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

Yarndale and beyond......

I would say we've just got back from Yarndale, but we actually got back 7 day's ago.
Dais and I had most of last week off, I was in the bed with the flu and she was suffering with the bad cold version of my flu.
So yesterday (Monday) was our first proper day back at work.

I've been photographing all the left over yarn, there is no where near as much as I'd expected.
We always dye at least double the amount of yarn we think we will sell for a show, as there is nothing worse than an empty stand.
Over the course of this summer we have held back some show stock for the next shows and so the website has seemed very empty at times.
I thought I would be able to fill it up with the Yarndale stock and just dye small amounts as and when we needed to.
However this has not been the case, we sold ALL the kits, plus an awful lot of wool!
So this means we need to do lots of dyeing and re-stocking our website.

I've just updated the site with Primavera 260, which is the yarn used for the Kissing Circles Blanket

And I've updated our Godiva Silk 4 ply, as we have a stunning new knitted cardi pattern in Godiva Silk, its called Beatrice.

Anyway back to Yarndale, we had a brilliant time at the show, met up with lots of our woolly friends

And yet again I had some of my lovely Kaleidoscope ladies coming to show me their blankets, they are all slightly different and all amazing and I LOVE seeing them!!

Karen and Denise

And Hilona all the way from The Netherlands

And Denise again with her absolutely amazing king sized Lily.

I would love to be able to make blankets this size, but unfortunately there just isn't enough time or room on the stand.