On the cost of patterns

I recently hit what I feel is a major milestone as a knitwear designer: I got a negative comment on one of my Ravelry pattern pages. The pattern is my March hat design, and the meat of the comment was that I was charging too much.

My reaction to this was two-fold: on the one hand, anyone is more then welcome to think whatever they like about my patterns, my pricing, and anything else I publicly put out there into the ether. That is entirely your right as a knitting pattern consumer, and I certainly want to hear what you think and get your feedback.

But on the other hand, it occurred to me while trying to craft a response to the comment that there are a number of underlying issues here that I'm feeling particularly motivated to address at the moment (cue eerie mid-life crisis music). Ehem.

1) It's just a simple hat pattern - I could do that myself!

Good for you! No, seriously. Feel free to recreate, reverse engineer or come up with something similar however you would like. It's how I started the process of figuring out how to write my own patterns, and I don't think I'm the only one. I'll even go out on a limb and say that many, if not most designs are reworkings of techniques and stitch patterns and garment types that have been around forever and ever, amen. If you can do it yourself, you have my blessing to do just that. Just please don't then post that recreation as a free version of my pattern, or anything along those lines*.

2) Your pattern is too expensive and you are pricing yourself out of the market.

My first response to this portion of the comment was: bwah? *simple dog head tilt* The pattern is priced at $5.00, which is the same as the vast majority of my hat patterns, and is pretty similar to prices for other hat patterns. So my first thought was maybe the commentator thought it said £5.00? And I would absolutely agree - that would be a bit much for a simple hat pattern.

But the more I thought about it, the more bothered I got. Other events in my life have been forcing me to take a good hard look at how I value my time and what I produce. This is all caught up in the tension that exists for me between having a "real career" and being basically a stay-at-home mom, but I've come to the realisation that I am a bit sheepish and embarrassed telling people about my knitting/spinning/dyeing/designing "hobby" because, deep down, I undervalue what I'm doing. It's too easy to minimise my designing and the time I spend on it, and I'm only now beginning to realise how much I discount the energy and work and skill that it takes. Which is really not cool at all. If I undervalue what I'm doing, how do I expect other people to value it?

This leads in to what I think is a vastly bigger topic then I am able (or feel comfortable) to cover in a single blog post, and that is the general undervaluation of the arts. More central to this discussion, the discounting or undervaluing of those things that are considered "women's crafts" - knitting, crochet, tatting, quilting, sewing, etc. Why am I reluctant to tell people that I knit? I don't have any trouble knitting in public, yet it isn't something that comes up in conversation with most of my acquaintances. Maybe that's ok, and maybe I'd talk about it as a natural extension of the conversation if we spent more time together, but I'm not always sure that I would. And that bothers me.

Not only do I feel like I personally undervalue my work, but I feel like this happens in the fiber arts community in general, perhaps because most people don't really understand what goes in to producing a knitting pattern. It's not as simple as think of an idea, knit it up, write the pattern, hit "export to pdf" and voila!

For illustration, here's a semi-theoretical rundown of my process and the time involved.

