CHAIN-LINK, CGOA CONFERENCE 2017, ITASCA (Chicago), Il

CROCHET DREAMS!

I was able to attend the CGOA conference this year and I had a really great time.  I hadn't planned on attending, so the hotel and some of the classes/events I would have otherwise attended were sold out. I was able to get a roommate since people were posting on Ravelry looking for roomies.  But I was not able to get into any event (Excellence in Crochet, Banquet) or class (Susan Lowman's Repairing Crochet, although that's not the official title) that I was hoping to.

The classes I did take, though, were definitely worth my time in one way or another, and as usual, the teachers were top notch.

If you have a chance to attend a Pajama Party with Marly Bird, do it!!  It may be late, you may not be very social, or you might just not want to wear pajamas out in public, but do it anyway, it was a lot of fun.  Thanks to Red Heart for sponsoring it and handing out yarn like cups of water, and of course, Marly for being the fun ringleader!

It was fun meeting up again with people I've only met at these conferences, it was fun meeting up with people that I interact with primarily online, and it was fun meeting all sorts of new people who all had crochet in common so that everybody had something to talk about which led to many interesting conversations.  I was able to connect in person with a designer friend, who drove about 2 hours each way to have lunch with me and another local-to-the-conference-site friend.  

Next year it is in Portland, so I am pretty certain that I'll sign up early and not miss out on quickly-selling events/classes (although, geez, if the banquet sells out every year, you'd think they'd make sure there is a large enough banquet hall?).

TECHNICAL EDITING ADVENTURES

Overheard at the conference: "That magazine tech editor just ruined my pattern!"

Well, that sure would be disappointing.  I do technical editing for a magazine and I hate to hear comments like this.  I heard it a few times, but stated a bit differently each time.  During Professional Development Day a newer designer asked the speaker if it would be a good idea to add a note if she does something a bit unusual (as to why it was done that way).  The speaker replied, "If you wish." But I think, "YES! let me know."  I did speak to her later, so she knows my opinion.  I've had unusual things come my way and have always asked, but it's possible that a designer didn't get her point across at all and it just looked like a big easy-to-spot error, in which case I wouldn't contact her.  If there was a note, then I would know for sure.

I am tasked with editing all sorts of patterns that range from nearly perfect (there's always something!), to me wondering if these are the notes or the pattern they'd like to have published.  I really do love my job, but sometimes, geez, I wonder what people are thinking.  A wonderful piece of advice I heard on submitting to a magazine is to pick up an issue and see how it's been done. I'm all for not reinventing the wheel.  Is it too difficult to get through the style guide? Well, you should try, but at least look at the patterns in the magazine and try your best to make your pattern look very much like those already published.

A lot of my job consists of either switching the "dc 2" to "2 dc" (because that's what it says in the style guide!) or just deleting things, a big one is parentheses around the st counts, or periods after the st counts (both things are in the style guide, no parentheses of any kind and no period).  This takes time to do and may take away from the attention your pattern might need in the technical department.  So, please, put your pattern in the style of the magazine.  

If you can't put it in the magazine's style for whatever reason, hire a personal tech editor to do it for you.  Make it clear to her/him why you are hiring them (it needs to follow This Magazine's style guide).  I do it for a couple of clients, and yes, that means that some of the fee you're receiving will have to be used on your personal editor, but it also means that your pattern will be in the best shape it can be and the magazine editor will not be worn out by all the tiny mistakes and possibly miss something larger, or just see so many errors that they decide that your carefully-worded instruction on something new or innovative is just another error.  The magazine I work for had a piece come in that had all sorts of errors in the crochet work (not the written pattern, but the actual crocheting), plus the finishing was sloppy.  It's entirely possible that a contractor did the work, but I noticed these problems and cautioned the editor on putting a particular part of the piece in a photograph.  He'd already noticed the sloppy finishing and I suspect that she will no longer have her patterns accepted at the magazine.  I can see the same thing happening with overly-sloppy submissions.  

I once had to mention to the editor that a pattern was really tough to deal with.  There was all sorts of missing information: "You made that st, now go ahead and do it for the rest of the row!" (but the sts in between those sts you just learned to make, you can figure out that they need to be there, and go ahead and figure out how many of those other sts to place along the row for yourself, too, you're probably a fantastic crocheter!); sts were ignored in the st count (no reason to ignore them, they were used in the following rows, not that that's a good reason to ignore them, but...); oh, and of course, the only part of the pattern that followed the style guide was the fastening off instructions, which were actually changed early on, but the style guide was never updated, so it's just a quick delete if somebody actually follows the exact wording.  So, even the one thing she got right was incorrect.  

What do I do if I encounter odd things?  I send an e-mail to the designer asking for her help. 

Sometimes they don't get back to me.  

What? 

Yes, let that sink in: sometimes they don't get back to me.

I guess it's possible that my e-mail went to their spam folder for some reason (although, that's their e-mail for their business, so you think they'd have that worked out), or they're on vacation and aren't checking (although, they just submitted their design, with their name on it and it includes their e-mail address which implies it might get used, right?), or they just don't feel like responding to the non-editor (since that's probably the person they've been communicating with).  I usually do CC the editor, so the designer can reply directly to her if desired, but that's only happened once.

If they don't ever get back to me (or the editor), then I must make a best guess based on my crochet experience.  I always hope I'm correct and I'd never just leave an error so something has to be done.  I always wonder if they happened to look through their pattern after publication and complain that their pattern was ruined.  

Doris Chan noted that editors resisted her use of the FSC. Since becoming a tech editor, I wonder what I would have done.  I really think I would not have changed it to "Chain 185, Row 1: 184 sc" because, wow, the FSC is great and who wouldn't want to use it when the designer thinks it's appropriate?!  Had I never encountered that st before, I would think I would have asked for clarification, but I also would have discussed it with the magazine editor because I wouldn't want the staff to be blindsided by a bunch of inquiries after the issue comes out, and ultimately, it's up to the editor to publish innovative techniques (or not).

So this all comes back to communication.  Yes, put a note for the tech editor to contact you if necessary, or just a note as to why you used a chain 2 for the beginning of a sc row instead of a chain 1 (something I've never seen before, so I would definitely chalk it up to a typo).

I like to think I'm pretty flexible and if you have a legitimate reason for something unusual, then it should be in the pattern.  The reason why should probably be published, too, as a note or a tip accompanying the pattern.

I don't know what happens after the pattern leaves me, I don't have a desk in the magazine's offices, and every so often I notice that a pattern has been edited down for space considerations.  Sometimes I offer an alternative that will save space because I love to follow patterns, too, and like the designer and the magazine's staff and buyers, I want them to be correct.  Every so often I just make purely space-saving edits if it doesn't take anything away from the pattern and it keeps or makes it easy/easier to follow, too.

As I've been working these almost-2 weeks since coming home from the conference, I've been thinking a lot about tech editors ruining patterns.  I think that tech editors that are purely or mostly crocheters and really love crochet would want innovation to occur.  I think that most of the designers try their best to have an easy-to-follow pattern and at least glance at the style guide when submitting to a publication.  So, I've decided I'll blame tech editors with limited crochet skills who have mostly worked on knitting patterns and think that crochet patterns are pretty much the same thing. 😉