Prioritizing the paranoias

Moving!

2007-06-17T14:28:00.000-06:00

This will be my last post here; I'm moving my blog to Wordpress. Please come visit me there!

This post is not what it seems.

2007-06-14T12:27:00.000-06:00

We returned from the cabin yesterday. I already miss it - and not just because the breeze off the lake made the mid-80-degrees days not just tolerable but actually quite pleasant. Our house is hot and sticky and even though we get periodic breezes through the upstairs open windows, it's still too hot and sticky to contemplate knitting anything with wool or spinning anything with any possibility of sticking to moisture in my hands (like the baby camel & silk tends to).

My Fiber Swap box arrived while we were out. It's quite lovely and has lots of fun things to play with - including samples of cotton and soy silk and flax which I'm unwontedly gleeful about (or will be once it's not a sauna in my house) - and I will take pictures and post in more breathlessness about it all soon, but in catching up on the headlines from the last several days, I came across an article stating that the number of persons living with HIV/AIDS in a county near us went up in 2006.

Which is a bit of an understatement; the number nearly tripled. (Which, in and of itself, is somewhat mitigated when you realize that the total number of persons living with HIV/AIDS is in the low 20's, but the rate of increase is still somewhat of a shock.) According to the article, a large portion of the increase is due to an "influx" (can 2-3 people really be considered an "influx"?) of people to the area who were already diagnosed - so it's not a three-fold increase in the incidence of HIV/AIDS infections, but rather an increase in the prevalence of persons living with HIV/AIDS in the region.

And then I read the comments to the article (if you do this, read from the bottom up as the newest comments are added to the top). And as is not all that uncommon when I venture into the comments, I was rather horrified at the ignorance and prejudice displayed therein. But that's not really my point either; rather, I was reminded by something someone mentioned in passing in one of the comments of a rant I've been wanting to write for a few weeks.

It sums up to this, in short: If you trust the security of your blood supply to self-disclosure of potential risk factors, you're negligently naive. (I warned you this post wasn't what it seemed.) While the FDA's policy of "self-deferral" to keep men who have sex with men (MSM) from contributing to the nation's blood supply *may* reduce the 1 in a million chance of someone contracting HIV from a blood transfusion (which is not insignificant given that there are, in an average year, about 20 million blood transfusions in the US), it relies on the self-identification of MSM as such.

And.. well.. even with the change in terminology and the targeting of MSM who do not identify as gay or bisexual in media campaigns, there is a relatively substantial population of men (apparently especially African American men) on the down low - substantial enough that they are believed to be the primary reason that the incidence of HIV/AIDS among heterosexual women has been on the rise. So.. knowing that, I fail to understand how a policy of self-deferral - which will undoubtedly succeed in keeping a large number of HIV-negative self-identifying MSM from attempting to give blood - is going to do anything to protect the blood supply from the uncounted (but believed to be large) population of MSM who don't identify as such.

It's a farce. Rather than admit that the blood supply is at risk of contamination, the FDA would rather reaffirm the stereotype that homosexual and bisexual men constitute the only population with significant enough risk of spreading HIV to warrant the prevention of their contribution to the blood supply - in defiance of the facts that the proportion of new female HIV cases has been steadily rising over the past decade and that 80% of new female HIV infections are transmitted through heterosexual sex. By playing on the fears of the uneducated public, the FDA is knowingly contributing to a false sense of security regarding the US blood supply.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not advocating for the abolition of the maintenance of the US blood supply, or for more stringent restrictions as to who is deemed worthy of contributing; rather I'm arguing for an admission of the actual risk inherent in the system and an abolition of restrictions that are based on fear and prejudice.

Travel Knits

2007-06-08T11:48:00.000-06:00

Okay, so before I run away again (this time for vacation up to my parents cabin), I thought I'd post some finished objects and progress pictures from the things I was working on while I was traveling the last couple of weeks.

First up are the finished Lorna's Laces toe up socks in Bucks Bar:

I bound off the second one a little too tight, but since I'd already cut the thread and woven in the ends, I haven't decided yet if I'm going to try to go back and fix it or not. They come up almost to my knees as they are, though, so I could also just choose to fold them down or something. For some reason I'm really not in love with these socks, though, so I might also just hang onto them for a gift or donation. *shrug*

And there's the second washcloth I made from the Euroflax Linen. It ended up being a fraternal twin to the first because I wasn't paying as much attention to the pattern when I started knitting on it and made the first row of squares a couple rows too short and ended up having to improvise a bit to get it to come out the right size.

That's the toe of my first Sockapalooza sock. I'm actually almost to the heel turn on it now, but forgot to take a new progress picture this morning when I was out taking pictures with Gnorm.

And finally I brought the Foxfire Baby Camel and Tussah Silk with me so I could participate in the Spindler's Spin-in-Public day (first Friday of every month) at the airport in Minneapolis during my layover. I think I'm doing okay with it, but it isn't quite as even as I'd like and I think it might be underspun, but it could just be that it needs to be livened again. I still have more than half the original bag to spin and it's already quite a bit of yarn, so I'm hoping to get enough out of it to do as a two-ply that will end up about fingering weight for a shawl or scarf.

While we were in Kansas City, Cate and Sara invited me along to go to Cottage Fiber with them, which was well, well worth the trip. Cate got some pictures that I'm hoping she'll get a chance to post soon. It's a great, great little shop tucked in an out of the way studio space and it has undoubtedly the best selection of spinning fibers of any shop I've ever been to (which admittedly is not many, but even Cate and Sara were impressed and they've been to that most holy of fiber events - Rhinebeck!) and some really beautiful old wheels. I really can't recommend this shop enough - if you ever find yourself in Kansas City you really really need to check them out and pet all the gorgeousness yourself!

I managed to escape with only a very small stash enhancement (modeled below with Gnorm):

The ball of roving is about 2.5 ounces of cashgora in a really rich red/orange/copper colorway (Cate got the other half of the ball) and the little packet has 4-5 beautifully dyed silk hankies with some amazing copper accents. I've never spun silk from a hankie, but the owner of the shop (who's name I didn't get; terribly bad manners, especially since she opened her shop up special just for us!) gave me some quick instruction and I'm looking forward to getting it started. Maybe if I end up with enough of it I can ply some if it up with the Foxfire.. I realized after we left that I forgot to get some of the amazingly soft angora bunny roving she had, though, so I will have to call and see if she'll mail me some.

Oh, and my fiber swap pal - Elsje - got her package and appears to like it, so that makes me very happy! It was really hard not to hang on to all that fiber, but I'm glad she likes it. The fiber swap packages were all supposed to be sent off by the 5th, so I'm really hopeful that mine will show up today before we hit the road for the cabin!

In one last bit of mailing news, I'm shipping Gnorm off today to his next destination and all the goodies that I've picked out for my next pal are neatly tucked into his box awaiting delivery to the post office. If you missed what I got from Stephanie, I posted about it all over on the Knitting Gnome Swap blog a couple days ago. I really really love everything she sent - especially the tea which is really honestly truly my favorite and she had no way of knowing I even knew about Market Spice (I lived in Seattle for three years between college and grad school) - and I'm bringing the Yarn Pirate yarn with me to the cabin just in case I finish my Sockapalooza pal's socks so I can start right in on some lusciousness for me!

Another quickie..

2007-06-07T10:18:00.001-06:00

Gnorm arrived from Kirkland, WA while I was in Kansas City! I was afraid that would happen, but I think things will work out okay. I'll get a chance to take him around a bit today and tomorrow morning before packing him up and sending him off on his merry way again tomorrow afternoon.

I'll post pictures of my recently finished items, and a progress shot of my Sockapalooza pal's socks hopefully sometime this evening. I did some minor stash acquisition with Cate & Sara in Kansas City, though, and there's a photo of Gnorm checking it out in the post linked above. It's truly gorgeous and I'm contemplating looking for another lightweight spindle so I won't have to wind off the Firefox silk & baby camel to start the cashgora! And I also need to contact the shop owner and see if she'll send me some of the angora bunny fiber that I meant to grab, too.

Gotta run!

Connected to: WestinLobby

2007-06-05T07:31:00.000-06:00

Just a quick update before I dash off to facilitate two back-to-back sessions this morning: I'm better now, not that I wasn't before, but being here this week has reminded me not only that I *do* accomplish quite enough for a single person office, *and* that I know a lot more people in this field than I realize. Those are both reassuring salve to a crispy IR director!

In other news, conference knitting proceeds apace: the toe up socks are complete, as is the second linen washcloth (even if it is a fraternal twin to the first). I even cast on last night for my first Sockapalooza pal's sock! I'll try to snag some pictures between sessions today, but no promises! I am running off for a bit of a yarn crawl with Sara & Cate this evening, and that might just mean there will be no time left to post them today.

Complex.

2007-06-02T16:05:00.001-06:00

So.. this is my third time at my professions annual forum. The first year, I was a sponge - I soaked up as much as I could because I was so firmly stuck in the "knowing what you don't know" spot that I just needed to learn as much as I could and hope that at least some of it stuck through the mind-stuffing. The second year, I was more targeted in what I sought out - I looked for sessions that were related to things I knew were on my professional horizon and I tried to make contacts with key people that I thought I could learn things from. This year.. I'm suffering from a touch of feeling alternately on top of my game and like the girl who thinks she's a big fish in a little pond, who is really just a little fish in the ocean. *sigh*

This is not a capability thing. And it's not really a knowledge thing. I think it's because I'm a single person office supporting an institution whose peers typically have several people filling my role. I really, really *want* to do all these things - I want to do an annual faculty salary study as a matter of routine (hell, I'd like to do *any* real study as a matter of routine); I want to be involved in the national level of debate and discussion about what's coming down the pike in terms of accreditation and accountability; I want to set up our new data warehouse so that I can drop a data mining application on top of it and run more in depth analysis that will aid my institution in planning for the future. I want to be a big office with the staff to do the things that I know an institution of this size should be doing.

And it's somewhat therapeutic to come here and know I'm not alone. I'm not the only one out there who wants to do more with less or who struggles with inadequate data for a task or who recognizes that IR can't be considered on the same level as scholarly research (because our research is used to make decisions and decisions have deadlines).

But it's also frustrating to see people be able to do those things that I want to do (and think our institution should be doing). It simultaneously makes me feel inferior and indignant. Inferior because I can't be the shining star who presents new and insightful data every year. Indignant because those who are in larger offices, who are "blessed" with the ability to do more in depth analysis, sometimes seem to judge those of us who can't as being less skilled or behind the times or at least not on the cutting (bleeding?) edge of our profession.

There's almost a snobbery to it (at least for some.. this is really not about the vast majority of my colleagues, but rather about those few who persist in a academician's bias toward "publish or perish" - a bias that's hard to shake even if you know it's inappropriate). And it's sometimes difficult not to feel inferior in the face of that; to feel like I should be staying up nights learning more about the intricacies of Markov Matrices or hierarchical linear modeling. It's hard at those times to remember that despite the limitations of my position, I am still contributing to the larger community and that I am a competent professional and that I have nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, I have some small ability to shine a little light on those like me - those single person IR offices who, like Sisyphus, roll that damned boulder up the hill every single day only to wake up more behind than we were the day before. Because it's hard to think of yourself as anything and all that when you get run over by a boulder every night.

I'm sorry.. I'd like to return this week..

2007-05-31T21:24:00.000-06:00

.. it was too short. :/

Long weekends on both ends - one with nothing doing and the other to be spent traveling and attending workshops - sandwiched three straight days of 9-4 meetings this week. I think that's grounds for declaring it defective and demanding a new one.

There were some good things, though, I s'pose. Like the fact that my tablet is not completely hosed (the blue screen of death was caused by a corrupted wireless driver which has since been fixed and which has resulted in my wireless connection being significantly more stable). And the tomatoes and basil plants arrived this week (and will be planted tomorrow and left to the care of my husband until I return late Wednesday evening):

even if the basil is.. well.. dead:

(Yes, I'll be contacting the company to either get new plants or a refund.)

And I forgot to print the sock pattern for my Sockapalooza pal's socks (which isn't quite the end of the world since I still need to finish the second toe-up sock, but it will not last through an entire 5 day conference).

Books.

2007-05-27T10:38:00.000-06:00

Right then.. It's summer (I'm told most people consider Memorial Day weekend the "official" start of summer; for me (and I'd guess most of us in academia) it's the start of summer term, about a week after commencement) and that means it's time to read. Several weeks ago I posted about the books I wanted to read this summer. Some of you may recall that I finished Ghost Map shortly after that post, and Leaving Atlanta quickly followed. So that means Eat Pray Love was next, so without further ado..

I don't think I've intentionally been putting off writing about this one - I have legitimately been busy and traveling and then there was the small matter of my laptop deciding not to boot for a couple days - but I admit to still being a bit unsettled about it. The book is divided into 3 sections - Italy, India, and Indonesia - and is the author's (Elizabeth Gilbert) narrative of her recovery and rediscovery of herself throughout her year of travels. Ms. Gilbert's writing style is very engaging and the opening of the book was immediately gripping; I felt like she was writing from inside my head, which is a bit misleading - I'm not now nor have I ever been in the situation she describes, but I could viscerally identify with the emotion.

And I stayed more or less an emotional voyeur throughout Italy. In India, Richard from Texas jumped out of the pages, living and breathing. We all need a Richard from Texas. My lasting impression of India was that it went by so much faster than Italy. I never went back to actually figure out if there were fewer pages, or if it was just that because of the relative lack of "terrain" covered compared to Italy, it seemed so. But Indonesia.. Indonesia is where I started to emotionally disconnect with Ms. Gilbert. I still can't quite identify which part of Indonesia caused me to pull away - and I don't want to give too much away by listing the options for those who still want to read it - but there was definitely something distancing in Indonesia. And while I still enjoyed the book through to the end, it wasn't a book that left me wanting more.

Which I think is okay, and it rather nicely illustrates the point of the book - a journey to identify yourself. In the end, Ms. Gilbert found herself, and even though I can identify with where she started, and even several of the steps and stages she went through on her journey, in the end she arrived at herself and she and I - and everyone else - are on different paths to different destinations.

And that dovetails quite nicely into Yann Martel's The Life of Pi, which is about a journey of a different sort. Judy G. asked if I liked it; and I did. But not being Canadian means that I'm mostly unaware of the media lovefest surrounding Martel at the moment. Yes, the book was highly acclaimed in the US when it was first released, but that was some time ago and I think it's one of those flash-in-the-pan books for the fickle American readership - it was all the buzz for a few months and now it's available in most half-price book stores on clearance for a couple of bucks (which is, in fact, where I picked up my copy). Which is really neither here nor there, other than to explain that I probably tend toward contrarianism when it comes to the hot new author as well and typically end up working back around to that once-must-read a few years later and get to make my judgement about the story.

And, as I mentioned, I did like The Life of Pi. It was.. real enough without being too much of a stretch. As an allegory, it's subtle enough to skip over if you want to just plow through the story for the sake of a decently told story. And even though they mess with your head a bit at the end, I still liked it even though I'm not sure I'm going to bother to probe, even for my own edification, the depths of the allegory. *shrug*

I'm now about half way through Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (who is also the author of The Virgin Suicides), which I picked up in the Denver airport because I forgot to pack The Life of Pi. It was a book recommended by one of our campus librarians and one I'd glanced at a few times in the past year or so, but never bothered to pick up to read the synopsis. It's not about what I thought it would be, and I have to say that it's not really about (at least so far) what I thought it was after hearing it described. Middlesex is purportedly about the life of a modern hermaphrodite; so far, though, it's mostly about the family history of a modern hermaphrodite, starting with his Greek grandparents in their remote Turkish village and their flight from the burning of Smyrna to 1920's Detroit. It's an interesting story packed with a lot of issues in addition to the probable most obvious one - racial tension in both Turkey and Detroit; immigration; prohibition; guilt; religion - but written so that you don't get beaten over the head with any of them. Unfortunately, because it touches on so much, it can be a bit much for bedtime reading at times, but I won't hold that against it. *smile*

Plans for the long weekend.

2007-05-26T10:28:00.001-06:00

I've been traveling most of this week - Denver Sunday evening through late Tuesday and then Madison Wednesday and Thursday - and while it's been a productive and useful week, I'm very glad not to be traveling again this weekend (especially because I only get seven days at home before I'm off again to Kansas City for six!).

Sometime today I need to run into town to deliver some games to our Garden Gurus, the male half of which will be chaperoning a class of pre-teens on a trip to our nation's capital next week. They're taking the train and, knowing how hard it can be to keep preteens occupied for a long trip, MGG (Male Garden Guru) asked if we could loan them some of our board games. We've sort of collected quite a few, thanks in large part to some friends who have come to spend the last three New Year's Eves with us playing games, and this is just a sampling of what we're sending along for their trip:

Starting on the top left and going what will end up being more or less counter-clockwise: Phase 10, Peasantry, Queen's Necklace, Rook, Carcassonne: The Castle, Carcassonne (original with a couple expansions), Ticket to Ride, Tsuro, double 12 dominoes, the 1910 expansion for Ticket to Ride, and Monkeys!. I tried to pull a selection that would allow for some smaller groups (The Castle, Tsuro, and dominoes can be played with two people) as well as larger groups (Tsuro can go to 8, but most of the rest top out around 5 or 6). I'm contemplating sending Mystery of the Abbey, but I'm a bit worried it might just be a bit too complex for the average pre-teen. And while we have Settlers of Catan and two of the larger expansions, as well as the expansion for 5-6 players, I think it just has too many little pieces that could too easily get lost on a train (and technically, so does Ticket to Ride, but I can't resist sending game about trains along on a train trip!). Similarly, the Catan card game and Jambo (both two player games) are staying home (though I admit that the Catan card game is staying mostly because we just picked up the expansions from Pegasus Games while we were in Madison and haven't had a chance to play it ourselves yet; we also just got Guillotine, which is also staying here for the same reason.) Yes.. we like good games and our friends know it. *smile*

When I drop off the games, I've been invited to peruse the GG's garden for anything that I'd like to add to my own. I already know that I want to get some balloon flower from them, and hopefully some of the small Japanese irises. And some garlic chives (which I think Jack actually already got and just need to be planted). If the weather clears up tomorrow or Monday, I'll likely go plant the seeds for the vegetable garden (I don't want to plant them and then have a thunderstorm roll in right away for fear the seeds will flood out and all clump in one place).

I also plan to round out the packages for the summer swaps I'm doing. I sat down last Saturday before I left and ordered a bunch of stuff for my spoilees and was quite pleased that it all arrived by the time I got home:

I won't go into detail on what's all there just in case one of my spoilees happens to drop by and figure things out (and there are some things that were intentionally kept out of this picture because I was worried they'd be too easily identified by their intended recipients!), but I will say that it's going to be hard to let some of this stuff go! There are just a few finishing touches needed for each of them, and of course, I still need to knit my sockapalooza pal's socks, but I have a couple months for that still.

In the meantime, I finished the first of the toe up socks:

I didn't really use a pattern, but the yarn is Lorna's Laces in Buck's Bar and I just worked the leg until I ran out of yarn. As I realized how tall these were going to be, I added in some calf shaping, which I think turned out pretty well considering I made it up as I went along!

(Thank goodness for Blogger's new auto-save feature! I just accidentally clicked on a shortcut in my menu bar and thought I'd lost this entire post.. Whew!)

And as long as the weather stays chilly and storm-threatening, I snuck a skein of Louet Euroflax in Lilac in with the orders for my spoilees so I can snuggle in and watch a movie (we got both Babel and Pan's Labyrinth from Netflix while I was gone) while making a couple washcloths (modified from the hand towel pattern from Mason-Dixon Knitting) for the upstairs bathroom.

I'm admittedly a bit torn because I'd really love to make hand towels for the new bathroom as well, but the Euroflax is a bit spendy. I've checked out KnitPicks new CotLin, though, and I think I could make a couple hand towels with the Linen colorway using the Royal Plum for accents that would work well and would come in around $7.50 per towel instead of the $20 it would be if I used Euroflax. And if they turn out well, I might just make some for gifts, too.. I know at least a couple folks who have done bathroom remodels lately!

Oh, and sometime soon I need to do a book post. I finished Eat, Pray, Love a few weeks ago, and since have also finished The Life of Pi and started Middlesex. And I picked up a couple new books while in Madison as well - Tayari Jones's The Untelling (you knew this one was coming, right?) and Gabriel Garcia Marques's One Hundred Years of Solitude. The stack on my bedside table doesn't seem to be getting smaller, but I couldn't be happier at having so much good literature to read!

Distraction..

2007-05-18T17:49:00.000-06:00

I might have mentioned here (or I might not have, I don't remember) that my knitting mojo lately has been mostly absent. I have a pair of toe-up socks that is sort of languishing, as is the Blue Willow cardigan, and mostly I'm okay with that. I've been busy doing other things and I know it will come back sooner or later.

In the meantime, though, last weekend I realized that the answer to my snapping lead lines on my tablet weaving loom was yet-another-fiber-hobby: my lucet. Lucet cord is what I use to lace my bodices, and goodness knows that if the cord can withstand the tension of that, it could certainly put up with my tablet weaving tension.

And it does. Quite nicely, in fact. Which means that I'm once again fiddling about with some tablet weaving. I need to do this more often so that I no more about what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it. For instance, at the moment, the lines in my chevrons are feathered, and I think that's because some of the cards are a quarter turn off, or because some of them are threaded backward (don't worry if this doesn't make sense.. it's okay), but I don't know enough yet to know whihttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=16435420ch and I don't have the patience to fiddle with it until I find the right answer. So I'm putting up with feathered chevrons, and really, I'm okay with that.

In the meantime, I panicked a few weeks ago when I realized I'd signed up for no fewer than 3 summer swaps. Fortunately, I'm a bit less panicked now (but I am still just a tiny bit worried that Gnorm or Gnuman will show up while I'm in Kansas City the first week of June!) and I think I even have the yarn for my Sockapalooza IV pal *and* the pattern picked out. I'm pretty excited about the pattern.. it'll be my first pair of Cookie A socks, I think, and I love that they're toe up so I can use all the yarn in each skein without worrying about running out.

Unfortunately, the swap I'm feeling the most out-to-sea about is the one that will happen first. I'll think I'll be okay, I just need to either find somewhere online that has a really good selection of dyed roving or a really good shop that has a good selection. I have what I'm looking for in mind, at least in terms of color, but I haven't managed to track down a supplier for what I'm looking for.

Let's round out the week with some righteous indignation..

2007-05-11T06:54:00.000-06:00

This is why gay and lesbian couples should be afforded the same legal marital rights as heterosexual couples.

The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Minneapolis woman should have visitation rights with the two children she and her now-estranged lesbian partner adopted when they were still a couple.

Nancy SooHoo had faced losing all contact with the 11- and 6-year-old girls, whom she said still call her "mommy," and her attorney said the court's decision is good news for gay parents who have struggled for legal parental rights.

SooHoo and Marilyn Johnson had been a couple for almost two decades when they adopted the infant girls from China in 1997 and 2001, but Johnson became the sole legal guardian because the Chinese government wouldn't allow gay couples to adopt.

When the couple split in 2004, Johnson was left as the only legal parent of both girls.

Yes, Ms. SooHoo will still get to see her kids. No, even though she and Ms. Johnson adopted the children together after having been "a couple" for "two decades", a legal technicality means Ms. SooHoo doesn't actually get joint custody. She's not, in the eyes of the courts or the law, their mother.

Yes, divorce is ugly, even moreso when there are children involved. But even though the divorce rate is reportedly down from a peak in the early-80's, it still seems to be that around 40% of first-time (need I even state that these are only heterosexual?) marriages end in divorce. The courts would never think to consider one of the adults in those families not legally a parent to their children, even if the children had been adopted. Not one, not ever.

Because marriage and civil union is not legal for most of the country, there are no similar statistics for gay and lesbian families, but the law of averages being what it is, my guess is that it's about the same. It might even be lower because of the strength of will and determination it takes in many areas of the country to declare yourself married to someone of the same sex - arguably you'd think about jumping into a gay or lesbian marriage maybe a little harder than it seems some heterosexual couples think about it - but again, no statistics, so all we can do is speculate. (I won't even really go off on the whole "if it were recognized, we could actually track things like this and make decisions based on *gasp* actual data" line..)

With a little help...

2007-05-10T15:27:00.000-06:00

.. from my friends and family (all pictures are clickable thumbnails; click them to load a bigger version):

The yard is, effectively, complete now. We picked up the last two bushes (wine & roses weigela) from a local nursery and planted them Monday. We did the bulk of the mulch on.. um.. Tuesday? I think, and put in the accent bits - the shepherd's crook with the bird feeder and hanging basket of johnny-jump-ups (okay, okay, I know they're really violas), the plant stand with three gerber daisys, and the fire-pit-turned-bird-bath*. I think I strung the twine for the morning glories to climb on Tuesday too.. might have been a different day, though. Now things just need to grow.

