Setting Intentions, Call For Testers, and Being a Jane Eyre Kid
Dragging my silly little brain into 2024 and soft-launching the Can-Do Cardigan Test!
Well hello there! Welcome to 2024! I would apologise for radio silence around here, but I don’t know if many people are sad to have one or two fewer emails in their inboxes in December- although I do hope some of you look forward to hearing from us! December was a funny month and so busy, so we gave ourselves a break from this responsibility- we don’t really ever want to force one of these, since that’s a surefire way to make them boring as heck!
This edition of WLM Digest will start will some updates and intentions followed by the call for testers for our new pattern. At the end, I’ll share some chat about being a kid who loved the book Jane Eyre - I posted something about it on my story the other day and a good few people responded to it so I thought it may be fun chat haha!
So yes, come on in- hopefully you find something lovely and enjoyable that takes away a wee bit of the sting of going back to work!
WLM Studio Updates/Intentions
The gears of our little studio are slowly grinding back to life- I started back with some bits of work in the past few days and it’s been satisfying but also a bit of an adjustment! I didn’t quite mean to schedule tests starting and ending during the time that my kid is still home from school but it’s been a welcome distraction from some hard things in my personal life haha. Rose will be returning to work on the 10th and I simply can’t wait! It’s funny- because we work in my studio in my flat, Rose feels such a part of my home life that I often feel quite unmoored without her. One of the things I’m quite hyped about is looking over the calendar together haha. Since I struggle a lot with time, one of her roles as my support worker is helping me talk through and organise my time- doing the calendar together each month always feels like a great fresh start!
The Very Varied Vest Test (very satisfying to say) ends on Friday and I’ve started sharing tester projects on Insta in advance of the launch on the 12th jan (set your calendars!)
Aside from a bit of editing, we did a really hard graft at the end of the year with quite intense pattern writing and editing in the hopes that we could start 2024 with a little bit of extra time for creativity, and more energy to work on arts funding applications together- so I’m really hoping you’ll see some super cool objects from us in the next wee while!
Each year I try to set a creative intention to help myself prioritise my time and energy and stay hyped about doing a job that has basically taken over my favourite hobby/stim/special interest. 2023’s one was to work on projects that took more time and care to make, shifting my focus from productivity to quality- and I’m SO happy I did that! I think it really showed up in the growth of my skills and quality of my output, but it’s definitely gotten me itchy for projects that are even more complex and…. basically less commercially viable. SO for 2024, the idea is to try to learn more about the business side of things so that I can have more time and energy to make more 🤩art🤩!! Instead of spending all my precious energy on social media strategy that is basically completely led by vibes and nothing else hahah. I’m hoping to see prose writing, colourwork, and music writing come out of this year- wish me luck!
The coolest thing I’ve been working on over the holiday has been a scrap-yarn jumper for a swap with an internet pal Olu who is doing the development for my new site! They requested one that’s themed on old computers so I decided to have a go at testing my skills/resolve for stranded colourwork worked flat! It’s going well but has def been the most difficult project I’ve attempted to date! I’m taking a break before I start the sleeves but here’s a photo of the current progress after a quick steam block:
Cardigan Test Info!
Tester applications for the Can-Do Cardigan are now open which is very exciting! It’s a really great, versatile pattern pack for 6 possible set-in sleeve cardigans! The cropped, i-cord tie version actually went viral in Nov already when I embroidered a bunch of stuff on it, so I’m quite excited to see people are hyped about it! (Scroll to the end of this section to apply by hitting the big blue button)
I’ve never really had a cardigan with good fit before, being bigger in the belly/hips than I am on top- SO my initial thought was adapting the partner pullover base into a cardigan pattern cause the bust and hip shaping were great, makes sense right? But after Rose and I both made samples, we were like… neither of us like raglan cardigans that much lol! They look so good but they fall off/stretch out way too easy- so we endeavoured to learn set-in sleeves (I def wrote about this in another newsletter) and after a good few goes, we finallllllly feel ready! So yeah, all we need now is you!
I will be looking for testers across the views, which include cropped, full length straight, and full length with hip shaping views. Testers can also choose between the i-cord tie fastening and a button band finish for their cardigans!
We will be testing from the 14th Jan- 22nd of Mar- so around 10 weeks
Testing is basically just early access to the (fully edited and formatted) pattern and a knit along with me always available for questions and support in exchange for your help in pointing out any ways I could explain things better or typos etc. I want everyone to be able to pattern test regardless of income so I also always try to provide the option for a handful of yarn bursaries for people who can’t afford yarn for the project- just indicate it in your application!
