An Ode to the Hinterland; Harmonious Collection Two

This is the fourth in my ongoing series, documenting the design process for my upcoming collection, Hinterland.  I promised I'd return to a few ideas surrounding the creation of a harmonious collection in this post, and it's some of the most fun stuff: yarn!

Yarn support - hooray!

Bringing together designs that fit your theme and inspiration includes taking into account many factors, including clarifying who this collection is for, determining your available physical and intangible resources, and recognizing the limits and scope of the project.

Resources (just to name a few)

Yarn, baby!
I have myself a not-insignificant stash, but its not all encompassing, and honestly, usually doesn't have what I'm looking for when I get a design idea. This means I get to yarn shop (most often), and in certain cases request yarn support.
I need to have a clear idea of what I want and how it will look together to ensure a harmonious collection. For this, I take into account the types, brands, fibres, colours, popularity, and availability of the yarn used for the samples. These factors make a big difference in the look and saleability of your collection. For example, I understand some knitters are reticent to jump into a pattern that uses discontinued yarns or colourways; some are very keen to use the exact same yarn shown in the samples.

A peek at some of the yarn for Hinterland.

There's also the photographic translation of finished sample-to-computer screen. Not all colours are easy to photograph. It can certainly be done, but the challenge to produce amazing, delicious images is great if you choose certain hues (eg: very dark yarns, certain reds, very light yarns).

And this proves a nice segue into....

Talent
None of us are experts in everything, and it's truly wonderful to have talented people helping you in the production of a knitwear collection. From testers to tech editors to photographers, and sometimes even beyond. Having an established, professional relationship with these people is important to the quality of the finished product.  And this, of course, leads into another resource....

Money
You need to start out with some! If only to pay your tech editor, you'll need a fair amount of capital to throw into the project from the get-go. There is the other considerations of testers, yarn, photographer, advertising, publishing, and so on.

Time
When do I want to release this? How long will it really take me? I'm very guilty of overloading myself with plans and ideas in the past, but this time, boy, this time I'm on top of it! There's no need to stretch yourself and become stressed over a schedule that you have control over. At the time of this post going live, I've already laid out the design/knitting/testing/tech editing/photography/formatting schedule for Hinterland, and am happy to say, I'm still on time!

So here, I'd like to announce that I expect to have the first issue of Hinterland ready for publication in mid-July.

Next post:  the design process!