The raised beds are now about half full of dirt, with a few more barrow-fulls to get added to each one.

I'm a little concerned that the dirt won't be deep enough in some spots (we threw in some brick edgers that were lying around in the yard unused to try to help with drainage in the beds, but that may have been a mistake because the soil over them is a bit thin now), but it's fixable, so it's not a deal-breaker. The last of the dirt will hopefully get moved tomorrow - I had to stop Tuesday when I couldn't lift the shovel anymore and my right elbow has been decidely cranky since then from the overuse and abuse; since there's no real rush, I took a few days off from shoveling to let it rest and heal up a bit. I'll likely start getting the seeds and plants planted next week - the tomatoes and other live plants from Burpee are expected to arrive on the 15th (except the Walla Walla sweet onions, which are already here).

The crowning glory of the week, though, is the bathroom. Here is the finished tile floor:

And this is what it looked like yesterday:

It's gorgeous. It represents a fair amount of sweat equity - mostly my dad's, but there's also enough of mine in there for me not to feel *too* guilty - but oh, boy, has it been worth it. We finished the last of the trim & got the heating vent in today, so here it is, more or less finished:

We still need to pick up a linen shelf/cabinet for the near corner, and we're looking for a corner medicine cabinet, but will likely have to built that to spec. The window - which until now was effectively blocked by the &#$%(@#*@& plywood that they used to back the &#*%&@#$) shower - needs another coat of polyuerethane and a blind, but I'll gladly get that installed as a final farewell to the ugliness that used to be there (as seen below):

And I realized yesterday as we were hanging the washcloth ring and the hand towel rack that I really rather desperately need some new washcloths! Up to now, all my bathrooms have been a variation on hunter green, so most of my towels and washcloths are darker colors that just don't look right in the new bathroom. They're also all at least 4.5 years old - the newest having been wedding gifts - so it's definitely time! I might have to hunt around for some linen yarn to make a few..

*The fire-pit was thrown by the woman I got my pottery wheel from, out of raku clay, and bisqued; she was moving to Florida and couldn't take it with her and asked if I could test it out for her. Unfortunately, we can't have an uncovered fire in our yard, and the piece is too large for us to pack safely when we go to events, so it's never been tested. However, lining it with a large plant tray and putting some leftover tile bits under and in the tray makes it a more or less effective bird bath. *shrug*

Closer..

2007-05-07T09:24:00.000-06:00

We've had a busy - and at times back breaking - weekend here in our little corner of Minnesota. Dad is here again this week, so we're working on finishing up the garden preparations as well as getting the bathroom finished. The weather held out - cloudy and not too hot - for the weekend, so we worked mostly on the garden prep.

All four of the raised beds are finished now, and three of them are lined with weed stop around the sides (the fourth will get lined sometime today):

But the biggest change by far is the front yard. I didn't think to take a before picture, but image that the front yard was entirely covered with a variety of different weeds - dandelion, thistle, creeping Charlie, etc. - and was patchy and looked.. tired. Now it looks like this:

It's quite a transformation. It involved cutting the "sod" off the "lawn" - which is far more back breaking than it seems like it should be - tilling the soil under the removed sod, raking it all out even and removing the roots and twigs and other debris, and then laying the weed block, planting and mulching. We obviously didn't get enough mulch, so that's on the list to get more of today, but even as it is it's a *huge* improvement. It will take the plants a few years to really spread out the way we want them, but at this point, the hard work is pretty much complete.

We had a couple near neighbors keeping a close eye on us as we worked this weekend:

Ms. Robin and Ms. Mourning Dove have both nested in the big unknown bush by our front walk. They both seem quite content to let us work around them as long as we don't do anything to threaten their nests. They are, at the moment, the only reason that unknown bush is still standing; it's far too overgrown for the spot it's in and we are planning to remove it and replace it with a mock orange, but the birds beat us to action this spring.

When we first moved into this house, Adam (one of my Garden Guru(tm)s) noticed this small little blue flower that popped up along the side of the house behind the big ugly bushes (which we removed last summer). It was just one lone little flower, though there was another that appeared in the side garden on the other side of the house, too. Yesterday as we were (well, really, as he was) digging through the dirt in that spot to try to remove all the fiddlehead ferns that have invaded, he found it again and dug it up to save. This morning, I found the other one and took a quick picture of it before replanting it by it's friend, along with some Columbine that was also rescued:

I'll bring the picture of the unknown little bulb - which looks like a small, black onion with just itty bitty little roots - up to the Extension office to see if they can help us identify what it is so we can maybe get some more.

Today we're grouting the bathroom tile (we cut and laid the rest of the tile on Saturday) with hopes to be able to reset the toilet by sometime this evening. We also need to run get more mulch and the other two bushes for the front yard, and maybe also the sugar maple for the boulevard. Tomorrow will likely be split between putting dirt (50/50 compost & black dirt, being delivered at 9 a.m.) in the raised beds and getting vegetable seeds started, and getting the vanity in upstairs. I have a feeling Jack and dad will work on the vanity and I'll be out in the garden, at least as long as the weather holds. We also need to get the trim up in the bathroom round the door and window, which will hopefully happen Wednesday, assuming the vanity goes in smoothly.

Not dead.. just busy.

2007-05-05T14:05:00.000-06:00

I figured I'd post to let folks know - especially the folks who've recently pulled my name in one of the three swaps I managed to sign myself up for (really - I can't wait to do them, just not this week) - that I'm not dead, nor have I fallen into a deep dark pit where there's nothing to eat but worms and the occasional squirrel I managed to hit with one of my four remaining (precious) rocks. Work was a bit over the top this past week and this coming week I'm spending working at home - finishing the bathroom and the garden stuff - before running away for the weekend to Fargo (no, that part's not a joke).

To those who have gotten my name - thank you all! I've received all your emails and I promise to fill out questionnaires and respond to any and all questions you might have about my preferences as soon as I can. But first, I really, really need to run off and jot a couple quick emails to those that *I* get to spoil and surprise lest they feel unloved!

Things to do in Denver (when you're not dead)

2007-04-30T11:42:00.000-06:00

Just a quick note - I'll be in Denver for just a couple days in mid-May, arriving on a Sunday afternoon and departing Tuesday afternoon. I'm staying at the Hotel Teatro and should be settled in by about 4 Sunday afternoon. I'm looking for something to do Sunday evening - a good place to eat, a knitting shop that will be open, a must-see museum/attraction/play, a quiet spot to sit and have a cuppa and dessert, whatever - preferably within walking or easy public transit distance from the hotel. There's also the possibility (assuming the hotel will let me stash my bags there after check-out) that I'll have three or so hours Tuesday afternoon before I have to leave for the airport, so ideas for that time slot are also welcome.

And while I'm at it, I'll be in Kansas City in early June and Long Beach, CA in mid-July, so suggestions for not-to-be-missed places for those are welcome, too. The stay in Kansas City is several days and will include several free evenings, so multiple options there are especially welcome.

Not so much..

2007-04-29T17:31:00.000-06:00

Hrm. The plants are all in pots, but the front yard still needs to be cleared. It appears that we either need to wait until next weekend when dad gets here with the truck to get a powered sod cutter, or rent a non-powered one - which I'm told is a lot more work; my dad actually said that he'd opt to dig it by hand instead of use a non-powered sod cutter - sometime this week. We don't want to just rototill the sod into the dirt because the "lawn" is actually mostly weeds and we don't want to give them a head start to disrupt the new plants. Cutting out the sod won't completely eliminate the weeds, but it will at least make it less likely that they'll come through right away (and yes, we're putting down some gardening fabric to block them further as well).

Also, just because I'm not sure I've clarified, we're clearing the sod out because we're just replanting the front yard; the raised beds are actually in the side yard where we took out all the bushes last year. We have been warned not to try to plant in the soil where the bushes were because those type of bushes apparently turn the soil very acidic. So the solution is to build the raised beds, which will allow us to plant over that spot and give me room for a veggie garden.

On that subject, the rock plan for the beds just isn't going to work. It's (a) a bit pricey, and (b) too much work. Essentially, we'd be getting four loads of different materials and paying for delivery for that would be exorbitant; the alternative is to pick it up ourselves, which would require no less than 8 round trips in my dad's pick up. Since the suppliers is about 20 miles from our house, that's.. well.. more than I'm willing to pay and/or drive.

So, Plan B will be to put the sod we cut from the front yard (great suggestion, Cathy!) into the bottom of the beds to take up some space and feed the worms and then fill the rest with a mixture of black dirt, compost and sand. The supplier we've found will mix the black dirt & compost for us and deliver it - we'll be getting 6 yards total (and can I tell you how long it took me to figure out just exactly how much a "yard" is?) - and then we'll mix in some bags of sand here to "taste". Since we'll be finishing building the rest of the beds next Saturday or Sunday, I'm planning to have the dirt delivered Monday or Tuesday. Of course, at the moment the long term forecast shows rain next Saturday through Tuesday, so that plan might change..

Which really, would be okay as long as we can control when the delivery of dirt comes, because we also need to finish the bathroom floor. I started laying tile this weekend and have about half of it finished. I need to pick up more tile cement stuff tomorrow so we can lay the remaining two full-tile rows this week. Dad will help cut the tiles around the door and along the one wall that needs 3/4 tiles, which is also where we'll need to cut tiles to go around the toilet. Once the floor is in, we'll move the vanity out of the dining room (finally!) and install it, and put the toilet back (I can't wait.. I've so missed having a toilet upstairs in the middle of the night). We'll still need to do the trim around the room - which will likely mean we'll have to disconnect the sink to pull the vanity back out - but we're pr'bly going to wait on that for now because we haven't decided what kind of trim we want in there yet.

In other news (back to gardening), our neighbor from across the street came over to pick up some raspberry bushes this afternoon. We still have a fair number of them, but I'd say she took about half of what was out there, which is sort of nice. I'm re-thinking the plan of keeping any - they're just a bit too much maintenance for something we don't really use. In any case, the rest will get dug up the end of next week for delivery to folks up in the Cities who want them and/or transplant to the back of the fence. Then we'll RoundUp over that spot to try to kill any remaining raspberries and re-seed the spot with grass in a couple weeks.

Not quite what I expected..

2007-04-27T09:46:00.000-06:00

My much anticipated package from Spring Hill Nursery was waiting for me last night when we got home. It was.. small. smaller than I thought it should be with several live plants inside, including one that was destined to be a bush.. It was, I'd say, about 12"x24"x6". Hrm.

And it was very light. Hrm, again.

Now, before we go any farther, let me reiterate that this is the first time I've *ever* ordered anything alive to be delivered, so this whole process has been somewhat of a mystery. For instance, it took the plants *a week* to arrive, which had me in fits because I was positive that they'd be dead by the time they arrived.

Most of my fears were unwarranted, as it turns out. The plants arrived, as near as I can tell, alive:

The first photo on the left is the Weigela. Let's pause for a moment and remember that the picture in the catalog looks like.. well.. a full grown, rather large, bush. so I was .. surprised to find such a tiny little sprig in the tiny little container marked "weigela".

But at least it was in a container! As I was unpacking, it was easy to identify the phlox (the photo on the right), and the weigela. The evergreen vinca, the foxglove, and the sea holly, however, were *sealed* in plastic bags. Yes, there was also a bit of dirt in there with them, but they were *sealed* plastic bags. Um.. huh?

So I panicked. And I called My Garden Gurus(tm). And they assured me that while also thought the bags were a little odd (they asked if I'd ordered "bare root" plants.. I told them I had no idea), that they were sure the plants would be okay. They suggested that it might be a wee bit too early to plant them outside still, but that I could tuck everything away into pots with some potting soil for now and it would all be okay.

Which I did (except for the foxglove which is still in it's wee little bag because I ran out of potting soil and need to get more today), and I watered everything and left it inside on the kitchen table to get used to.. well.. light again. Tomorrow I'll put them outside in the shade on the porch to start acclimating them to outdoors, and maybe Sunday or Monday, they'll actually get a little bit of real, direct sunlight.

In the meantime, I need to get the yard where they're supposed to go prepared. Which means I need to rent a sod cutter and cut the sod out this weekend and then till up the dirt underneath it. Then I need to lay down the garden cloth (any suggestions for what to do about the areas where we're planning to plant annuals? do I just leave the garden cloth off those parts, or will we cut it out later?). We'll actually plant everything next weekend, but I'm hoping to get the prep work done this weekend. Then again, I'm also planning to tile the bathroom floor this weekend, so we'll see how much actually gets done!

Light of day..

2007-04-23T17:50:00.000-06:00

The paint's dry and it's daylight, so I was able to get some better shots of the paint in the bathroom:

But in much more exciting news.. It's HERE!

The box with my Breed Swap fleece and research arrived today! There are samples of 27 different types of fleece (apparently some were shipped to the coordinator, but never arrived) and research on 32 breeds of sheep. The fleece samples include an ounce of prepared fiber, a clean lock, and about a yard of 2-ply yarn. The research was all bound up in a 3-ring binder in plastic page protectors. On the right hand page of each is an attached plastic envelope for the lock and yarn samples (I already have mine sorted and put in the book .. yes, I'm a geek, I know) and room for our own notes as we spin each of the 1-ounce samples. The coordinator did a really excellent job in compiling all our research and formatting the books; I'm sure she had a fair amount of editing to do since I know that the research I sent her was originally much longer than what she was able to include (see above re: geek)! I'm really excited to really get to know each of these fleeces, it was about all I could do not to end each of the sentences above with an exclamation point!

Oh, and Cathy (sorry, I don't have a link or an email so I'm answering here!) asked why we were putting rock and sand in the bottom of the garden boxes. I'm doing it because it was recommended by my Expert Gardening Consultant(tm) (aka, good friend who used to do landscaping professionally). The beds are about 16 inches deep and we were discussing getting in a load of dirt to fill them when EGC mentioned that if I wanted them to really last and have really good drainage, I could do layers like that. Apparently, the rock helps the drainage and the sand keeps the good soil from working out as fast. Since I am sort of stuck on the idea that if you're going to do something, it's worth it to pay a little extra to make sure it will last, so I'm going to call some landscaping places to price options. If it's not something like twice as expensive to do the layers, we'll do that.

What a difference a coat of paint makes!

2007-04-22T18:58:00.000-06:00

Mom and dad came to visit this weekend and, as is usually the case when there are projects to be worked on, we .. well, worked on projects! Namely, we got the bathroom walls sanded, did the last coat of drywall mud, sanded again, and painted; brought some yard debris to the green dump; and did some gardening prep.

Here are some in progress shots of the bathroom.. first (because really, the sanding and drywall mud is sort of.. boring.. unlike.. watching.. paint.. dry..) the primer:

Dad predicted, and was correct, that once we got the walls all one color the room would look markedly improved; it also looked a good deal larger. Next, the first coat of the lavender paint (I don't remember the exact name), which is still a bit wet in these pictures:

Just a little bit ago, we finished the second coat (and therefore also still a bit wet):

I noticed the pictures sort of washed out the lavender, so I tried to get a shot that would show it a bit better. Not sure if it worked, though.. For what it's worth, if you click through to Photobucket for any of the pictures, the color of my default Photobucket pages is about the right color.

In addition to running some yard debris to the green dump, we brought the debris from the demolition of the bathroom to the dump, which meant we got our sitting area on the front porch back:

The wooden boxes on the front of the porch contain some of the composted soil we got from the green dump and some morning glory seeds. I also started some peppers - jalapeno's, Anaheim's, and a rainbow mix - but they're not terribly exciting yet. What is exciting is that we built the first of what will eventually be four 8'x8' raised garden beds:

When dad comes back in early May, we'll finish building the rest of the garden beds and fill them (at the moment the plan is to get a delivery from a landscaping supply place and do a layer of river rock, a layer of sand, a layer of composted soil, and a layer of black dirt mixed with peet) and plant the front yard (right in front of the porch; the plants for that should arrive this week). In the meantime, next weekend we'll be tiling the bathroom floor.

And since you asked.. um.. no.. I haven't really been knitting much lately. *shrug*

My head is full to bursting..

2007-04-18T19:48:00.000-06:00

I have so much to say right now.. I hope I can do even half of it justice.

First, I received the following via email today:

DEAR /t,

Thank you again for shopping at Spring Hill Nursery. The items listed below have been shipped and are on their way to you.

SHIPMENT SUMMARY--------------------------------------------------
Ship Date: 04/18/2007
Items Shipped:

Qty Item Item
Shipped Number Description
------- ------- ------------------------------
1 17715 VINCA EVERGREEN
1 09712 PHLOX CARPET WHITE DELIGHT
1 65019 MIXED FOXGLOVE
1 68537 SEA HOLLY BLUE STAR
1 09738 PHLOX CARPET SAPPHIRE BLUE
1 71367 WEIGELA VARIEGATED/VW

Whee! And sh!t! at the same time. I'm not ready to plant the front yard yet! It *SNOWED* last week?! HOW can I possibly be ready to dig my fingers into that (cold! wet!) dirt and trust that it will nurture tender young roots?! (Fortunately, I have a gardening consultant who is much more reliable than Francisco who told me that I just needed to keep the little plants' dirt moist and cover them at night if I'm going to leave them outside until I'm ready to plant them in a week or so. Whew!)

Second, which chronologically should have been first, I finished reading Leaving Atlanta last night. It is a wonderfully written, very engaging and true-to-life telling of a terrible time narrated through the voices of 5th-graders. It left me wanting to know more about that time in our country's history, wanting to know why this was the first I'd heard of a series of African American child kidnappings and murders that occured during my lifetime (1979-1981). It left me.. conflicted. Not because of any lack of attention paid to the events portrayed between it's covers, but because it ended before the end.

I think..?

It didn't finish the story - we don't know what happened to any of the major characters (save one), we don't know whether they ever caught the person(s?) responsible for the kidnappings and murders.. the story simply ends. In the middle. Of their lives, and their (broader) deaths.

And I've chewed over why this bugs me in the back of my head all day. I really can't say that I think it's any failing on the part of the author, nor of her skill in crafting a story - in fact I found the story gripping and engaging and had to force myself to put it down to go to sleep several times. Rather I think it's an internal compulsion within myself to have things end.. neatly. Which is in stark contrast to.. well, reality. Things *don't* end neatly. (The obvious example is the 33 lives abruptly ended amidst terror and panic and confusion on Monday.) Ends are rarely tied up in a neat little package (except, of course, in knitting.. which leads me to wonder about why it is a craft that tends to bring me such comfort, but that's for another time). There is rarely (never?) An Answer(tm).

This echoed itself in my world rather strongly today. I'm on a team of faculty, staff, and students working to complete an 18-month process of inquiry and examination into the equity of outcomes for students of color at my university. We are working on completing the draft of the fifth (and next to last) piece of what will become our final report - the only remaining piece is the conclusion - and today we had a spirited and useful discussion centering on two sources of data that appear to present conflicting evidence. Both sources are based on relatively small samples of students - and therefore neither can be considered conclusive or definitive. There is, objectively, no reason to favor one source over the other. But subjectively, one source seems to fly in the face of the personal experiences of several members of the team. We, as a team, are struggling to present these data in a way that won't muddy the already cloudy water surrounding "diversity" on our campus. We all want there to be a single, definitive story, An Answer(tm) that announces itself loud and clear in bright shining neon, a solution that is based on solid fact, not interpretation or reconciliation of conflicting data sources. A solution that fits with our experiences and that tells the story we think is Real(tm).

As a statistician and a social scientist, I know that such clarity never exists in the study of human society. I *know* that there is never a single story, that there is at most a common thread woven into a myriad of individual tapestries. We each bring to common experiences our own set of lenses and filters that shape our perceptions and remembrances of them. Just as the three narrators in Leaving Atlanta brought their own life's knowledge to the common experience of what is now referred to as "the Atlanta child murders".

I believe that any good book will not just tell a story, but leave the reader with something to mentally chew on. Tayari Jones has achieved that end in Leaving Atlanta, at least for me, but I doubt it's the meal she expected to be leaving her readers with. I haven't explored all the courses or sampled the myriad flavors, but I expect that this will be a meal I'll not soon forget, even if I find it difficult to digest initially.

A day in the life..

2007-04-17T11:23:00.000-06:00

I sat down at my desk for the first time today at noon. Jiggling my mouse didn't wake up the system because, well, it hadn't been turned on yet. It was a little odd.

This morning I woke up and got ready for my day. Ten minutes before our usual Tuesday departure time, my husband informed me we were driving in separately today, which made me suddenly ten minutes late. I scrambled to get everything in my gym bag - including a pair of black pants and a black top because I have a Samulnori performance tonight and need to wear concert attire - grabbed a frozen entree for lunch and rushed out the door, almost forgetting to lock it on my way out.

Our car has been in the shop the past several days while they fixed a more or less minor electrical problem (covered by the warranty). However in fixing the electrical problem, they apparently managed to reset the car's clock, which meant that as I was not-speeding-but-going-as-fast-as-allowed-otherwise my way into campus, I had no idea what time it really was. When you're trying to make up a ten minute loss, that's kind of important.

I didn't really want to listen to NPR this morning. I didn't want to have to process how my minor inconvenience interrupting my morning trip to campus was still within the realm of normal, whereas for thousands of students, faculty, staff, parents, friends, community members, and loved ones in and around the Virginia Tech campus, normalcy had simply ceased. I didn't want to think about the as-yet-unknown names and faces of those whose lives were senselessly and prematurely ended for as-yet-unknown reasons. I didn't want to wonder what such a tragedy might be like on my campus, or to think about the terror of enduring such a nightmare.

But without a functioning clock in the car, the best I could do was tune in and hope to let it fade into the background.

I made it to my spin class with mere seconds to spare - long enough to grab a sweat towel and adjust my bike - and tried to race harder and faster, to leave behind the uncertainty, the unanswered questions, the fears and most of all the grief. The irony of a spin class is that even when you're sprinting, your wheels just sit there and spin.

I was late to a meeting of administrators and just missed our new Chancellor address concerns about the security of our own campus and the need for us to revisit our emergency plan in light of yesterday's events. Discussions about upcoming projects - a major enrollment growth plan, the implementation of PeopleSoft Campus Solutions to begin over the summer, the administrative transition as our Provost leaves for another position - quickly moved in, prodding us all into our own present, our own routines, our own familiar.

A quick cup of coffee with a colleague and then a jaunt with my drum over to the fine arts building for dress rehearsal, where I didn't stop to realize that the 20 students in the recital hall would only have been 2/3rds of those lost.

And now, in my office for the first time today, the enormity is starting to permeate. Our offices are quiet, but still our routines continue, as they must, both for society's continued functioning as for our own well-being.

It's times like these when my athiesm becomes most pronounced. I would love to have a pat but heartfelt response - something like "God(dess) be with them" or "My prayers are for them" - but they don't fit for me and I dislike using such phrases without meaning. I can't possibly imagine what yesterday, today, or the coming tomorrows were and will be like for those in and around Virginia Tech, but I do sincerely hope they find comfort in each other and/or their faith as they mourn and grieve and, eventually, begin to heal.

April showers..

2007-04-11T18:20:00.000-06:00

*sigh*

Almost Random Wednesday

2007-04-10T20:03:00.000-06:00

In no particular order..

I finished Ghost Map tonight. I have to say that the historical bits were getting a little tiring toward the end, but he caught my interest and attention again in the last two chapters. Quite a bit to think about with on that front, especially in terms of the environmental impact of cities per capita. It brought me back around to thinking about trying to pick up an undergrad course in Epidemiology so that I can go back at some point for a Masters in Public Health.

It caught my attention as I started Leaving Atlanta that the Acknowledgements in Ghost Map are at the end, but in Leaving Atlanta they're at the beginning. I may be a bit off in this, but I usually read the author's acknowledgements which is why I noticed this. The names aren't ever anyone I know, but I feel somehow that reading them is important. I guess it's somehow related to the idea that we all, no matter what endeavors we undertake, owe acknowledgement for love and laughter and support and assistance to those around us but it seems we rarely remember how important all of it is until we get to the end of something.. or.. well, maybe the beginning of something.

Today was Bad Politics(tm) day at work. Nothing that I was directly involved with, but it seemed that lots of folks around me were caught up in some sort of bad juju. Here's hoping that tomorrow will be better.

