The Independent Stitch

dancepulse and PranaMamma: two brand new blogs

I just learned that my sister recently started a blog (and has been having computer problems), and then I got a note from a friend I've known for at least a dozen years (but have never met in person) who began her blog today.

They are both smart, wise women who know how to write. I can think of a number of people who read this blog who would very much enjoy their perspectives.

dancepulse: Dance education in particular, and arts education in general

Meg Mahoney, my sister, is a full-time dance educator in an inner-city public school. She didn't get to this place in life overnight. She knows a lot, and I'm so glad she's sharing her hard-earned knowledge: on how she moved from dancer to independent instructor to classroom teacher to full-time movement specialist, and on how she does what she does with the kids.

I know first-hand what a good teacher she is. When we lived in the same small town and were both in our 20s, she taught dance classes and I was one of her students. Those experiences have made a profound, ongoing difference in my life.

Here's a video prepared by KCTS-TV in Seattle when Meg won a Golden Apple Award, which recognizes extraordinary teachers. It's a little over 5 minutes long.

PranaMamma: Helping people keep breathing

Although PranaMamma—Respiratory Therapy: A Second Career in Mid-Life is presented anonymously, I know exactly who this is and how much life experience and richness she brings to her mid-life drastic career change. She's a fiber person who understands a number of elemental processes. She's taking on breath now. Everything she does is infused with spirit.

I'm looking forward to hearing more of her stories.

__

Computer update

I plan to limp along for a while, because I don't have the heart (or time) to—again—format the hard drive and reinstall the operating system and all of the software and documents. I have tasks to complete and deadlines to meet. Everything's backed up, redundantly, so the amount of damage that can be done through software malfunction is limited.

Computer-geek friends have suggested ways to prevent future problems by creating drive partitions (which require rebooting when changing programs) or operating virtual machines. I'd have to set up networking to get files from one program to another, if the programs were operating on different partitions or virtual machines.

This does not sound like a comfortable, fluid working environment. In fact, it sounds less convenient than occasional blue-screen forced shutdowns.

I'll be looking into ways to dock the MacBook in the main office and hook it up to the printer and monitor without completely disabling the PC (which still runs several essential programs for which I have not found Mac equivalents).

Tech support: look at the pictures if you like, but you really don't want to read this

HP Instant Support Professional Edition

Reason for contact: Computer blue-screen forced shutdown in the middle of running publishing software, creating invoices. A normal task. Tech support document at Microsoft accessed by a link in the post-recovery report ("from a serious error") suggested a sequence of troubleshooting steps. The first one that yielded potentially useful information was review of hard drive with CHKDSK. At 61% completion, it reported a series of "deleting corrupt attribute record" messages; at 99%, reported multiple "deleting orphan file record segment" messages. In sum: "Errors found. Unable to continue CHKDSK."

I called the best local computer consultant. He said, "Sounds like the hard drive's going, and the machine's under warranty so let me know what you hear from HP."

First contact:

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 9:19 AM] -- Automatically generated message:
For reference, your Case ID is 3605025522

Note: I had to leave before support came on the line. Instructions said response would be within 5 minutes. It wasn't.

Second contact:

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 10:34 AM] -- Automatically generated message:
For reference, your Case ID is 3605027592

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 10:35 AM] -- Wally W says:
According to the computer's serial number . . . it is an (xw4550) Workstation with a valid next business day onsite warranty through until (2011-05-10). Is this information correct?

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 10:36 AM] -- Deborah Robson says:
Yes

. . .
Note: I spent 3 hours spent running the hard drive through two BIOS-related tests, at 74 minutes each, completed correctly even though the instructions I was given were not entirely correct. Between machine checks, I worked on deadline project on the MacBook.
>>>

Third contact:

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 1:52 PM] -- Automatically generated message:
This is an automated message. Your request has been received by the Technical Support Center and has been queued until a support analyst is available. Support for HP and Compaq desktops and Workstations is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You will receive a response to your support request in 5 minutes or less.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 1:52 PM] -- Automatically generated message:
For reference, your Case ID is 3605032750

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 1:52 PM] -- Automatically generated message:
A Support specialist, Rosanna G has been assigned to your case.

