Gratitude

I LOVE my life.  I love working with Alexa as we   transform Tin Can Knits from late-night-knitting-fantasy into a growing business. Today I want to stop and take a moment to express my immense gratitude to some of the people who have made this possible.

Lets kick off this love-fest:

First, thanks to our customers, fans and cheerleaders: you take our patterns, add your own style, love, and plenty of time, and amazing things happen!

Among our fans, there is a very special group who participate in bringing our patterns to market – our fearless test knitters!  As part of the pattern publishing process, we send our final drafts out to many testers, and they knit away, giving us useful critiques, finding our typos, and letting us know where our design may need adjustment.  As we design sweaters sized from newborn to 4XL, the test-knitting process is especially crucial.  For example, the Low Tide cardigan alone was test-knit by 25 knitters, in nearly every size, before it was released for sale to the public.

We are particularly grateful to Maureen Foulds – a blogger who has recently published a Q&A all about Tin Can Knits, and a review of Pacific Knits.  Not only has she participated in several of our test knits (including the snowflake pullover), she also wore her exquisite low tide cardigan to Rhinebeck and handed out info cards, giving us fabulous word-of-mouth promotion.  Thanks again for your help and support!

While our customers and fans are the reason we can stay in business, we also have an amazing support group which give us the helping hands required to get our ambitious projects from idea to print.

Thanks to our families, who stand behind us, believe in us, and pour us a glass of wine (or coffee) when the need arises, and a glass of bubbly the morning after we’ve finished the final all-nighter!  We love you and we need you – thanks for being there.

The most beautiful among our families are called upon the most, to lend their beauty to our books.  Those closest to Alexa are most often pressed into service as knitwear models.  Thanks so much to Hunter (the inspiration for 9 Months of Knitting), Emily (a great knitter), Jordan (the inspiration for Tall Dark & Handsome), Gary (he didn’t know he was on the cover until the books arrived), Heidi, Eric, and the brand new baby Jones (most recently spotted modeling naked on the drift blanket!).

Thirdly, I want to extend thanks to our professional network.  Thanks to the growing number of small businesses who support us and allow us to bring our designs to a larger audience.  From Anina and Jan at Urban Yarns, who have been our biggest supporters from the start, to Susan Cropper at Loop – who gave us a chance to put our book next to other great designers in her beautiful shop in London, we have met so many inspiring people running yarn shops all over the world!  I also want to thank Jen of Jen AC Knitwear, Kim Werker, Jane Richmond, and Amanda and Fiona at Knit Social – all of whom have been very generous with suggestions, critiques, and constructive criticism.  Of course, without the beautiful colourways brought to us by dyers like Sweet Georgia, Tanis Fibre Arts, Skein Queen, Juno Fibre Arts and The Uncommon Thread (among many others…), there would really be no reason to knit at all!  So thanks again to all the yarn companies who have supported us over the years!

Lastly :  to Alexa, I want to say that running this business would not be the same without you.  Working in partnership is so rewarding, and we would never have gotten to the place we are now without your enthusiasm, mad photographic skills, and relentless late-night knitting!  I couldn’t have found a better business partner – even if we are separated by an ocean!  Thanks a million ~ Emily Wessel

Want to be part of the Tin Can Knits happy knitting team?  We want you to join us!  Sign up for our email updates, send us an email to tell us what you love (or hate!) and check out our patterns & tutorials!