The world is in trouble now

Say hello to Fuzzyhulhu.

He's going to eat me first for this.

My mom got tired of my griping about not having a digital camera, so she got me one for an early birthday present.

My biggest reason for wanting a digital camera is that I’d like to try selling some things I’ve designed, or have plans to design, and these days it’s kind of hard to do that without pictures. It’s hard to find someplace that does good film developing for a reasonable price in a decent amount of time. And I hate feeling like I’m possibly wasting film taking crappy pictures. So, a digital camera seemed like the best way to go.

Now my problem is to decide where to submit designs.

I like Knitty. Its submission guidelines are clear and easy to follow. The guidelines say, “This is what we want from you, and this is what you’ll get in return.” It doesn’t have a set style, either. It’s a knitting magazine. The patterns they publish range from stylish to silly and useful to purely decorative. There are very few things I want to design that I think would be out of place in Knitty.

Then there’s Twist Collective. This one, I think is more of a fashion knitting magazine. The layout and patterns are much more likely to be stylish. Some things I’ve designed or plan would not be good for them. I have a couple things that are pretty utilitarian or geeky, and I don’t think Twist would be interested. Some other things would maybe be better for Twist than for Knitty. They definitely fill different niches. One thing that bothers me about Twist Collective is the submission guidelines. I kind of like the idea of patterns being sold through the magazine instead of getting a flat fee for them, but I’d like to know before I submit something what I’ll be getting. At least a ballpark idea. Twist Collective doesn’t advertise that. You have to wait until your design is accepted before you get a publication contract, which outlines the compensation structure. I don’t like not knowing what I’m getting into. It feels vaguely shady to me. And before anyone gets their skein tangled in a knot up over this, I’m not saying Twist has abusive or exploitative practices. I’m saying I can’t tell what their practices are until after a design is submitted and accepted, at which point, sure, I can say no thanks, but how much time has passed since I finished work on it? Would it be a good time to submit it elsewhere? Or will I have to sit on it for most of a year, during which time fashions will change, possibly too much for my design to be marketable? If the guidelines said, “E-mail us for our current compensation structure,” that would be great.

And, of course, there’s Ravelry. With Ravelry, you don’t have to submit your patterns to anyone, you just put them up for sale (well, that’s oversimplified, but not by much). Of course, Ravelry doesn’t really advertise for you, either. It’s a marketplace, and you’re competing with every other designer to get people’s attention.

I haven’t looked much into print magazines, although I should. I like actual magazines. I like holding things that I read. The kick from having something published on paper would be great. (However, I’m not even going to think about Vogue Knitting. I’m not that fashionable, ever, and from what I’ve heard they expect you to give up your design’s first-born as far as copyright and reprint goes.)

I know there are other websites and internet magazines I can try, also, but for now, I’m limiting myself to these (plus looking into print magazines more).

Is it just aptly named?

Is it just me, or are the top cables with the lacy insides . . . unfortunately placed in Berroco’s free pattern, Tarte?

I should acheive digital camera ownership today. I’ll be busy taking pictures this weekend. w00t!

To be written: comparison of Summerlin and The Two Summer Sundress. I’m sure there’s more stuff I wanted to write about, but I can’t think of what.

It’s perfect!

I am an inveterate and veteran web-surfer. I’ve been spending far too much time following links for at least fifteen (hmm, maybe fourteen) years. Ravelry does not help this. It starts out innocently enough. I look at my friends’ activity. Of course, the only person who has any activity on there is the lovely Triskellian, so that doesn’t take me long, even on days when she has a lot of activity. So then I look at her friends’ activity. And that’s when it all starts to get out of control. I start looking at patterns people I’ve never heard of have put on their queues, and finding new yarns that I just really want to get my hands on, and new on-line magazines and . . . two hours later, my queue and favorites pages well filled (in fact, I have completely emptied my queue in a fit of pique recently and need to refill it), I’ll have gotten absolutely no paying work or knitting done.

Another thing I really like about Ravelry (and yes, as much as I might complain about wasted time, I do like surfing the ’site), that I’ve had a chance to witness a lot with all this surfing, is the comments people leave about patterns. My absolute favorites are where someone will say, “Oh, I <3 this pattern! It’s faboo! Absolutely perfect! I’m going to make it in a different color, with a different yarn, and I’m going to make the ribbing an inch longer and turn it into a cardigan and I think I’ll add a cable detail to the neckline! It’s perfect!” Okay, so I exaggerate. But not by much. And you know it’s true.