Hello Deborah, thank you for contacting HP and for your interest in our Active Chat online support. My name is Rosanna and I see you have a question regarding your Workstation. I'm going to take a few moments to review your information and will message you back very soon.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 1:53 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
Thanks

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 1:56 PM] -- Rosanna G says:
Deborah, completion code = 0 means your hard drive is fine. I would like to confirm that you are getting this blue screen when you are loading windows XP?

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 1:58 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
No. It occurred in the middle of a normal work day process. "A problem has been detected and Windows has shut down to protect ..." followed by reboot and "The system has recovered from a serious error." Troubleshooting document led to suggestions to download and install latest updates and drivers (done automatically), remove any new hardware or software (none), scan for viruses (done nightly), check hard disk for error (found with CHKDSK but not BIOS review). Final, restore computer to an earlier state, not tried.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:02 PM] -- Rosanna G says:
Have you tried to re image the unit?

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:02 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
I don't know what that means.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:04 PM] -- Rosanna G says:
Have you tried a known working hard drive?

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:05 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
I have backed up all of my documents to an external hard drive, if that's what you mean.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:06 PM] -- Rosanna G says:
Ok can we format the hard drive and put a new OS on it.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:07 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
If we must. I will, of course, have to reinstall all of the programs, which means at least an hour on the phone with both Microsoft and Adobe convincing them I am not pirating their software.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:08 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
An hour EACH.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:09 PM] -- Rosanna G says:
The hard drive has passed the Test, so the next step would be to re image the unit.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:10 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
Can you give me instructions so I can do it later? I have a deadline to meet, and right now every hour counts.

Note: I have been cleaning the office while waiting for responses. There has got to be something to do that is less inappropriately destructive than putting an ax through the hardware, because this is looking like it's a software problem.

Or is it?

I have been down this road before.

Or at least some of the roads have looked a whole lot like this one. That's why in the first three months of 2008 I sent one under-warranty PC back to the factory (after days on the phone with tech support at several hardware and software companies) and acquired two new PCs. . . . And spent more days on the phone with more tech support, during which I reformatted multiple hard drives and reinstalled all the software more times than I can remember. . . .

Note: This is the part you REALLY, REALLY don't want to read, but I thought you might want to see it. . . .

