journal

Incremental

First, there was the skein. The ball of yarn. The one and only.

One Skein.

The One Skein Wonder.

One Skein Wonders (the book, not to be confused with One Skein Wonder, the pattern. Don’t make me post a responsive comment about copyright, trademark, and titles, thanks).

What’s next? Why, why not two balls of yarn?

You know those television commercials for men’s disposable shaver heads that feature three — no four! five! blades? That’s what I’m thinking.

Three lessons

In the April edition of KnitNet (I know, it’s the end of July; I only happened to look today) we have a pretty brief editorial based on the theme of “no good deed ever goes unpunished”. This moral is supported by a very brief story about why the current issue of KnitNet was low on patterns:

[W]e think of [the April] edition as our chance to welcome new designers — not just new to us, but new to the business of designing — in order to give them a chance to work with professionals. Our hope is that they’ll be able to hone their skills, particularly the difficult and exacting art of pattern writing…

Sometimes, it doesn’t work out quite the way we intended.

This year, for example, after more than a month of working with her, one designer balked at her patterns being brought into line with KnitNet standards. We pride ourselves on offering consistent, accurate patterns so felt we had to insist. Ultimately, she took her socks and went home.

Too bad for all of us because, not only did it delay publication by weeks, it leaves us a little shy on patterns for this edition.

The editrix thinks there’s a lesson to be learned with. I spot two:

1. The designer — even a new one — should have realized that all publications have standards for pattern writing (and this page links to KnitNet’s standards in PDF form). Assuming that the tech editor wasn’t proposing to do something that changed the meaning of the pattern instructions, well, that’s the way it is, but somehow I find it hard to believe that even a first-time contributor would object to a particular style of abbreviation or formatting. I wonder what happened?

2. I am apparently old-fashioned enough to think that it is not professional for an editor of a periodical to describe, in an editorial, how difficult it was to work with a would-be contributor, and to use that story to explain why an issue was late or otherwise lacking.

And an exercise for discussion: what was the “good deed”, anyway?

And as a bonus, lesson number three can be found here, in a reprint of an earlier gem penned by the publisher:

Everywhere I look on the Web, every search I do turns up, not useful and valuable information any more, but increasingly, somebody’s personal opinion, on their website or blog or podcast.

Now there is nothing wrong with this… The problem is that all this opinion on the Web makes searching for the facts more and more difficult. Now I have to wear my hip waders when I surf the Web. It gets harder and harder to find the pearls in amongst the straw.

There has been much talk of creating two separate Webs, one for business and one for personal use. I think it is a great idea. It can’t come too soon.

Hey, Web 1.0 called. It wants its web-safe palette back. Will his opinion change in 2012 when he learns about the companies engaging in topical or vertical searching?

I can understand being overwhelmed by the volume of user-generated content out there, but the individual searching the web for answers doesn’t cope only by taking information with a grain of salt; he needs to learn how and where to ask questions… and sometimes the “where” is “not on the Internet”. (That’s a fact.)

Dividing the world of information into “business” and “personal” (excuse my ignorance, but what is he talking about? .biz? a non-HTTP protocol? what “separate Web”?) doesn’t solve the problem of separating fact from opinion. (That’s an opinion.)

Also, Ravelry + this guy = some kind of explosion that will tear a hole in the universe. (Is that fact or opinion?)

This just in: Lion Brand taps into knitting zeitgeist

Did you ever want to publish a meme, but… louder?

Simple. Instead of blogging the most popular hits and search terms used to reach your website, issue a press release.

Ahead of the curve

Okay. Years ago — like, four, five? — I was going to put a haiku submission form on my website. No, really, because it was just such a cool thing for knitters to sit around making up little poems about their cats and yarn, and because there were such wonderful poems printed on Japanese yarn labels (yeah, I had that yarn lying around for a really long time; the last time I actually used some of it was around 2002). I remember making up graphics with a fake parchment background and stuff. I don’t remember if I actually uploaded it. I don’t think I did. Because, in the end, I was not cool enough to be that ironic.

So of course, I started screaming, and not in a good way, when I saw this.

This is like bringing back leg warmers,. Which has evidently happened, so if you’ll pardon me I’m going to go barricade myself in the basement because I’m going to get bombarded with seventeen-syllabled hate mail from knitters dressed like Olivia Newton-John.

(Another thing I had been working on five years ago had been the KnitQ quiz (mentioned as vaporware — answer a bunch of questions, find out if you’re an opinionated knitter, blind follower, or a couple of other character types I can’t remember at this instant. And I never finished it. But thankfully, all those bleepin’ quiz generator websites stepped in, and blogs were never the same.)

Throw away the key

Lil’ Kim says she wants to take up knitting in prison in order to make things like Martha Stewart’s famous prison poncho. 

[from transcript provided by Critical TV, via Gawker]

Well, this is a woman who has been featured on Go Fug Yourself more than once.

For serious knitters of “specialty” yarns

Just in case you were one of those who were being optimistic about the editorial direction of Knitter’s magazine:

XRX is a publisher most commonly known for KNITTER’S Magazine, an important periodical for serious knitters. KNITTER’S attracts the higher-end, designer-conscious hand-knitter, working in specialty yarns, from handspun alpaca to novelty “Fizz.”

(From the alumni page of the fashion school at Kent State — scroll over to Natalie Sorenson, XRX’s Production Coordinator.)

I thought of this after reading La KC’s post for today, in which she reminds us that questionable yarn choices in knitting magazines are usually advertiser-driven.

Quick.

Time is running out on your opportunity to buy this dress.

(Found via LJ crochet_snark. I’m sure that somewhere, there’s a garter stitch equivalent.)

(Yes, I wanted to offend your sensibilities.)

Yahoo for terms of service (now with edits)

Because, as you know, everything on the Internet containing the words “stitch” and “bitch” is bound to be an infringement of the US-registered STITCH & BITCH CAFE trademark (yes, that’s sarcasm) and no ISP wants to get blamed for it, Yahoo! has asked some stitching and bitching group owners to change their names pursuant to Yahoo’s terms of service.

More ranting on LJ, but keep in mind that Deb Stoller does not have a trademark registration although she might arguably have common law rights in STITCH ‘N BITCH. Anyway, advising everyone to use “Stitch ‘n Bitch” in a group name on the assumption that it’s Deb Stoller’s trademark… (a) doesn’t protect you from the depredations of a certain other trademark owner–if that owner sees no difference between “&” and “and”, then why would it see a difference between “&” and “‘n”? and (b), seems to assume that in the event Stoller has rights in that name, she would be willing to have its distinctiveness frittered away by sales of t-shirts, etc. Maybe she is, and maybe she’s licensing all these groups. I don’t know.

This recent activity strangely coincides with Stoller’s Monday deadline to file a response with the USPTO about the non-registrability of her trademarks (due to confusion with STITCH & BITCH CAFE, as you might recall). If she misses it, that’s okay, a response can be filed a bit late, although the USPTO database may show her application as “dead” in the meantime.

The prior history, in reverse chron: here, here, here (just a little background info), here, here, and finally here.

Wow, that’s a lot. The “useful arts” category was supposed to be about craft-related patents. I need to make up a new category.

Edit: A missive from Deb Stoller to all those affected is reproduced here, as well as in the comments to this post. She’s recommending the prefix SNB. This reminds me of the time that an agent of the LSD made the amusing claim that even using the intials AS was somehow an incursion into A Somebody’s trademark rights.

Oh, and the forum on SFSE’s website now has a section where individuals can help each other find a SNB group. The heading: “Stitch and Bitch Group” and the description, “If you want to find a group, post here.” Currently no posts. Is this a way for SFSE to find other unsuitably-named groups?

Another one.

Woolgathered. Again, another online magazine along the very same lines.

I need to finish writing the next instalment about the great online-magazine-no-compensation-for-value toboggan ride.

