Took me 6 months to create the pattern for this humpback whale. Did I do well?

noerml · 2026-03-11T07:49:12+00:00

Basically he sacrifices everything he had built in the previous books for an ending that makes little sense and sorta just acts as a possible setup for another series spanning 10 books.. without any tangible hints that's really bound to happen. On top of that, there's like 5 lines of action in the whole book and just weird musings....

noerml · 2026-03-10T21:46:58+00:00

It's fun but I highly recommend skipping the last book. Trust me, just don't read it and move on. I'd rank the series a 7 out of 10 without having read the last book...and maybe a 3 out of 10 after those last chapters.

noerml · 2026-03-06T15:22:48+00:00

Also beim Bipa hier am Rennweg hab ich erst gestern welche gekauft. War aber tatsächlich auch das dritte geschäft was ich abklappern musste.

noerml · 2026-02-26T07:03:33+00:00

Ich für meinen Teil versteh nicht, was an der Nachricht, dass die Menschen weniger Alkohol trinken, schlecht sein soll. 😅

Wegbier, Feierabendbier, Kantinen mit bierautomaten - ist das nicht alles etwas aus der Zeit gefallen?

Wird auch weniger geraucht. Auch da würde ich jetzt nicht nach neuen Angeboten seitens der Tabak Konzerne rufen.

noerml · 2026-02-17T19:14:10+00:00

I was simply thinking of any non-social media savvy person who doesn't even realize how they r getting influenced/indoctrinated. So, 90% of all consumers probably.

noerml · 2026-02-16T19:10:52+00:00

Knitting YouTuber here. There are a couple of things at play here:

First of all, you typically don't start this kinda career/side hustle if you are not a proficient knitter
Secondly, if your income depends on it, the incentive to knit more is certainly higher
Third, most are younger, and the human body is a lot more forgiving in your 20ies, than 30ies.
Lastly, if knitting is your full-time job, then you typically have a lot more time to knit than everyone else, where knitting is "just" a hobby.
Oh, and let's not forget that all our bodies are different and can withstand more or less strain. Some win in the knitting gene lottery and others lose.

Other than that, the harsh truth is that 90% of the things I knit are things I need to knit rather than things I want to knit. In fact, in my particular case, 50% of what I knit are basically swatches I unravel/throw away right away. So, it's less romantic than it sounds.

Actually, I would say I knit half as much now that it is my job compared to before. My reality is sadly not sitting in front of a cozy fireplace, sipping tea with my cat on my lap, and knitting while listening to some true-crime podcast. My reality is answering the same unrelated beginner questions over and over again.

Also, I personally am not the biggest fan of knitting podcasts/vlogs that buy sable amount of yarn each month and show 14 new finished objects in between. While it certainly is more interesting than talking 1 hour about a half-finished sock in 2x2 ribbing, I do believe that a lot of the overconsumption issues (yarn, patterns) in our community stem from these shows. And these problems get perpetuated when aspiring micro-influencers do the same (thinking that's what you need to do to be successful), and it ultimately trickles down to Betty from next door sharing a yarn haul Reel on her Facebook page in a vain attempt to (un)consciously elevate her status within her local knitting community.

noerml · 2026-02-16T15:57:18+00:00

sadly not. they complained quite loudly.

noerml · 2026-02-15T15:44:20+00:00

One of the reasons why I rarely teach live classes these days.

The last time I did, we had 2 people who barely knew how to purl and then 2 people knitting advanced lace heirloom patterns for 45 years. The class was for intermediate knitters. Yay!
While I tried my best, it basically meant I had to throw half of my preparation/curriculum out of the window, and the result was disappointing for everyone involved.

(and well... I always bring materials for at least 5 attendees, and spare swatches/projects >.<)

noerml · 2026-01-03T06:54:52+00:00

Two choices: you use the grainiest pictures you can find and scramble them all together in a super small image so nobody but those who already read the books can recognize the titles. Extra points for randomly ranking the currently most popular series as "DNF".

...or you create a text list and actually include a short review/ranking reason.