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:13 PM] -- Rosanna G says:
Preparation
Step1When you format a computer hard drive you will lose everything that is on the drive. Therefore, it is very important to back up anything you might want later. Additionally, if you are going to be formatting and installing XP you need to make sure you have the discs for any applications or third party hardware you use since you will need to re-install your programs and drivers after re-installing Windows.
Step2Take a moment to think of anything that you have on the computer that you wouldn't want to lose. Generally, you probably want everything in your My Documents folder, and you also want to save things like your favorites or bookmarks from your Web browser. Remember that each user on the computer has his or her own My Documents folder, Desktop items and Favorites/Bookmarks.
Step3Save everything to a CD, DVD or a hard drive that you won't be formatting.
Formatting a Secondary Hard Drive
Step1Right-Click on the “My Computer” icon either on your desktop or in the Start Menu and select “Manage.”
Step2A new window titled “Computer Management” comes up. Select “Storage” from the left hand side by clicking it once, then select “Disk Management(local)” from the right side by double-clicking it.
Step3Now in the lower part of the main frame (right side) of the window you should see a nice visual of all your hard drives. Each line is a different drive. Each box on a line (with a colored bar at the top and a size displayed in MB or GB) is a partition on the drive. Partitions are separations of space on a drive. Unless you are doing something specific that requires multiple partitions, you only want one partition per drive.
Step4First you must delete any existing partitions on the drive you are going to format. Do this by right-clicking on the partition's box and selecting “Delete Partition...” Since you already know that you will be deleting everything on the drive, and have already backed everything up, you can safely say yes to any warning the computer presents you with.
Step5 If there are multiple partitions make sure you have saved everything off them since they might each have different drive letters (i.e. “D:” or “F:”). Then repeat the above step for each of them. If you only want to format one partition that is OK and you can continue to the next step without deleting the other partitions.
Step6The box for the drive to be formatted should now have a black bar at the top of it and should say “Unallocated” under its size (see picture). Right click on it and select “New Partition...” The New Partition Wizard comes up.
Step7In the New Partition Wizard click next. On the next page make sure “Primary Partition” is selected and click next. Now make the size equal to the maximum (it should already be set to it), and click next again. On the next page the computer will automatically choose the first available drive letter for the new drive. However, if you like you can choose another drive letter from the drop-down menu, and then click next.
Step8Finally the New Partition Wizard asks if you would like to format the new partition and if so what format. Choose “NTFS” as it is faster and more secure. Leave the “Allocation unit size” as “Default.” In the “Volume label” field enter whatever name you want the drive to have. Simple is better. Avoid using spaces. Lastly, if the drive is brand new and has never been used before check the “Perform a quick format” box. If the drive has been used before leave this box unchecked. Leave the “Enable file and folder compression” box unchecked and click next. Then on the next page click finish.
Step9The wizard will now spend a little while formatting the drive. On old or large drives this may take a while. Do not close the “Computer Management” window until it finishes. You will know it is done when the word under the size of the drive changes from “Formatting” to “Healthy” and the name and drive letter you chose for the new drive show up. After it is finished you can proceed to use your newly formatted drive.
Formatting and Installing from the Windows XP CD
Step1This section explains how to reformat a drive from the Windows XP installation CD. This can be used when installing a fresh copy of Windows onto a computer. Here it is especially important to backup all of your important information because upon formatting you will lose EVERYTHING that used to be on the drive. This includes all applications and device drivers, so you must back up everything you can.
Step2Insert your Windows XP installation disc into your CD drive (Home or Pro--it does not matter).
Step3Now as you computer boots a little more it will say “Press any key to boot from CD..” press a key to do so.
Step4The CD will load up a blue screen and then spend a while loading files it needs. When it is finished it will list a few options, mainly “Press ENTER to set up Windows XP.” Press Enter or Return.
Step5Now you will be at a screen to select where to install Windows to. This is where you can delete old partitions and format drives. The box in the bottom half of the screen shows all your drives and the partitions that exist on them. Use the Up and Down arrow keys to highlight your “C:” partition and press the 'D' key (if all that shows up is “Unpartitioned space” and you have no C: or D: partitions, skip this step). On the next screen press the 'L' key to finalize deleting the partition.
Step6Now you are back on the screen to choose where to install Windows. The box on the lower half of the screen should no longer show a partition but simply have an entry “Unpartitioned space xxxxxMB.” Select this with the arrow keys and press the 'C' key to create a partition on the drive. The next screen tells you the minimum and maximum sizes the partition can be and lets you pick the size. The default size is the maximum, but double check that the number entered is the maximum and hit enter.
Step7Now you will again be back at the choose where to install Windows screen. But this time you will have a partition that looks something like this “C: Partition1 [New (Raw)]xxxxxxMB.” Highlight this entry and press enter.
Step8The next screen lets you choose which file system to format the drive with. Choose NTFS as it is faster and more secure. If the drive is brand new and has never been used before then use one of the options that ends in “(Quick).” Or, choose one of the lower down options. Use the arrow keys to select the proper one and press Enter or Return.
Step9From here you are all set and the installation of Windows will proceed starting with a format of your drive. This will take a while (over half an hour) so you can take a little break.

Note: My emphasis.

Yes, that's what their instructions look like. "Half an hour" sounds quick to me, but I don't know the meaning of this word "break." Or do I?

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:14 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
Thank you.

