brae cove tunic

Gosh, I’m a little rusty at this blog post writing thing. Years ago, I wrote often enough that I wasn’t critical of every single word. That isn’t the case right now, but there’s only way to get over it: write, write, and write some more.  

So, putting aside writing style for a moment, here is what I’ve been trying to get onto the page: a little over a week ago the Brae Cove Tunic knitting pattern was released. From the very beginning, it was an amazing-magical-stars-bursting-everywhere kind of collaboration that Elizabeth from Squam Art Workshops imagined into being. And along the way, we worked with more incredible women who added encouragement, frankness, and friendship to the project, making the end result that much sweeter.

Wait! I could probably have said that in two words: dream project.

As this dream project evolved, I thought often about collaboration. There is a particular magic that happens when you work with other people on a creative project. When you collaborate, you get the chance to hear new perspectives, opinions, even vocabulary. You see someone else’s visual preferences, see how those preferences nudge your ideas in a new direction. You learn from one another, and in the process, begin to recognize your own strengths and skills.

I feel lucky that I had the chance to learn about the magic of collaboration early in my “day job” career. There was a time when we brought specialists together to build on ideas and execute the best creative we possibly could. But with technology at our fingertips, and timelines and budgets always shrinking, it has gotten harder and harder to justify using a team of people to build a single piece of creative. Instead we often ask one person to create from start to finish, and although it can totally work sometimes, I think we might be losing more than we are gaining. In the final days of wrapping up the Brae Cove Tunic, I remembered just how much a collaborative spirit can influence the final execution. Without a doubt, this project as a whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. The combination of people, skills, and design perspectives adds an extra layer of magic that simply could not have been created by one person alone.

Dream project indeed.