Why Yarn Support Gives Me Anxiety

Yarn support.

It sounds like such an amazing arrangement. A perfect symbiosis between designer and dyer.

In short, it works like this: a dyer provides yarn to a designer to use in a design sample (usually free; occasionally discounted*). When the design is published, the designer promotes the yarn as a great match for the pattern, the dyer promotes the pattern as a great match for their yarn, and everybody benefits and is happy.

When I first started designing and someone explained this concept to me, I was amazed. And I was eager to try it.

But first, I had to get over my anxiety about asking someone—generally a complete stranger—for something.

I am not an asker. I will marched determinedly through a store, searching every shelf on every aisle for what I’m looking for and admit defeat, leaving the store empty-handed, before I ask an employee for assistance.

I will read every single reference material I can find on a topic and then just give up on learning rather than asking someone in the know to explain it to me.

No, I don’t know why I’m like this. But I am. I’m sure I could pay a therapist a good salary to figure it out, but instead I’ll just call myself “self-reliant.”

So getting over the fear of asking was the first challenge.

But it’s the 21st century and email exists, so this wasn’t too terrible. Writing I can sail through; face-to-face interaction is the killer. Email, being fairly anonymous, was far less scary. I would generally write an email, read through it a million times, honing it to within an inch of its life, and eventually click send with a grimace on my face. DONE!

And I never got a direct “no.” I got a few “we don’t do yarn support,” which I could handle, because it’s not personal. And a got a lot of unanswered emails, which I understood to mean “no” but could also brush off as “they never got the email” or “they don’t do yarn support.” It was annoying and frustrating to get no response at all, but without a real answer, I could chalk it up to trouble on their end, not mine. Usually.

But sometimes, the “yes” answers were actually more painful.

Because on a fair number of occasions, this would happen:

Me: Yes, hello, I would like some yarn support, please.

Them: Of course! We love giving our yarn to small-time designers! Let us know what you need.

Me: Great! I’m designing XYZ, here’s my sketch/swatch/other info, and I need X much yarn.

Them: No problem, send us your mailing address and we’ll get it right out!

Me: Provides address.

Them . . .

…

…

Now weeks have passed with no sign of the yarn and I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO. I cannot bear to email them yet again with a needy request. How would I word it?

“Just following up . . .” So passive aggressive.

“Did you have a chance to ship out the yarn yet?” Ugh, too pushy.

“Hey, maybe this got lost in the mail.” Well, that’s no good. If it did get lost in the mail, I can’t fairly expect more free yarn.

“Hey, do you want to work with me or not??” That’s a non-starter.

“Is my business too small? Was I rude? Did I upset you? Do you actually hate my design and were just trying to be polite??” Time to see the therapist again.

Ultimately, because of instances like these, as well as some other frustrations with the yarn support process, I just more or less stopped asking. I just bought the yarn I wanted to design with (or used stash yarn, on occasion). No deadlines, no commitments, no confusion and no scary emails.

But there are downsides, the obvious one being the cost of design yarn, which is eating into my salary. There’s also both personal and business value in making connections within the fiber arts industry, which is necessarily going to mean putting myself out there, writing scary emails, awkwardly introducing myself at fiber events, and proposing collaborations like yarn support.

So this year I resolved to give the whole yarn support thing another try, anxiety be damned. And I’m happy to say I have secured yarn support for almost all of the indie patterns I have planned so far for 2019, and all from new-to-me dyers I haven’t worked with before. True, not all of it has arrived yet, and I’ll probably have to send a few awkward emails following up on missing yarn as the year goes on (one thing I’m trying this year is to request yarn support waaaaaaay in advance of my target publication dates, to allow time to approach new dyers if the originals fall through), but in the end, I think it will be worth sending a few scary emails.

*The few times I’ve worked with companies that offered discounted rather than free yarn support, the discount was minimal, and they did nothing to promote the pattern; in fact, they didn’t even acknowledge the pattern when I sent it to them. So I’m done with that. And unfortunately that yarn company, even though I love their yarn.

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A Story of White Privilege

This is my story of white privilege.

Well, no. I have many, many stories about white privilege because I’m, you know, white. To my knowledge my ancestors are Polish, German and Irish, and I’m blond-haired (even if I have to give the color a little “help” now, after kids) and blue- eyed and have been given many, many advantages in this life on account of being white. So, this is just ONE story from a lifetime of white privilege.

(And before I jump into it, let’s chat about white privilege for a second. White people tend to have a knee-jerk reaction to the term “white privilege,” taking it to be a personal criticism implying that you haven’t earned whatever you have. It’s not. White privilege doesn’t mean your life has been easy. It doesn’t mean you haven’t struggled and faced challenges. It doesn’t mean you haven’t worked hard. It doesn’t mean you haven’t dealt with sexism, homophobia, ableism, classism, or any other form of systemic discrimination. It simply means that the color of your skin isn’t the reason for your challenges. The color of your skin isn’t making the challenges you face even more difficult. And you have it, simply by virtue of being born, because it is systemic in our society.)

No doubt you’ve observed or participated in the discussions unfolding over the last few weeks about racism, inclusion and representation in the knitting community. This is an important discussion—the knitting community is overwhelmingly white, and we need to (finally!) examine the ways we discourage BIPOC from participating in our community—whether it is intentional or not—and work to address them.

Have you noticed how few BIPOC knitters you see on Instagram, on Ravelry, at fiber festivals, at your local yarn shop? Maybe not—generally speaking, white people are used to being surrounded by other white people, so it’s our default. We don’t notice the absence of someone we don’t expect to be there in the first place.

