Interview: Laura Cameron
Laura is a knitter, spinner, technical editor, quilter, and podcaster. She has a B.S. in Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis and an M.B.A. from the University of Southern California, with a focus on information management.
She started in the fiber industry as a technical editor in 2016, and she has worked with a variety of designers, magazines and yarn companies. She spent several years honing her craft-focused marketing skills at Stitchcraft Marketing, and she is now a project manager for fabric e-tailer Missouri Star Quilt Co.
Her weekly podcast & blog about her crafty pursuits, as well as information on her technical editing services, can be found at thecornerofknitandtea.com and on Instagram as @fluffykira.
(This interview was conducted by Sarah Walworth and has been edited for length and clarity.)
What were you doing before you became a technical editor?
So I have been a knitter since I was a child. My grandmother knit and she taught me when I was little, but I got back into it seriously in my twenties, which was like right around 2000. It was like the early, very early days of the Internet, and I sort of had this block on. Like, if she wasn't alive, I couldn't learn more. I don't know why I thought that, but, like, if she wasn't here to teach me, how was I going to learn?
And I went into this local yarn store and the whole world exploded -- I can learn from anyone! Magazines and just everything. I would have loved to make it a career, but I couldn't kind of figure out a way to, because piecework is not very easy to make a living from. And so I spent a lot of years being an admin assistant. I worked in higher education. I worked for a biomedical institute, sort of on the administrative side of it.
And in 2016, I found Joeli's course, and I thought, this is kind of interesting. Maybe I should try taking this on the side and see if this fits. And it was spreadsheets and numbers and bringing order to chaos and proofreading and all the things that I was good at as an administrative assistant. And, I was like, this could actually be something. And so, I admit I've never done it full time; I've most of the time done it along with something else. But it was really exciting to just kind of get started and find something where I could be very adjacent to the craft.
And the other thing that I like about tech editing is that even if I'm working on knitting patterns all day, it doesn't take the joy out of knitting in the evenings, whereas, like, sample knitting can sometimes be more of an obligation.
I love this: chaos to order. How did that play into deciding to become a technical editor? Like, what made you decide, like, okay, this is what I want to do?
Well, like I said, it suited me quite well. I had been proofreading. I had been checking all the details, dotting all the i's, crossing all the t's. I had knit voraciously through all kinds of things, and so I was familiar with lots of knitting constructions and different kinds of patterns. And the patterns that I liked, that I thought were good, and the patterns that I thought could probably use some help, you know? And here was this way to work through in a systematic way and help make them better.
I read this book (and I can't remember what it's called) where they talked about how there are a bunch of different kinds of people in the world. Your visionaries and your creators, I consider those the designers, the people who think outside the box and who kind of come up with the big, crazy ideas and figure out how to make it happen.
But then you've got the people behind them who are working on all the details. And that was really the person that I knew I was. And so it kind of was a good fit: checking all the details and making sure everything worked the way it was supposed to in conveying the big ideas to the knitter.
I love this. It's so eloquent you just described all of it. Like, we're working in collaboration with the visionaries and we're helping with all the details so they don't have to be bogged down by the details. We can help with that, and I love that. That's so exciting. What's your workspace like? I see you have a gnome looking over your shoulder.
I have lots of things. I host a weekly podcast, and I joke that the gnome is my co-host. He's Norman, one of Sarah Shira from Imagined Landscapes’ patterns. And I knit him out of some of my handspun for one of her knit alongs, and he just kind of lives there with me. My husband and I each have a room that's our office/hobby space. And you can see all of my crafty stuff behind me. I've started to become a quilter. I do some embroidering, and I spin. You can see little bits and pieces of that all around me. It's inspirational.
It's a little more cluttered than I would like it to be sometimes. And sometimes I kind of have to sweep off the desk and start over. But I've got a desk in the corner. I'm right near a window, which means I can look out. And so it's just a really nice, calming space to work, but also full of inspiration and creativity. And I'm close to the yarn if I need to grab something!
What's been the hardest part of tech editing for you?
I would say there are two things. One is my forte is not big, complicated charts. And so I do try and avoid those when I tech edit. If it's going to be a really complicated lace pattern, particularly with moving motifs, I am not your tech editor. Let me find you someone who can be!
For me personally, probably the hardest part of being a tech editor is mistakes. And I know everybody says that, but that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you get an email from a designer who's like, so I got a comment, or somebody said, and I'm like, oh, expletive.
We all know that they happen. We all know we're human. We all know we're trying to minimize them. But there's still a couple times a year that it was my mistake. Of course, I'm going to take the time to fix it, and I'm not going to charge extra time to fix it. I'm going to apologize and own up to it. But it's just a really terrible feeling and not that much fun.
And, of course, it goes on the list, so I try not to do it again later. But, you know, a couple times a year, you have this, Oh, no, I missed something.
Thanks for sharing that, because I feel like we don't talk enough about the fact that, yes, we're editors. Yes, we are trying to find all the mistakes. Yes, we're trying not to insert mistakes, but we're not perfect. We have perfectionist tendencies, and we may even be people who have using our perfectionism to an advantage in a superpower. But the fact is, we miss things.
No one's infallible. I mean, there's always going to be a little something, and we just hope it's not a big thing that breaks our relationship with our clients. You hope it’s not something super obvious that was really stupid.
What references or tools do you find yourself always reaching for in your work?