I've started working on the Blue Willow Cardigan again and have (finally) divided for the front and back. This means that for the first time since I started knitting this one, I was able to stretch it all out and realize just how long the rows for that first 12 inches were:

It's too long for a single picture and I wasn't feeling quite motivated enough to try to figure out how to graft the two pictures together. *shrug* The ruler is there for scale, but also in a (mostly vain) attempt to unroll the bottom edge. Here's a slightly more detailed shot of just the back:

This is also the first opportunity I've had to more or less wrap the body around me to see if it's going to fit - I've been plagued with sweaters that end up .. off. The raglan I made a couple years ago has sleeves just a touch too short; Rogue is slightly too small; and my Fair Isle 101 is slightly too loose, especially around the neck, etc. This one will have a 3 inch Fair Isle border added all around the front edge and the bottom, and I think that once that's in place, this one will fit well enough. I may not be able to button it, but in truth I so rarely button cardigans that I doubt it will matter.

I'm in meetings at work for the next three days pretty much solid. Tomorrow I have some reprieve in the late afternoon, but Thursday and Friday are booked straight through with back-to-back demos of several of the PeopleSoft functional unit components for their student information system. I'm .. cautiously optimistic at the moment that the living hell we'll endure over the next 2-ish years during conversion and initial implementation will be worth it in the end. At least, I am most of the time.

We have not done any additional work in the upstairs bathroom. I alternate between feeling guilty about this and knowing that our lives our busy and the bathroom can wait. I feel quite a bit more guilty about the dust, which just accentuates the fact that I haven't vacuumed in.. longer than I care to admit. Maybe tomorrow.

It's almost summer..

2007-04-09T08:02:00.000-06:00

.. and that means it's almost time for sitting on the front porch in the late evening with a good book. And, let me tell you, this year, I have quite the line up and I can't wait!

At the moment, I'm getting to the tail end of Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson. It's an interesting little reconstruction of the 1856 cholera epidemic in London's Soho neighborhood, centering specifically on the pump at Broad Street. Johnson follows two "amateur" public health detectives - John Snow, London's premiere anesthesiologist, and Reverand Henry Whitehead - as they work under the haze of the miasmatist theory (which states that disease is spread through noxious air, in a nutshell) to pioneer the theory that cholera is actually waterborne. The book contains a hefty collection of footnotes, but they're not marked in the text, so I haven't been keeping up on them to know what is actual fact or based on the writings of those mentioned and what is conjecture. All the same, it's enough of a "story", instead of a pure factual account of the events, that's mostly held my interest. It also likely helps that I have an inclination toward public health and the findings of Snow & Whitehead (and a fair number of their contemporaries, like the guy whose name I can't recall at the moment who engineered London's sewers so they wouldn't dump raw sewage into the Thames) were more or less the first real push toward modern public health.

Up next will be either Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, or Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones, both of which were gifts from my dear friend Kim. She recently read both of them and they immediately caught my attention. Much to my surprise when I mentioned that I wanted to pick them up in conversation with her, she popped right over to Amazon and had them sent to me! The anticipation of both of them has almost been enough to make me be unfaithful to Ghost Map, but so far I'm holding out.

I also have a couple "young adult" books in the stack - Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce and Coraline (warning - Flash-heavy site) by Neil Gaiman. I read Trickster's Choice earlier this spring after picking up both books when our local Waldenbooks went out of business and while they're written a little simply for my usual taste, the plot is still very engaging and I enjoyed it. Coraline is has been on my nightstand for awhile, mostly because I'm curious about Neil Gaiman as a writer for children. I simply love his novels - American Gods especially - and the Sandman series of graphic novels, but both tend to be a little grittier than I think might be suitable for kids, so I'm curious to see how he tones it down without losing the intensity. I like to know what young adult literature is out there, both to know which authors are good authors for when we buy books for our niblings, but also to know what the niblings might be finding on their own.

The last two, at least so far, are a couple that have been around for a couple years and spent a fair amount of time in the spotlight - Bel Canto by Ann Patchett and Life of Pi by Yann Martel. While these both caught my attention at the time they were the latest hot read, neither of them captured it enough to make me run out and get them right then. But in talking to bibliophiles who've read them, I've gotten more intrigued about them, so they've been acquired (both through used book stores in paperback) and added to the stack on the night stand.

So.. any other suggestions? What are you looking forward to reading this summer?

Saturday morning in the backyard..

2007-04-07T09:26:00.000-06:00

We have a nesting pair of cardinals in our neighborhood that appear to come back each year (or at least, we have at least one pair every year, even if it's not the same ones). My mom suggested that we put out a tray feeder with safflower in it because, unlike black oil sunflower seeds, they won't try to seed in our lawn and the squirrels don't like it, but the birds do. Especially the cardinals (you'll have to click the pictures to make them big enough to really see - it's the male in both, and possibly a juvenile at that; in the first he's in the apple tree and in the second he's in the shadows on the ground).

And the doves.

The finches, on the other hand, at least the goldfinches, seem to prefer the shelled sunflower seeds in the upright feeder. The purple finches will eat either, though.

We've also had several dozen juncoes (I'm not sure if that's spelled properly) the last couple of weeks - little black and grey guys that will sometimes eat from the platform feeder, but more often pick stuff other birds have spilled on the ground.

Wilcoxon has a hat..

2007-04-04T18:55:00.000-06:00

Okay, so really it's the start of my next pair of socks - just a plain stockinette foot so far, but my first every toe up sock. I used the Magic Cast On, which took me a bit to wrap my head around, but now that I have it, I have it, you know? I looked for patterns to use for the foot and decided that cables would get lost in the color changes and lace would be too busy, so this pair will pr'bly just be straight stockinette with maybe a ribbed ankle. I've wanted to learn to do toe-up socks for awhile because I never seem to make the ankles long enough to wear comfortably under boots when I do them top down.

Unfortunately, now I need to go practice my drum for a while. We have a sort of big performance next week and it'll be my first time performing all four of our pieces. Two of them I'm really comfortable with, the third I'm mostly set for, but the fourth I manage to get lost in the middle of almost every time. :/

Stairs.

2007-04-01T15:12:00.000-06:00

Before:

This is the best shot I have of the stairs before we started doing any remodeling. This is actually from the day we closed on the house and I wasn't really focused on getting great shots of the stairs from the top, but you can at least sort of see what they had in for carpet on the stairs.

After:

The left shot is the three steps from the landing to the upstairs hall; the middle is the main staircase from the top; the right is the main staircase from the bottom. Folks who make carpet runners for stairs are tricksy - see how the pattern lines up on each step? It's kind of neat, but totally unplanned on our part!

And this is what Jali thinks of all this remodeling nonsense:

A quickie before moving on to other things..

2007-03-31T20:45:00.000-06:00

The pansy Jaywalkers are finished!

They're.. well, not my favorite socks. :/ Even though I knit the ribbing on needles a size smaller than the leg, the ribbing is loose and the leg is still a bit snug at the top, due to my shapely calves. The foot is a bit loose as well, because the stockinette for the sole should also likely have been done on a smaller needle size but switching between two different sized needles for each round would have driven me to distraction. *shrug* I'll wear them, I just won't likely make another pair.

In other areas of productivity, we've been back at the remodeling this weekend. Dad came to help us finish hanging the rest of the drywall:

That's Dad hamming it up as he paused before mudding the last corner so I could take the picture. *smile* You may also remember that there was a heating vent over the large hole in the wall on the right that was painted that lovely (*choke*) green; that was picked up this morning, along with the hardware from the door, by a man who lives just outside of town who does sandblasting. We should get them back all nice and clean later this week. We won't be painting them. Ever.

Hanging the rest of the drywall also meant that I could dig the door out from under the tarp (where it had been stored with the drywall to keep it from getting rained on - really an extra cautious step since it takes a very hard blowing wind to get rain back to the porch wall!). Now, before you look at the next set of pictures, remember that this door had been painted over completely at least four times, on top of a coat of varnish...

The worst part, not surprisingly, were the bits around the panels - they're rounded, or concave or however you describe them; the paint stripped out pretty clean thanks to the varnish underneath, but getting the varnish out required quite a bit of hand detail sanding and at least an entire pack of medium grain sandpaper. It looks infinitely better, but in truth, we still need to strip the varnish off the other side. :(

In a fit of.. something.. not quite sure what.. we also decided that it was time to make the stairs not quite so squeaky. At the moment, each and every stair creaks when you step on it. And this morning, there were rectangles of what used to be an off-white, rather thick nap carpet on each step that was *impossible* to clean - the vacuum couldn't quite get to the back corners, it was nearly impossible to clean the area up to the edge of the carpet without a toothbrush, etc. So the first step was to rip out all the little carpet pieces. Fortunately, they weren't glued down, just nailed, so while dad was mudding corners upstairs, I pulled nails out of the stairs, swept and mopped:

They're still rough - they really need to be properly refinished, but that's a bigger project than we're ready to undertake at the moment, so we're doing what we can with the knowledge that we'll need to undo it at some later time to do it all properly.

Tomorrow, Jack will nail the steps all down again, which dad tells us should stop the squeaking. Once that's done, we'll put in the carpet runner I picked up this evening:

(You can really see how bad the stairs are in this shot.. *cringe*) I think it will look really nice with the woodwork, but it does somewhat limit our options for painting the wall in the stairwell. *shrug*

Now with 100% more knitting pictures.

2007-03-29T10:29:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I'm still recovering from last week and it's already Thursday (! How did that happen?!). That's awfully pathetic. *sigh*

Since I showed you the picture of the too-small-Jaywalker, I figured I owed you pictures of the right sized ones:

The color is a smidge off in this, but you can see that they no longer pool the way I didn't like in the ankle. They do in the foot, but I'm strangely okay with that. *shrug* I have a couple rounds left to finish up on the toe of the second one and then they'll be finished. I'm really not in much of a knitting mood these days, though, so I might just switch to spinning for awhile (at least assuming the remodeling hasn't left my hands too rough to work with roving.. hrm..)

There might have been more.. but I seem to have forgotten what it might have been. Oh well!

A different type of fiber..

2007-03-25T14:29:00.000-06:00

Specifically, fiberglass.

This is how our upstairs bathroom looked Wednesday (all pictures are clickable thumbnails; click them to get a bigger version):

You can see that we've already started ripping up the linoleum flooring, and that we've removed the sliding glass shower doors, but otherwise, very little has changed. Yet. (Yes, we had lovely hardwood floors throughout the upstairs.. lovely hardwood floors that someone decided to cover with linoleum. Poorly, at that.) Note the absolutely atrocious paint - that's some brand of aqua green and it's the same as the color I'm trying to eradicate from my kitchen. What you can't see in the picture is that they also painted the entire door a combination of this aqua and white - an entire, old, farmhouse door with four recessed panels. The most egregious part of this bathroom, however, isn't clearly visible from the door.

Those are two shots of the plumbing nightmare that Dumba$$ Do-It-Yourselfer who decided that a 5x8 foot bathroom needed a shower concocted. You'll notice in the second shot, which was taken with the camera resting on the floor of the bathroom, that the copper pipes come up above the level of the floor. Presumably, this was done to allow the pipe to travel over a floor joist (though we're not quite sure why that was necessary at all) rather than acquiring the tools to route the pipe through the floor joist. To cover this unsightly mess, said DDIY built a shoddy "box" out of 2x4 and plywood that created a still unsightly and unstable step up at the back of the bathroom. Also note that there's a sewer trap that's just barely visible in the second picture that also comes up through the floor boards. This trap was installed for the shower and connects to the toilet sewer drain.

We decided some time ago that there is no need for this house to have two full bathrooms (or rather, 1 and 3/4 bathrooms), especially given the terror that was the upstairs bathroom. We've speculated that this bathroom may at one time have been the only bathroom in the house and that there may have been a small-ish clawfoot tub where the shower was installed. However, the owner prior to us had an addition put on the first floor that consisted of a large full bathroom and a back entry/laundry room, so there's no longer a need for a full bathroom upstairs (and we've never used the shower, not least because the drain in the floor was set 1/2 an inch too high so it wouldn't drain properly). The first order of business, then, was to remove the damned shower:

That's my dad - who is really quite an accomplished carpenter, plumber, electrician, etc. This is at least his fourth bathroom remodel - he did the bathroom in my parent's home some twenty years ago and has more recently constructed and/or remodeled both bathrooms in my sister's house extensively. We hope this will be his last bathroom remodel, but there are no guarantees!

At any rate, you can see pretty clearly the mess they made in installing this shower. To begin with, the room simply isn't big enough, so in order to brace the back wall of the shower, they had to install a piece of 3/4 inch plywood that covers most of the window. They then proceeded to epoxy the shower surround to the plywood and the adjacent wall. We had to utterly destroy the surround to get it out, but both glass doors were salvageable.

We removed all the trim in the room because the better part of it needed to be replaced anyway; they cut through the window sill to install the shower, so we need to completely reconstruct the trim around the window. We didn't think it was worth stripping the paint off the 6 inch kick board, or the door trim, so we'll be replacing it all with something likely smaller and pr'bly more modern (for better or for worse) once the rest of the room is finished. In so doing, though, we found that the lumber for the trim in this room (and likely the whole house) was supplied by H.P. Nelson & Sons, Caledonia, MN:

Up next, we wanted to move the vanity. We're almost 100% certain that the vanity has been in the front corner of the bathroom since the house was built because they worked the lathe-and-plaster around the drain and the water pipes. However, we wanted more counter space in the bathroom and without a tub or shower by the window, there's plenty of room to put in a 4 foot vanity and still leave adequate space around the heating vent. So we moved the vanity and sink over by the window. (By the by, if anyone knows someone in the SE MN/SW WI/NE IA area who wants a 30 inch wide by 22 inch deep bathroom vanity and sink, have them contact me.)

Because the shower was already plumbed (albeit poorly), we didn't have to run new water pipes up to the bathroom; we just had to fix the ones for the shower and route them properly through the floor. (We also capped the water pipes and drain for the old sink.) We opted to move the only outlet in the room from the front corner to the back corner so it would be closer to the new vanity, and to remove the built in medicine cabinet that was above the old vanity.

The plumbing and electric work took dad the better part of Thursday, Friday and Saturday. In the meantime, I stripped the paint and old varnish off the door (no pictures - it's out on the porch under a tarp with the remaining drywall at the moment), which involved no small amount of detail sanding. Sometime after dinner last night, though, we were able to lay the first concrete board for the new floor:

You can also just barely see the new outlet in this shot, as well as the fully unobstructed window and the mess of the wall left after we removed the shower. The wire that you see along the back wall is actually our phone line, which was glued in behind the shower and tacked to the kickboard to run through the room into the den, which is the next room over on the right.

This morning, we laid the rest of the concrete board for the floor and hung the drywall on the left hand wall:

Dad will be coming back next weekend to help us finish hanging the drywall (he has a small bit of plumbing work left, too: the old sink drain is capped, but sticks out too far from the wall, so he needs to open up the wall and remove the elbow just inside to put the cap inside the wall), after which we'll prime and paint the room (we picked up a lovely lavender paint) and then lay down ceramic floor tile (a matte grey that looks like chiseled rock) over the next few weeks. (We'll put the toilet back in after next weekend so we can use it in the interim; not that it's necessary, just nice in the middle of the night!) Dad will be back in early May, at which point we expect to finish the last bit of floor tiling (some of the tiles will need to be cut to go around the toilet and the plumbing for the new sink and we're not quite up to that job without supervision!) and install the vanity & trim.

All in all, it's been a very productive and moderately exhausting week, especially as all of this remodeling fell immediately on the heels of a work-related trip to South Carolina for three days. That said, I'm very, very pleased to have this project started and well on it's way and can't wait to get the rest of the dry wall hung so we can start the painting and tiling in earnest.

In brief..

2007-03-18T17:20:00.000-06:00

I ran out of yarn with 6 and a half rows to go to finish the toe of my first Jaywalker. This happened while I was on a plane from Minneapolis to Detroit, so I could really maneuver so that I could try the sock on to see if it would be okay to just rip back and start the toe decreases a repeat or two earlier. Now that I'm settled into my hotel room, though, I definitely think that's in order.. the sock is.. boxy at the toe now, so decreasing earlier, even if I end up decreasing more in the long run (the pattern says to kitchener the remaining 28 stiches.. way to boxy for my comfort in shoes) sounds like a good plan. I'm a little torn, though.. going up a needle size definitely fixed the issue with the socks being too tight, but I think they're also now just a tad too big. *sigh*

My other option is to start a different pair with the Lorna's Laces (Barb - it's the Bucks Bar colorway which is a sort of pale blue/green/pink/beige one) I brought, but I sort of want to finish the Jaywalkers. We'll see.

Sorry about the lack of photos.. I decided that I didn't want to try to figure out how to get the digital camera into my carry on safely, so it stayed home.

I thought there was more of this post but it seems to have wandered away. *shrug*

If only all things were this easy to undo..

2007-03-16T09:54:00.000-06:00

My husband had oral surgery on Tuesday. It was not terrible, but it was a bit more invasive than your typical tooth extraction. I'll spare you the details of the surgery and instead show you what I started to occupy myself while waiting:

Yup, it's a Jaywalker done in KnitPicks Memories in the Pansy colorway. It's a quick little pattern, easy to memorize, and therefore just about perfect for waiting rooms. I have to admit,though, that I wasn't thrilled with the striping - I didn't like that the colors *always& pooled in pairs, so that the black and dark purple were always striping and the yellow and magenta were always striping - so I wasn't too terribly upset to discover that the sock was much to tight when knit on US 1 needles.

So I ripped it out and started over, doing the ribbing on US 1s and then switching to US 2s for the chevron pattern. So far, I like it much better - the striping seems to be more mixed up and it's definitely not as dense as the first time.

This will likely be my plane knitting for my trip to South Carolina this weekend, but I'm also bringing some newly acquired Lorna's Laces (my first time ever using this yarn!) just in case I finish this pair before I get home.

PSA: CALL CONGRESS TODAY IN SUPPORT OF SASP FUNDING FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008!

2007-03-15T07:59:00.000-06:00

Representatives Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) are circulating a "Dear Colleague" letter that is intended to demonstrate to House Appropriators how important the Sexual Assault Service Program (SASP) is and to request full funding for the program in Fiscal Year 2008. Dear Colleague letters are generally initiated by two Members of Congress (usually a democrat and a republican). These letters are sent to each Congressperson to ask for their signature to show support for funding a particular program or to gather support for pending legislation.

We need your help to get as many members of Congress as possible to sign on to this letter to show that SASP is an important program to all communities across the country. The deadline is this Friday, March 16. In 2006, 110 representatives signed a Dear Colleague in support of SASP funding for Fiscal Year 2007. It's crucial that we show the same level of support for SASP in 2008.

Background: The Sexual Assault Services Program (SASP) was authorized by the Violence Against Women Act of 2005. SASP is the first federal program to provide a direct and dedicated funding stream for services to victims by rape crisis centers and other sexual assault organizations. SASP funding is also directed to Native American tribes as well as culturally-specific organizations to better reach and serve victims in communities that have been historically underserved. In addition, SASP makes resources available to state, territory, and tribal sexual assault coalitions who work to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of local programs. For more information on SASP, visit the National Center for Victims of Crime website.

Please call your representative today to ask him or her to sign onto the Baldwin/McCotter Dear Colleague letter in support of SASP. Congressional staffers who have questions or want to sign on can contact Elizabeth Pika in Rep. Baldwin's office at 202) 225-2906. If you don't know how to reach your representative go to www.house.gov or call the Capitol switchboard at 202.224.3121, and they will connect you.

If you have any questions, please contact Ilse Knecht, Deputy Director, Public Policy at 703-732-2446 or iknecht@ncvc.org.

Current signatures include:
1. Tammy Baldwin
2. Thaddeus McCotter
3. Dennis Moore
4. Rick Boucher
5. Neil Abercrombie
6. Jim Costa
7. Carolyn McCarthy
8. Todd Russell Platts
9. Luis G. Fortuno
10. Elijah Cummings
11. Howard Berman
12. Mike Michaud
13. Dianna DeGette
14. George Miller
15. Jim Langevin
16. Michael E. Capuano
17. Stephanie Herseth

[Note: We are still uncertain about the Fiscal Year 2007 funding levels for SASP. Because Congress passed a continuing resolution for the whole of 2007 for all agencies and did not direct how federal agencies are to spend those dollars, federal agencies are still sorting out how they will spend those funds].

{All above text excerpted from an email message forwarded by the staff of Houston County Women's Resources.}

On gardens.

2007-03-12T18:10:00.000-06:00

Yup. Gardens. It's mid-March, there's still at least 10 inches of snow on our yard, and I've been pondering garden thoughts for some weeks now. Now, before we wander off down the paths of my mind, let me remind you that I'm by no means what any sane person would call a gardener. But I am learning, and we have plans that will help me learn more.

I don't recall if I talked last year at all about the plans for the front yard when we pulled out all the bushes, so bear with me if this is old news. Basically, there's no real grass in the front yard - it's all weeds and dirt with just enough of a smattering of actually grass-like substance to require us to mow it. We find this annoying (really, Jack finds this annoying since he ends up mowing more often than I do) and decided that it would be just lovely if instead of a front lawn, we had instead a nice little garden area there. Something that is mostly perennials, with maybe room for an annual or two as the mood strikes us.

So this past weekend we met with two greenthumb-enabled friends - who themselves have an absolutely beautiful and self-sustaining garden for their front lawn - to plan what to put in there. There were some rules - for instance, given that we just tore out several monstrous evergreen shrubs that were as tall as the first story of the house, we didn't want any bushes that would get unmanageably tall or dense. We also didn't want it so dense that it was just a patch of vegetation with no rhyme or reason. Finally, we wanted it to "flow" or "transition" well visually into the grass of our neighbor's lawn, without threatening to overtake said grass.

After flipping through lots of catalogs and books, we decided on the following to fill the approximately 15 foot square space:
*Closest to the porch, where the old bushes used to be, we'll plant three weigela bushes. The two on the ends will be of the Wine & Roses variety, and the middle one is Variegated.
* In front of the weigela bushes, from the left to the right if you're standing on the sidewalk in front of the house, sort of on either side of the Variegated weigela (which is bigger than the other two), will be some mixed foxglove.
* The front left corner will be a combination of Bright Lights Cosmos, a smidge of Evergreen Vinca, and a fronting of either sapphire blue or white delight creeping phlox.
* The rough center of the patch, in front of the variegated weigela and between the two patches of foxglove, will be a Blue Star Sea Holly.
* By the sidewalk to the porch, from the corner of the porch to the main sidewalk, will be a patch of Ipomopsis Hummingbird Mix, with more of the phlox in front of it, then some more of the evergreen vinca and another corner of the phlox. Tucked in behind the phlox and to the front right of the Sea Holly is a small patch of Balloonflowers.

In terms of height, it will be shorter as you work toward the front corners and sides, and we're pretty sure that we'll have something blooming most of the summer. The weigela and ipomopsis are both attractive to hummingbirds, which will work well considering I have a hummingbird feeder on the porch.

I ordered all the plants today (they won't ship until they're ready to go in the ground - likely the last week of April or the first week of May). We'll need to rent a sod cutter to get rid of the weeds and such that are currently in the yard, and put down some gardeners cloth and edging to keep things from getting too invasive where they shouldn't be, but I'm hoping that by mid-May the front lawn will be more or less set.

We also planned a rather extensive vegetable garden - 3 different types of tomatoes, blue potatoes, sweet potatoes, french radishes, purple carrots, garlic, chives, watermelon radishes, three kinds of peppers, three kinds of basil, and Walla Walla Sweet onions - that will go into raised beds that my dad's coming to help me build the second week in May. Oh, and a couple different kinds of squash, but we're going to train those up the fence in the back yard. At least half of the crop from the veggie garden will go to the friends who are helping us with the planning (they're also going to come help get things in the ground and teach me what I need to know to maintain and care for everything), but I still expect that I'll have more than my share of fresh veggies this year.

The raised beds will run the length of the yard where we took out the bushes-gone-wild last year, with a space between them that will have a smaller raised bed where I can plant something that will vine - maybe clematis or trumpet vine? - and an arbor over a sitting area across from the apple tree in the side yard. I might also try to plant a row of sunflowers on the street side to give a little privacy screen, but I haven't decided on that yet. I'll be ordering the plants and seeds for the veggies in a week or two, once I have a chance to confirm with dad that we really can make the beds as large as we planned.

So now that the plans are done, we wait. Fortunately, I know the time will just fly! Dad's coming down next week to help us rip out and remodel the upstairs bathroom and we're trying to pick out paint colors for the dining room to get at least one of the interior rooms painted something other than white before summer hits, so between that and work, I'm sure it'll be planting time before I know it. Yea!

It's that time of year..

