There is so much talent in our community and we'd like to celebrate that by putting together a book! We're calling all budding designers, or experienced designers!, as well as artists, writers, poets, teachers, photographers and others to contribute to this exciting new project. If you have a skill or story that you would like to share, then we would love to hear about it!
The theme is Wool on the Exe. To us, this incorporates fibre arts, (knitting, crochet, weaving, felting, spinning etc.) as well as community. This includes our local Devon area, and the more general idea of sharing and coming together to encourage and inspire each other.
We would like to put together an A5 magazine-style book that will contain some knitting and crochet patterns as well as stories, art, comics, illustrations, tutorials, articles, letters, poems, photographs, whatever you would like to contribute to inspire others.
All the initial information is below but please get in touch if we can help in any way. We can't wait to see your ideas!
Guidelines
All knitting and crochet pattern submissions must be for original designs. Please submit a detailed overview of the design as well as photos of any swatches. Ideally we would like to use yarn from the shop and we can provide yarn support for the finished piece. We're hoping for small and accessible projects like quite simple accessories, toys or home/baby items.
For any other content please submit details of the piece as well as examples of previous work, or an example of part of the submitted work. For example if you would like to submit a story but don’t have a previous story to submit, please send us on outline of the story as well as a few paragraphs.
Please send submissions by email to ella.austin@woolontheexe.com
Schedule
- Submissions - proposals for ideas with thorough plans are due by 11th May.
- We will get back to everyone by 25th May. We will make detailed plans for each project chosen, including sending yarn support where required.
- Finished knitted items and complete patterns are due by 6th July.
- Finished art/stories etc. are due by 20th July.
- The book is due to be released in early November.
Terms
All content will be donated to Wool on the Exe for use in the printed book that we will sell in the shop and online. Profits from the book will be split between Wool on the Exe’s community projects and the charity Knit for Peace.
We will provide tech editing and photography for knitting and crochet patterns. Designers are free to use their finished tech edited pattern with our photography for their own use.
We will provide yarn support for samples that will be returned to the designers after we have displayed them in the shop for three months after the book’s release. Similarly, all original artwork will be returned to artists three months after the book's release.
Copyright will remain with authors, designers and artists with permission granted to Wool on the Exe for use of the work.
Support
We would like to encourage anyone to have a try at designing! We're very lucky to have a professional tech editor as a member of Wool on the Exe, who will shortly be writing a blog post on pattern writing for beginners. She is also willing to mentor anyone by email or video call to help them produce a pattern.
So if you have an idea, please be encouraged that we will help in any way we can to make it a reality!