YKW’s hooker sister

What Not to Crochet.

The cape in the December 9 entry is the crochet version of the LB Homespun cape that was on the “fake” advertisement cover of Vogue Knitting (the issue that looked like it had a purple thing on the cover, when the real cover was that bulky orange thing).

The bitches keep on stitchin’

Hey, look, the tape measure on the Sew Fast Sew Easy website, um, changed.

It used to look like this simulation.

What does this mean? Is this actually in production?

(Yeah, no food porn. I do have a photograph of a cheesecake with a giant crack in the centre because I always spread the sour cream topping on too soon after it comes out of the oven. It was okay. Nothing to write blog about.)

More online publishing

I’m sure that soon, the number of online knitting-spinning-crocheting-textile arts magazines will outnumber the print mags.

Here’s another one: Spindlicity, a mag for hand spinners, by Laidybug.

Ignoring for the moment the “At this time, Spindlicity cannot pay for submissions” (since you know I would suggest that the correct wording is “doesn’t want to pay for submissions”) and the tongue-twisting name (I had to type it twice to get it right — how about Spinnidipity or Spintessence? Or how about Z-twist? Clockwise? I prefer names that only suggest the subject matter over names that take the most commonly used word and hammer it into your head, but that’s just me), I’ve got a little presentation advice.

That graphic of the spindles in the basket in the upper left-hand corner? Too untidy. The background — the framed picture, the other stuff on the table — really should be cropped out or erased so that all you can see is the vertical arrangement of colourful tools that form the principle focus of the magazine. Let me see if I can find an example, like — uh, yeah, this one. See how there’s no background clutter detracting from the vertical arrangement of colourful tools?

And lest you think nothing good comes out of my keyboard: read this announcement from Fyberspates, and then this one. Thank you, Jo. (And have I ever mentioned that I like Wales? Some of my favourite in-laws are Welsh, or work in Newport.)

Seeing the Spindlicity and Fyberspates sites reminded me of another online magazine I saw once about fiber arts, but I can’t remember what it was. I think they had published their first issue sometime in 2004 or 2005. Googling isn’t much help. Does anyone know what I’m talking about?

Edit: I may not be entirely crazy, but it’s not exactly what I think I recall (see the comments). Eve also suggested ICanSpin.com, which has tons of videos of spinning-related techniques, and The Joy of Handspinning, which is a retail site with videos, too, but neither of those were what I thought I remembered — I was imagining something with a Knitty-like layout and bright colours. Janice suggested Handspinners, which published four issues from 2004-2005. I think that might have been it.

Again with the ponchos

Dear woman I’ve now seen twice on Bloor Street wearing the same outfit, comprising a pale, unsheathed roll of fat protruding between a snug skirt waistband and a too-short, long-sleeved black top that is not sufficiently covered by the holey blue poncho that was probably in pristine condition three seasons ago, but now looks a little worse for wear:

I’m glad you’re so happy; you must be, because you’ve got a big smile on your face. I assume it’s not frozen there, although everybody else on the street has broken out their light-duty winter gear. Did you notice? It’s cold. That poncho is only waist-length. It barely covers your midriff.

Now, the newest, fanciest Winners* in the country is opening on November 17, and it’s right on your usual Bloor Street route. Please stop there, go inside, and splurge a little on something longer.

Sincerely,
The chick who’s no fashion icon herself but does manage to cover up her own rolls of fat in late autumn.

*Winners = TJ Maxx to you guys south of the border.

Pondering online publishing, take one

Dear Diamond Yarn (or Westminster Fibers, Nova Yarn, Alchemy Yarn, and any other distributor or producer of hand knitting yarn that sells to retailers),

I’ve got a marvellous idea for a yarn shop. I really love knitting, and I know that knitters will love the cozy knit + coffee shop environment I’ve got planned… Yarns up to the ceiling, hardwood floors, free child care, only the best yarns and patterns, but a bit cheaper than the competition. And I want to stock your yarns and patterns. Will you sell to me?

Well, when I say “sell,” I don’t really mean sell just yet. I guess you don’t supply on credit for new retailers, and I’m not absolutely certain that I’ll have the cash flow to pay my first bills when they come due, anyway. So, could you just, you know, give me the yarn? If I make enough money, I could pay you later.

Actually, when I say “later,” I don’t mean for this first shipment. I mean for later ones, when I’m starting to turn a profit. I’ve got to eat, right, and then there’s rent (home and commercial), and insurance, and then the cost of renovating the store space, but after all that you’re next on my list. I hear that a new business spends its first few years in debt, actually, so it might be quite some time before I can afford to pay you. But think of the intangible benefits: when I sell your yarn to customers, they’ll come back wanting more (well, it won’t hurt that I’m discounting it a bit). And I’ll put your posters up in my windows, so you’ll be getting free advertising.

I’m a start-up company, and I don’t want to have to devote any more cash than absolutely necessary to this enterprise. I mean, your products are important to me and I really like them, and there’s no point in having a knitting shop without them,
and there’s nothing I’d like better to do than to pay you the fair market value for your products, but you know, in the grand scheme of things it won’t hurt you to comp me an order or two. Or four. And I figure it’s less important to pay you than it is to pay the contractor and the landlord, because without them, there’d be no shop to stock your yarn, right?

Anyway, whaddya say?

Do you need to be told the answer?

Okay, now how about this:

Dear all you knitting designers out there,

We’re going to start up a new online knitting magazine, and we’re sure that people will love it. Everyone loves free knitting patterns — who doesn’t? — and we’re certain that even with all the online magazines out there now, ours will be a success.

Of course, there wouldn’t be a magazine without you, the designers! So here’s our first call for submissions. We’re looking for the sort of patterns that people really want to knit: avant garde designs, instant classics, you name it! But no garter stitch scarves, please!

We’re planning to launch in [insert ridiculously short date here], so the sooner you send in your submissions, the better! Please send in a swatch (or picture of a swatch), a sketch, and a brief design description. We promise to get back to you to confirm acceptance within a week.

Unfortunately, we’re unable to compensate our designers at this point. We’re just a start-up business, and we’d like to pay you what you deserve, but we can’t do that right now because we don’t have the resources to commit to paying contributors, and we don’t want to have to incur debt just to do that. We’re sure you’d understand. Instead, we can give you free ad space — as if having your pattern published wasn’t enough! — or get you the yarn you need for your design.

We look forward to hearing from you!

It’s reasonable to expect that if you’re going to run a store and sell tangible goods, that you’re going to have to incur some obligation to pay your suppliers for those goods. And it’s a real obligation, too, because if you pay with credit and don’t follow through, there will be consequences.

So why does the notion still exist that publishers of online knitting magazines can get away without paying contributors? Is the supplier less entitled to compensation just because their product is intellectual rather than material?

There was a time — a magical time — around 2002 or so, when you could get away with this sort of thing. Knitty managed it by virtue of being first. Magknits followed close enough behind in Knitty’s wake to capitalize on the awakening of the latent designer within the minds of Internet-enabled knitters. Both of these publications later took on advertisers, and started paying contributors. By the time Spun launched in 2004, with advertisements in place but no remuneration for contributors? Smaller projects. In 2.5 issues, not a single sleeve.

(Strictly speaking, yes, I know, Knitty wasn’t first, KnitNet was. But by the time Knitty launched, KnitNet had moved to a subscription base, with limited free content, and it probably wasn’t on the radar of most knitbloggers. And I suspect that KnitNet may have paid its contributors from the start; if they did, good for them. They recognized that you’re not entitled to value for nothing. And as a total aside, I think Spun’s strength was the direction that MMJ had envisioned as a lifestyle magazine. It’s better as a magazine for people who happen to knit than as a knitting magazine. If all Spun had published were patterns, I wouldn’t have been sorry it faltered. But I do hope that the rest of it — the columns, features, and reviews — will continue sometime.)