2007-03-12T07:12:00.000-06:00

.. in the next week or so, I expect to receive 3 email messages from U.S. News & World Reports containing the links to their annual survey of undergraduate institutions. While the data provided in these three surveys - the Main Statistical Survey, the Finance Survey, and the Financial Aid Survey - comprises the bulk of the data used by USNews to calculate their annual college rankings the largest single factor in the ranking - coming in at a whopping 25% of the final ranking - is a so-called "repuational" survey of University administrators. This survey is rather highly subjective in that it asks top administrators to provide their opinion on the reputation of their peers. This reputation survey, as well as USNews's method of statistically imputing missing data such as average admissions test scores, is now under attack by a small group of college presidents who feel that it's time for higher education institutions to "fight back" against USNews.

The text below is excerpted from a newsletter I prepared for distribution on my campus last fall to try to shed some light on the USNews Rankings and what they might actually *mean*. Given the current kerfuffle, I thought it might be interesting reading, though I am just about 100% positive that my colleagues at other higher ed institutions won't find anything particularly new in it.

The rankings are based on data collected by US News from a variety of surveys and sources in “15 areas related to academic excellence”. US News participates in the Common Data Set Initiative, which means many of their survey items are drawn from a common core of questions used by many of the larger publishers. The Common Data Set saves colleges and universities time by allowing them to answer one set of questions on a given topic, rather than slightly different variations from each publisher. This consistency also means that consumers — students and parents — will find similar information about each college even if they look at different publisher rankings. Data not provided by institutions via survey response are either computed from other sources, such as the US Department of Education, or statistically imputed.

US News assigns each indicator a weight determined by their editors. Weights reflect which of the various indicators US News feels provide the best measure of the quality of a school. Rankings are based on the total weighted score for each institution.
... Understanding how each factor is weighted explains why some institutions rank higher than others in any given year and also why US News provides a ranking for Public institutions separate from the full rankings.

Factors included in US News Rankings, including their weights and sources

Academic Reputation (25%). Determined by the Academic Reputation Survey completed by the President/Chancellor, Provost, and Dean of Admissions at peer institutions. Each individual is asked to rate peer schools' academic programs on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished). The survey is administered by Synovate and had a 58% response rate for the 2006-07 rankings.

6-year Graduation Rate (16%). The Department of Education requires institutions to report on the percent of students who start at their institution and complete their degree within 150% of expected time. For most baccalaureate institutions, 4 years is the expected time to degree completion and 6 years is 150% of expected time.

Average Educational Expenditures per Student (10%). Educational expenses are reported to the Department of Education annually; US News uses the same data supplied to the Department of Education and available in the Integrated Postsecondary Educational Data Systems (IPEDS).

Incoming First-Time, First-Degree Seeking Student ACT/SAT Scores (7.5%). First-time, first-degree seeking students are what are considered “traditional” undergraduate students. This group includes only students who have enrolled in college credit courses for the first time with the intent to complete a degree-granting program. High school students participating in post-secondary options and students who transfer from a prior institution are not included in this group.

Average Faculty Salary (7%). Average faculty pay, plus benefits, during the two previous academic years, adjusted for regional differences in the cost of living (using indexes from the consulting firm Runzheimer International).

Opinions on the usefulness of the rankings vary. For many looking for a simple way to compare institutions, the rankings provide a quick and easy reference. Critics claim the rankings simplify the value of higher education too much by focusing on inputs, such as funding sources and student test scores, when the real focus ought to be on how much and how well students are learning. Of the top 5 factors by weight, the only output measure is graduation rate. While other “outcome” measures — such as 1st-to-2nd year retention rate (4%) and a value added measure that compares actual graduation rates to the graduation rates predicted based on various input measures (5%) — are included in the total ranking, they are dwarfed by the effect of academic reputation and financial resources.

Sources: U.S. News & World Report ranking methodology website
V.M. Conley & G. Fink. “Using National Data Sets in Institutional Research”, Association for Institutional Research Foundations Institute.

PSA: Support women & women's shelters!

2007-03-09T21:38:00.000-06:00

Click to donate feminine hygiene products to women's shelters in your state!

To quote a friend, "Seventh Generation,a green paper products and cleaning products company, has a do-good attitude and will donate a box of sanitary products to a women's shelter in your chosen state - just for clicking the link. Talk about easy, and, yes, it is legitimate!"

Please take a moment and make a few clicks to support women and women's shelters!

Thoughts on stewardship

2007-03-09T11:03:00.000-06:00

Those who've been reading for a bit pr'bly know that last summer, after having served on the HCWR Board for just six months, I was elected President (I swear I talked about this here, but I can't find an entry on it.. hrm.. maybe you don't know this?) after our then-President was reassigned to another parish by her Bishop mid-year. This was in no way any sort of overwhelming statement about my abilities - it was simply that I was the only regularly attending Board member left who wasn't already an officer. While the Vice President would normally have stepped up, the woman in that role had stated unequivocally that due to other projects she was engaged in at work she did not feel she could serve as President. She assured me, though, that she felt she would be able to step up to fill the role at the turn of the new year when the next full round of Board Officer elections was scheduled.

Two or three months after I was elected, the Executive Director of the agency for the past 14 years decided to pursue a new opportunity and I was suddenly President of a Board of Directors faced with replacing a much-loved and admired Executive Director. While I can claim none of the credit, we managed to mount a successful regional search and hired a new ED before the end of the calendar year. We celebrated our annual meeting by paying tribute to the outgoing ED, introducing our incoming ED, and welcoming no fewer than 7 new members to our Board of Directors, more than doubling the size of the Board from the previous year.

Due to the transition in ED and the comparative new-ness of a large portion of the Board, the Board elected to postpone new officer elections until our April meeting. This allowed the remaining members of the Board - all officers by necessity - to work as an Executive Team with the new ED through the first few months of the transition period while the newer members of the Board learned more about the agency and our responsibilities as a Board for a non-profit agency. It also allowed me to take some initiative to craft the new, larger board into the body that I felt we should be in order to best serve the agency by establishing an updated committee structure and making some changes to regular Board meetings that will allow the committees to meet as part of the regular Board meeting time each month, a move that I hope means our committees will be more viable and productive.

I've been on the fence about the April elections. Part of me knows all too well that I'm not prepared for the role of Board President - I'm comparatively new to the area and not at all well connected within the community we serve; while I'm grounded in domestic violence and sexual assault advocacy principles, the vast majority of my work in the field has occurred in much larger cities with inbedded infrastructure such as public transportation and multiple emergency shelters, not in the considerably more rural environment HCWR serves; and I'm facing another uncertain year of expectations in my day job, with 5 of the top 7 administrative positions currently held by interim appointments, including my direct supervisor.

Another part of me, though, recognizes that I *can* lead (this is a part of my skills and ability that I'm still adjusting to, so my confidence wanes at times, but in the end, I do know I can be a capable leader). The simple fact that in a few short months, I've managed to enact several changes in the Board operations that I hope will move the agency as a whole forward stands as testament to my ability to make things happen (instead of just talking about the need for change). My fellow Board members are also extraordinarily supportive - they make it easy for me to lead and seem generally appreciative of the thought I tend to put into proposed changes. And our Vice President keeps reminding me that she has a son who is a high school senior, so this year really isn't ideal for her to step up, either.

So, while I can't count the number of times I've wished to be "ousted", I'm also recognizing that the bulk of the "hard" work is done. Things are settling down to the more routine work of the Board, but unlike last year, there are many more members of the Board to assist in that work which will hopefully mean we will all work hard, but none of us will have to work to the point of burn out (hopefully including the agency staff).

And that leaves me on the proverbial fence.. I'm perfectly willing to step aside and let any of the many equally (or even more) capable Board members take the helm; but I think I'm also willing to stay in the role if my fellow Board members want me to. It's sort of an odd place to be after several months of turmoil and change.

Good Monday Morning!

2007-03-05T11:23:00.000-06:00

I walked into my office this morning to this gorgeous sight:

Quite lovely! It's been blooming more or less continuously all winter, but this is the most blooms it's had at any given time. There are still a few more buds that have yet to open, and I suspect it will continue to bloom for another month or so and then go dormant again for the summer. In the meantime, though, it's a wonderfully welcome splash of color in my office, especially with the sunlight streaming in behind it.

In other news, I whipped up another Felted Bucket Hat this weekend for my mother-in-law. No pictures - I forgot to get any before I wrapped it up - but I might try to get one of her wearing it tonight when we meet them for dinner.

More shopping!

2007-03-03T18:37:00.000-06:00

Yea! As you may remember, today is Herberger's Community Day. I love this sale. I really am not just saying that because Houston County Women's Resources gets to participate. I really *hate* clothes shopping, mostly because it just seems that everything is so expensive and I just can't seem to bring myself to pay $40 for a simple shirt or $60 for a plain pair of slacks. I can get over it when I have help, but it's because I need convincing.

This sale, though, has some truly amazing deals on clothes that are both comfortable and I think fit my style. Today, for instance, I picked up two nice 3/4 length sleeve button down shirts, a couple Relativity tanks (which I love and now have 6 of - light turquoise, coral, cream, black and these two new ones) in a medium blue and a dark blue, both of which work under the two button down shirts, a knit short sleeve light-ish blue sweater, a black knit tunic-style shirt with a lace insert cuff, and a lovely coral long sleeve button down shirt. Jack got a new belt (which was the most expensive thing on the receipt at $18) and three hooded sweatshirts. The grand total was all of $134. Eleven items, most of them nice clothing that normally retails between $35 and $60.

Yup. Love this sale.

And it just keeps coming..

2007-03-02T16:10:00.000-06:00

This was a shot out our front door this morning:

You'll notice my husband - who is 6 foot 2 inches - and our PT Cruiser on the other side of the snow berm that's built up over the last week from the plow and shoveling. Judging from the walk, we had about 4-5 inches overnight. We came home early today and there were another 3 inches or so, and it's still snowing. They keep telling us it will stop.. I'm not sure I believe them.

In the meantime, I've been less than motivated on the knitting front, but I did pick up the Baby Camel Tussah Silk Top that I got from my Secret Pal*:

I had to go back to this picture:

to be sure I had actually made some progress. I mean, I know I had, but it was sort of hard to tell without having a prior progress picture as a mark.

* My Secret Pal from SP9 seems to have been attacked by Real Life(tm). She started a new job about the same time the swap started and that seemed to suck up all her energy and time. I haven't heard from her since getting an email during the last week of the swap in February asking me to re-send my mailing address as she'd mislaid it. I did, but never got a final package or another email revealing who she is; because I know what it's like when Real Life(tm) attacks, I've not wanted to pester her and risk making her feel guilty, but that means I have no idea who she is. :/

A couple more inches..

2007-02-26T20:21:00.000-06:00

.. both of snow over night and of progress on the Blue Willow. Photos of each aren't terribly different from before, though. *shrug* I made our neighborhood Good Snowmaritan some raspberry struesel muffins yesterday and delivered them to him, which he seemed a bit bemused by. *smile* He must have had to work today, or he felt that these last couple inches weren't worth the effort (which I doubt), but fortunately it was light enough and warm enough that shoveling didn't take long.

I did get some lovely Morehouse Merino lace weight in the mail today, though:

I bought it from someone who posted on the DeStash blog, all six skeins for $25. The purple is more red than it looks in the picture.. I couldn't seem to get a picture with either the red or the purple really right, though the red is pretty close in this one. I really have no idea what I'll do with it, which is somewhat unusual for me, but it seemed too good of a deal to pass up.

Oh, and I got an email from Adagio telling me my new infuser (and rooibos tea!) had been delivered, so tomorrow morning after spin class I will once again be enjoying nummy, nummy tea.

Blue Willow Cardigan update

2007-02-25T19:09:00.000-06:00

I feel like I've not made very much progress on this one, but I did finish the first of six skeins of the grey yarn this evening, so I thought I'd post a photo or two:

The photo doesn't show the full width of the piece - it's the full girth of the sweater, less about 6 inches which will be added with the edging, knit flat because it's a cardigan. I've decided to make it longer than the pattern calls for - if I left it at the length called for, I think it would feel too short. The pattern says that if you lengthen it, you need to lengthen it by 3 inches due to the length of the pattern repeats on the boder, so I have four more inches of the body to go until I divide for the front and back. At that point the bulk of the body will be finished, so things should go a little faster.

In the meantime, I may switch for a bit to tablet weaving and/or bobbin lace and/or spinning for a bit. My knitting mojo seems to be errant of late, so maybe something else will hold my attention better.

Dedicated to our friendly neighborhood Good Snowmaritan

2007-02-24T13:23:00.000-06:00

This was the scene from our house around 8:45 this morning:

Note that we had only been shoveling for about half an hour at that point - the walk from the house to the street. The main part of our sidewalk was cleared by our friendly neighborhood Good Snowmaritan who owns a riding snow blower. He apparently lives for days like today when he can drive through the neighborhood helping his neighbors (and saving our backs!) by clearing the main sidewalks. He does this every time it snows - even if it's just an inch of light fluffy stuff - but days like today I appreciate it all the more. This afternoon I'll be making some coffee cake to drop off at his house as a thank you.

I also, however, appreciate the photos I took last summer of our yard in bloom:

Of course, we're currently in the middle of a trough between two storm systems and have another 10-12 inches predicted for overnight tonight. Our local roads are pretty clear now, but apparently the highways are still a bit of a mess; goodness knows how bad things will be tomorrow if we get another foot!

Knitting progress has been suspended.

2007-02-20T20:08:00.000-06:00

I received what has become my annual shipment* of Lush supplies today. I'd already be in the bath, but I'm having a hard time deciding what to use first. *smile*

So while I'm trying to decide, I thought I'd post a quick note, mostly to Sara, to say I tried rooibos tea yesterday. It's tasty, different from what I expected, though I liked it better than black teas, so I think it will likely become a staple. And while I'm waiting for my replacement diffuser (they have them on the website for $3.. I'm apparently not the only one who's had one go missing!) from Adagio (who also has a caramel rooibos tea -MMMMmmmm!), I've discovered that my little ingenuiTEA teapot works just fine with tea in bags and is easier to "dispense" than when made in a regular tea pot. I picked up some Lipton caramel something or other in the little pyramid tea bags last week and it's been quite tasty with a bit of non-dairy creamer.

And while it's not really related to anything, I spent a lovely weekend with three of my best friends from high school last weekend. We shopped and ate and caught up and relaxed (away from the kidlets for two of them). We've been spread a bit far and this is the first time we've all seen each other in person in about four years, and that was at one of our weddings so we were a bit occupied with other affairs at the time. Now that we're all a bit more settled, though, we've decided that we should reconnect. This weekend was the first "girl's weekend"; we have another scheduled for late July. *smile*

The timing was fortuitous - I don't have very many close female friends, but have been thinking lately that I need to take the step from post-grad-student to professional, which is a somewhat foreign area for me. Not in action, but in how to look the part, particularly in how to dress the part. I've ordered some outfits from Lane Bryant on line, but needed to expand on that meager beginning. My best friends helped me decide on a couple new pairs of pants and a new shirt from Lane Bryant and, in an effort to try to "look the professional part", helped me learn about make up.

Yes, as a *mubletypeg* year old woman, I'm just now learning how to properly apply make up. My best friend from high school is a Mary Kay representative and she brought her kit down so I could find stuff that wouldn't make me feel like I was wearing shellac. I think we succeeded - instead of a more traditional foundation, I'll use a tinted moisturizer with SPF 20, which also means I won't need to use any loose powder. I'll use lip gloss instead of lipstick, with no lip liner, and a nice subdued mocha/coffee color scheme for eye make up and cheek color. Spendy, yes, but I feel like I got quality make up that fits my needs precisely, so I think it's worth it.

At some point I may take the step of actually going to a hair stylist to get a "real" hair style, but for now I think a wardrobe update and make up will suffice!

* My sister-in-law's birthday is tomorrow and her brother (my husband) usually opts to get her Lush for her birthday. Since I'm ordering anyway, I usually take the opportunity to stock up for me, too. And since Lush tends to be on the pricey side of things, I don't order from them for me too often!

Peek a boo! I see you!

2007-02-19T20:05:00.000-06:00

All done! (Sorry the photos suck; the modeled ones even moreso.)

The first picture is blurry, but more color accurate; the second is not blurry, but completely washed out.

*sigh*

I'm a little worried that the arms will be a bit too small - I have fat arms, though, so maybe it won't be quite so tight on the recipient. I need to remember to include a note with care instructions, though. It's cotton/modal and I don't want her to wash and dry it and have it be too small. In any case, I'm giving in one more blocking round now that the seams are in, so it pr'bly won't get sent until later this week.

Shopping for a good cause, anyone?

2007-02-18T22:25:00.000-06:00

Want to support an agency that works year round with women & children victims and survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault and get some great deals on clothing, housewares, and more at the same time? If so, you can purchase a Community Day coupon booklet - which has a $10 coupon and eight %-off coupons all good on March 3 (and only March 3) *on top of to special one-day sale prices* at any non-New Jersey location of the Bon-Ton, Bergners, Boston Store, Carson Pirie Scott, Elder-Beerman, Herberger's, or Younkers.

The booklets are $5 each (so you get your money back and then some when you use the coupons) and the money from the sale goes directly to support the programs and services provided by Houston County Women's Resources (disclaimer: I'm on the Board of HCWR). If you want a booklet, let me know!

Oh, and there are also a couple special one-day sales that day - like $30 off their entire stock of Men's & Women's Clarks shoes, or Leisure Lakeside luggage for $19.97 per piece (originally $80-$120 per piece). You can't use the %-off coupons on the bonus buys, but they're still pretty good deals.

They do Community Days twice a year and last spring we got some very good deals (like a $100 jacket for Jack for $5). It's getting close to spring and time to refresh your wardrobe and Community Day means you save money and donate to a great cause at the same time.

On a more positive note..

2007-02-15T16:45:00.000-06:00

All the pieces for Peek a boo are blocking; they should be dry tomorrow sometime and I'll seam it this weekend hopefully, leaving early next week to do the last finishing bits and about a week to mail it. Yea! I'll post pictures when it's more exciting.

In the meantime, I've picked up the Blue Willow Cardigan and even though the rows seem impossibly long, the larger gauge means that inches get added much faster than just about anything I've knit lately. Progress pics as of last night:

The patterning is a diamond slip-stitch with yarn to the right side sort of thing and in all honesty, I'm not quite sure of why they did the slip-stitch patterning instead of a purl stitch which I think would result in a fairly similar design and, in my opinion, make it easier to see the pattern from either side of the knitting. But I'll knit it as written since I have about three or so inches of it done already.

I haven't really read through the entire instruction sheet, but my understanding is that the main body is knit first and then the fair isle border is added. Not sure yet if it's picked up and knit on, or knit separately and then sewn on, but I'm sure I'll find out.

The yarn looks like it should be scratchy, but it's really not. I expect this sweater to be quite warm and soft, though maybe not next-to-the-skin soft, which wouldn't really ever happen anyway as I usually wear cardigans over another shirt.

Not my day.

2007-02-15T01:38:00.000-06:00

Bah.

It's the sort of day where I wondered while drying my hair briefly after my shower after spin class if I'd remembered to rinse out the conditioner. I think I did.. but can't quite remember and my hair felt unusually slick for lack of a better word, so I might not have.

I arrived in my office to discover that our building is still without water. Something happened - not sure what - Tuesday that caused them to turn off all water service to the building. They stripped a router bit trying to clear out the main sewer pipe, which would seem to indicate that they hit something concrete or metal. Not a good sign. Rather than do something logical like close the building, though, we're all just expected to hike to either the student center or the technology building next door to use the restroom. Never mind that there's no access to water in the building so if you want a drink you'd better bring it in yourself. Need to rinse a coffee or tea mug? Sorry; out of luck. (Fortunately, I do usually bring some water in with me from home and have been doing so this week; it's still annoying, though.)

Then, after overfilling my teacup twice, I realized that the reason the tea leaves were getting stuck in the drain and keeping it open was because the little screen that was in my ingenuiTEA teapot yesterday was no longer there. I can only assume that it fell out yesterday when I dumped the leaves from my last cup of tea. I had checked it earlier when I first got it and it seemed like the screen was in there more or less permanently, so I didn't think to check for it after dumping out the leaves. I guess I was wrong. *sigh* (Yes, I've emailed Adagio already asking if I can order a replacement for it; I've grown quite attached to my little ingenuiTEA in the last few days..)

Edited to add: And we just had a last minute staff meeting where our Provost (who I report to directly) announced that she has accepted a position at another institution. Yeah. Not a great day.

Teapots, part three!

2007-02-13T13:09:00.000-06:00

It came!

It's bigger than I expected (the pictures below help with scale), which is neat. And holy "samples" man! The little box on the right contains four not-so-sample-sized tins of flavored tea - oriental spice, vanilla, mango, and strawberry. There's pr'bly enough for 10-12 cups of each flavor in the tins! Having been on a chai kick lately, I decided to try the oriental spice first.

It took me a few minutes to figure out how it works because I thought the little video on the website showed a lever that you slide to make it pour, but you just set it on the cup to make it pour (there's a little piece that slips down to block the water from pouring, but the edge of the cup pushes it up out of the way).

And I was almost stymied in my quest to try it Right. Now. because the sewer pipe for my building has apparently decided to back up which means not only do we all have to trek out to another building to go to the bathroom, but also that we aren't allowed to run any water or pour anything down the drain. Fortunately, I bring in water every day from home (the water here has a chemical/cholorine taste), so I just needed to decide it would be okay if I drank tea out of my unwashed cup from yesterday.

MMmmm.. I need to learn more about how much tea is enough - the oriental spice was tasty, but not quite strong enough.. or something. Maybe it just needed a little milk. I guess I'll have to make another cup and try that out. *grin*

In other news, do you know about the DeStash blog?! Evil thing. I've added it to my blogroll just in case something irresistable comes up (because, you know, between several pairs of socks, at least three sweaters for myself, and at least one more bucket hat, I don't have enough projects).

Speaking of projects, though, I finished the second sleeve for Peek a boo in the car this morning (all but the last cast off because I think this one ended up a row shorter than the other and I want them to match; the other sleeve is at home so I'll have to check tonight). I'll try to get the pieces blocked tonight, but I have a planning meeting with the Board officers for HCWR from 6 until about 8, so I may be wiped out by the time I get home.

So that means I need to figure out a commuting project to start tomorrow. I need to make another bucket hat, but since I'm stubborn and didn't want to buy a 16 inch circular when I could make five dpns work just as well, it's not really a good project to toss in a bag until it gets past the brim part. I have yarn for Celtic Icon (but not the yarn used in this picture; I have Knit One Crochet Too Angora Soft in Light Moss & Moss from Webs) from Inspired Cable Knits, a sweater kit from Blackberry Ridge, and the Easy Lace Jacket kit (which I was a bit surprised to find included Cascade 220 for the yarn) from White Lies Designs, all for me. I feel sort of obligated to do the Blackberry Ridge kit first, both since it's the oldest of them but also because it's going to quickly be too warm to wear it comfortably. But the Lace Jacket is whispering things like "but I'll be quicker", so I'm a little torn.

Teapots, part two.

2007-02-12T11:30:00.000-06:00

As promised, here's a picture of my other teapot:

This one is a bit more conventional - but rather uneven. The knob on the top isn't properly centered, the ridge is a little crooked. It's also somewhat considerably smaller:

(The tea bag steeping is actual a variety of Chai, not the Lipton Green Tea, but I left in the Lipton package to show scale a little better.)

It is just about the right size for a single cup, which works well at work because I can heat water in a mug and in the teapot at the same time, steep a tea bag in both and have one cup ready made in my mug and a second already steeped when I'm finished with the first. It's also a useful vessel for heating water for other uses - like instant oatmeal or those noodle cup things - because it's easier to pour out of than a coffee mug.

Not as exciting as the other, but still suits its purpose rather well. I'm hoping that by tomorrow I'll be able to round out my little teapots series with my latest acquisition (thanks again to Sara for pointing this one out)!

I made more progress on the Peek a boo sleeve last night and this morning in the car and I've only got a couple inches left to go.

Today is just flying by, though, pr'bly because I had a dentist appointment this morning to get the permanent crown I lost a couple weeks ago replaced permanently. Despite past dental trauma (yes, even for somthing as "easy" as placing a permanent crown), this morning's appointment was a cinch, so I'm in a much better mood than I expected I would be!

Teapots, part one

2007-02-11T17:19:00.000-06:00

I've had a cold that seems determined to stay squarely in my throat for the past couple of weeks. While this is all sorts of annoying, especially the first week when it made my throat so sore I could hardly swallow (yes, I was cultured, no it wasn't strep), it has forced me to reacquaint myself with tea.

