January 26, 2008: S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night

My goodness, how did it get to be Saturday already? Last I checked it was still Wednesday.

I taught my beginning cables class this afternoon—the one I had to cancel last week. What a fun class! I should have taken the camera. It's nice to teach in such a low-key atmosphere. Everyone had a few inches done on the cabled scarf project by the time class was over, and I taught a few intrepid souls how to cable without a cable needle. That's always good for a few minutes of fun. And we did the "yarn store tour" to look at various yarns and talk about what yarns are good for cable projects.

It was snowing again as I left the shop (Snow? In Montana? In January? Really?). Yeah, we've gotten a lot of snow this winter. I am trying not complain because we desperately need the moisture, but it ceased being fun about 20" ago.

I found out last night that I'll be teaching at the Fall Knit & Crochet Show in Portland, OR in September. I haven't done a TKGA show for a number of years. I don't know yet what classes were picked, so I don't know what I am teaching, but if you're around that area, now's your chance to catch a class. I like Portland. It's such a great city and it has Powell's.

Knitter's Magazine had one of their first Stitches events in Portland in 1995. I went. It was my first big trip by myself since moving out to Montana. I left DD#1 with the husband, packed up the Saturn station wagon, and headed out on a ten-hour drive west. The husband's college roommate—the friend named Michael I mentioned a few posts ago—and his wife lived in Portland so I stayed with them. I took three classes, one of which was a (six-hour!) class on knitting from charts taught by Sidna Farley. What a lovely lady. I may not have left that class an expert on charts. but at least she helped me overcome my fear and loathing of them.

Other memorable things about that trip? I accosted Nancy Thomas in the foyer of the Convention Center (she probably doesn't remember); I bought a 3.5" floppy disk for $15 from David Xenakis with the Knitter's Symbol Fonts on it (and we know where that led), and I bought a T-shirt that said, "If I Don't Knit I Get Cranky" on it. I still wear that T-shirt to sleep in.

Yes, it will be fun to visit Portland again, this time as a knitting professional.

I am off to finish the Mystery Afghan! And none too soon—it's supposed to get cold again next week.

January 23, 2008: The Myth of "Costless" PDFs

To be honest, the reason I dragged my heels so long on this digital download business was because I knew there were going to be lots of collateral issues to deal with. There is the need to divide the database into digital and hard copy subscribers, considerations of layout to allow printing on home printers, and—oh, yes—there is that little thing about cost.

Several of my fellow knitting designers have already gone to PDF download of their patterns. We've had many, many discussions amongst ourselves about how to price those downloads. Intuitively, one would expect that PDFs would be cheaper to produce; after all, the publisher is not spending money on paper, ink, page protectors, etc. I suspect most consumers look at it only from the perspective of adding up those hard costs, and they expect PDFs to be priced correspondingly lower than their hard copy counterparts.

But pricing consists of a lot more than just hard costs. We have to factor in overhead, materials, and some of us also need to get paid for our time. I had to purchase extra software for my online store which allows me to provide digital downloads. I can produce PDFs from the software which I use to create the newsletter, but doing so takes time, and time costs money. Every so often, someone will have trouble with a digital download and need me to provide technical support. Those less tangible costs need to be factored in.

A few months ago I got into a discussion on Ravelry in which someone (I later found out she was a law student) made the comment that it was morally wrong to withhold something from others which could be reproduced costlessly, and PDFs were used as an example. I (rather strenuously) disagreed that PDFs were not "costless" for the very reasons cited above.

[I now avoid prolonged conversations with people on Ravelry whom I suspect of being lawyers. It's not that I dislike lawyers (I don't)—it's just that when someone posts a dissenting opinion, the lawyer usually comes back with a five-paragraph post citing all sorts of obscure legal cases to support his or her position, effectively bludgeoning everyone else over the head with a closing argument to end all closing arguments. I've seen it happen repeatedly so I just avoid those discusssions now.]

A couple of subscribers have asked about the possibility of being able to download the digital versions of newsletter back issues they own in hard copy at no charge. The easy answer to that is "no," because in order for me to make that happen, I'd have to search the records to find out exactly which back issues they already own, then manually go into the online store and create a download link for each issue they wanted. I simply don't have time to do that.

But I raised this issue on one of the designer lists I belong to, and several of my fellow designers reminded me that there is another reason to say "no." Buying something in one form of media does not automatically entitle you to get it in another form. When we bought my truck this summer, the husband had the choice of getting the owner's manual in hard copy or on CD. Each version cost $400. If he bought the hard copy, he couldn't go back a couple of months later and say, "Hey, I bought the hard copy—now can I get the CD for free?" To cite another example, if you use pay-per-view to watch a movie on cable, that doesn't entitle you to receive a copy of the DVD at no charge.

