Online customers I have known and loved

10:49 PM
I'm waiting for an eBay customer to pay me so I can put a shipping label on her package and order a carrier pickup for Saturday morning. I have another order going out, but it's a large, 14-pound box of yarn and the customer chose Parcel Post--wisely, I believe, since it cut her shipping fees in half--but I can't ask for pickup on it unless someone else pays me for a Priority order. Too much detail for you? Sorry.

But as I'm sitting here next to this 14-pound box of yarn, I am reminded of a customer I loved--not because she ordered large amounts of yarn at a time, although that didn't hurt. :o) She had a serious medical condition and spent a great deal of time knitting and crocheting. I think she was bed-ridden a fair amount and probably spent some time in hospitals and in doctor's waiting rooms, yet she never complained and seldom mentioned her illness. I think perhaps she didn't want to burden me, but it was no burden. She was a tower of strength and it was inspiring to talk with her through sporadic emails.

I try not to latch onto customers too much. They will tell me little things about their personal lives, but it's still a business arrangement, so I have no business asking endless questions about why they are in the hospital or why they are making so many chemo hats. I listen to them. I tell them that I admire what they do. I treat them like any interesting person. But all too often, they will slip away and--I'm completely sincere when I say this--it's not their yarn orders I miss. It's not about the money at all.

This customer I am thinking of would sometimes tell me how frustrated she was because Paypal wasn't working for her and she could not make a payment. Sometimes she would buy $500 or $1600 worth of yarn at a time, and... well, Paypal can get a bit crazy with large payments, especially on a large shipment going to another country. Early on in my relationship with this customer, I said something that now strikes me as very stupid. I whimsically said, "It's okay! Relax! It's just yarn. Not a liver transplant."

That was when she confessed that I was right, that she was too stressed, that it is, indeed, just yarn. And that she wasn't being much use to her clients when she was in this state of mind. She never did volunteer to me what she did for a living, but it was around this time that she mentioned that she had a tumor. I felt like a total jerk for my crack about a liver transplant. I have not made such a mistake often, because I learned not to say such things. You never know what a customer is going through. Divorce. Bereavement. Cancer. You just never know.

She ordered yarn from me several times a year, for years. I tried to listen and accept whatever she did choose to tell me. One of my last orders from her went unpaid for a few weeks. I was terribly worried and wanted to know if she was okay. I sent emails that went unanswered. I had no business calling her. Well, okay, I suppose eBay does allow that. But what if she had died? Can you imagine an eBay seller calling you right after a family member has died? Just what you need, people hounding you for money in your hour of grief! I don't know. Maybe the family would have taken it as a friendly call. More likely they would have seen me as a pushy seller wanting her money and I wasn't willing to risk being perceived that way. When this woman did finally contact me, it turns out she had, indeed, been in the hospital. I cried to learn that she was still alive.

But the day did come when she stopped ordering. I went to her eBay feedback page every week or so, but the feedback stopped appearing and she stopped ordering from everyone--not just me. I had grown to care about a woman I had never met, a woman whose career was a mystery to me, yet a woman for whom I had created affectionate nicknames and with whom I felt a bond as she went through various medical incidents and household crises.

I will not send a letter to the woman's family to ask if she still lives. The fact that she no longer answers emails makes it likely that she no longer does. But I carry a special place for her in my heart. She sometimes told me that she was having such a rotten day that the only thing that went right was receiving a box of yarn from me. She meant it, too. I made a difference in her life and she made a difference in mine. I will never forget her.

I wish that were the end of this story, but it isn't. I used the plural of "customers" in the headline. There have been others. A woman in New York had diabetes, lung cancer and Lyme disease. I once named a yarn after her and she got a kick out of that. A woman in San Francisco nursed her father with cancer. A long list indeed. These women knitted up a storm and donated time to nursing the sick. Sometimes they were the sick. I packed those yarn orders with a lot of love. I hope they felt the love and not just the yarn.

dj runnels

Do this & you'll never run out of yarn again.

Yet another customer wrote to me to say she had run out of such-and-such yarn. Did I have any of that color? She needs it for a project she is working on.

