Things I didn’t tell you

Back in December, if you were following me on Twitter, you might have spotted, a couple of days before Christmas, my super excited Tweet: ‘OMG, I’ve got a job interview!’. And then nothing else. At least until today.

Time as come for me to tell all. It all started when I decided to go into professional knitting. I started doing some tests knitting for the talented Sarah Hatton and I also started knitting samples for a big UK knitting magazine: The Knitter. Well, I only knitted one sample actually, and it’s going to be in the April issue of The Knitter (issue 31). It is a lovely man’s sleeveless pullover designed by Sarah and that I had the pleasure to knit with Rowan Baby Alpaca DK.

Around the same time I was finishing this sample, Jen and The Knitter announced that she was leaving the magazine. After a few emails with Jen, and lots of encouragement from her (honestly, she’s been a star in this whole adventure!), I applied for the Technical Editor left vacant. I honestly didn’t think I would get very far with it.

Then, a few days before Christmas, I received a phone call and I was invited for an interview in early January. Squee! I was so happy to have gotten that far. And very proud of myself. I wasn’t looking for a job, but I’m not so silly that I would pass the opportunity to be paid for what I love to be doing!

Over the holidays, I worked on a pre-interview task, where I had to check and grade a child’s jacket pattern (with bits of colourwork, so not straightforward). After a few moments of OMG, how am I going to do that?! I got on with it and managed to grade it in a way that I was quite satisfied with.

I went to the interview on January 6th, in Bath (I had never been to Bath before and it’s such a lovely city!). I thought it went quite well and I was optimistic regarding my chances. Now, despite being optimistic, I also knew I wouldn’t be too sad about not getting the job.

I knew they were interviewing other applicants, so I waited 10 days to contact them to see if they had made a decision. When I did, they (as in Future Publishing’s HR) told me that they hadn’t yet and were going to decide that week. So that was mid January. I am still waiting for them to contact me.

After a month or so, I had kinda given up on them. I mentioned to Jen that I hadn’t heard back from the magazine. She was brilliant (as usual) and helped me getting answers. Last week, what I thought was confirmed, in that they had appointed someone (just in the last couple of weeks, though) for the tech ed role. Ah well. I am not sad about it, and I am very pleased for the person who got the job. I’m wishing her all the best!

The story doesn’t end there, though. Yesterday, I had a phone call from Debora, editor of Simply Knitting and The Knitter (I think I got that right!), with whom I interviewed back in January. She apologized about the deafening silence of the last couple of months – it seems that HR kind of forgot about me. She told me that it was a difficult decision between me and the person appointed, which I found very nice to hear. I know some people would be upset and all ‘why not me, then?!’. But I’m not some people. I take comfort in hearing that, and that my interview was good and that my task was good too. I did my best and I’m happy that my only weakness was that I didn’t have magazine experience. I completely agree with that.

Now, it’s not all doom and gloom. Not at all. Since in the same conversation, I was offered freelance work which I accepted. I’ve received my first task and I’m very happy with it: I’m checking and grading a pattern for a man’s cabled sweater and I actually love doing that. I hate finding errors in patterns when I’m knitting, so believe me when I’m saying that I’m working hard to make sure this won’t happen with this pattern.

And, since a good news is never enough… I’ve heard the words samples, Fyberspates, translations quite a lot in the last few days, too. When everything is finalised, I will tell you more. But I can tell you that I foresee quite a bit of paid knitting related work in the next few months. Ooo, yeah.

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