Question: In my IG Live, I talked a lot about the Call for Design document that I called the brief. Anything else about that?
Heather: Read the brief—your advice is SPOT ON so thanks!

Q: One of the questions I got was about what yarn to select, specifically if we should be conscious of price. What goes into yarn selection when you’re building a collection?
H: When we choose the yarns we have a few considerations, price is one for sure! We don’t think our customers want to make a $400 blanket, but they might want to make a $90 sweater. Yarn care is a consideration (example: does it need to be washable? We will choose an easy care yarn. Does it get a lot of wear and tear like socks or slippers? We choose a blend that will hold up with heavy use, so something with nylon for strength.)

Sometimes we have want a collection to showcase a genre of yarn — like in our “cozy luxury” call, we’re looking to feature the higher end yarns we have. We also usually want to show a range of different yarns in the collection, which might be another reason we switch a yarn from the designer’s recommendation.

Q: What about colour choices?
H: You were spot on on how we use a specific color palette when choosing yarn for a collection (although sometimes stock issues mean we don’t always get our #1 or #2 color palette pick for every project!). We also have to figure out a way to make a color palette work with various yarns. It can be a challenge!

Q: With so many submissions, what does it look like when you’re choosing what designs make it into the collection?
H: When we select patterns we hate turning people down but we usually only have 12-20 slots per design call. And what you said about “there might be 6 hat proposals” but us being able to only pick one is right too. We try to get a balance of different things in each collection.

Q: Do you have any advice for newer designers or those who have never submitted a proposal before?
H: Pitch a pattern you KNOW you can pull off. When you’re designing your first pattern, it’s not the time to learn a whole new technique. Start with stuff you like to do and have done a lot, but put a twist on it. And pitch something you love so you’ll be excited to make/design it and also to share and promote it once it’s made. Your advice about sketching a lot but picking your strongest designs is great advice too. That’s what I do too (I also go through the same process when I propose a design for WeCrochet collections). You can definitely submit multiple pitches, but we prefer 2-4 well thought-out and well-presented pitches over 35 slapdash proposals.

I’d say take time to take decent photos too… sometimes the swatch totally sells the design. One designer made a tiny mock-up of a sweater to illustrate some design features. You don’t have to do that, but it was definitely memorable and helped convey her ideas. What you said about bullet points with design features was perfect! The design pitch should be easy to scan and get the idea. Only include important details or things that make your design special. We do want to know how it’s constructed, how you are dealing with specific parts of the design, and including those bullet points shows us that you know how to design what you are proposing.

A clean, easy-to-read format is good! Don’t forget your name and contact info, and your ravelry profile (that’s like your portfolio and we check it if you’re new so we can get a feel for the your style and skill level.)

Even if you are new at crocheting or design, you can design at the level you’re at. We have a need for all different skill levels of designs and if you’re newer to crochet, YOU are an expert at what you like to make and techniques you’re comfortable with.