I am generally a coffee drinker, but I can't drink coffee - usually not even decaf - after noon or I don't sleep well. With this cold, I needed something hot to drink in the afternoons that wasn't cocoa, which is usually far too sweet. I am what could only be described as an occassional tea drinker, but I do appreciate good teas. What's more, I'm also an occassional potter and as such, have made a couple of teapots on my time, some as gifts, but two that I've kept.

This is the larger of the two and one of the pieces I'm proudest of.

A couple of general comments on teapot construction to start with. First, teapots are generally heavy and somewhat thicker than other pieces. This is so that they hold in the heat a little longer. A tea cozy will also help with this, but I've never been motivated to make one.

Second, they're typically thrown on a wheel in three pieces - the main body, the spout, and the lid - with a pulled handle attached at the leatherhard stage. Putting together the pieces can be tricky, so usually when throwing a teapot, it's recommended that you throw at least one main body and matching lid, but two or three potential spouts. When you put the teapot together, you identify where you want to attach the spout to the main body and then cut the appropriate slant out of the spout so that it matches the point of the body where it needs to attach. This is not necessarily as easy as it sounds, which is why you usually throw more than one spout. When you have the spout ready, you outline it on the main body and then carve holes out of the main body where the inside of the spout will be so the tea will pour through. You can just carve out the whole spout area, but I usually carve out smaller drain holes so that I can leave the tea bag in the pot and not worry about it getting stuck in the spout.

Third, it's important to remember physics. Because the spout and the body of the teapot are essentially one vessel, the water/tea level will be equal in both parts when you fill it. In other words, you can only fill the teapot to a level equal or lower than the bottom of the opening of the spout. You'll notice in the above teapot that this means that the actual capacity of the teapot does not include the tall neck. Even with this limitation, this teapot holds at least two decent cups of tea.

However, the reason this particular teapot is one of my favorite pieces is because I was somewhat clever in designing it. The lid is also a tea cup, you see.

So, I can make tea in the teapot, leaving the lid on while it steeps and then just flip the lid over and have my tea cup ready to go. The steam from the steeping tea warms the cup so the tea in the cup stays warmer a little longer. As an added bonus, the lid fits over the top of the teapot "upside down" as well - which allows the tea in the pot to stay warmer longer, and keeps the tea cup warm at the same time.

So, while this is one of my favorite pieces, it hasn't been used much until this past week when I found myself craving a warm beverage I could drink at any time. The larger capacity makes it ideal for home when I'm unlikely to be too distracted by other things to finish the pot while it's still warm.

My other teapot has migrated to work in the last week, and I'll try to remember to take pictures of it and talk about it tomorrow. It's not nearly as clever, but it's better suited for use in the office.

And lest you think I've been a complete slacker since finishing the stockings last week, here's a picture of the Peek a boo sleeves in process:

The first sleeve is finished and the second is a little more than half complete. Because the sides of both sleeves are all reverse stockinette, they roll in pretty terribly; the finished sleeve is much wider than it appears in this picture. As this is a gift, it has a deadline of later this month, which I don't think I'll have trouble meeting. I'll need to block each of the pieces separately before seaming, which will take a couple of days, but if I get it seamed next weekend that's still plenty of time to get it off to the recipient.

Then I need to decide what to start next..!

.. and what was left was Hope.

2007-02-05T09:36:00.000-06:00

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
- George Bernard Shaw

From an article in today's Chronicle of Higher Education (link for subscribers only - Sorry!) (Here's a link to another, longer, article on Inside Higher Ed.)

Michigan's public universities and other state-government agencies cannot provide health-care or other benefits to same-sex partners of their employees, the Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled.

In an opinion released on Thursday, the court said that such benefits violate an amendment to Michigan's Constitution that bans gay marriage. A three-judge panel interpreted language in that amendment as barring public employers from recognizing same-sex unions in any way, including offering benefits. Institutions affected by the ruling include the University of Michigan, and Michigan State, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Northern Michigan, and Wayne State Universities.

I have to believe that the upset and turmoil currently spreading across the country will eventually (soon?) lead to progress toward equality of rights for same sex couples and their families. For years, these issues have hidden away out of the headlines, but now the whole country is watching dueling headlines from states across the nation.

Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress.
- Thomas Jefferson

People are making waves, and waves upset the status quo. The only way to reach the light at the end of the tunnel is to keep going through the tunnel.

If you're going through hell, keep going.
- Winston Churchill

Get it right the first time, that's the main thing!

2007-02-04T21:58:00.000-06:00

As mentioned, I missed a pattern modification to add three inches of length to the Stockings with Clocks before the calf decreases and didn't figure it out until after the first stocking was completed. Rather than rip back something on the order of 18 inches of completed knitting, I decided to insert the extra three inches into the leg instead. I figured I had a decent enough understanding of the structure of knitting that snipping a stitch, putting stitches back on needles, and then grafting it all together again wouldn't be beyond my skills.

1) The first step was to work in "life lines" so that as I began unraveling the line of stitches that would be removed, I wouldn't have to worry about dropping any stitches. I chose a row two rows above the first calf decrease for the lower life line, and then left one row to unravel and worked a second life line the row above that. I used a smooth cotton yarn in a contrasting color and knotted the ends of each loop together so they wouldn't get accidentally pulled out.

I didn't try to figure out getting the stitches on the life line without twisting them, but instead picked one "leg" of each stitch and ran the life line through the same leg for all stitches in the round. The hardest part was not jumping up or down a row and I often had to pull the life line back out a few stitches to adjust accordingly.

2) The moment of truth was in snipping the yarn to begin unraveling the sacrificial row. I selected a stitch at the center of the front of the stocking, which meant I'd have to unravel it half a round in each direction to get the two pieces separated and ready for the next step. To be sure that I only cut the piece of yarn I wanted, I pulled the loop of the stitch out slightly with an extra needle.

3) Once the stitch was snipped, I used the extra needle to unravel the sacrificial row. Unlike when you rip stitches back, you can't just grab the yarn and unravel it because there are still stitches holding the yarn on both sides, so each stitch has to be pulled out separately; it turned out that snipping a stitch half way through the round meant that I didn't end up having to pull a whole round of knitting's worth of yarn through the last few stitches. As the stitches are unraveled, the life lines catch and hold the stitches on the two resulting pieces and prevent them from unraveling further.

4) Once the unraveling is finished, you'll have two separate pieces, each with live stitches held by live lines, and each with a tail of yarn connecting to those live stitches.

5) These stockings were knit from the top down, so in order to make sure that the stitches all line up without jogging, I wanted to add the extra length to the cuff piece. Using the life line as a guide, I placed the live cuff-side stitches back on the same needles I used to knit the stockings and knit an extra three inches, maintaining the seam stitch patterning through every round. Because the seam pattern is two rows and I'd be adding a row in when I grafted the two pieces back together, I ended on the same pattern row as the next piece begins with. To be sure that the two stockings would end up the same length, I laid the pieces of the first stocking over the completed second stocking.

6) The trickiest part with the patterned seam stitches was lining them up so that when I grafted everything together the seam wouldn't jog. The first time I did this, I was off a stitch and had to pull out the entire row of grafted stitches and re-do them! Learn from my mistake and pay attention as you start grafting to make sure the stitches on the two pieces will line up.

(You'll also notice in the second picture above the "indented" row - that's where the original stitches were "picked up" to start the added section; washing and blocking will make that go away.)

7) When you're ready to start grafting, you'll need to put the stitches from the second piece on to a needle and make sure they're not twisted. You can leave the rest of the stitches on the life line yarn until you need them.

8) Using instructions from any of a variety of places - Interweave Knits usually has grafting or kitchener stitch instructions in the back, as will most sock pattern books; I used the instructions from The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques by Nancie Wiseman - graft the two rows of live stitches together; when you need to work a purl stitch, you'll want to work the grafting "backwards" from the instructions. As you work, gently tug the working yarn after every stitch to avoid leaving the stitches too loose; you can monitor this as you work to be sure you're not grafting too tightly or too loosely. When you're finished grafting, work in all the ends securely.

9) Washing and blocking the finished piece after you're finished grafting will help remove any unevenness left from picking up stitches and grafting. As I mentioned, the first time I grafted the two pieces together, I was off a stitch and had to pull out the row of grafting. When I re-worked the row, I must have picked up some dust on the yarn that darkened the row slightly. The stockings are mostly dry now and the darkened part is still noticeable, so I'll have to wash them again using some wool wash to try to get it out.

Stockings with Clocks & SP9

2007-02-03T15:35:00.000-06:00

The stockings with clocks, from Nancy Bush's Folk Socks, with a pattern modification as requested by the largesse project organizer to add three inches to the height of the leg before the calf decreases, are finished and blocking:

You can see the pattern a bit better now that they've been soaked a bit, but it's still hard to get it to show up very much in a picture. Also, if you look closely you can see the graft line on the front stocking - I had to rip out the graft once because the seam stitches weren't lined up properly and in so doing, must have picked up a bit of dust that got worked in with the second graft line, which is also slightly tighter than the rest of the stocking. I expect with a little wear, it will become less noticeable.

I took a series of photos of the process I used to add in the extra three inches in the first stocking (I was reminded of the pattern modification after the first stocking was already complete and decided adding in the three inches would be faster than reknitting almost the entire stocking - which it was) and will likely post a sort of "tutorial" type thing on it in a day or two.

Oh, and I've revealed myself to my Secret Pal from SP9! Everyone stop in and say hi to Barb! She knits and crochets, has just learned to knit socks, and can't refuse her two gorgeous little girls, even when she's making something that she really wants for herself. *smile*

Things that suck

2007-01-31T21:42:00.000-06:00

Grafting 88 stitches around the leg of a stocking, getting to the end and realizing you're one stitch off. (The stockings have a seam pattern that runs up the back of the leg, making the shift rather noticeable.)

*sigh* At least when I pull it all out to re-do, I'll know how to keep the tension even from the start this time.

As seen on Making Light

2007-01-31T11:49:00.000-06:00

..someone's having a rather large (but apparently mostly single skein?) stash sale to fund a vet bill for their cat.

I'm tempted. Again.

And by the various skeins of "mohair mystery yarn" as I know several people who have lusted after my Birch and I could make another out of the mohair (it looks larger, so it would be fewer repeats and not as delicate and it would lack the sheen of the silk in the Kidsilk Haze though).

Mmm..?

2007-01-28T16:27:00.000-06:00

*stretch* Yes, I'm still here. I've been quiet mostly out of being busy at work and not wanting to spend any more time in front of a computer when I'm at home. There've been half a dozen thoughts that almost became posts last week, but I never managed to find the thought at the time I had a moment free in front of a computer.

That said, I turned the heel on the second stocking this afternoon and will likely have a good deal of the foot finished by the end of the evening. I'll post pictures once it's finished. I also need to add three inches to the leg of the first one because I missed an alteration in the directions posted a couple months ago. I'll likely talk about that process in a separate post and try to do it like a sort of tutorial since I'm essentially just cutting the stocking at the point I need to add the length, knitting in the extra bit, and then grafting the two pieces back together. At least, in theory. *smile*

It was an odd week, otherwise. We filed our taxes, which is usually a good thing (and this year is no exception), but then Friday night I lost a crown, which I don't think is ever a good thing. While I'm not in pain, I'm also not particularly looking forward to having it fixed (I'm terrified of the dentist; so much so that if the tooth weren't so sensitive to cold the way it is that I might consider just ignoring it), but I will. The timing is moderately fortuitous - a month earlier and we'd have ended up paying for it all out of pocket as we hit our insurance maximum last year when they redid the crown in front of this one; now we will only have to pay half of it out-of-pocket and we're in a more financially robust position to do so since we just got Jack's spring tuition reimbursment check and will have the tax return money in the next week or so.

First stocking

2007-01-21T19:35:00.000-06:00

I finished the first stocking with clocks this afternoon:

The seam and clock detail makes the stocking very scrunchy unless modeled. I thought about trying to block it, but opted instead to try to get shots from a couple different angles instead. The first is the outside of leg, and you can see the clock detail, the seam, and the star toe. The second is the inside of the leg and I think it shows the clock detail a bit better. The last shows the back of the stocking and the heel.

I shortened the heel flap from that called for in the pattern because my row gauge is slightly larger than that called for. I adjusted for this slightly in spacing the calf shaping, also, but I think it would have been fine there if I hadn't. The heel flap, though, is four rows shorter and I think it would have been far too long if I hadn't adjusted.

These aren't being made for me and are a smidge smaller than I would prefer - the fabric is quite stretched over my (rather shapely) calf and the foot is a smidge shorter than would be comfortable for me.

The second has been started and I'm through the top band and almost to the start of the calf shaping.

As promised..

2007-01-16T20:32:00.000-06:00

I didn't manage to do it with natural light, but here's a picture of the first of the baby camel/silk tussah top singles:

I tried to get it from a couple angles as it's sort of shiny and the flash does funny things. I also wanted to get a shot to compare the lighter bottom whorl from Pixel with my top whorl from Cate. The bottom whorl has a longer shaft, so I'll have to remember to try to spread the singles out up the shaft so it doesn't get too "bottom heavy". I also managed to get two shots of what I assume are the makers mark on my top whorl.. I don't recognize it, though, and keep forgetting to ask Cate who made it! Oh, and I believe Pixel did the carving on the bottom whorl, which is really quite lovely.

I'm still trying to figure out the best way to draw this stuff. The silk seems to want a long draw, but then I end up with unevenness in the yarn, so I've been working with a shorter draw, but then I get occassional clumps where I draw a bit too much. There's lots of this, though, so I imagine by the end of it all I'll have figured it out. I'm also giving this quite a bit of twist; I don't know how much crimp camel has, but I know the silk has none and I don't want the yarn to fall apart when I try to ply it.

And the progress to date on the Peek a boo sleeve:

The sleeves are going much quicker than the front/back, which is very nice. This is getting set aside for the moment, though, because these:

.. have an earlier deadline. It was really difficult to get a picture that showed any of the clock detail. I'll have to try with natural light and no flash to see if that makes it better, but by the time I managed to get time to take a picture in natural light, I suspect at least one of these will be finished. I'd be a little farther if I hadn't had to rip back through three of the calf decreases because I didn't read far enough in the directions and didn't start the clock where it should have been the first time. Even so, this is going pretty quick, even on US 2s.

Bed time.

2007-01-15T21:54:00.000-06:00

Hopefully I'll be able to find time tomorrow during daylight* to take pictures of the following:

The first singles from the baby camel/silk top roving I got from my Secret Pal. I found one of the spindles I was given a while ago by Pixel that was light enough that I thought I could give it a go. It's a bottom whorl spindle, so I had to remember how to do the half-hitch thing, and the shaft could use a once-over with some fine-grain sandpaper, but I was still able to get a decent start on it.
The first of the largesse stockings. I cast on for it Sunday and except for some adventures in spacing the calf shaping decreases due to slightly larger row gauge and completely forgetting to start the clock pattern at the appropriat time, I'm finished with the calf shaping and the clock.
The first Peek a boo sleeve, to date. I worked on it through Friday and it's about half finished I think. The stockings will likely go faster than I suspected they might, though, so I'm not too concerned about finishing Peek a boo in time for the intended birthday.

Tomorrow night I also need to package up my last package for my Secret Pal. I've rather enjoyed spoiling her, but I can't go into it more until she gets the last package. *smile*

* This is, unfortunately, unlikely. I'm in meetings from 8 until 4 straight, without even a break for lunch, and I suspect that the last half hour there might be spent trying to put out whatever fires might have erupted during the day. I will try, though.

I've been trying to write this post for several days..

2007-01-10T13:28:00.000-06:00

.. yeah. Sorry!

I finished the front of Peek a boo this weekend:

The little peek-a-boo bit in the front looks messy to me, but I'm hoping that once the ends are woven in and it's blocked, it will look better. I'm really glad to have the two big pieces of this one finished. Like I said, I do like it, but I'm either bored with it or with the yarn. :/

This is the start of one of the sleeves. The peek-a-boo bit here looks much neater to me and I have to admit that the fact the each sleeve only has 3 of the cable panels is rather nice so far. I hope to have the first sleeve at least mostly complete by the end of the week.

And since you were wondering (I knew you were; it's okay! *smile*) the front is modeled on the bobbin lace pillow stand that my dad made me for Christmas:

He made it from a pattern someone had posted on the web (which I can't find anymore or I'd like to it) and since the picture in the pattern showed the stand with a pillow, he also made a pillow to go with it. I own a small cookie pillow with a small pseudo-roller insert - and there's a small lip on the front edge of the stand so that I can use it with the stand - but it's no where near as large as this one. Unfortunately, I wasn't expecting dad to make the pillow or I'd have warned him to put stiffer stuffing in it. I think it will be fine as it is if I'm sure to use sharp pins, but if not, the pillow can still be used as a gorgeous display stand. (And as I said, I can use my smaller lace pillow with the stand to work with, so it's just an issue of swapping one for the other.)

The stand collapses pretty well and is pretty much completely adjustable - I can make it higher or lower, or change the angle of the arm to be steeper or shallower. I've been too tied up with knitting lately to try it out in action, but I'm contemplating some options and might get something simple started soon to get back into the hang of things.

And because Dad keeps track of these things, he made the stand to match (stain and pillow cover) the colors he used when he refinished my rocking chair several years ago:

The two pieces together look wonderful, but I couldn't get a shot from a decent angle to show them both.

(If you look in the lower right hand corner of the pillow stand profile picture, you can see the end of the tablet weaving loom he made me last year; I've not abandoned it, but am stuck at the moment trying to figure out something to use as tensioning bands because everything I've tried seems to snap under the tension I like to use. Ironically, the thing I can think of that would likely be best would be short bands of tablet weaving done in silk, which I'd prefer to make on the loom, but can't because the tension is too loose without them!)

Sunday already?

2007-01-07T20:15:00.000-06:00

*sigh* It was a quiet, lazy weekend. And it went far too quickly.

This wasn't technically this weekend, but late last week, I finished the pink Waterfall socks for my little sister. These are sort of hard to photograph - the lace pattern is essentially a 3x3 rib pattern, so it scrunches up quite a bit.

Because I'm trying to keep better track of this kind of thing (and because I actually wrote it down in the journal I got from my Secret Pal!), the details on this one are:

Pattern: Waterfall lace from six-stitch patterns in Sensational Knitted Socks, worked over 54 stitches on US 2 dpns
Yarn: KnitPicks Essential in Petunia; about 1 and 1/3 skeins
Finished measurements: heel to toe = 8.5 inches; cuff to heel = 10.25 inches

This evening I'll finish the front of Peek a boo and will try to get a picture tomorrow when it's light out. I'm hoping the sleeves go quicker; I'm not sure if I'm getting bored with this pattern or just with the cotton/modal yarn, but either way I'd like this one to be done sooner rather than later. I haven't decided yet if I'll do both sleeves at once or not, but no matter what I do, I'd like to have about half of the sleeves done this week.

Z is for zaftig..

2007-01-02T10:38:00.000-06:00

I have to admit that this word is brand new to me, and I found it while strolling through another ABC'er's Z post and decided that it was a word I needed to know better. You see, I think it fits, and more importantly, the searches I've done to get a better feel for it keep turning up descriptions of it as an appreciation of women's cuves, and I think that fits my philosophy about the female image even more.

And while I'm not sure I'd ever make the Knitty.com pattern by this name, I will be running out to our new uber Barnes & Noble at some point to check out the book whose cover I linked to above!

And it seems I'll be ending my ABC-along participation in a similar fashion to how I started - a bit late, and without a photo actually in the post. Sorry!

Y is for...

2006-12-28T09:40:00.000-06:00

Yarn!

(What did you expect?!)

In particular, *my* yarn. This has been a very exciting week.. I've been spinning for over a year, but just learned how to ply this summer. And I have yet to actually make anything with anything I've spun & plied. You see, I have this unnatural fear of cutting my plied yarn. I think that somehow cutting it will undo the magic that makes it yarn and it will come all unraveled. But yesterday I had to spin the yarn for the Breed Swap and then *gasp* cut it into 1-yard lengths. The above is a shot of the yarn after a quick dunk to let things relax. I'm happy to report that even though I didn't take a picture, cutting the yarn did not, in fact, make it unravel.

So now I'm all charged to finish the grey merino so I can make something with it. I have one skein plied already and waiting for me to finish the rest. The singles from the second spindleful were on my spindle for so long that they became de-energized and I didn't want to try to ply them that way, so I dunked them to re-energize them.

I'll probably ply this up tonight and then start spinning the last bit left - which might be another full spindleful, but I don't think so. Then I think it will be socks.. it's superwash and I had 4 ounces of it, so I think if I do toe-up socks, that will work out nicely.

And now that the holiday knitting is finished, I'm happily working away on a special request from my "little sister":

These are done in KnitPicks Essential (which means they're machine washable; the last pair of pink socks got accidentally washed and .. well.. yeah) and I'm using one of the six-stitch patterns from Sensational Knitted Socks - waterfall lace. The recipient has tiny little feet, so I'm making them pretty small, but the lace is pretty stretchy, so they should still look good when she wears them.

I'm hoping to deliver these in two weeks and also to pick up the yarn for the largesse project (stockings with clocks from Folk Socks, I think) which will need to be finished by early February. I also need to finish Peek a boo by the end of February.

Oh, and I ordered yarn (Knit One Crochet Too Angora Soft in Moss & Light Moss) from Webs annual year end sale to make Celtic Icon from Inspired Cable Knits, so between that and the two sweater kits I already have, I think I'll have more than enough to keep me busy for awhile!

X = 2.37

2006-12-27T10:29:00.000-06:00

Whee!!

Guess what arrived yesterday?

SQUEE! That is 2.37 pounds of processed Clun Forest lambs fleece. I send just over 4 pounds off to be washed and processed and wasn't sure just how much I'd get back after washing and processing. (See how I worked that into my X post? Aren't I clever? *smug*)

It's much whiter than I expected - the fleece were dirty and still had some guard hair in them when I sent them to Blackberry Ridge, so the color surprised me.

Looks like a lot, eh? Each of those little bundles is about 2.5 to 3 ounces, except the little one on the top. (Jali was very intrigued by the fleece, but once she got a sniff or two, she pretty much left it alone.) It's not so overwhelming when you realize that a full two pounds of it got parceled out into 1 ounce packages to go to the Breed Swap. *smile* I'm a little torn about sending so much of it away, but in seeing just how much an ounce is, I'm equally excited that I'll be getting 32 1-ounce samples of different fleeces like that from the other participants!

Along with the 1-ounce samples, I'm to send 32 locks and 32 yards of two-plied yarn. I held back the fleece I washed to pull the locks, but haven't actually pulled them out yet; I'll do that this afternoon most likely. Spinning the yarn, though, meant I had to get the merino singles that I had on my spindle off:

That is 309 yards of merino singles, which I need to wash to re-awaken the twist so I can ply. In order to figure out how many yards I had, I had to measure my Pex niddy noddy, which turns out to be 80 inches for a full wrap. Slightly larger than a 2-yard niddy noddy, but if I decide I want to make it a 2-yard one, I can cut down the Pex. I didn't measure the small one, but I suspect that it will come in just over a yard.

It also turns out that my estimation of how long it takes me to spin 64 yards of yarn is *way* off. I spun this last night:

It's about 20 yards of singles, or 10 yards of two-ply, out of about .2 ounces. So today I'm working through a .6 ounce chunk (that little ball on top in the pyramid picture), which should give me the yarn I need for the swap. Then I'll pack it all up (in the box that the roving came in, most likely) and run it down to our post office to ship it off to the Breed Swap organizer.

I have about 2.5 ounces left to keep for myself (and I'll get an ounce back when the breed swap supplies come back) and I'm contemplating spinning it up and dyeing it. My friend Carol does period dyeing stuff and I think it might be fun to try some with this fleece. Of course, I might get impatient and try to dye it with Kool-Aid first!

Once upon a time..

2006-12-26T09:51:00.000-06:00

.. in a land far, far away, someone referred to their children as "good little monkeys" when they'd been good and fair and helpful. While I can't remember who it was that originally used the term of endearment, the term itself stuck with me and as such things are wont to do, worked itself into my vocabulary.

One day at work, when asked by a friend and colleague how a meeting run by a usually trying colleague earlier that day had been, I responded that it had been fine and that the usually trying colleague had been a good little monkey. This ellicited, as I'm sure will surprise no one, a look of confusion, prompting me to have to scour the depths of my subconscious to try to determine where I'd picked up the phrase. Later that afternoon, I relayed the story about the phrase of unknown origin to a couple other colleagues and then pretty much forgot about it.

