I am pleased with what I have achieved so far, but I still have a long way to go. Several things still feel unresolved.

I have decided I wish to further my research into pattern aesthetics, the maths of pattern and how stitching affects us psychologically. As such I am hoping to get a place on the MA Contemporary Crafts at Hereford College of Art.

Whilst I am happy with my yarn dyeing, I believe with time I will develop my own personal scheme of colours/styles/techniques that will define my brand. At the moment I am still finding my style. All of my yarns are repeatable – I have the recipes, so I can keep the ones I like and discard the ones I don’t wish to repeat, eventually distilling down to a core range. Only experience will tell if my research into colour trends, theory and therapy was relevant.

I am planning to attend my first yarn festival as an exhibitor in November and will continue to apply to others as applications open throughout the year. Applications for Unravel at Farnham Maltings closes on 1st June – I will be getting my application in once my website is fully up to date.

There are many directions my business could take in the future – I could start running workshops, I could open a shop, but to be honest I think I will get bored with yarn dyeing within the next 3 – 5 years. I will concentrate on the pattern designing which has been a constant throughout my life. That is what fulfils my personal creative needs.

I also suspect that as my mental wellbeing and my physical health improves (I am being put on a new form of medication which I am assured will bring my weight down and give me a new lease of life!) my confidence will return and who knows where that will take me? Maybe in 5 years I will be brave, learned and talented enough to be the next Stephen West!

How do I evidence working ethically?

Sustainability has been at the fore of my research and development, not just assuming the obvious but researching and evaluating sources of information and finding my own answers which weren’t necessarily expected.

I am learning a lot regarding issues relating to equality and diversity through online knitting and crocheting communities. An example that comes to mind is the following:

https://thecritic.co.uk/knit-picking/

Online knitting communities blew up over this controversy. I read with empathy on both sides and learned from what was being written.

How do I evidence my digital competency?

I am on several social media platforms which I review carefully and hope I keep a positive, professional presence online. I keep a separate Facebook and Instagram for my business.

I am proud of how far I have come with using image and video editing software!

How do I evidence my ability to think globally?

I keep up to date with global issues and how they affect the knitting community by having a diverse range of people that I follow on Instagram – not speaking the same language is no longer a barrier as there is a translate button!

How do I evidence my entrepreneurial ability?

I have faced many challenges and set backs but always find an alternative solution.

Whilst I do find it inspiring working with others, I am very much self motivated and prefer to work alone.

Part of the brief was to create a detailed timetable and cost analysis. I struggled with the timetable initially as I was still suffering with a lot of anxiety and depression. I knew that having a detailed timetable would cause me additional stress and pressure and would not be a good idea considering my state of mind. Had I missed a single deadline I had given myself, I would have given up in despair.

Instead I made a list of things I needed to do with no timescale – just things I knew I had to get on with and could tick off as and when I did them. This strategy might not have met the brief, but it was exactly what I needed. I was able to amend the list as things changed and was still able to prioritise what needed doing and focus on meeting deadlines that were not of my own making. I am also not good with multitasking – I prefer to work on one thing at a time from start to finish and then start something else. Ticking things off a list works for me. I was able to reassess my list on a regular basis and make sure everything was done on time.

Costing

I have provided a list of the cost/pricing of my yarn in my professional practice presentation, however there were many more expenses incurred:

Yarn: £431.60

Dye: £30.95

Card for skein bands: £21.93

Phone holder for videos: £11.99

Grid racking: £169.92

This wasn’t necessary for the exhibition, however it is necessary for attending future yarn festivals. As such I had to buy it sometime, might as well be now.

Vinyl Banners: £30

As above!

It sounds like a lot of expense, but if I sell the yarn then I will make a considerable profit – around £10 per skein x 90 skeins = £900 profit. If I don’t then I can knit my stock and will have saved myself £900 over 2 years as I buy approximately 45 skeins of yarn per year at retail prices!

I have taken the following tables from my business plan, so far they have been accurate:

Marketing Strategies & cost:

Yarn cost pricing

There are some obvious limitations to my plans.