Of course there are other online knitting/crafting mags that launched inaugural (and further) issues without compensating its contributors. Southern Cross Knitting has published two issues, but it’s intended to showcase the talents of a particular geographic region; it has a cause, and designers who are signed on to that concept. Same thing goes for the inaugural issue of MenKnit. The AntiCraft (which promises to go beyond knitting), as far as I know, didn’t even solicit submissions from the general knitting public. The editrices established the tone with their own content; those who dare to follow would have espoused their cause.

In short, I really think the time for publishing someone else’s intellectual knitting property without compensating them is past, unless there is something about your publication that will make it worth the contributor’s skill, judgment, and labour. Providing knitting patterns for men and encouraging men to knit. Proving to the rest of the world, subjected to one glossy magazine exemplar, that Australian knit design doesn’t suck. Even being friends with the publisher might be enough.

And let’s be clear about what words like “compensation” and “remuneration” mean: money. Something that can be exchanged with others in order to procure the necessaries of life. Not yarn, not ad space. That’s not compensation. If you give a designer yarn or ad space in a new online magazine, they’re still in the hole for the time and intellectual effort dedicated to creating a pattern. So they break even on yarn, since they didn’t have to use their own; that’s still not a gain. And can you quantify the value of an advertisement in a new online knitting magazine? Assuming you can, that’s not a gain to the contributor either, unless the contributor would have purchased that ad space.

This tirade was brought on by an announcement of yet another online knitting magazine, tentatively scheduled to launch in January 2006. (No, not that one by Bo Peep’s Wool Shop, which has pushed back its launch date to January 2006; it’s another one, which, if it launches, will be online mag number four for Hogtown.) In the initial call for submissions was the now de rigueur “being a start-up, unfortunately we can’t pay.”

You know, in every other industry, a start-up venture requires an investment of capital. But in the online knitting publishing world, even though we now have three periodicals that pay their contributors, no start-up is willing to put up that capital to pay the content supplier. If you’re planning to at least break even on the enterprise by running advertisements, for example, shouldn’t you ensure that your designers and writers break even, too? Whose risk is it supposed to be, anyway?

How about knitting as a business, and law as a hobby?

Another scoop from LJ because I’m not on the KnitPixie mailing list… (by the way, if you read all the comments there, I feel compelled to point out that we have empirical evidence that teaching a lawyer to knit would not calm things down. I’ve turned an office Easter egg hunt into a contact sport. I’ve drawn blood during an office air hockey tournament. And I’ve been knitting longer than I’ve been a lawyer.)

Knitpixie has changed its name to “kpixie” because a large craft corporation felt that “knitpixie” sounded too similar to their own name. That name, apparently, is KnitPicks, and the allegation makes some sense when you think about it, although there’s not much else to say about the perceived merits of the case. However, I think that KnitPicks (which has a registered trademark for Knit Picks, two words, by the way, but the fact that it’s two separate words would likely have little impact on those merits) has a better case in court than… oh, say, Alice Starmore against anyone selling a yarn pack for one of her old designs containing Jamiesons-branded wool, with no unauthorized copy of the pattern included (AS being successful so far only thanks to eBay policies), or a registered trademark holder for Harris Tweed and a graphic design against someone selling a yarn produced on Harris, called Harris and not tweed, and not marked with anything like the graphic design. Just my personal opinion.

The KnitPicks incident isn’t a case of big business versus small business, though. More like medium-small size business (90 employees) versus cottage business (2 owner-operators). Not like the American discount retailer incursion into Canada. For example, when Wal*Mart explored the possibility of expansion into major Canadian cities, it checked for other businesses with similar names. Not because the big company would think to change its name to work around the local business landscape, of course — international companies like to have consistent branding — but because the big company would like to eradicate any potentially confusing names from the local market. In Ottawa, they found such a name: Wool-Mart. A shop that had existed long before anyone in the neighbourhood had heard of Wal*Mart. So Wal*Mart threatened legal action for passing off. Maybe they even commenced the action, but I doubt it. After a bit of outrage was expressed in the local paper, Wool-Mart decided to live to fight another day, and changed its name (I don’t know if the name change was done at their own expense, or if the deal was sweetened). They’re still around, and I like shopping there when I’m in town. Just wish they weren’t in an industrial park with mattress shops, and were neighbours with something more suitable for the non-knitting family members.

While I’m always quite cynical and keen to identify any sign that the knitting bubble is going to burst and that there will be small business owners all over the continent stuck with a warehouse full of flammable eyelash yarn just waiting to spontaneously combust and drive up insurance rates, I don’t think this is one of those signs. Sure, it’s the obvious thing to choose a domain name, trademark, or trade name that begins with “knit” when you’re in that business, but there’s still a world of second syllables out there. A real harbinger of the imminent doom of the bubble is the sale of a plethora of Martha ponchos or other forms of Lion Brand world domination. I say, if you want to give money to charity, there are ways to do it without encouraging the creation of more acrylic tents.

(Oh, and I even thought “maybe I should sign up for an LJ account” and discovered that the one userid that I’d use was registered by someone else, and that account is just lying there dormant. It isn’t even being used. It’s not the same having a different userid and just changing your “name” to what you wanted. Feh.)

Swedish for blindingly obvious

(or, deep thoughts at 5 am.)

Having built or worn their wares, IKEA is to furniture what Hennes & Mauritz is to clothing. Both their products are cheap, and they all come flat-packed. (Really. It looks like H&M staff just take the stuff out of the boxes and hang it up, wrinkles and all.)

However, only one of them puts any information on its website about monitoring factory working conditions–the other one just says it gets products from 200o+ suppliers in 50 countries. And one of them uses drive-bys to advertise its wares (thank you, Kelly; but of course the video’s still on their website, and the posters are still in Canadian stores).

Oh, and the H&M website doesn’t seem to work in Safari.

Anyway, the reason for this post was to make two H&M-related comments.

First, Stella. I was unimpressed by the Lagerfeld line last year, and I have no interest in tight jeans with ankle zips (hello, 80s — I knew there’d be more of you when I saw the intarsia sweaters on the rack), but one may hope that there’s something interesting that wasn’t already knocked off in H&M’s existing clothing line.

Second, stylish knit pants. Unfortunately, while they’re in the shop, they’re not online, so I can’t link to it with a URL dripping with sarcasm. Picture it: light teal, machine weight yarn, knit in something vaguely resembling the dragonskin lace pattern (can’t remember what it looked like, exactly), tapered. Yum.

I’m pretty sure it didn’t have feet.

Edit: I was passing by today (I don’t mean to make that sound like a coincidence, it’s just that there are always a bunch of clothing stores between my home and my intended destination, really and for true) and double-checked. Sorry, it’s not teal, it’s grey–the lighting on the mannequin must have given it some colour. It’s two tones of grey in a viscose-blendy looking material. And it’s not dragonskin, but it is a texture/increase-decrease pattern that yields tessellating, rounded triangles. It’s straight-legged (like yoga pants rather than 80s workout gear). And it has front pockets trimmed with ribbing to accentuate that tummy bulge. Oh… and it has a wide, double-thick, ribbed and foldover waist band, just in case you didn’t have enough chunkification going on.

* A hobby for the housewife

This is the footnote to a discussion about the knitting boom, which I had deleted from a previous post. Basically, I made a reference to “knitting-related businesses being treated as investment opportunities rather than an amusing project to keep the wife busy.” Since the discussion was cut, the footnote was unnecessary, but this “wife” thing has now bothered me for several years. So here it is.

In the mid-90s, Ram Wools published its full-colour catalogue, but shared webspace with Gaspard & Sons, a manufacturer of academic, judicial, and religious vestments. I remember this because whenever I visited the Ram Wools website, I’d often see the splash page that announced both businesses. I figured (correctly) that the businesses were run by the same family.

