Jananas

I read alot and talk alot about what I’m doing, not thinking about or talking about or planning for but what I’m actually doing and accomplishing. My reaction to lost productivity (i.e. not knitting during meetings at work) is in mostly because I could be doing something and doing more. There’s a chance to improve and pack more into that one moment so that I have free time later to do or make or accomplish something else.

There’s something more than just doing though and that is what did you make today?

So much of our lives now are knowledge based. I wrote a blog post or finished a business case or tweeted. I thought about a problem.

We tend to focus on how important those things are to our economy and livelihoods. I think that an equally important skill set is being able to challenge yourself in the physical realm as well – making rather than thinking. New skills are always awesome and each new one makes you more knowledgeable and well rounded and formidable.

It helps people to understand others better. For example, I’ve knit myself sweaters. I know how much time it takes me and how much money I spent on the yarn. So when I see a price tag on something that’s been handmade (or even machine made and mass manufactured), I can better evaluate whether that price is reasonable or not. This principle extends – if I try to fix a plumbing mishap myself I’m going to better value a plumber’s time and skillset (and less likely rail against his high fees) next time I need one. Or maybe I’m just a very different thinker.

Last weekend I tried my hand at dying my own rovings. One batch was just a bunch of silliness and rainbow goodness so that I could play and see what happened. I spun it up late last weekend attempting a single ply. It was better than usual, but still kinky so I had to wash and hang it with a little weight to set it.

I made yarn and that’s a pretty neat thing to be able to say.

One of the things that I hate, hate, hate about working is that it actually makes me less productive overall. Its because a large percentage of my time is structured according to what a company thinks a good use of time is – so from 9 to 5 I’m sitting at my desk reading word documents, playing with excel, and attending meetings. But there’s a good chunk of time in there that I’m spending listening to other people or just thinking about problems, and I can do both of those things with knitting needles in my hands. Think of it as multitasking that actually works (multitasking by checking email every 5 minutes and trying to work on three files at once only makes you feel like you’re doing more. it doesn’t actually make you more productive or efficient.).

Its also my first week, so I’m still adjusting to the schedule and having to dress up and am burning tonnes of brain energy trying to process all of this new information. By the time I get home at night I’m not motivated anymore to pick up my knitting or to spin. I’m more like a little kid whose so overtired they throw tantrums (which I did last night when my spinning wheel was acting up and I needed to fix it NOW and I had to do it BY MYSELF. Then I thanked Jason for putting up with my sorry ass and dutifully took myself to bed before I did any more relationship damage.).

Instead I’m trying to carve out some me time in the morning. Its only 20-30 minutes, but its set aside in my mind for spinning. Yes, its taking me a lot longer to make progress because I can’t sit down and dedicate 2-3 hours to it. But, 20 minutes every morning does add up. This week I’ve been spinning up some white superwash merino to use to ply against some super bright singles I’ve spun up over the last few weeks. They are bright and fun colours, but difficult to match to other dyed stuff. Its easier just to ply them against something neutral. I picked white because it should help the colours really stand out, although a friend suggested that I pick a brown for a more tweedy appearance. Thankfully there’s always a next time when it comes to experimenting with spinning yarn.

I’m proud to say that I managed to finish and block my lace shawl before the closing ceremonies. It is still laid out on my study floor, as I’ve been too busy doing other stuffs to bother unpinning it.

I have to say that I didn’t think that it would be quite this big once it was blocked. I’m really bad at estimating size when going from circular needles with stitches all bunched up to a final, blocked lace piece. I guess that this shouldn’t be that surprising given that it took four balls of silky Malabrigo (in the Archangel colourway). In fact, I ran out three rows from the end!!!! THREE! I finished off in some black alpaca that Jason’s sister had sent me. Tracking down another ball of the Malabrigo just seemed silly as I wouldn’t have used it all up and so would have had leftovers. I guess I’m more practical than a perfectionist when it comes to knitting.

And since I finished, I’m proud that to post the above little image to show that I won gold in the 2010 Knitting Olympics (meaning that I completed!). Yay!

The Daily Knitter is a website that drives traffic by offering a free daily knitting pattern. They also have a repository of free patterns, plus some exclusive patterns and articles. They drive traffic to their site by offering free patterns and earn revenue from advertising based on that traffic. My personal experience is that they are doing that at the expense of the designers.

Back in September my Basic Ear Flap Hat Pattern was picked up as one of their free patterns of the day. I was pretty excited because it meant a) traffic to my site, b) more exposure for the knitting pattern, and c) more people knitting my hat. Free patterns of the day are on the site for the last two weeks (backwards from today), however I kept getting traffic for about four months. All of a sudden in January it just stopped. Nadda, nothing.

I sent their editor a first email in January asking (nicely I might add) if the pattern could be listed on their repository of free patterns. No response and it wasn’t added. Apparently it was good enough for their free pattern of the day, but not good enough to be listed. At this point I’m a little annoyed, but hey there could be a million and one reasons why the editor didn’t respond back. So I sent another email early in February and again, no response and the pattern wasn’t added. Now, I’m really irritated – six weeks is reasonable time frame to expect a response.

This is a shitty way to treat the pattern designers. In my case, I wasn’t even asked if I was okay with them listing my pattern as the free pattern of the day. At the time I was glad for the increase in traffic but once that traffic died away but the benefit to their business continued, I was peeved because they continued to profit from using my pattern.

Here’s how I interpret their business model – they use daily free patterns to entice people to come to their site daily, driving their stats and generating ad revenue. Every new free pattern helps drive their business – so while I received a finite increase in traffic, the benefit to them from using my pattern continues long after any benefits to me (the designer) stopped.

Behind that, though, are the people writing the free patterns that the Daily Knitter is the goodwill of the designers whose patterns they use to drive traffic. In an era where reputation and trust are important, why would you risk that over something so minor?

Really, is it that difficult to add all patterns listed as ‘free patterns of the day’ on your ‘free patterns’ pages as well? Is it that difficult to respond to an email from a person whose design you’ve used (and therefore profited from)? I would think that it would be in your best interest to maintain a good relationship with your designers so that they’d be more willing to contribute to your site in the future (and thus increase the value your provide).

Daily Knitter, I think that you’ve behaved poorly and I certainly won’t be recommending that anyone use you.

Edit (March 10th) - the pattern has been added back to their listings. I’m not 100% if it was just that they finally read through their emails and there was simple a system error that I was caught in or if they came across this acted. Regardless, the email I finally got back was pleasant and friendly and the pattern has been added back. WIN!

As the Olympic fever winds down, I’d like to say that I’m pretty proud that I didn’t watch any (except for about 30 minutes at a friend’s place where it was on the in background while we played some Catan). Its not that I’m not proud of how well the athletes did, its more that I don’t think that all the pressure to be perfect and to shave milliseconds off a time is healthy. I don’t think that the nationalism is healthy. And I know that listening to the commentators will make me want to scream – I have enough frustration in my life right now that’s outside my control without adding something I know will irritate me.

Instead I spent my time knitting and spinning and interviewing and reading. Instead of living vicariously through someone else, I lived my own life.

And it included some pretty awesome moments like the one pictured below. Where my newly Canadian dog napped on his Fraser tartan blanket with his nose just barely touching his favorite bone (generously given to me for free from the local Portuguese butcher around the corner from my house).