Planning on selling only at yarn festivals or online. There is a vast number of knitters who don’t go to yarn festivals or buy yarn online – yarn festivals charge entrance fees to customers which can seem crazy – why would what is essentially a giant shop charge visitors to come in and buy? And vice versa – why would you pay a £12 entrance fee to go spend a fortune on expensive yarn? A lot of people do, but it does put a lot of people off too. Many people also won’t buy yarn online as you can’s see the true colour or feel the texture, so you don’t really know what you’re getting.

A solution would be to offer wholesale – ask shops such as The Woolcroft in Abrgavenny to sell my yarn. The problem is that the level of commission they would require per skein of yarn would mean it’s not worth my while.

Another solution would be to open my own shop, but there is already a destination wool shop in Abergavenny and I couldn’t compete. The cost of a shop in local towns without wool shops such as Crickhowell, Monmouth and Brecon would be far too expensive.

I am considering a stall at the monthly craft market in Abergavenny Market Hall which would be much cheaper than a shop and my yarns are different enough from what is sold in The Wool Croft to make it a viable option.

I had also considered a mobile yarn van, kind of like an ice cream truck, but looking into it further found that you need to have a licence from local councils to park up and sell from a van in a specific location, you can’t just drive around like an ice cream van, so that was put on the backburner!

My personality is another limitation – I am not comfortable being the centre of attention, yet I crave knitting superstardom! I don’t really have a solution to this one yet, but I hope that I will become more outgoing and confident as I go.

Here are the main Oxford English Dictionary definitions of these words today:

Art: Skill; its display, application, or expression.

Craft: To make or construct skilfully.

Design: A plan conceived in the mind, and related senses.

There are similarities and differences between the disciplines of Art, Craft and Design and throughout history people have attributed them with different values. These values have swapped and changed position in the hierarchy with each being seen as the least or most prestigious at any one time since Ancient Greece.

In his notable work ‘Republic’, in conversation with Glaucon, Plato said the following:

‘Well, we’ve got these three beds. First, there’s the real one, and we’d say, I imagine,

that it is the product of divine craftsmanship. I mean, who else could have made it?’

‘No-one, surely.’

‘Then there’s the one the joiner makes’

‘Yes,’ he said

‘And then there’s the one the painter makes. Yes?’

‘Yes, agreed.’

‘These three then, painter, joiner, God – are responsible for three different kinds of

bed.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

(Waterfield 1993;347)

My understanding of this writing is that he is drawing distinction between design, craft and art, ascribing levels of importance to each of these and giving the greatest stature to design (the design of God). He calls God the progenitor and maker of the single real bed. He then labels the joiner the maker or manufacturer of types of bed, then the artist as a representor of the others’ creations.

Glenn Adamson, a contemporary writer argues that craft is perceived to be ‘inferior’ to art. In his book Thinking Through Craft (2007), He discusses the various aspects of this second-class identity – supplementarity, sensuality, skill, the pastoral, and the amateur.

In chapter 1 of Craft & the Creative Economy, S Luckman provides a multitude of factors that may have induced the rise in popularity of knitting in the “noughties”, from supermodels knitting whilst waiting to strut the catwalk (and more recently Tom Daley the Olympic diver knitting poolside whilst waiting), celebrities like Kirstie Allsopp & the popularity of programs like The Great British Sewing Bee, Monty Dons Real Craft and The Victorian House of Arts and Crafts (and more recently Netflix series such as Blown Away [glass blowing] and Metal Shop Masters).

She also acknowledges the importance of online selling platforms such as Etsy, the opportunities this provides to earn an income from home based enterprise and also the opportunity to purchase unique handcrafted items by browsing online rather than having to travel to craft markets.  Jakob further writes in ‘Crafting your Way out of the Recession? New Craft Entrepreneurs and the Global Economic Downturn’: “Crafts are currently being rediscovered not only as a hobby but also as a desirable enterprise” (Jakob 2013 p127). Although these were written in 2015 and 2013 respectively, in 2022 we are seeing a continuation and expansion of these trends – more celebrities knitting in public, more craft based TV shows and with Pandemic lockdowns a massive increase in online shopping, time to dedicate to crafting and seeing craft based enterprises as an opportunity to work from home.