I am walking a very fine line here. I value each and every one of my subscribers and I like to accommodate as many requests as possible. But I'm also running a business, and I can't give away my work or spend time on non-revenue-generating activities, or pretty soon there won't BE any products for knitters to download!

It may be (once I get all of the back issues into PDF form) that I will offer for sale a collection of back issues on CD. I don't want to make any promises about when that will happen, though, because there are some other items on the to-do list with slightly higher priority.

I realize that this is an educational process, because many knitters simply don't know what goes into creating a pattern. In many ways, it was a lot easier to be a knitting designer in the days before we had all this technology. I don't like situations where the rules and standards aren't already in place. But I suspect that most knitters will be pretty understanding once we explain the realities of the situation.

January 22, 2008: How to Wake Up the Alpha Dog

Chester isn't allowed to bring his avalanche victims tennis balls into the house at night for one very simple reason. If he manages to sneak one in without me knowing, this is what I hear at 4:30 a.m.:

Thunk.

(silence)

Thunk.

(silence)

Thunk.

(silence)

Thunk.

He will pick up the avalanche victim tennis ball and drop it on the floor—and he'll do this over and over until he gets someone's attention. If I am not already awake, this is usually enough to get me there.

He just about drove me nuts on Sunday. It was a whopping 3 degrees outside and he wanted to be out there playing search and rescue. I let him out for a bit, but then he went underneath the fallen woodpecker tree and buried the avalanche victim tennis ball under the branches, which he proceeded to remove by chewing through them (the husband reminded me that no one has ever accused Chester of being the brightest bulb in the box). He resisted all my attempts to get him to come in. I finally had to go out with the leash and get him. Then he sat in the laundry room and whined and dropped the avalanche victim tennis ball on the floor repeatedly.

When I was at school last week, the fourth graders were doing a scavenger hunt through the 50 states. The item for Maryland was a Chesapeake Bay Retriever. I told one of the fourth-grade boys that I knew where he could get one, cheap.

January 20, 2008: Back Among the Living

Thanks for all your good wishes yesterday and yes—my mother yelled at me too and said I should have gotten a flu shot. Lesson learned. I'm feeling somewhat better this morning, although this cough is still really annoying. It's okay when I am up, but as soon as I lie down it starts again.

The storm did hit as predicted. It started snowing around noon. By 6:00 p.m. or so the wind started picking up. We rarely get wind where we live—down in the valley there are places where the wind blows all the time but we're protected up in the trees here on the side of the mountains. However, when big fronts come through, they create a pressure gradient and the wind comes howling back down the mountains from east to west. I came downstairs about midnight and opened the front door (dumb) and I would guess the wind was blowing between 50 and 60 mph.

We didn't see this until the sun came up, but here is one casualty of the storm:

I called it the "woodpecker tree" because the pileated woodpeckers always came and drilled into it and I could watch them from my kitchen window. It's no suprise it went over—the inside is all rotted out (and full of bugs for the woodpeckers to eat!). At least it went in the direction of the woods and not into the woodshed.

The yard is littered with branches and needles and all sorts of debris.

The girls and I watched Avalanche Dogs on Animal Planet last night. I came up with an idea for an experiment. I'm going to go lie down in the yard somwehere and have the husband shovel snow on me and then we'll see if Chester can find me and dig me up.

In knitting news . . . I've added digital downloads of the 2007 issues of the Twists and Turns® Newsletter to each issue page. I'll be working my way backward through all the back issues and will add a year's worth every so often until they are all up. The earliest issues—which were done in Pagemaker and which don't convert cleanly in InDesign—will likely have to be scanned into PDFs. I wanted you all to know that I am getting to it—it's just not going to happen overnight (I wish!).

January 19, 2008: Follow the Cord

The husband's college roommate used to say, "Follow the cord," when he wanted us to focus on something. It's become part of my vernacular, and I might not always say it, but there are lots of times I'm thinking it in my head.

I got a great e-mail from Joel who says that he's noticed that it's really easy to lose your place in cable knitting. He's right. It's easy to get distracted and lose your place—or worse: cross a cable the wrong way. Why is that?

I think the answer has several parts.

Practice and muscle memory: Last week I started working on a particularly challenging piece of music (I am the pianist at church and accompany the choir). I see a lot of similarities between playing the piano and knitting, which is why I am using this analogy. In order for me to play well, I have to "get inside" the music. It's not enough to read the notes on the page as they present themselves; I need to become familiar enough with the piece that my brain doesn't have to stop and analyze what's coming up next—it just deals with it. When I get to that point, other parts of my brain are available to watch the director and listen to the choir so that I can adapt as necessary.

