Knitting For Profit
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Archive for the ‘Knitting Patterns’ Category
33 Places To Find Great Knitting Patterns
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
There are so many places you can find knitting patterns, it can be a bit overwhelming!
The best way to sift through this massive collection is to get specific. When you know what niche market you are going to supply, you’ll know what sort of patterns are you looking for and it will make your search much easier and faster.
Here’s a few places to look offline:
►yarn stores
►bookstores (especially second-hand bookshops)
►craft shops
►garage or yard sales
►swap meets
►craft markets or fairs fiber festivals
►ebay and other online auction and trading sites
► stuffed away at the back of your (or your mother’s) cupboard!
And here’s some useful links to online resources:
► yarn store sites: www.jimmybeanswool.com, www.yarnmarket.com, www.y2knit.net, www.bellaknitting.com, www.yarnsupply.com, www.theyarnco.com,
►dedicated knitting or crochet pattern sites: www.knittingpatterncentral.com, www.crochetpatterncentral.com, www.knittingonthenet.com, www.patternfish.com, www.freepatterns.com, www.freevintagecrochet.com, www.theknittingvault.com
►yarn manufacturers sites: http://freeknittingpatterns.lionbrand.com, www.berroco.com, www.knitrowan.com, www.patonsyarns.com, http://redheart.com
►specialised designers sites: www.vogueknitting.com, www.bymelissa.net
►knitting supply sites: www.knitpicks.com
►knitting and crochet information and magazine sites: www.dailyknitter.com, www.knittinghelp.com/patterns, www.knitty.com, www.smartcrochet.com,
Or you can type your specific pattern search into Google or Yahoo and see what comes up!
Knitting Designers Opportunity!
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009
For any knitting designers out there, Tess at Angel Yarns is looking for original pattern designs for new yarns!
She is looking for scarves, mitts, cardigans, jumpers, socks shawls and hats.
If you are interested, send through some pictures of your work. If you are approved, she will buy your designs and they will be put up as free patterns on the angel yarns site. Just send an email to Tess at www.angelyarns.com.
How To Publish Your Knitting Book
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
After our discussions about copyright, I thought it was a good time for a post from the other side of the fence – if you are a knitting designer and want to publish your knitting patterns, or a teacher and want to publish a knitting book. How do you go about this, how much does it cost and what sort of copyright should you place over your work?
Becoming a published author is actually easier (and cheaper) these days than you might think. There are a huge range of publishers to choose from, many specialising in the crafting categories, and there are also online do-it-yourself services which are free to join and have a "print to order" service. This means that you don’t have to invest large amounts of money into printing hundreds or thousands of copies of your book before you know how well it well sell.
And coming from a knitting business point of view, your first step when considering publishing your work should be finding out whether there is a market for it! You need to think about who your target market is, whether the content of your book is popular at the moment and will appeal to a broad range of people, or whether it is very targeted and appealing to a smaller niche market.
General, broad appeal knitting books tend to be about learning to knit, how to overcome problems, and general knitting or crochet patterns. Even these tend to have some kind of spin on them to make them unique and interesting. As you already know, I’m a fan of niche markets, especially for this kind of project where your niche product has the potential to come “into vogue” and become a bestseller purely because it unique and different.
A good place to start this kind of research is on Amazon.com, where you can see what the most popular books are in each category. If you look in “knitting books” at the moment, the bestselling pattern books include two for sock patterns, two for knitted or crocheted embellishments and decorations, one for warm weather knitting and one that provides solutions for knitting questions. If you look up knitting books, you’ll find a long list of these books which will give you a idea of what is available and where there may be a gap in the market that you can fill.
