A few months ago, I made a conscious decision to take on less design work. As I get older I find I want more time to myself and I care less about growing my business. That's not to say I'm giving up on designing, but I've become more and more content to do this my way, at my pace, rather than worrying about what I need to do to become the next big thing. Working full time once again has forced me to face my limitations and accept them.
Back in 2012-2014, I was working full time and spending almost every night and all weekend knitting samples. If I wasn't going to finish something in time, I forced myself to stay up late knitting it. I passed on events and time with friends unless they were going to come over and hang around while I knit. I remember going back home to visit a friend from high school and I was working on the Heliopath Vest. I sat in the middle of a party knitting it while everyone else around me was doing shots. (I mean, I did some shots too...but I made myself complete a chunk of knitting first! No drunk deadline knitting allowed!)
Honestly, there were times in that era when I HATED knitting, despite how much work I was accomplishing and how hopeful I was for my burgeoning design career. I told myself I had to stay on the grind and the next release would be it, I would reach the next level of exposure....then it was oh well next year it will happen....then it was if only I had more time to work on my business...
Since then I've slowly gravitated towards using sample knitters, which has been a huge boon on my productivity and my sanity levels. I love my sample knitters! But even when I first started to use sample knitters, I was still taking on too much work. I have some designs I'm not proud of, because I know I could have perfected them if I had more time and wasn't as overburdened. I hate that I have work in my portfolio that makes me feel that way, and I want to avoid that from happening.
I've been talking a long time about slowing down and working less and finally, I feel like I've put that into practice. I'm relying on my awesome sample knitters to help me out for those third-party submissions that really speak to me but otherwise, I'm sitting those submission calls out. The FOMO is hard, really hard! But instead of working on 5 designs at once, I'm working on 2 or 3 and only knitting actually one of those, and there are plenty of stretches where that one design is the only thing on my plate. It's leaving me plenty of time to focus on other things in life that matter to me: spending time with my honey, exercising, cooking new things, and oh yeah--selfish knitting!
So I guess the point of this is...2017 might look different here. More FOs, and less releases. I'm ok with that though.
My two current selfish WIPs