I think the same thing happens with knitting—even cable knitting. I've done it enough that my hands know what to do and I can allow that part of my brain to deal with it while another part of my brain listens to the TV or the husband. There may be a short period at the start of a project where I have to concentrate, but once I've "gotten inside" the pattern I'm usually okay. I don't have to think about how to cross a cable—it just happens.

Learning to "read" your knitting is another component of this. When you can anticipate what the cable pattern should do next without having to bounce back and forth between the instructions and the knitting, it's a lot easier to remain focused.

The difference in our hard wiring: Joel, I hope you won't take this the wrong way because no offense is intended. It's been my experience that men's brains frunction differently than women's. That's a good thing! If it were 1765 and we were depending upon the husband to provide meat for our table, I would want him to be very focused on the job at hand. Maybe he doesn't need to be quite so single-minded now in 2008, but biology sometimes takes a while to catch up with culture. If the husband is working on my truck, I want him to be able to stay on task and not be distracted by other stuff.

It did take a number of years for me to convince the husband that he could have a conversation with me while I was knitting. He would say, "I don't want to talk to you and mess up your concentration." The husband has a very "male" brain and he gets totally focused when he works on something (in other words, he doesn't want me to have a conversation with him while he's doing something). We've tried to make it a point to play to each other's strengths instead of getting upset about the differences. He handles the stuff that requires lots of concentration, and I handle the situations where several things need to be done at once. (It's kind of funny that our division of labor falls right along gender roles, but I know why that happens so I don't get too torqued when I find myself cooking dinner, doing laundry, and helping the kids with their homework all at the same time.)

This is not to say that occasionally I don't tell everyone around me to shut up so I can concentrate on some particularly sticky piece of knitting. My kids were trained from a very little age that if mommy said, "Hang on a second," she meant it.

Anybody else want to weigh in? Maybe we should say, "Follow the yarn" instead of, "Follow the cord."

I'm going to have to call the yarn store this morning and reschedule the class. I gamble every year that I won't get sick and don't bother to get a flu shot (the husband gets one because he is an EMT). I've only had the flu maybe three times in the past ten years, so the odds are usually in my favor. Not this year.

[When DD#2 was about 6 months old, a horrible flu virus hit the valley. DD#1, DD#2 and the husband all got sick. I was the only one who didn't get it—which was a good thing because I had to take care of the other three. I don't think this family has ever been quite that sick.]

I got a mild cold from the husband last week, and Thursday evening it morphed into something pretty hideous. I've had aches and a fever, and now I've got a nasty cough that I can't control. Last night I only slept four about four hours. I was hoping I'd feel better this morning (I don't) but even if I could teach a three-hour class without coughing up a lung, I don't think it's fair to spread this around. I didn't go anywhere yesterday and I would just as soon spend today on the couch. And northwest Montana is supposed to get hit with a massive storm sometime today. The husband is at an EMT class today and tomorrow. I hope we don't get any calls during this storm tonight or he'll be struggling to stay awake tomorrow.

January 18, 2008: I Feel the Need for Speed

My new computer arrived Monday afternoon; I took it to my computer guy Tuesday and he had both it and my previous computer until late yesterday. I had him transfer everything over for me—it's safer to pay him to do it than risk me screwing up something important. He also dropped in a second hard drive for backups, showed me how to install the extra memory I ordered (it should be here today), and gave me a quick-and-dirty tour of Leopard's new features. This is my seventh Mac since 1985 and Apple's innovation never ceases to blow me away.

I had a third-party app installed on my previous computer which let me see the CPU usage in the form of two little bars at the top right of the screen (one bar for each processor). The app got transferred over to this machine with all the other apps. We both got a big kick out of powering up this machine and seeing EIGHT bars (one for each of the eight processors). This thing is screaming fast. I'll be able to work on lots of projects simultaneously. Eight processors!—who knew? When I saw my first Mac at Computerland in the spring of 1984, I had no idea it would lead to this.

Enough about my new computer. Now it's back to work. I have an issue of the newsletter to put to bed and I'm teaching a beginning cables class tomorrow at Camas Creek Yarn. I worked a bit on an outline for the DVD this week; the more I work on it, the more I think it's going to have to be two DVDs in order for me to cover everything. I appreciate everyone's suggestions.

Oh, I also got the first cover proof for Cables 2. I'm not going to post a picture of it yet, because the graphic designer and I need to make some changes to it. However, I will tell you that it looks really cool and I love the way it coordinates with the cover of Cables 1. And the good thing is that it will help kick my butt into gear to get Cables 2 finished.

