A day that started early, ended late (only a few minutes left till midnight, once again) but didn’t seem to go anywhere much in between. Some useful Etsy listing though – hand warmers this time. I am definitely making a dent in the pile, which is satisfying (and also means I can think about making more stuff…)
I really should be using all my very best, beautiful stashed yarns now. I probably already don’t have enough life left to get through them all – though there is definitely pleasure in spreading them out to admire. I think I am waiting for them to shout out to me exactly what they want to become – it does sometimes happen! Until I am absolutely sure, I will probably just keep on stroking and purring….
I was (briefly) gutted today to receive a four star review for the handspun yarn above. In the 15 years I have been selling on Etsy (1,657 sales to date) I have never before had fewer than the full five stars. (Well, there was one occasion when a buyer awarded me three because she couldn’t fasten her item. She withdrew the low review when I showed her where the buttons were neatly concealed!)
The buyer of the yarn above was very sweet. She praised the wool as ‘very pretty’ and mentioned fast delivery etc But she was disappointed that the colours looked different. I don’t usually have a problem getting accurate photos of those particular colours (some purple/blues are quite a different matter…) and I had clearly taken several pictures on different days, from batt to skein, before and after setting the twist…so there is not a lot more I can do about how they look on different monitors.
The reason I mention this here, though, is because of the online translation. My buyer is French (with a lovely Etsy name involving sheep). The relevant part of her review states that ‘les couleurs sont assez différentes de la photo’. It just so happens that I speak French – and in any case that sentence is hardly complicated. It has been translated by Etsy (Google?) as ‘the colours are quite different from the photo’. NOT correct. ‘Assez’ often does carry the meaning of ‘quite’ – but here it should have been rendered as ‘rather’ or ‘somewhat’ different, NOT ‘quite different’ = ‘totally different’, which is QUITE DIFFERENT and not QUITE FAIR!
I wonder how often I encounter this online in languages I don’t know and so have no chance of spotting it.
PS. I am well over fretting about the lost star! In the scale of things it doesn’t make a scrap of difference and it wasn’t really anything in my control. I shall treat the incident as character building, and a warning not to get complacent!
Some difficult months – not helped by the random popup ‘memory’ feature on the iphone – thanks, Apple….
But after some debate SpinningStreak has decided to resurface, and maybe I’ll hide behind her for a while!
September in the Auvergne
I spent the last few weeks keeping an indigo bath on the go – temperatures in the 30s definitely helped to prolong it. These pictures are a mixture of indigo and logwood on merino, alpaca, silk and one skein of linen.
The hedges looked pretty strange at times.
Made a good start on the cosy stuff as well – though it is always a bit weird to be working on winter items in 34 degrees.
Crescent scarves next on the list – need a stock of those because they seem to go down well as gifts.
Apparently I have entirely forgotten how to edit these posts – can’t even shift the images around any more. So, apologies – but if I mess around wasting any more time I know I will just delete the lot!
Discovering splendid municipal architecture in Évreux, and castles in Lapalisse and Châteldon (the home town of Pierre Laval, though that doesn’t get much of a mention in the tourist office!)
I am also quite a fan of the N7, but I think this rather large sign in Lapalisse is new:
Likewise this rather alarming roadside cross that has appeared right outside the front gate… I think over the last year European money has restored several of these 19th century calvaires which had disappeared during the late 20th century.
We’ll get used to it!
Reading, walking, eating….and several sessions with the dye pots, mostly sock yarn this time.
I also took some pictures of a corridor my daughter decided to decorate some years ago:
We are holding a memorial event to celebrate her life on Sunday. This is necessary, but not easy. I think I will take my late September tree pictures on the same day – still a really useful prop!
I’m sure they have their reasons, but every time I think about posting I seem to put the kettle on instead….
I will eventually find the motivation to suss it all out. For the moment I am just muttering about the new image blocks. I rather enjoyed playing around with the old options, but all I can find now is an (admittedly pretty classy) oval thingy.
SpinningStreak 