When it was time for my class to order barrister’s robes, there was a tiny fair in a room at the Law Society where various tailors and manufacturers took measurements and orders. Gaspard was there, and I mentioned to the sales rep that I knew they were somehow related to Ram Wools. The fellow chuckled — a little dismissively, I thought — and said something about how the wife (not his wife, I assume he wasn’t the Gaspard) needed a hobby, and that it kept her busy. The ‘tude irked me at the time, and it bothers me still whenever I think of it.

(I didn’t buy my robes from Gaspard, but not because of that. Gaspard only sold machine washable polyester robes. I opted for the traditional wool, since I wasn’t planning to play rugby or cook three-course meals or do whatever while gowned that would necessitate frequent machine washing.)

I really do wonder which of the two businesses is turning more profit now. In your lifetime, you buy one set of robes (I suppose more than one, if they’re machine washable, but still not very many). But you never stop buying yarn.

(No, I didn’t buy robes from Gaspard, because I went with wool.)

It’s all about the people

Looking around at the plethora of new knitting shops both online and in real life, it seems pretty clear that in terms of the “old school” brands of yarns — the ones distributed by Diamond, Nova, their counterparts in other countries, all the smaller distributors like Louet, etc. — the market’s saturated. (I had written a lot of trite verbiage proving that there was a knitting boom, but you don’t need to read it, so I cut it.) If you’re going to sell yarn now and distinguish yourself from your competitors, you need a new hook. Artisanal yarns. Organic yarns. Recycled yarns. Private label yarns. Deeply discounted yarns. Yarns with coffee and pastries.

Not only that, but ideally you’d try to find new ways of reaching your target consumers. The trouble is, since the Internet has been so crucial in the proliferation of knitting knowledge and business in the past few years, there’s a risk of tunnel vision: need to advertise? The Internet. Need to sell? The Internet. Need to provide customer support? Need to subtly flog your online business while ostensibly providing free resources to customers? The Internet.

That’s why it’s quite clever that Yarn Affair, a fledgling enterprise in Palo Alto, remembered the grassroots side of knitting and has decided to take the Tupperware (or Royal, Amway, or Avon) approach. The company is recruiting “consultants” to pitch Yarn Affair yarns to friends, acquaintances, and coworkers.

According to the current information on the YA website, the plan is to sell sample kits to consultants (an estimated total of $300 a year, no details at present about shipping), who in turn show the yarns — and present swatching opportunities — at events held in people’s homes, in outside social settings, at work, or in one-on-one interactions. The consultant receives a 20% discount for any yarn purchases for him or herself, and a commission for sales to others; no details about the ordering procedure, but since the consultant doesn’t have to purchase the inventory, it looks like he or she would take orders and forward them to YA for fulfilment (if there is no Canadian-based fulfilment site, there’ll be increased shipping and taxes to pay for Canadians). The potential customers get a chance to swatch yarns for free, and ostensibly receive craft-related mentoring coupled with low-pressure sales techniques.

At the moment, the YA buzz is limited to press releases that say that all will be revealed to potential consultants today. (There’s about six hours of today left on the west coast, and nothing has happened yet.) There’s also an affiliated blog, too, which has all the sincerity of a marketing campaign. (Most knitters who start up a blog simply announce it on a mailing list or a forum, they don’t issue press releases.)

A clever scheme on a couple of levels. The consultant might not pressure potential customers to make purchases, but the customers will do it themselves. Bricks-and-mortar shops may host stitch ‘n bitch nights, where knitters can knit surrounded by yarn for sale — but that yarn shop yarn is always there, you can come back tomorrow to buy it if you want. But a yarn sales rep who brings her samples one night to a knitting get-together? What if she doesn’t come to the next stitch ‘n bitch night? Gotta order now. And even the newest or most introverted member of a stitch ‘n bitch group could shyly say, “You know that Yarn Affair thing? I signed up as one of their consultants, and I got the sample kit…” and would be rewarded with a flurry of requests to bring the samples to the next meeting, please, because who doesn’t want to see new yarns?

Not only that, but those potential customers are already there, waiting, neatly organized into groups. In the Tupperware scenario, there aren’t any regular get-togethers of plastic storage container fanatics who show off their latest acquisitions and admire, um, each other’s lid-removal prowess (please, if there are, do not tell me). The hostess has to gamble that she can find customer-guest-friends who will be interested in gelatine molds, bagel cases, and baby toys. But knitters are organized into virtual and physical groups that meet on a regular basis, they keep in touch on forums and mailing lists, and generally speaking they won’t shut up about their favourite pasttime. It’s easy to find your audience.

Capitalizing on real personal relationships to sell your goods is, of course, what people used to do before the Internet. And these days, it almost seems like a novelty. If you’re a consumer who’s not interested in buying, it’s easy to ignore web pages or targeted advertisements in a blog sidebar; it’s harder to dodge people. So, if you’re a member of a stitch ‘n bitch group, is it ethical to take advantage of your relationship with the other members to make money? If the person sitting next to you at your knitting meetup overheard that you were planning to sell your house, and offered to act as your listing agent, you’d be taken aback, right? Is it different if the product she’s offering is yarn?

My prediction, for what it’s worth, is that Yarn Affair’s revenue will come mainly from the “consultants” themselves with the 20% discount. If a potential customer really liked the yarn after seeing the yarn samples, that person would probably sign up as a consultant him or herself, assuming the cost of the sample kits was offset by the discount. Or more likely, a single consultant would wind up being a front for a group of stitch ‘n bitches or friends who all chip in for the kit fees and benefit from the discount.

But maybe that’s the plan, because if it isn’t set up in an orderly manner in the way a franchisor divides up territories among franchisees (would a consultant be allowed to sell over the Internet?), we might see knitting turf wars. You know, knitters with sharpened dpns with their wrists lashed together with yarn. Har.

Take him off your Bloglines. Now.

You think the Manolo’s got good taste? Do you?

Then please to enter his shoe essay contest in which you have the chance to be awarded the lovely prize of the yarn of the Lion Brand.

Real women: ready, aim, fire!

Just in case you didn’t read your Rowan 38 carefully, look for this book at your LYS:

Classic Knits for Real Women by Martin Storey & Sharon Brant. You can’t read it in this graphic, but the book cover tells you that it’s meant for women in the size 14 to 24 range. The description on the Rowan site tells us it’s “crammed” (ooh, good choice of words there) “full of beautiful, sophisticated garments modelled by real women, not professional models.”

Here’s the link for Rowan’s contact page, since it’s only fair to level the same number of barrels at Rowan if you felt that way about that upcoming Random House book. (And the sample photos provided with the promotional article in Rowan 38 emphasize women of A Certain Age, so if you’re going to judge a book by its cover you can also judge it by that handful of photos, too.)

(Found while sitting around perusing the Rowan mag at Lettuce Knit today, while critiquing the designs as Megan laboured mightily to open boxes, unpack yarn, price yarn, shelve yarn, and flatten boxes. Rowan verdict: too much chunky-looking stuff.)

Now available in the oversize section of your local library

There has been the beginnings of a brouhaha in the comments in the August 2 entry of the Knitty blog over the title of the upcoming Big Girl Knits: 30 Big, Bold Projects Shaped for Real Women with Real Curves.

Before the skinny, allegedly unreal women get their thongs in a further twist, in the interest of full disclosure you should all be aware of the other titles the publisher had proposed, but that Amy and Jillian rejected:

• Chunky Yarn, Chunky Bodies
• Two Fat Ladies Knit
• Big Girl Knits: 30 Big, Bold Projects Shaped for Girl-Shaped Girls (check the end of Rachael’s August 10 entry)
• Big Girl Knits: Designs for Women Who Aren’t Pregnant, But Just Look That Way

and…

• Big Girl Knits: Designs Especially for Diane

(got your own idea for a non-skinny-chick-offending book title? leave it in the comments)

I suppose I can imagine the point of view that finds it offensive to call a subset of the female side of the species “real” on the basis of a physical characteristic, but I don’t agree with it and I have a hard time recognizing it as reasonable or logical unless that viewpoint also finds that a title like, um, “Amputee Knits: 30 Projects Shaped for Real People without Real Limbs” is similarly offensive.