January 14, 2008: Making a DVD

I do try to listen to my customers and there has been a rash of requests lately for a cabling techniques DVD (or DVDs). After doing some research, I've contracted with a company here in Montana to help me make the DVD. (It'll be like doing Knitty Gritty!) Is there anything specific you'd like to see covered? Right now what I am thinking is basic cabling techniques, cabling w/o a cable needle, and fixing mistakes, but I am open to other suggestions.

If this goes well, you can bet that I'll do more DVDs on advanced technqiues.

January 12, 2008: Why Free?

Hey, thanks for the comments on Friday's post! I've really enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts.

A couple of you asked why I would give ANY of my work away for free. It's a good question—I'll try to answer it. The chemo cap pattern was intended to be a freebie from the beginning; as a cancer survivor myself, it didn't seem right to charge for something I hoped would help to ease the discomfort of fellow cancer survivors. That one will always be available on my website.

The knitalong patterns—well, some of you may ask "Why host a knitalong?" The Son of Aran knitalong on 2001 was one of those spur-of-the-moment ideas born out of reading posts to Aranknit in which people lamented that designing an Aran sweater was a skill beyond their ability. I wanted to prove to people that designing an Aran sweater was something everyone could do; hence the knitalong. I had no idea it would be so much fun. There is something really cool about going somewhere to teach and having someone come up to you wearing a gorgeous sweater and finding out that they were part of the knitalong and now have greater confidence in their designing skills. Knitalongs are a lot of work, though, which is why six years elapsed between the SOA and the FLAK.

As I was thinking about my marketing plan for Aran Sweater Design, it occured to me that hosting another knitalong would be a great way to generate interest in the book. The Aranknitters had been asking for another knitalong for a while, and I thought that a "teaser" of what was in the book would be good marketing. I think my hunch was right. I sold out of the first printing of that book much sooner than expected, and I'm still selling copies of it. The FLAK took on a life of its own and I've just loved seeing what everyone has done with their versions of that design.

It's interesting to note that other designers are now using the same knitalong or design-along concept to promote their books and patterns. I think that the SOA and FLAK knitalongs did more to get my name out there as an Aran expert than any of the other marketing techniques I've used.

So although the free pattern/design idea seems to work as a marketing tool for books and such, it doesn't seem to work well as a way to entice people to come to your site and look around and buy stuff.

[There is a whole 'nother aspect to this free pattern business, and that is the issue of free patterns from yarn companies. They can afford to give away patterns because they really want people to buy their yarn. I think we indie designers get a lot of competition from them, but I don't see that changing any time soon. Maybe that's a topic for another post.]

I should also add that I have so much knitting-related stuff in my brain that I'm not afraid of running out of things to sell. And I do like to thank my many loyal customers every so often by giving them a little something they didn't expect. I think, though, that I am not going to post those little somethings on my website; instead, I'll distribute them through the Twists and Turns® Newsletter or through the Big Sky Knitting Designs newsletter (sign up on the sidebar at left if you haven't yet).

Will I do another knitalong? Yes, probably—but the parameters will change. I would likely charge a nominal fee of $5 for the pattern instead of posting it on the website. If I did post anything on the website, it would be there for a limited period of time. I don't think I should have left the FLAK pattern up for two years, although two years after it started, there are still people working on their FLAKs and joining the FLAK Yahoo group (heck—there are still people looking for the SOA pattern and it's been eight years since that one!).

So there is the answer—maybe it makes sense, maybe not. I do agree with the idea that some people will never pay for a pattern no matter what. But I suspect they don't mind shelling out $3 for a latte every day. Go figure.

January 11, 2008: The Free Patterns Conundrum

Some time ago, I installed Google Analytics on my website. This little snippet of code allows Google to track the activity on my website and provides me with all sorts of information in some pretty slick reports.

One of the things I've noticed is that the free patterns I have posted here seem to draw people to the site—but those visitors come for the free patterns and nothing else. They don't linger to look around—rather, it's a quick in-and-out visit to pick up the freebie and that's it.

I'm not the only person to have noticed this; it's well-documented phenomenon among my fellow self-publishing designer friends. Free patterns are not the equivalent of cheap milk meant to get you into the store to buy something else. They are just that: free patterns.

So I have decided to remove the Follow-The-Leader Aran Knitalong as a free pattern. It's been there for two years, which I think is long enough. I plan to make it available for purchase as a digital download; those people who didn't get it sometime during the past two years can still get it, but they'll have to pay for it now. And I'm not asking for a million bucks—it's a nominal $8.00, which is the fee I have set for this and all future downloadable sweater patterns (other patterns will be slightly less). I know how much work went into that knitalong and I think $8.00 is a bargain for a mini-class with an Aran design expert. Where else can you get that?

I have no idea if this will cause some kind of international incident or if the change will pass without comment. I'm the wrong person to ask what knitters are thinking— as evidenced by the response I got to the plan to offer the newsletter as a digital download.