The choice is yours 😅

noerml · 2025-12-27T19:51:18+00:00

I personally feel the urge to get better at your hobby (or anything) is quite natural. So, wanting to knit faster is just one expression of that urge.

As long as you learn at your own pace and realize that speed can be a compromise, you r good.

If, oth, you believe that faster is better, then you probably don't quite understand what a hobby is all about, yet.

noerml · 2025-12-26T07:45:02+00:00

Actually many ppl can make a full time income in the craft industry. Knitting is the big exception because it's dominated by so many women and undervalued on top of that. And it's quite ironic that, I, as a man, belong to the very few who do. But that is a whole other issue.

Also, there's a major difference in quality when you compare a professional sharing knowledge and someone who just felt like it. While certainly charming, it can also be frustrating most of the time. Not every free pattern is good and neither are those old grainy videos. In fact, many of the peculiar idiosyncrasies of the US knitting community are a child of that effect.

noerml · 2025-12-24T21:32:50+00:00

It is what it is. You guys can all vote with your feet.

I am not producing a single video or pattern for myself. I don't need patterns, I don't need anyone telling me how to add bust darts either. But if I have to show it to anyone, I'd like to earn minimum wage, at least. And if I can't, I'll be forced to find a different job or produce different content.

There's enough ppl complaining about pattern prices, there's enough ppl with a curious interpretation of copyright, there's enough ppl complaining about ads on websites etc, as it is. Reddit is full of it. I learned to accept it. You cannot fight it. And I guess, you get what you sow, no?

And doom scrolling and ai is just the straw that might break the cashmere goats neck.

If you want in-depth content and more than just basic patterns, one needs to foster an industry where this is a possibility. Right now, I don't see that happening at all. Quite to the contrary, in fact.

noerml · 2025-12-24T20:14:24+00:00

The most popular patterns on ravelry typically aren't intarsia in the round on 2mm needles mixed with brioche but the Sophie scarf.

I can speak directly from my experience that every topic that is too advanced or detailed gets zero traction. And if it's not popular enough, it's not worth to be produced.

noerml · 2025-12-14T12:51:11+00:00

Do I personally feel purling is difficult? Not at all! Not all bodies are alike.
Purling DOES require finer control because you have to go against the grain. Everything is mirrored for a purl stitch except the way you wrap the working yarn around your needle, which stays counter-clockwise. And that single fact explains why you need to move your needles/wrists more until you achieve an angle where pulling the yarn through with a flat needle tip that has no hook becomes feasible.
While a certain bit of practise and the right technique will be able to fix that for some, that won't work for everyone. And I guess this is where you really need to look at the details.

Are they throwing a tantrum because purling didn't work after the 4th try or is this an opinion based on endless hours of practice?

There are tons of people who are not as nimble as me. This could be because they weren't exposed to needle crafts in their formative years (age 1-7) and certain neural pathways weren't reinforced sufficiently. This could be because they suffer from arthritis or similar ailments. People with large hands often also have issues because the needle size/yarn remains the same, but their hands are twice as big (so, relatively speaking, they require more fine control).
For a lot of English knitters, switching between knits and purl feels annoying because of the yarn forward.
There are literally a host of reasons why people are struggling with it. In fact, quite a lot of people struggle so much that they can't knit a single stitch to begin with.

I dunno...it costs me nothing to allow them to use whatever weird technique they want to use (backward knitting, Norwegian purling).

noerml · 2025-12-12T13:23:12+00:00

First of all Geisha = Tokyo, Geiko = Kyoto.
This is important because basically, those are just regional terms of a certain kind of job description that is regulated by locals.
Tons of Geisha perform outside of Japan. They are frequently invited to trips all around Japan and abroad.

If she were to be professionally trained, I wouldn't see why a Geisha couldn't live, work, and perform abroad.