[banging my head against a wall]

WHY does it have to be that same color and same dye lot? Because she started with Famous Brand Boring Beige #111 and by golly, she needs to finish with Famous Brand Boring Beige #111 even though the results are going to be just as predictably boring as any of us can imagine.

I'm not trying to tell knitters or crocheters what to do, but honestly, if you please, please, please just CONSIDER this piece of advice, you will never have this problem again.

• Look at your project and figure out how much yarn you need.

• Find three or four color-coordinated yarns in the gauge you think you will need--keeping in mind that you will have to test that gauge and/or use a different size needle.

• Buy a little more yardage than you estimated.

Now, it just so happens that I sell yarn at Life's an Expedition on Etsy in harmonizing color families. I have a huge selection in my own home, so running out of yarn is inconceivable to me. But if you get a whole gaggle of color-related yarn, you can use whichever yarns you liked best, add a pocket later, change the collar, whatever, and likely still have some leftover. Save the leftovers for a hat or something.

Today, I am wearing a brown sweater that I knitted from a vast assortment of brown yarns that I sell. Many of them were close in color or from the same color family, but many were not. They were just brown. And I could gaze at this sweater all day. I am gazing at it now as my fingers slip off the keys and my words are starting tu[om siffers as a resi;t/

Do you think it was hard to make this? My knitting skills are pretty basic. I never learned to do intarsia, cables, entrelac or any of that stuff. I just use straight garter stitch or stockinette or maybe if I'm in a really fancy mood, I will do a seed stitch. I knit while I watch TV and I scarcely look at what I am doing. And no one has sweaters that look like mine.  My sweaters are amazing.  I have the most creative sweaters in my neighborhood. And I never run out of whatever yarn I was using, because I use a wild hodgepodge of yarn from ONE COLOR FAMILY and make sure I have extra.

If I did not have extras--this doesn't happen, but if it did--I wouldn't hesitate to shift to another yarn that sort of harmonizes and just repeat that yarn somewhere else on the project. What is wrong with having a sweater with contrasting collar, cuffs, pockets? That is tame compared to some of my projects, where I make the sleeves different colors and the front and the back are different lengths. Or the hem deliberately slopes to the left.

You CAN get wild and funky, people. But if that is not your taste, that's okay. I know some people like classic, traditional clothing. But please, at least contemplate knitting outside the dull beige box. Please. You will never run out of yarn again, but more than that, it will be good for your soul!

dj runnels
Life's an Expedition on Etsy sells wildly creative yarn, craft supplies and finished goods.

Knitting without directions

Somebody was asking how to translate a pattern from chunky to worsted.  I can't even wrap my brain around that. I would toss out the pattern directions and keep the schematic or sketch. Figure out the dimensions and write them down in inches. For example, let's say you have a sketch of a sweater. Look at the hem. Maybe it's a size large and the hem is 40 inches in circumference, worked up on circular needles.

Next test your yarn and needles and get a gauge. If you see that the yarn you want to use on a particular circular needle is worsted gauge, or 4 st to the inch, then you will want to cast on 4 st x 40 inches. So you cast on 160 st. If the schematic says the length from the hem to the armpit is 20 inches, then keep knitting until it is 20 inches long. At this point, you probably need to divide the stitches onto non-circular needles. Perhaps you will put the back on stitch holders and continue working the front. You might decrease three inches at each armhole.  Since you are working in worsted, then you will need to dec 4 st per inch or 12 st on each side.

Does this make sense? If not, then you probably need directions to follow and there is nothing wrong with that.  Your work will come out more precisely. If you are averse to following directions and/or if you tend to work better from visuals, you may like my way better.   Socks are a challenge because you must envision how that heel flap works. I will see if I can draw it or something. Unless of course I forget completely or wander off to eat a sandwich.  [Edited November 16, 2011 to add: I did follow through and write about the socks.  Avid knitters who were always confused by socks have written wonderful things about that particular blog post without my having to bribe them or anything.]

Ta!
dj runnels
Life's an Expedition yarn is on Etsy