The making of a Knitting Book

Posted on

19 May 2009

The company, commonly known as ACS, is situated in Brunswick, Victoria, and it produces around 600 patterns every year for more than 50 knitting books featuring Patons, Cleckheaton, Panda, Rowan and Shepherd yarns. The opening promise, by the way, is genuine. The experienced, enthusiastic and extraordinarily patient designers, administrators, pattern writers, hand-knitters and finishers behind every pattern stand by it - provided the knitter has first taken the time to complete an all-important tension square.

“In all our books we tell people to do a tension square,” says Maria Scherger, a self confessed “knitting addict” who joined ACS more than 20 years ago as a home knitter before moving in-house a few years later to work full time as a finisher. “People loathe doing it for some reason but it’ll tell them exactly what they can do to a yarn - whether they can machine wash it or press it, for example. For a lot of new yarns there’s no standard ply - you need to work from the tension. If you can learn to use tension you can use virtually any yarn.”

Tension wasn’t something ‘get creative’ saw a lot of in the ACS office the day we went to discover exactly how a knitting book is put together. Perhaps it’s the incredibly tactile and inexplicably soothing nature of knitting and wool but the hardworking and, dare we say it, tight-knit team we found waist-deep in page proofs, half-finished garments, handmade toys and sumptuous rainbows of yarn seem remarkably serene.

Maria says knitting’s feel-good factor remains undiminished for her, even after two decades in the industry. “I knit at home to relax after a whole day working as a finisher,” she says with a grin. “I tell people that knitting’s great for weight loss, giving up smoking, anything like that because it’s something to do with your hands and it’s a repetitive action that soothes you and makes you feel good. It’s productive and you never stop learning, no matter how long you’ve been knitting. There are always new yarns and methods to try. I learn something from everyone who comes into this place.”

Head of Design at ACS, Jenny Bellew, a former dress designer from Queensland who joined ACS 18 years ago, initiates the designs her team carefully crafts into patterns used not only in knitting books but on web sites and in magazines like ‘Better Homes and Gardens’ and ‘Vogue Knitting’. She also oversees production of knitting books published by ACS (the company’s oldest brand, Patons, turns 80 this year).

ACS knitting books take around 11-12 weeks to produce once the committee that sets the production schedule meets to determine which of the next season’s yarns (produced at the company’s Wangaratta mill) warrants its own publication. Jenny and representatives from sales, marketing and production base their collective choice on each yarn’s market, colour palette, price and fit with forthcoming fashion trends. The group also decides how many books will be printed and when. Those featuring new yarns are generally published first.

Jenny says a designer provides a pattern writer with an initial design as well as an outline of specific requirements (measurements, stitches, tension and the like). The pattern writer then drafts a pattern using words and graphs, which is ultimately graded by ability: beginner, easy, intermediate, advanced, challenge or ‘extra patience required’. Much care is taken to ensure all figures included in patterns add up and subtract correctly. “It’s basic math but... we have one pattern writer who has a degree in math and another who has honours in bioscience, so it does attract people who like mathematics as well as born knitters,” she says.

A freelance knitter from an Australia-wide team of regulars is then given about 10 days (more for particularly complex designs) to complete the garment at home, noting any problems and returning it in-house where it’s weighed and tried on. Sometimes words and graphs are tested by different knitters to ensure each stands alone. Corrections are made and at this stage garments are occasionally re-knitted (sometimes several times) to achieve the exact tension and look the designer is after.

A finisher then adds any buttons or embroidery required and completes the garment in time for a day-long photo shoot involving a highly specialised (and expensive) stable of regulars: fashion photographer; stylist; hair and makeup artist; and models. Jenny says around 60 per cent of shoots take place in the photographer’s studio and 40 per cent on location in settings appropriate to each brand. Digital photography allows Jenny and her long-time collaborator, photographer Ric Wallis, to check and select images quickly (or keep shooting until they nail the desired image).