I'm a bit unsettled by the pervasive atmosphere on Ravelry of only wanting things that are free. I've heard the arguments on both sides, and all I can say is that I filter everything through my own experience, which is that of someone whose living rather depends on not giving her work away for nothing. If no one buys the knitalong pattern, that's fine—nothing has changed from last week. And there are still two free patterns there.

January 10, 2008: The New Duo Quad-Core

This little baby is on its way to me even as I type this:

I tried to look at something at the Apple Store Tuesday morning and the store was offline. I figured they were updating products and sure enough, when I checked again yesterday morning, they had listed the new line of Mac Pro desktop computers. I ordered the 2.8 GHz duo quad-core model—that's EIGHT processors! I have two processors now and I think that's fast; I can't wait to see what having eight processors is like. Oh, be still my heart.

I got a shipping notice last night and this new computer should be here on Monday. It'll take a day or two for my computer guy to transfer over what's on this computer to the new one, and then I'll be up and running. Hooray.

I had a good day yesterday, starting with a visit to my naturopath. When I saw him last month, he told me to cut down the amount of Armour I was taking because he was worried that I was getting too much and risking becoming hyper instead of hypo. The problem is that I felt much better on the dose I was taking. It seemed like I was getting enough T4 at the old dose, but my T3 levels went off the charts (pig thyroid hormone has a different ratio of T4 to T3 than human thyroid hormone). I asked him if there was a way for me to get the T4 I need without getting so much T3. He called the compounding pharmacy and had them make up some T4 without T3, so now I am to go back to the old dose, but I'll be taking more T4 and not as much T3. We'll see if my levels balance out better. I am so happy that he's willing to work with me on this and doesn't tell me that if I just eat less and exercise more, all my problems will disappear (like my old doctor did).

After the naturopath I headed to the accountant's office. We did a preliminary review of last year's records. They are mostly in good shape, but I need to clean up a few things in QuickBooks. I'll work on that this weekend. It will be great to have that off my desk and over at the accountant's instead.

Now if I can just sneak some knitting in there somewhere, I'll be all set.

January 9, 2008: Going Once, Going Twice . . .

The husband stayed home from work yesterday. I should have known something was up. He never stays home unless there is something going on. Sure enough, about 10:00 he came into my office and said, "Can you look at my computer? There's an auto auction in Spokane today and supposedly I can watch it online but it's not working."

[We have three businesses: mine, his concrete, and our truck salvage operation. I call it "ours" because when we set up the concrete business, we made it a single-member LLC—dumb dumb dumb. My name is not on the company so I run into occasional hassles when I try to transact business. We didn't make that mistake with the salvage operation; we're both owners and either of us can transact business. It works better when the husband remembers that I am part of the business and maybe he should warn me when there is an auction that he wants to watch online so I can get it set up ahead of time because I have not yet graduated from mind-reading school—more on that in a moment.]

So I went down to his office and looked at his computer and attempted to install the auction-watching software. Surprise! The auction-watching software only works with Windows! Hello! Not all of us like or use Microsoft products and that's not fair!

Fortunately for the husband, I have Virtual PC installed on my computer, so we went back to MY office where I pretended I was on a Windows machine (ugh) and got the auction-watching software up—all the while hoping my computer wouldn't have a stroke.

The software is actually pretty cool. You can see pictures of the vehicles being auctioned, hear the auctioneer, see the bids, and—if you are so inclined—bid on the vehicles from the comfort of your office. The husband was interested in a junked Dodge pickup for the salvage operation. It wasn't on the schedule for a while, so he left me there to bid on it while he went and did some other stuff.

So I sat there in front of my computer, knitting and doing paperwork, waiting for the pickup to come up for auction. Some of the vehicles took a while to dispose of, but I noticed that all Hondas, any 2006 or 2007 vehicles, and of course, this Dodge pickup, went within seconds. The husband had told me I could bid up to $2000—well, they had already reached that figure while I was still typing in my bid. It sold for $2900.

I think the software will work better when I have new computer and can run Windows natively. It was an interesting experience, though.

After the auction was over I sat down to pay the concrete company bills, but I ran into a couple of problems and had to go talk to the husband (who was out in the garage welding something). We have the same conversation every couple of months and it goes like this:

Me: "You need to put the job names on the invoices for me so I know which job account they track to in QuickBooks. You put C & B on this invoice but I don't know which C & B job it goes with." (C & B is one of the general contractors he subs for, and sometimes he runs multiple jobs for the same contractor.)

The husband (looking mildly perturbed that I am telling him this—after all, he's heard it before): "I only did one job for C & B last month—Hansen."

