The end of NDS

This is a very difficult post to write, its very sad, but its also very positive for the future.
So here goes....

Daisy and I have decided to indefinitely mothball The Natural Dye Studio, to stop dyeing and close the website.

We don't want to kill NDS completely as, at sometime in the future, we may decide to revive it and start dyeing again.  However if we do it won't be for several years and will be on a much smaller scale.

We have thought long and hard, and spent several months discussing our options, but we have come to the realisation that we both want to move on to follow our other careers.
Daisy wants to be a writer and I want to be a full time crochet designer.

There are so many reasons behind our decision and I want to explain some of them to you so you understand why we are closing NDS.
I'll start with a couple of the smaller reasons and work my way up to the major reason.

1 - Our lease is up at the end of April and even though I don't know for sure I suspect we won't be able to renew it as the ownership of the premises changed hands during our lease period and the new owner has little interest in our business.
If this is the case we would need to find new premises, and would probably mean moving the business off the moor into an industrial estate in Barnstaple or South Molton.

2 - It is getting more and more difficult to obtain our dyes.  We have already lost 2 or 3 as they have been discontinued since moving to Devon and now we are unable to buy Fustic, which is our yellow.
Until recently we bought it 1kg at a time from our main supplier. 
Recently they stopped stocking it but can obtain it from an outside source but we would have to buy 11kg minimum at an inflated price, which means it is way out of our price range.
Our other suppliers are also unable to source it.
We could use weld as a substitute, we used it previously in Suffolk.  However we have been unable to get a good colour here in Devon, a colour which can best be described as pale and wishy washy - not nice at all.
There isn't a plant that dyes green, so to produce green we have to dye yellow first then over dye it with indigo, so this means not only do we lose yellow from our palette, but we also loose all our greens, leaving us with orange, pink, purple and blue.

Now onto the main reason.....
Daisy and I can't cope with the workload.
This is a very long explanation, so you might need a cup of tea to help you get to the end.....

Let me rewind you to a year ago...
Phil, Daisy and myself were all working for NDS, everything was under control and running smoothly.
I was in the process of deciding whether or not to write my book.  It was a difficult decision as I didn't want to damage NDS and knew that Daisy and Phil would have to take on my extra work.  They both assured me they could cope and that I should do it, so I signed the contract and started making blankets.
We managed to struggle through, it was hard work and meant we had to work weekends to keep everything under control, but we managed it.

Then in the summer Phil was offered a full time job by a very close friend.  It was a proper job, with a proper wage and meant that if Phil and I stopped taking a wage from NDS Daisy could be paid a 'living wage' and there would be less of a financial burden for every one involved.
Phil had been working for NDS since his redundancy in 2010, and even though he loved it I always felt that it wasn't enough for him as he was used to big business, plus he wanted to turn it into a much bigger company that would have meant so many changes that the core and ethos of NDS would of been lost.
I know he was frustrated with Daisy and myself for wanting to keep NDS small and true to its self.
I was panic stricken as to what the future might hold, but happy and positive for him as I knew his new job was exactly what he needed.

So at the beginning of August NDS became just Daisy and myself with the help of Nicky one day a week.
For the first month it wasn't too bad and we managed to cope.  It's always quieter in the summer and although we had to dye for the shows NDS was almost under control.
Daisy was doing nearly all the dyeing, clubs, wholesale and updates.  She was also doing a lot of the winding, all the packing and posting, and all the wholesale and club management.
I was spending 3 days at the studio helping with the dyeing, working on the update, marketing, social networking, managing the website and trying to produce patterns for NDS.
The other 4 days of the week I was designing and making blankets for my book.  I wish I could say I was writing the patterns, but I just didn't have the time.
We managed to struggle though to Yarndale, had a brilliant show, and hoped to relax a little bit during the autumn before starting to plan next years shows.

On the way home I started to sneeze and by the time we got home I had flu and have been ill ever since.  Nothing major or life threatening just an endless lists of colds and infections (gum, sinus, tonsil), and was finally diagnosed with asthma.  As soon as I recover from one thing I come down with a new one.
I've had lots of tests for various things and spent a lot of time at the doctors and the verdict is that there is nothing serious to worry about but I am run down and over stressed.
At one point during this period Daisy damaged the tendons in both her hands from over work and had to stop dyeing for several weeks.  As a result she became  very irritable and upset; she was hugely frustrated and I was left to take on her workload in the dye-room as well as my own.
It all came to a head one day when a friend of ours said good morning to me and I burst into tears for absolutely no reason at all.  I was broken physically and mentally.

