One of those sayings that is all too true is that one does not get a second chance at a first impression, do overs maybe, but not first impressions.

Pattern Editors may or may not be exposed to the photo of the project, but often their first impression is entirely based on the text.

A lot about the likely quality of the pattern instructions can be determined in Tools, Materials and Supplies listing. Just the presence or absence of it being followed by a “Stitches Used” listing.

it is my strongly held opinion that in today’s world those who do not list Metric are doing their potential customers a severe dis-service.

Any pattern author or even pattern user can easily see that “just letters” or just “numbers” don’t work if they actually look at:
https://wheatcarr.com/crochet/wheats-aluminum-crochet-hook-cross-reference.php
this chart is only a starting point, as due to some recent changes in sizing by several manufacturer it is in need of updating for purposes of “currently available”.

It is even more vital that metric sizing be included when referring to “thread” hooks since there are several standards (although I prefer the Japanese) Yet, even that can change of the years.

The meaning of D is not only subject to the Manufacturer whim, but even within the same manufacturer, may change suddenly. I have some BOYE size N that are 9.00mm and some that are 10.00mm –

I remember one particular author who had no idea (and we were unable to explain) how to use a caliper

In fact, a Pattern Author who wishes to “skimp” on the details, should, IMNHO, give metric diameter – since it is more universal and not subjectively based on the manufacturer other than for accuracy

Someday I need to finish this.

As I mentioned, sometimes the inspiration for “getting it done” is seeing a few to many repetitions of an InterMyth (and the side effects of parents raised during the Great Depression so there is an element of furgality) So it was with Fill The Gap. it is a great braid for accessories, but is not Japanese in origins so not Kumihimo.
There are other sources for its instruction and some might even be better than mine – but my goal is to help you learn the basics and then you choose how to go on after that.

The first step is “elapsed” time. The only way to even remotely avoid infringement is the need to start with a blank pieces of paper, or in my case, choosing not to look at /review the work of others for at least 6monts to a year for the particular braid.

Next I wind up some tama and spend a few hours getting back the rhythm of the braid on Marudai. After that comes what Henry refers to as the slot machine braiding ( comes from the slang for slot machines – the one armed bandit – based on the year I broke my arm and it took a few resets to get the bones back where they belonged)

As with many things Japanese, braiding movements are very much about balance, so “two handed” – which means if working on disc, when only one tama / bobbin is moved at at time – there will be TWO half steps.

Thanks to permission from the BeadSmith to use their images – I make up a number of sheets with two “discs” side by side and room for notes – these are more or less 1/2 sheets of letter size.

I have mentioned before that because I come from MaruDai to Disc – and thus have seen how much more easily the transition can occur if one is always in the habit of not turning the disc – I don’t… ever

It is my understanding that Makiko-sensei and others do to make it simpler – but my feeling is turning the disc just creates an obstacle to overcome later. Like many things, if you never start, the habit is easier to break

Anyway, back to my process. working one hand at time, making notes (adding arrowed lines – noting numbers, etc) I work thru the braid to find the the full repeat (all the steps/half-steps) needed for one cycle of movements to build the structure.

Repeat a few times (okay maybe a dozen) (STILL ON MARUDAI) to confirm – at least enough times to “see” that the braid does “match” the expected pattern and shape.

If all the sketches are clear and “okay” then time to put them to the test on Disc. This is also when I do enough repeats to find how many repeats are needed to return the bobbins to the original starting position. Just because one uses the same slots over and over does not mean the same tama “finish” in the same place.

This is a detail you need to know for purposes of surface design yarn color or with beads.

In not all that long time, this would be the point that the written instructions should be produced – in my case – I talk the sequences out loud which does annoy some people – recording as I go – using notation/comments likely more familiar to those who have weaving and/or crochet or knitting experience –
To start Round 1, with Left hand lift bobbin A from slot 32 and place in lot 18, with right hand lift bobbin B slot 1 to slot 15″ – repeating until bobbin A and all the others have returned to their original starting position. Then I play back and make the braid according to the verbal instructions , on the disc.

