If you have not received a refund from her for a purchase she owed you, please email tmtmquestions@gmail.com.

Have you ever come across a pattern, becoming excited at the prospect of making it, only to find out the pattern isn’t available in a language you speak?

This happened to me late last year. I came across a beautiful dimensional chevron lace scarf on Ravelry, got excited, and then realized that the pattern was in Finnish. Only in Finnish.

Sadly, my exposure to Finnish is pretty much limited to Nightwish and Indica.

I sat down about a week ago, determined to translate the pattern. It took the better part of my Saturday and a bit of Google-fu, but I managed. It also took me restarting the scarf a couple times because I had to fool around with the yarn to determine exactly what the translated pattern meant.

Then I had an idea; why not make my translation available to others? I’d noticed that other Ravelry users had requested English translations from the designer, but nothing came of those requests for whatever reason. Cue hours in Photoshop redoing the lace chart from the ground up so that it made sense, as the original combined the charts for the scarf and hat, though they require different stitches.

Without further ado, here are my English translations for Neulottu naisen pitsibaskeri and kaulaliina, by Anne-Maija Immonen.

Yarn: Novita Puro, a worsted weight, was used by the designer. You will need approximately 100g for the hat and 200g for the scarf.
Needles: US size 8 (5mm) for hat ribbing and US size 9-10 (5.5mm-6mm) for hat body, US size 10 (6mm) for scarf, or size needed to achieve correct tension. The designer recommends 16 inch circulars for the hat.
Gauge: 17 stitches = 4 inches in lace pattern.

Hat: Cast on 88 sts with smaller needles. Join and knit a 1×1 rib until 1 1/2 inches from the cast on edge. Switch to larger needles. [K2, yo] one full row, 132 sts. Work two rows in garter stitch (purl first), and then begin the lace diagram from row 2. Repeat the lace diagram around the row 10 more times (11 diagrams total). Work lace diagram to row 14, then work rows 1-14 again before moving onto rows 15-37. Replace needle cord length or swap for DPNs as needed to maintain ease of work. Once finished with row 37, cut yarn and pull through remaining 22 sts to finish.

Scarf: Cast on 39 sts, then work five rows of garter stitch (knit first). Begin the lace diagram at row 1, repeating the pattern twice more (3 diagrams total), ending the row with an additional k3 (39 sts). Repeat rows 1-14 until scarf is desired length; the designer suggests 5 1/2 feet. Once finished with final row 14, knit five more rows of garter stitch. Bind off.

Hat lace chart:

Scarf lace chart:

Enter Knit Picks.

Sunstruck is the undyed version of Knit Picks’ Harmony needle line. Both are made from layers of lacquered birch, birch being one of my favorite needle materials.

I lusted over the beautiful Harmony and Sunstruck needles for some time before realizing that Knit Picks has made a smart move in the core of their interchangeable lines; the cables have extremely low memory. You know how when you open up a new circular needle, you have to warm the cable up a bit and work it to try to unkink it, and it ever unkinks very much? Not a problem with Knit Picks’ Options cables.

I had been growing frustrated with fixed circulars; the cables were stubbornly kinky, and the realization that I was going to have to buy new needles for each cable size didn’t sit well. I was getting used to using circulars in place of straight needles, and I didn’t like the idea of such a monetary investment.

I started by ordering tips in US sizes 4 through 8, cables in 32 inches and 40 inches, and an extra set of connectors. I figured that if I didn’t particularly like them, at least I’d have the option to connect the cables and have extra long circulars (or flexible straights) if I needed them. Fortunately for me (and unfortunately for my bank account) I liked them and ordered tips in sizes 9 and 10, and a set of cables in 24 inches. I already plan on ordering additional tips in the upcoming months.

About a month or so after receiving the first batch of tips and cables, one of the 32 inch cables came loose on an end; the cable was pulling out of the metal connector part. A few days later I remembered to call Knit Picks up and request a replacement, as their current policy is to replace defective needles within one year. It was mid-December when I called, and I received the replacement cable just after Christmas. Since cables come two to a pack, this wasn’t an inconvenience at all as I took the tip off of one end of the defective cable and used a cable connector to slide my project onto the new cable.

