An open letter to designers of Mystery knit-a-longs

Dear Designers,

For the love of wool PLEASE stop running mystery KALs on yahoogroups and mailing lists. Seriously.

I admit it. I have a low tolerance level for email these days (consequences of two jobs where I have to deal with morons sending moronic email all day). But I can't be the only person turned off from these sorts of KALs because they're run via mailing list.

When KALs and the online knitting world were small then it wasn't a problem to run these sorts of groups via mailing list. However, with increased popularity - there are over 2100 knitters on the now-closed Secret of the Stole, and over 1100 on Spring Shawl Surprice already and that doesn't even start for nearly 2 months - it's becoming less and less feasible to run a group this way.

I suggest moving away from email-led groups into a more structured forum setting. Free forum software is very good, members can be required to join and messages can be kept restricted so that nothing appears on public view.

At the moment with the mailing lists one's choices are essentially receive everything (and I mean *everything*), or receive nothing but special notices from the designer. I feel that a forum would be a happy medium between the two.

There could be a special 'announce' section for those who just want to get the important messages from the designer & nothing else; there can be sections for advanced queries, and those for beginners, those for photos, as well as a separate section for people to chat about things in general.

Important posts can be 'stickied', and it would be a lot clearer when someone had already asked a question, avoiding unnecessary duplication. Those who want the full socialising atmosphere can hang around all the sections. Those that just want to knit the pattern can simply keep an eye on the relevant pattern sections.

I would like to keep up more with the lists, but there is just so much traffic that I just can't. And a lot of the traffic isn't always relevant immediately to the pattern - or it's very basic questions that have to be asked over and over because people don't tend to search the archives of mailing lists in the way that they would on a forum. I haven't been able to keep up with my email and I currently have over 100 unread *digests* (so 1000s of messages) solely from the past *month* - from only 2 KALs! It's ridiculous!

I think this problem is only ever going to grow as the online knitting world grows, and while mailing lists have their place - I'm on lots of other ones, so my problem isn't with the concept of a list - I think that the mystery KAL has outgrown them.

Yours grumpily,
TheKnittingBee

Crikey!

I haven't been blogging much this month, because I felt there 'wasn't much' for me to blog about. Of course, now I come to write a post I realise that there's loads and loads, and if I'm not super careful this will turn into one of my super boring posts with far too much text and not enough photos. I've been a bad blogger, I do apologise.

It also turns out - I've been tagged! It hasn't happened before, but I am going to try and combine an update with the tagging thing, and hope not to get too verbose ;)

I'm not going to tag anyone else, but if you want to do this, let me know in the comments!

I have been tagged by DarnCatCrochet.

So I'm it......

Here are the “official” rules:
1. Players must list one fact, word, or tidbit that is somehow relevant to their life for each letter of your first or middle name.

2. When you are tagged you need to write your own post containing your first or middle name game facts, word, or tidbit.

3. At the end of your post choose one person for each letter of your name to tag.

4. Don’t forget to leave a comment telling them ,they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

5. If I have tagged YOU, please join in on the fun! (Rules supplied by Hannah at bittersweet)

My middle name is MARY. My very Catholic grandmother was not overly impressed that I was named after a punk pop star (despite it being a biblical name!), so my parents opted for Mary as a consolation prize ;)

M - MONEY
Now, DarnCat (I love that film BTW, the Hayley Mills version) won't know this, but it is completely her fault that I've got my etsy obsession. Well, her fault via Harry Potter. See, I spent the week leading up to the last HP book reading all the previous ones, getting totally immersed in HP land (my 'tradition' is to read each one in a day leading up to the release of the next one). Then the following week we saw the fifth film. Then... I was having HP withdrawal symptoms!

So I started lurking on Craftster, because they often have threads about the costumes in the HP films (one thread had a link to a documentary all about costume in HP films; as an ex-wardrobe mistress I found it fascinating). Then I found a thread about a crocheted Harry Potter and Hedwig (I love Hedwig!) that were just fabulous. Utterly utterly amazing; the best knitted/crocheted toys I've ever seen. DarnCat was the designer, so I started stalking her blog, desperately waiting for her to release the pattern (can I crochet? Of course not ;) ). She also did a Hermione and a Ron, and now I reeeeeeeally need my crochet-ing friend to teach me (I think I can bribe her with goes on my spinning wheel).