Again to use a term most weavers will recognize, –
Tromp As Writ –

If these were to be formally published, once the quick and dirty diagrams and verbiage has been refined a bit – this is point where I would be having a group with varied experience trying these instructions.

More refinements and editing, some q&d images would go off to a graphics person with more skills and tools than I possess. to prepare better diagrams and edit as needed for formal publication.

However, my current “project” is not intended for publication and certainly not something that I expect to be paid for. It is always welcome when others in the Beaded Braid community pitch in –
trying instructions and asking questions, or as Cheryl was so generous to do recently – making photos so you could see that all important point of braiding.

This is just the first part of the process — the braid structure –
after than comes mapping – sometimes easy and sometimes tedious.

I hope that by sharing a small part of the process it will help you to understand some of my eccentricities related to Intellectual property and of course, what “belongs” in a publication for it to be called a tutorial – and oh yes, fair warning, few things make my teeth hurt more than the phrase “standard braid” there is no such thing.

And, I am looking forward to “getting these done” because one of my rules is that I cannot use my books (marudai or disc) while this is ongoing.

Thanks for listening,
I hope you will share what you do with these instructions
so now it is time for you to go

Enjoy The Making

Wheat

P.S. currently there are instructions for my variation on
Kusari_Tsunagi – an 8 element round braid that has “straight” lines (does not spiral) among others in our Face Book files for Braids Beaded Kumihimo & More
Fill The Gap – a 7 element round braid has two parts, the “History” and SetUp & Stepouts are available on my e-commerce site – ItsAllJustString.com
and eventually all will find their way to the underdevelopment site’s AllJustString.com

Shared, written, with specific permission:
Originally Posted on October 9, 2015 by Marnie’s Creations
http://www.creationsfromthehart.com/amazon-review/
A closer look at the new Amazon Handmade section

I know many artists in my position were really excited when given the opportunity to apply to be a seller on the newly launched Handmade @ Amazon section. We were even more excited when we received the form email that congratulated us on our acceptance. Since receiving that email there have been many other form emails telling us to add products, set up our profile and advising us on how to market our soon to be launching Amazon store. Exciting? Right? Amazon is huge and has a lot of traffic. This takes us out of website maintenance, the Facebook auctions, the face to face selling and all of the other interaction we currently have so that we can spend our time creating instead of conversing. To some this sounds like a great thing. Never mind that their fees are higher than any other platform available at 12% plus 50 cents per sale and the $39.99 per month (which is waived until August 2016 for artisans). It’s Amazon, what can go wrong?

Well folks I’m not an accountant although I did take numerous classes on the subject and I would not consider myself to be good at math but do you have any idea how many items you have to sell on Amazon to actually make a profit after materials and those fees? It’s a lot. Most of the artisans I know are a one man show, so to speak. We can only make so much in a day. Perhaps that’s why Amazon considers you a handmade artisan if you employ 20 people or belong to a community of 100 people. Yeah, that’s not how I do things. It is only me. I make my products, I purchase the materials to make my products, I photograph my products, I actively sell my products, I handle the invoicing, I pack and ship my products. I handle all aspects of my business. Working for Amazon I would simply have to make more of the product to produce the same amount of money. Don’t get me wrong, I work. I work A LOT. In fact the majority of my awake hours are spent working. The reason I work so much is so that eventually I can get away from working for someone else. It sounds to me like selling on Amazon would be similar to working for Amazon. Today I deleted everything I had on their site. I’ll tell you why a little further in this post.

I was excited to start. I set up my shop and added my products. I received email after email from Amazon telling me they’re launching soon but giving no indication of when soon was. I have to admit that the lack of details was a problem for me but the bigger problem with their emails is that not once did they use my name. Now, my name is not a huge deal. I’m no one important but in a business transaction isn’t it polite to use someone’s name when addressing them. As a business owner that sends emails, messages and writes handwritten notes to my customer I find this lack of personalizing a tad disturbing for a site promoting handmade items. I figured I’d let that slide. Amazon is huge and maybe they accepted everyone that applied and they have too many people to write to…although I’m not sold on that idea because I know that even I can get a program that will fill in people’s names in a form email.

