A Hat in Time update and featured designers

Ooh, there's excitement entering my project head. I can slowly see it all coming together. So, where is this exciting project at just now? Well, I think I'm going to stick with the title "A Hat in Time". It feels good having a title.

On the pattern front, I collated documents and pictures, created a page template and transferred all the patterns that I had received so far into said template. This reduced my total count of patterns (because I didn't have files for all of them) but I kind of expected that. I currently have 27 patterns, all rough edited, with another few forthcoming which hopefully will bring me up to my target of 30 or 33. The rough editing stage is almost complete - unfortunately there are a few patterns that need retyping, and I'm still in hope to receive another few patterns in a more malleable format than pdf.

I've also encountered a few small challenges. One of them is spelling - this is a book where some designers use American spelling, some British. I'm not sure if I'll go for consistency (and if so, which of the two?) or just leave things as they are (which my look odd). Secondly, I have to compile abbreviations which will be a challenge for all crotchet patterns. I still don't crotchet :(
The final challenge is to trim the patterns down to the minimum length required. I'm not happy having to edit other people's writing, but the page count is horrendous and will affect the production cost (and affordability). So it's got to go down.

It's lovely to see the book take its shape. And to give you another flavour of the talent that's coming together in it, here are three featured designers:

Thelma Egberts loves knitting. On 4 double pointed needles. Especially hats. And what kind of hat! Some of the cutest cuddliest, you know the type, I've ever set my eyes on. Bursting with colour and the feeling of seaside in them. She's based in the Netherlands and this is where you can admire her fabulous work.

Sophy T. O'Donnell blogs at Knits notes etc, a great knitting blog. Oh and I love her new crafts room, would love to have something like that too (and hopefully will get myself at least a craft corner at some point). She's based in beautiful San Francisco. Something else that makes me green with envy (Glasgow is lovely too though!).

Finally for today, Tiff Crotchets. She does just that, lots of little and big crotcheting projects, which really make me wish I could crotchet. Maybe one day I'll learn how to do it! I like her tag line "what happens when a mom gets hooked". And I've got a feeling she, like me, got into crafting after her kids were born.

Photo credit: Wonder Mike