Accountability

Happy New Year everyone! I've had a lovely break over the holidays with loads of family time and rampant socializing. It's been something of a relief this week to have work and school start up again just to provide some semblance of structure to the days. Or structure that is not comprised of lots of cookies, adult beverages and staying up far too late.

Every year, I think about making New Year's Resolutions, and every year I turn up my nose in disgust at the idea. "Resolutions" to me implies that I've been doing it wrong (whatever "it" is), and just generally feels negative in addition to setting me up for failing: a resolution gets broken, there's no turning back or saving the situation. Instead, I like to think of goals for the year ahead, as I do much better when I'm working towards something specific rather then trying to move away from a less-optimal tendency. And I also know that I am much more likely to stay on track if I'm accountable to someone outside of my own brain (and Alli), so here, in no particular order, are some goals for 2015:

1. Organize the stash: we moved to a lovely house over the summer that has afforded me my very own room to hold the stash(es). In typical fashion, this has meant dumping everything into boxes and piles scattered around the room. One of my main goals is to sort out and quantify the Yarn Stash (by the end of January), the Fiber Stash (maybe alongside the YS) and just generally get a better handle on all the Stuff that I have, so I can use it. I'm not a huge buyer of yarn, but I have been known to have brushes with major stash enhancement on occasion, so this year is going to be about knitting from stash as much as possible. Exceptions to the yarn/fiber diet will be: already existing fiber and weaving clubs, visits to foreign countries (but only if I by yarn that is local to the locale), and trips to fiber festivals (so far on the tentative schedule are Unravel, Wonderwool Wales, iKnit Fandango, Fibre East, an as-yet-unannounced event in September and Shetland Wool Week. Lest that seem like a lot, at at least 3 of those I will be very, very busy and probably won't have a chance to pee, much less go buy yarn).
2. Design goals: I'd like to continue to get out about a pattern a month this year in the self-publishing venue. I didn't manage to do that last year (that whole moving unexpectedly thing), but I had 6 self-published designs and three others in various places. Another design goal (that goes along with the fact that I discovered multiple sweater lots of yarn in my stash over the weekend) is to get some of the sweater designs percolating in my brain actually out into the world. 
3. Knitting goals: a) knit up 2 of the 3 sweater lots of handspun that I have in stash. b) knit up a bunch of Porpoise Fur colorways into samples.
4. Spinning goals: I got a new Turkish spindle for myself as a birthday/Christmas present last autumn, and I've decided I want to spindle myself a sweater over the course of the year. Initially I wanted to do this by mid-May, but I'm revising that in the face of, well...reality.
5. Sewing goals (really!): finish quilt tops for the girls' birthdays. Then they can help me pick backing fabric and binding so I can finish them up by the summer. Better get going!

I think that's going to have to be it for the moment. Some concrete, short term goals and some longer, more fluid ones. Who's with me? If you've got goals and resolutions for 2015, share them - the more accountability the better, as far as I'm concerned.

What I'm doing about the VAT mess

Last week on the podcast, Allison and I talked about the upcoming change to VAT regulations in the EU in regards to the sales of digital goods, and interviewed Louise Zass-Bangham of Inspiration Knits to get an overview of what's happening. Things have continued to change since the interview (and even since the podcast was released!), but here's the issues, from my perspective and current state of understanding:

1. As of 1 January 2015, sales of digital goods (e.g. pdf knitting patterns) will be taxed based on the location of the BUYER, not the SELLER. So if you live in Germany and buy a knitting pattern from any independent knitwear designer anywhere in the world, someone is responsible for paying the appropriate VAT to the German government for that sale.
2. The threshold for being required to remit VAT varies depending on the country AND the product being purchased. Some countries have a zero threshold for VAT on digital goods, which means that VAT must be charged from the very first sale in that country.
3. There is an EU-wide online portal, called MOSS (mini one stop shop), to allow businesses to handle all of the fuss of remitting VAT payments to EU member states using one website. This is all good. Except...
4. In order to use MOSS, you have to be VAT registered.
5. In the UK, the threshold for being required to register for VAT is high (£81,000) as compared to many other EU countries, so a huge number of micro-businesses are not VAT-registered. And therefore can't use VAT MOSS (as of recently - this may change. It may have already changed in fact, but I've read so much stuff about this craziness that my brain is broken).

