Can I please take a nap now? For, let's say, a week?

Craig and Gerard, once again and as predicted, put on a hell of a party. The venue was gorgeous. (There was perhaps a slight undercatering problem, but everything else - utterly fab.)

I have to confess, I'd been dreading the day. I knew it would be a great event, I loved last year's show, but then last year I wasn't pregnant. Tired and sick... not the best way to feel when exhibiting! I was hopelessly underslept and poorly prepared (through no one's fault but my own of course) and just thought I'd have to grit my teeth and get through it. But you know, the minute I walked into this hall full of eager people setting up... wool everywhere... I got excited. Energised. Being among My People, you know; being part of a really great event. Good stuff.

As soon as the doors opened, things went nuts. (We were so lucky to have the spot we did, with oodles of space around us. My crowd-phobic self sends heartfelt thanks to the guys!) The only drawback to having so much business was that I didn't get a chance to talk to anyone for more than half a minute - and in fact I was so frazzled and flustered (fruzzled?), I kept overlooking people's Ravelry badges and not realising I was talking to online friends... for which I kicked myself afterwards.

This was the first show we've done with yarn (not just needles etc). I had great hopes of arranging every basket into a gorgeously graduated swoop of colour, as in our print ads. But of course there was barely time to tip the skeins out before the hordes descended... ah well, it never would have stayed pretty for more than 5 minutes anyway!

In the middle of the day, suddenly the crowd thinned out. It was weird. Apparently there was an event taking place next door - some speaker called the Yarn Harlot?

No, I'm not bitter about missing her on her one and only visit to the UK. Nuh uh. I'm totally fine with that. *grumble grumble*... anyway, Harlot time gave us a very welcome breather. There was still shopping happening, but at a more relaxed pace. Phew!

Finally, here's a pic that shows me in full gravid glory. Five months, wouldn't you say, from the size of that belly? Rather than barely three? *sigh* Me and my extra padding.

This backstory has decided it doesn't like to be ignored, it wants its place in the limelight, and like a trashy little no-good wannabe, it doesn't care who or what it has to step on to make it to the A plot.

Which is my very convoluted way of saying: holiday, I can't haz it. Or rather, I could haz it, but I would have to haz at least one more week of it than I bargained for while fighting more bureaucratic evils, for purposes of being allowed back in the UK at the end of it, and really that isn't an option. Especially with iKnit day and all. So there ya go. I don't go. I stay.

*le sigh*

Eh. Who needs calamari anyway.

Anyway, worry not, the shop will not be closing. Eszter the Needle Elf will be on duty, so orders will go out promptly as usual. She'll also be monitoring the email, but most queries will probably have to wait till my return, on 3 September. Ah well, that's not long, eh? See you then. Stay well, as they say in my country. (Now you say "go well". Go on. It's the rules.*)

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* Actually, it's usually the other way around: first "go well", then "stay well". And it should really be "hamba kahle - sala kahle". But hey. Whatever works, right?

Cheers, whistles etc. I am *so* glad the mojo is coming back.

Gnarled Oakwoods would be just wonderful in Camelspin. Can you imagine how yummy?

Claudia Hand Painted and Madeline Tosh sock yarns both use Louet Gems as a base, so Lissajous will be a perfect fit for either of them.

Cleite is perfect, perfect, perfect for either Nature's Harvest wild silk (wouldn't the Demeter colour look stunning?) or Madeline Tosh's Natural Silk Lace. Though I'm also imagining it in Artyarns cashmere 1-ply... delicious!

I'm picturing Edgy in Handmaiden's Swiss Mountain Silk Cashmere. Wow.

And I think Autumn Leaves would translate fantastically well into Bio Bamboo - perhaps in chocolate with a duck egg contrast. (Damn. Now I want to cast on for that right now.)

But the one I'm actually most likely to make first? Well, possibly Cleite - I really love that. But I think smaller, quicker projects are the best bet for me right now, and I have a hankering for some Casbah socks. Maelstrom is probably the winner!