Me: "What about the Barnhard job? That's the job name that was on all the C & B paperwork, not Hansen. Who the heck is Hansen? You haven't mentioned a Hansen job. When did you start that one?"

The husband: "Oh. Hansen is the other name on the Barnhard job."

At that point I was just standing there staring at him, and I could see the light bulb go on when he realized (once again) that I can't read his mind. This is the man who would be hard-pressed to tell you what I am doing any given minute of the day because he knows virtually nothing about my business, but who believes that I somehow know telepathically that Hansen and Barnhard are the same C & B job.

Sigh.

After dinner I had a glass of wine and finished the fourth strip for the Mystery Afghan. I can't wait to finish this project because it's turning out so nicely! I love the Naturally yarn.

January 8, 2008: Update on the Computer

The computer problem is worse than I thought. I spent half an hour talking to my computer guru yesterday morning. I described what was happening with the computer and he knew immediately what the problem was. Unfortunately, it's going to be tough to track down exactly what it is, and it's potentially a time-consuming and costly fix. I basically have a time bomb sitting on my desk. It might run just fine for a couple more weeks or it might die tomorrow. That's the first time I've had that problem with a Mac (this is Mac #6 since 1986). Most of my computers run for 7 or 8 years at least.

I could order myself a new computer and have it here by the end of the week, but fellow Mac enthusiasts know that next week is Macworld and it's quite likely that Apple will announce improvements to its Mac Pro desktop line on Tuesday. Why get a 2.66 GHz machine this week when I could get a 3.0 GHz machine next week for the same price?

So if you don't hear from me for a while, it's because I am babying this thing and trying not to kill it. This couldn't come at a worse time—I have a newsletter deadline coming up—but that's the way it is.

January 7, 2008: The History of Janet's Knitting, Part 2

I went back to college in the fall of 1986 armed with a wealth of knitting knowledge accumulated over the summer, a stash of Brunswick Germantown, and two books:

I am sure I picked both of these up at the Needlework Attic before I left. The first one, All Sweaters in Every Gauge, turned out to be my primer in basic sweater drafting. It required you to knit a gauge swatch, measure the stitches and rows per inch, then plug those numbers into a variety of worksheets to create instructions for knitting a sweater. The worksheets differed depending upon whether you wanted a crew- or V-neck (with lots of variations within those two styles), and whether you wanted dropped-shoulder, set-in, or raglan sleeves. It's OOP, but Ann Budd's book The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns is built upon the same principles.

I know I must have made half a dozen sweaters using this book, one of which was a set-in sleeve crew-neck pullover from the blue-and-gray ragg Brunswick Germantown I hauled back to college with me. I wore that sweater FOREVER and I wish I had kept it. I've since accumulated enough of the same Brunswick Germantown yarn to recreate it—I just need to do it.

When I wasn't drafting my own patterns, I used the ones from Great Knitting in Vogue to make sweaters for my friends. (Sweaters they have all kept, by the way.)

Those two books gave me a really good foundation in basic sweater design and finishing. I like the fact that no one ever said to me, "Oh, set-in sleeves are too hard! You shouldn't try to make those kinds of sweaters!" so my first three or four-sweaters were set-in sleeve designs. (I should note that 1986 was roughly the start of the age of the boxy dropped-shoulder sweater style, so I was already hopelessly old-fashioned even then.)

The funny thing is that—even after "designing" a half-dozen of my own sweaters—I never thought of myself as a "designer." I viewed knitting designers as some mysterious breed of people endowed with a special talent beyond the reach of us mere mortals. I suppose that's a good thing, because I spent the next 10 years honing my knitting skills before jumping into designing.

Some of the other things I knit between then and graduation were unqualified disasters. There was the pullover for a friend's 2 year-old niece made out of Patons Canadiana from a Workbasket pattern—the neck opening was so tight she couldn't get it over her head. My mother picked out yarn and a pattern for a cardigan—it was all garter stitch and it fit perfectly the first time she wore it, after which it stretched vertically to the point that it could have doubled as a robe (note to self: you knit more loosely than most people). I made the husband (then boyfriend) a pullover out of some terrific yarn I got at the Needlework Attic (I must have made another pilgrimage there that I don't remember) which he dutifully wore even though the neck opening was a little big. He even let me measure him for handmade socks following an article in Threads Magazine (I figured that was a good sign that I should marry him).

And in March of my senior year, I met my parents in Washington, D.C. They flew down every year for a big NASA dinner at headquarters, so I would get myself over there to spend the weekend with them. That year, my very indulgent father paid for a taxi to take us to (I think) Falls Church, VA, where TKGA was holding a knitting conference. We walked around the market and I remember being blown away seeing Maggie Righetti there signing books. A knitting celebrity! Wow! Lily Chin and I compared notes the last time we were together and she says she was there too—it was one of her first teaching gigs. Little did I dream that one day *I* would be teaching at a TKGA conference.