All of this up to this point I considered to be small annoyances. What was really bothering me is that whenever you buy something from Amazon you say you got it on Amazon. There are a great many sellers on Amazon but who are they? It doesn’t really matter. Do I want my jewelry to be another Amazon product? I put time into what I do. Everything I make comes from my heart and my hands. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do that to feed a monster company like that. Those that know me know that I don’t even shop at Walmart for similar reasons. So maybe I was trying to talk myself out of it, maybe I was curious but something caused me to further research. I read about sellers experiences on Amazon. I read that Amazon will actually compete with you, that they will reproduce your product if it’s doing well. I read that you can’t have a watermark on your photos, that you cannot link out from you business website on Amazon but of course they encourage you to link from your business website to Amazon. I read some horror stories where sellers left Amazon to sell on their own website and were competing with their old Amazon profile. This makes sense because who has better SEO (search engine optimization) than Amazon? Seriously, type in any kind of product in Google, Bing, whatever search engine you use and tell me who comes up first. I heard that Amazon exploits their sellers. I heard they reserve the right to use your name and product any way they wish.

Ok, all of this is bad. It can’t all be true, right? Well I had a bad feeling about it. It hit me at 3am yesterday. I made the decision not to participate in the launch of this new section. I went to bed feeling really good about this decision, no harm done aside from the hours I spent setting everything up. I woke up this morning (well it would technically be yesterday now) to an email from Amazon. We’re now live. My heart sank. So now I’m definitely going to see if there is a basis for all of this negative feedback I read. I went on Amazons website. First I read about payments and returns. It was just the first thing I saw. Did you know that the sellers still pay 20% of the fee for items that are returned, even if it wasn’t their fault? That’s besides the point though. I wanted to see about branding, to see if I can promote my actual business. I can’t. You are not allowed to have any communication with the customers other than through Amazon. Why? Because they’re not your customers, they’re Amazons. They clearly state this…somewhere. I have to say that it’s not exceptionally easy to find information on their site even while logged in as a seller. I had to dig for quite awhile and was able to verify everything I had feared.

You know what actually got me to immediately delete all of my products? It was this, copied from the Amazon website. License: You grant us a royalty-free, non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use, reproduce, perform, display, distribute, adapt, modify, re-format, create derivative works of, and otherwise commercially or non-commercially exploit in any manner, any and all of Your Materials, and to sublicense the foregoing rights to our Affiliates and operators of Amazon Associated Properties. Now if you’re thinking of selling your handmade items I want you to read that again and when you’re done, a third time. I did. I read it multiple times mainly because I could not believe that they are so blatant about it. Yes, we have the right to exploit you. You give us this right. This right is irrevocable. Well crap. I had 50 something products listed. I did a batch delete immediately after reading this. It might not even matter because they were there and Amazon now owns those product pictures and designs. Fortunately in the few hours it was up nothing sold so perhaps Amazon won’t have any interest at all in my designs.

So this is my experience with Amazon. Next time an opportunity arises I am going to research first. Sometimes it can sound like a great thing and be the exact opposite. I’m still a tad nervous but happy it’s over. All of those things that Amazon said to encourage artisans to list there…You know, no more Facebook auctions, not so much communication, etc. Well, I enjoy those things. Being in a creative field I draw energy and inspiration from other people. I don’t want to simply sit and make products. I need feedback. I need the interaction. I’m not going to give that up. I’m back to auctioning again this weekend and have other things planned. I do still take the time to create and I take breaks from selling during this time…but I can do that. This is supposed to be an enjoyable experience and so far it has been.

