![]() Today’s blog post goes out to my near and dear designer friend Erika (of RedSaylor Designs). If you follow along on any of my other various social media accounts you’ve probably seen my newest pattern release this week of a cute bobbl-y sheep variety! I also noted on those posts that I would be sharing the inspiration behind this cutie in today’s post. This is where Erika comes in. So, without further ado… the full story (mostly)! To begin, I first have to give a little bit of back story on how Erika and I “met”. Back in the fall of 2017 I released some of my very fist cuddler designs. All of which where fun Halloween inspirations that if I must say, garnered MUCH more attention than I ever imagined they would. Through my various posts of new releases across miscellaneous Facebook groups, I somehow managed to grab the attention of another designer who had put together an eMagazine with new patterns each month. She reached out to me as she thought I would be a good fit for the group she had been putting together and needless to say I was over the freaking moon! Through this group I got to know some absolutely amazing designers and testers. One of whom was Erika. Experience-wise we had both been designing for about the same amount of time, and even though we were states apart we were a pretty quick “click”. At any given time one of us could message the other about a design we were working on and get feedback, critic or support in our thought processes. Both of us tested new designs for each other as well and the friendship has only gotten stronger since. Fast forward to December of last year and Erika called me up with a request. She was hoping to see if I could create a cute little sheep cuddler to potentially be submitted for a class for a fiber arts festival taking place later this spring. This request of course came at the perfect time because I was both mentally preparing my “New Year, New Me” mentality for 2022 in the hopes of designing much more regularly and getting my “crojo” (crochet mojo) back. On top of that, my crazy long list of “want to design” patterns included a sheep! I think it’s super important to note, that Erika somehow has this magic about her that gets me excited for designing whenever I’m in a funk. Weather she helps by giving guidance on a piece I’ve put in time-out, or she mentions something fun to add to my list, I can always count on her to ignite the fire under my butt design-wise. So armed with her request for a sheep, my stash of yarn and my trusty hook I set about designing a cute sheep cuddler. It probably also helped that Erika gave a really quick deadline for this piece, and for whatever reason the little gears in my head seem to work well under the pressure of a good time crunch! In usual fashion as I worked up her request my brain produced more creative juices and it began spiraling from there. In the time since her original request I have designed 8 other patterns all awaiting releases over the next few months! That doesn’t even include the multiple designs I currently have on my hooks either! While this may not seem like much, as there are so many other wonderful designers who have their acts together and release content steadily and regularly month after month and year after year, to me it seems like a huge accomplishment. In the first month of my designing career (in 2017) I released a total of 13 patterns! I was on a roll. But once that first fall and winter rolled through and the craziness of it all seemed to settle a bit, I’ve found myself more often than not giving myself various reasons to put designing on the back burner. More than once I have had self doubt creep in, keeping me from picking up my hooks. I have put what seems like ten-thousand other things first and simply told myself, “well I can get to it tomorrow”. Which then of course makes me look back and feel bad for not releasing anything because tomorrow never comes. On a few rare occasions I’ve released a small handful of pieces and then once again fallen back into old habits. Always telling myself I won’t let it happen again and then feeling super guilty when it does. Which is why I am so grateful for Erika. Because she always has a way to rope me back in whenever she’s noticed I’m not sticking to my word. And since her request in December I’ve been doing everything I can to make her super proud as both a fellow designer and friend; because without her I probably would have stopped designing completely a long time ago. So, here’s to another Friday blog post, sharing a bit more of my story and helping me stay more accountable to both myself and my followers and friends. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Happy hooking! P.S. If you want to see some of Erika’s super cute design pieces, check out this link here: https://www.ravelry.com/designers/erika-saylor
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