Until this

appeared, along with two like him on my other two ABC print frames. I have no idea when exactly they arrived, and none of those that I remember relaying the story to will cop to putting them there, so they remain a mystery. But it got me thinking about tokens and thank yous and ways to let people know that they're appreciated and in the back of my mind, this idea percolated away until I by chance stumbled upon a game that had pieces very similar to my little monkeys and then it was decided.

I needed to start leaving little monkeys for people who'd done good things.

However, given the sometimes negative connotation associated with monkeys, I decided I needed a way to make sure that the recipients knew they were getting the little monkey because they'd done something good.

Somewhere in there, we hit Thanksgiving and my sister mentioned that she'd been to a craft show with some friends to try to sell some of the cards she makes. We started talking about her making some nice thank you cards* that I could use for work because store bought thank you cards just never seem right to me.

(I got the little insignia stickers from our campus store, but the rest my sister did.) While we were talking, it occured to me that she could also make some little cards that I could use to leave with the monkeys to give some sort of explanation as to why the monkey was being given. I wanted to keep this as anonymous as possible, and to figure out a way to sneak the little monkeys into people's offices and leave them with a little calling card for them to find when they would. Ideally, people would keep the monkeys moving forward - you get one, you notice someone else doing something neat, so you pass it along, etc. The plan was becoming more solid.. I just needed to find out what to put on the cards that would be an explanation without giving away who the monkey was from.

Enter a random blog comment thread, and I knew I'd struck on a way to indicate to folks that they'd done something neat, but since I didn't have $1,000,000, they were getting a monkey instead. So I emailed my sister, who was confused, but humored me anyway:

I'm not sure how often I'll manage to get the little monkeys out there, or how long it will remain more or less anonymous, but I like the idea and the little cards and monkeys are cute and make me happy.

The End.

* My sister also made me some really beautiful personal thank you cards, but I don't have a picture of those yet because they're at home. She does really good work and while her cards are more expensive than if I just bought some from the store, I really would much prefer to give a nice thank you when it's deserved. She made me 24 of the work ones and I think 20 of the personal ones (which are blue and silver).

W is for Whimsy!

2006-12-22T18:47:00.000-06:00

In a fit of .. whimsy .. I decided yesterday to buy two skeins of Cascade 220 and make not only a bucket hat for me, but also for the intended recipient of Peek a Boo. As the latter is a gift, it got made first:

I tried to get a shot modeling it, but the rim is still wet, so it's floppier than I hope it will end up. I also didn't full it quite as much as I might because the recipient has thicker hair and I decided it would be easier to make it smaller if needed than to make it bigger. When it dries, if I'm still concerned about it, I might find a scrap of fleece to line it with.

Mine is already cast on and the brim almost finished. It's dark green, almost black in some light, to match the accents on my winter scarf. I suspect it will be finished tomorrow in time to wear to our first family holiday gathering Sunday.

Box o' Goodies!

2006-12-21T15:51:00.000-06:00

Whee! I got a wonderful box of goodies from my Secret Pal today! Thank you so much, Pal!

It's chock full of fun stuff. The back left corner is a bag of Cadbury caramel truffles.. mine! All mine! In front of that is a snowflake shaped box of bath confetti; I can't wait to try this out - it's toasted almond scent and the little confetti flakes look like snoflakes, too.. this is pr'bly the only way I'm going to get a white holiday this year, so that makes it even better! In front of the bath confetti is a "Bi Tien" handblown, handpainted (from the inside) glass ornament.

It's really lovely and I'm thinking I should pick up one of those little mini shepherd's crook things that will sit on a suface to hang it from because it deserves to be displayed more than just for a few days. The little box it came in is also very neat - it's fabric covered and lined the perfect size to hold small treasures when the ornament isn't using it.

In the back on the right is a spiral bound journal that had two little scrapbook bits tucked inside:

If you click the picture to make it big it will orient properly, too.. not sure why it won't in the thumbnail.. Anyway, the little bits are adorable - the one of the left is three mini skeins of yarn and tiny little knitting needles and the one on the right is a knitting basket with more tiny yarn and needles. I think the journal needs to become a project journal for me - I'm terrible at keeping notes on things I've made and I inevitably end up trying to remember if I followed the pattern exactly or not when I'm making the second sock or sleeve. Maybe a journal will remind me to take better notes..

The real jewels, though, are these gorgeous handmade stitch markers that my Pal made for me. I have to admit, I'm not usually a fancy stitch marker kind of girl, but after seeing these up close and personal, I just might be a convert. I've already got them placed in Peek a boo and they are *SO* much prettier than the little white plastic ones (and they don't dig into my hands when I hold them on the needles). And they really just look so lovely that it makes me happy to see them as I'm knitting. The pink ones are a little smaller (presumably for smaller needles) and just so delicate and the bluegreen ones remind me of bright, sunny skies and the ocean (yes, even with the mitten charm!).

This lovely gorgeous soft lusciousness is baby camel and tussah silk top roving. *drool* It's *so* soft, and the color will complement the camel down that I got at the state fair, I think, so I can't wait to spin them both up and contemplate something truly luscious to make with them. I keep sticking my hand in the bag to pet it and it's really gorgeous stuff. Definitely motivation to dedicate a day to spinning as a New Years Resolution!

The little splash of color in the top photo that stretches across the roving is a set of four (three now) flower suckers. They're very cute and quite tasty!

Thank you again! It's all wonderful and made this grey dreary day so much brighter!!

2006-12-21T09:38:00.000-06:00

I'm working from home today.

I wasn't originally planning to, but I woke up and didn't want to get out of my snuggly warm bed and started thinking about what I had to do today and that I didn't have any meetings I needed to be in the office for, and decided that I had a much better chance of actually being productive on the things I have to do if I work from here. It's a bit odd, I admit, but I've found that if I have to write and/or edit long-ish reports, I can't focus on them in my office and it drags out interminably and the end result is almost always spotty and choppy and generally not my best work. However, doing the same tasks from home usually results in more coherent, well written work. I think this is a throw-back to when I was in grad school because I wrote all my papers at home and there's some mental switch that is stuck in a position where "home == writing" and "office == productivity". No, they're not mutually exclusive - I write short memos and newsletters and reports in my office all the time, and I can be equally productive with data no matter where I am - but for longer reports, that's how it seems.

(For the record, my lovely new very comfy chair was an early birthday gift from Jack. We tend to spend a lot of time hanging out in the den this time of year listening to audiobooks and I didn't have a really comfy chair to sit in up here, so he got me this one. It's a glider rocker & recliner and I love it. This is the chair that I most often knit in lately, as evidenced by the proximity of the ball winder, the back of Peek a Boo draped over the chair, and the ball of yarn in the seat. That paper over the radio is the bucket hat pattern Jack got me from Chic Knits, and underneath it behind the tissue box are leftover skeins from a few projects back. Tucked in behind the chair where you can't see it is my felt knitting bag which has the in-progress front of Peek a Boo and a smallish stack of knitting books, including Inspired Cable Knits, Sensational Knitted Socks, Folk Socks, the Tied Up Tee pattern, and the latest copy of Interweave Knits.)

It doesn't hurt that it's a grey, rainy, foggy day, either. A day like this in my office feels oppressive; at home, it's just encouragement to snuggle in. *shrug*

Uh..hi!

2006-12-20T11:17:00.000-06:00

So yeah.. I've been busy. And sick. And haven't been doing any knitting.

But I did make Massaman curry last night to bring in for a potluck at work today (without the chicken so that it's vegetarian; if I'd used coconut milk instead of heavy cream, it would even have been vegan!). I hope it turned out okay.. it's not quite the color I was expecting - more yellow than I'm used to. I used to order Massaman Curry from the Snail all the time when I lived in Chicago and there's is more brown.. maybe they add more peanuts or some satay sauce.. I'll have to keep experimenting. I also brought in some of that microwave-in-bag rice so that I wouldn't have to worry about how to heat up two things for a potluck.

So, yeah, no knitting means that the last intended holiday gift (Peek a boo) isn't getting done. This is not so tragic - I was able to find a gift that I'm just as happy to give, and now I'm more than half way finished with a birthday present. And it's been nice not to have to spend every waking minute knitting, I must admit. I'm torn on what to start next, though.. I have socks for MJ and my bucket hat pattern and socks for me and a some lovely merino fleece to spin.. decisions, decisions.

Speaking of (or at least mentioning) spinning, I'm contemplating dedicating a "day" to spinning, ala Stephanie. Mine won't likely be Tuesdays, but instead maybe Saturdays. Jack games Saturday nights, unless we have other plans, so that might be a good time to dedicate to spinning. I'll have to start stocking up on good movies to spin to. And at some point I would like to get somewhere that I can try some wheels so I have a better idea of what I do and don't like, but given that I can't afford to buy a wheel yet, that's pr'bly not urgent.

Right then.. off to stir the curry and try to get some stuff finished for my meetings this afternoon.

What I got for my birthday.

2006-12-13T12:28:00.000-06:00

My birthday started with an unexpected gift from an anonymous benefactor:

In case it's not clear from the blurry picture, my right eye felt slightly gummy last night at bed time, but I assumed it was due to spending several hours in the car, which usually dries my eyes out a bit. I woke up at about 4 this morning and the eye was crusted shut. I have no idea how or where, but some time in the past few days I was apparently exposed to a bacteria that causes pink eye. Ugh.

I've never had this particular affliction before and I wish I'd been able to live out my days without this experience. I now have antibacterial eye drops that I'm to use three times a day, but at least for the rest of today, my eye is likely to remain gummy and crusty and just generally unpleasant.

In an effort to try to make things not so bad as we made coffee and gathered together some necessary survival bits (e.g., holiday knitting) in case we had to wait a long time at Urgent Care (we didn't), Jack decided I should open one of my presents from him (lest you think the rest of my family neglectful, my parents and sister bought me my drum, which I actually took possession of a few months ago).

This is a print from Ursula Vernon. Some of you may recognize the style from the ABC prints that are in my office - same artist. I really like her stuff. This guy's a wombat, and he's one of her signature pieces. The print is exquisite and it certainly helped brighten the morning.

As I mentioned, Urgent Care let me down - I got absolutely no knitting done while waiting because there was no waiting. I was in an out with a prescription in less then 15 minutes. When I came out, Jack mentioned that he thought he was starting to show symptoms, too, so in he went. Today is also Jack's last day of classes, so I was a little concerned about him going to class if he did, in fact, have pink eye (if he does, it's not showing nearly so blazingly as mine, but he does have a 'scrip just in case), but since we were already in town, he decided to go to his first class and then take me home. Rather than try to deal with being in the office, I opted to hang out in the car in the parking lot while he was in class, and managed to finish the second Father sock:

No, I haven't started the front of Peek a boo, yet, but I figured I have options if Peek a boo doesn't get finished, but half a pair of socks just wouldn't cut it. And thanks to my anonymous "benefactor" it looks like I'll be home the rest of this week (despite what your child care places might tell you, pink eye is contagious until the eye is clear again; I work on a college campus and it's finals.. something tells me that this is *exactly* an appropriate time to use my sick leave), so I'm pretty sure that I should have Peek a boo back on track soon. My only lingering concern about it now is running out of yarn.. I had 17 skeins, the back took somewhere over 5, so I'm hoping the sleeves are lots smaller than the back. They should be.. right?

When we got back home, Jack had me open my other birthday present:

These little guys are the Felt Sheep Kit from Fiber Trends and they've been on my wishlist for a couple years - just as a cute little whimsy bit. Jack decided that after the stress of the fall, whimsy was in order. Hee! I can't wait until after the holidays to make them. Sheep!

I'm contemplating a nap (rather than try to go back to sleep, I simply got up at 4 and did some stuff for work and such.. I at least waited until after 5 to send any emails, though!), but want to wait until I do my next round of eye drops. Guess it's time to cast on for the front of Peek a boo!

Hope!

2006-12-10T13:17:00.000-06:00

Assuming I'm going to finish the last holiday gift on time, I determined that I needed to finish the back by the end of this weekend:

I have a groove in my left fore finger from tensioning the yarn and an odd little numb spot on the side of my left ring finger where I grab the needle, but it's finished. There's more arm hole shaping than it appears - there's a column of reverse stockinette that's curling up on itself in the picture.

I'm at least a few hours ahead of schedule, and given what else I need to finish, that's good. To stay on schedule for completing Peek a boo, I figure I need to have the front finished by the end of next Saturday and the sleeves finished by the end of the following Friday, leaving Saturday for seaming and blocking.

In between times (hah!) I also need to start and finish the other Father sock, and make the ties for the Tied Up Tee. I'm a bit torn on the best way to do the ties, though. I think that I-cord will be more time consuming than it's worth, so I might try to do them on the lucet, which I think I can manage to do while attending an all day meeting on Tuesday.

Countdowns.

2006-12-06T14:10:00.000-06:00

Someone ~~(if I look I can pr'bly find who)~~(Aha! It's MimKnits! And now I must go ask her where to find the pattern for the monkey!) on my blog roll has a countdown to the solitice. This is a Good and Noble Thing(tm) (or is that s'posed to be a Right and Proper Thing(tm)?) - not for any religious* reason, but because that's when the days will finally start getting longer again.

But that's not really the point. It's the countdown bit that's the point. Because I've reached that part of the holiday gift knitting where I'm counting down until it's done** because I want to move on to other projects*** that are not holiday gifts (some of them are gifts, just not gifts with a deadline, per se). Not because I'm not enjoying the gift projects, I'm just feeling .. confined.

* I'm atheist. I believe that there are forces at play in this world - natural forces such as the gravitational pull of the moon - the have effects on how things happen, but I don't believe in predetermination or that any of those forces are sentient. I've tried to figure out if this means I "lean" toward one or another nature-based "religion", but I've given up. If you care to have a theological discussion about it, go for it, but don't expect you'll change my (or anyone else's) opinion on the matter. *shrug*

** For instance, I have half my last pair of holiday gift socks finished, which means I have half left to do - 1 sock still to complete. All but the ties for the Tied Up Tee are finished, which means I have two short (about 3/4 yard) and one long (about 2 yards) i-cord ties to complete. I'm about a third of the way finished with the back of Peek a Boo,

which means I have.. a lot left to go. And three weeks to do it in. You'd think that having started holiday knitting back in September, I wouldn't be in this position. (Admittedly, I have completed three full adult sized garments, one child garment, a pair of kids socks and half a pair of adult socks since then, but *still*!)

*** Like the Felted Bucket hat for which my darling boy just bought me the pattern (it's an early part of my birthday present). I have leftover Knit Picks Merino Style from the Fair Isle 101 sweater that I'm contemplating using to make this hat, but I can't start it until after the holiday knitting is finished (but it's darned cold out there this week!). Or the pink socks for MJ, which I really would rather do because I can do a more interesting pattern (that I haven't knit four**** times already) *and* because the girl needs pink socks already! Or the largesse stockings with clocks.. or other fun socks for me.. or I could work on the sweater kit I got *last* birthday/holiday.

**** Yes, four. I made the first child sock in the toddler size which was far too small.

V is for Visitor, Redux.

2006-12-05T20:57:00.000-06:00

It seems our little falcon has found some good hunting in the circle outside our student union. We saw him this afternoon enjoying what appears to have been a pigeon.

We got to sit and watch him for some time, and I'm almost positive he is, in fact, a Peregrine Falcon. Now that I know he's out there, I'll have to keep an eye out for him. Though he might have better luck if he ate squirrels instead..

U is for Unexpected Visitors

2006-12-04T09:55:00.000-06:00

The keen eyes of a co-worker spotted this little guy hanging out in one of the trees outside our office windows this morning.

I think he's a falcon, but I'm not 100% sure. He's awfully small to be a hawl, unless he's a juvenile, but even for that, it's awfully late in the year for a juvenile still so small. He's also got more white on his tummy than I'm used to the hawks and eagles around here having.

He looks an awful lot like a Peregrine Falcon, but they're endangered in WI, so I'm hesitant to believe that's what he is, especially since I think this guy's got too much white on his tummy. But this area has apparently been the site of at least one releasing in the last 15 or so years, so it's possible.

Insert clever post title here.

2006-12-03T21:01:00.000-06:00

I'm sure I did something this weekend other than knit, but in all honesty, the knitting is all I have to show for it.

That would be none other than the Tied Up Tee, finished by for the ties and blocking. The color in this picture is pretty much all wrong - the red is far too bright and the towel underneath it is actually forest green, but it was this or a shot that is too washed out to see anything. I machine washed it and originally machine dried it, but it tightens up quite a bit that way. Fortunately, wetting it stretched it out again to the proper size, but I'll have to be sure to include a note so the recipient knows not to machine dry it.

I really like how well the neckline on this one turned out, and in general I'm still rather fond of the shaping in this line. It's a pattern in the "shapely" series from White Lies Designs. The only pattern bit that I'm still a bit troubled by (and it's not just this pattern) is that there seems to be more bulk under the arms where the sleeves join the body than there should be. It's almost as if the top of the sleeve cap is just a smidge too long - or maybe too narrow - and it causes some bunching on the underside or something..

The ribbon yarn is a little scratchy to me, but I'm hoping it will soften with wear and washing. I'm tempted to try to run it through the wash another time or two to see if that will help to soften it before I gift it, but I don't want it to look used. :/

With Tied Up mostly done, I've cast on (and am actually half through the first repeat now) my last holiday garment. I'm using Knit Picks Shine Sport in Sky and so far I'm rather fond of it. It's very soft and has a beautiful hand, but the cables should still pop quite well. I'm really liking the color for this one as well - it's enough to give it shading that the white model lacks, but not overpowering.

It's a slippery little yarn, though, so I'm having a hard time settling on proper tension - the cables mean the tension should be a little looser or I have a hard time making the crosses, but I don't want it to be so loose that it stretches out when it gets washed. I'm hoping the 60% cotton will help combat some of that. It also splits pretty easily, which so far hasn't been too much of an issue with the cabling, but is another reason to try to keep things a little more loose than I might want.

The yarn is also pretty light, which is a little surprising given that I'm used to high cotton content yarns being rather heavy for their bulk. If this one turns out as well as I'm hoping, this might be a yarn (or at least a fiber combination) that I can use to make sweaters for Jack out of (he's allergic to animal fibers and we've not had the best of luck with either acrylic or 100% cotton for sweaters for him).

I even sat down and knit up the swatch of Cotton Fleece I used to make an earlier gift so I could wash it and provide appropriate warning for how much it might shrink (Color in the second shot is accurate). As I'm told is usual for cotton yarns like this, the shrinkage is much more noticeable in the length and in the width - and it's substantial! It shrank just about 3/4 inch over an original 4 3/4 inches, which is almost 16%. So the warning will be either not to machine wash/dry, or to know that it will lose about 15% of the length. I suspect the latter won't be that big of a deal, so it might be what the recipient opts for.

What are you wearing today?

2006-12-01T08:37:00.000-06:00

Today, December 1st, is World AIDS Day. Personally, I think it should be World AIDS Awareness Day, but won't quibble about semantics.

It's an annual reminder for me. Too easily, too frequently in my life, I skate through days, weeks, even months without ever stopping to think about the terror that is AIDS. I could, now that I'm thinking about it, spout statistics or case studies of countries in Africa, or point everyone to Respectful of Otters - written by a psychologist in an AIDS clinic - but Rivka's been a tad preoccupied with L'il Critter lately to be posting that much.

Instead, for those of you who don't know, I'll tell my tale. It's not terribly dramatic or frightening or brave or even sad. I've been extraordinarily lucky that none of my close family or friends have contracted HIV or died of complications related to AIDS. But there was a time when I was much more active in the AIDS service community. A time when I was living in Seattle, in a monogamous heterosexual relationship. A time when I wanted to do something more to help than assist at fundraisers for the Northwest AIDS Foundation (now, the Lifelong AIDS Alliance, created when NWAF and Chicken Soup Brigade merged in 2001).

A time when I volunteered, through the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington Hospitals, to participate in a double-blind, experimental HIV vaccine trial. The vaccine being tested had completed all stages of animal testing and they were recruiting for people to participate in an 18-month Phase I human trial. This is the first human testing for any drug, and they're primarily looking to evaluate the safety of the drug when given to healthy subjects.

I was an ideal candidate for them - I had none of the risk factors associated with contracting HIV - which was rare given that many people interested in participating are interested because HIV and AIDS has direct implications for them or their loved ones.

HIV vaccines aren't like typical oral or shot vaccines. In most regular vaccines, the vaccine is actually a severely weakened form of the virus itself - strong enough to elicit an immune response, but too weak to mount an attack on your system. Because HIV is so dangerous, though, vaccines have to be constructed differently. The particular kind of vaccine used in the trial I was in was a DNA based vaccine where a small piece of HIV DNA was created - a piece without the capability to reproduce itself, but hopefully with enough of the genetic characteristics of actual HIV to prompt my body to start producing antibodies.

The trial, in and of itself, was simple. It involved several blood draws and four injections of either vaccine or placebo. Neither my clinician nor I knew whether I would get vaccine or placebo - that's the double-blind part - until the study was unblinded at the end. Blood draws were usually multiple tubes drawn from my arm. Tubes were sent to various research centers around the country, including UPenn and Johns Hopkins, where they maintained living blood lines for each of the participants. My blood was tested at each draw for signs of antibodies using a standard HIV antibody test, and also for signs of the virus itself with a Western Blot test. The hope was that the vaccine would first and foremost not be dangerous or have any unbearable side effects and also produce an antibody response independent of exposure to the virus.

At the end of the 18 months, I was getting ready to leave Seattle for graduate school in Chicago. I found out during my last visit with my clinician that they wanted to give participants boosters of the vaccine and continue monitoring them because immune response had been less than what they'd hoped for. Because there is not an HIV Vaccine Unit in Chicago, however, I had to withdraw and did not get the booster.

Almost two years later, I got an email from my clinician with the unblinding information. I'd received 3 mgs of the Apollon DNA vaccine on 01/06/99, 02/03/99, 03/03/99 and 06/29/99.

Practically, there's been no lasting effect on my physical person from participating in the trial. The only point of any concern is that it's not known if, for some bizarre physiological reason, my body may at some point start producing antibodies in response to some bit of the vaccine that was dormant, but that's a very far stretch. All the same, I have an ID card from the National Institutes of Health that identifies me as a participant in an experimental vaccine trial should I ever test positive on an HIV antibody test. At that point, NIH would come in and run a Western Blot (which tests for the actual virus, not just the antibodies and therefore usually takes longer to get results from) to ensure that I don't actually have HIV. But, as I said, the possibility is so small it's almost not worth mentioning.

Psychologically, the effect has been somewhat muted. Many people react to hearing this tale with something akin to awe tinged with a fair amount of fear. I don't see my participation as anything particularly brave or outstanding. I wasn't in any danger, I was just one of many participants nation-wide in a much larger study, in an even larger drug-testing system. Even if, years from now, a viable vaccine is found that can trace some portion of it's evolution to the one I received, my contribution was infinitesimally small. *shrug*

So why then, you may be wondering, am I bothering to talk about it now? Part of it is reminiscence on my part.. Part of it regret that I'm no longer active in the AIDS service community.. Part of it is to demonstrate that you don't have to be directly effected by something to work toward resolving it. And still part of it I can't quite explain, other than that however small, it stands as my most significant contribution to fighting the spread of HIV and AIDS.

I'm a sucker for a fellow researcher..

2006-11-28T16:08:00.000-06:00

To steal blatantly from Cate because I'm almost entirely brain dead at the moment:

So there's this guy who's doing a panel at the MLA, and he's checking to see how a meme or, depending on how you look at it, a chain letter, moves through the blogosphere. We knitters have a rather populous corner of the blogosphere, and one that I think routinely buffaloes those who attempt to study blogs and blogging. Who are all these knitters and what do they want? (Wool.) If blogging is concerned with social change, what the hell are all these people doing talking about yarn? (We'll get back to you when the plans for world domination are available in pdf format.)
Anyway, Jody explains it all in a way that is far more interesting and complete than I have the patience for, but do please play. All you need to do is mention and link to the project, ~~beg~~ ask others to participate, and then ping technocrati. Let's show the MLA a little knitting mojo, eh?

Now go out and propogate thyself on the world.

"It's been one week since you looked at me.."

2006-11-27T20:24:00.000-06:00

I had a longer than usual long weekend due to the added bonus of today off. That is undoubtedly the reason I've mostly "caught up" with the holiday knitting.

I've finished the back and one sleeve of the Tied Up Tee and have the other sleeve about a third done. The pieces are a little wonky in the pictures because they curl really terribly so it's difficult to get them to lie flat for pictures.

