Timing

I think my timing is a little off lately. Take today for instance. I spent 3 hours this morning typing up a new pattern and getting it posted to 2 on-line shopping sites. I really thought my timing was excellent with Saturday being National Support your Local Yarn Store Day. My feeling was this would be a great time to post a pattern so people could go and buy the yarn and purchase the pattern.

Not so much. It turns out that the large yarn companies are sponsoring trunk shows across the country and giving away Free Patterns with a yarn purchase. If this is not a head desk moment than I really don't know what qualifies.

I have tried the free route before. It does not work for me, wait for it...I am not a large yarn company that can recoup the free pattern cost by selling the yarn. Even worse when a pattern is given as a small promo, everyone ignores the copyright and makes zillions of copies to give to their friends who were not part of the promo. Thus leaving a whole city of knitters who don't need to buy the pattern. With comments such as if you enjoy what you are doing why should we pay you? Or better yet, it's not like you are doing real work and you owe it to the knitters of the community. I am pretty sure that these are the people who copy patterns and don't pay the designers for their work.

Please remember that small independent pattern designers, who self publish must buy their own yarn to knit the design that pops up in our heads. So for a small item like a washcloth, 2 patterns must be sold to just cover the cost of the yarn. The costs only go up from there. Today's pattern will require 6 patterns being sold just to cover the cost of the yarn. Then there is design time, knitting the sample to see if what is in my head works out. Then and additional 3 to 4 hours to photograph, type the pattern and get it published.

So if you are looking for a moms day, fathers day ( yes, men do knit ) birthday or holiday gift for a knitter please consider this pattern,  2 of 3 A Shawl Study and a skein of yarn to go with it. Thank you and happy knitting.

Sleep

This weekend was spent catching up on sleep. With at least 12 hours of sleep on both Saturday and Sunday.  I can say that my body feels a little better. The house looks a little worse. I am behind on laundry and changing out linens, there is always tomorrow for that.

Eric had a very late night asthma episode, so I am trying to relax so I can get to sleep. I think it would help a lot if Eric decided that it was sleep time instead of play time. This always happens when his treatment happens after 10:30 pm. Timing is everything in life. 

John spent the weekend designing 2 new drop spindles for me. I know, who would have thought that he would ever design and 3-D print drop spindles for me. He is now enabling my fiber addiction. I will have two new spindles to play with. Tomorrow I need to find time to do an alpha test on the first model.  I wonder how thin I will be able to spin the yarn, the spindle is very light.  Since the spindle design is his, all I will be able to post is the finished yarn for now.