January 6, 2008: The History of (Janet's) Knitting

Writing that post about knitting needles got me to thinking a bit about how long it's been since I started knitting. I tell people I was about 8 when I started—I don't remember exactly but I do know that's about the time when I went through some big craft phase and did some embroidery which my mother still has hanging in her family room. So I am sure I learned how to knit about that same time.

I began knitting seriously when I was a sophomore in college. Why?—I have no idea; I remember that there was a small yarn shop in Chestertown and I purchased yarn there for some project or another. The next year the shop closed, but there was a fabric store in town which sold Candide and Red Heart Cotton.

1986 was a formative year in my future knitting career, although I think originally it was intended to be a formative year in my future medical career. It just didn't work out that way, and as I look back on it, that whole summer was packed with all sorts of bizarre coincindences which have rippled through my life for the past 22 years.

I spent that summer in Bethesda, MD, working at the National Institutes of Health in the lab of Carleton Gajdusek, winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Medicine. Oh, I learned a lot about how labs of that size and caliber function. But what was really cool was that just about EVERYONE in that lab knit, from the lowly intern (me) all the way up to one of the senior researchers. I got my first introduction to Brunswick Germantown that summer (and we all know how THAT turned out). Every time I go to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, I run into Carleton's former assistant, Steve, who was one of the knitters in the lab.

I roomed with a lovely little Polish lady who lived across the street from NIH. Her sister-in-law was visiting from Poland, and she knit! All the time! Every night after dinner we would all sit on the porch and drink iced tea: my landlady would translate while her sister-in-law and I knitted. Her sister-in-law said that she loved America "because you could buy wool ANYWHERE and knit all the time." A woman after my own heart. She never used a pattern; she simply looked at a picture and knitted what she saw.

[The sister-in-law had a lovely daughter in her 30's who also lived with my landlady. Sadly, the daughter got leukemia a few years later and died—one of those coincindences I mentioned, because *I* got leukemia, too.]

I still have the Summer 1986 issue of Vogue Knitting, which was my near-constant companion that summer. I made several of the designs in that issue: one was a Calvin Klein textured cotton pullover which my mother has squirreled away somewhere because she won't let me throw it out (the finishing is AWFUL). I bought the yarn at the Needlework Attic in Bethesda. It was a good walk from the house where I was staying, but I didn't care. I would walk down to the store (right past the Lutheran church where my as-yet-unknown future mother-law had gotten married, because in the 60's her family had lived on the same street where I was staying with my Polish landlady) and then treat myself to an ice cream from the place next door.

Another project (which did get thrown out, thankfully) was a cabled tank. I bought the yarn for that one at a yarn store at Montgomery Mall. The mall was too far a walk, but the bus went right by the house where I was staying. I remember going to that store and asking the lady there for a yarn recommendation. She suggested a cotton/WOOL blend and I—in my naivete—knit the tank top out of it. I couldn't wear it! It was too warm and itchy! (Steve still teases me about that project.)

Tomorrow I'll write a little bit more about going back to school that fall and the knitting I did my junior and senior years, because that's when I started to "design."

January 5, 2008: The Joys of Technology

Okay, so the consensus is that the IE display problem is fixed, is that correct? Are there problems with any other pages? There shouldn't be, as they are all built off the same template—but if you find any issues, please let me know. Thanks, everyone, for all your help! I apologize for making you work so hard.

Now, back to the low-tech art of knitting. Oh darn, not really, because the low-tech art of knitting involves a fair bit of technology.

I think I am going to have to get a new computer. I've been on a two-year purchase cycle for new computers and I managed to eke out three years on the current machine. It's had the memory maxxed out, the original hard drive replaced TWICE with bigger and faster ones, and several other upgrades made to it. But it's becoming clear that I cannot have all my Adobe Creative Suite 3 apps open and running and expect also to be able to surf the web and read e-mail, too. This morning I was working on the newsletter. One of the patterns has an extremely large chart and I crashed the computer when I tried to make a change to it. When formerly-routine tasks take forever or cause the computer to crash, then I know it's probably time to think about a new purchase. Add to that the fact that I am working on Cables 2 and soon Cables 3 and I probably shouldn't hold off too long.

[Yes, I CAN talk myself into buying a new computer, why do you ask?]

Besides, we're reaching the stage where we all need to use computers and we're having some traffic jams. No one is supposed to be on my computer besides me. It's a business computer, for one thing, and the wrong move by someone Googling the answer to a homework question could wipe out a whole bunch of work. This computer will go to the husband and his computer will go to the girls.