1. I am hit by a bolt of inspiration and see a vision of the world's most glorious hat, fully formed, like Athena popping out of Zeus's skull, while angels sing from the heavens and everything is bathed in golden light.... Actually, usually I see something that makes me think "Hunh, I wonder what that would look like translated to knitting?..." Or I'm cold and I think, "Gee, I really wish I had a sweater like this...." Being of Puritan descent and upbringing, my next step is to figure out how to create it myself**. This phase can last anywhere from 30 seconds to weeks, so I'll discount it for the purposes of this exercise.
2. I swatch. Sometimes I sketch first, particularly if I'm putting together a proposal for a submission, but I'm a shitastic artist so swatching comes first. For a small project like this hat, that means a couple evenings' worth of puttering around with yarn and needles in front of the TV, occasionally swearing. Let's say ~4 hrs.
3. Then there is The Math. I look at the swatch, figure out the gauge, decide what size I'm going to knit, figure out the cast on numbers and get started. These days, I usually write out at least a vague pattern before I start, so that I can get the sample knitted quickly. For Echinoid, the knitting was probably ~4 hrs, and the vague pattern took maybe 30 min, so we're now up to 8.5 hrs of solid time invested so far.
4. Sample is knit and works, so now it's back to the grading drawing board, otherwise known as The Spreadsheet of Doom. Most of my hats have four sizes, so figuring out the numbers, the spacing of the ribs, the length of the crown decreases and the rest of the schematic numbers is let's say another 1.5 hrs, getting us up to 10 hrs.
5. The next step is tech editing and photos. I have a wonderful tech editor who is super attentive to every little screw up I make (of which there are many) - the tech editing of the hat in question in total came in at just under 2 hours. For the photos, I drag Allison and her awesome camera out to take pictures for me. Since she's an absolutely fabulous BKFF, she spent about an hour taking fantastic photos for me (I think I had to buy her a coffee) (oh yeah, and help her organise a Yarn Crawl). 
6. Finally, the part that is the biggest pain in the ass for me: the layout. I always feel like I need to channel Bones from Star Trek when I do this, and scream at the top of my lungs: Goddamit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a !!! ....(in this case, a graphic designer/copy editor). Let's say that layout, in a best case scenario, plus last minute back and forth with the TE, is another two hours of work before the pattern is finalised and ready to be set free into the world.

So from those six steps, we're up to (conservatively) 12 hours of my time, plus 3 hrs from other people, to put together a simple hat pattern. If I paid myself the Texas minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, I'd need to sell twenty patterns to break even (which accounts for the fees that PayPal takes out of each pattern sale, but doesn't account for any US Federal Income tax). Let's be honest: $7.25 in London will buy you a coffee and a croissant at the nearest Starbucks, and not much else. If I were going to pay myself what I charge for private knitting/spinning lessons, I'd need to sell 53 patterns to break even. Break even. Not make any profit, but break even. That calculation does not include paying my TE and what I would have to pay a photographer if Alli or Himself weren't filling that role. It also doesn't include the cost of yarn, needles and tools, computers, software - this list goes on and on. Of my 38 designs on Ravelry, 34 of them have been knitted with yarn I bought, so you can add on a few more patterns to sell to cover the materials used.

So those numbers are not too terrifying, right? But let's think about this in regards to selling patterns on Ravelry specifically: there are 164,623 patterns available as downloads via Ravelry as of right now***. There are 31,667 knitting designers. We are all competing for the same pool of Ravelry pattern buyers (all 4 million+ of you). Clearly some designers are better at marketing themselves then I am, and there are plenty of designers for whom selling 53 patterns would be a walk in the park. I'm not sure how many there are, but I know I'm not one of them (yet).

The site of yesterday's fabulous photoshoot with Alli  - the Thames Barrier Park

All of this is a very long, perhaps tedious, and roundabout way of trying to clarify exactly what goes into my process of creating a self-published knitting pattern, and what that actually means from a numbers perspective. It's also, in part, an attempt to clarify to myself exactly what is the value of my design work, and an attempt to start the process of revaluing my own creative endeavours****.

I'm sure other designers's processes and experiences are different, but I think the critical thing is that a huge amount of work goes into producing the patterns that are easily available online, and that fact is not always obvious or acknowledged by the consumers of those patterns. That is why I think this particular, somewhat offhand, comment on my pattern page has stuck with me: my time and efforts and skills and creativity should not be undervalued in the community that I participate in and am a part of. There is a reason that patterns cost money, and designers shouldn't feel guilty or awkward or ashamed about wanting to be paid fairly for the work that they do. Full stop.

This is a bigger problem then me and my self-valuation of my design work, and it's a bigger issue then knitting and Ravelry. I guess I'm hoping to get some thoughts from those of you reading this about the topic, whatever they might be. Because the most important thing is having the conversation, right?