Perhaps it’s because I understood “real” in the book title to mean something different. Instead of equating “real” with “plus size” and defining “real” to mean “worthy of attention” or “the only kind in existence,” I read “real” in this context as meaning “not the fictional creatures defined by industry standard sizing.”

Or, “not the fictional creatures defined by Vogue Knitting.”

Articles, those unsung heroes

First of all, I’m very flattered by the attention and compliments paid to Eris. Thank you very much. I’m finishing up a short sleeve version in cotton ribbon, and I’m going to write up an entry about how this particular design came to be (and how it was prevented from becoming a poncho caplet, I mean capelet), once I’ve finished with the photos.

For now, a gripe. You know what’s great about knitting magazines? Articles. And I’m not saying that just because I write some of them. (You can skip reading mine if you want–I’m, er, rather verbose). People have written articles for Knitty on picking up stitches, turning graphics into knitting charts, short rows, reading lace charts, grafting, fulling, you name it. And you can probably find it by using the Google search bar on the Knitty archives page.

But not enough people are reading them, apparently, because the Knittyboard yields questions from (what I assume are) Knitty readers about picking up and creating charts for intarsia… when that information was under their nose last season.

So… do the majority of knitting-magazine-reading knitters ignore articles in favour of the patterns? Or just the majority of knitting-magazine-reading knitters who post to mailing lists or forums? Do they read the articles, then promptly forget them? Or are they reading them and retaining the information for a reasonable period of time, while I suffer from an abnormally long memory?

Stitch ‘n Bitch… the continuing story

Props to Everybody wants a rock for catching this first.

Deb Stoller’s four US trademark applications for STITCH ‘N BITCH (the four were for different classes of goods and services: knitting kits, television shows, bags and cases, series of books) were refused by the examiner. At this point, she has time to either file another response arguing against the rejection, or she can appeal the decision (this is within the US Patent and Trademark Office, not to a court). Or she could try again with a fresh application, perhaps for a design mark (using the fancy SnB font) rather than a word mark.

All four applications were refused on the same basis: confusion with a previously registered mark, that is to say, our favourite STITCH & BITCH CAFE. (When I first typed that, I inadvertently hit the dollar sign instead of the ampersand. How telling.) Deb’s arguments (via her attorney) that the channels of trade and the goods and services of the SFSE mark and her own were not persuasive to the examiner. The fact that the word CAFE appears in the senior (i.e., earlier registered) mark was not determined by the examiner to be sufficient to distinguish Stoller’s mark, because, as the examiner concluded, the CAFE is “highly suggestive, if not merely descriptive, of a virtual cafe or coffeehouse when used in connection with the registrant’s online chat room services.” In other words, he didn’t consider the CAFE to be a strong part of the SFSE mark.

Stoller had also tried to highlight the popularity of her mark. That wasn’t convincing to the examiner either, who pointed out that this could result in “reverse confusion,” in which consumers believe that the user of the junior mark is the source of the goods associated with the senior mark. (Reverse confusion is a doctrine used in the US; the concept has been introduced in Canada, but not applied in an infringement case.)

Console yourself with this fact, though: even if Stoller ultimately manages to get a trademark registration for STITCH ‘N BITCH, it’s no guarantee that SFSE wouldn’t still try to allege infringement of their CAFE mark. And there’s no reason for SFSE not to start working on Deb Stoller and Workman now, except for the fact that it will probably cost them more in lawyer’s fees than chasing after stitch and bitch groups on CafePress.

And in related news about that “virtual cafe or chathouse”, scroll down to July 7 to see the debate raging over whether it was okay to photocopy old sewing machine manuals without permission from the copyright owner. The verdict of the guestbook old-timers: “Now I know I’ve heard everything! Of course the manufacturer wants us to be able to use the machines that we’ve purchased. Get over it!” coupled with an unrelated anecdote about how somebody else granted permission for reproduction of something that wasn’t a sewing machine manual.

First we take Chicago

SFSE has moved on to another city on CafePress: Cleveland.

The knitting group has accordingly changed their wares to specifically avoid any confusion with that sewing shop in New York. Note the fine print.

Harsh realities again

I just updated this post with another peeve.

Speaking of peeves (and this doesn’t fit under that particular post), a couple of copyright-related things that always bug me:
(more…)

Harsh knitting realities

1. Alice Starmore’s Aran Knitting is not available at list price from Amazon. In fact, if Amazon reports that it will take several weeks to fulfill an order for a book, it’s likely only available second-hand. Stop hoping against hope. Personally, I’d rather you poured your energy into pre-ordering the non-existent Get Smart DVD set from Amazon, in the hopes that increased demand will encourage the studio to release the series before a movie is actually made.
2. If you don’t know what to do with that Cotton Ease (or any other discontinued yarn) before you buy it, and if you’ve never knit with it before, don’t hoard it. You know what? You probably won’t miss it. Save your holiday-shopping mob mentality for yarn that your experience tells you will be used for a project.
3. In the same vein, complaining to a company that has announced a decision to discontinue a yarn due to a history of poor sales and little interest from retailers is not going to do any good now. If you loved that yarn so much, why didn’t you buy it when it was available? Why didn’t you demand that your LYS/OBBCS (that’s obscene big box craft store) carry it? Maybe you were waiting for it to be discontinued so it would go on sale.
4. You don’t win yarn on eBay. If you “won” yarn, you wouldn’t have to pay for it, would you? What you did win was the legal obligation to give someone money in exchange for goods. Congratulations.

Look! Only one eyelash!

Brief explanations of what happens during the trademark application process for the US and Canada.

To put it simplistically, the application is examined to ensure it meets formal requirements, and to make sure that the mark meets more substantive requirements: the major ones are that it can’t be confusing with an existing registered trademark or pending application and that it can’t be too descriptive or deceptively misdescriptive (being merely suggestive is okay, but you shouldn’t be allowed to claim exclusive rights over a common descriptor used in the industry). If the trademark meets this scrutiny, then it’s advertised (published in the trademark office’s journal) and parties with an objection have a limited window within which to oppose the application. (Standing to oppose an application is defined more broadly in Canada than in the United States, but in either country it involves the payment of money, so one typically isn’t inclined to oppose unless one has a commercial interest.) If no opposition is filed, then the trademark is allowed and is registered upon payment of further fees. To actually be registered, the trademark has to be in use, and specimens (not necessarily the actual products themselves) need to be filed to show that the trademark as applied for is being used.

And in other news, this link should work. But in case it doesn’t, it’s a press release announcing the Lily Chin Signature collection, dated June 11.

The yarns:

The six yarns in the premiere collection are named after Chin’s favorite neighborhoods in her native Manhattan: Tribeca, a mohair blend; Chelsea, a unique blend of merino wool, cotton, and acrylic; Nolita, a fun dusting of eyelash; Central Park, a wool blend boucle with a touch of stretch (Lycra); Gramercy, a super wash merino wool with a special twist; Greenwich Village, a mohair yarn with a twist of a lustrous stand of rayon.

Chelsea and Central Park sound like they could be interesting. Central Park sounds like… why, it sounds like it might be an alternative to Adrienne Vittadini Maria, a wool/acrylic/Lycra boucle blend that I always liked very much, but came in a rather limited colour range. Speaking of American designers, the press release also says this:

Chin’s debut marks the first time an American knitwear designer has created a line of fashion yarns under her own name. The highly anticipated collection will be available in yarn and needlework shops in the U.S. and Canada in August 2005.