Note: Resisting natural impulses and channeling energy into most constructive available activity:

 

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:15 PM] -- Rosanna G says:
Also are you using HP CDs

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:17 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
I have the original CDs that came with the unit. Unfortunately, what I have for OS says Vista Business DVD. When I bought the machine (less than a year ago), I got it with XP Pro. I do not want to be using Vista.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:18 PM] -- Rosanna G says:
Ok if you do not have the restore Plus CD for XP you will need to make the F6 disk for the drivers.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:19 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
I have:
Operating System DVD Windows Vista Business
HP Restore Plus
Supplemental Software, Backup and Recovery Manager
Documentation and Diagnostics
Roxio Easy media creator 9, and WinDVD

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:21 PM] -- Rosanna G says:
If you are loading windows XP the restore plus for vista will not work.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:21 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
Then what do I need to do?

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:24 PM] -- Rosanna G says:
you will need the Intel Matrix Storage Manager to create the F6 disk, which needs to be put on a floppy disk.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:25 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
I have reformatted hard drives a number of times before (unfortunately). I have not encountered the Intel Matrix Storage Manager or an F6 disk, so I don't know what they are.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:26 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
Um, there is no floppy disk drive on this machine. Neither 5.25 nor 3.5.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:28 PM] -- Rosanna G says:
Ok

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:33 PM] -- Rosanna G says:
Ok can we re image the unit.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:34 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
It sounds like I do not have the OS that I bought in a form that will let us do that.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:35 PM] -- Rosanna G says:
I can set you up for the recovery CDs if you like?

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:36 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
Sounds like we'd better. CDs or DVDs? I have both. How many?

Note: Based on my extensive experience, sometimes at this point tech support asks the caller to feed a bunch of CDs or DVDs in and out of the drive while standing on her head reading the cereal number off the bottom of the box . . . oh, can I get a new computer with box-tops, or do they do that any more? What *was* in the bottom of the Cracker Jack?

Uh, sometimes you need more than the dozen or so disks that are within reach. It's good to be prepared.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:36 PM] -- Rosanna G says:
I'll need the following Information from your so I can set your order for the CDs.

Unit Serial Number:
Unit Model (i.e. XW9300):
Operating System:
Customer First Name:
Customer Last Name:
Business Name:
Street Address 1:
Street Address 2:
City:
State:
Zip Code:
E-mail Address:
Contact Phone Number:

I'll be a Few moments setting your case up and I'll have your order number for you.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:38 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
[data supplied, not that they don't already have it because they requested and confirmed the serial number before this series of exchanges ever started]

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:39 PM] -- Rosanna G says:
I'll be a few moments and I'll have an order number for you.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:44 PM] -- Rosanna G says:
Order Number: 8121087

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:45 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
What happens now?

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:45 PM] -- Rosanna G says:
You will get CDs in the next day or two

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:48 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
Okay. Then we go back to ground zero, and it sounds like we're done for today. It would be VERY good if the OS that I bought was already here.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:48 PM] -- Deborah Robson says:
Thank you for your help.

[Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:48 PM] -- Rosanna G says:
You're welcome. Once again, thank you for contacting HP and have a great day!

***

Note: Based on relatively recent experience, I can attest to the fact that reformatting the hard drive, reinstalling the OS, and getting all of the programs installed and through the necessary update cycles takes about two days of full-time work.

Note: Walking back upstairs to the MacBook, about to learn a bunch of new-to-me software with a deadline for completion of the work.

**

Not quite non sequiturs:

If this is "instant," what is "delayed"?

If this is "support," what does "hunh?" mean?

If this is the "professional" edition, how does the "amateur" one work?

After dealing with this (or not: nothing has really changed), my two remaining brain cells understand the appeal of "reality" TV.

**

The computer consultant says that with some adapters I should be able to plug the MacBook into the larger monitor and hook it up to the Wacom tablet, and there MUST be a way to help it access a printer without going through the HP, which is currently the central network machine. . . .

Ethnic Knitting Exploration arrives! (FINALLY!)

Yesterday we got the call: Donna Druchunas' Ethnic Knitting Exploration had arrived at the freight dispatch center. Delivery was scheduled for between 10 a.m. and noon today. The good news: timing was such that my daughter would be around to help.

At 12:02, the truck pulled up in front of the house.

