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The World of Illusion Knitting

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PICKING UP THREADS

This was written in
2007
so is now very dated

2006 hasn’t been all plain sailing. My skin is rarely exposed to daylight though previous exposure is continuing to cause damage. I have spent Christmas 2006 with a strapped-up hand again. I’m beginning to appreciate this annual event as a means of avoiding the washing-up at Christmas!

I had so many lumps and bumps on my hands, some malignant, others not, that they decided to treat them all as being dangerous instead of performing numerous biopsies to find out which are which. Being treated with a laser was another new experience. Normally this would have been done under general anaesthetic but that in itself can cause complications with dehydration so I was wide awake and never stopped talking throughout. When I paused for breath, they asked me if I was alright!

At one stage they contemplated working on both hands but decided that to have two hands out of action would be a bit extreme so one hand was done just before Christmas and the other is scheduled for the New Year.

At the time we were setting up the woollythoughts group it became apparent that many customers would like to receive their books as electronic downloads. We had used this format for patterns before but assumed that most would still want books in a more conventional form. A few do still ask for books but the majority prefer the immediacy of being able to order, pay for, and receive, a book in minutes. It is no longer only the computer experts who use this new technology. The world has become a much smaller place - and continues to change.

Our most recent brush with technology was meeting Lulu. As you are reading this book you must know about Lulu as that is the only way it is available.

I started writing this story about three years ago. I reached the end, for the first time, and couldn’t decide what to do next. It didn’t seem likely that any major publisher would want to publish it so I thought about printing it myself. I let it lie, added some more and had a rethink about the method of publication. I decided to compile a DVD with a text version of the book an audio version, and other files that we had produced over the years but rarely sold. We bought a printer especially for printing onto the surface of the DVD. It is another amazing machine and less than a tenth of the cost of the first, basic colour printer we ever bought.

We have used the printer, and the software we bought for compiling the DVDs, though not for the original purpose. To mark the demise of the school, several members of staff spent a weekend in Dublin. Later we compiled their assorted photos and videos, with appropriate music, as a record of the trip. It took a long time but was great fun to do.

We love our ‘toys’. There was a time when we knew about all computer peripherals but the technology is changing so fast it would be impossible to keep up with them all. Our latest toy is a plotter, which is similar to a printer except that it has a knife to cut out the shapes drawn on the computer screen. Why did we buy it? Does there have to be a reason? It seemed a good idea. A rather contorted path led us to buying it. Maybe this is just another road opening up on this journey.

Approaching the end of 2006, there is little happening on the knitting front but my brain continues to romp through hundreds of different ideas. Some disappear almost as quickly as they arrive; others are pursued for a while ....

28d. 2006 continued