I think this is not only fair, but the future (or perhaps, one future model) of online publishing. In fact, more than a year ago, I was daydreaming about my fantasy future knitting magazine (oh, you know you do the same!), and this was a major feature of it: patterns for sale. (My model was quite different in many ways, including pricing structure, but this idea was part of it.) It just made sense to me that for a professional publication, all-free patterns would not enable the magazine to deliver suitable quality to the readers, nor to pay the designers appropriately. So, create a catalogue (as some are calling it) that offers plenty of fantastic free content, and provides an opportunity for readers to pay only for what they really want to knit - not for a whole issue of perhaps not-my-style filler. Eminently reasonable, right? After all, nobody's making anybody pay anything. There are plenty of sources of great free patterns for those who want them. And many of us get just as much joy from simply looking at interesting design concepts and details, mentally bookmarking them for future use in our own projects. So frankly, it's a win all round; especially if the magazine is really well produced - as the Twist Collective most certainly is.

But of course it's a new model, and it requires some adjustment, and some people are quite het up about that. I understand they might be disappointed that it's not free, when we're so used to online magazines providing free content. (Lucky, lucky, spoilt us.) But really I am amazed at the strength of feeling that's coming out. Some quotes from Ravelry (and please understand, I don't mean to attack anyone behind these words; I just find the sentiments expressed fascinating because they are so alien to me):

"I know that 100 dollars isn’t enough to actually compensate a designer for all the work put into a pattern, but I sort of took that as a given… doing what you love to do rarely makes people rich."
Isn't that weird? The idea that it's somehow *wrong* to make a living from doing what you love, and therefore it's okay to effectively exploit their passion by paying below-cost rates?

"They may call it a business model, but I call it deception... It is greed and I don’t like it."
This person was arguing that it was unfair to make readers pay for what "the magazine" should be paying for; she also claimed that Twist was offering "NOTHING" to the readers! Again, I'm thoroughly flummoxed by this point of view. Apart from the lack of understanding of economics (how, exactly, should a magazine pay its designers if not with money gained from readers, eg via the cover price?), and the assumption that everything except the actual pattern instructions constituted no reader value whatsoever... I am amazed at the accusation of deception and greed. How is it deceptive to put a product out there and ask for payment? How is it greed to want the end user to pay for (some of!) what they get?

The greed point is the bit that really rankles. Because surely, the most greedy thing is to expect to get patterns for free - when patterns take many, many, many hours of hard work to write. When did knitters get so entitled? When did we start to feel we were owed the fruits of others' labours for nothing?

This is ludicrous. I've never in my life been too tired to knit. I wouldn't have believed anyone who said it could happen. But here I am, useless. Useless I say! How is this baby going to be clothed? What will happen to my languishing WIPs? To say nothing of the Winter Wonderland coat I so wanted to make for this winter. Alack! Alas! Useless!

Which is why it gives me great pleasure to announce that, right now, I have a bun in the oven.

I trust that will satisfy the demands of the bake-blogging contingent.

Anyway, so having gone about it all a bit backwards and learnt to knit scarves so very long after doing big complicated jerseys, you know what I find?

Scarves are BORING.

Of course, there's a place in the world for boring knitting. Really there is. But wow, this thing is starting to drag. It's a two-skein scarf and having just recently joined the second ball, I found myself pretty oppressed at the thought of just how much longer I have to keep going, without any funky shaping or plot twists to hold my attention.

So I thought maybe I'd chuck in some beads to make things a bit more interesting. What do you think? Will these do?

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* Have you noticed that we have a smattering of patterns for sale, now? Lovely Orata offered them to me, and I'm really excited because I think they go so well with some of our yarns. I'm hoping to bring you more patterns and kits in due course.

Only if they're broken, obv. And maybe only if you're a pyromaniac. But aren't we all?

Whoops.

