The cowl sweater is done!
I’ll probably wait until the fall to release this, now–everyone’s thoughts have definitely turned to spring–but before I can do any kind of releasing, I need to do everyone’s single least-favorite part of designing: Name the pattern. I had no idea how difficult this was before I started designing. The name must be related to the pattern in some way, not be too popular (so that people searching on ravelry will find your pattern quickly), easy to pronounce, and easy to spell when heard. Yikes! I’ll let you know when I come up with something. 🙂
I’ve really enjoyed talking about the design process over the last month; I’d love to share bits and pieces of my self-published sweaters in the future, too.
There are more important things than designing, though. I know we’ve all been watching the news with horror over the past days. I urge you to join me in sending an extra donation to either the Red Cross or Doctors without Borders/MSF. I always feel pretty lucky with my lot in life, but at times like this “lucky” doesn’t even begin to come close to what I feel.
I also wanted to draw your attention to a more local injustice–representative of so many going on in the US right now–in the hopes that you might be able to help. I’m sure many of you read Ann’s blog, but for those of you who missed it, she has set up a fundraiser for her best friend’s sister Emily. Emily, a young school teacher, has liver cancer. The medical bills are overwhelming. Let’s just stop there for a minute and think about how injust it is that someone doing the important work of fighting CANCER needs to worry about paying for medical bills. But wait, there’s more.
Most of you probably don’t know this, but my mother passed away from cancer that had spread to her liver when I was in college. Luckily for us, she had good medical insurance and we didn’t have to deal with financial stress on top of everything else. Emily doesn’t have great medical insurance–hers doesn’t cover prescriptions. The thing is, Emily has a spouse with great medical insurance. Just like my mom. Only, Emily can’t qualify under her spouse’s medical plan because they happen to share a gender.
(Yeah. Let’s be outraged about that for a minute, too.)
How can you help? Well, you can read all the details in Ann’s post (as well as see all of the amazing prizes), but the short version is: Please, go ahead and donate what you can to Emily’s medical fund. Cancer is a terrible, terrible disease. I know this intimately. Let’s make it suck a little less, and give Emily the ability to fight the disease with everything she’s got–instead of worrying about how many decades of financial hardship will result from her taking the medicine she needs to get well.
Amy Herzog Designs