During all this chaos we went to Bath to see the Kaffe Fasset exhibit at the American Museum.
I love Kaffe and, whilst standing in amongst all his colour and knitting, I realised that this was what I wanted to do.  I wanted to be a designer and make colour and crochet.  I didn't want backache and brainache and the constant demands of the website or Daisy's stress and frustration or show panic or constant social networking and wholesale promotion.
I wanted to indulge myself, make exactly what inspired me when ever it inspired me and not have the constant pressure of trying to find new and exciting ways to sell wool.
I casually mentioned the idea of closing NDS to Daisy and she was so happy I'd suggested it as she'd felt the same way for some time.
Although she had been writing Murder on the Moor for the last 2 years she hadn't written anything of her own and was frustrated and exhausted with the constant pressure.
So we made the decision together, in total agreement, to wind down the business and I went home feeling that the world had  become a much clearer and more positive place......although I did wake up in the middle of the night panicking and decided that I really couldn't kill the one thing that I had dedicated my whole life to over the past 13 years, hence the decision to mothball NDS and not close it.

I never set out to be a full time dyer.  I was a textile artist who wanted to dye a little bit of fabric and thread to use in my work.
I dyed too much so sold it on Ebay, I only dyed little bit of wool as an experiment to see it it would sell, and the rest, as they say, is history....

I can't remember the last time I had a whole day off and we haven't had a holiday for years. My whole life revolves around the business I don't do anything else.  I haven't baked a cake, sewn a seam or even read a book for the last couple of years.....my whole life is dedicated to NDS and I want it back!!

So the plan is we dye until the end of March.  Hopefully during this period we can fill your stashes (and mine) with enough NDS yarn to last you a long time.
We will dye all the Chameleon club and so it is ready for me to post in the relevant months.
Zodiac will be dyed and gone long before March.
We only have one show booked for 2015 and that is Unravel in February.  I'm hoping to do Yarndale as a designer, but that's not certain at this time.
I will finish my book, the deadline is Christmas 2015, and then I will sit back, take stock, and decide what to do next.
Maybe a tiny bit of dyeing in my courtyard, maybe apply for the 2016 shows as a designer with a tiny bit of NDS or maybe none of these things.....who knows.....maybe I'll just sit on the top of Hollerday Hill and crochet in the sun :-)

Stupid EU Vat

Dear reader's

I'm sorry I haven't blogged for a while, we've been so busy dyeing clubs and wholesale that I haven't had any head space to compose a blog post that made sense.
I've also been trying to make sense and find a way through the new EU vat law.

So I'm afraid now I'm going to write a very boring post about the stupid new law that is coming in on the 1st of January, this new law will effect all of us and I want to explain what my plan is to cope with the law.

The law is as follows - from January the 1st 2015 all digital down load sales in the European Union will be liable for vat in the country that the customer lives, this means if you live in France and buy one of my patterns I have to pay the vat to the French vat office, this in turn means I need to be registered for vat in every European country I sell patterns to.
There are 28 countries in the EU, that means I would need to be registered for vat in 28 countries and fill out 28 different vat returns every 3 months!

The whole thing is ridiculous and unworkable, it has been in the pipeline for several years, however it wasn't made known to the little tiny fish like myself until a few weeks ago.
It has thrown the whole world of independent craft designers, musicians, writers, app developers etc etc into total chaos, anybody who sells a PDF or download will be liable to pay vat.
I know of numerous designers who are going to close their pattern shops and stop selling, or stop selling to the EU.
The big fish such as Amazon and I Tunes have known for a long time and have had time to come up with plans and strategies, its rumoured that the laws were designed to force them into paying the taxes they had managed to avoid.

However the wonderful Ravelry have teamed up with Love Knitting and so all my European customers will be directed to Love Knitting to buy my patterns.
Love Knitting will be selling directly to my customers, pay the vat, deal with all the associated paperwork, take their cut and then paying me the remainder.
Its not ideal, but its the only solution at the moment, so I am fairly happy.
So as a customer you don't need to worry, you can carry on buying my patterns without too much extra fuss.
You can find all my patterns HERE on Raverly, if you live in Europe you will be automatically directed to Love Knitting.

There are quite a few groups and forums that have sprung up from the chaos, small designers and other download business people have clubbed together to try and find a solution through the mess, there has been a twitter campaign, lots of threads in the shop keepers group on Ravelry, a very active campaign group on Facebook and several petitions trying to get the law makes to make allowances for the little people like myself.
I'm sure there are lots more groups that I don't know about, but these are the ones I have been involved with.

