BPhdc - Photo Tutorial

Here's how to work a BPhdc (= Back Post half double crochet crochet).

This stitch is used in my Voltaic fingerless gloves pattern.

To help you understand, here's a gif of the motion you'll have to make:

BPtr - Photo tutorial

Here's how to work a BPtr (= Back Post treble crochet).

This stitch is used in my Voltaic fingerless gloves pattern.

To help you here's a gif showing you the motion you'll be doing:

Winter Sale extended – because I messed up. Big Time :/

So… I’m a failure, apparently. On February 15^th I launched a ‘Winter Sale’ promotion on my patterns on Ravelry. I meant for it to run for a month – ‘til March 15^th, that is. Except that I, somehow, sometimes, ‘paused’ the promotion. I don’t know if I misclicked, misread or simply missed a step when I set up the promotion, but when I checked today (February 25^th) I saw that there’d been no price change on my patterns and that the promotion was actually ‘paused’. So I immediately un-paused it. And proceeded to dutifully smack myself in the head.

Now, since I’m not sure when I messed up, I think it’s just best that I extend the promotion to March 25^th.

If you tried to purchase one of my patterns in the past few days and didn’t because the promised promotion wasn’t there, know that I am extremely sorry. I’m livid just thinking about how some of you might’ve believed it was a scam of sorts. It wasn’t. I was just me, failing. Because that’s what I do best.

Patterns sales changes : Extra receipt & Same price for everybody

TL; DR: Customers will get an extra copy of their receipt emailed to them & everybody will pay the same price for my Ravelry patterns (Rav shop set to 'seller pays VAT')

First of all, happy new year everybody - it's still January where I live, so it's still socially acceptable for me to tell you that, isn't it? No matter, I do wish you all a happy new year. Hopefully it'll be a good one.

With this new year come some changes regarding my Ravelry patterns - those are not major changes but still, I feel like some explanations are in order.

Firstly, when you purchase one of my patterns you'll now receive an extra copy of your receipt. I'll email it to you most likely the day after the purchase - I'm no robot and have yet to find a mean to automate the process so this delay might vary, but I'll do my best to send it as quickly as possible.

Why an extra receipt, you might ask? Because French administration is... how to say it politely... ridiculously nitpicky? Yeah, ridiculously nitpicky. So Paypal receipts just won't do when doing my taxes and other paperwork in general.

No, for the French administration to see a receipt as a legitimate proof that you're making money in a non-fraudulent way, the receipt needs, amongst other things:

-to be written in French

-to have the seller's postal address and SIREN number on it

-to have a little legal mention at the bottom

-to be numbered in a certain way

So there. From now on I'll be sending out extra receipts in French. I've decided to also join a translated copy of said receipt because it feels weird to just send someone something they'll most likely be unable to understand.

So in effect, if you purchase one of my patterns, you’ll get a short email explaining what I just said, basically, with two pdf files attached to it: the receipt in French and the copy translated in English. Obviously, you won't have anything to do once you get the email. This receipt is like a proof of payment, not a “Money! Send me more money! MONNNEEEEEH!!!!” kind of thing. I am really sorry for the inconvenience - believe me, the last thing I want to do is send emails left right and center - but for the moment, that's the only way I've found to be in accordance with French law whilst distributing my patterns through Ravelry.

Second thing is, I've set my Ravelry shop to 'seller pays VAT'. What does this mean? Quick answer is: a price decrease for European customers.

The long, more technical answer is: every customer now pays the same price, no matter where they live.

Here’s an example of how it works:

Say you’re from the UK (VAT=20%)

-if my shop is set to ‘customers pay VAT’, a pattern priced at 5€ will cost you 5+(5*20%)=6€. At the end of the month, I pay back that extra euro to Ravelry – since I let them handle the VAT. A pattern priced at 5€ does earn me 5€ (before other charges and taxes are applied, but that’s an all different thing.)

-if my shop is set to ‘seller pays VAT’, then a pattern priced at 5€ will cost you, oh surprise, 5€. At the end of the month, Ravelry will still bill me that extra euro of VAT, so in effect, this 5€ pattern earns me 4€.

