Crafty Ferret Knitting Technical Editing, Chart Conversion, and Garment Grading

  Oh, heeeey!  Look! It’s a blog.  It’s only been…. *counts fingers* a bit.  Honestly, I’ve stopped and started any number of blog posts and I never actually post because it seems like the wrong time or I’m worried that I’ll make some HORRIFIC grammatical/spelling mistake and you’ll decide that you can’t bear to have that idiot tech edit your pattern anymore. So.  Post brunch, here’s where I’m at: A couple of my designers asked me to write this blog and I love them and my own opinions. Copy editing your own work is borderline disastrous (especially post brunch) and I’m not hiring a copy editor to check my blog posts.  My tech editor will probably contact me and tell me to fix some things and next time I’m in Europe I will be buying her every meal to pay her back.  You can handle some misplaced commas. This isn’t technical writing.  I was a Lit major with a Chem minor and now I have a doctorate in pharmacy so I’m accurate in discussing pharmacokinetics and overanalyzing Mary Shelley.  A

I've been teaching knitting for a little over 10 years.  I started just teaching my friends while I was in pharmacy school (big shout out to Ashley for being my first guinea pig) and then I began showing up and helping people at the local yarn shop in town (Village Wools in Albuquerque, NM).  Soon they gave me a beginning knitting class spot called "Friday Night Knitting with Heather" (it was not child friendly).  I really loved it and worked there for two years until I graduated and had to leave my beloved Albuquerque to pay off some school bills.  By the time I came back and got settled my second home, Village Wools, closed its doors forever.  The closing of my LYS's doors was not, however, the end of my teaching career.  I had established myself well in the knitting community here in Albuquerque and our other LYS, The Yarn Store at Nob Hill , has been kind enough to give out my name to people wanting private lessons.  I also have a fiber arts group called Stitch &#

My journey to technical editing was a very natural journey.  I started knitting in 2005.  I come from a long line of makers, but my Mom is a jack of all trades.  She paints, she sews, she quilts, she crochets, she knits... I've never seen her pick up a craft she couldn't handle.  For me, knitting was the most intuitive.  I would not, however, call my knitting intuitive.  Every pattern design I have ever written has been heavily based on pages full of math.  For me, math and knitting are irreversibly tied.  I honed those skills writing knitting patterns for commissions, teaching knitting, and knitting fun things for my friends and family.  While I refined my knitting techniques I was busy going to school.  I was a literature major, which gave me a strong background in composition, and I graduated with my doctorate in pharmacy, which has given me a solid background in math. In 2017 I decided it was time to finally start writing patterns and publishing them, but I wanted more edu