Using the best photographs, Jenny experiments with layout ideas using images cut and pasted from printouts (she’s not graphically trained) before giving a final version to a multi-media designer, who lays out the entire book with additional visuals including step- by-step diagrams. Once page proofs are approved the book is sent on disk to the printer, who then provides a colour proof for approval by Jenny before commencing printing. Distribution of books throughout Australia and New Zealand is handled in-house at the ACS warehouse.


Pattern Writing

Coralie Plant says her mum taught her to knit when she was four, though she doesn’t recall a time before knitting. She became an ACS pattern maker 10 years ago in her 40s after answering an ad for a knitter several years earlier. She later joined the in-house team as a finisher, then a pattern maker.

Coralie’s role involves taking Jenny’s ideas and turning them into something everyone can create using words and visual cues. Some people prefer one method over the other but most cross reference both. Jenny says younger knitters in particular find visuals helpful.

Crucial skills for pattern writers include a thorough understanding of a wide range of patterns and some ability with mathematics, according to Coralie. “Two aspects of maths really come into pattern writing,” she says. “First, obviously, is just straight arithmetic and the second is, to me, maths is sort of the study of patterns and we study patterns - the way the stitches work and the way things go together. So that’s an important part of it too.” Different skills distinguish great knitters and finishers, according to Coralie who says knitters must follow written instructions to the letter. Finishers, by contrast, need an innate understanding of exactly what you can and can’t do to knitted fabrics to piece them together and achieve required changes quickly and efficiently.


Finishing

Finisher Maria Scherger says she’d make a lousy pattern maker. “I can do the practical but the theory defeats me,” she says. The instinctive knitter takes the work of home knitters and completes it in-house: sewing garments together, adding embellishments and, in some cases, pulling work to pieces numerous times to fix mistakes like a wonky edge that doesn’t achieve the curve called for in the pattern or a neckline that’s been cast off a little too tightly.

“Finishers have to enjoy what they do and be prepared to rip work apart repeatedly,” says Maria. “Some knitters are mortified but it’s nothing personal. We’re not here to impress people - it’s a job with deadlines and thousands of dollars swinging on a shoot.” An unflappable personality probably helps. “I’ve finished garments in cabs on the way to shoots,” she admits.


Photography

Fashion photographer Ric Wallis says he started analysing the best way to capture the particular textural qualities of wool in the early 1980s, when he held the coveted Myer retail account and worked with much of the Flinders Lane based rag trade. Jenny briefs Ric and a stylist on the characteristics of the brand and yarn. The small team then brainstorms ideas for communicating its essence visually to the desired market.

Once a decision is made, stylist and photographer must work fast to book and coordinate the many professionals and props required for a shoot. “Within 24 hours of the time we have the meeting here the models and everybody is locked in for a date and the stylist goes out and gets all the necessary items - chairs, accessories, pants, shoes, skirts, whatever she needs... If there are models involved we can’t afford not to have everything locked in before we go because they’re really expensive.”

Answering queries

ACS books include a phone number and email address for readers’ queries. Pattern makers field up to 40 calls a day when a new book is in season. “Many queries come from people who haven’t knitted a tension square or who have used a different brand of wool with an ACS pattern or vice versa,” says Maria.

Keen to encourage enthusiastic beginners, the ACS team regularly knits and sends samples to confused novices and has even taught pregnant women bedridden for the final months of their pregnancy to knit over the phone. “We very much feel part of the birth of some babies,” says Jenny with a smile.

Tags:  knitted knitting publishing

CB Help: Stumped On Polar Bear Fabric

Posted on

07 May 2009

You know, I bashed about some other titles for this post, along the lines of “gone cold on ideas for fabric”, lots of chilly references and at one point even a bear pun, but they just didn’t work, I fear I’m losing my knack!

Tags:  bear fabric polar

Please Sign up or Login to add your own blog.