My camera has decided to switch itself inexplicably into "no flash" mode and I haven't had the motivation to switch it back, which might be for the best with the Rowan River Tape. I apparently can't hold still while taking pictures though, so the first two are a bit blurry. The last one has both the best stitch definition and the best color.

I'm hopeful to have the second sleeve finished by this weekend so I can block all the pieces and sew it together this weekend. That will leave just one more garment and one last sock to do in the last twenty-something days of December. Should be do-able.

T is for..

2006-11-26T18:49:00.000-06:00

Tupperware. And Thanksgiving leftovers. But mostly tupperware (and at least one Pyrex). Even when it's not tupperware, but instead some other more easily available imitation. I usually package up the leftovers from our dinners to take in as lunches since we usually don't eat as much as we make and it's cheaper to take leftovers than buy frozen lunches.

The one on the top left is the Pyrex and has leftover sloppy joe meat from dinner Wednesday. The one below that and at least one of the two in the next stack are leftover chicken & rice from dinner a week or so ago. The one that's not chicken & rice is leftover pasta and sauce from dinner last Saturday.

The other five are all soup with dumplings* made from fresh turkey stock (made from the carcas from Thanksgiving plus the carcas from a turkey we made about a month ago and a small chicken from longer ago) yesterday. The four little ones on top are mostly broth from the same soup that will likely get used in other things rather than eaten as broth or soup.

The soup is more or less usual for us for the days following Thanksgiving, but it was a little more welcome this year than usual because Jack ended up with a pretty debilitating head cold Wednesday & Thursday. We slept at least 12 to 14 hours Thursday into Friday, and at least 12 hours each Friday & Saturday nights, which seems to have mostly knocked out the cold and prevented me from getting it.

* Jack's family makes what he calls "knifla", which is essentially a larger version of spaetzle, as dumplings. They're pr'bly the best dumplings I've ever had and I really love soup with them. It's basically a very wet "dough" made from eggs and flour and then cut with a knife into the simmering broth. They soak up the flavor from the soup and the longer they sit in the soup, the better they are, so the leftovers are usually far better than the soup on the first run (which isn't bad itself).

Breedswap

2006-11-25T16:13:00.000-06:00

Cathy asked what the Breedswap project that I did the Clun Forest research for was. In a nutshell, it's a project being run by some folks on the Spindlers YahooGroups list to create for the participants a resource notebook that will contain research and fiber samples from 32 different breeds. The following is from the introductory email announcing the project and inviting participants:

Here's what you will be expected to contribute:

1) An information sheet on the breed you are signed up for. I will collect the information and have them printed and copied so all the sheets in the notebook will have the same format. See below for the information required. Please be as complete as possible.

2) For each participant, an envelope with one yard of yarn you have spun, and one lock of *washed* fiber. The lock of fiber should NOT be carded or combed. With full participation, this will be 32 yards.

3) For each participant, a baggie containing one ounce of washed fiber. (This may also be prepared by carding or combing, but it isn't necessary.) With full participation, this will be 32 baggies.

4) Money for expenses; $10.00 per person to cover postage, copying costs, the cost of notebooks and index pages.

5) Optional: a picture of a sheep of the breed you were assigned.

Here's what you will end up with:

1) A printed copy of each sample sheet with a lock of fiber and a piece of yarn attached. You will receive these in a notebook with a printed cover and printed indices.

2) A set of baggies with one ounce of fiber to spin for each breed represented in the swap.

Each participant volunteered for one or more breeds they'd be willing to research and contribute the fiber for, and based on what people were willing to contribute, the organizers assigned the following breeds: Polwarth, CVM, Perendale, Navajo Churro, Corriedale, Jacob, Blue Faced Leicester, Icelandic, Cotswold, Romney, Ramboulliet, Gotland, Cormo, Montadale, Cheviot, Shetland, Clun Forest, Lincoln, Gulf Coast, Border Leicester, Finn, Leicester Longwool X, Hog Island, Dorset, Columbia, Suffolk, California Red, Polypay, Coopworth, English Leicester, Merino, and Targhee. I don't know all of those, but thanks to Carol, I now have a copy of In Sheep's Clothing, so I'm planning to read up on some of the ones I don't know before the binders are complete.

And at the moment, I'm behind in getting the fleece prepared. I have the washed locks, they just need to be sorted and put into baggies. I sent the fleece to be processed and didn't hear anything from the mill for several weeks. When I called to inquire that they'd at least gotten the fleece, they told me it would be about another month before they could get the processed fleece back to me. Assuming they stick to that estimate, I should be fine. If they push for more time then, though, I'm going to have to figure out where to get two plus pounds of processed Clun Forest fleece on very short notice. *sigh*

How do you spell "relief"?

2006-11-20T19:36:00.000-06:00

Whew!

It's a terrible picture - washed out, off color and slanted because I took it from the side of the bed - but it's the front of the Tied Up Tee, wet and pseudo-blocked. It measures 19 inches across the bottom hem (not counting the curve) and 12 inches from hem (not counting the curve) to the start of the arm hole. The only measurement that's not to the letter is the arm hole - it comes in at 9 inches instead of 8 - but that's the one that's most easily adjusted.

Edited to add: I just went to wind a new skein of the Rowan River Tape so that I could use the remains of the two partial skeins to do the arm split on the back and realized that the front of the Tied Up Tee took about 2.5 skeins. Assuming the back will take slightly more and that each sleeve will take slightly less, I should have as many as four spare skeins (I have 12 total) once I'm finished.. Which means I can pr'bly make the Mikado Ribbon Gloves (after the holidays, that is). Neat.

I wet blocked Breezy Cables while I was at it and it stretched out enough, but hopefully not too much. I'm still torn on whether I should machine wash it before I gift it, just to be sure it won't do anything odd the first time it's washed, but at the moment I'm taking it in small steps.

Also added: I'm also contemplating using some green merino stuff I got awhile back in a trade to make a scarf of some sort for a silent auction for HCWR, but I'd have to find a good lace scarf pattern that's not Branching Out as I made one of those in some yellow merino stuff last year for this auction.

Gauge woes..

2006-11-19T19:49:00.000-06:00

I finished the first of the father socks...

This is a good and fine thing. Assuming that my gauge with this yarn has now stabilized. Because in examining the son pair, I discovered that my gauge was apparently noticeably tighter for the second sock..

Fortunately, I will have enough of this yarn left after finishing the second father sock to make another son sock if I decide that the difference is too noticeable to give the pair as a gift. It's not really noticeable unless you have them one on top of the other, specifically with the smaller one on top and then you notice that it's about half an inch shorter and about a quarter inch narrower. *sigh*

This may be due to the issues I ~~was~~ am having with the Tied Up Tee. I've decided, however, to proceed with completing the front (I'm working on the shoulders and should finish the front tonight) and then blocking it, and possibly washing it, to see how it wears. I *think* I have enough of the yarn that if I decide after blocking/washing, I need to remake the front to different specs, I'll have enough. Maybe.

But I'm remaining optimistic that remaking the front won't be necessary because that would put me rather farther behind on the holiday knitting and I've been doing so well on that so far that it'd be a shame to tarnish such a good year.

I also got buttons for Breezy Cables, but I think I'll block it first. I'm trying to decide if I want to actually block it or just throw it in the wash (it's washable wool) so I can see how it will wash before I give it to the recipient. I'm alternatively afraid that washing it will stretch it out *a lot* and that it will shrink it (wool in the washing machine.. *shudder*), and I'm even moderately concerned that washing it will have no effect at all because I do want it to stretch out *a smidge*.
*sigh* One of these days I'll be a really good knitter.

Clun Forest Research for Breedswap

2006-11-14T21:39:00.000-06:00

Right then, as promised (and do please remember I did admit that this wasn't the *best* example of my scholarly work!)..

1) BREED DESCRIPTION. This should include a description of what the sheep in this breed look like and their genetic composition.

Clun Forest originated as a breed in southwest Shropshire, near the forest whose name it bears, descending from a variety of mountain and moorland sheep that ranged over an area that has been described as one of the wildest and most desolate regions in England up to the middle of the 16th century. Their ancestors were commonly small and reddish brown in color with prominent eyes and may originally have been bred by pastoral or semi-nomadic shepherds as many as 1,000 years ago.

As the English economy shifted away from wool production toward more demand for meat in the mid-19th century, commercial flocks were often drained of breeding stock, which shepherds often replaced by introducing mountain ewes to their flocks. This practice resulted in vast genetic diversity in the modern breed, and is likely responsible for the continuation of those attributes which make the Clun Forest so desirable – adaptable, hardy, prolific, and content to forage for the bulk of its food. By the mid-20th century, Clun Forest was the third most numerous pure breed in Britain.

Clun Forest were first imported to the American continent in 1970 by Tony Turner, who brought in 2 rams and 39 ewes from Ray Williams, and sheep from Tony’s first flock were purchased by United States breeders at the 1973 Nova Scotia Sheep Fair in Truro. North American acceptance of the breed, however, was slowed by the lack of University sponsorship & promotion and a general lack of interest in grassland farming. Nonetheless, Angus Rouse of Nova Scotia secured two additional importations of Clun Forest after Tony which helped secure the breed in North America. In recent years, severe restrictions on the importation of livestock from overseas have prompted breeders to import Clun Forest semen from Europe in order to expand the genetic base of American flocks.

The first documented description of the modern Clun Forest breed is from the middle of the 19th century and describes them as white-faced and hornless. More recent descriptions, from the breed’s “Golden Age” between 1950 and 1970, reference the distinct woolen top knot, brown face with wide-set eyes, and small-to-medium ears held upright. The breed has changed little since its Golden Age, though modern Clun Forest may have slightly higher-set ears and darker brown faces. The typical Clun Forest ewe weighs between 130 and 160 pounds, with rams only slightly heavier – between 175 and 200 pounds.

The standard for Clun Forest as determined by the North American Clun Forest Association is as follows:

Head and Face
A clean open faced sheep ranging from tan to black; top of head nicely covered and free from dark wool.
Ears
Not to long and carried high.
Body
Strong, muscular neck, lengthy good back, deep rib, strong loin, good hock, deep and well-rounded thighs, good through heart, strong bone, standing square on its legs.
Legs
Fairly free from wool from hock and knee down.
Wool
A tight fleece, fine texture, free from kemp and dark or gray wool.
Skin
A nice pink or red skin, free from black or blue spots.
A sheep which meets you with a good head and a bold walk, that stands squarely on its legs, with plenty of heart girth and a good constitution.

2) FIBER CHARACTERISTICS: This should include, as a minimum, staple length and crimps per inch. Also include diameter or count (if known), whether the fleece you are using came from a lamb, hogget or mature sheep, and whatever else you can think of.

Clun Forest fleeces – usually about 6 to 8 pounds when mature – are considered the finest fleece produced in Great Britain. They are consistent from neck to britch, with little or none of the variance common among other fleeces. Fleeces are essentially free from black or kempy fibers and are easily worked by handspinners, especially beginners, due to their density and uniformity.

Average staple length: approximately 4 inches
Crimp: Tight, irregular; well developed; elastic; extremely springy
Spinning Count: 46s to 54s (USDA wool grade); 58s according to some sources
Diameter: 28-33 microns

The wool in this sample is from two lamb fleeces (combined grease weight of approximately 4.5 pounds) sheared in late summer 2006 at Bets Reedy’s farm just outside of Money Creek, MN.

3) METHOD OF PREPARATION: What do you think is the best method of preparation for this breed - carding, combing, or commercial.

I found little information on preferred methods of preparation for Clun Forest fleeces and as I did not prepare the fleece for this project myself, can add no significant personal insight. An article written by Jane Fournier for the Fall 1993 issue of Spin-Off Magazine indicates that hand carding and drum carding are usually more efficient than flick carding and combing. Jane recommends a fine drum (320 points per inch) to avoid neps.

I also found the following account posted by Cindy W. on the Yarnspinners blog, which I found informative:

The sample I worked with was a washed off white fleece. It had a large amount of VM in the sample. The wool had a soft hand with a very springy feel to it.

This fleece was surprisingly easy to comb or card. It seemed perfectly suited for my small hand held combs, coming off in a very nice top. Since I had seen in other fibers that fleece that combs well often does not card well, that was what I expected. But I was very surprised to find that Clun Forest also carded up into lovely batts with my hand held cards.

4) SPINNING TECHNIQUES: What special techniques, if any, are recommended for this breed?

Other than several statements about the superiority of Clun Forest fleeces for handspinners, there was little information available recommending any specific spinning technique. Again in Jane’s 1993 article, she mentions that Clun Forest fleeces lend themselves well “to traditional woolen-spun yarns. . . [and] results in a very bouncy, lofty, and slightly irregular yarn.” When spun “from a parallel preparation using a short draw, the lively and amphatic crimp results in a slightly fluffy, irregular yarn with a flat, chalky surface . . . [that] is lightweight and has great life and body, in contradiction to its dense appearance.” Finally, Jane notes that Clun Forest can be blended “with less-elastic fibers” such as kid mohair, alpaca, llama, or tussah silk “to produce yarns with body and bounce.”

Cindy W. from the Yarnspinners blog compares the yarn resulting from combed top and carded batts as follows:

Combed top: This was a delight to spin. It drafted easily into a long draft, and gave a nice smooth fine yarn. The only thing I observed was that it was such a smooth yarn, that it was difficult to make joins, when I started a new piece of top. I also noticed that this fiber needed a high twist, and that it really was unwilling to hold the twist. I especially saw this when I was plying, that the thicker areas in the singles were almost unspun. It was also interesting to observe that the yarn really expanded once there was no tension on it. I measured this sample of yarn as 15 WPI. It was a very generous, 25 yard sample.

Carded batts: I used more twist while spinning this. I tried two types of drafting, a moderate drafting zone gave a thicker yarn, with the neps often disappearing right into the yarn. An inchworm draft gave a much thinner yarn, but I had to stop and pull out the neps, which slowed down the spinning. The neps were not in the combed top, making it the better prep. This skein was 14 yards which measured 13 WPI, and was a very nubby looking yarn.

5) RECOMMENDED USES: What types of uses are appropriate for this type of fleece?

Depending on the preparation, Clun Forest wool is recommended by Jane for “hosiery, flannels, knitting yarns, tweeds, and industrial felts.” The yarn – which is “very bouncy, lofty, and slightly irregular” – can be woven as singles or plied and knitted into “hard-wearing, cushiony socks or gloves.” Jane also notes that felt produced from Clun Forest wool is elastic and quite substantial and would make a good blazer or lightweight jacket.

6) PURCHASE INFORMATION: Where did you purchase this fiber? If possible, provide name and address of vendor, and the price paid.

As previously mentioned, the fiber included in the Breedswap binder is from two lamb fleeces sheared in late summer 2006 on Bets Reedy’s farm. Bets does not typically sell her fleeces directly (I obtained mine through a friend) but rather sells them through her shearer. At the time of this writing, Bets had not yet heard from the shearer how much the lamb fleeces were selling for, though she assured me that the cost for the two I received would likely be around $10. I washed several ounces of the fleece by hand, which is included here as locks, and send the rest to Blackberry Ridge Woolen Mills for cleaning and processing into roving. I have not yet received an invoice (or the completed roving!) from Blackberry Ridge, but expect the cleaning and processing to be approximately $30.

7) RESOURCES: List the resources you used (books, magazines, local experts, websites) you used in compiling your information.

The North American Clun Forest Association website was invaluable in the preparation of this report.

Additional information on the history and characteristics of the breed were also available from The Shepherd’s Journal website breed profile and Oklahoma State’s Department of Animal Science Breeds of Livestock resource.

Technical information about the fiber characteristics was obtained from The American Sheep Industry Association website.

Information on working with Clun Forest fleeces was drawn primarily from Cindy W.’s post on rare breeds on the Yarnspinners Blog and Jane Fournier’s article “Bouncy & Lightweight Clun Forest Yarn” from the Fall 1993 issue of Spin-Off Magazine (reprinted online).

Finished!

2006-11-13T20:25:00.000-06:00

Nope, not the socks or the Tied Up Tee, but my Clun Forest research for the Breedswap. It's not the best scholarly work I've done, but it covers the basics and should be enough to introduce folks to the breed and the fleece and what you can do with it. It really wasn't arduous I just couldn't quite work myself up to sit down and type it up. But I took advantage of an early afternoon escape to get started right after dinner and finished it up and sent it off. I'm not sure if we're allowed to share our research or not (I would hope we can, but I'm not sure of the expectations of the organizers), but if I can, I'll post it here for any who might be interested. Next up for this project: sort the washed bits to pull out 32 decent locks and follow up with Blackberry Ridge on where my roving is.

I also puttered a bit downstairs and moved a bookshelf into the living room by one of the chairs that tends to accumulate my fiber stuff so I'd have a surface on which to store things. It worked wonderfully and looks so much nicer now (but reminded me that I haven't done any spinning lately at all).

Now.. do I kick back and get some knitting done, or go run a bath (sadly without any Lush as I used the last of my stash last week) and luxuriate while I read (for pr'bly about twenty minutes before I start to fall asleep because I was, in a fit of paranoid worry, up almost two hours earlier than normal this morning and unable to fall back asleep)..?

Still on the fence.

2006-11-13T08:32:00.000-06:00

I remeasured the front of the Tied Up Tee again yesterday and compared it to actual measurements of the intended recipient and I think it's close. Still trying to decide how close I want to cut things, especially since I'm not sure if the yarn will stretch or shrink with washing (yes, yes, I need to do swatches and wash them, but swatches are boring).

In the meantime I'm still working on socks. I finished the heel flap on the first Father sock this morning in the car and will likely turn the heel in the car on the way home (assuming it's not too dark .. I hate that I have to wonder about whether it will be too dark to knit in the car at 4:30 p.m.! Maybe that's when I should do swatches..), but as we have no new Netflix movies coming in today, I might not get much more done at home. I still need to get the Clun Forest research written up and sent in (and I also need to call Blackberry Ridge and find out if they got the fleeces.. it worries me that I've heard nothing from them at all; I expected they might not call just to tell me they got the package, but it's been long enough that I'd have hoped they'd have finished the processing and would be contacting me with a price..) and I might force myself to make a decision on the Tied Up Tee so I can get moving on it again.

I also blocked (for limited meanings of the term) the Panobo wrap yesterday. It's an odd piece to block, but it had the desired effect, so it will get packaged and wrapped sometime this week. Mom's coming for Thanksgiving, so I want to have it wrapped before then so she isn't tempted to peek. *smile*

I need to get buttons still for Breezy Cables, and then that one can get packaged and wrapped as well. Still on the fence about what kind of buttons to get, but I still have time to figure that out.

I'd write about other bits, but life is frustrating at the moment, both at work and in areas I volunteer. I keep believing that things will slow down and ease up some soon, but each month that goes by without that happening adds a little more tarnish to that idea. *And* I'm out of cream at work and forgot to get some on the way in this morning. *sigh*

Still alive..

2006-11-09T19:48:00.000-06:00

.. at least for the moment.

I have to admit that my conference wasn't nearly as fun as Cate and Sara's. *pout*

But at least I'm making progress on socks (just not as much as they are.. and not with as good of company). The 2K pair is finished, the Father pair is started.. and after the 2K pair, they seem awfully big and seem to take a lot longer to make progress on. I'm still stuck on the Tied-Up Tee.. no progress, no decision about whether to start over. This is.. sort of okay. For now. I'm almost tempted to make two - I'm pretty sure I'll have enough of the yarn - just in case. But.. yeah.. we'll see.

Is it Sunday already?

2006-11-05T18:44:00.000-06:00

I needed this weekend. I also, perhaps oddly, needed the conference I was at last week. While it was no where near as educational as my first AIR Forum, there were a couple of good sessions that helped me get over hurdles in my own projects. But that's not the reason it was needed. I needed to not be on our campus, to be around other people who knew the larger, broader context of our campus, but who weren't engrossed in it. I needed, in short, a Reality Check(tm). To have that followed immediately by a quiet weekend at home was absolutely ideal.

Yesterday I really couldn't tell you much of what I did other than that I made the Winter Warmer kit that I had. I also made half a spaghetti squash to go with some broiled steaks for dinner. And we watched Snow Falling on Cedars which, aside from some cinematic decisions (e.g., the overlapping voice thing), we well done and timely given recent political events.

Today, we made a sort of miniature Thanksgiving dinner. This isn't really a practice run, though we will be making a full Thanksgiving dinner for our families in a couple weeks. It's more that we had a smallish turkey in the freezer and Jack really, really loves turkey and we had the time to make a more or less real meal so we did. We roasted the turkey, made mashed potatoes, rolls, and gravy. No veggies - there's not really room. *smile* We have left-overs, as expected, and a carcass for stock to add to the small chicken carcass already in the freezer. We have 16 large frozen rolls left to make for Thanksgiving and half a bag of potatoes and a box of stuffing, so we'll just need to pick up the big turkey, some corn & buttercup squash, and the makings for cinnamon rolls (refrigerator biscuits dredged in butter & rolled in cinnamon-sugar and baked in a pie plate until done), and we'll have everything we need for dinner.

I am working away on holiday projects, but having two projects on needles, both with deadlines, is managing to mess me up. I'm a real, honest-to-goodness project knitter. I have a hard time leaving something unfinished if I'm not stuck on it. And while I need to have two projects on needles right now because the Rowan River Tape has *no* give and hurts my hands if I work with it too much, it still messes with me.

All the same, as previously mentioned, I finished the first of the Son Socks last week; I'm now almost to the heel flap on the second.

The ruler is for scale. I've never done little kid socks before, so these seem to be going extraordinarily fast, even on US 1 needles.

The Tied Up Tee is also coming along, but I'm a little concerned that even though I'm getting gauge spot on, it's too small. The first picture below is the front so far more or less "as is", without stretching it too much (it's also more color correct on my monitor). It's coming in at about 16 inches across the bottom, where it should be closer to 19. The second pictures is it stretched a bit, but even there it's only coming in around 17.5 inches. I could stretch it more, but I don't want it to have to be skin tight to fit the intended recipient.

So I'm trying to decide on whether to trust the pattern despite pretty solid reasons to believe it's going to be too small, or to rip out what I have and start over with either a looser gauge or the next larger size (or two). It's worse that I'm not making this for me, but for someone who is several sizes smaller than me - I'm knitting what is supposed to be the size 38, which is what I'm assuming would be roughly equivalent to a women's small/medium shirt, whereas I'd pr'bly make this for me as at least a 48 - so it looks too small to begin with.

I also did most of the research for the Breedswap this weekend. It was due last Monday, so I'm already late, but I think it's going to have to wait another day to get written up and finalized. I don't think it will hurt anything. At the moment, I'm more concerned about not having heard anything from the folks at Blackberry Ridge regarding the fleeces I sent them. I'll have to try to remember to call them tomorrow to follow up.

Q is for quaich

2006-10-29T12:59:00.000-06:00

Here's a health to the company and one to my lass
Let us drink and be merry all out of one glass
Let us drink and be merry, all grief to refrain
For we may and might never all meet here again
- "Health to the Company", traditional

There is a Scottish tradition of greeting and parting wherein the assembled pass a small, lug-handled bowl traditionally filled with a dram of Scotch whisky and each take a sip. It's a tradition that resonated with us when we first learned it, and one we wanted, in some way, to incorporate into our wedding. We discovered that the small bowl was called a quaich, but never managed to find one that was quite right for what we envisioned.

The night before our rehearsal dinner, my personal attendant and close friend Tori arrived to help us pack up and prepare to leave the following day for Ripon. She brought with her two gifts that I treasure to this day. In addition to her likely more traditional tasks for the day, Tori had been charged to be my flask bearer. Her first gift, therefore was a small circular flask filled with 18 year old Glenfiddich. The flask is beautiful and just the right size for carrying with me at events.

Her second gift was for both of us. We opened the small box to discover that she had found and acquired for us a small silver quaich. The knotwork on the quaich is reminiscent of the knotwork on my flask and also of the knotwork on our wedding bands. It was probably one of the most meaningful gifts we received.

Our quaich was passed the evening of our wedding among our wedding party and close friends & family. It has appeared on other occassions in the last four years when our more far flung friends are reunited. It is a symbol not only of the love we bear each other but also of the love we are surrounded by from our friends and family.

S is for..

2006-10-29T12:54:00.000-06:00

.. seaming..

.. lots and lots of seaming. And weaving in of ends. But I think it looks wonderful and if it stretches a bit in blocking/washing, that's just fine because it's just a smidge too small. Just a wee. little. smidge.