Once you have chosen your topic and created your content, you’ll need to decide how you are going to publish, advertise and sell your work. You have three main choices for publication:
Option #1 – Use a publisher to copyright, edit, print and distribute your book. There are obviously a huge number of publishers around the world, some very large with wide distribution networks, others smaller and perhaps more suitable for niche publications. Here are some that have a range of craft titles:
• Martingale (martingale-pub.com)
• Lark Books (larkbooks.com)
• Trafalgar Square Publishing (now part of the Independent Publishers Group – ipgbook.com)
• Sterling publishing (sterlingpublishing.com)
The main advantage of using a publisher is that your knitting book will be more widely distributed, a lot faster than you could ever do yourself. It will be sold into stores and advertised in catalogs, most publishers have reps that will promote and sell your book. You’ll also have experienced editors giving you feedback and ideas. However, you will be giving away a lot of your control over the book, as well as the profits.
Option #2 – Self-publish your knitting or crochet book using a service such as lulu.com or createspace.com (who sell through amazon.com). This way you have much more control over how your knitting book comes together, how and where it is sold and promoted and the copyrights over the book.
If you want to use less restrictive copyrights, and allow people to knit your patterns and sell them, or use your patterns or teaching techniques in their knitting classes and basically get your name more well known by sharing your work as much as possible, then self-publishing may be a better option.
You will get more of the profits, and most of these services allow you to print on demand which means there aren’t high costs involved in start-up. But you won’t get the same level of distribution as with an offline publisher. You can order copies for yourself and sell them offline, and your book will be listed on Amazon and various other online sellers, but you won’t have anyone actively promoting it unless you organise it yourself.
Option #3 – Publish online as a knitting E-Book – if you already have a website, or you know of sites where your book would sell well, you could publish your knitting book as an e-book and purely sell online. This is a great way to start because it costs very little to do, and will give you some feedback and an idea of the size of your market and how well your book may sell when you do decide to publish offline.
There are also online pattern sellers that will list your patterns individually, which means you can control the copyright and distribution of each of your designs individually. Or you could list them on your own website.
There are several copyright options available to you. If you do not want your patterns to be used for anything other than personal use, then you can add the phrase “all rights reserved” to your copyright notice. You can also add exceptions such as “not to be used for commercial gain”.
Personally, I’m not a fan of restrictive copyrights like this. The world is moving towards a much more free approach to sharing information and ideas, and this means that ideas are passed around and reach a far wider audience than if you severely restrict their use. As a designer, your income comes from sales of patterns or books, and lots of sales are made from personal recommendations, so the more people who know about you the better!
You can use a Creative Commons Copyright, which means that you are happy for people to share, build on and perpetuate your work which is much more in the spirit of the knitting community! To find out more about Creative Commons Copyright, have a look at this site which has lots of great copyright information for knitters and crocheters – www.girlfromauntie.com/journal
Whichever method you choose, publishing your knitting book means more exposure for your designs, and helps get your name more widely known as a designer. Being a published knitting designer gives you more credibility, and may help land other opportunities to further your knitting design career.
An Update On Knitting Pattern Copyrights
Monday, May 11th, 2009
The comments after my post about quick knitting patterns were great because they highlighted an issue that most knitters who sell their work will face, whether you can use a someone else’s knitting patterns to make knitted products to sell (even if the knitting pattern is free). So I’ve done a bit of research on copyright and how it applies to knitting and crochet…
Copyright is a form of legal protection for creators of original works (whether literary, artistic, dramatic or musical) which ensures they are credited (and/or paid) for that work for a certain period of time. This includes original knitting and crochet patterns.
Copyright laws were created because there needed to be a balance between sharing ideas and information, and making sure that the original creators of those ideas are credited for them. Without copyright laws, people may be much less willing to share their ideas for fear that others could use their creation to make money, with no credit or reward to them for their inspiration. But sometimes copyright works against the author, with people unwilling to use an idea or inspiration for fear of infringing copyright, and so the work is never widely known.
When you find a knitting pattern, whether it is in a published book or free on the internet, it is automatically subject to copyright laws, which are in essence the same around the world. If it says "All rights reserved", that means you basically can’t do anything but knit it for yourself or perhaps as a gift. If it just says copyright or says nothing at all, then the best course of action is to contact the designer and ask.
