Archive for the “A Writer's Life” Category

You never know where or when it is going to strike. This time it was Friday evening, on my way to the tube. I understand now why people have huge stashes - as it was, I had to wait until Saturday when I promptly returned to Stash and denuded a certain shelf.

I swatched all day Saturday…

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…and scribbled notes on graph paper…

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… and made Neil measure bits of me (no I don’t have photos of that ;-) )

Today I have achieved this:

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… and not much else I’m afraid - I have the bug :-D

Can you guess what it is?

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A little box was waiting for me at work yesterday, it contained…

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Very exciting! Please admire the new business logo - Allena did it for me, working from my very unprofessional little pencil sketch. She is a genius!

I’m off now to hand out business cards to unsuspecting people in the street :-D

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Things I know:

1. If you want to spin a yarn to a specific gauge you should do a sample and knit a swatch.

2. You should then keep your swatch, yarn and original singles handy while you spin so you can regularly check the grist (thickness) of your new singles to ensure uniformity.

3. It is easily possible to achieve on-gauge yarn if you follow these rules.

Things I also know (now):

1. If your original swatch is off gauge (24 is like 22 isn’t it?) then you probably should do another one rather than planning to ’spin a bit thicker’.

2. If you are a bit lax on rule two (see above) because you know you are pretty experienced and it ‘looks okay’ then you deserve to fall in a screaming heap get your come-uppances.

3. Knitting with fingering weight yarn on 4mm needles does not make a nice firm fabric no matter how much you want it to be DK weight.

4. Discovering you have 200m of lovely fingering weight yarn and no fibre left and a pattern which uses DK calls for a glass several glasses of red wine.

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Yesterday I was refused a mobile phone contract. I can kind of sympathise with the company - I have only been here a short time and there’s no guarantee I’m staying. I also ticked the “self-employed professional (writer)” box. To tell you the truth, I probably wouldn’t trust me with an 18 month contract. It is a fact that I don’t earn enough from writing to pay telephone bills and I may not be here in 18 months.

It occurred to me though - If, say, the Yarn Harlot decided to up and move to the UK and when shopping for a phone, ticked the “self-employed professional (writer)” box, would she be declined? It seems unfair somehow.

There was very little scope on the form to explain that I actually have two jobs and I chose the one that sounded cooler than ’shop assistant’ and I have a husband who’s likely to bail me out of debt if necessary as well. Oh well. I bought the phone outright in the end and stuck my pre-pay sim inside and all is well.

All was even better when I arrived at work to find a squidgy parcel waiting for me :-D Cocoa Dream sock yarn from Cairi’s shop (mmmmmm) I have an inch of capuccino-coloured ribbing, and after six hours in the car to Wales and back, hopefully a little more!

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In other news, as you may have guessed I am off to Wales this weekend for Wonderwool. It’s very exciting - I’m looking forward to looking at sheep, seeing a country I’ve only visited once for an hour and perhaps buying some fibre :-D

I have remembered to pack my camera and will tell you all about it on Monday!

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Thinking about blogging

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We have been nominated by the lovely ladies over at Tea Reads as a Thinking Blogger. Thank you! It is a great honour to know that people are inspired by what we write.

When I first set out to blog I was merely writing down semi-interesting things about my life and my knitting. Gradually, as I began to read many other blogs, I realised that I was learning from the wide and wonderful blogosphere out there: I decided that I too wanted to try and inspire others and pass on some of my knowledge. Since Heather joined me in blogland she has also been adding snippets from her incredible store of knowledge and experience.

In deciding who to nominate, I started thinking about the blogs I read regularly and found I could categorise them into three areas:

Inspiration: These blogs keep me hungry to try new things and quite often make me go Wow! Sometimes I think: I could do that! and sometimes it’s more: Well, not everyone can be a genius! Pink Lemon Twist falls into this category.

Entertainment: Some knitting blogs are hilarious. On a blue day I know that some time trawling through archives in blogs like The Yarn Harlot will soon cheer me up. (She also counts as inspiration).

Friendship: Living in the centre of eight million people can make me feel very far away from everything at times. No matter where my friends are (from Pennsylvania to Tasmania) I can keep up to date through reading their blogs. A comment on a post often gets a quick response and sometimes leads to a protracted email conversation which is almost like the real thing. Cairi and Amanda are examples of great friends who I have never met in the flesh but nevertheless feel very close to.

So, nominations. As this is a shared blog I will nominate 3 blogs which make me think, and leave 2 for Heather.

1. I have to include See Eunny Knit!. This girl is amazing. Her genius is enhanced by her attention to detail and she is not above sharing her knowledge freely (really freely) with anyone who cares to read it. She has been recently named the new editor of Interweave Knits so will probably be blogging less, but I can’t think of anyone more deserving.

2. Carrie of My Middle Name is Patience deserves a mention. Every time I read her blog I get inspired again to read ‘proper’ books. We have chats about authors and she encourages me in my writing.

3. I have been lurking around Two Left Needles since I first started reading blogs. I think I left my first ever comment last week. For spinning inspiration and information I’ve never found a better blog, I have learnt a lot reading this one.

Here are the rules for those who have been nominated:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,

2. Link to the thinking blogger post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,

3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (here is the silver or gold version ).

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Don’t Give Up Your Day Job…

Today I gave up my day job. I am no longer a primary school teacher: I am a writer, I am a designer, I am a knitting/spinning/crochet teacher and, funnily enough, I enjoy all those things more than being sworn at by snotty little kids who I will never get any joy from as I’m only there for a day.

My Reasons (apart from being sworn at):

1. The book wasn’t getting done. Mum read through the plan last week and said “um, this says ‘proposal to publishers end Feb’ … it’s the end of Feb now…” so we pushed the proposal date back. And I realised that that was going to happen a lot if we didn’t actually do some WORK.

2. I can’t be a famous (or even struggling) writer/designer if I don’t submit anything. If I had gone to school today I would almost certainly have missed the Knitty deadline which snuck up on me and went BOO! this week.

3. Stomach cramps on Monday mornings.

4. Getting up early on Monday mornings.

5. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut feeling.

Incidentally, I haven’t actually quit my agency, I just don’t intend to call in for a while. It’s there in reserve in case I find I’m missing the pitter patter of medium-sized feet (hah) or I start to starve.

I may write more on this later, at the moment I need to go earn a buck.

Ciao!

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