* Please don't link or attribute your reverse engineered whatever to me/any other designer, because many of us spend time and money making sure our patterns are as error-free and clear as possible. Saying your interpretation is the same as a pattern that has been carefully written and tech edited and laid out is just...not okay.
** Because, as a Puritan, I am pathologically opposed to spending money on "frivolities", recent occurrences at Wonderwool Wales not withstanding.
*** Right now being when I'm writing this post. Which was at 9:00 pm last night, so those numbers have probably gone up.
**** Of all the things to be having a midlife crisis about, amirite? 

Blanket forts come in all shapes and sizes

And this weekend, mine came in the form of approximately 9 hours (out of 36) driving a car, 5 hrs at a wool festival and 36 hours in the company of some really wonderful women.

My weekend compatriots

We've all had times when we've felt like running away, as fast and as far as our little feet will carry us (in my case, not very fast and, two weeks post-marathon, not very far, but you get the idea). Over the last few weeks I've found myself envisioning just saying fuck it and packing up my kids and my husband and my dog and running off to live in the woods. And come Saturday afternoon when Wonderful Woman #1 and Wonderful Woman #2 showed up at my house to pack into the car and head west to Malvern, Wonderful Woman #3 and Wonderwool Wales*, my sigh of relief was probably heard in Bangkok. I needed to head out, not think about Real Life (TM) and have some down time, preferably with wool and one or two adult beverages of various stripes.

Still life with Lager and SweetGeorgia Superwash DK

Saturday night was spent in an extended SnB, complete with Thai food, prosecco and chocolate with sea salt. There was discussion of knitting and spinning and designing, about various and sundry life things, about whether or not it is possible in an intellectually honest way to be atheist**, about boys and kids and grandkids and the future. All those wonderful wide ranging topics that get covered when you are together with some opinionated, smart people who are willing to discuss and listen.

Which one is Gaga?

Sunday morning we rousted ourselves, managed to produce reasonable coffee with a tea pot and tea strainer, and headed off to Builth Wells for what I think (with apologies to Unravel) is my favorite festival yet. Wonderwool Wales this year was bigger and better then ever, and (by virtue of going on Sunday) relatively uncrowded. I had a wonderful time wandering around, actually buying things on the spur of the moment (8 skeins of Blacker Yarns Jacob DK, I'm looking at you) (and fantasizing about the fantabulous sweater you are going to become), chatting with folks, salivating over fleece and drum carders and all manner of other things. It was blissful. And then we got in the car and headed back to London, talking about designing adn dyeing and collaborations and What The Industry Should Do. I suddenly realised that I was feeling the same way I feel after scientific conferences: inspired and excited and full of ideas and plans and things that must be started immediately! It's a wonderful feeling, one that I've been missing, and it was such a joy to sit there, speeding down the M4, knowing that the three people knitting around me were in the same place.

The haul: ChiaoGoo Twist complete set (because I am weak, weak, weak...), two skeins of BFL/alpaca laceweight from Eden Cottage Yarns, a boat shuttle/pirns from The Threshing Barn, one skein of self-stripin Ullcentrum 2-ply from Midwinter Yarns (who I believe started trading on Saturday. Way to jump in to the deep end guys!), and 8 (!) skeins of DK weight, woolen spun Jacob from Blacker Yarns, slated to become the most glorious cozy warm sweater ever.

So for that, I'd like to thank Allison, Catherine and Dani for listening to me, encouraging me, and inspiring me with all that they do. It was an absolutely phenomenal 36 hours, and I can't wait to do it again.


*There's a lot of wonder in this sentence. My apologies.
** We finally agreed on "Intellectual agnostic, emotional atheist". And giggled. Repeatedly. (That might have been the wine, except we were still giggling the next day).

