Well, this just takes the cake. After suffering through a HOT weekend, stealing every hour to finish my submissions on time (see below), putting off taking my kids to the pool on this STEAMIEST of hot days here in NJ and rushing my husband off to the post office with MINUTES to spare to send my sketches and swatches to a major knitting magazine (sketches due tomorrow) I get this email 10 minutes ago:

Dear Designers,

We have extended the deadline for the designer submissions. Please be sure to send us your designs by August 15th.

If I wasn’t already so hot I’d be steaming. I know that free-lance is just one step above cotton-picking coolie in the stratosphere of the hand knit design world, but the due date was supposed to be TOMORROW. I can’t be the only designer who put their nose to the grindstone all weekend to get stuff in by the 7/30 deadline, can I?

This reminds me of grad school – whenever I’d get my assignments done early we’d get an extension. When I needed more time it was never available. I know that deadlines are rubber – but having worked in print production I try very hard to honor them when I can. The magazines need to treat their free lance designers with the kind of respect that they expect from them. I’m already in the Scenic Artist Union – maybe we need a guild for the free lance hand knit designers? Is there such a thing? BTW, maybe you’d like to see my online knit design portfolio?

I guess it’s true – the more you pay someone, the nicer you tend to treat them. Ain’t designing glamorous?