It seems someone's been pushing my design button, because that's the reason behind almost all of these. Well, Scarf Style was mostly because I was so impressed with someone's Camelspin scarf (Ravelry link; wow, huh?). The Barbara Walkers and Righetti can be filed under "everybody else has them, why can't I?" (Or even a sort of guilt... like, how can I pretend to be a designer* without these Seminal Texts?) New Pathways was all about wanting to understand alternative constructions; similarly, I'd seen enough of Knitting New Scarves to think there was some very unorthodox fabric construction going on there, and I wanted to explore that, even though I'm really unlikely to actually make many of those as scarves.

And then there's Inspired to Knit. Which was pretty much a whim, as I'd hardly had a chance to peek at the book at all - but I had vaguely heard something about there being stuff about how to write patterns in it, and it looked sort of pretty, and I just *wanted* it, although I really didn't know what to expect.

Wow.

I love it so much, I sort of don't want to put it on the shelf. I want to tuck it inside my bra for safekeeping. I want to sleep with it under my pillow so I can absorb its genius in my sleep. Which is possibly a strange sort of overreaction. I mean, for starters, the design-school stuff is actually not that interesting. (At least, not to me, but to be fair, I've read a lot of design books already; I'm not sure what I might possibly wanting out of any more books, but it's not going to be found in any mostly-patterns book.) And then the designs themselves are not actually groundbreaking. It's not like something from Norah Gaughan, or Cat Bordhi, or indeed Lynne Barr (that New Scarves book), something that makes you go "wow! Who would think of *doing* that?"

It's just really, really, really pretty. Almost everything in it has that WANT! factor. And a lot of it seems like something I might have designed myself (if I were as talented as Michele Rose Orne, that is; that wasn't meant to sound quite so presumptuous!). They're right up my style alley. Look! Victoriana!

I love the concept of this - a lacy scarf attached to a heavier jacket - although I'm a bit bored by the jacket part of it. And I'd change the closure. How about holding it together with a shawl pin? Or even tying it with the scarf collar itself? Or maybe just using a satin ribbon? Hm. I guess I'm not sure exactly why I'm so un-enthused about that knitted tie. I just think it could be prettier. But still - the overall design? Lovely.

There is pretty much nothing at all I'd want to change about this, though.

The book's layout, with a little design sketch included for each pattern, is very appealing. I love fashion drawing. And it's interesting to see how, in some cases, the design seems to have changed a bit from its (presumably) initial conception. A minor example here:

The closure at the neck gives quite a different effect to the zip used in the final version, and I doubt I would have thought of doing that myself if presented with a zip design - but I much prefer it. Incidentally, don't you love how these big cabled cuffs suggest a furry muff?

Totally yummy book. Yum yum yum. It's got lace, cables, colourwork, shaping, beautiful finishing details and carefully worked out construction - everything a knitter who likes her projects to hold her interest could possibly want.

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* Which I don't, as it happens, but that's a whole other complicated issue.

Turns out, my friend Lucy's father can no longer say the same, thanks to progressive supranuclear palsy. Which is why our team for the British 10k is running in aid of the PSP Association. Lucy says they have been a big help to her family.

I'm not really very comfortable with fundraising, for all sorts of not very good reasons. Usually when I race, I do it for me, and I don't ask for sponsorship. But now I'm asking. I bet you've never heard of PSP before, and I bet you'd be really glad this association existed if someone close to you was diagnosed with it. So this is for Lucy. I would really appreciate it if you would sling a couple of quid into the pot. Thank you.

Now isn't that a phrase that just makes you burn? I generally assume that it's a polite lie for "I have absolutely no interest in this, but I see that you quite enjoy it, and I wish I had something that I liked to do so much." Because of course, if you take the bait ("You can! It's so easy! I'll show you!") - well, that ends in nervous looks and stutters and a desperate bid for escape. So, as much to remind myself of this as anything else, I generally respond with: "I understand that knitting's not for everyone, don't worry, I don't mind if you're not interested."

But Tongtos insisted: "No, really, I would love to knit! I think it's wonderful! I really wish I could! But I'm terrible at it!"
"Oh," I said. "Well, have you tried much?"
"Yes, back in third grade, we did it in school and I just couldn't pick it up."