My research has led me to believe that perceptions are changing once again and that Craft is currently rising in the ranks against Design and Art due to a recent and fairly abrupt change in societal values: 1) the current mental health crisis caused in part by the Covid Pandemic and an increasing understanding of the relationship between craft and mental wellbeing and 2) the climate crisis and an increasing awareness of environmental issues, sustainability and carbon footprints.

Environmental issues, sustainability and ecology are no longer minority considerations but mainstream – gone are the days of people making fun of eco-warriors, today most people acknowledge that a climate crisis is looming, are taking an interest in the scientific data and endeavouring to take steps to do their bit to help reduce their carbon footprint. Sustainability is fundamentally about protecting the longevity of the planet and its natural resources.

How will this affect my proposed business?

Materials are fundamentally important to me as a Maker – they are crucial to the enjoyment of the process and the quality of the finished article. If we put aside the sustainability element for a moment, the better quality the yarn, the better finish the final object will have. There are different grades of wool – a lot of sheep wool can be very scratchy and suitable only for insulation or mattress filling. The more luxurious and soft fibres that are required to make yarn suitable for handknitting and wearable items can include Cashmere, Silk, Angora, Alpaca, Blue Faced Leicester, Merino, Bamboo…all natural fibres. The finer the fibre, the more elegantly the work will drape, the softer it will feel against your skin and the more expensive it is likely to be. Yarns made from synthetic fibres such as nylon, acrylic etc… still have their place as they are durable, can be thrown in the washing machine without shrinking and are cheap to mass produce. This means they are also cheap to buy, but they rarely produce the quality finish of natural fibres.

Back to sustainability within the yarn and dyeing industry, when writing my dissertation proposal I had assumed that natural dyeing would be the most sustainable method of imparting yarn with colour. My research has led me to question this assumption. Is using natural plant dyes any less harmful to the environment than using acid dyes within such a small scale business as I am proposing?

The main sustainability considerations  for my business would be:

• How much energy am I using in the dye process?
• Am I causing any pollution through my dye process?
• How far away am I having to source raw materials – how is transportation affecting the carbon footprint of my business?
• How important is the sustainability of my business to my customers?

Making Natural Dyes requires a lot of boiling and simmering of dye stuffs in order to extract the dye, using a lot of energy. In Botanical Colour at your Fingertips, Rebecca Desnos gives recipes for making dye baths. For example, making an avocado skin and stone dye bath requires 2 and a half hours of simmering on a stove. A further hour of simmering is then required during the process of dyeing the fibres in the dye bath. Using acid dyes on the other hand requires only 20 minutes of simmering in total.

In her book Wild Colour, Jenny Dean discusses the history of Natural Dyes. In it she explains how textiles have been coloured using natural dyes since time immemorial and that it is only around the time of the industrial revolution that the newly revolutionised textile industry necessitated the development of synthetic dyes to cope with the demand.

As we saw from Rebecca Desnos, distilling natural dyes from plants takes a lot of time, energy and resources. Usually, in order to create a good depth of colour, the same weight in plant material is required as the weight of fabric that is to be dyed is needed.  In Sustainable Fashion: Past, Present and Future, Colleen Hill and Jennifer Farley Gordon continue to explain that at the height of the industrial revolution, the textile industry expanded so much that the existing traditional natural dye processes became unfeasible. Synthetic dyes were developed by chemists, often from chemical reactions with coal tar resulting in toxic and polluting consequences not only for the workers in the industry, but also wearers of the textiles and the environment from the waste from the dye process. Synthetic dyes are now made differently without causing these effects.

The environmental impact that is now a cause for concern with the use of synthetic dyes is the runoff of waste dyes from large scale manufacturing companies in India, polluting rivers. This is explained in The Guardian article “Natural dyes v synthetic: which is more sustainable?” by Esha Chhabra in March 2015. This will not be an issue with my small business as I will only be using sufficient dye to colour my yarn – my dye baths will be exhausted with very low levels of chemicals being discarded.

