Can Both Sides Really Win?

As always, I am once again missing my own deadlines, but at least I am consistent! Along with being sick, wrecking my truck, and preparing to have friends in for Thanksgiving, I have been working through contract negotiations for the entrelac book. I have always believed in contracts because in most cases it helps maintain friendships and keeps things amenable between others. But this process has been causing me to think about the phrase -- Win Win.

Contract negotiations are about give and take. For me, the process began with my publisher providing me a boilerplate book contract. I did a quick review with them and then passed it on to my attorney. Not surprisingly, the publisher's contract was weighted extremely heavily in their favor. But why wouldn't it?? After all, it is THEIR contract. So next my attorney and I went over key point that he thought were a bit too much and we developed a "counter proposal". That now has been sent on to my publisher and they are forwarding it on to their lawyer. Honestly, I only expect one or two more rounds of negotiation until we come to an agreement, but is this a WIN-WIN?

The whole concept of negotiation, of give and take, is that neither of us end up with everything that we want, just "enough" of the stuff that we want. So is that really a win? Now I am not saying that we both won't be happy, because we probably will. I just am not sure that I can call it a win. Honestly, this is probably my overly competitive side showing, but a win is a win and a tie is a tie and they are NOT the same.

So it comes back to my original question can both side really win, or is that not what we are actually trying to achieve? SATISFIED-SATISFIED or HAPPY-HAPPY, that I can see being the result of a successful negotiation, but I guess it does sound a bit goofy. Well, even so, here's to HAPPY-HAPPY contract signing in the next few weeks!

Read More

I Want To Be Bill Bryson

This post may not have much to do with knitting, but it does have to do with writing and since it appears that the book is going to happen, I think it is appropriate. If you are not familiar with Bill Bryson -- he is a writer, a very funny writer, who can make almost any topic interesting. He is the first author that my husband and I listened to as a book on CD. It was "A Walk In the Woods" in case you are interested. Bill is particularly unique in that he reads his books himself and from time to time, you can hear a chuckle in his voice as he remembers the particular event that he is reading about. It is quite endearing.

Since our first introduction to Bill Bryson, Arlis and I have been HUGE fans. He has a way of story telling that is engaging, humorous and factual all at the same time. Currently I am listening to "I Am a Stranger Here Myself" which is a compilation of columns he wrote for a publication in Britain. And I realize that I want to write like that too! Once a week, I want to write about some observation I had the previous week (and be funny if at all possible) and later take these somewhat random observations and create a book someone might want to read!

Now I have been told that I can tell a good story. Just ask me sometime about getting to our first trip on a Windjammer Cruise and you will see what I mean. And make sure you have plenty of time. It really cannot be told adequately in less than 30 - 45 minutes and an hour is much better. I was trained by one of the best story tellers ever -- my father. He can tell a 15 minute story to a complete stranger and they will ACTUALLY be happy that he stopped them from their appointed activities to share his tale. But telling a story well and writing a story well, seem like two completely different things!

But you really don't know until you try! So I am going to start writing, once a week about my observation of the process of writing a book on knitting. I think it will be good for me to do -- even if I don't turn out to be very witty -- as it will help keep me focused on the process as well as the product. And the fact is, since this is my first book, I don't really know what to expect. Becoming a wonderful writer like Bill Bryson may be beyond my grasp, but I won't know unless I try. And who knows, maybe secretly Bill Bryson really wants to be a fabulous knitting instructor like Gwen Bortner -- now wouldn't that be a hoot!!!

Read More

Thanks to POOCH

Several folks have been hitting this blog in the last day or two thanks to a kind note from POOCH on the Modular Knitting List. She was a part of my entrelac class at Camp Stitches West a few months ago.

You will see that I am strongly considering writing a book on entrelac and now I am in early negotiations. This will be the place, at least for now, to keep abreast of my progress. Hopefully I will have some "real" news in the next couple of months. In the mean time, I have some new entrelac ideas brewing which I will post about soon!

Read More

New entries of late have been non-existent due to the fact that I have been actually working on an entrelac book proposal to be given to a publisher! Although nothing has been finalized yet, it appears that we will most likely be able to come to an agreement in the near future. Obviously I will let folks know when I actually have news that I can share.

In the mean time, I am beginning to look for sample knitters, particularly those well-versed in entrelac. If you think that you might be interested in this endeavor, please drop me an e-mail at gwen @ knitability.com (remove the spaces)and place Entrelac Knitter in the subject line to help me identify you as "legitimate" e-mail.

So with all this activity I have been thinking about schematics and sketches. I am very uncomfortable with my drawing skills (or lack there of). Entrelac can be particularly challenging due to the need to include a reasonable representation of the the diamonds the fabric produces. What I discovered is that if I start with a diamond graph paper, I can get more accurate shapes. This paper also works great for creating directional schematics (using arrows to represent the "lean"). And then sometimes I will cut these up to create a 3-D model to verify that all the joins will work.

By the way -- it also is great for sketching up modular designs as well!!!

Read More

Bloody Toes

Where does the time go?!? Well, May went to preparing for TNNA. But April and June are both months with Camp Stitches and my entrelac class. One of the questions that came up last April was how to deal with "bloody toes". Now this may sound a bit gruesome, but it is a term used to describe the bleeding through of the color of the previous tier at the point of the join.

Bloody toes are a "natural" occurance when working with entrelac. It is the result of joining two pieces of knitting perpendicular to one another. When it is most noticeable is when the underlying color is significantly "stronger" than the top color. Although the color "bleed" can be minimized with practice of specific knitting techniques, that along will not completely solve the problem.

I wish I could take credit for the solution, but alas, it was Joan Schouder who I believe is credited with the idea. At the point you are going to begin a new tier, work one round of knitting all the way around the tier in the new color by knitting the "live" stitches and picking up the appropriate stitches along the selvedge edges. By doing this you will need to keep closer track of your knitting, because the color of the yarn will not provide any clues. However, when you go to join the "live" stitches to the current tier, they will be the same color. No "bloody toes"!

Thanks Joan!

Read More