One of the things I've learned running my own business: Nobody Tells You Things.

I always thought that information about things changing that would affect a shop or business would be coming to said shops and businesses. Say, for instance, that there's a change in VAT rate - the tax you have to charge for every sale.

If you have a business in Germany, you're listed and registered. At the very least, your home town has your registration as a business. You might also be registered in some other institutions or thingummies, but let's leave that aside - one registration, which is in your town and thus an official state registration, that's enough.

So in theory, since you are registered and the state should sort of have an interest in having you comply with rules and regulations... I'd have expected some letter or email or notice about that change in VAT rules to come to each business. Not necessarily a long explanation or precise instructions, mind. Just something like a heads-up, as in "there'll be a change, please check if that applies to your business and inform yourself".

Just in case you're also in the Fluffy Bunny Wonderland of Imagination and Incredible Optimism, like I was about this once upon a time, let me burst your bubble: This is not so. Nobody official from the town, or from the state, or from the EU, or from any other stately place, ever tells you anything about upcoming rules or changes. Ever. EVER. You have to miraculously find out about things yourself... or fail to do so, and then maybe eventually fail to comply with rules. The most you can hope for then is an admonishment if your failure to comply comes out somehow, and maybe you'll have to pay a fine then, too.

The long-time readers of you will remember the issue with VAT-MOSS (or VAT-MESS) some 5 years back, when VAT rules for digital goods sales across borders were changed, and caught a lot of vendors unaware. Back then, already, it was hinted that similar rules should be introduced for physical goods as well. This is now going to happen; it was planned to start in January 2021, but has been postponed to July because of the pandemic. I accidentally learned about that this morning... which meant I spent half the morning reading up on stuff to find out what I'll have to do come July.

The good news is: looks like I'll have to do exactly... nothing. My business, and thus my export volume, is small enough to fall under the annual export threshold, which, thank goodness, has been set into place right from the start (as opposed to when the digital sales VAT changed). As a side effect, I've also found out that a similar threshold has been put into place for sales of digital goods, which is fantastic as I'll be able to sell digital instructions and knitting patterns from my shop again. (That threshold introduction happened at sometime back between 2015 and now, and I totally missed it.)

So. Phew. A burst of adrenaline, and then good news - that's an okay outcome of this. And I confess, should you now all conspire to order so many things outside of Germany but within the EU to lift me over the threshold, I'd be totally cool to register for the One-Stop-Shop for my taxes and do the fancy changes to the shop system that would be necessary. (If you want to know, it would mean to look up the tax rates for each of the 27 member states and what they apply to, as books and other printed goods are sometimes taxed with a reduced rate and sometimes not at all, then enter those taxes in the shop system accordingly for each country. Then test all that to make sure it functions properly. That is probably a workday, if it's going badly, more.)

After this little intermezzo... I can now tackle my overly long list of things again. Hooray!

After feeling like it was Friday all day yesterday, I'm certainly happy that it's the end of the week for real today. I'm also quite happy that there has been some taking stock, scheming, and planning for restocking my embroidery silk collection, and adding a few new colours.

The red and yellow are almost gone, the purple has been sold out for a while, and I'm planning to add a proper black as well as another shade of green to complement the blueish green and the apple green already in the range. The light blue is also running low... and now I'm wondering if I have missed something?

And while I'm getting things dyed, maybe also some lace braids? And a bit of the silk ribbon? Hmmm...

(Suggestions and thoughts - as always - are very welcome!)

I've been asked recently about how much gold thread to calculate for covering a given area - so I've taken out my samples and took a look, and did some maths, and maybe that's interesting for you, too.

The gold thread that I have in the shop is about 0,2 mm in diameter - so if we assume that it will be couched down perfectly, one thread right beside the next, and there's no significant gap between threads, 50 threads next to each other are needed to cover a width of one centimeter. For a stripe one centimeter wide and ten centimeters long, accordingly 5 metres of thread are needed - plus a little more, since it's necessary to have a little bit of thread to pull to the back of the fabric.

When I had my gold embroidery starter kit fairly new, I found a volunteer to test it for me, and these are the results of stitching with 5 m of gold thread:

[caption id="attachment_5805" align="alignnone" width="640"] This is how much ground you can cover with 5 m of gold thread.


That's roughly in the area of the 10 x 1 cm stripe. As you can see in the picture (hopefully - it's really hard to take a good photo of gold embroideries!) there are areas where the threads overlap a little, and areas where there are narrow gaps, and that can even itself out or, if you tend more towards one or the other, it will reduce or extend your covered area slightly.

