One of the joys for me in my technical editing work is the sense of virtually knitting a project. There are only so many hours in a day, only so many knitting hours in a week, only so many projects I can make in my lifetime. I’m very much a process knitter, and I get an awful lot of satisfaction from the technical aspect of knitting: learning new techniques, experimenting with and understanding different constructions, and enjoying a designer’s implementation of a design idea. To do a technical edit of a pattern provides all of those experiences, in less time that it would take me to knit it. And it’s true, if there’s a sample, I have been known to try it on, and have a good fondle of the yarn, and luxuriate in the colours. (The downside is that I don’t get to keep the lovely FO at the end, but there have to be some trade-offs…)
Sometimes I am working with a designer, editing individual patterns; sometimes, I am working with a publication, to edit a group of patterns from different designers.
The most fun projects, however, are the big ones: editing a collection of patterns from an individual designer. You know, books!
Working with a designer on a book project allows you to really dig into a designer’s vision and design sensibility. Working on a book project allows me to experience and enjoy all the different ways a designer expresses herself.
Over the summer, I had the distinct pleasure of being the technical editor for designer Holli Yeoh, for her just-released book Tempest.
Holli is a wonderful designer, and her design sensibility reflects a remarkable balance: her pieces are beautiful but entirely wearable, interesting in construction and technique, but entirely knittable. It’s not easy to do, and Holli is a master of this.
Tempest is a collaboration with Felicia Lo of Sweet Georgia Yarns. All of the projects in the book use Felicia’s yarns, and take advantage of her fantastic colour palette. (I’ve used Sweet Georgia Yarns myself in my books and I adore them.) And just as I enjoyed diving deep with Holli’s designs, I know that Holli thoroughly enjoyed diving deep into Felicia’s yarns.
Tempest features eleven designs, accessories and garments for women, inspired by the weather and natural surroundings of the west coast of Canada.
Now, Holli and Felicia are in Vancouver, and so were the projects. Tech editing remotely – that is, without the projects in hand that I could examine and measure and explore – adds a degree of challenge to the process. It’s often the way I work, and it can be useful to do it this way, in that it allows me to assess and work through the pattern the same way a knitter would – with only instructions and a few pictures to guide me.
The downside is that I don’t get to really enjoy (you know, oogle, fondle, try on) the projects in the same way.
Holli and Felicia launched the book at the KnitCity event in Vancouver earlier this month, where I was teaching. Being at the launch party was lovely, and I really enjoyed being able to congratulate them both in person… but the best part of being there? Getting to see the projects in person! I may have even tried a bunch of them on…
To see all the projects, and to learn more, visit the website for the book. The site also hosts tutorials and discussion forums.
You can buy a physical copy of the book online at the Sweet Georgia Shop, or a digital copy from Ravelry.
Holli and Felicia have generously donated a digital copy of the book for me to give away to one of my readers. To win, leave a comment on this post. Please make sure I have a way to contact you – include in the comment either your Ravelry ID or your email address (in a way that the spammers can’t get it, write it out with spaces and spell out the at and the dot, e.g. kate dot atherley at gmail dot com).
Deadline for comments is Tuesday Oct 28th, midnight EST.