As for Amazon I think they’re misleading both the buyers and sellers. The sellers for the reasons I stated and the buyers because Amazon has the artisans set up shop, they have pictures of themselves, their work space, a description of their process, their background etc. What it doesn’t necessarily say is that they could have 20-100 people working for them. I support the independent artisan. I, myself, am a self representing artist. I could never be sure that the money I spend in this section on Amazon is going to that nice person I read the profile for. Although I do know for sure that a hefty amount of it goes to Amazon. I really haven’t shopped on Amazon in a long time and they have now made it to my growing list of places I will never shop.

Please note that while the decision to back out came from their post about the license this selling site may work for some crafters. It won’t work for me. I encourage anyone reading this to do your own research prior to deciding.

My featured image is of one year here in Minnesota when it snowed a lot. It was my yard at the time. I was trying to think of something that fit this topic and for some reason snow came to mind.

Part of the problem is that we have become so dependent upon this system that is killing and exploiting us, it has become almost impossible for us to imagine living outside of it, and it’s very difficult physically for us to live outside of it.

~ Derrick Jensen

I was asked to explain why a designer should consider joining a trade association in addition to the social/hobby organization of thier choice.

After struggling for several hours about how to say what I so passionately believe – it was clear that a single response would not “do it”

Without the necessary background and context there is no way to answer the questions, much less have the discussion or more likely based on past experience – suffer a crucifixion. God knows every time I try to be a Horse Whisperer it gets me in trouble.

So, I gave up and decided to just write what I feel, believe, or whatever with no malice intended but positive that some will assume there is and who knows, where that will end up this time no body knows

The first controversial statement? It is completely beyond my comprehension how anyone who lives in the real world today – where rapid changes in circumstances can as fast as the click of the enter key, can still base their business decisions on information or experiences even a few years old.

If you belong to a Social/Hobby organization, with rare exceptions, you need to realize that is it not in their charter to help you develop your professional career beyond the development of your techical skills.

These Social/Hobby organizations have two primary purposes,
to provide fellowship
to provide education opportunities in the craft they serve.

There is NOTHING wrong with the choices made by these organizations to limit their focus. This is not to say no opportunities exist within these wonderful groups for the professional; but, we need to be realistic and not be misled by what we would like vs what exists.

So, where “should” those who wish to pursue a formal (primary or secondary) career look for the kind of contacts that will further their career…

In ADDITION to joining the social/hobby organization(s) that support your area of Professional interest and expertise; you need to first identify your goals.

And, that needs its own blog-a-mentary of its own

Wheat
hope you will share your thoughts “on the subject” soon

P.S. To read more posts in this series, select the category

It Is All Just Business
from the side bar or Search for Designer Resources

A Model Maker, no matter how the string is used, is someone who takes your directions, uses the supplies listed in your instructions and makes a PICTURE PERFECT “MODEL” of the project you have designed.

What is a Model used for? Project Models are used for “photography” or the three T’s: Teaching, Trade & Trunk Shows

Unlike a Pattern Tester, A Model maker is allowed to some latitude to “fudge”, but *must* keep the design team informed of the need to finagle in order to “get it to look right”.

Whatever form of payment agreed to (Barter, Cash or other compensation) there needs to be a solid “Work for Hire” agreement in place with all rights clearly stated and all necessary releases exchanged BEFORE the work begins –

The Model Maker HAS to be a Perfectionist – Even the best stylist cannot always “cover up” flaws in workmanship.

If the work is to be used/handled during its use for the 3T’s, then the model has to be well constructed to survive such potential abuse. Or the Designer needs to plan how to protect a delicate item.

Who Can Be A MODEL MAKER?

A model maker can be anyone who possesses:
• above average skills in the technique
• dedication to the highest standards of execution of the craft
• the ability to produce a “picture perfect” project sample.
• willingness to communicate in a competent and timely manner

So what else do you think is “important”

Wheat

P.S. To read more posts in this series, select the category

It Is All Just Business
from the side bar or Search for Designer Resources