Now, let me tell you about my new favorite pattern and how I’m going to do it differently . . .

Does this yarn come in “The Colour out of Space”?

Amigurumi seems to have really caught on in the western world. There is some really cute stuff out there. Triskellian has found quite a bit that she’s put on her favorites list over on Ravelry, including a couple of Cthulhus (this one and the one from Creepy Cute Crochet).

They really are cute.

I just have one problem with this. There are a few things in this world (or out of it) that are really never supposed to be cute. Cthulhu is one of them. Trolls are another (I have never liked those Norfin things). I think nuclear warheads would fit well on that list, also. (Oh, but now I have a great urge to write a pattern for one.)

I suppose you could try to argue that Knithulhu is cute, too, but it’s just not the same.

I do think I need a copy of Creepy Cute Crochet, though. And I added needlenoodle’s ‘blog to my Google Reader. And then I spent way too much time toodling around in Ravelry, finding neat things like a pattern for a cuttlefish, which I feel it is a moral imperative I make.

ETA: Oh my . . . I’m sure someone else has come up with this, and I’m not actually coining a term but . . . are the amigurumi Cthulhus . . . cutehulhus? I think I’ve just turned my own stomach.

If it was a snake it woulda bit me

So I got to work this morning and started looking through my purse for my flashlight so I could shine it around the garage floor to hopefully find the missing needle. I didn’t find my flashlight. I think I’d had a Maglite, and I never have great luck with those, so when I switched purses most recently, I probably left it in the “old” one. (The purse I’m using now is probably a good ten years older than the one I had been using.)

Instead, I found my missing needle. I have absolutely no idea how it got in there, particularly in the place where I found it. I think the car fairies (fairy? I don’t know, it’s a compact car, maybe there’s only room for one) took pity on me, and gave it back without my even asking.

In case you did not know this, when you lose something in the house, like your car keys, or your wedding ring, or whatever, if you really look and you still can’t find it, you can say, “House fairies, please help me find my [whatever you've lost],” and then you’re likely to find it. Often in a very strange place, like your car keys in the freezer, or your lucky underwear in the medicine chest. I am completely serious about this. And I am not saying that the house fairies were at fault in the original loss! Not at all! Really!

So, I can get back to the legwarmers. I don’t know how much I’ll work on them over the weekend, because I won’t be doing a lot of knitting and walking, which means I’ll be better able to work on the Shorty.

Speaking of which, I finished the back last night and had my good spouse help me “try it on.” I was a little concerned that I might need to do another four rows, or eight, but it seems okay. I’ve started on the right front now. I’m still on my second ball of yarn (although not for much longer), which makes me think I might have only needed to get three. If it seems like I have plenty, I might try to add short sleeves to it. Someone on Ravelry (yeahyeahyeah?) did one with long sleeves which is absolutely gorgeous (it’s on my favorites), so I know it looks good with long sleeves. I just want caps, pretty much, and I think that should look all right, too. We’ll just have to see what happens.

Just a reminder for myself: “preview post” is your friend, and you know this, and you keep ignoring her anyway. Stop doing that.

K2P(ay)4

January is the busiest month of the year for bookkeepers in public accounting (at least, in the U.S.). We have one month to finalize payroll from the prior year for all of our clients and get out W-2s. I’m almost done. I’m working on one of my last clients now.

I’m really glad we don’t have to knit the forms by hand anymore. There is a certain satisfaction in doing them that way — watching the purl bumps line up neatly under the needles, the knitted “v’s” looking like geese ready to fly away — but the machines do it so much faster, and you don’t have to worry about accidentally crossing a cable the wrong way, and causing some poor single mother to look like she owes $10,000 in taxes for the year. This way the IRS can just feed them into their machines, too, which saves time and tax dollars. Automation certainly has its uses.

I still say that if I ever start my own business, I’ll knit all my books by hand instead of using something like QuickKnits or Purltree, but when you’re doing something fairly impersonal and mindless, over and over, it’s really nice to sit back and watch the machine do its thing.

A missive from down the rabbit hole, reposted from my LiveJournal.