Obviously, you can’t just change a couple of stitches and claim a design as your own, but you can use the ideas and techniques in a pattern to create your own designs. Exactly how much different it needs to be to not infringe copyright is like asking "how long is a piece of yarn?". A lot of it is down to common sense and courtesy really – if you’re not sure, just ask the designer. The knitting world is generally a friendly and sharing community, and every author can decide what you are allowed to do with their patterns. If you ask, most are quite happy to at least discuss it.
There are also patterns available that are in the "public domain". This means that their copyright term has ended, and you are completely free to use them, reproduce them, modify them and resell them as you wish. Generally these are vintage knitting patterns published before 1963 (this is for the US, and providing their copyright has not been renewed).
These days there is a big swing towards "free licence", which means many people are putting their original ideas and works out into the world happy for people to use them as long as they credit them as the original creator. I really like this model because it encourages sharing and collaboration, which is something that sits very well with the knitting community spirit.
If you are a designer, it is also a great way to get your patterns known by lots of people, because they will be more willing to share and recommend them. You are also likely to make more sales worldwide with this model because it opens up whole new markets – especially people who want to make money from knitting and need unique patterns that they can sell from!
And when you think about it, the actual knitting pattern is really only part of the creative process of the finished knitted product. The knitter will choose the colours and yarns and fix mistakes or make small alterations to a pattern. So every finished piece will probably be a bit different from the original design!
If you have patterns that you are happy for people to sell the finished work from, feel free to post your web address and details in the comments section below and get some free traffic! Or if you have any comments or other information about copyright of knitting patterns, please post a reply and let us all know.
Quick and Easy Knitting Pattern Ideas
Monday, May 4th, 2009
This is just a quick post to show you some knitting pattern books that have small, fast or easy-to-knit projects.
Great for using up yarn, and music for the profitable knitters ears with many projects able to be completed in a day or less.
They may fit your niche already, or you could alter them slightly to make them suit using different yarns or colours, or adding decorative elements. All are great for ideas and inspiration.
This is by no means a definitive list of fast-to-knit knitting pattern books but it hopefully gives you some ideas and inspiration. I have contacted the authors and publishers to see if they are happy for the finished projects to be sold, but have not received responses yet, so please wait for an update here, or contact them yourself before going ahead and using these patterns for your knitting business!
I have used Amazon links for the pictures so you can get an idea of their price too.
Judith Durant has created a range of these great pattern books with knitting patterns that use only one skein of yarn.
This is very useful if you are Knitting For Profit because you don’t have to worry about dye lots or running out of yarn, and they are relatively small projects so they are fast to complete.
"Speed Knitting" by Kris Percival has fast and easy to complete projects, easy for beginners and fast for experienced knitters. Part of the trick is using chunky yarns and big needles which makes the whole project come along a lot faster.
"Last Minute Knitted Gifts" by Joelle Hoverson has a good range of easy projects all able to be completed in under 10 hours. She uses a wide range of colours and textures which will give you great ideas for making your products stand out. [UPDATE] – Joelle has let me know that you can’t sell pieces you knit from patterns in this book, but it might still be a good one to have a look at for ideas.
"Weekend Knitting" by Melanie Falick is a popular book that includes projects designed to be knitted in a weekend or less. There are lots of unique designs such as a flower-shaped washcloth and little egg-cozies, plus projects covering a range of knitting difficulties too. [UPDATE] – The publishers replied and said that you can’t sell items you knit from Melanie’s book, but you could contact the designer of each item individually and ask for permission.
"One Skein" by Leigh Radford is another book of fast-to-knit projects that use only one skein of yarn, mostly patterns for fashion accessories and decorative pieces for homes. There are also projects designed to use up all those leftover bits from other projects.
I will hunt around for some free fast-knit patterns too, and include them in a future post!
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About Liz
Welcome! My name is Liz and I am a work at home mother of two. I am also the author of the new book “Knitting for Profit”. I have created this blog to give you more great information, ideas and resources for making money from your knitting passion! [more]
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