Best Independent Pattern Designer 2023

​I am incredibly proud to be awarded Best Independent Pattern Designer in the 2023 Yarn Industry Awards hosted by Craftworld. It means a huge amount to have won this category, especially as I was listed among some super talented fellow designers at the voting stage. The award is not only recognition for the work I have put in over the years, but it is also a testament to the dedication of my fabulous little team who continue to support me in so many ways.
 
Crochet has been proven to be a mindful pastime, beneficial to body and soul. It can help people combat physical and mental illnesses and I love that the craft creates a physical representation of our time spent. I cannot imagine my life without crochet and hope that it will continue to be a big part of my future. 

A century or so ago people knitted garments to save money and keep warm - simple as that - however, as we headed into the mid part of the 20th Century things started to change. At a time when major World Wars were over and the average family income was growing, knitters were open to purchasing more yarn and making more sweaters. As a result, companies got busy creating yarn in extra colours and plys and providing patterns in increasing styles, shapes and sizes to accompany its sale. By the 1950s, the yarn industry had become less about necessity and more about consumerism, with many yarn companies employing designers to create patterns that would inevitably sell more and more yarn.
 
Fast forward to modern day and you will see that things have changed somewhat. Whilst the yarn companies still work in a similar way to sell their yarns, we have also witnessed the rise of the independent knit and crochet designer – a person who has chosen to put themselves out there and present the world with a pattern – usually thanks to download platforms such as Ravelry and Etsy where patterns are available at the click of a mouse!
 
The independent designer may have an affiliation with a yarn company and could have received a design fee in return for creating a project that uses a particular yarn. They might be paid a retainer fee so that they don’t design for another yarn brand, or they might be a paid employee, although this is relatively rare for ‘named’ designers these days.
 
The independent designer might be creating patterns as a hobby or as a small job on the side of a main career. The financial recompense might not a huge consideration, or they may be in need of wage; either a visible one where their patterns have a retail price or a more unseen one where they have decided to provide ‘free’ patterns and make their living from the profit on the sale of associated yarn packs, payments for YouTube views, or advertising via social media channels.

For many years I had two main channels of income as an independent designer – one was the money I made tutoring day and residential workshops, and the other was the profit made via my website by selling yarn kits associated with my designs. When we were put into lockdown in 2020 my pattern sales started to grow, but at the same time the expectation of what a pattern should include shifted, with knitters and crocheters looking for more than accompanying step-by-step images and layout diagrams, and asking for free additional content such as YouTube videos, crochet charts and translations.
 
For me, the design itself can take weeks to perfect, then there is the pattern writing process, technical editing, chart making, diagram design and the crochet test – all things that can take a good couple of months to get right. Once these aspects are complete, there is the hire of shoot locations, photography, styling and graphic design costs and then, right at the very end of the process, there are printing costs, download fees and social media promotion. 
 
Working with magazines and yarn companies on a freelance basis provides me with a way of designing with a little less financial pressure. I have been able to release free crochet along projects in association with Stylecraft Yarns because they have paid me a design fee, which was topped up by the income from yarn pack sales. Working with magazines, such as the wonderful team at Inside Crochet, means that many of the costs I would incur by self-publishing are covered. In short, working with a third party such as a yarn company or a magazine, provides me with a safety net, means that I need to cover less bases by myself, and in turn means that my work is seen by a wider audience. 

The yarn trade is globally renowned for low wages and poor profits, whilst other industries are respected for having high price affiliation. For example, we would expect to pay more for a Gucci handbag than for one from Primark and we probably wouldn’t expect the quality of the less expensive bag to be equivalent to the expensive one. We would also expect a solicitor, accountant, or lawyer to charge a high price for their expertise, but for some reason we tend not to hold other professionals, such as nurses, teachers and public service workers, to such high esteem, especially in terms of the amount that society is prepared to pay them, despite their high level of knowledge and training.

​I feel extremely lucky to have been able to carve myself a rewarding career within a field I love, but it can be incredibly hard when negativity creeps in thanks to spiteful comments and conversations where words like unfair, greedy and selfish are used in relation to the way I decide to price my work. Thankfully the incredible support of the majority outweighs the destructive effect that ill thought words can cause, and I am so incredibly grateful for all the positive feedback that is sent our way day after day. 
 
As we now live in a society where it can seem harder to find the money for the things we want, it is easy to feel that prices are high or to think that things are not fair, so here at Janie Crow we have made it one of our main aims to provide good value for money within our pattern range and also create lots of free ‘added extras’ in the form of technique downloads, video tutorials and social media content. We believe in the importance of supporting our audience and try to offer as much assistance as we can. I am hoping to release another free crochet along with Stylecraft in the future and will continue to work with Inside Crochet Magazine when I feel the project is right for that market. I am also hopeful that more stand-alone project patterns will be released in the autumn.

​​Huge thanks to all those of you who took the time to vote in the Industry awards – it truly is an honour to receive this award.