About WLS Makes Stuff
Tech editor, graphic designer, and crafter.
Welcome! I’m Whitney, owner and operator of WLS Makes Stuff. I have been a crafter my entire life, and knitting became my primary craft in my early college years. After years of thinking tech editing sounded like the perfect job for me, I took the Tech Editor Hub training course in 2022 and have been taking on both independent designers and commercial publishers as clients ever since. My experience in digital illustration from running my Spoonflower shop also lends itself well to the creation of schematics and charts.
After working with my first few clients— new designers who hadn’t thought about how they were going to format their pattern for publication — I also realized the editing and layout skills I had developed producing nonprofit and graduate school print newsletters and marketing materials made me well suited to take on not just tech editing, but designing layouts for knitting patterns. I’m so thrilled to be able to work with the fiber arts community that has given me so much joy over the years.
Questions? Please don’t hesitate to email me.
Want to make stuff together?
When you hire me as a tech editor or layout designer, you get:
Twenty-five years of knitting experience in all kinds of garment, accessories, toy and houseware patterns. Note: As an editor, I specialize in toys, garments, and accessories (particularly hats and handwear), with special interest in textured stitches (i.e. ganseys) or colorwork garments, with or without charts.
Twenty years of professional experience in content layout, proofreading, and copyediting in Adobe Creative Suite, including matching to style and branding standards and prepping files for print production.
A tech editor experienced with both US and UK spelling and standard knitting abbreviations.
A digital illustrator with experience creating schematics and charts for both knitting and crochet patterns.
Ten years of professional experience in developing and validating metrics (in other words, checking that numbers are both correct and that they are understandable to a reader).
A trained writing tutor with an MFA in Creative Writing capable not just of finding ways to improve your pattern but providing clear explanations.
My nonprofit/academic newsletter work has focused on translating very technical and/or obscure subjects for general audience-- which means I have experience editing with an eye to how a less experienced reader/knitter might interpret a pattern and spotting technical terms that might need clarification.
After 20 years of editing newsletter pieces written by academics from all over the world, I am also comfortable working with designers for whom English is not their first language . Note: I do not offer translation services, but can assist with common errors such as word order and verb tenses.
Don’t have any projects just yet?
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