Ch-ch-ch-changes

So. So. So...here's the (very vague) skinny: my reality-based, non-knitting life is in a bit of an uproar at the moment, and it may be a while before everything shakes out and settles down. It's a time of serious transition for us as a family, and I flip flop between being convinced that everything is going to work out just fine and absolute panic. There are big changes in store, and while I try to look at the situation as a great opportunity for new things, it's also really stressful and scary. Six months from now, all of this will be long behind us, but I'm afraid I really just want to get to that point and skip the intervening hubbub.

So the blogging entries may be a bit sparse over the next couple of months. I hope you understand, and keep an eye out for when things pick up again in this little corner of the internet. Cheers!

Break

In the face of a really bad news week, I'm taking a few days to do some comfort knitting and hug my family close. There will be more fibery goodness soon, I promise. 

Like what I'm doing with this glorious skein of gorgeous-ness. 

"Mind the Gap" sport weight yarn from Trailing Clouds

One week later

I lived in Brookline, a town mostly surrounded by the city of Boston, from the ages of 8 to 18. Every Patriots Day there was a debate in our house about whether or not we should make the massive 5 block journey to Beacon Street to watch the Marathon runners go by. And for seven of those ten years, I went to Copley Square anywhere from two to six days a week to take ballet classes at the Copley Square Ballet Studios, which were located on Boylston Street, directly across from the Boston Public Library. And more or less directly above where the first bomb was detonated last Monday afternoon.

The events in Boston over the past seven days have left anyone with any connection to the city dazed and confused. My overwhelming question is Why? Why would anyone target a group of people at a sporting event? What exactly are you trying to do, beyond maiming and injuring as many people as possible? What could possible be the goal in this act? Two pieces in newspapers that have stood out for me in the past few days are this column by Richard Askwith in the Independent, and this one by Boston author Dennis Lehane in the NYT. I think the message that I've come away with from everything is happened is that even though some people are capable of huge, overwhelmingly evil acts, we have a duty to fight back by not fighting each other. By not making assumptions about motivation (as if any reasoning could even begin to justify what happened last week), or cultural heritage. By not making the kinds of broad, sweeping generalizations that make it too easy to dehumanize the people around us. By helping.

I'm a bit far away to do any helping personally, as much as I might like to. But what I can do is give money. So, for the next three months (until 15 July 2013) all proceeds from the sales of Travelling Hats (or any of the patterns included) will go to The One Fund Boston, a charity set up by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Tom Menino to help the victims of the bombings and their families. I was going to do this for the Boston Toque pattern in particular, but Boston in the last week could have been any city in any part of the world. This is a tragedy that could have happened anywhere, so it seemed silly to limit this to one pattern.

So, to recap: 100% of all proceeds from the Travelling Hats ebook, or from the Boston Toque, Delhi Beanie, Copenhagen Hat, Paris Beret or London Slouch, from 15 April - 15 July 2013 will be donated to The One Fund Boston. And for ease of purchase, here are "Buy Now" buttons for all (you can click on the linked text to be taken to the Ravelry pattern pages for each, with more information about sizing, yarn requirements, etc). Thanks.


Travelling Hats ebook  ($20)

Delhi Beanie ($5) - an easy-to-knit beanie with a knit-purl stitch pattern.

London Slouch ($5) - cute and funky, worked in reverse stockinette with circular lace details and twisted stitch columns. 

Boston Toque ($5) - a textured, outer layer of aran-weight rustic yarn with a soft alpaca/wool lining for the coldest winter days.

Paris Beret ($5)- intricate lace worked in worsted weight yarn for a quick but satisfying chic hat.

Copenhagen Hat ($5) - i-cord cast on, and your choice of colorwork or knit/purl snowflakes. 

An interlude

Today, I'm feeling sorry for myself. Find out why over here.

Bah. With that, I'm going to settle down with my non-leg powered spinning wheel and drown my sorrows. Cheers!

Awwwww....da cute widdle baby lambies!