All in all, now I’m stuck with a bunch of bamboo circulars that I have no use for.

This is the pink I had in my hair up until Thursday; the photo was taken 9 weeks after my last all-over reapplication and 5 weeks after a root touch-up. Want to know how I do it?

1. Use sulfate-free shampoo. No, really. Don’t go by “color protection” on the front of the bottle because, more often than not, the second or third ingredient will still be sodium laureth (or lauryl) sulfate. Sulfates are detergents and can strip color out quicker; they’re just plain harsher than you need.
2. Turn the water temperature down when you wash your hair. The hotter the water, the more it will open your hair’s cuticles, allowing the color to bleed out. If you have a removable showerhead (one on a hose), this will be easier because you can flip your head upside down and keep the water spray just on your hair without getting cold water all down your back.
3. If your hair is all one color, you can add some semi-permanent haircolor to your conditioner to refresh your color every time you wash it. This holds true if you use demi-permanent or permanent color, too; just pick a complimentary semi-permanent shade. You might want to use gloves when you wash your hair, though, to prevent stained hands.
4. Try to wash your hair less often. Dry shampoo can be your new best friend.
5. Choose your styling products carefully. Cheap hairsprays with lots of alcohol, for example, can bleed the color out quickly.
6. Consider products that help protect color, like UV protection sprays that help prevent fading from sunlight.
7. Use heat protection if you heat style your hair. Thermal creams are good for damp hair before blow drying, and thermal sprays are good for use on dry hair with hot irons.
   • Thermal sprays come in two forms: spritz and aerosol. Spritzes need a moment to dry a bit, because a hot iron can sizzle and fry damp hair. Aerosols will dry almost instantly.

Above all, enjoy it! Coloring your hair is probably the least permanent body mod you can have, yet it can make a profound change in your appearance (and your mood).

Here are some things I’ve picked up along the way.

1. If you want an unnatural color, you’re going to have to lighten (read: bleach) your hair first, doubly so if you’re going to be going with a cool color like green, blue, or purple. Think of it like watercolor paints; if you have brown paint, and you add blue to it, it turns a very ugly shade of green-brown. You want your hair to be as light as possible before coloring.
   • You’ll have to use hair bleach to lighten your hair. You don’t want to use blonde dye because it deposits color into your hair as it lightens, which will either change the resulting color you get from the unnatural-colored dye or prevent the unnatural-colored dye from even taking to your hair.
2. You cannot lighten your already-dyed hair, or remove dye from hair, by adding more haircolor to it. Again, you’re going to need hair bleach to accomplish this; you may be able to use a color remover/color stripper to get hair dye out, but it’s not guaranteed, especially if you have black dye in your hair.
3. If you have black dye in your hair, be prepared for commitment! Black permanent color is not for the fickle; your options for changing it consist of hair bleach, cut it off, or grow it out.
4. Unfortunately, for unnatural colors your options are limited to temporary or semi-permanent dyes (exceptions: bright reds can be done with permanent, there are a couple permanent violets available, though one is professional only, and there are some semi-permanent colors that can last long enough to be considered demi-permanent). That’s just the way it is.
5. When using semi-permanent haircolor, it’s best if your hair is as product-free as possible, and most brands will actually recommend that you wash your hair with shampoo only before coloring. This is because conditioners and other products coat the hair, preventing the dye from getting to it.
   • They will often say to towel dry your hair after shampooing, but personally I blow-dry my hair. You can try both and see which gets you the results you’re looking for.
6. You can leave semi-permanent color in longer than the directions say to try for intensified and/or longer-lasting results. I generally don’t leave it in for longer than an hour, but I’ve known people to sleep with it in and shampoo it out in the morning. Just remember to cover your hair with a plastic cap or wrap it in foil or cling wrap so that it doesn’t dry out. If it dries out, it can’t color your hair.
7. Color your hair as soon as you’re done lightening it as needed, and then condition. Bleached hair is more porous and will suck up the dye better, plus if you condition your hair between the lightening and coloring steps, you’re blocking the color out.
   • No, Suave is not gonna cut it for this. You’re going to need something reparative that has protein, like keratin, in it (my favorites include Ion Reconstructor, Ion Keratin Masque, and Miracle 7 Keratin Deep Conditioner). Bleaching strips the protein out of the hair so replacing that lost protein as soon as possible is the best thing you can do.
8. Experiment with brands of dye! What works really well for someone else might not work so well for you, and so on.
9. Surprising fact: if you want your hair to be more of a pastel color, you can add plain old conditioner to semi-permanent color to thin it out. Yes, some companies do make a lavender-tinged mixer/toner for their line of color, but it’s totally not necessary, especially when it costs the same as a jar of the color.
10. Lastly, be prepared to make a mess! Unnatural colors will bleed a bit and stain your towels, your pillowcase, your fingertips, your bathtub, and your walls if you fling your hair around at all in the shower. Wear old clothing when coloring, move the rug off of the floor, use old towels, and be prepared to spend a week or two washing your hair with gloves on.

