The Independent Stitch

Starting up some mittens, and a dog sleeps on Pendleton

This is a quick post I started before catching a flight out of town for the holidays.

In the last mail delivery before departure, I received from Colorjoy! LynnH a packet that contained these delights:

Some raspberry-colored wool yarn and Lynn's "toe-up" (otherwise known as "tip-down") mittens pattern.

The combination is 100% perfect for the situation I found myself in: had just completed a project, about to be traveling with carry-on, in need of very warm mittens, and without a lot of time or patience for swatching.

The mittens require no gauge swatch. They start from a small square of stitches, which was enough for me to determine whether the heft of the fabric would meet my needs. Lynn's teaching experience shows in the clarity of her instructions, and guesswork didn't need to be in the nonexistent schedule.

I decided on a tight gauge, hopefully pretty windproof because of the crispy weather we've been having, and ran out the door with trip knitting in progress.

MANY thanks, Lynn!

The biggest problem with traveling on holidays is leaving half the family at home. Here's Ariel, sleeping on a rag rug I wove many years ago from Pendleton woolen mill rag strips:

I have at least four of these rugs. I bought the strips in Poulsbo, Washington, not far from where we are now. The rugs have traveled from there to New England to Colorado. They make a nice cushion for a fourteen-year-old dog on the basement concrete floor of my office.

The dogs like the kennel (although Tussah always forgets to eat, so she comes back skinnier than she left). But it's good to get them back again. We need to plan our departure and arrival times around the kennel's open hours.

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Here in Seattle we have seen more snow than we left in Colorado. We'd been here a day before we got to see my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. The shuttles from the airport weren't traveling into the neighborhoods (too risky) so we had to take a cab to my mother's, and when the cab driver pulled into her area we told him to let us off at the foot of the hill and we'd walk the rest of the way. He was visibly relieved.

Most of the snow is gone now, and we made an excursion downtown to the Seattle Art Museum yesterday. We saw two primary exhibits. 

One contained ten paintings and a handful of etchings by Edward Hopper. I hadn't seen any of these works; the paintings in particular were lovely, with his amazing color work and treatment of light. 

The other exhibit, called "S'abadeb—The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Art and Artists," filled five rooms. There was one old-style Cowichan sweater, at about five stitches to the inch (20/10cm). No, I didn't measure the gauge; nor could I see the back of a rug that looked knitted rather than twined, although only more time, and ideally a look at the reverse side, would have answered my questions. Much exquisite work in many media.

Vest progress! and more inventory calculations

Knitting

Okay! The vest is coming along. This is the one from Ann McCauley's new Together or Separate, which Ann made in a nice white. The light doesn't show the yarn well in this photo, but I love the drama of the sunbeams and shadows. Even though this is predominantly ribbing, I've blocked it out pretty hard. It'll spring back: the yarn is Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride, and it will spring back. . . .

It's uncharacteristic of me, but I think I have made almost no modifications in this pattern. (Oh. Except for knitting all the pieces back-and-forth in one, instead of as separate fronts and back.)

Inventory

The software here burped a few weeks ago and lost all my inventory files, five years' worth. I've been working on reestablishing at least this year's inventory counts, from 12/31/07 forward. The rest is kind of history, but we're heading toward the end of the year and some of my taxes are based on the amount of inventory I have. I avoided all businesses involving inventory for a very long time, but I like books too much and ended up publishing some and here I am, working on inventory counts.

I put the relevant papers into colorful folders to make the task less onerous. Can you imagine if they were gray?

This is challenging enough work even when there are yellow folders involved.

One of my major sales channels changed its software this year (a huge deal, which went amazingly smoothly) and the numbers from the new and old systems don't agree with each other. Sigh. (Maybe it didn't go quite as smoothly as it appeared to.)

Isn't publishing an exciting career choice? Although I'm not at all sure I chose it. I think it came and bushwhacked me.