The whole family got to experience The Miracle of Birth (TM) this past weekend in an expedition to a local kid's farm. I've posted more details and pictures over at the Porpoise Fur blog, so go check it out. Boo distinguished herself by showing no concern about the type or quantity of bodily fluids on display, and I managed not to cringe when the farm staff had to go fishing for the second of a set of twins who was not interested in being evicted. It was a good time, really...

Exactly

I don't know if it's because the days are getting longer, or the trees are starting to bud out, or because I'm feeling vindicated in my work and fibery pursuits for the first time in a long time, but this recently discovered song (courtesy of Brenda Dayne at Cast-On) is summing up how I'm feeling almost perfectly.

Or exactly, if you prefer...

The conscious realization of being happy is too rare to ignore.

Something's different around here...

Last night, in response to being stressed out by events more or less beyond my control*, I started playing around with the blog layout. It is still a work in progress, but I'm liking it so far. I am going to move all my patterns to a separate tab along the top, and off of the sidebar in the next coupld of days. I will eventually probably customize the colors a bit more, maybe change the background picture to something more fibery or (gasp!) put together a real header for myself one of these days. It's a work in progress...;-)

I'm also prepping an update for the shop. It's been grey and cold, and I think that influenced my color choices quite a bit this time around...both sympathetically and in rebellion against. Update should be live tomorrow sometime, but you can check out a teaser post on the blog here.

And do I have knitting to share! There's a finished shawl, a handspun scarf, and a couple of cute critters. A few need to be held back until they reach their destinations, but there should be something new and off the needles on here this week. I have also firmly committed myself to sitting down and spinning tomorrow (more Falkland for the handspun-colorwork-sweater-that-will-never-end) because, well, March is coming, and I need to get cracking now that I've run out of yarn halfway down sleeve 1!

Let me know what y'all think of the new design, and what you'd like to see more of - I'm always open to suggestions, and I love knowing that you're out there!

* Nothing of health or job or family concerns, more along the lines of if-I'd-been-an-actual-adult-and-taken-care-of-this earlier-we-wouldn't-be-in-this-unfortunate-but-thankfully-only-potentially-disappointing-and-not-dire-predicament.

Can't blog, too busy knitting

My plan was to celebrate the end of this week with a finished sweater for my mother-in-law. Instead I'm pulling together a care package to send to a knitter/spinner friend whose house caught on fire this week. She's not sure if she's going to have any stash left, so I'm pulling out things from my stash left, right and center to send to her. And doing a couple little things for her wee ones as well. So the sweater, lacking only one seam to be a FO, will have to wait a little bit longer. I think Mermaid will be ok with that...

Nothing to see here

I am currently experiencing something that I don't have a lot of experience with - I have no desire to knit.

Last week I got sick (yet again) and since then my knitting mojo has fled. I just don't have any motivation (or spare concentration) to donate towards the knitting thangs. Instead I'm lying on the couch blogging, with "American Chopper" on the TV, the dog chewing on his rawhide on the rug, and wishing I didn't feel like my lungs were going to erupt out of my throat every time I inhale. WebMD informs me that I probably have viral pneumonia (hooray!) which I believe about as much as I do the idea that Bram Stoker covered up the real existence of vampires. Here's hoping that I've got more knitting mojo by the end of the week!

Into the wild

Last weekend we packed up and went off to Yorkshire, just for fun. I was very excited because, after looking at the map, it became quite apparent that we were heading into the mother lode of sheepdom. Masham, Swaledale, Wensleydale..swoon

We drove up on Friday afternoon, and Saturday morning found us out and about wandering in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, a place that has now imprinted itself on my heart because there's a sheep head in their logo.

I found out later that it's a Swaledale sheep head, to be specific. Anyway, there we were, wandering about in the hills, and guess what we found wandering around all on their lonesome?

Sheep, strangely enough. There was something very unexpected (to me) about these sheep.