The second part of this post, Care and Keeping, will go live next week. Stay tuned!

Earlier this year I was going through some things in my life. Not to say my life hasn’t been an endless parade of things, or that I’m in the clear now, but I had hit a wall.

A reinforced steel wall. Probably a former nuclear weapons bunker.

I came to the realization some odd months ago that blogging merely about makeup wasn’t making me happy anymore. In hindsight, that’s probably why my posts have been sporadic this year. So, rather than give up, abandon my blog entirely, I decided I was going to blog about what makes me happy. I was going to start over.

What will I be blogging about? Right now I’m gravitating towards knitting and hair-related stuff. Hair is still beauty blogging, I know, but for the 10+ years of experience I have in coloring my own hair, I never talk about it!

Welcome to the new shatteredshards.com!

P.S. All previous content is being archived; you can find a link to it over on the right.

Then people started to wonder where their final orders were. Things were taking longer, and TMTM kept pushing the turn around time out by weeks.

All of the sudden, the owner was setting up a new shop, Lucybelle. But people still hadn’t received their TMTM orders, they weren’t getting responses to their inquiries about their orders, or they were getting excuses. Some people filed PayPal claims fearing that they wouldn’t get anything at all, when their inquiries went ignored.

Lucybelle collapsed, and then word was out that Lysa, the owner of TMTM and Lucybelle was working on a new shop called Blacknote Emporium. Blacknote Emporium started out as Blacknote Apothecary, but became Emporium due to Lysa’s desire to sell things such as handmade dolls.

Yesterday, in the midst of Blacknote’s gaining momentum, Lysa published a long entry on the TMTM blog making a slew of false claims and excuses as to TMTM’s demise.

So here’s what happened – when I closed, I was overwhelmed with so many orders, it pushed my TAT to 2 weeks – then 4 weeks – then 6 weeks. Although I tried to be straight with people and let them know about the delay, people panicked and filed claims with paypal, essentially cleaning out my bank account to the point I didn’t even have money for supplies to fill the orders, or even postage to send them off.

You don’t purchase supplies with money from orders you haven’t shipped yet; you keep separate business funds for supplies, and purchase them with the payments from orders that were successfully filled. That’s basic business practice. Furthermore, the money the customer pays for shipping is to cover shipping cost. It isn’t for you to spend on anything except for shipping. You cannot blame customers for your spending money that technically wasn’t yours yet, because that’s the only way that PayPal claims could have messed you up so badly.

Everyone deserted me. People were being hateful, spreading rumors, calling me a thief, threatening me. I didn’t know what to do and no one was listening to me so I panicked.

I know for a fact that people were offering to help Lysa however they could. I saw a whole bunch of people being sympathetic to her situation. For her to claim that everyone deserted her is an outright lie.

Finally I pulled myself together and decided to start Lucybelle to try and earn some money to pay everyone back – all the while working a job at a sandwich shop. I didn’t say it was me – not out of sneakiness but because I didn’t want to complete insanity. I wanted to work my little job, earn a bit of money for supplies, and start to pay people back. But then the rumor mill started. Lucybelle was ruined. The threats started again. The name calling, the accusations. Again I was unable to make money to begin making things right.

Continuing to blame the fanbase. Not helping.

This has ruined my life. Financially, I have been destitute. I haven’t been avoiding anyone on purpose…. I simply haven’t had the money to even begin paying anyone back. And since everyone has been speculating so much on my personal life, I’ll tell you I’ve barely even had money to eat. I lost my place to live, my car – everything.