As to the number of threads lying beside each other, I did some counting on a piece where I had threads couched all in parallel, and I got about 21 to 23 threads on 5 mm - so about 42 to 46 per centimeter. Which is close to the theoretical 50, but not quite there, just like I would have expected.

For calculating thread needs, thus, 50 cm of thread per square centimeter seems to be a good ballpark number - it should give you enough wiggle room to anchor your thread ends and safely cover that area, even if you have a little bit of overlap here or there.

So Brexit has happened - with a last-minute deal, at least that. I'd fully been expecting it to be a no-deal hard Brexit, after all the to and fro and inabilities, or unwillingness, to settle on all kinds of things.

The way it's now, though, is bad enough. These days, it will require a passport, which I'd need to get (I have no clue where my old one is stashed, but since it's been years and years since I last needed it, I'm sure it's been expired for ages anyways), and taking home some delicious foodstuffs as souvenirs, like we always did, is out. You can't even take a ham sandwich for your own consumption into the EU from the UK anymore. With the pandemic still in full swing everywhere, though (and looking at the numbers, lovely London is one of the last places I'd want to travel to right now), it does look like it might be a while until we go to Britain again for a holiday anyways.

Much worse than waiting for a while to return to one of our favourite countries for our own fun and leisure, though, are the work-related aspects of the Brexit - and those also hit me personally, and to my great dismay.

As of January 1, I will unfortunately not be able to sell goods to the UK anymore. So I'm now shipping worldwide... with the exception of the UK. Seriously, it's easier and less hassle to ship wool to Australia now than to sell anything to the UK. Why? Your answer has two words: No Threshold.

All countries except UK have an import threshold, which means that as long as you only sell and ship small amounts of things, with a limited overall value, to said country, you do not need to register for VAT there. You pay the taxes in your own country, and that's it. At some point, when you export much more than the tiny fish like me do, you'll need to register in the other country; but below the threshold, it's considered to be just not worth the paperwork and hassle and time consumed on all sides.

Brexit Britain does not see it like this. They have ruled that there is no threshold, which means that as soon as you sell to GB for just one single penny, you will have to register for VAT there. Registration and being in the register may or may not mean a fee incurred, but even if it's free, it would mean I'd need to fill out extra paperwork every quarter year, sales or no sales.

That in itself would be a hassle, but one I'd still consider. Now comes the clincher, though. If I make any sales, I need to pay the VAT to a British account, which means a bank transfer from EU to non-EU and with a currency change inbetween. That means that in the very best case, I pay a currency conversion fee plus close to 10 € for the bank transfer itself. In the worst case, bank transfer fee is about 40 €. For one single transfer! So if I sell stuff to the UK for 10 €, I send 2 € to the UK and pay somewhere between 10 and 40+ € to my bank for this privilege.

Is that ridiculous, or is it ridiculous? So that means I'll not sell things there from my shop anymore. Should there be a change in UK policy, I'll obviously reconsider - also if someone decides to buy half my shop stock, racking up an enormous bill that would make me a rich woman at once, I'll reconsider. Until then, though... good-bye, shipments across the Channel.

I'm very, very sorry that I have to do that, especially as Britain is a place I really love. Here's hoping things will get better again in the future, and easier for small traders like me - not because I'm getting less revenue with no orders from the country, but because I can imagine how heartbreaking and sad it must be if you live there, and would like to have nice things from across the borders, and the people making and selling these nice things just can't send them with reasonable terms...

You might not guess it, but I have a thing for threads. Which, obviously, includes linen sewing threads.

Linen is a wonderful fibre, and good linen threads are very strong - at least strong in the sense of "can hold a lot of tension". Linen is never strong against abrasion, which is one of the reasons to give the thread a rub with beeswax before using it for sewing.

The best, strongest, and nicest linen threads are those that are wet-spun from long-line flax. Linen fibres are rather smooth, and longer fibres together with appropriate amounts of twist make for stronger yarn than when it's spun from shorter fibre bits. Linen yarns also tend to have a few slubs here and there - much more so than cotton. These can be annoying when using the thread, and having few and relatively small slubs is also a sign of good quality.

The slight variation within a yarn regarding its thickness is also a reason why three-ply sewing threads are more common these days: They have a rounder cross-section, and the probability of the thickness variation cancelling itself out in a mix of three yarns is higher than with two yarns. That means it's more pleasant and more easy to work with.

Here you can see the difference:

 
[caption id="attachment_5723" align="aligncenter" width="297"] Three-ply linen yarn - that is my extra fine linen sewing thread.