They've got tails! Long, shaggy, kind of gross tails! Once I got over that excitement, I had a lovely time running down the trail, calling out to the sheep and stopping to take even more crappy mobile phone photos (I dropped my point-and-shoot digital camera a couple of weeks ago, and while it still takes pictures just fine, the display screen doesn't work, so I have no idea what I'm taking pictures of).

My family thinks I'm nuts, but thankfully, they still put up with me. The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook identifies these babies as the famous Swaledale sheep breed, which is both yay! and boo!, because we were in Wensleydale and I wanted to see some sheep dredlocks.

Sunday dawned (and stayed!) extremely foggy, so we wandered around York, walking along the medieval city wall, disturbing Sunday services at York Minster, and checking out the Vikings at the Jorvik Viking Centre.

These would be the disturbances

Twas a fab trip, and has only instilled a desire to go back and wander the Dales until I find some more sheep. Barring that, I have some pictures of what I've been doing with all the dye and fiber that's been flying around my house of late for the next post. Don't miss the pretties!

Dragonlady

Those of you who know me in real life (and maybe some of you who don't) may be aware that I have *ehem* a small book problem. Or rather, a large book problem. To be more specific, a large collection of what my husband lovingly* refers to as "trashy science fiction". I can trace the origins of this problem directly to two people: my father, who (perhaps by intention?) put his extensive sci-fi collection within easy reach (Thanks Dad!) and, more indirectly, my Aunt Laura.

We moved to Boston when I was seven, and there I discovered my aunt's fabulous house and her books. Oh the books. Hallways and rooms covered floor to ceiling with packed bookshelves, which she was more then happy to loan to me. It was like my own private library. And one of the first authors she introduced me to was Anne McCaffrey. She handed me "Dragonsinger" and that was it - I was hooked. I read it cover to cover, barely pausing to take a breath, and then I went out and read all the other Pern books I could find. And then the Crystal Singer series, and then The Ship Who Sang. And on, and on, and on.

In sixth grade, my very writing-centric teacher had us all write a letter to our favorite authors, and I chose her. I sent off my letter, and lo and behold, some months later, I got a reply. That she had actually written (or dictated - it was typed) and signed and sent to me. This was heady stuff for a ten year old, and I was thrilled. I wanted to have green eyes and white hair and live on a farm in Ireland and write books about dragons when I grew up.

My eyes are still blue, and my hair is going a bit grey around the edges, and I don't live on a farm - London is as close as I've managed to get to Ireland, and the books I've managed to write typically don't have dragons in them. I have spent the intervening 30-odd years since that first introduction obsessively reading and rereading Anne's fantastically accessible and thoroughly engaging books. And I still enjoy them every single time. In this season of thankfulness and celebration, I would like to say "Thank you Anne. Thank you so very much. You will be missed."

* Really. It's loving when he says this. I promise...

A four handknit day

And it should have been five...

The list: socks, sweater, scarf and mittens. One handspun, one of my own designs, and four (!) different color families. The thing that's missing is the hat my mom knit me, in yet another color group.

I guess this means winter is here, hunh? Brrrrr!

Wednesday and a(nother) trip to Islington

The Thursday before we left for Houston, I trekked up to Loop in Islington for some present shopping (the Wollmeise in Monday's post). I also picked up a couple of balls of grey merino for a re-try of the Gherkin mittens that I was designing about this time last year, that stalled out. The stalling was due to 1) I wasn't happy with the way the stitch pattern was working out and the charting was making me INSANE, and 2) fingering weight yarn on US 2 needles = slow progress. So the lovely StR that was going to be these mittens is now repurposed to something else, and I'm doing them in a much heavier yarn*. Not surprisingly, they are going much faster this time around!