I don’t even know what to make of this. If things were really that bad, why not work on finding enough “real world” employment to get things straightened out, pay people back, and just work on keeping your ducks in a row until you could handle another online shop?

I have set up an email for questions about orders, refund requests, etc. It’s at tmtmquestions@gmail.com Please don’t write hate mail – I won’t respond or read it. I am trying to do right by everyone and hating me solves nothing.

Somewhere during the collapse the TMTM shop was suspended and the email addresses stopped working, and people had been unable to get ahold of Lysa, adding to their decisions to file PayPal claims. Unfortunately, it seems that people who are trying this new address may simply get a vague response telling them to read the blog instead of getting an actual answer.

So Blacknote—— When I was approached about Blacknote, I decided to team up with these really awesome people and begin again. Same process. Now it’s all starting again, but unfortunately I’m not the only one suffering. Friends of mine are suffering, as is their business. All because of an affiliation with me. People speculate, they make up stories. And then it spreads like wildfire. I have much less of an input into Blacknote than people realize. We share the emails, the FB, the Instagram – all of that. We all post. Somehow it’s all become ME.

Time and time again Lysa has used Blacknote to communicate with people about Lucybelle and TMTM, and the only other person that appears to have any involvement just happens to be Lysa’s boyfriend. The strange part is, when this was noticed yesterday, comments, blog entries, and other such proof started to disappear. Panic-and-delete is not a tactic innocent people use.

Please spread the word. This will be posted anywhere I can post it (or have it posted). I want all this solved.

Lysa didn’t even post this on the TMTM facebook page. In fact, it seems that the facebook page has gone pretty much ignored for months. Even if she somehow lost access to her personal facebook account and could no longer admin the TMTM page, she could have used the La Lucy account (we won’t get into how multiple accounts and accounts with fake names are against facebook’s TOS) to comment on the page as other people have done. But, then again, she created the La Lucy account hoping people wouldn’t recognize it was her.

None of this says “I’m sorry” to me. In fact, it reeks of manipulation.

To the people who are still trying to get their TMTM orders or their money back, I wish you luck.

Edit: Two things I would like to add:

1. I wasn’t aware of this, but apparently Lysa deleted the original TMTM facebook page when people started getting upset about missing orders. I’m not sure who created the current one, but it still stands that Lysa could have posted something there.

2. The TMTM blog was updated a few hours ago by someone claiming to be “Guilli of Blacknote Emporium.” In the screenshots I linked to above, Guilli was claiming to be “collaborating with Blacknote Emporium” and “collaborating with Lysa Luna” on some dolls only a few months ago. It doesn’t add up.

In the meanwhile, I’ve started the gears turning for a complete overhaul of this blog. I can’t say when I will be ready for relaunch, just that I’m working on it.

It has already been shut down by Big Cartel. They have informed me that, typically, people don’t create new shops when they are shut down for TOS violations, but the little girl running Zora has made it clear that she doesn’t care about laws, terms of service, or product safety (the new colors are more neons).

It’s too bad that PayPal, Big Cartel, and facebook can’t notify her parents of what she’s doing.

Dear Zora Cosmetics Fans,

I have temporarily shut down my website. This is because I will be reformulating all of my eye shadows so that they are all 100% safe, 100% vegan, and 100% UNIQUE! Due to some misunderstanding on my part. I will need to completely revamp EVERYTHING! I am willing to do this because I love makeup and I want to be successful and share my passion and love for cosmetics with the world!

I thank you for your patience while I work on these new formulas and I promise that the wait will be worth it!

Sincerely,
Zora Cosmetics
Posted on July 24, 2012, here

I wish I could say I was wrong.

Not even a month later, she’s reopened as Zora Beauty Shop. What’s worse is she opened a new Big Cartel store, after they shut her previous one down for being a violation of their TOS due to her status as a minor, and she’s right back to selling the same unsafe neons.

For the record, the current (and inaccurate) ingredients list she gives is as follows.

Micas, Kaolin stone Clay, Zinc Oxide, Ultra marines clay, Chromium Oxide mica, Magnesium Hydroxide Titanium Dioxide, Iron Oxide, Tin Oxide.