Well, so I'm sure you'll love this one [holds up the Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook]. I always keep that handy. I also havestarted on Pinterest. I have a hidden bulletin board of great blog posts from people that I refer back to. Ysolda Teague had some really great posts when she started out about setting up spreadsheets and sizing. Kim McBrien Evans—Indigo Dragonfly— she's been doing all the work on inclusive sizing. So I've been keeping a lot of that sort of handy. I do look at the Craft Yarn Council standards quite a bit, particularly for things like socks and mittens and hats, because those tend to be more relative, so when I'm looking for lengths and making sure that we're kind of covering length and circumference appropriately, I'll refer to those. Those are a few of the things that I can just type in what I want and pull it up right away.
What is the best piece of wisdom you have heard or read lately?
I think one of the things that I try and do as a tech editor is I try and play to my strengths and also recognize when when a pattern is not for me to edit. If there's something about the pattern that I haven't done before, as much as it would be great to jump in and be like, I can learn anything, clearly that's not the case. I have not learned to grade patterns; if you need somebody to grade your pattern, that's not for me.
The coolest thing about being part of the tech editor network is I have a whole network of people. And if you're part of The Tech Editor Hub Community, then you can ask all sorts of questions in there. And we do! We don't trade clients all the time, but oftentimes somebody will be like, I have a client who needs this, and this is not my specialty. So does somebody else have this?
I love that. It’s not that we're all in competition with each other, but that sometimes knowing your own limits and being able to send someone elsewhere, being able to be helpful to someone sometimes is better than trying to do something that you can't do.
Do you have any advice for editors who are just starting out? If you could travel back in time, what wisdom would you whisper to yourself?
Contrary to some of what I said before, I would say is just jump in. Don't overexaggerate your skills. Advertise yourself as a tech editor starting out. It's also great if you can find a designer who's sort of starting out, too, because sometimes you can grow together. I would say focus on the patterns that you feel most confident to tech edit. So if that is a hat or a sock or kind of a small accessory where you feel like you can get through the pattern and you don't need lots of tips and tricks, just start small.
If you're able to access Ravelry, there are forums where designer. Where you can post that you're looking to tech edit in exchange for testimonials. Designers do check those forums.
And tell everyone you know that you are starting out and that you're looking for work. Because I've gotten jobs that way. Tech editors are overloaded with work. Somebody might be on a book deadline and they can't finish it, and they're like, can you take this client for me? It's friendly coopetition. I mean, we are all tech editors. We're all looking for clients, but there's more work than all of us can do. And we also are willing and ready to share or hand off, particularly when we're overbooked.
I have a couple people that I trust as tech editors that I can say, hey, I can't do this, but let me check with my friend and see if she can, and that I can send a client to them and feel like I have done them a good service. Getting to know a few people and knowing their tech editing style and knowing that you can send your clients to them, get your referrals going.
We have to make friends. We're not in this to do it all by ourself. In fact, we can't run a business by ourself. This kind of freelance work, we're not going to be able to do everything well.
And the nature of freelance is that it comes in fits and starts. You know, we're super busy prior to big knitting seasons, and then some parts of the year are lean, but if you just can't accommodate everyone right before August, when all the new fall sweaters drop, it tends to be really busy.
What's something in your business that you are happy worked out differently than you expected?
So it's interesting, because I've gone back and forth about whether or not I have ever wanted this to be my full time business, and it never really has become that. And I think that's okay. I love tech editing, but I also love so many other areas of the craft and crafting industry, and I think being a part of them, having the freedom to do a lot of knitting and a lot of quilting and other designing. I don't think I could sit and tech edit for 8 hours a day because, I'll be honest, it's a lot of brainpower.
And so I can sit down in two and three hour spurts and do it, but then I have to take a break and do something else. So, you know, I'm kind of happy that it has not been 100% full time for me because it's something that I feel like I can always go back to. I have a small set of designers that I work with, and then Knitpicks comes in fits and spurts. Right now I'm working on 26 patterns for them, which is a two to three week deadline, and more than half of them are small accessories. But they'll show up and say, hey, we've got all these patterns right now. But then I won't hear from them for two months, because it's the lull in between and I am just one of their tech editors. They holler at me when they need something, and if I can do it, that’s awesome.
What’s your favorite way to take a break from editing?
I was going to say I do tons and tons of crafts, although I've been plagued by some tendonitis this year, so that has not been fabulous. Although I've taken up embroidery, because apparently that is the one thing that I can do that doesn't aggravate my one arm. I do a lot of reading. And over the summer (it's funny because I'm not a sports fan) I've been watching the Tour de France. I'm getting ready to watch the Olympics and the Tour de Femmes. Like, it's a whole summer this year.
What are your hopes for yourself?
I've been thinking about this and where tech editing fits kind of in my life. It's one of those things that I hope I'll be able to keep for a long time to come. I mean, I'm 46. My husband's a little bit older, so he'll be retiring a little bit sooner than me. I feel like tech editing is one of those things that's never going to go away because there are always going to be knitting patterns and so there are always going to need to be tech editors to check those patterns. You know, I would like to stay current enough and maintain a presence in tech editing enough so that it could also support me into retirement. It feels like part of my life now. So that's awesome.
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Thank you for being here, dear tech editors! Leave a comment below (I read each one!) ~ Sarah Walworth