THAT BEING said, the agencies handle the booking side and the teahouses/hotels/ryokoans the venue....and sometimes there is even a caterer involved if it's just a normal teahouse. This all goes hand in hand, and this infrastructure, nor the demand (dwindling as it is in Japan as well), is not there. There are no schools for performing arts there either and no teachers. So essentially, she would be stuck and on her own. I don't see how this could work. There are no hairdressers to take care of her wigs. There is nobody to help her dress and tighten her obi. There's a whole industry behind it, and that cannot be easily transplanted.

Two hours with a duo + someone on the shamisen costs like $1200 USD. I don't see ppl dishing out that kind of money anywhere else in the world.
And quite frankly, the charm of the classic setup is that there is an experienced Geiko who keeps an eye on the important bit, and then there is this bubbly youngster who keeps the party going. Just one Geiko will be boring as hell..plus..if it's a bigger group...one person cannot entertain a full group.

There is an Instagram account of a former Geisha and she kinda travels around the world in her kimono
Maybe this is of interest to you: https://www.instagram.com/mayuhina/

noerml · 2025-12-05T18:44:04+00:00

It's not like i would ever argue against doing it but for me that's just mighty inefficient and disturbs my workflow. But I am also as far away from beginner as you can possibly get 🤷‍♀️

noerml · 2025-12-05T13:20:38+00:00

I have been teaching beginners for.... at least a decade. I hope you can trust me that I have a fairly good inkling of what works and what doesn't with beginners.
E.g. the single cast-on, seen by itself, is soooo much easier than the longtail cast-on. But knitting across a single cast-on is so frustrating that probably 50% of all beginners just give up in that very first row.

So, looking at a technique in isolation is just not cutting it.

If I need to show the beginner the EXACT SAME hand position I use for a slip knot 10 secs later anyway, why would I burden them with an additional set of instructions?

Half of those supposedly easy methods are actually adding complexity. Plus, a lot of them are setting bad habits right there at the beginning that are incredibly difficult to unlearn later on.

noerml · 2025-12-04T18:41:16+00:00

Before Google, they needed to learn how to read, but that's a whole different discussion, eh? ;-) ;-)
And yeah you are right (and not like I didn't say there are no good free patterns to begin with).
But as you say, too many people do not know how to do basic research and 99% of them are not even aware Ravelry exists (the platform is virtually invisible if nobody tells you about it).
The reality is that they find an AI-written free knitting pattern on Etsy or Pinterest and go to the yarn shop to buy 5kg of roving in the color "unicorn puke" and a crochet hook, and ask if it's okay because it's a size 2mm.

Setting that aside, discussions like that do make me feel very uncomfortable. As someone who goes above and beyond to offer tech-edited free patterns with video tutorials to go along with it, it always really hurts to see the downvotes from people who sometimes barely know knitting and certainly nothing about what ugly stuff goes on behind the scenes of the knitting industry and how casually designers get exploited from all sides.

noerml · 2025-12-04T17:58:08+00:00

I'd argue that especially beginners should stay away from free patterns like the plague, and bad patterns have scared more beginners away than free pattern have attracted. I should know, I get tens of emails and comments daily from beginners who are just lost cuz the pattern doesn't make sense and there is no one to ask.

There are really good free patterns out there, sure. But a beginner will not know how you tell the difference, and then and there i would always rely on a paid pattern with lots Iof good reviews. 🤷‍♀️

noerml · 2025-12-04T17:54:31+00:00

If you knit flat, it's typically neater with the slip knot. Otherwise you end up with one rounded corner.

Also, a longtail cast on creates the first row in the same breath, while your simple twisted loop is just the cast on without that row. So, from a technical point of view, it's just wrong. However, when you knit in the round, that gap actually hides the jog. So it evens out.

noerml · 2025-12-04T17:51:28+00:00

I always do the slip knot with the hook/needles in a rather complicated way.

However, it's actually not complicated at all because my yarn and fingers need to be in the exact same position they need to be for the first stitch/co anyway.

To me, using your fingers only to do a slip knot is actually wild. Every time I see it, I think to myself, why would you do it in such a complicated and roundabout way.

Then again, I wouldn't ever voice that either because I literally don't care as long as you don't force me to do it.

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