I’m from Baltimore, a city whose population is estimated to be 60%+ Black. And when I attended my first knitting “event” in Baltimore so many years ago—Stitches East—it did strike me as odd that in a majority Black city, I saw so few Black knitters at this large event that many knitters I’d spoken with were eager to attend.

And what I thought, at the time, was this: Black people are way too cool to knit.

This is white privilege.

Why?

I mean . . . it kinda sounds like a compliment, right? My experiences with Black people over my 27-or-so years of life at that point led me to believe they were not sitting at home on Saturday nights knitting—they were much cooler than I was, out with their friends, dancing, partying, and having fun. Essentially, my conclusion was that Black people were not there because they did not want to be there.

It simply did not occur to me that Black people may not feel comfortable at a knitting event, may not feel welcome, may not feel included. Because I felt comfortable and welcome, I just assumed everyone did.

White privilege.

(And of course, making a sweeping assumption about Black people as a whole being too cool to knit is … not cool. It’s racist. Black people have interests and hobbies just as diverse as those of white people, obviously.)

(And, generally speaking, the vast majority of people are cooler than I am, regardless of skin color and/or interest in knitting, so it’s not really the best lens through which to gauge anything anyway.)

These kinds of assumptions are what white people, and right now, the white knitting community in particular, are being asked to stop and examine. The white experience is not the default experience, and we need to work to see beyond it—to see the ways in which our society, both intentionally and unintentionally, excludes, discriminates against and disadvantages BIPOC.

It is, at first pass, a challenge—to try to see the world through someone else’s eyes. But we are not being asked to do so based on nothing—BIPOC are telling us their experiences. They are telling us they don’t feel welcome, comfortable, represented, included. They’re sharing their experiences of prejudice, discrimination, microaggressions, and racism. They’re even telling us the ways we can fix that (which, frankly, isn’t their responsibility).

We need to listen.

And then we need to do the work to fix it.

It’s not going to be easy. Breaking down the entrenched structure of hundreds of years of racism that we benefit from (whether we like it—or even acknowledge it—or not) is a daunting task, and I know many of us (at least in the US) are already looking at recent policies and practices being implemented in our names and feeling pretty helpless.

But consider (this rough approximation of?) Maya Angelou’s words:

“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”

I cannot change the fact that at some point I thought BIPOC were not part of the knitting community because they didn’t want to be. But I know now that it’s not true, and I can do better by doing what I can to make the knitting community more welcoming, inclusive, and representative of BIPOC.

And I can carry that work forward into other areas of my life and my broader community.

And I can vote for people who promise to work to fix exclusionary, discriminatory, racist policies and practices—and then hold them accountable for that work.

(One last note: I’ve seen more than a few comments from white women in the knitting community indicating their hesitation to speak up and speak out for fear of saying something offensive or counterproductive or just plain stupid. And I get that.

But you know what? I’ve probably said something stupid or offensive in this post. And when someone rightfully calls me out, I’ll feel terrible and guilty and defensive. But I will also learn something, and that is far more valuable than my personal sense of tranquility.

So speak up.)

Month in Review: January 2019

The blog was pretty quiet last month, because there was so much else going on! Here’s a quick recap of January happenings:

• Déjalo shawlette released with Knit Picks

• The Hilo & Stitch podcast officially launched!

• The Juntos Knit-a-Long for Togetherness kicked off

• Sign-ups opened for the Swatch Scholar Challenge

• I attended Vogue Knitting Live in NYC

• I freshened up the website a bit (check out the home page!)

• I released a new colorwork fingerless mitts pattern, Lluvia

That’s a lot for a single month, especially the first of the year! Let’s see what February brings.

(Don’t forget, sign-ups for the Swatch Scholar Challenge close Saturday, February 2 and the fun starts Monday, the 4th—don’t miss out, this is the only planned run of the SSC this year!)

2019: Renew

Every year, as the calendar changes over, I set a watchword for the months ahead—something that will set the tone for the coming year and inspire both personal and business changes.

2017 was Nourish.

2018 was Balance.

So what’s in store for 2019?

RENEW

This year, I want to breath new life into my world—into my relationships, my business, and my life in general.

With 2 young kids, it’s easy for things to get a bit stale. Most days are the same: breakfast, school run, chores, school run, dinner, bedtime. There’s not much room for spontaneity—spontaneity with kids is generally the fastest route to a headache and a promise to never do XYZ again! And working from home, it’s perhaps harder to get out and explore regularly, to find fresh ideas and new inspiration.

But regularly renewing the mind, body and spirit is what keeps us going, I think—and keeps our relationships and our work going as well. Unfortunately, it gets harder to do as we get older, it seems—too many responsibilities, and not enough time or energy. We have to consciously create the time and space for renewal, otherwise it won’t happen.

So personally, I’m going to try to learn new things and have new experiences this year, wherever I can find them. I’m going to put renewed energy into personal relationships—actually see my friends, call family, and make my most important relationships more of a priority. I’m going to do more of the self-care things that help me feel refreshed and focused, like yoga and knitting selfish sweaters.

And I’ll be focused on renewing MediaPeruana Designs as well—trying new things, making new connections, discarding the things that don’t work and re-energizing the things that do.

In addition to my yearly watchword, I like to set some concrete goals; my track record on meeting them isn’t the best, but I still like to have something to strive for. So here’s what I hope to accomplish in 2019:

• Learn to use my sewing machine (finally)

• Launch a 2nd e-course

• Knit 3 selfish sweaters

• Read 25 new books (note to self: yes, re-reading Harry Potter is enjoyable, but enough already)

• Launch the Hilo & Stitch podcast

• Submit workshop proposals for 3 fiber events

That seems like plenty to go on for now!

What are your goals and plans for 2019?