So… Yay for equality amongst customers, I guess? :D

Be aware, though, that I may set my shop back to the usual 'customers pay VAT' someday - I'm still figuring out some details and selling in the EU with the new VAT laws is quite finicky so nothing is set in stone. Right now it seems less of a hassle to 'lose' a little money and pay VAT to Ravelry myself than to have to figure out how to NOT apply VAT to French customers while STILL applying VAT to all other European customers - because yes, as far as I know, that's how I'd have to tax my patterns if I were to collect VAT from customers. So for now I'll just be lazy, take what looks like the easy road, have ALL Europeans pay the same price as everybody else and pay VAT for everybody myself – thus insuring I’m not making people pay VAT when I really shouldn’t. Better safe than sorry, right?

And if I find another solution/hear that it's not the right way to proceed/am struck by a genius idea on how to deal with all this finicky business, I'll act accordingly and make the necessary changes.

Anyway, I'll keep you updated here ;)

Oh, the joy of creating your own patterns – Kingsroad

Thought it’d be interesting to share a bit of the creative process – and what comes along with it. So here goes a ramble. Of sorts. Enjoy ;)

I’d been wanting to try and get my hands on some Crazy Zauberballs for quite some time when the idea for Kingsroad popped in my mind. So many colors, all wrapped in one –fairly cheap – ball, that was very tempting to my tasteless, cheap self XD

Now, here’s the thing with me: as disputable as my tastes can be (if you think we Frenchies are elegance incarnate, think again) even I have my limits. And as much as I love that idea of long color changing yarn, I often find garments knitted in these un-wearable. I don’t know. They seem unnatural to me, if that means anything. Kinda fake. Gadget-y. They can look good - as objects. Decorative things. Not practical things. But that’s just me being weird. I’m aware. Don’t worry.

Anyway, back to creating Kingsroad. A while ago, I have found out that the only way for me to safely use long color changing yarn (i.e. make something I’ll actually wear) is to crochet it. Preferably in stripes. With another long color changing yarn – see the inconsistence of my reasoning there? One color changing yarn, knitted: looks sketchy. Two or more, crocheted: totally fine. Because that makes sense.

And as if this wasn’t enough, when I was purchasing Schoppel-Wolle goodness, I saw my usual yarn shop was selling Kunstgarn – very colorful yarn, cheaper than the Zauberballs. So I got curious about those, too. And decided to use FOUR different variegated yarns for my crocheted stole – go big or go home, right?

The yarn arrived (No decent LYS where I live. Gotta order almost everything.), an avalanche of colors grazed my delicate eyes, and I got working.

And guess what?

The four colorways worked wonders together – kinda surprising since I picked two different brands of yarn. Got those four bad boys for a little less than 40 euros total – quite the bargain for so many vibrant colors, if you ask me.

Yes, the result is freakishly gaudy – and yes, I LOVE it. Again, it’s not as if I was known for my tame sense of style.

Exhibit A: Elegance incarnate, I tell you.

Another good thing: both the Crazy Zauberball and the Kunstgarn are what you’d call sock yarns - 75/25. So no pilling. Which is always a plus.

The stole is soft enough – I wore it all winter and didn’t find it scratchy. It is pretty heavy, though, but I quickly got used to it. When you make a stole with 400g of yarn, you’ve got to be realistic: the damned thing is gonna be heavy – 400 grams heavy, to be exact.

Anyway, I love my Kingsroad to bits. And probably will try to come up with another crochet stole pattern someday soon, just to have an excuse to use those yarns again.

But my little story doesn’t end here.

From the start, Kingsroad was meant to be a pattern that I would sell. But it wasn’t meant to be customizable. I only realized that it would be perfectly possible to write it as a customizable pattern when I first started to chart the stripes.