First finished mitten on top of the book I just finished (it's brilliant and made me cry)

In any event, after my shopping spree (which also included a couple skeins of Cascade 220 for the 4th London-inspired pattern...), I decided to walk back towards Waterloo and set off down the road in a somewhat southerly direction. It was raining a little bit, so I went along under my somewhat tattered cheap umbrella, watching the buses and taxis go by, through a part of London I'd never been through before, just generally enjoying being able to wander about on my own. I finally found the river, after passing Fleet St. and St. Paul's, had lunch and took the train home. It was lovely.

And in striking contrast to the following week in Houston, where walking a few miles on a whim just isn't an option. It's something I'd managed to forget about (largely), since my childhood in Boston certainly involved much walking/public transportation/getting myself places using things other then a motor ve-hicle. I was the last of my high school friends to get my driver's license, partly because they could drive me around, but also because it wasn't really necessary. I realize that the presence of accessible public transportation is something of an anomaly in US cities, and that seems truly unfortunate.

Today I "had" to go back to Loop, because two balls of the merino was not enough. Thankfully they still had some of the same dyelot left, so the mitten prototype should be done tonight. I also perused the Angel antique market (gorgeous buttons!) and then I took the bus to work - along another new route that I hadn't traveled before, enjoying yet another part of this amazing place where I am lucky enough to live.

* And I have new charting software that makes it all so much easier...

TdF Yarn #2 and a Rest Day

My second TdF project was/is 1.5 lbs of Romney from Hello Yarn.

So I started in on the spinning. And I spun. And spun. And spun. And all my bobbins were filling up, and it didn't really feel like I was getting anywhere. Here's a photographic rundown of multiple days of spinning:

Day 5:

Day 6:

Day 7:

By Friday I was over the Neverending Romneying. Over. It. So after I finished that third bobbin, I totally jumped ship, threw the plying maiden on the wheel, and banged out this.

1.5 hours, 227 yds/4 oz of my first attempt at thick and thin singles. The fiber is Amy's Corriedale in the "Twenty Ten" colorway (from my 4 Oz Challenge prize last fall). Fun colors, quick yarn, end product is soft and squishy. Love it.

And then it was back to the Romney, Day 9:

Today is a rest day, and so far I have: read on the porch with the girls.

Played with (and bathed) the dog.

Gone raspberry picking.

Made raspberry chocolate chip ice cream.

As yet, there has been no spinning. I suspect that won't last, as I'm on a tear to get all these singles done so I can start the neverending plying. The extra special good news is that I've cracked open the last bag of fiber, so the end is in sight!

Now I just have to decide what's going to be next...

There's been a lot of spinning going on

But it's mostly been of the non-fibery type. I.e. my butt has been on my bike quite a lot in my spare moments over the last few weeks/months. There's a good reason for this...

See that point up there at the top of the map? The one with the green arrow? That's John o'Groats, the northernmost point in mainland Scotland.

See that point at the bottom of the map? The one with the red arrow? That's Land's End, the southernmost point in England.

On June 11th, I climb on my bike and start riding at the green arrow, with hopes of making it down to the red arrow more or less in one piece by June 19th. Ooof. 953 miles, baby - that's a lot of spinning.

If you're reading this, and are inclined to assist me, I'm fundraising for ParalympicsGB for the ride. My online donation page is here, more info on ParalympicsGB (who are amazing) is here, and I'll be blogging each day of the ride here.

Thanks!

Stuck

I have found myself in a bit of a rut recently, hence the general blog silence. Sadly, this is not only a fibery rut, but also a major career rut that I'm trying to work out. There is more to be said on that, but I'm not quite at a point to lay down my thoughts on virtual paper, so it will have to wait. Instead, I will give you some images from our Easter weekend in Edinburgh.

We went hiking on Salisbury Crags in Holyrood Park.

 

Girls in gorse

We saw some interesting people on the Royal Mile.

 

Weirdest spinning outfit I've seen yet

I bought a bit of yarn,

and a new ring.

And I knit most of half a sock in three days.

Life goes on...