If you’re interested in testing this, there is way more info on the actual tester form, please click below to find out more and apply!
Some Thoughts on being a Jane Eyre Kid
When I was super little- like literally 5-9 years old I was obsessed with the book Jane Eyre. Listening back to it as an adult (it’s available here as a free audiobook on BBC Sounds) I realise it’s really such an interesting insight into the experience of being a certain kind neurodivergent child. It’s SUCH a weird choice for a little kid to read (now that I have a 6 year old of my own I’m freshly confronted with that reality) but I was quicky contacted by a handful of other (also all neurodivergent) people who connected deeply with that book in childhood, so I thought it might be interesting to quickly write about. Caveat- I’ve only listened to the first 20 chapters so far, so this is only a half formed ramble.
I was a hyperlexic kid who read near constantly. As a little homeschooler in a super conservative, disciplinary, and rigid culture at the time, this story really spoke to me- It was my favourite for ages. I remember once trying to brag to a new friend from school when I moved to Scotland that I owned not only the unabridged, but two additional different abridged copies of Jane Eyre all with slightly different reading experiences to offer! Reader, she was not as impressed as I wanted her to be!
I remember quite a lot about my young years, but it is all so extremely from my own, strongly opinionated childhood lens, that through my adult diagnosis and discovery of neurodivergences, I have struggled to understand exactly how my behaviour differed from that of other children, or why it was so clear that I was a bit of (A lot of) a strange kid. To me, the right and wrong things seemed very very clear and I was always on the right side, always so so obsessed with living up to the rigid standards I had set myself and was living within, so my memories reflect that perspective.
In re-reading Jane Eyre, I feel like I have unlocked a bit of a new view on myself in those years- I related so hard to this girl Jane-m and she is soooo neurodivergent! She is obsessed with fairness, constantly seething with the injustices of her position as a woman, as a member of the working class, and as someone who keenly takes note of every time she makes a mistake, or fails to live up to expectation. She hates being misrepresented, struggles to connect with people, thrives with external structure and feels extreme restlessness without it, she has a vivid imagination, loves to watch people and analyse them, instantly and naturally connects to other characters who are very ND-coded and not neccesarily well-liked (poor little Helen Burns, Mr Rochester lmao), can’t eat gross food, struggles with emotional disregulation, but also is very attached to The Rules - the list goes on. But I think one of the biggest things about her that I now remember relating to so much was this pervasive sense of distance, difference, and strangeness that can attract a natural dislike for no understandable reason. BUT ALSO! THIS BOOK IS LOW KEY BISEXUAL! Like, she is horny as hell beginning to end for beautiful authority figures regardless of gender and I love her for it.
I’m sure this is all a massively lukewarm take haha, there’s so much more to be said here and I’m sure it’s been said better elsewhere, but re-listening to this book has been a sort of eye opening and slightly healing experience to me. It’s given me a little more grace for my little kid self who was trying very hard to overcome that distance that comes with being different by being perfect instead. It’s made me feel a little more connected with my lifelong neurodivergence (later in life diagnosis is amazing but also confusing!), and it’s also made me laugh so much and feel so connected to learn how many other little weirdo kids who have gone on to discover their natural weird-brainedness later in life, also loved this book at a young age!
I just feel like there’s this beautiful lineage of connection and kinship in neurodivergent people and culture, and particularly queer folks/women, from the Bronte sisters and their work, to the countless neurodivergent queers who have made work inspired by them (like half the ND folks I know have a Kate Bush special interest and she’s neurodivergent, and also wrote a song called Wuthering Heights after the Emily Bronte novel!) I mean, one of my traits is being super into pattern regonition and tying everything back to ND stuff so yeknow ,take that as you will but- STILL FUN TO THINK EH? (insert that meme pic of the guy from maybe it’s always sunny in Philidelphia (?) screaming and pointing to his board of red tape)
Anyway, overall it’s still a pretty great book (so far), toxic social norms of the time aside and absolutely wild n crazy toxic, ableist love story recognised for what it is- I highly recommend if you want a horny, mentally ill, infuritating, and yet somehow quite prim and proper vibes read :) And if you loved it as a kid- please tell me cause it’s very cute!
Hope you have had a good first few days of the depths of winter!
Love
From
Lydia
oh my goodness I'm finally just reading this and I DON'T KNOW HOW I relate to everything you write on such a deep level. Also the way you write is so good for my lil ND brain!! So engaging, so much like actual speech, just a wonderful experience start to finish. <3
such a great reading, loved this 😇