Blog: Apart Together - Designer Support

Our hearts are bursting and our LYS partners are over the moon with the outpouring of support and care you all have shown through our Apart Together initiative. Whether by purchasing sweater quantities from open shops, allocating your BT buys to shuttered stores, or simply sharing this initiative with your social circle, you have played an active role in bolstering small businesses and easing the stress of so many fiber friends. 

In the first waves of COVID-19, our shared community rushed to safeguard cherished local yarn stores who were flailing. Through your impactful efforts, you have amassed over $95,000 to buoy those shops. Well done, you! Yet we know that brick-and-mortars are not the only vulnerable partners in our industry. As we settle in for what’s become more of a marathon than a sprint, Brooklyn Tweed is looking to expand that umbrella of support to hardworking pattern creators as well.

With the release of Wool People 14, we are introducing a new addition to our Apart Together initiative: enhanced profit sharing for designers — beginning with the contributors to Chapter I: Odeon. 

From April 8th through April 21st, all 5 patterns from Wool People 14: Odeon were available on BrooklynTweed.com for $1 off their regular price. This dollar that you save is a dollar extra that goes straight to the designer in addition to their full commission. From April 22nd to May 5th, this initiative has shifted to support designers from Chapter II: Oriel. Look for the BT:AT tag, marking patterns that currently support Brooklyn Tweed: Apart Together.

Save a dollar. Give a dollar.

Like our yarn initiative, this pattern portion of Apart Together aims to get beautiful knitwear into your life at a lower price point while still enabling you to support those designers to the fullest. You save a dollar; BT gives a dollar. Helping is as simple as that!

The Apart Together pattern discounts will be available exclusively on BrooklynTweed.com. This ensures the maximum profit goes directly to the designers, with nothing being lost to hosting or processing fees. While we do store all purchased patterns in your BT account, we know that Ravelry may be your mainstay for pattern organization. Fortunately, adding BT purchases to your Ravelry library is a cinch! Simply click the “Add to Ravelry” button under the order number in your account, log in to Ravelry once, as prompted, to enable access and then add any of your BT patterns with just one click. If you’re a visual person, we share a photo walk through of this easy process here. 

We know that these uncertain times find many of us in murky states of stress and isolation. We hope the beauty of this collection brings a little lightness to your world. And with our newly extended size range designed to fit chest measurements from 30–62”, Wool People is now more inclusive than ever. Engage with these happy pieces and know the joy of an attainably priced cast-on that directly supports both designer and LYS. Not all superheroes wear capes (though we encourage you to knit one for yourself!) Uniting our efforts in these compassionate ways is emblematic of Wool People’s open arms attitude. Even as we find ourselves physically apart, knitting strengthens our connections and brings us all closer together, 

Thank you for all your effort. It counts. It really does.

Wishing you joy in your fiber, peace in your practice and solace in knowing your knitting is making a difference,

- The extended Brooklyn Tweed family.