You can find more information here - http://euvataction.org/

This is the Facebook group -  https://www.facebook.com/groups/DigitalVAT2015/

And if you want to help please sign one or both of the petitions below
Both petitions need lots more signatures before they are sent, unfortunately most people aren't interested or don't know anything about the new vat laws or don't think they have anything to do with them.
However wherever you live in the world if you have ever bought a pdf pattern, downloaded music or an app this new law will effect you in some way however small.

to PIERRE MOSCOVICI Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs
https://www.change.org/p/pierre-moscovici-a-unilateral-suspension-of-the-introduction-of-the-new-eu-vat-laws-for-micro-businesses-and-sole-traders

And to President Obama
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/call-european-commission-suspend-introduction-new-eu-vat-laws-micro-businesses/VH1P82X0

Still here

I thought I'd better do a quick post to let you know I am still here :-)

When Phil left us in August Daisy took on most of his work load, she is now running all the clubs and wholesale and does almost all the dyeing, I have been doing all the website work, preparing updates and crocheting blankets for my book and designs for NDS and writing the patterns, photographing them etc etc

As you can imagine NDS without Phil is hard work, luckily we have Nicky to help one day a week, but even still its a challenge.
A few weeks ago Daisy damaged the tendons in both of her hands, as she was not only running and dyeing for NDS, but she had also moved into a giant flat and did a lot of the decorating single handedly or rather broken handedly :-)
So for the last couple of weeks I have been doing the dyeing as well as everything thing else, I'm exhausted and slightly broken.
The good news is after a second trip to the Dr's for some stronger drugs Daisy's hands are much better and she should be able to start dyeing again next week.
I'm so relieved, but will have to watch her like a hawk to make sure she doesn't do too much too soon.

As a result of having to do 3 jobs I haven't had any time to clear my head and write any blog posts.
But I have been posting a photo diary on instagram, as I can post photo's where ever I am at any particular time.
You can find my Instagram account HERE

Just to give you an idea of my life at the moment, here is today's to do list, all of which needs to be done before I can go home tonight.
1 - Take Tinks to the vet as she cut herself quite badly running through barbed wire.
2 - Finish dyeing wholesale and next weeks update and then wash it all.
3 - Photograph, edit and update the website with this weeks update, which is a odds and ends update with some amazing colours and yarns.
I've already added some stunning DK's, which you can find it HERE, 
I will be adding lots more as soon as I've edited the photo's.
.......sigh.....wish me luck

In the meantime here a couple of photo's of what I've done in the past few weeks.....

Dyeing club yarn

Test dyeing (and drying at home on my Rayburn) our brand new extra special christmas yarn

Finishing my second Kissing Circles Design - Myrtle crochet scarf

Photographing and preparing the Kaleidoscope blanket pattern for December's instalment and the whole pattern to be hopefully (daisy's hands permitting) next week

Busy and blanket clubs

I haven't posted here for a while as at the moment I am struggling to cope with my work load and just don't have the time.

I have been putting the final touches to this year's Kaleidoscope Crochet Blanket Club, yesterday I finished the last 2 monthly instalments of the pattern, it was a major milestone for me and I felt quite sad that it was over when finally I pressed the last "save as PDF".

Yesterday we sent November's pattern out to the members.
As you can see the pattern has reached its edge and the only bit left to do are the corner's.
I can't wait and am so excited about finally being able to reveal the photo's of the blanket next month.

I do have a little bit more work to do on Kaleidoscope as I have turned all 12 pattern instalments into a booklet, which will go on sale towards the end of December after the members have had their final instalment.
The members will all receive the PDF version of the booklet for free and then the PDF and hard copy will go on sale to the rest of the world.

For me the end of the making and writing the pattern for the Kaleidoscope blanket marks the beginning of making and writing the pattern for the Zodiac blanket.
I've already spent 6 months designing Zodiac, its been incredibly complicated trying to turn the whole Zodiac into a blanket design, but I think I've done it.
Now I need to turn 6 months of hard work into a pattern that is easy to follow and makes sense to all the club members.

As I said at the beginning of this post I am struggling with my work load and have thought long and hard of how I can cope with it in the future, and have come to the conclusion that the Zodiac mystery blanket will be my last blanket club for a while, maybe even for ever, who knows what the future will bring.....

So if you haven't already signed up and want to be part of my very last blanket club you will need to do so soon.
The whole of the club needs to be paid up by the beginning of January 2015, as this is when we will send out the yarn.

There is a crochet blanket option and a knitted blanket option for the club, we took the both sample's of January's instalment to Yarndale, so I think its only fair that I share some larger photo's with you here on the blog :-)

This is the crochet version
You can find details of the club HERE

And this is the knitted version

You can find details of the club HERE