[caption id="attachment_5725" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Two-ply linen yarn, about the same thickness - that is my 60/2 linen sewing thread.


The two-ply also looks more frizzy - that is also an effect of the tighter spinning and the tighter plying the three-ply yarn has.

So what is the better thread for your project? As so often, the answer is: That depends.

If you want to go as historically correct as possible, the two-ply is definitely the way to go, as anything with more plies than two is a HUGE exception for medieval and early modern times.

Why? If you're spinning by hand, it makes quite a difference whether you are making a two-ply yarn or a three-ply yarn: You have to spin the whole length of necessary yarn a third time for the three-ply. Historically, two-ply sewing threads thus were the rule. Only in extremely rare cases can we find a three-ply yarn somewhere before the rise of mechanical spinning and plying - a two-ply will bring all the stability needed for sewing or other techniques where you work with open ends or twist, and is the quickest and easiest ply to make.

Today, though, machine-spinning allows for setting one size of yarn thickness and then easily using a higher number of plies to make a thicker end product. And with three-ply or four-ply yarns having the advantages described above, these kinds are now the rule. Consequently, it is rather hard to find two-ply linen yarns suitable for sewing these days. Which is also the reason why I'm carrying a three-ply thread in my shop, this is stock from the days when I had not found a source for the two-ply yarns yet.

If you're not a total stickler for details, or want to have the bit more smoothness and stability that the three-ply will give you, then you can well go for the more modern thread. And with the fineness this thread has, it will take most people a close look, a magnifying glass and the possibility to un-twist a bit of the thread to be able to tell it's a modern three-ply!

There's a "Mittelaltermarkt Online" again on Saturday, and I'll be there!

There have been a few of these markets this year, but I was away or otherwise engaged for the last few events. This time, the stars have lined up favourably, and I'll take part again.

The market organisers have shifted the timeframe of the market, it now starts at 17:00 German time, so the Saturday (which we usually spend, at least partly, with grocery shopping, like so many others) doesn't get ripped apart by a noon-to-afternoon event. I totally approve, and am very happy with that change.

In case you missed the last ones, and don't know at all what I am talking about: The market is intended to give people a possibility to do some "medieval shopping" that they would otherwise have done on real-life markets and events. There's a stage with some entertainment, and stalls with different goods offered by different people. They are not all medieval as in historically correct, but if you don't expect that, it's quite enjoyable and fun.

Registration is necessary (but free), and then you can click yourself along the market paths (which remind me of a simple game dungeon), look at the stalls left and right, and chat with the stall owners, look at their goods, and maybe buy something. It's even possible to run a video meeting so one can video-chat with people. That is the closest online equivalent to a real market that I have yet seen, and actually allows to explain things or show something.

So: Stop by if you wish, and have a chat with me!

The shop is back online, after a short break overnight to implement the change in VAT rate that is in effect here in Germany starting today.

I think the change was one of these ideas that are well-meant and sound really good at first, but are not as brilliant on a second, closer look. For me, it was rather easy to implement, with a smallish shop and a decision on how to handle it that makes things much easier for me. Changing the tax rate was, in my case, quick and easy to do. The prices, though, will remain the same, as the shop fixes the brutto price (including the tax). As I have both things with reduced tax rate in the shop as well as normal rate things, and the printed matter is partly bound to the price (there's a German book price law, which means a new book will cost the same no matter where you buy it, and the price is fixed by the publishing house), I can't just slap a general discount on.

My solution is to offer a discount code - you can enter this in the appropriate field shown on the shopping basket page - and you'll get the price reduction on all the eligible items. (Or you can just pay the full price, if you want me to have a bit more revenue from your purchases, which will also be welcome.)

Other vendors have not had it this easy, though. Especially if you have an automatic cashier desk or similar things, I've heard that things could be very complicated, and nerve-wracking. In quite a few branches of trade, there's a lot of confusion on how to handle this, and whether it's better to pass on the reduction to the customer, or to keep the little extra revenue. It should be clear in gastronomics (which was, I think, the primary reason for the VAT rate reduction), but in other businesses, I wonder if the extra amount of work and hassle will really be worth it. It's extra-complicated in the book trade, due to the fixed-price law!

Just like in so many other circumstances, only time will tell whether this stunt will actually do something for German economy. In the meantime, you can enjoy the discount and with it the accompanying "krumme Preise", as we say in German - non-round, slightly weird numbers for the prices.

And that's it for the current behind-the-scenes report...