We'd already cleared the driveway and spent an hour making space for 35 more cartons of books in the garage and basement. This truck had a lift gate, so we didn't need to make a bunch of trips from the curb with the hand truck, moving a few cartons at a time. Using a pallet jack, the driver slid the whole pallet onto the gate, lowered the gate, and then took the pallet off at just the right angle. He and my daughter pushed the pallet up the incline to a spot next to the garage door.

Then my daughter unwrapped the pallet.

Books that arrive on a pallet end up in much better shape than cartons that arrive separately. The wrap and the pallet really protect the copies. Of course, we need to be getting at least a few hundred pounds of books to warrant a pallet. We ship books to distributors as well as to ourselves, so we're often close on qualifying for pallet transport.

Still, these boxes are heavy and have come a long way, being managed en route by heavy equipment.

Interestingly, once I got into the boxes (and I always check any cartons that show visible damage), only one book had actually been messed up.

This book has been so complicated to get to press, because of massive electronic problems, that I've been apprehensive about what it would look like. I also worked with two inks (a blue and the usual black), sometimes in combination, and there's no way to tell for sure what the results of any color work will look like until they're printed for real.

So I asked my daughter to open a box and check out a copy and let me know what she thought.

She told me it was safe to look.

The blue's a little brighter than we expected, but we think it's a success!

Now, of course, this product of several years' work starts moving out into knitters' hands to see what they think. It should be showing up in yarn shops and bookstores in the next couple of weeks. We shipped cartons off to the wholesalers before the last UPS, FedEx, and USPS pickups for the day.

__

Ethnic Knitting Exploration features raglan, circular yoke, and saddle-shoulder sweaters with designs and techniques from Lithuania, Iceland, and Ireland. There are three small projects on which to practice skills and colors: fingerless gloves, a capelet, and a poncho. All are presented with worksheets that let readers design unique sweaters.

Added in the evening: better photos of the book itself.

Cover:

 

Title page (that's the one dinged up copy I'm using as a model; you can see its crumpled corner):

 

And contents, which will be posted more legibly on our new website as soon as we figure out how to clarify international shipping costs through PayPal (makes our heads hurt to try to figure out something fair and universally applicable):

I've got to say that there's really nice introductory coverage of cables in this book that clarifies some basics it's normally hard to get a handle on. Among other great info.

Bulky afghan: I want a nap!

It's true. I don't want to send this newly completed afghan away to be photographed and otherwise processed for a future book appearance. I want to take a nap under it. Isn't that the point of an afghan?

It consists of 1.7kg of yarn (about 3.75 pounds), all cosy and with enough heft to feel like a cocoon and enough drape and airflow control (because of the lace) to wrap neatly around a human frame and be warm without stifling.

I thought briefly of knitting another one because this one will be gone so long. I thought briefly of knitting one for everybody in my family. Then I looked at the reality of the next, oh, twelve months of my life and realized that this one will be back before I'd have time to make a second, much less a handful of them.

But it's tempting.

Colors I'd like to knit it in (in addition to Prairie Fire up there): Oatmeal, Blue Flannel, Kiwi, Wild Oak, Sable, Foggy Night. It would look good in someone's home in any of the colors that Burly Spun comes in, and it would be just as delightful to nap under.

Sigh.

Back to work. The next deadline beckons.

I may need to wrap that afghan up and get it out of sight so I don't succumb to its beckoning.

It has been a very satisfying project.

Finished! Bulky afghan for a book project about Dorothy Reade

I've just finished a project for a book that will be published before long; based on when the deadline is, my best guess is that the book will appear in the first half of next year. I'm just a contributor.

The project I've been asked to work up is a lace afghan knitted in one of Dorothy Reade's original lace patterns, using bulky yarn (Brown Sheep Burly Spun). The finished afghan is what I call "just the right size," having based it on an afghan I've been using for years.

Without giving away too much, here's what the afghan looks like as of a few minutes ago, laid out on a bunch of towels on my daughter's bedroom floor (I washed the nearly 4 pounds (1.7kg) of afghan in a plastic basin in the bathtub, then spun out the extra water in the spin-only cycle of the top-loading washer):

I used lace-blocking wires along the edges, but didn't pin them to stretch it. I just wanted to do a general squaring-up. At this gauge, everything's going to be somewhat floppy in the end anyway.

