Month: September 2013

You’ve probably heard a lot in the past week about the My Mountain contest I’m a finalist in. The prize is a feature on Schachenmayr’s website, a Ravelry ad, and an iPad Mini.

Last night, my wife and I had a conversation. She said, “Why do you care so much about winning this contest?” I said, among other things, “because I want to see one of the hats that does something really interesting and unique with their yarn get recognition … and I could use the publicity”.

The contest started out as “one vote per person”. Then, “one vote per person per IP”, because they couldn’t keep people from voting twice using multiple machines. Finally, they changed it to “one vote per person per IP per day”. When SMC made this last change to the rules, this contest became something different from its intended goal. Originally, it was a contest at least partially based on the merit of the design — sure, people with larger/more active social networks and/or smartphones would be able to get more votes, but people whose designs were interesting and innovative would still have a fighting chance. Now, the contest is unfairly skewed toward people who have large and loyal followings — the very people who don’t need to win. Now I’m not saying that I need to win — after all, I’m ostensibly a successful designer in my own right — but I feel like most of the other hats that are truly creative and unique are not getting the votes they deserve.

Perhaps this is because, like me, their creators spend time being creative and unique people, and don’t spend as much time being social butterflies. Unlike me, they probably realized they weren’t going to be able to compete on this playing field a while ago and just let the votes fall where they may. But when one person can add 200+ votes to their total in a matter of hours while the rest of us are asleep, I cannot hope to compete. Also, I found myself in the unenviable position of competing with someone who I consider a friend, and if I can help him win by letting myself fall behind, then that is the better part of valor.

My conversation with my wife ended with a realization and a resolve — not to double-down on my vote-whoring, but to back off. The contest is not about who has the best hat anymore. It’s about who’s able to get Schachenmayr the most Likes on Facebook, and who’s able to keep their vast networks engaged long enough without alienating their followers. I barely post on FB and Twitter. I don’t even make one blog post per month! I am clearly not going to be winning this one.

The other part of the conversation was to ask myself what’s really important to me? Is it to spend the week worrying about a silly game? Or would I be better served by working on my many unfinished knitting projects? Do I want to be a prolific knitwear designer, constantly jumping from contract to contract, deadline to deadline? Or do I want to continue developing techniques and working on new patterns in pursuit of an eventual second book? The answers are fairly obvious, if you know anything about me.

All that said, I’m going to stop with the daily posts and go back to my usual periodic updates. If by some magic I win anyway, I’ll be happy but I’m not going to hold my breath. All I ask is that you vote for the hats — not just the people — you want to win, because only by rewarding unique and creative knitting will you get more unique and creative knitting.

On Saturday, I was honored to be chosen as one of the 18 semifinalists in SMC’s “My Mountain” contest for the hat I designed earlier this summer. As a semifinalist, I now need to write up a pattern and send it — as well as the hat itself — in for eventual publishing (and yes, I do get paid for this). I guess it’s time this hat had a name. Thinking back to my childhood in Vermont, I have many mountains in memory, but I’d like to honor one that gets overlooked because it’s small and doesn’t have a ski area on it. But I remember it well from many happy childhood days swimming in the lake at its base, and hiking to the waterfalls along its slopes. So we’ll give this whimsical hat a whimsical name. Hat, I dub thee “Moosalamoo”.

So please, do me and Moosalamoo a favor, and vote for it at the My Mountain contest page. The contest is run through Facebook, but I know of some folks who have voted without Facebook accounts, so never fear! Please also ask your friends and loved ones to vote for me — it doesn’t cost, and it could help me out greatly. I had previously been under the impression that folks would be allowed to vote once per day (like many other similar contests) but actually you can vote for any number of hats but only once per IP (basically, per individual computer) in an attempt to keep people voting only once per person.

The story of Moosalamoo is partly told in a previous post — but the reason behind it is yet untold, so I’ll tell it. A friend on Facebook said it “represents [my] personal challenges in life”. That’s a flowery way of putting the point of the contest. The question was “What’s your mountain?” which was meant to be interpreted as a query on some personal (or professional, or spiritual, etc) challenge you have or strive to overcome. As I understood it, the question and the hat design were separate, and perhaps some people’s submissions were just that. I wanted to intertwine the answer to my question with the design of the hat.

Here’s how I answered the question:

“What’s my mountain? You know, the funny thing about mountains is that they don’t typically appear alone. If you’d asked me this 15 years ago, I’d have said my mountain was, ironically, the city. I’m from Vermont, land of beautiful mountains and abundant nature. But I’m an IT guy, and the jobs for people like me are in the city. I went to school In Boston, but I burned out 3 years in and had to take a few years off back in the country to decompress. Later, I steeled myself, returned to school, and got a job in Boston where I’ve since settled down, gotten married, and currently own a condo. So it’s safe to say I’ve conquered this mountain. But like the bear in the song, I see another mountain beyond this one, and it’s actually a mountain this time. I want it so badly it brings tears to my eyes – I want, someday, to leave the city so my wife and I can finish out our lives in the beautiful green mountains of Vermont again. That’s my mountain now. This hat is both mountains together – the pattern of pine trees and saplings is all about Vermont, and the colors are both a reference to the returning 80s fashions in Boston and the cold-weather sports in Vermont. The fact that the yarn is called Boston couldn’t be more perfect.”

So why did I choose that, of all things? I’ve had many challenges in life — I was bullied constantly in middle school but graduated with high honors; I’ve been suspended or expelled from nearly every school I’ve ever gone to but persisted and finished strong; I’ve overcome clinical depression, kicked a prescription drug dependency; I’ve lost loves and loved ones, but married a wonderful woman … and of course, pale next to all of that, there’s the everpresent challenge of being a knitwear designer with a full-time job and a family. So why Vermont? Well, the others just don’t make for good knitwear — imagine knitting a hat about drugs and depression! Besides, that mountain is well behind me at this point. And a hat about knitting? I won’t say it’s too meta for me to consider, but it was too meta for this challenge.

But Vermont? There are all sorts of possibilities there, and rigorously-designed organic forms are sort of my thing these days. Vermont’s a distant mountain, the way the foothills and hills and mountains all layer on top of each other approaching the horizon, but if you zoom way in, maybe you’ll see a little house in the woods, by a brook, and I’ll be there on the porch, knitting the next creation in the lifetime’s worth of ideas currently bumping around in my head. Amanda may be nearby, sketching beautiful inspiration from nature and imagination, and I’ll be further imagining how I can take pieces of her imagery and incorporate them into my next piece, or the piece five or ten projects away.

I hope you come and visit. I’ll put on some tea for you.