is what they are expecting. I just don't want to ever lose 120 hours of my life to a simple "I didn't think that part d was going to be felted" again, ya know?

*my bodyguards in training*