Now I ask you. Third grade. Please, when I did it in school I was the worst in the class. Seriously. What an idiotic idea to carry around with you: you couldn't do this when you were eight, so you can't do it ever.

And therefore I tend to revert to my initial interpretation: lack of interest. Because in the intervening 20 years, I'm sure Tongtos could have tried again if she wanted to. But of course this was the absolute worst thing she could have said, in terms of making me itch to convert her. I didn't try - I didn't see enough of her in the two days she was with us, and besides, there's that lack of interest thing. It just got me thinking again about the desire to spread the love of knitting far and wide.

I try to rein myself in, I really do. I absolutely know that not everyone wants to knit, or will like it if they try. I do tend to suspect that if someone says they "tried it, but didn't like it", they might have changed their minds if they just had better yarn, or needles, or a more fun project, or a better teacher... but I accept that very possibly, they Just Don't Like It. Different strokes. Okay. I can understand all that.

But you know what I really, really can't understand? What leaves me completely baffled? Knitters who like to knit, who are happy to occasionally talk about knitting... but who somehow have escaped the complete obsession that seems to take hold of so many of us. Knitters who haven't used their Ravelry account. Knitters who can pass by a yarn shop without even pausing for a moment. Knitters who admire what I'm working on, maybe ask how it's done, but don't actually want me to show them the answer, or to be introduced to the great patterns available online; knitters who you'll never actually see with knitting in their hands. How does that work? Casual knitters. It mystifies me.

1. The easy one: socks in handbag. Obviously mobile knitting (trains, waiting rooms, bus queues) is knitting that simply wouldn't have happened when I was all about one jersey in a basket in the living room. So this almost doesn't count - it's my bit on the side. It doesn't affect what happens inside the home. But then there's

2. The desk knitting. This one's quite new, and has yet to prove itself. I decided to try the idea of having some simple knitting at hand for when I'm on hold to some evil corporation, or waiting for a slow web connection, or similar. Well, so far, I'm certainly getting some knitting done (Armin's washcloth came out in record time), but I seem to be getting less work done. I suspect a plain stocking stitch sock might be the only thing that I can bear to pick up for literally a few stitches at a time - and I'm not sure I'll ever bother with casting on a completely plain stocking stitch sock. Hm.

3. The bedroom knitting. (Ooh er!) Also newish, and working out nicely. I decided it would be nice to have something availalbe for a few calming rows before bed, perhaps while reading a little, and indeed I like this very much. However, combined with the desk and handbag knitting, this makes for a total of 3 small and simple projects required... and I'm not naturally inclined towards small and simple projects. Which, I guess, explains how my current bedside knitting is that bit of lace I showed you. Anything on 2.5mm needles is immediately disqualified as "small and simple", don't you think? Again, hm.

4. The finishing. All these small projects, once the knitting's done and they no longer serve their time-filler purpose, seem to end up on the kitchen table. Then I work on the stitching of hems and darning in of ends while, say, waiting for the cats to finish breakfast (they cannot be left alone or they will switch plates, with Disastrous Results for both the fat-kitty-on-diet and skinny-kitty-on-prescription), or for supper to finish cooking. Stealing minutes in this way does seem to mean that finishing takes an inordinately long time, but on the other hand, it doesn't interfere with Real Knitting time.

5. And on that subject. I still always have the big sweater project in front of the TV. The magical part, though, comes when I've just finished and haven't had time to set up the next one yet (gathering of yarn, needles, pattern etc). Used to be I would go NUTS at this point, trying to find everything I needed so I could do some knitting RIGHT NOW. Which drove Armin crazy, if he was trying to watch TV while I fussed, and frankly it usually didn't work out too well for me either. You need some time to mull it over, don't you? Can't just dive in there. So now, when I cross the finish line, it's easy enough for me to bring out the handbag knitting as a stopgap until I have time to plan. Brilliant!

There you have it. The case for polygamy. What about you? Are you monogamous, or do you wish you were? Do you have a UFO problem? Startitis or finishitis? (I do always seem to finish a bunch of things at around the same time. Very strange.)