I suppose that Vittadini doesn’t count as an American knitwear designer, because she’s a clothing and accessories designer, and she developed her name in Europe, I believe.

Edit: The LC website has been updated, so now you can see the yarn for yourself. That Central Park is no substitute for Maria. It also appears that generally speaking, LC’s colour palette and mine don’t really agree.

You knew this was coming…

U.S. Trademark Application, Serial No. 78641350, filed June 1, 2005 for…

For use in association with “Knitting and sewing supplies namely: Knitting kits, sewing kits, knitting needles, sewing needles, seam rippers, tracing wheels, measuring tapes, rulers, scissors, magnetic seam guides, mugs, knitting instructions, sewing instructions, patterns, fabric, pre-cut material, thread, buttons, webbing, pin cushions, thimbles, marking pencils, hangers and pins” and “Printed materials, namely patterns for sewing, knitting, and crochet, greeting cards and printed instructional books and manuals on sewing knitting, DIY, and crochet.”

The owner? Sew Fast/Sew Easy, of course. Here are excerpts from the photographic specimens showing use of the mark:

That tape measure is from the photograph you see here. The other thing is a printed workbook.

The application claims that first use of the mark occurred in 1998. It was only last month that their website had been altered to offer “Stitch & Bitch”-marked merchandise for sale online (with an ampersand, yes, not the word “and”), but for all I know, it was available in-store since the last decade.

By the way…

You people posting your little diatribes about “stitch and bitch” to the SFSE guestbook? You’re not helping the anti-SFSE “cause,” so to speak.

You people who don’t know the difference between copyright, trademark, and patent? You’re not helping set a groundwork for meaningful discussion or analysis.

You people telling others that a trademark registration has no usefulness if it’s proved that a trademark phrase was “used” in a 1940s yearbook, which is not the way the law actually works? Ditto.

Sorry — this morning, when I peeked at the SFSE forum, I saw nothing productive in all those guestbook posts. And sometimes I feel tempted to subscribe to LJ Knitting just so I can post some clarifying remarks. But then I’d be tempted to violate one of my cardinal forum rules, which is to avoid being particularly active on a board where one of my patterns gets discussed, because I don’t have time to consistently respond to forum questions or comments (as opposed to answering inquiries directly by e-mail).

I was interested in the last comment that was posted in the latest reprise of the SFSE thread on LJ:

I think if this community as a whole supports the protection of copyrights then the community should also support the protection of the trademarks. The argument made above is that by enforcing her rights she is alienating other crafters makes as much sense as saying one can’t make a copy of an old pattern published in 1940…

I think she’s the first person to point this out. Unfortunately it came in rather late, once the thread was a day old and bumped off the first page, so there are no responses to this. I wonder, was there this much angst and anger when the first SnB book was published over the co-opting of a decades-old phrase?

More cafe followup

(Followup to this tempest in a guestbook.)

The, er, forum has a slightly different look, with new graphics. Take a look at ‘em. See that prize ribbon there? It reads:

For Licensing
Stitch & Bitch,
Stitch and Bitch Cafe
Click Here

However, there is no live link for that graphic.

Edit: Oh, and all the little graphics say “Stitch & Bitch TM” on them, too (at present, looks like they’re not physically available). CafePress makes t-shirts. Do they make bootstraps?

Shades of followup

In response to some comments, and in response to some of the general reaction posted in other public fora.

First, I’d think that Stoller would be concerned because she has her own pending TM applications in the US. Potentially the older, registered, STITCH & BITCH CAFE could be cited against Stoller’s applications during examination of her trademark applications, so of course she’d be interested (I haven’t examined the wares and services to see what kind of overlap exists).

I gave away my copy of SnB a long time ago, but I don’t think that Stoller claimed to coin the phrase or invent the concept (tell me if I’m wrong)–I think she just resurrected the practice. And there seems to be anecdotal evidence posted on the net going both ways–yes, there were gatherings called “stitch and bitch”, no, there weren’t, or if there were, they were sewing related. Whatever.

I think the point that is being missed in a lot of the invective is that this is a trademark issue. It’s not copyright: you don’t magically become entitled to rights simply because you think you independently coined a name, phrase or word. You have to do something with the name (either register it as a trademark, or develop goodwill associated with it in a business context) in order to earn those rights. A brief explanation (Canadian law, of course) here. A good summary of US trademark infringement can be found here.

And it’s not about who came up with the concept of “stitch and bitch” either as an event or as a phrase first. Trademarks can make use of common language; slogans don’t make much sense if they don’t use words out of the language in which the target market communicates, right? Somewhere in a comment or post, someone referred to a Citibank promotion using the phrase “thank you.” As an example, there is a US trademark registration for THANK YOU VERY MUCH (not owned by Citibank) for use in association for conducting seminars and training courses in the field of customer service. That doesn’t mean that the general public is entitled to be rude and stop saying “thank you very much” to each other. It means that anyone else in the US offering similar services in association with that phrase risks infringing a registered trademark. Certainly that trademark owner didn’t “invent” the phrase “thank you very much,” and they’d be hard pressed to prove that there would be consumer confusion because individuals were using the phrase in casual conversation. Nevertheless, the fact that they didn’t coin the “thank you very much” doesn’t mean that they’re not entitled to trademark rights for their particular usage of the phrase.

Oh… and like others, I’ve been trying to figure out the reasoning behind the rebuttal on the SFSE guestbook, “Every attack you post, raises the value for the use of our intellectual properties…” The only thing I can figure is that with each visit to the page, their hit count increases, which they could use to either demonstrate the value of the goodwill they have associated with their mark, to demonstrate that they are indeed using their mark in association with an online forum, or to demonstrate depreciation of their goodwill by angry posters.

Shades of you-know-who

Everyone knows by now (at least, if they’ve read Deb Stoller’s first knitting book) that the phrase “stitch and bitch” has been used to describe gatherings of crafters for decades.

What you didn’t all realize is that someone figured out the potentially lucrative side of that phrase long before Deb did.

Sew Fast/Sew Easy, Inc., a New York company, got a US trademark registration for STITCH & BITCH CAFE three years ago, based on claimed use since 1998 in association with “sewing instruction and manuals distributed in connection therewith” and “providing on-line chat rooms for the transmission of messages among computer users concerning sewing via a global computer network.” You can look it up yourself using the US Patent and Trademark Office website; follow the links for trademark searching. The application itself was filed in 2000, which was a couple of years before the resurgence in popularity in the term “stitch and bitch.” (The working title of Deb Stoller’s first book circa 2002 was actually something else. If you do the search, you’ll see a number of trademark applications in Stoller’s name; they haven’t actually be registered yet, they’re still in the application stage.)

SFSE has started flexing its legal muscle. Check out the MetaFilter commentary here.

Here’s the page on the Sew Fast Sew Easy website that perhaps comprises the “online forum.” Actually, it’s a guestbook. Check frequently, because apparently they’ve been deleting posts. Note that this page includes the notation “Stitch and Bitch®” etc., etc. That’s not technically correct, because in fact the US trademark registration includes the word “cafe.” If they have a registration for “Stitch and Bitch” without any extra words or letters, it must be in another country, because I couldn’t find it.

People, get all riled up if you want, but it’s not copyright, okay? Yes, it’s very rare to have an enforceable copyright in a mere title. But this is a trademark issue. You know, brand names, slogans, catch phrases, title-like-things. (Yes, this touches on one of my pet peeves, but at least everyone seems to be spelling “copyright” properly.) Rights to trademarks can actually be parceled out according to the wares and services that are offered by the trademark user. And just because a phrase seems to be common doesn’t mean that it can’t be made the subject of a legitimate trademark.