So the bottom line for independent knitwear designers like yours truly is that sales of my patterns are going to get a bit more complicated in a couple of weeks. Here's what I'm planning to do to address these issues:

1. All of my patterns will be available to EU residents in at least a couple of ways. First off: Casey at Ravelry has worked an absolute miracle with the help of the fabulous people at Loveknitting to allow designers to redirect EU customers to the Loveknitting website where they will be able to buy the patterns; the pattern pdfs will still go into customer's Ravelry libraries. There are a couple of issues with this solution: prices on Loveknitting have to be listed in GBP, and they will be VAT-exclusive. That means that VAT will be added on to the pattern price dependent on the location of the buyer - the final price of the pattern will be the listed price PLUS VAT.
2. My patterns will also be available via the Designs page of my website. One of the workarounds for this whole mess is for sellers to individually attached pdf files to emails and send them on to the buyer. As long as the email isn't automatically generated, and the pdf isn't automatically attached, the transaction will be VAT-exempt. I will very gladly also gift you a copy of the pdf into your Ravelry library if you have a Ravelry account.

If you are in the UK, or anywhere else in the rest of the world that is not part of the EU, nothing will change for you. I'm well under the UK VAT threshold, so UK purchases are still VAT-exempt. If you are in the EU, but outside of the UK, you'll have two choices: if you need instant pattern access, you can go to the Loveknitting pattern listing from Ravelry and get the pattern immediately. If you're willing to wait a little while (probably well under 24 hrs in most instances), you can come here and buy the pattern. I'll email you the pdf. The first case will be more expensive, as you'll be paying VAT on top of the pattern price. The second case will mean that more of the pattern price comes directly back to me, the designer.

If anyone has any questions or concerns, there are a number of resources online you can access. First off, there is a huge long thread on the UK Shopkeepers group about the whole mess, and a much shorter thread from Casey about changes that Ravelry is making and various updates as they occur. Ysolda has blogged about this issue, and Louise has a number of posts on her blog for knitters and designers. Please bear in mind that this is new for (I would venture to say) all of us, and there are bound to be some growing pains in the first few months. Please don't hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions or problems with purchasing my patterns, and thanks for your patience as we get this all sorted out!

Reboot II

I am slowly emerging from a fog of post-holiday, moving-induced chaos. There are still boxes everywhere, although many of them are now empty. We don't have wardrobes (somehow all of our previous UK houses have had built in wardrobes so we haven't had to get any), and Boo needs a different bed for her very small room. The loft conversion is full of all of the crap that I don't know how to tidy away yet.

And my office/studio is in a state of right disarray. I can actually move around in the space now (as opposed to before the weekend), and I've got almost all the dyeing stuff up there, if not put away. Its a complete disaster for the most part.

But there are glimpses of what is to come, and it's very exciting.

Porpoise Fur fiber and random stash yarn storage

Personal fiber stash plus bins of yarn for designs.

This room is so much bigger then my previous office space, that I'm having to stop myself from rubbing my hands together in glee every time I look around it. Plus, the floor sends me in to transports of joy whenever I look at/walk on it (we hates carpets my precious...).

Forgotten handspun stash begging to be knit up.

More handspun goodness.

I'll post some more photos when I've got everything in place and sorted out. In the meantime there has been some knitting behind the scenes...

FO blocked and waiting for a photoshoot.

In the meantime, the needles are ready to go!

Everyone stores their straight needles in an empty single malt container, don't they?

Welcome to the new site!

So....I've been thinking about shifting to my own site for quite a while now, so I could consolidate my designing with the newly added tech editing, and just make every thing look a bit better. Here it is!

Please --- if you find any mistakes, or things that are unclear, or any issues you want to mention, don't hesitate to get in touch. Either through a comment on this post, or via email (porpoiseknits AT gmail DOT com), Ravelry (porpoise) or Twitter (@porpoisefur). I'm looking forward to sharing all the upcoming wooly adventures with you on a fresh new site!

Order quick

I'll be holding off on shipping out products for the next couple of weeks because of the holidays (and the fact that my children are now out of school!), so if you want any fluff to see you through to the New Year, order it before tomorrow night, and I'll get it in the post to you on Wednesday morning.

Happy holidays, and happy spinning to you all!

Rachel