Still needs buttons, but I haven't decided what buttons to use. In all honesty.. I haven't even looked for buttons yet. Sort of forgot about that part. I'm thinking they need to be something.. not metal. I just don't think metal will go well with this style & color. Wooden toggles come to mind, but that seems.. cliche'. But there's a more or less decent selection of them at Patternworks, so maybe.

.. and for socks! (Yeah.. it's Socktoberfest.. but I wasn't playing that fun little game, so they don't have to be finished. Yet.)

The pictures's a bit out of date.. that one's finished now and the second is started. I also started the next holiday garment but it's not very exciting yet (well, that and I need to charge the batteries for my camera), so I'll wait to post pictures. I will say, though, that a skein of Rowan River Tape goes a long way! I'm about five inches into the front of a sweater and still on my first skein.

R is for ..

2006-10-25T09:31:00.000-06:00

Repaired!

The Back Story:
Some time ago, I discovered a hole smack in the middle of my Birch. I examined it thoroughly and couldn't seem to find a broken thread, which leaves me to believe the fuzz on the Kid Silk Haze caught a stitch well enough to hold it through blocking and the first several times I wore it, but eventually unstuck. I dilemma'd about it for awhile, trying to figure out how to fix it without it being *really* noticeable.

This morning I wanted to wear my grey skirt and Brioche Bodice and none of my little sweaters that I wear over the top of such things in the winter were clean (actually, one was clean, but not dry). So I dug around in the Box of Leftover Bits(tm) and found the little stash of KSH I stuck in there and determined to fix my Birch in the car so I could wear it today.

And I did. And it worked. (I can still tell where the repair is because the patterns jogs just a little where I couldn't figure out which strand was the right one to weave up through, but I can admittedly only tell when I look for it.) *smile* And I've forgotten just how well something so gauzey and delicate can keep you snuggly warm (of course, it also helps that I have my elbow length arm warmers on, too).

Of course, until this morning, this post was almost R is for RIP, as in rip out your knitting, as in Rest In Peace little sock:

I made it this weekend and only when I finished the foot did I realize that it would be *way* to small for its intended recipient. It's be reborn (Aha! R is also for Rebirth!) as a larger sock now:

Hrm.. I dont' think there's a way I can work this next one into the R theme, but thought I'd post a progress pic of Breezy Cables. This is the first sleeve, finished, but unblocked:

The second sleeve is also just a little more than half finished, so I'm not *too* far behind schedule!

I'm shocked, shocked to find that knitting is going on in here!

2006-10-20T13:43:00.001-06:00

Surprising, isn't it!

Nonetheless, I am still making steady progress on the Breezy Cables cardigan. I'm still worried it will stretch, but I think if I'm careful when blocking it (or maybe I should just wash & dry it? It's superwash wool.) it'll be okay.

Updated pictures:

The completed, unblocked back. The light in this one is funny; sorry about that! It doesn't really have any color shading issues, I promise!

I'm a little annoyed at the decreasing for the arms in the back and how they messed up the 9-stitch cable pattern on the sides, because I couldn't figure out a way maintain even a smaller cable up the side with the stitches that were left because of the ribbing in the cable. I doubt it'll be that noticeable in the finished sweater, but it annoyed me all the same.

These are the two front pieces. This sweater has a shawl collar that I think turned out kind of neat so far. The right side (as you're looking at it) has the collar bit folded back so you can see what it will look like when finished, and the left side has it open so you can see the actual dimension of the piece. When I attach the front to the back, I'll pick up the collar stitches and continue it around the back of the neck.

This pattern called for a new-to-me buttonhole technique *and* a new-to-me pocket technique. I liked them both, but will pr'bly use the buttonhole technique more often. It's the 3-stitch buttonhole that's in the back of the Spring 2006 Interweave Knits (it may be in all of them; I haven't checked) and I like it because the buttonhole is done all in one row - no binding off and casting on on the next row, which always looks a little sloppy to me. I still need to sew the pockets to the back and add the little bit of ribbing that will finish them on the front, but you get the general idea here.

Sara will also be happy to know that I've rectified the "no sock yarn" problem in my stash:

The Essentials Solids are all for gift socks. I'm trying to decide on a pattern for the pink pair and might try to do toe-up socks with it. The others are as yet unplanned; I really love pansies, and the Memories Redwood Forest colorway is one I really like, so they're likely to be for me. I'll be really odd to go back to smaller needles after working on Breezy Cables, though! I still have two other holiday projects that will be non-socks, though, so I'll pr'bly switch between those and the socks for awhile.

I'm also going to be participating in a sock knitting project for largesse in the SCA. Liz has organized a bunch of us to knit pairs of socks from Folk Socks (the ones with the clocks - I haven't seen the pattern yet, though) and I'm looking forward to working them. I've periodically contemplated working on one of the period stocking patterns with clocks in them, I've never quite actually made it that far. I'm hoping this project will nudge me enough to actually get them started.

I still need to start the research I need to do for the Breed Swap project, but I have to be on campus late every day next week, so I'll pr'bly be able to run out to the library during the day a couple days to get most of it taken care of. Although I think I have to track down a copy of In Sheep's Clothing through interlibrary loan or universal browsing since our library doesn't appear to have it.

And I have the first package ready to go for my Secret Pal, so I'm excited to get that out. I do hope she likes it!

Neuroses.

2006-10-12T20:42:00.000-06:00

For a little dog, she has some bit neuroses.

She has abandonment issues. Which is understandable; she was abandoned, pregnant as far as we could tell, in the wilds of Mississippi when she was about 3. By the time she was caught, by the ranger at the summer camp I was working at, she'd whelped the litter and we can only assume none survived. She was malnourished (because scavenging garbage doesn't really make for nutritious eating) and rather pathetic, but still savvy enough to wag her little tail at the sucker who walked around the corner. *smile*

But yes, neurotic. At it's worst - when we move - it's quite obvious that she's panicked. But even when it's not so bad, it's .. bad. Like if either one of us starts to pack, for a day or a week. She *hates* when a bag or a suitcase comes out. She *knows* at least one of us is leaving. Leaving her. Alone.

There are times when it's unavoidable - I'll have to pack a suitcase for a week away. I'll put it off as long as possible so that she's not traumatized quite so long, but it's always miserable. She doesn't do anything bad. She just.. looks at you with those big brown eyes that look like she's going to cry at any minute (except that she's a dog and can't cry) and sits there. Miserable.

And it's no better when she gets to come with us because we can't explain to her that yes, we're packing, but it's okay, because we aren't going to leave without her. Until we start to pack *her* things, she doesn't understand. (And once we start to pack her things, she gets so terribly excited that we have to wait until just before we're leaving to do it or she'll drive us nuts or kill herself from anticipation.)

We've learned some tricks - like letting her out the back door and then hustling out the front door with bags that we've surreptitiously managed to get packed and loading them into the car. Or distracting her when it's just one of us leaving with a Kong full of peanut butter.

But sometimes, no distraction is readily available, so we.. wait. And wait. And wait some more. And finally the morning we're supposed to leave, we run around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to pack at the last minute. And remember that we need socks and toothbrushes and shoes and where's my belt?

All because the little dog with the big neuroses has also claimed our hearts.

Tangents.

2006-10-06T08:18:00.000-06:00

More on the Foley thing, specifically on what the deal really is (or maybe isn't) instead of what his political cronies are trying to make it.

It's not about pedophilia. Foley's alledged crime is a violation of the Adam Walsh Child Protection& Safety Act of 2006 - ironically, legislation he sponsored - specifically the increased protections against using the internet prey on children. Cut from The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 (PDF):
"(7) EXPANSION OF DEFINITION OF ‘‘SPECIFIED OFFENSE AGAINST A MINOR’’ TO INCLUDE ALL OFFENSES BY CHILD PREDATORS.—The term ‘‘specified offense against a minor’’ means an offense against a minor that involves any of the following:
{snip}
(H) Criminal sexual conduct involving a minor, or the use of the Internet to facilitate or attempt such conduct."
His alleged misconduct has nothing to do with pedophilia; it's because he used the Internet to attempt to facilitate potentially criminal sexual conduct with a minor. There's not been, to my knowledge, any accusation that he actually *succeeded* in facilitating such contact, just that he attempted to arrange it. A secual predator he may be; a confirmed pedophile.. at least not yet.
It has nothing to do with his homosexuality. You'll note that the text above does not mention anything about the gender of either predator or prey. And no, there's NO empirical research out there that "proves" homosexual or bisexual men are more likely to engage in child sexual molestation or abuse.
It's also got nothing to do with age of consent in DC - which is 16. The above-mentioned act also defines "minor" as follows:
"(14) MINOR.—The term ‘‘minor’’ means an individual who has not attained the age of 18 years."
I don't think I can even come up with a suitably scathing comment related to the "gay cabal" theory.. McCarthyism, anyone? All I can say is that I can't wait for this one to back fire because .. well.. doesn't it seem odd that the party that's so opposed to homosexuals has so many of them in their employ? Do you think all those voters out there who stand tall in their superiority are going to think this is a good strategy to detract attention from the sexual predator part of this story..? Which do you think they think is worse..?

Cate is better at finding words to express her outrage on this one than I am. She's also more active in the fight to effect who our political leaders will be in the future, and she even gives you a link so you can be, too. (And there's a picture of cute kids, to boot!)

That all said, on a different tangent, it's reassuring to know that in the midst of all this, parents still love their children, even if they're bisexual. This was the story I needed this morning to reaffirm that this country isn't really full of bigots and hate-mongerers (if that's even a word..). A daddy's love is a strong thing, even if it's not your daddy.

Did he really just say that?

2006-10-05T10:22:00.000-06:00

Excerpt from an interview on All Things Considered aired October 4, 2006:

Paul Weyrich, chairman & CEO, Free Congress Foundation: "Here is the real problem: It has been known for many years that Congressman Foley was a homosexual. Homosexuals tend to be preoccupied with sex. The idea that he should be continued .. or should have been continued as Chairman of the Committee of Missing & Exploited Children is - you know, given their knowledge of that - is just outrageous."

Michele Norris: "Now before you go on, I think I can say Mr. Weyrich, that there are a few people who would take exception to the statement that homosexuals are preoccupied with sex."

Weyrich: "Well, I don't care whether they take exception to it; it happens to be true. I mean, uh.."

Norris: "That is your opinion.."

Weyrich: "Well it's not my opinion, it's the opinion of many psychologists & psychiatrists that have to deal with them."

Outrage doesn't even begin to express..

It's Wednesday, right?

2006-10-04T10:34:00.000-06:00

Huh. That means I don't need to come up with a clever title because Wednesdays are random.

I was reading (skimming, really) some of my blog list this morning and caught the phrase "daily allotted knitting time". I sort of miss that. I usually knit in the car on our commute (we carpool) but sometimes, more lately, if we're talking or something or it's getting dark I don't bother to get it out. This is at least partially due to the current project having so many cables that it requires some concentration. Which just means I need to ply the merino that's on my drop spindle so I can start the socks I want to make with it. Because (a) socks are more or less mindless, and (b) it's Socktoberfest or something. Oh, and because (c) I don't have any sock yarn in my stash.

Water aerobics is good for me. I think in addition to the obvious, it's also forcing my back to loosen up, which should make my next chiropractor appointment better.

My drum arrives tomorrow. I'm pretty stoked about it. I'm told it will arrive unassembled, though, and that our Lovely Instructor(tm) will need to keep it for a few days to stretch the heads and tie them down, but at least it'll finally be stateside.

I've been brewing lately. I think that's escaped mention here. But I have two gallons of cider started, a gallon of Concord grape & mixed berry wine, and 5 gallons of Scottish 80. The cider and wine will need to be racked in another week or so and the beer will get bottled possibly as early as this weekend. I also have a kit for Winter Warmer that I'll pr'bly start in the next week or two.

October..

2006-10-03T11:05:00.000-06:00

.. is Domestic Violence Awareness month. A lot more people in the small town of Granger, MN are aware of it after this weekend. If you live in the U.S., this month would be a good one to start using the Stop Family Violence stamps. They're $0.45 each - $0.39 to cover first class letter postage and $0.06 as a donation.

It's also Breast Cancer Awareness month. And, again, if you live in the U.S., you can get Breast Cancer Awareness stamps. No matter where you live, you can go to the Breast Cancer Site and click daily to fund mammograms for women who may not otherwise be able to get them.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
Edmund Burke, Irish orator, philosopher, & politician (1729 - 1797)

Secret Pal 9 Questionnaire

2006-10-01T12:11:00.000-06:00

In some ways, I hate filling these things out for fear of sounding too picky. I'm generally not, I promise. On the other hand, I have a hard time picking things out for someone I've never met and would rather they give me lots of hints and clues about likes and dislikes so I have some guidance. So, I try to balance the two. Hopefully it works.

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?

It depends on the day and the project. I tend to prefer natural fibers - wool, cotton, alpaca, llama - but I also like the look of ribbon yarns. I don't like novelty / fun fur / ladder-type yarns and I think at this point the only of the mainstream acrylics that I would use routinely would be Caron Simply Soft - which I really am fond of for easy-care stuff or folks who are allergic to animal fibers. I'd be interested in trying soy or bamboo or linen, blended or straight up. I'm not allergic to any yarn that I know of. I like hand-dyed yarns, but am not terribly fond of the self-patterning "fair-isle" yarns.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?

The packages they come in, usually. I prefer bamboo and usually get Clover needles, so the sleeves work well for storing needles. They're also portable, so if I finish a project in the car (I have an hour long daily round trip commute and usually carpool with my husband who prefers to drive), I can just slide the needles back in the sleeve and not worry about breaking or losing them in transit.

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced?

I've been knitting for 7 or 8 years, I think. I learned from a good friend initially and have been self-taught for the most part since then. In case it matters, I knit continental. I think I'd consider myself an advanced intermediate - I've done most techniques except for entrelac I think, but haven't done *a lot* of stuff like Fair Isle.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?

Yup. Both. Links are on the sidebar. With the holiday season approaching, I try to keep them updated as my family uses Wishlist.com wishlists pretty extensively in holiday gift shopping.

5. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products, etc.)

That's sort of a tough one. I like lots of scents as long as they aren't cloyingly sweet or way too overpowering (patchouli in most things is too overpowering for me, for instance). Most anything (well.. maybe not *anything* - some of them are a bit too much) from Lush is okay, as are most things from places like Bath & Body Works or whatever that other one is that I can't remember the name of right now. I like citrusy shower stuff, but calmer smells for things like bubble bath/bath bombs. I have long, very fine hair, so I don't use heavy shampoos or conditioners (in fact, most of the time I'll skip conditioner unless my hair is really staticky or snarled). I don't wear scents usually, but some scented lotion is okay; for me, though, the lotion is the main part, and the scent is secondary - I dislike lotions that feel greasy or leave a film on your skin.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy?

I guess so. I'm not a huge chocolate fan - I like chocolate in things, but not usually a lot of chocolate all on it's own. Chocolate bars and the like are good - I can eat them in pieces and savor them - but things like chocolate chocolate truffles tend to be too overwhelming. I'm also not a huge fan of raw honey or maple. I *love* caramel and English toffee, though. And chocolate with mint.

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin?

Lots. *grin* For fiber crafts, I am a beginning spinner (drop spindle; no wheel (yet?)), and I do tablet weaving, bobbin lace, lucet cording and a handful of other crafts from time to time. Mostly, though, I knit and spin if I'm working with fiber. I also dabble in brewing and vintning, book binding and, when I have studio space, pottery. I do NOT crochet - I've never really been able to get into the flow of it, but I know how to do it well enough to do edgings and the like on knit garments, or to start a provisional cast-on.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)

I tend to like more acoustic, folk-y sort of stuff, but that can vary. Common artists that come up in my iTunes (yes, I can play MP3s) include the Indigo Girls, Cowboy Junkies, KT Tunstall, Billy Joel, Loreena McKennit, etc. I also like some of the "jam bands" - the Dead, Blues Traveller, some Phish, etc. Oh, and jazz and blues standards - Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Chet Baker, etc. Feel free to surprise me, though; I like finding new good music, too.

9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand?

I tend toward earth tones and jewel tones - deep, rich colors. I don't usually wear oranges or yellows except in socks - anything goes for socks! I'm not a big pastel person.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?

I'm married to my male partner and we have one dog, Jali, who is about 13 years old. I don't knit for Jali - she doesn't wear doggie clothes and would eat any sort of toy that I might make for her.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?

Sometimes? I wear scarves in winter, and a hat if my husband bugs me enough. I have a hard time finding hats that I think look good on me, but have toyed on occassion with the idea of making a fulled bucket hat or cloche hat. Mittens and gloves are pretty much a necessity in the upper Midwest in winter. Not big on ponchos, but I have a couple of lace wraps/shawls/stoles that I wear and a couple of wool cloaks for autumn/spring wear.

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?

Depends on the day. I'm a project knitter - I buy yarn to make specific things. I have a hard time buying yarn if I don't have a project for it in mind; I'm afraid to buy too little of something and then not be able to use it, I guess. I like socks for smaller projects, especially with luscious yarns that are too spendy for larger projects. I don't really have a stash, per se - more just the bits and pieces of yarns left over from previous projects and the yarn I need and know I'll use for several planned projects. That said, I'm not opposed to the idea of a stash, I just have a hard time buying yarn without knowing what it will be used for (or, in some cases, who - my husband, mom, and father-in-law are allergic to animal fibers).

Hrm.. that didn't really answer the question, but I guess I'm not sure how else to answer it.

13. What are you knitting right now?

Holiday gifts. *smile* I'm working on the Breezy Cables cardigan out of Knit Picks Swish Superwash and have plans to make the Tied-Up tee (pattern from White Lies Designs) with some Rowan River Tape, and another top in Knit Picks Shine Worsted. I've got plans for some socks - some out of my own handspun and some out of pr'bly Reynolds Whiskey, but I'm haven't decided that for sure. I've also started a cardigan kit from Blackberry Ridge Woolen Mills that my sister got me for the holidays last year, but it's on hold while I work on the holiday gift knitting for now. I recently finished Rogue - which I love.

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?

Yup. Stuff that hangs on the wall is usually better than stuff that needs shelf space in terms of artistic pieces. Otherwise, soaps, candles, baked goods, cocoa mixes, music mixes, socks, homespun yarn, whatever, are all good.

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?

Circs or DPNs. Bamboo. Metal straights or DPNs tend to make my hands hurt, but are okay in circs. I really don't knit anything on straights anymore, though; Circs are usually more portable and easier on my wrists even for flat knitting.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift?

I have a yarn winder, but not a swift. I've found that one of the folding chairs my dad made some time back works really well in place of a swift for most skeined yarn.

17. How old is your oldest UFO?

Uh.. not very? See above - project knitter. *smile* At this point, my oldest UFO is pr'bly the Blackberry Ridge sweater, which I started over Labor Day. Before that, Rogue would have been the oldest, but even that was just started this spring and I finished it in September.

18. What is your favorite holiday?

Pr'bly Thanksgiving. It's usually less stressful than Christmas, but we still get to see all our family. Autumn is my favorite season, so that helps, too.

19. Is there anything that you collect?

Nothing that paricularly comes to mind. Fun little toys, maybe. I have a small collection sitting on my desk at work - things like a little Lego(tm) trebuchet.

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?

Hrm.. if there are, they'll be on my Wishlist. Small size DPNS (like the multiple 0 sizes) are about the only thing that come to mind, and those I'm not really *dying* for, but am interested to try. I subscribe to Interweave Knits.

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn?

Mmm.. not really. I'd like to do more Fair Isle with finer yarns, or maybe some small gauge stockings in silk or finely spun wool.

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements?

Yup. I wear a women's 8.5 or 9 shoe, wide, and usually socks knit to a pattern's medium or large will fit well enough. I prefer taller socks (I wear them under calf-height boots in the winter). I'd give you more precise measurements, but I managed to lose my sewing tape measure sometime in early September and haven't had a chance to replace it.

23. When is your birthday? (mm/dd)

12/13.

I still have a moose.

2006-10-01T10:42:00.000-06:00

I've never been good at remembering anniversaries. *shrug* But all the same, happy belated "gotcha" day* to Wilcoxon.

I promised a few pattern repeats ago to post pictures of Breezy Cables.. yeah.. here it is as of yesterday morning.

The detail picture is a little more color accurate on my monitor; the first one glows a bit too much! Progress is going pretty well on it. I haven't had as much knitting time as I'd have hoped lately, but I'm hoping things will calm down some again in another little bit. I'm another repeat or so along and about to start decreasing for the armholes on the back now.

I'm pretty concerned about this one stretching out a lot when it's washed though. It's superwash wool, so I think it will be okay, but it just feels.. loose to me. And the last time I knit something that felt this loose, it ended up about 4 sizes too big after washing. That one was made with an acrylic yarn, though, so I'm sort of hoping the superwash wool will hold up better and that even though it's superwash, washing it in warm water will tighten it up if it starts to stretch. (And yes, I know I could wash a swatch, but I've found with sweaters they don't really stretch out until they're all done and the full weight is there. But, I have to wash a swatch of the Cotton Fleece soon anyway so I know how it the item I knit from it will behave in the wash, so maybe I'll do it anyway..)

And I decided to order the Tied-Up tee pattern from White Lies Designs to see if I'll like it well enough in person with the ribbon yarn. If not, I imagine I can find another yarn to use with it as it's something I'll make anyway.

I'm trying to figure out if I need to start setting deadlines for the holiday knitting. I need to finish Breezy Cables, the Tied-Up tee, and another full top, in addition to a couple pair of socks. I'm on track to finish Breezy Cables by mid-month, hopefully. The socks are good little projects and I'm not worried about them. I'm guessing I can finish the Tied-Up tee by Thanksgiving and then have almost a month for the last one, so assuming that all stays on approximate schedule, I shouldn't have to worry too much.

Oh, and I'm contemplating participating in a Breed Swap that someone on the Spindler's list is organizing. I have enough of the Clun Forest lambs wool to do it, and I think that even though it'd be nice to have all that fleece to myself, it would also totally rock to have the reference book that participants will get. The reference book will have a page or two of information on each breed, a sample of a washed lock, an ounce of spinnable fiber, and a yard of preferrably two-ply yarn, for up to 32 breeds. Given that I don't know much about sheep breeds, I'm thinking that for a relatively small investment, I'd get quite an excellent resource in return. But it means I'd have to do some research on Clun Forest for the reference book before the end of October and given our schedule.. yeah.. that might be tight. I need to email the organizer back and find out how much is expected for the research part - and whether I can quote from applicable web sites and books extensively (properly attributed, of course) - or if they want more of a "hands on" type of description of how the wool works up. And I need to ship the fleece off to Blackberry Ridge to have them clean and process it into something spinnable sooner rather than later (the stuff I washed will be what I'll use for the locks part of the book).

Coming up next.. my SP9 questionnaire!

* A "gotcha" day is a day one of my friends celebrates with her adopted daughter. They celebrate her birthday, but also the day that she came to live with her mom. I think it's an awesome term for this - much less heavy and informal and fun than "Adoption Day" or something like that. And while it's not really quite the same with Wilcoxon, who is, after all, a stuffed moose, it still works.

Bits.

2006-09-24T18:39:00.000-06:00

My feet hurt. I think that the new running shoes I got yesterday need some more arch support. I knew that the two new pair of boots I got would need it and suspected the running shoes would as well, but a day spent walking around Cranfest in them pretty much confirmed it.

I have just over 4 pounds of Clun Forest lambs wool. I'll be sending it to Blackberry Ridge later this week so they can clean it and process it into roving. I decided that while I am capable of cleaning it myself, I currently have no means to comb or card it myself. For this batch it will be cheaper to send it to them for processing - $14.35 for the cleaning and pr'bly about that much for processing - than to purchase stuff to process it on my own, and it will be far faster.

Speaking of wool, I also picked up 4 ounces of a pumpkin heather wool roving at Cranfest. So.. yeah.. I'm getting quite the fiber stash. I have 3 pounds of merino roving, the aforementioned Clun Forest, and then this little bit, which should keep me busy for awhile. *smile* Oh, and the grey merino is almost finished. I weighed the first little skein and it's only 41 grams, so this next skein will be a bit bigger.

Hrm.. it's been awhile, hasn't it? Mom's Panobo is finished but-for blocking and weaving in the ends. I started working on the Breezy Cables cardigan for Judy this weekend and it's coming along nicely. I'm about two skeins and two and a half pattern repeats into the back. When I started it I was initially concerned that it was going to be futzy with all the little 1/1 cables and the monstrous 3/4 cables, but it's turned out to be pretty easily memorized and not really all that futzy, especially since I'm not doing the bobbles (hate bobbles.. both knitting them and how they look). I'll try to get pictures once it gets light out tomorrow.