And possible it was. Possible, but nightmarish to work out. Seriously. I hadn’t expected the thing to be so difficult to write/chart. Make one little modification to one tiny bit of instruction, have the whole thing crumble down before your eyes, basically. Or worse. Make on little modification to one tiny bit of instruction, DON’T notice the whole thing crashing down before you, keep working for hours, make fancy charts, formatting, proofread and THEN notice something is not quite right. Yes. That happened. Quite a few times. But hey, that was fun, all things considered. And educational. I mean, now I can proudly say that I did it. I can boast and say that I’m able to make a customizable pattern. AND I made my own set of custom brushes for charting crochet patterns. I didn’t have the choice. It was either do that, or go bonkers -oh, the joy of having a terrible handwriting. Anyway, creating those brushes took quite a lot of time, but now that they’re done, the whole charting process has become much easier for me.

So I now have a gorgeous stole, a brand new pattern, bragging rights and handy custom brushes. How nice is that? Very nice indeed.

Although… as I write this, this pattern I’m so proud of hasn’t been tested yet.

…dammit.

Kingsroad - Custom Macramé & Braids Fringe

So, you've crochetted your Kingsroad and want the fringes of your stole/scarf to look like this:

Then read on and (re)discover the joy of knotting :p

Ideally, to work the macramé and braids fringe you should have a number of strands that's a multiple of 12 (since you need a mulitiple of both 4 (for the macramé) and 3 (for the braids)).
Of course, counting strands can be tedious, especially across a wide stole on which you have already spent many hours of your time. A stole that you're eager to wear. A stole that you may or may not have had enough of (hello, supersized stole lovers ;p). I know I couldn't be bothered to count strands at that point. Call me lazy - I am. So I took the easy route.
I didn't count. And when I ended up with 5 strands for the last square knot, I worked the excess strand together with another. Same goes for the last braid. As long as your yarn is not too thick, this won't be noticeable.

Here's how to work a basic square knot in macramé:

To make a square knot, you need 4 strands of yarn (those are called cords in actual macramé projects).
B and C are your core cords: they will not 'move' as you make this knot.

Step 1: Pass A over B and C and under D.

Step 2: Bring D under C and B and over A through the loop that A forms with B.

Step 3: Pass A over C and B and under D.

Step 4: Bring D under B and C and over A through the loop that A forms with C.

Lastly pull on cords A and D to tighten the knot.

Now, the actual fringe 'how-to':

Work square knots across the whole fringe (that's row 1).
Then work alternating square knots for Row 2 & 3

On Row 2, D and A become your core cords. Your working cords are now C and B.
Work Row 3 the same way you did row 1.

After these three rows of macramé, braid the strands together.

Once you're done knotting and braiding, you'll probably want to block the macramé section to open up the net-like fabric.

You should end up with something like this (note that I wore this stole all winter, meaning that more than six months have passed between the above and the below picture - the macramé still looks pretty good, I think ^^)

Don't hesitate to trim the ends after you' re done. I had planned to do so, but I actually liked the 'raggedy' look of the braids (see picture above - these do look better in the 'flesh', I assure you).

And... that's all there is to it. Happy knotting!

Kingsroad - Customizable Crochet Stole inspired by 'A Song of Ice & Fire'

Kingsroad was born when I was reading G.R.R. Martin’s ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’.

At the time I had just created the base of the ‘wayn wheel’ pattern for another project. The more I looked at those wheels, the more I thought that, with just a bit of tweaking, they would make for a pretty nice scarf/stole.

Since this pattern is worked sideways, I figured it could look interesting with long color changing yarn. The result would be unexpected – just as the Kingsroad (or any road, for that matter) can be full of surprises. Additionally, working with slow color changing yarn assures a dramatic result without having to buy a dozen different colorways…

And since the pattern was to be worked in separate stripes that would then be assembled, making this a customizable stole seemed logical to me.

Thus, the Kingsroad stole was born.

Now, obviously, with such a gaudy color scheme, it is unlikely this sample Kingsroad stole would ever be seen on an episode of Game of Thrones, but it’s okay. That wasn’t what I was aiming for.

Who knows, maybe you won’t be as tasteless as I was in your choice of colors, and make a stole the ladies of Westeros would wear.

[I will update this post with the links to the Ravelry project page & shop page as soon as I create them ;)]