GAL designer interview with digitalnabi

As part of the 2014 Gift-A-Long on Ravelry, I'm interviewing fellow designer Heather Zoppetti (digitalnabi on Ravelry). A bit about Heather that I shamelessly stole from her Ravelry page:

Heather Zoppetti is a knitwear designer, teacher, and author of Everyday Lace (Interweave, 2014). She lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with her husband and yarn collection. Her patterns have been published in many Interweave publications and by yarn companies such as Manos del Uruguay, Baah!, Reywa Fibers, The Alpaca Yarn Company, and Universal Yarns.

Here are a couple of my favorite digitalnabi designs: 

Mormorio, a sock yarn wrap thing

Manheim Fitted Pullover from her book Everyday Lace

And now, my questions, and some answers.

Who are you? What do you do? Are you a full time designer?

I'm a full-time designer and small business owner. I'm the founder of Stitch Sprouts (check us out on stitchsprouts.com), which really has become my full-time job. We distribute wholesale patterns, yarn, and stitch markers to yarn shops across the country (and even some internationally). We also provide services like graphic design and technical editing.

You wrote a book, so that's pretty awesome. What's your preference: individual self-published patterns, third-party pubs, or a large project like a multi-pattern book?

I love working on big projects like books. Something about having a huge goal is satisfying. However, small self-published patterns have a more immediate payoff...so it's a hard decision. I'm going to take the easy way out and say that I like both for different reasons. 

What's first for you: yarn, stitch pattern, pattern name, general idea, something else?

Any and all. Some patterns start with a stitch pattern that I've fallen in love with. Others start with a specific request from a yarn company. It's always a new and exciting process ---that's what I really love about designing, it never gets boring. 

Do you ever knit other designers' patterns, or is there just not time? If you do get to knit things by others, is it mostly for you or do you make things as gifts?

Unfortunately, I almost never have time to knit others' patterns. Sometimes I don't even have time to knit my own (I hire sample knitters)! If I do make something from another designer, it almost always ends up as a gift for someone else. Which is kind of sad; I have very few knitted things that I get to wear myself. 

Was this your first year participating as a GAL designer?

Yes. Last year I was too late to sign-up and was sad that I missed out on all the fun.