Phildar

With all my posts on whether or not I should make the Moana dress in Catania, you would forget that I only recently made a large purchase for a number of other plans. And in the mean time I’ve made a start with one of these plans.

   

I saw this dress for the first time on Ravelry, were else? Turned out that it is a pattern by Phildar from their summer magazine of 2011.

In good spirit I surfed to the Phildar website, intending to buy the pattern or even the entire magazine. But regrettably it would seem that Phildar isn’t as organized as other brands and I couldn’t find the magazine anywhere.

Ok, no worries, not all too far from where I live there’s an actual Phildar shop, so I decided to pay them a visit after work.

I have this idyllic idea of a yarn shop, where a lady is cosily knitting or crocheting behind the counter and good spiritedly helps her customers with all and every question.
It was the first time I visited this Phildar shop, but I immediately gathered that this shop would not fit into my ideal image. The lady behind the counter was talking to a gentlemen and both looked up rather surly when I pushed open the door to enter. The gentlemen immediately took off through a door to a private area and the lady turned to me with an impatient “Yes?”

Hmm, not really a good first impression, but maybe it was just my imagination?

“Yes, good-day ma’am. I’m looking for a Phildar magazine from 2011…”

“2011? I don’t have that.” she interrupted, “We only follow the latest trends.”

Okay then, why so snappy? Let me try again.

“Oh yes, well it’s because I noticed a pattern on the internet that…”

Again I was interrupted. “Ah, the internet. Yes, you can find everything there, can’t you? But I only follow the latest trends.”

“Ok, but can’t you backorder catalogues?” I tried again, “Those patterns …”

And then the phone in the shop rang and the lady went to answer without giving me a second glance.
First I planned to wait around for the call to end, but when I got the impression it was a personal call and I was ignored completely, I just left.

I agree that shopping via internet is not always ideal, but rather that than going to a shop where they look at you like you’re a piece of filth. I don’t know, maybe the lady had a bad day, but I’m not planning on going there again soon.

What I still wanted to ask in the shop was that I couldn’t believe that old patterns have just disappeared? They should still be available somewhere, no? Certainly today with the internet and such.
But yeah, I wasn’t able to get an answer there and because the lady reacted rather hostile to the word internet, I decided to try my luck there again. I really needed that pattern, since I already bought the yarn. And yes, looks like you really can get everything through internet if only you look long enough. Not legally, as I had hoped, but I did find a place where I could download the French magazine containing the desired pattern. For shame, I know, but if I knew where to get it in the right way I would have! Even now still.

But okay, now I had the pattern. In French, but that shouldn’t be a problem, right? Nope, it was. Apparently the French way of writing patterns is very different from what I’m used to in Dutch or English. Not everything is noted down row by row, so you really need to count and calculate.
But with the help of some very nice people on Ravelry, I cracked the code and have now written the entire pattern out. Advantages of this are (1) that I don’t need to make calculations during knitting, and (2) that I have a good feeling about the pattern’s construction.

And as the French say, “Nous sommes parties!” (or “here we go!”) 😉