One of today's headlines, and miscellany

I'm still tracking down inventory variances in the publishing software. That's boring. So we move to these digressions and diversions. . . .  Not because I "need" to put up a post (I'll never release a post unless I feel like writing it), but because I find these items interesting and my daughter said "yes, share them."

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Odd news

One of the headlines in today's local newspaper reads:

44 marijuana plants seized, 3 arrested in Broomfield

What I want to know is why, if they seized 44 plants, only 3 were arrested? Insufficient evidence of crimes committed by the other 41? (It's an AP story from Boulder, but a local headline; other news sources have the story with less ambiguous headers.)

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Political language use

Along similar lines, if you care about language and missed the Borowitz Report piece "Obama's Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy," you might enjoy it.

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The marketing of jewelry

I came across (through Twitter) a YouTube presentation by Sarah Haskins on advertising and women (specifically jewelry) that everyone who lives in this house found amusing.

Ellen Goodman's column today elaborates on the theme of jewelry and values. I don't know how long this link at the Boston Globe will be available; the column may be posted later on Goodman's website, although it isn't there now.

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A place to connect with creative ideas: Bas Bleu Theatre

Yesterday I went to a presentation at Bas Bleu Theatre on the collaborative process through which a new musical—or, more precisely, a play with original musical numbers—gets made. The topic was A 1940s Radio Christmas Carol, written and directed by Walton Jones, with original songs by David Wohl and Faye Greenberg. Jones, Wohl, and Greenberg all spoke, along with Wendy Ishii, founder of Bas Bleu and producer of the show. Even better than "spoke," actually. They had an informal discussion among themselves that opened up to include the other folks in the room, a rich mix of community members, actors, and other professional and amateur theater people.

Walt Jones, the playwright and the director of this run, is local, because he's now the director of the Colorado State University Theatre program. He wrote the extremely successful The 1940s Radio Hour, and has been asked frequently for a sequel. That's the project through which A 1940s Radio Christmas Carol is coming into being.

The show's first incarnation was presented last year at Bas Bleu, despite the fact that Jones almost died as it went into rehearsal (he's well again). Through fall 2007, I saw the first reading, a tech rehearsal, and the show itself. It was superbly presented, although I noted in particular a few points of emotional trajectory that needed adjusting; it was a delight, carried by a good concept and exceptional collaborative skills from everyone involved. Because "the show must go on," it did—with great success. The show sold out and added extra performances. Denver Post theater critic John Moore wrote an excellent assessment of the 2007 iteration; some of his observations influenced the shifts in the play between 2007 and 2008. Moore is the sort of critic who can help a theater community grow and deepen.

This year I just saw a single scheduled performance: the play has changed a lot! Setting has shifted a few miles west, a handful of original songs have been added (I'm especially fond of "Newark"), characters have been added, subtracted, and adjusted. It hasn't undergone a mild tweaking but a complete re-visioning. It's far more emotionally balanced, with more depth to the characters (although I still miss Niccole Carner in her role last year as Judy Davenport). John Moore once again offers his perspective, now on the 2008 version of the play.

David Wohl, the composer, also lives in this area. He is the play's music director and one of its actors as well. He's received nine ASCAP Awards for music he's composed for TV, film, multimedia, and theater.

Faye Greenberg, the lyricist, lives in LA, so she and Walt and David worked long distance. She usually collaborates with her husband, David Lawrence, but takes on other projects when they appeal to her and her schedule permits. Among other things, she's written lyrics for High School Musical and High School Musical 2. 

Wendy Ishii is the founder and one of the prime moving forces in sustaining and growing our delightful Bas Bleu Theatre, which is big enough to be professional and small enough to be intimate.

As was yesterday's discussion. There aren't many places where I could choose to spent a Saturday afternoon in a conversation about the creative process with a collection of people of this caliber. One of the things they all mentioned was how safe a creative environment has been created in and around Bas Bleu: where the people who come together as collaborators, even including, in the periphery, the reviewers, are all focused not on political or personal agendas but on making the completed project as good as it can possibly be.