Do SFSE’s rights extend to the organization of informal groups of knitters that physically gather in various locations to stitch and bitch? Can they claim infringement through the use of a confusingly similar “Stitch and Bitch” when their registered trademark was actually granted for “Stitch & Bitch Cafe”? Did they actually legally “use” their trademark since 1998? All of those are legal questions, and they’re US legal questions in this context, so beyond my proper ken (not that I’d be putting legal opinions up here anyway). Is SFSE doing itself a favour by engaging in this campaign? From the popular opinion, doesn’t sound like it.

Edit 1: a question. If the scenario had played out the other way, and Stoller was attempting to enforce her own trademark rights against a later comer (someone selling something marked “Stitch ‘n Bitch,” not a casual group calling itself a stitch and bitch group), would she incur the same level of rancour? Or, if SFSE in this case had targeted an actual business that was clearly intended to be an ongoing, profitable concern for its owners–say, a knitting store–that had adopted the name “Stitch and Bitch,” would the reaction have been this violent?

Edit 2: another question. Poking around the site I see that the bio for Elissa K (listed registrant of the SFSE domain name) states that “A former instructor at Parsons School of Design, she has developed a new upbeat method of teaching sewing and design. Her method is patented and comes with a workbook that is written to accompany the classes at Sew Fast Sew Easy.” Of course certain words jump out at me, so I bit. But a USPTO search of patents and published applications for “Meyrich” (her last name) turns up nada. (Even if she didn’t own the patent, if she was an inventor her name should turn up in a search. Assuming that Meyrich isn’t a name she assumed later, and assuming that her patent issue after 1976.) Seems likely if there was a patent application, it would have been filed in the US rather than anywhere else; if it had been, it might have been filed back in the day when US patent applications weren’t published until they were granted. If anyone has her book, can they let me know if there’s a reference to a patent or application at all? I’m just curious.

Edit 3: a correction (not by me). SFSE has changed the registered trademark notice on their guestbook page to indicate that the registered trademark rights comprise the word “cafe.”

Edit 4: a further correction. And later on, same day (this is May 11), it’s back to reading “Stitch and Bitch®” which makes me think that the last time they deleted guestbook comments, they uploaded a previous version of the page.

Clothing terminology that should strike fear into the hearts of women

1. Shrug.
2. Bolero.
3. Armwarmers.
4. Peplum.

Really. Regarding the first two, if you don’t have an emaciated frame or aren’t freakishly tall, if you’re wearing a shrug or a bolero, the clothes underneath had better be a solid colour from head to toe. Most of the time, if you’re wearing a top that’s a different colour than the bottom, you’ve got a horizontal line cutting you off at the waist or hip. You don’t need another horizontal line bisecting your torso.

The one exceptional exclusion is probably the evening/bridal dress scenario, but then of course it’s likely a solid colour.

Armwarmers do double duty. They fatten up your arms while leaving the rest of the torso disproportionately smaller, and if they’re constructed with a front or back band joining the sleeves, they also cut you off horizontally.

And peplums. Do you really need that stuff around your hips? Ever?

This was triggered by the most recent issue of some knitting magazine I’d never buy, which happened to include a peplum vest pattern. The peplum had some kind of popcorn-bobbly stitch on it. Just in case you didn’t think the peplum provided sufficient accentuation on its own.

Guestbook moronicity rears its ugly head again

Could Diane please e-mail me to confirm that this was a joke?

I suppose I could e-mail her to ask, since she did leave her address when she signed. And it appears to be a bona fide address, which suggests that either (a) it’s for real, or (b) someone other than her is playing a joke and is simply spoofing her address.

Edit: if you do your online research, and assume that the photo that she has published of herself on the web is recent, then indeed, she’s not a “super size” size. Which suggests that this was a bona fide comment. No, I’m not obsessed with this. I’m just staggered.

Et tu, Interweave Press?

Shoot me now.

Oh-so-gradual restoration

It seems that I’m missing some graphics files, which might be lurking on a backup disk somewhere… or maybe they’ll have to be regenerated. I’ve been working on the old knitting patent journal entries (the first is up tomorrow), and while I’ve fixed up the text, I still have to find some of the pix for a couple of the others: the Eeze Knitr and the lawsuit over Paula Lishman’s fur yarn.

(Which reminds me–Crochet Fantasy and INKnitters are now published by the same company. And the most recent issues of each both ran nearly the same article on knitting with fur yarns, which was basically an all-about-Lishman article with some additional paragraphs about knitting/crocheting (depending on the mag) with fur yarn and followed up with a few patterns using fur yarn. If I had purchased both magazines, I’d be feeling a mite ripped off: sure, the content and patterns were tailored to the particular type of needlework, but the underlying article was the same. What, like knitters won’t pick up crochet mags and vice versa? Made me feel like I was reading syndicated content.)

I’ve started restructuring the yarn shop database using a blogging backend. Better search capabilities than the previous incarnation, a separate category for virtual shops, and commenting, but unfortunately importing the old database isn’t going to be an automated thing. And I’m still thinking about how to structure the submission form: it used to be quite a lengthy questionnaire, and I’m going to cut that down.

Another thought is to make the lys database a little more user-friendly for mobile users (although I know the site’s already browsable, but maybe that depends on the capabilities of the handheld?)… but that will come much later.

You name it, there’s someone out there who hates it

Somehow, I am not surprised by the negative reviews posted in the KR forums about Spun. There’s something about the general membership of that forum that rather makes me expect them to miss the point that the magazine was meant to be more like a funky Chatelaine, but knitting-centric, and further that the first edition was meant to be light on knitting content.

The first clue that KR-types might just miss the point might be found in a blog entry by the KR founder, in the January 5 entry. (I would have ranted about this earlier, but I was waiting until the zine launched.) To save you the trouble of clicking, I quote:

Founder Mary-Margaret Jones explains,

“We want a stitch-and-bitch lifestyle magazine — a zine that takes into account our shared love of yarn but goes even further. It would also be about music, films, art, food, travel. And there would be features about people like us.”

I always cringe when I see people use the “something for people like us” description, because it’s so prone to ego and abuse and it always comes surrounded by a huge, exclusive, anti-us wall.

So we’ll see. But isn’t it interesting that Knitty already has an anti-Knitty! Which goes to prove that even in the knitting world, we’re a fickle bunch.

Where the hell does the “anti-Knitty” conclusion come from? Beats me. If you open each magazine in a separate browser window at the same time, will your computer crash? I suppose this means that Knitty is for “people like you” , whoever “you” are. Why wasn’t MagKnits accused of being anti-Knitty? Or Crochet me? That would be even better–perpetuate the knitting vs crochet holy war.

Anyhow. Despite the wholly unsurprising backlash on KR relating to oral sex advice, I have to admit that I wasn’t expecting that people’s prejudices ran so deep, as evidenced by this comment:

I didn’t mind the article on oral sex but I would never read an article on Tofu, I mean what’s that got to do with knitting.

We take our amusement wherever we find it.

One of my sources of knitting-related amusement (besides certain blogs which occasionally fascinate me, in rubber-necking or I-can’t-believe-you’d-actually-post-something-about-this-aspect-of-your-private-life or you’ve-got-to-be-lying or you-knit-way-better-than-me sorts of ways) is to read the Knitty guestbook. For example, after the Sex and the Knitty issue was published, I found certain polarized views on the content most amusing.

The rest of the time, the comments are relatively neutral in terms of their politics, but sometimes there’s the odd “hello, you owe me” or “I don’t know how to use a computer” sort of comment that also amuses me, but not nearly as much as the right-wing indignation about everything. You know, stuff like “I can’t print out your patterns very well, and I had to spend X cents per page getting it printed at the copy shop/library/whatever” (as if a “free” magazine also meant “we come to your house and deliver a nicely printed, full colour copy”); “I’ve looked everywhere, but I can’t find your magazine!” (no comment); or “why doesn’t every publication promote a plural society by publishing written-out versions of charts, and not just charts?” (that’ll solve the world’s problems, but create new ones for the editors, won’t it?). But I figured I’d preserve this particular guestbook post for posterity, since it will get buried under new entries, and it is a very good lesson in How Not to Provide Constructive Criticism and Leave People Guessing as to What Exactly Offends You:

Let’s take this one point at a time.