Here's what I worked from—a chart made in the first version of Knit Visualizer, held in a page protector. I moved the sticky notes just above the pattern row to be worked next (repositioned at the completion of each pattern row). The repeats are highlighted. I also put stitch markers between repeats on the needle, even though I had to remove and replace them when a decrease crossed the boundary lines. They were worth the effort.

I enjoyed the lace pattern. It's a moderately large repeat with some interesting and unusual aspects to the way it's put together. I had to adjust my original concept for the afghan in order to accommodate this specific lace. Once I got the plan put together, it was entertaining to knit.

And, of course, once I'd washed it and spread it out I had to put up the gate so the dogs won't walk across the afghan while it's drying.

I was supposed to be getting something else done this afternoon. But I was so close. . . . I finished with 3.5 ounces (100g) of fiber left over. At this gauge, that's not much, and the remainder consists primarily of the bits I pulled off in order to position all the joins in the plain border area at the edges of the fabric.

The only problem with working on a design for publication (other than deadlines, although I've made this one without stress) is that now this piece goes away for a long time, to be photographed, tech edited, and the like. I don't get to enjoy it in use until some time next year.

Fiber book review: Beautiful Sheep

Yesterday I needed to be in Boulder for technological reasons, and . . . well, there's this magnetic force around Shuttles, Spindles & Skeins that affects my car whenever it's within forty-five minutes of the shop. Coincidentally, I had a list of things I was looking for that might be found at Shuttles. I located those, and more. I brought home more than I intended, but not as much as I discovered that I wanted.

Here's one of the books I picked up: Beautiful Sheep: Portraits of Champion Breeds, by Kathryn Dun with photographs by Paul Farnham. I had planned just to take a look, thinking I didn't really need to buy a copy—in other words, know it's out there, know what it is, invest my pennies in something else.

It's not perfect, but I couldn't resist. Yes, I'm a sucker for good sheep pictures. The front flap copy says the publication "aims to give a taste of the diversity and variety of sheep around the world" and that the photography "captures the beauty, elegance, and indeed quirkiness" of forty breeds.

I love the "diversity and variety" of sheep. I think that sheep are beautiful, elegant, and quirky. The photos here are exquisite.

Beautiful Sheep was developed in the United Kingdom, and the types of sheep included reflect its origins. Kathryn Dun is a veterinarian who helps her family show their North Country Cheviots and Scotch Mules, and she provides introductory information on the history of sheep, a bit about breeds, and then an introduction to livestock shows featuring sheep, as well as the data clips that accompany the photographs. Paul Farnham, a fashion photographer, made the sheep portraits in a studio.

My immediate temptation, of course, is to compare Beautiful Sheep to a long-time favorite of mine, Rare Breeds: Endangered Farm Animals in Photographs, with an introduction by Roger A. Caras, photos by Robert Dowling, and text by Lawrence Alderson (Little, Brown; 1994).

The obvious differences: Beautiful Sheep is sheep-only, and Rare Breeds covers many species, endangered varieties only—sheep are a small (but significant) part of a bigger topic.

The less obvious differences:

Roger Caras and Lawrence Alderson have spent their lives working on and studying a wide variety of animal-related issues. Caras was president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and wrote on the order of seventy books about animals. Alderson is Founder Chairman of Rare Breeds International and was Executive Director of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Caras and Alderson are on my short list of people who know their stuff. They're hard acts to follow.

Fortunately, Kathryn Dun only needs to set the stage with a few short essays and provide the info opposite the photos: brief descriptions and statistics. I overlook a few of her statements, like "The Welsh Half-bred is, as its name suggests, a half-bred breed of sheep!" (p. 32). Well, if it's a "half-bred breed" then it's not a breed at all. If this were my book, I'd need to work on the phrasing, but it's not a breed. Later in the copy for the same type of sheep it says "No rams: the breed is a crossbreed that is not purebred." (Other comments indicate that the narrative stance doesn't stick tightly to the definition of breed; these aren't just quips.) The matter of breeds is a topic that I will likely go on at length about at another time. In short, for now: enjoy the big picture of Beautiful Sheep, but don't quote the details without checking elsewhere . . . like with material written by Alderson, the folks at the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, and similar sources.