A number of years ago, when Bas Bleu was in its original 49-seat space (the current space seats 99), I had a less diverse but equally enjoyable view of Bas Bleu's nurturing of Molly Lyons' A Most Notorious Woman during its world premiere. I was so taken with the play that I saw it no less than four times. (Once is usually enough for me, whether book, play, or movie.)

I spend a lot of time working. I'm grateful to Bas Bleu for regularly getting me out of the basement and in touch with an amazing array of talented people since 1992. Yes, I have season tickets. No matter how lean the budget, I sign up at the end of each summer and know I'll be well rewarded for an entire year because of the minor investment. That doesn't cover everything Bas Bleu does, but it covers a whole lot. Averaged out, it runs me a little over $2 a week. Wow.

Local, top quality, and affordable: hitting all the notes in harmony.

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Now I return to my unscheduled but extremely necessary and tedious spreadsheets.

I get to knit more on the vest tonight while we watch a recorded movie version of Front of the Class with friends. An unusually high percentage of the viewers in the room will have personal experience with Tourette syndrome, so I expect the chat will be interesting.

The vest proceeds, as does converting some book-layout files

Progress on the vest

Again, I'm starting with the fiber. Fiber is keeping my navigational aids working while I sail through the Sargasso Sea of computer preoccupations. This photo was taken shortly before I began the shaping for the armholes.

The vest is bigger than it looks. Oh, a modification: I get bored with seaming, and I like everything to match up perfectly without more counting than is absolutely necessary, so I'm working the body all in one piece. I'm knitting back and forth on a circular needle. I shifted from bamboo (which I owned) to Addi Turbo (had to go buy another one) in order to make quicker progress. The vest is folded over on itself to fit on the drawing board that I used for a background.

And it occurred to me, as I caught sight of some Coopworth samples hanging on the doorknob in the bathroom, that the singles Coopworth closely resembles the Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride I'm knitting with. (Coopworth isn't a rare breed. I play with it anyway.)

No reason for that. Just an amusement. And an excuse to take a snapshot of some more yarn. Yarn is good. I think the browns are lovely—the Coopworth and the Brown Sheep version, too.

Converting book-layout files

If you don't keep your book files current in your software and on your computer, you can lose the work: lose access to fonts, misplace images, replace a computer and then discover that the files for an old title were on it. Converting files isn't something I have time to do unless I have a compelling reason. I have several right now, including the imminent shift to a different platform (PC to Mac). The completed books will stay on the PC platform, at least until I can afford to replace all the PC-specific fonts with their Mac equivalents (which may not happen), so I need to know that I have complete, updated files for all of them.

Converting is not a no-brainer. For example, here's a page from Knitting in the Old Way after conversion:

I've added the red circles. Those represent bits of type that were perfectly fine in the original files and that disappeared when I just OPENED the file in a later version of the software. I have to go locate and fix every one of them. (One of the features in later versions of InDesign makes it easier to locate these instances, which are called "overset type," because the words "overset" the frame that holds them. I don't have that feature yet.)

When I'm done, the page looks like it should again:

That's better.

By the way, the blue lines are guides that I use to lay out the pages. They obviously don't show in the finished books. It was interesting to see how I put the older books together. I have learned some things since then and now build my books differently, although for a neophyte I did pretty well. As I did the conversions, I had to simply observe and keep going, because completely revamping the books was neither necessary nor appropriate.

I had to do this sort of checking-up and fixing on:

• 176 pages of Ethnic Knitting Discovery: The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and The Andes, by Donna Druchunas
• 112 pages of Simple Socks, Plain and Fancy, by Priscilla A. Gibson-Roberts
• 192 pages of Arctic Lace: Knitting Projects and Stories Inspired by Alaska's Native Knitters, by Donna Druchunas
• 312 pages of Knitting in the Old Way: Designs and Techniques from Ethnic Sweaters, by Priscilla A. Gibson-Roberts and Deborah Robson

I'd already done Spinning in the Old Way, by Priscilla A. Gibson-Roberts, a few months ago.