This article also argues that Natural dyes are not necessarily better for the environment:

“ Natural dyes, which come mostly from plants these days, are expensive, require larger quantities to create the same depth in colour, and need mordants (which include heavy metal salts) to stick to the fabric. The colour also washes off over time, raising questions over the fabric’s sustainability. Most of all, natural dyes require land to grow them, with indigo, turmeric, and onion shells popular options.”

(Chhabra 2015)

The carbon footprint of many dyestuffs is also of concern. There are some that I can pick from my garden with a carbon footprint, but to achieve some colours the plants required simply don’t grow in this country. Avocado’s, Logwood, Cochineal (controversial from a cruelty perspective too as it is derived from crushing beetles), indigo all create colours that cannot be achieved with anything native to the UK and have to be transported in from other countries.

As to how important sustainability is to my prospective customers, in Sustainable Luxury: a Special Theme Issue of the Journal of Corporate Citizenship (Issue 52), Miguel Angel Gardettii and Ana Laura Torres discuss how wealthy buyers have traditionally purchased luxury items with the intention of impressing others, however there has been a “ shift from ‘conspicuous consumption’ to ‘conscientious consumption’” (Cvijanovich 2011). In their Journal they are referring to luxury buyers as in wealthy people buying Porsches and designer clothes, however the same principle can be applied in the case of yarn and rare breed sheep wool.

During my career in financial services there was a noticeable rise in the preference for ethical and socially responsible investment. In the 2000’s, when I started working in the industry, people placing their money in ‘ethical’ investment funds, i.e. excluding investment in tobacco, alcohol, weapons etc…and investing only in companies considered to be prioritising ethical principles – treating staff fairly, minimising their environmental impact, offsetting their carbon footprint etc…were thought to be exchanging profit for their principles. The commonly held view was that ethical companies simply wouldn’t make as much profit as others. Over the last decade this view has changed as the perceived loss of profit never materialised. In fact ethical funds over time have often out performed those without ethical credentials.

These are the findings from my research, and as a regular attendee at yarn festivals I have certainly noticed an increase in the number of stands selling naturally dyed yarns and increased interest in their wares, However I am not sure I believe that naturally dyed yarns are actually any better for the environment

Circumstances have affected my University journey. I arrived in 2018 very excited to learn new craft skills with the intention of either making garden sculpture or creating work for selling and exhibiting in galleries. Knitting was the furthest thing from my mind – still relegated to hobby status.

The Covid 19 Pandemic and my Dad’s terminal cancer diagnosis threw my plans off track. Being an only child and my parents having moved to Wales fairly recently, leaving family and friends a couple of hours drive away, I was all they had in the way of support and so my time was very limited. From his diagnosis in October 2019, my making had to be something I could do at home and whenever I had a spare hour. Working on campus became logistically difficult.

I also had a bit of a breakdown. Dad did not take his diagnosis well, and due to the Covid Pandemic and lockdowns starting in March 2020, neither of my parents had the professional emotional support they needed. Trying to care for them both through this, physically and mentally took its toll on my own wellbeing and I suffered with my mental health, anxiety and depression for most of 2020 and 2021.

Whilst I suspended studies in January 2021, returning in January 2022 I had already submitted my proposal for my CERP as a consequence of my previous circumstances – the business plan for a yarn dyeing and knitting pattern design. I had also completed “The pitch, the plan and the goods” – the preparation module for “Exposure” prior to suspending, so I felt I had no option but to continue on this path. Not that I didn’t want to, but now I am feeling back to my normal self and my mental health issues have subsided, I do find myself wondering whether I may have chosen a different path if circumstances had been different.

As I feel better, the more I wonder whether the path I have chosen will ultimately be fulfilling creatively, but then I think I can always incorporate ceramics or enamelling in my business plan by making yarn bowls, stitch markers, buttons and other notions to enhace my yarns. Or maybe they will take knittings place as a hobby once knitting becomes my profession. I am very grateful for the opportunity to learn new skills and feel a little sad that circumstances prevented me taking them further than I did.