Well, I'll think about this some more before I decide. "Impulse purchase" is not my middle name. I tend to analyze and over-analyze and the husband eventually has to just push me off the fence.

January 4, 2008: Janet's Favorite Needles (and some other stuff)

UPDATE: Okay, so that wasn't the problem. I am still working on it. When I check the code for browser compatibility in Dreamweaver, it all comes up clean.

First, I need to get some administrative stuff out of the way. I have tweaked the site a bit to try and fix this Internet Explorer problem that some people are having. (It's not a completely reproducible problem—my mother says it looks fine on her work computer but not on her home computer.) I plan to work on it some more today, but if any of you want to let me know what the site is doing/how it looks on your PC, feel free.

[I'll leave out my rant about Microsoft and how their products give me no end of headaches because they refuse to play nicely with the rest of the world.]

Also, I tweaked the code because Bloglines was telling me it could not find the RSS feed for this site. Is anyone else having that problem? Is it working now? If not, I'll try to fix that one, too.

Moving on to knitting . . . Dawn asked which needles I like best. Here is a short retrospective:

When I was in college, I had a bunch of Susan Bates Quicksilver needles. They were inexpensive and if I recall correctly, could be bought at the Ames store in Chestertown, MD. I still have a few.

In the early 90's I bought some Addi Turbos, because they were all the rage, but I REALLY don't like these needles. I have a terrible nickel allergy so the nickle plating bothered my fingers, and they were so slick that I found myself clutching the needles which made my hands cramp up. Plus the tips were like the ends of baseball bats. All of my Addi Turbos have since gone to someone who loves them.

On a trip to Canada in 2000, I discovered Aero needles!

I have a lot of these. They have nicely-pointed tips and I use them a lot. They were my faves until just recently. Red Heart used to make some that were very similar and could be bought at the Wal-Mart in Cranbrook, BC, but the tips were really inconsistent—some sharp, some not. I have a few of them but don't use them very often.

The coated aluminum Inox needles come in a close second to the Aeros, although the tips are not always as sharp.

About six months ago I picked up a pair of the new Addi Lace Needles and I just love them! They are now my favorite needles of all time. I have at least one of each in every size and length, although I could sure use some 16" ones and some straights. If anyone knows if they will be coming out with either of them, please let me know. I love the brass plating (thank you, Skacel, for not making them nickel) and the tips are perfect.

I love straight needles for swatching and small projects. I recently got a pair of these:

These are the Signature Knitting Needles and they are quite nice. I ordered a pair of 4 mm needles with the "stiletto" tips. I think a complete set is in my not-too-distant future (right now my Inox straights are my "go-to" needles for swatching).

So there you have it—Janet's favorite knitting needles. The sharpness and quality of the tips will always be the deciding factor for me. Questions or comments?

January 3, 2008: Presenting the Anaconda Hat and Scarf Pattern!

This is the first pattern in the "Downloads" section of my store. I wanted to put up a pattern, first, to make sure that the download process worked properly. I'll start adding more patterns and—eventually—back issues of the newsletter. Soon. But not this week. Or next. I have to get the Spring issue put together, first.

I knit this set on Christmas Day and my sister-in-law said that it looked like a great big snake, hence the name. It's a quick-and-easy pattern and I love how warm it is. The hat is a bit big for my head mannequin, whose head circumference is a good 2" less than mine. Go figure.

I've tested the purchase and download method of this pattern and it worked for me, but if anyone runs into issues, please don't hesistate to let me know.

January 1, 2008: A Little Redecorating

The beginning of a new year is always a good time to toss out the old and bring in the new, don't you think? I have some advertising in place for the year and I want it to be consistent with the appearance of my website, hence the redesign. My apologies to those of you using Internet Explorer—the banner at the top of the page looks stellar in every browser except IE (at least on the Mac), where it is horribly pixelated. Thank you once again, Microsoft.

Here are some pictures of the Big Sky Knitting Designs mascot for you:

He does this thing where he digs a really deep hole, drops the ball into it, then sticks his head down into the hole and barks. Presumably that's to make sure the avalanche victim tennis ball is awake and conscious. It's really hysterically funny to watch. He did this for HOURS the other day. We had just gotten 14" of snow and he was having a grand old time. This is the Chesapeake Bay Retriever who does not like water, but he'll spend days in the snow if we let him. Another successful rescue!

The husband rang in 2008 at a structure fire. It was only a couple of miles down the road, but in the neighboring fire district. They received the call as a chimney fire in progress, and by the time everyone arrived the house was engulfed. Our guys went to provide mutual aid. It was terribly sad for the owners to have to start the new year with a burned-out house.

I'm off to tweak the website a bit more.