Knitting in the Old Way needed the most adjusting, because it's the longest of the books and has the most complex layout. It was also (go figure) the first book on which I ever did production all by myself, start to finish.

I read this book as soon as it was released, when I was in the middle of that job:

It's Real World Adobe InDesign 2: Industrial-Strength Page-Layout Techniques, by Olav Martin Kvern and David Blatner. The release was delayed slightly, and I counted every day until it arrived on my doorstep (I pre-ordered). It contains much more information than I have mastered, of course, although it gave me an idea of what types of questions to ask and what types of solutions to look for.

It weighs 2 pounds 5 ounces (1.04kg) for its 650 pages. Comparing paperback to paperback, Knitting in the Old Way came in at 1 pound 11 ounces (765g) for its 312 pages. They're both a lot of book. And there's still a whole heap I don't know about the layout software, which is even more complex now, three versions later (that was InDesign 2, which has been followed by CS, CS2, CS3, and, a very short while ago, CS4).

As soon as the CS4 edition of the same book comes out, I'll be hunting it down (I see it's scheduled for early February 2009). I get every other upgrade of the software, enough to keep me current with the technological requirements of the people I work with, so I've been using CS2 for a couple of years and I'm due for CS4, which will also involve the cross-platform transfer to Mac. CS4 has a number of features intended to make working with long documents easier. I inhabit a world of long documents.

I also like, and buy, Sandee Cohen's Visual Quickstart guides to InDesign. They get out into the wild a little faster than the Real World tomes; the CS4 version is already available.

It's been a long day

I think I've worn out this day. And although I meant to save this post as a draft and publish it tomorrow, after I'd have time to do some revising, I seem to have hit the wrong button and published it already. So I'll hit the button again in order to get the full post out there, and call it a night.

All of this, of course, is just diversion from the scheduled jobs that are going on around here: interruptions on the way from point A to point B. In fact, I think the general flow of the river consists of interruptions.

A few switching-to-Mac resources, a bit of knitting, and a dog

Knitting: nice subtlety

Let's start with the knitting. I'm making the vest from Ann McCauley's new book—the one that I mentioned being tempted by. Ann's version is in white Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride (85% wool/15% mohair). Mine is the same yarn, which I'm quite fond of, in color M-02 Brown Heather.

When I wrote the post about the book, I mentioned enjoying Ann's sense of detail and the pleasant surprises I find in her patterns.

Here's a surprising detail from the vest pattern.

From the front side, along the top edge of the ribbing it looks like nothing special is going on:

From the back side, though, you can see an interesting row of stitches that doesn't follow the ribbing pattern:

That row is not just reverse stockinette, either. That wrong-side row involves a carefully planned sequence of knits and purls, set up to offer just a touch of waistline stabilization and, in places, extra pattern definition at the transition from the ribbing at the lower edge to the more diverse patterning in the main body. That single row also subtly counteracts what might be a rolling-in tendency of the ribbing that continues up the vest's front edges.

Nice.

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Mac: Surface changes

Here's what my new MacBook looks like now:

I indulged in a Gelaskin for it.

Gelaskins are protective covers for the top of the computer. There are all sorts of protective cases and covers for MacBooks (Gelaskins can also be obtained for PCs). Several of them would have increased both weight and external dimensions enough that one of my primary reasons for choosing this machine—portability—would have been compromised. Even though folks I know love their cases. I also like to have something on my notebook that helps me remember to return it to the backpack when I go through airport security. I've used bumper stickers in the past, and considered that again, but the Gelaskins do two jobs in one, without measurably increasing weight or girth. Less expensive than a hard case, too. For another situation, the full case would be the right answer.