Now, I was aware of etsy before, obviously. But having money in my paypal account mixed with Harry Potter withdrawal symptoms... Anyway, since my pattern purchase, I may well have bought stitch markers, bracelets and t-shirts. Not all HP related ;)

And the best part: it feels like it's all free! My 'rule' is that anything bought with money from paypal, has to be paid for with money already in my paypal account that I didn't put there. i.e., I have to sell some of my old crap on ebay, in order to fund my etsy habit. So I'm decluttering too ;)

A - ANTSY
Earlier in late Spring/Summer, I heard about 2 things. Ravelry, and Mystery Stole 3. I decided that I was both above taking part in things 'just because everyone else is', and - being aware of my injuries - better off not joining a website which would involve more typing, nor a KAL that would involve loads of knitting.

Doh!

Of course, I loooooooooooooooove MS3. If I'm honest, I've loved it ever since I first saw the first clue (yet I *still* didn't join, even though there were a few days left). I've been stalking Melanie's blog, desperately waiting for the pattern to be released. And today it has been! Hoorah!

So now I'm super antsy, waiting for my download email to arrive!

As for Ravelry, I've signed up, but I think there are still a couple of million people in front of me in the queue. I've realised that I don't *have* to actively type loads, but can use it as a resource. Same with every other Mystery project! Just because I'm getting the clues doesn't mean I HAVE to knit them! So I've now signed up for the Secret of the Stole and Secret of Chrysopolis as well, so I don't miss out again! However, I think MS3 is going to be my priority, once the download email finally arrives!!!

R - REALLY TINY HATS
My pledge has succeeded! Hoorah! It's still open until the middle of October, though, so you can still sign up if you want :)

I haven't started my mini-hats yet, but I have been unravelling crappy old acrylic WIPs that I'm going to use the yarn for hats instead. I've pledged to make a minimum of 5 hats, but I'm hoping that I get to use up all my old acrylic instead! (I have nothing against acrylic - the emphasis here is on old!).

My friends are holding a Knit-In to make hats, so I'll probably start when we do that. Or I'll start this weekend - who knows ;)

Y - YARN TO BE
I'm thinking for MS3 that I'll just go with Jaggerspun Zephyr, since that's the yarn used in the sample, and I can get that over here. I'm thinking maybe the darkest grey that I can get, and using lighter silver beads (I have no idea where to buy decent beads in the city I live now!).

There's a new Knitty, and I love Cherie Amour. I was looking at yarns to sub, but then realised that since it has a pretty short yardage, I could spin for it!

I've decided to get some dyed Corriedale combed tops, and make a 2-ply bulky yarn. My plan is to have one ply being all one colour, but to make the other ply multi-coloured (ie., spin a tuft of colour A, then B, then C, then back to A, etc). The two strands will barber-pole, but the knitting should appear to be striped, as the multi-coloured strand should stand out more. (Clear as mud, right?)

I'm thinking of using the following colours:
Plum Duff
Raspberry
Jelly Bean
Grape Jelly

They are all shown next to each other on this site:

http://www.pmwoolcraft.co.uk/html/view_product.php?ProdID=1092&CatID=&start=18

Bu obviously the colours in the photo might be off! I think they're actually darker in real life, especially the grape jelly, as this site has the same fibre with different photos, and there are slight differences.

So! The million dollar questions! Do you think I'm bonkers? Do the colours go well together, or should I rethink? Which colour should I pick to be the single-colour ply? I'm thinking Jelly Bean or Plum Duff (but that might have to depend on me sampling once I've bought the fibre).

I'd really appreciate any input, because Mr Bee is a) not really interested b) complaining I have too much fibre already, and why don't I use that instead (answer: I don't have enough of any one fibre!).

My MS3 pattern just arrived - hoorah!

(oh, and I failed on the 'not being too verbose' front: I'll do photos soon :) )