What does she understand well? The practical aspects of breeds in specific environments in the U.K. and the way crossbreeding is used to fit animals to landscapes and economic factors. This isn't a subject that's addressed directly in the book, but it informs her perspective and therefore the brief comments.

What is, by and large, missing from Beautiful Sheep?

Much attention to wool. Which is, of course, one of my passions.

That photo above compares a spread in Beautiful Sheep (below) with a photo from Rare Breeds (righthand page), both showing Cotswolds. The Beautiful Sheep one shows the sheep's conformation (body style) better and the Rare Breeds one balances body style with a good start on fleece character. (On the lefthand page in Rare Breeds: Lincolns. On its cover, in the first photo up above: Leicester Longwool, or English Leicester.)

In Beautiful Sheep, the perspective is largely meat- and milk-production based, with wool as a secondary crop in most cases. Descriptions of wool include rough fleece weights, and general comments like: "Although classified as a longwool breed, the fleece is only moderately long, but fine in texture." That's with reference to the Galway. A spinner would be left wondering. How long is moderately long? How fine is fine? Does "texture" mean micron count, or a subjective sense of how it feels?

Anyway.

I do like that Beautiful Sheep indicates whether the photo was taken of, say, an adult ram or a shearling ewe. That's very useful. The sheep are most often shown with their wool trimmed for the livestock show, which seriously compromises the fiber for spinners. The Wensleydale didn't lose its wool before its picture was taken.

The Clun Forest sure did:

"Short, close-textured wool of consistently high quality." Also, fleece weight 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 lb (2.5 - 3 kg). That's IT for wool information.

For more, you need to go to, say, Nola Fournier and Jane Fournier's In Sheep's Clothing: A Handspinner's Guide to Wool (now available in paperback!). It doesn't have the lovely color photos, but it's packed with knowledge—not just about sheep breeds, but about wool and spinning in general.

And it gives us valuable and useful details about the Clun Forest's fleece:

So why could I not leave Beautiful Sheep sitting on the book display, as I'd intended to?

Because it does capture the elegance and idiosyncracies of the sheep that it presents, some of which are (gasp!) new to me (see addendum below). The full animals are shown, as large as they can be (drawback: no sense of scale: the Oxford, p. 76, and the Soay, p. 74, look about the same size). It supplements and complements volumes that are already in my library (including Rare Breeds and In Sheep's Clothing) and gives me more pleasure than it cost me money ($19.95 US; ISBN 978-0-312-38512-5).

Addendum: A few nuts and bolts

Neither book arranges its sheep in any logical order that I can perceive. Those who are curious about sheep breeds and types may be able to tell from a simple list of what's included whether they are interested in seeking out one or the other of these titles.

Sheep photographs in Rare Breeds:

Balwen (Balwen Welsh Mountain)
Brillenschaf
Castlemilk Moorit
Cotswold
Graue Gehornte Heidschnucke
Greyface Dartmoor
Jacob
Hebridean
Hill Radnor
Leicester Longwool
Lincoln Longwool
Manx Loghtan
Norfolk Horn
North Ronaldsay
Portland
Soay
Shropshire
Southdown
Wensleydale
Whitefaced Woodland
Wiltshire Horn

Sheep photographs in Beautiful Sheep:

Balwen Welsh Mountain
Beltex
Berrichon du Cher
Black Welsh Mountain
Bluefaced Leicester
Blue Texel
Border Leicester
Boreray
British Bleu du Maine
British Rouge (Rouge de l’Ouest)
British Vendeen
Charmoise
Charollais
Clun Forest
Cotswold
Dorset Down
Exmoor Horn
Galway
Greyface Dartmoor
Hebridean
Herdwick
Hill Radnor
Jacob
Kerry Hill
Portland
Lincoln Longwool
Manx Loghtan
Oxford Down
Rough Fell
Ryeland
Shetland
Soay
Southdown
Suffolk
Welsh Half-Bred
Welsh Mountain Badger Face
Welsh Mule
Wensleydale
Wiltshire Horn
Zwartbles

Knitting comfort and semi-escape reading

The Mac's doing just fine, and I'm getting increasingly comfortable with it. Some of the software still needs to run on the PC (partly because it's a new PC and ought to be able to run some of my software) and that's not all smooth.