Another way the Covid pandemic has affected my journey is that we saw a huge surge in participation in hobbies, as is evidenced from the February 2021 Mintel Hobbies and Interests Report:

“Some 71% of adults report an increase in hobby activity since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic: 42% have spent more time on an existing hobby/interest, 27% have rediscovered a passion from the past, and 20% have started a new hobby/interest.

The January 2021 lockdown has led to another surge in online hobby-related searches which points to a further wave of activity and sales.

Once the health threat begins to diminish and the vaccine rollout is well underway, hobbies and interests will face the return of competition from out-of-home leisure alternatives. Some activities may see a decline, although the majority of consumers currently intend to devote more time to their hobby.

In the longer term, the trend towards flexible working accelerated by the pandemic, and the growing recognition that hobbies and interests have a positive impact on mental health and wellbeing, will create growing opportunities for brands.” (Mintel Hobbies and Interests Report February 2021)

This all sounds very positive, but I feel I missed the boat. Had I been mentally fit to, I could have taken advantage of this opportunity when it arose, as many people did. I watched with dismay as others started writing about things I had been researching prior to suspending studies on social media. Upon my return to uni it was a shock to see so many students knitting and crocheting, spinning and felting. I feel like I have lost my innovative slant and now it looks like I am jumping on the bandwagon 2 years too late.

I also have concerns that as lockdowns are relegated to a strange period in our past history and we “learn to live with” Covid; will the interest in yarn crafts, hobbies, taking time out and self care also fade? Will home working really become more common or will that disappear too?

Where do I fit in? I am aware from feedback on my CERP that my lecturers were under the impression that I am unclear of my goals and vision for my future. I am not interested in the financial gains from selling patterns and yarns, but I would like to at least break even and am aware that in order to get noticed, get my name known, I need to start somewhere. By selling yarns at the festivals, people will get used to seeing my name. They will chat to me and take business cards, check my website, add me as a friend on Ravelry follow me on social media. Having said I am not interested in financial gains, people don’t take you seriously if you give away your patterns for free or underprice your wares so I will charge the going rate for yarns, patterns and whatever else I do. By underpricing you also make it difficult for others who do require the income from it.

Currently I am mainly a follower. I join in with KAL’s, buy the patterns, read the blogs, follow the social media. But I want to be someone that gets followed. Around 2016 I designed maybe 20 patterns and made them available on Ravelry, some for free, some for sale. A few have been popular. I had a blog which attracted a following and I had a small following of a hundred or so genuinely interested in what I had to say and what I was designing (not the tidal wave of fake followers trying to get their own followers up by asking you to follow them back or get you to pay them to advertise your wares through their page!) At the time this was a hobby and I let it slip as I was still employed and didn’t have the time. I hadn’t anticipated the longevity of my designs – still selling a few patterns every month 6 years later and am now wanting to pick up where I left off, designing more refined patterns, raising my profile, engaging with more people as an expert/leader rather than a follower. I want the prestige that comes with being one of the superstars of the yarniverse!

I am not your average 20ish year old student, looking to start a creative career. At the age of 46 I have had a long career in financial services and have had some bad experiences, leading me to a point where I feel like I can no longer cope with the pressure of the sector, or even employment. Being employed fives me the feeling that I owe someone my time and effort in exchange for a wage and I constantly feel like I am not giving enough, I think it’s called imposter syndrome? Anyway, I feel I need to turn that around and by starting my own business I can put in the time and effort I am able to, and hope that people will wish to pay me for that time and effort. If they don’t, it’s fine – I am fortunate to be in a financially stable position so as long as it’s mainly time I am spending and not huge amounts of money that isn’t being recouped from sales, that’s ok. I don’t want a bigger house, designer clothes or more expensive holidays – I am happy with my lot.

I am not a confident person by nature, but the more I go to the shows as a seller, the more confident I will become and I will be more willing to teach workshops and masterclasses. Through making video tutorials and the feedback I have had on social media I am starting to realise that people find me approachable and easy to listen and talk to, and I quite enjoy it. The next step is live demonstrations.

I think my reluctance to articulate my ambition comes from a fear of sounding arrogant combined with a superstious fear that it will jinx my prospects of my dream coming true.