I'm not dead yet,

although part of me is kind of wishing I were. Allergy season hit with a bang at 11:34 pm on Tuesday, and I'm in the throes of snot rivers, hacking coughs, and bright red itchy eyes. It's been an absolutely spectacular week here weather-wise, and all I've wanted to do is lie on the couch while the girls watch videos. Not good. I finally perked up enough today to actually do some knitting, but I refuse to subject you to more pictures of a colorwork sweater that look exactly the same as the last pictures, even though it is growing ever so slowly.

I do have great plans in mind however, and I'm hoping that I can entice the girls upstairs to wind up some yarn for me. Usually they like doing that! And I hope to have more interesting things to talk about next week when* my pharmaceuticals beat my immune system into some sort of submission.

* Note: that's "when", not "if" because I am nothing if not optimistic. And possessed of a singluar faith in the power of better living through pharmacology. Whether or not that faith is warrented remains to be seen...

Classes, classes

I realized, while trolling through my brain for something to blog about that is not "picture of knitting that is indistinguishable from previous picture of knitting" that I hadn't ever posted details about the classes I took at the iKnit Weekender.

Class the First: Fair Isle knitting, taught by Biggan Ryd-Dups. This was a good overview of fair isle techniques, which I was already familiar with, but was worth it for the fact that I finally figured out how to hold two yarns in my left hand.

Let me back up: I learned to knit English style (throwing, yarn in right hand), but about four years ago, I decided I needed to learn how to knit Continental (yarn in left hand, faster then throwing). To do this, I knit an entire short sleeved sweater Continental style. In cotton. Needless to say, tension issues doomed the garment to un-wearability from the beginning, but I did learn to hold the yarn in my left hand (I ended up as a combination knitter, not a Continental, but that's neither here nor there). When I started my Olympics project, I was intrigued by the idea of two yarns in one hand, particularly on the rows with three colors, but I couldn't quite get the hang of it. Frustration ensued.

You know how sometimes you try to figure something out and you bang your head against a wall trying to get it and nothing works? And then you see someone doing it and the lightbulb goes on? Yeah, that was me with the one handed Fair Isle. All I needed to do was watch Biggan do it for two minutes and I was set. Or sorted, as they say on this side of the pond. So now I'm looking forward to my next Fair Isle project so I can try it out.

Class the Second: From Square to Eternity, with Pat Ashford and Steve Plummer. I signed up for this one with absolutely no idea what it was going to be about. The course description was suitably vague, but said something about designing, so I figured what the heck?

Turns out that Pat and Steve are math teachers who have used knitting to teach math to students all over the UK. They gave a slide show of their creations, and we did a bit of knitting of different geometrical shapes that were then all combined together at the end. It was really interesting, and they things they've created are gorgeous! Some of the ones they talked about are here, and they've got a bunch of toys that I'm dying to make for some geeky kids.

Class the Third: Estonian Lace Knitting with The Dutch Knitters. I don't know where to begin with this class, it was that good. We started with some history of Estonian lace knitting and traditional shawl construction. Carla and Hilly brought a pile of shawls to show off different construction styles and shapes. I learned that traditional Estonian shawls are always rectangular, and the borders are always knit in two pieces and then attached to the center panel. We knit tiny little sampler shawls with gorgeously thin Wensleydale yarn. I learned that "nupp" is pronounced so that it rhymes with "soup". I left with big plans to get myself a whack-load of 1600 ypp lace yarn and spend the next year working on my own Estonian shawl. I was foiled by the lack of yarn with that particular grist at the Marketplace, but it's still simmering in the back of my mind. Of course, that project will also involve investment in the appropriate reference materials.

All in all, I really enjoyed my first knitting event. It was way less crowded then I had expected, but people seemed to think that a lot of people went to Knit Nation instead of waiting for the Weekender, so it wasn't so crowded. I'm planning to hit Knit Nation next summer, but that doesn't mean there won't be a return visit to the Weekender too!