First, the datestamp. This was published pre-surprise, but long post-release of the December 2004 issue. We can guess that the writer is addressing the content of the December 2004 issue, but we cannot be certain, since there is nothing in the comment to allow us to identify the target of the writer’s vitriol with any specificity.

Tip #1: don’t identify the thing that troubles you; you don’t want other people to know what you’re talking about.

Second, the use of the word “artist” in the criticism. Apparently “artists” do not generate anything with sufficient utility to satisfy the needs of this person, as she seems to be using the term as some form of insult. From this we can deduce that the writer don’t hold with nun o’ them artsy-types, or that she holds people who style themselves as “artists” in contempt for some reason.

Tip #2: make sure your language includes something that might be construed by your audience as a cultural insensibility–you don’t want to accidentally enhance the validity of your complaint.

Third, the use of words like “ridiculous”, “garish”, and “useless” without any identification of what, if anything, is ridiculous, garish, or useless. It is, in fact, “useless” to make this kind of statement. If the solicitous editor wished to ensure that no knitted item would henceforth be included in Knitty that would offend the sensibilities of this particular person, she would have no idea where to begin. Was the use of bulky yarn “ridiculous”? Or was the colour choice of a particular item “garish”? Is a cowl “useless” if one lives in a tropical climate?

Tip #3: spew derogatory adjectives without associating them with a particular action or item, and never explain just why those adjectives apply; you don’t want someone identifying the cause of a problem and fixing it.

Fourth, the ending comment that “It’s probably good, though, that they don’t work on anything ‘wearable’.” Aha! You know what I think might have stuck in this complainant’s craw? The Womb. It’s not wearable, and therefore may be considered to lack utility. It’s bubblegum pink, which to some tastes is garish. Some people may even consider the concept of knitting a body part ridiculous. However, it doesn’t really waste enormous amounts of yarn unless you’re knitting hundreds of them to throw on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court. I mean, it’s just a little womb.

And there you have it: an object lesson in how not to write a complaint. And by the way, I believe the term is artiste.

What, me, axe?

No, I don’t view every new business or publication as an evil scheme. Really, I don’t. It’s just that I’m becoming more sensitized to privacy issues.

Outed this week was the affiliation between Yarndex and Yarnmarket, and some slight resentment regarding this connection on LJ (and further resentment on another list, for which I maintain my habit of not mentioning by name, about exactly what happens to your personal information).

Yarnmarket, a site whose graphics have bothered me whenever I visited the site (nice font chosen for their logo and titles, and look at all those nice rounded corners) but never cared enough to mention unless I already had occasion to mention the company, launched Yarndex, which they claim is a subsidiary company. Apparently they saw the need for a “definitive worldwide resource for information on knitting yarns” and figured they were one of the few entities able to fill that niche. (Although we all know that there has been a certain non-profit effort in existence for… well, years.) But hand it to Yarnmarket for figuring out that setting up a searchable database with a broad range of current yarn offerings, even with colour family searching like elann’s, and linking it to their sales site, was a Very Good Idea indeed. More importantly, hand it to them for getting to it faster than just about everyone else (Yarnfinder doesn’t have enough information in its database to compete at this point). For those yarns that Yarnmarket doesn’t sell, Yarndex could very well provide a link to another retailer on the yarn detail page (and for that kind of prime billing, they’d be foolish not to charge the retailer a referral fee).

Now, some people seemed to think that the connection between Yarnmarket and Yarndex was a little insidious. Yarnmarket (oops, I meant Yarndex) posted to LJ Knitting defending itself, pointing out that the affiliation was clear. Personally, I think you’d have to be a moron not to realize there was some kind of link between them, but then there are a lot of morons out there. For example, there are morons who think that WiseNeedle, the aforementioned non-commercial resource, sells the yarns listed in its database, and get all pissy when they find out that’s not the case.

But another point that was raised was that the privacy policy on Yarndex allowed a user’s personal information to be used by Yarnmarket. If you want to add your own review of a yarn, which is apparently permitted on the Yarndex site, you need to create an account and sign in. And when you create an account, according to their privacy policy, your information is available to affiliated companies–i.e., Yarnmarket. And let’s see, Yarnmarket’s privacy policy is… is… hmm, they don’t seem to have one posted. So a retailer gets hold of your e-mail address, and can easily tie it to your yarn purchasing habits, while you provide review data that augments the website’s utility for other customers, who in turn make purchases, enter reviews, and provide their e-mail addresses and information about their purchasing habits… and what do they get to do with all that personal and marketing information?

Anyway. Central resources on the vital statistics of yarn, good. Collecting your personal information and monitoring your spending habits, your choice. But I encourage you to do this:

Use WiseNeedle.

You’ve been knitting stuff and bragging about it. (You’ve been knitting more than me, because I’ve been knitting the same cabled top-down V-neck design about ten times in a quest for near perfection, so by the way I’m a little edgy). You’ve probably even worn the stuff you knitted, too, and have opinions of how the yarn holds up.

So go to WiseNeedle and submit a review of that yarn. One thing a vendor-affiliated website can’t do without injuring its sales is to allow criticisms of that yarn. But that’s exactly what many knitters actually want–they want to know if a yarn will pill, if it comes with too many knots, if the colour bleeds. Not namby-pamby “I love the colours! It looks so nice!” comments. Heck, who cares if you like a yarn colour? That doesn’t mean the next person will. But they will care if they learn that the colour fades after washing, or that there’s major variation between dye lots. Since Yarndex is new, we don’t know how far they’ll let criticisms go–and because it has an interest in selling Yarnmarket’s yarn, we won’t know if there’s any editorial bias exerted on comments, even when reviews are posted.

Even if you don’t post reviews on WiseNeedle, read ‘em. I’ve saved myself from buying yarn I would have ultimately regretted by reading WiseNeedle reviews.

Not to mention, you don’t need to sign in or create an account for yourself if you want to submit a review to WiseNeedle. You can do it anonymously–contrary to the Yarndex system.

I’m going to submit a review right now.

Auntie says

I still get serious inquiries to the agony aunt address, even though the last question posed to Auntie involved hamsters. I didn’t know whether this belonged here in the journal, or if it should have a more permanent home in the agony aunt column. But I thought that this merited a serious (if somewhat snarky) reply, and I don’t find it funny enough to keep it in Auntie’s column (and really, all the agony is supposed to be fictional, not real), so here it is.

I received this e-mail (edited a bit by Auntie):

Dear Auntie,

Thanks,
[name deleted because this really looks like a bona fide inquiry, with a real name and everything]

And Auntie crafted this response:

Dear [name deleted],

Incidentally, Auntie will give you the name of her paediatrician if you wish so that you know to avoid him, because this particular doctor has banned strollers from his waiting room. Strollers, carriages and the like must be parked out in the hallway while the patients and their guardians wait inside.

There. Now that Auntie has that off her chest, she can get back to work crafting a response to her friend’s spouse who thought he was being awfully clever writing to Auntie for help dealing with said friend’s knitting habit, and has taken some offense at the delay in Auntie’s reply. Auntie apologizes to him for the delay, but advises him to consider himself lucky. Auntie’s first instinct was to prepare an information package for said friend concerning divorces and obtaining child and spousal support. Nyah.

[Comments: Rachael said “hysterical” and suggested it would be amusing if the writer would start a petition against me, too. My favourite stalker, Martin M. Bruzynski, requested that I forward the informaton package and queried why Auntie was writing in the third person. I responded that I forgot. Auntie doesn’t use the third person.]