Yesterday

I feel that I should explain the odd burp in the blog yesterday.

A few days ago I got a call from Interweave asking if I would mind if my sweater didn’t run in “the issue” as they were 4 pages over and needed to cut some editorial. As my sweater took up exactly 4 pages with charts, etc., they wanted to use my sweater as the initial offering on their Subscriber Only service.

At this point there was a miscommunication and I assumed they meant the sweater I’d sent them a few weeks ago for the Spring Issue – they didn’t. They meant my Morris Fern sweater that was to appear in the Winter Issue. Basically, whether I said yes or no the truth was that the sweater wasn’t running in the Winter Issue.

I ususally don’t get so personally invested in a design – once it’s gone to the magazine I have to trust it to stand on it’s own, I can’t control the photography, etc. But I’ve felt so connected to this sweater that when I received my IK Winter yesterday and eagerly opened it I was absolutely heartsick to see that my sweater wasn’t included. I know in the scheme of life this is a small thing, but I think in some way it was the last straw in a series of really shitty events.

I also feel like a fool because I’d been basically walking up to strangers and telling them that I had something I was “really proud of!” in the upcoming Winter IK. I never do that – really! I was just so proud that this sweater was finally accepted by a great magazine and I had so much of a voice in the choice of yarn, colors, etc.

I must look like a moron to my students from my classes who will be looking all over the issue to find my non-existant sweater.

Anyway, I totally broke down; tears, the whole thing. Just silly. And – as many of you know – my current inability to recall anything I hear on the phone (I have to take notes all the time if I’m not looking someone right in the face) left me unable to remember exactly what was said in the conversation. My mind was racing with unworthy questions: Was the sweater not good enough? Did it photograph badly? Were the instructions or charts so unclear they didn’t want to run them? I felt absolutely defeated.

I still feel pretty rotton about it – but nothing that I won’t get over quickly. I see everyone and their sister with book deals (and paying their knitters basically nothing to work up the samples for a book) and I just can’t bring myself to do it that way. Some days it’s really hard to dredge up the mental energy to continue doing this – yesterday was one of those days. This is one of the few lines of work I know that makes ACTING look like a highly paid alternative!

Of course, the icing on the cake was Good Morning America calling to tell me that the Halloween segment I’d been working on was cancelled – they didn’t have the time for it and they’d cut it. The producer was so nice and very apologetic – I’ve worked with her before and I’m sure I will again – but it was a rough call to get as I was flipping through the magazine looking for my missing sweater.

Addendum

Please know that I love Interweave Knits. I love designing for them, I love reading the mag – I love what they’re doing with their new online site! The above was a painful but necessary part of the publishing world!