This is the one I got. It's even more enjoyable in person—some of the amusing details require a magnifying glass to discover. Others are more obvious. I was pretty tempted by this one, too. Intriguing to me that both are by the same artist.

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Mac: More switching-to-Mac resources

I'm still working on getting to know this new computer. Friends have sent links and suggestions. I'll list a few here.

Apple has its own "switching to the Mac" information:

• Apple's resources, which are excellent

From Donna Druchunas, here are more links to basic move-to-Mac commentary:

• PC Magazine article, short and basic
• Switch to a Mac, lots of great stuff
• Switching to Mac

And a "best practices" link:

• Tao of Mac, which I found the most interesting of all
  

Here's a useful link on figuring out which Mac to buy—I don't remember whether I found it myself or was referred to it (the input blurs) [added comment: I found it through a link from the Tao of Mac page]:

• MacWorld: New rules for buying a Mac

That's in addition to Apple's help system for determining which Mac is right.

Mac software progress?

Corey told me about Caffeine, which keeps the screen from going into energy-saver mode if you don't give it input for a minute. Sometimes it's very handy to be able to control that. (She also told me about Journler, which I've already mentioned, and which is one of those programs that can do so much that the first step is a doozy. I keep poking it, looking for my way in.)

I'm still working on figuring out keychain (the password keeper). Best practices is what I want. There's some info in the Tao of Mac article above. I'll get there.

I'll be processing the photos for this post on the PC, because I don't have Photoshop or the GIMP over here on the Mac yet, and iPhoto looks great for organizing and general photo work, but I don't see ways to do the things I like to do to my photos before posting them. . . .

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Meanwhile, back in the PC world. . . .

Some programs run on PC only. That includes the software that manages the publishing inventory and royalties. (The Mac can run PC programs, but after the troubles I want to keep the Mac isolated from PC-land, if possible.) This week, that program lost its inventory counts, which means . . . well, more troubleshooting. I think I've almost got the fix, although I've needed to dig back into the records and find end-of-2007 inventory and valuation numbers, including counts of books that were at consignment houses. I think I've got the data. Now I need to enter it and see if the reports look right.

I'm still working on getting Ethnic Knitting Exploration on press (supposed to have been released in October 2008). There's no way, at this point, that it will be out before early 2009, because once it's on press there's a four-week production turnaround (for North American printers, and that's who we use). And it's not quite on press yet, although it keeps getting closer. It was supposed to go on press in early August. I was on the phone with tech support.

2008 has not been my favorite year in several regards, although it had several high points (family and travel) as well as lots of annoyances (many of them electronic).

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Other works-in-progress

1. We're getting ready to make the projects from Donna Druchunas' Ethnic Knitting Discovery (the first book in the EK series) available as downloadable PDFs. These won't contain all of the information in the book, but they will have the worksheets and sample patterns. They'll be a good standalone introduction to the methods of the projects, and handy printable worksheet versions. They need to be re-edited for this new format, and I'm re-doing the layout to make economical use of standard letter-sized paper. We'll have them as sets (by country) and singles. The Netherlands will be up first, with Denmark not far behind. I'm still working on Norway and The Andes.

2. I'm starting to work with a new accountant who has ideas about rearranging the way we track our financial information. In the long run, this is excellent (which is why I'm doing it). In the short run. . . . I try to think about only one piece of it at a time, so my brain doesn't threaten to explode.

3. The major project I'm working on that involves large quantities of wool and learning more about the world of rare-breed sheep again continues apace. I can talk about it more later. Quite a bit later.

Oh. The freelance work.

4. I've been doing or negotiating a whole lot of freelance work, which keeps this boat afloat. Fortunately, it's been interesting stuff to work on lately.

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And finally. . . .

It's a rough life for a red dog in winter.

She stole the blanket from me. I've got it back now.