Meanwhile, writing and publishing involves deadlines. I do my best to keep them from increasing my stress levels, and I succeed pretty well, apart from occasional remarkable lapses. Yesterday I hit red-line overload on social media sites. I like some of what happens because of them, but I haven't got the tricks of managing them yet. And it feels like just more software to learn at a time when I'm about burned out on learning new software or wrangling with old software that's not doing the jobs it was built to do.

Except on the Mac. I'm having a good time with the Mac. Especially with Scrivener. If I were a poet, I would wax poetic about Scrivener. Maybe I will later on.

In between all this work stuff, I've been continuing to knit (for a deadline, but not one that appears hard to meet). The reading I've been doing has had to hold my interest while not taxing my computer-frayed nerves.

The knitting proceeds at a gratifying pace. The Brown Sheep Burly Spun yarn is a treat to knit, even for someone who doesn't usually gravitate toward bulky yarns, and the color (Prairie Fire) is scrumptious.

Since I have been given leave to reveal what I'm working on, I can say that it's a just-right-sized afghan using one of Dorothy Reade's original lace patterns, worked at a relatively huge scale. Dorothy Reade was one of the pioneers of charting for knitting and her techniques formed part of the foundation of the Oomingmak cooperative of Native Alaskan knitters that Donna Druchunas wrote about in Arctic Lace.

While knitting, I sit wrapped in the afghan that inspired this project—made by a friend almost forty years ago and still, obviously, going strong—and read books that don't demand a lot of me but are well written and interesting. The two latest happen to pertain to different sorts of spiritual quests, and one is a memoir and the other is a novel.

My Jesus Year, by Benyamin Cohen

First the memoir: Benyamin Cohen's My Jesus Year: A Rabbi's Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of His Own Faith (site takes a minute to load, but you'll get the drift of the book immediately when it does).

Cohen is not only a rabbi's son; he comes from a whole family of rabbis. And they're Orthodox Jews, who follow strict sets of rules about religious practice. Having grown up in the faith, he's curious about other religious traditions and wants to revitalize his own. So he gets rabbinical permission to spend a year exploring the flavors of Christian belief within reach . . . and since he lives in Georgia, there are quite a few, mostly of the evangelical variety.

At the start, he quotes M. C. Escher: "Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible." It's not an epigraph, but it could be.

Throughout, Cohen observes his own religious tradition as clearly as the Christian practices he's researching. Much of what we do in the name of religion is funny-peculiar. So why do we do it? And what does it do for us?

Overall, My Jesus Year is an interesting study of why and how people are religious, as seen through a personal quest by an excellent, thoughtful, and amusing observer.

Enlightenment for Idiots, by Anne Cushman

I'm always interested in the ways people put in-depth knowledge to work in fiction. I picked up Enlightenment for Idiots because I was curious about what someone who knows enough about yoga to have experience as an editor at Yoga Journal would write in the way of a novel.

Anne Cushman does a fine job of grounding this work in the various types of yoga, playing off that foundation, but it was her publishing-specific details that had me reading out loud to my daughter.

The premise is that Amanda, a freelance writer in need of cash (a redundant statement, I know), takes on an assignment to produce, on deadline and as part of a series, a book called Enlightenment for Idiots. (Cushman herself wrote a nonfiction book called From Here to Nirvana.)

Amanda heads off to India, looking for personal direction and enough enlightenment to pull off her assignment. While there, she gets e-mail notes from her editor.

Here's what the editor writes shortly after Amanda arrives in India:

From: Maxine@bigdaybooks.com

To: Amandala@yahoo.com

Amanda, Production is pressing me about art and design so I'm hoping I can get some sample chapters from you soon. If you haven't found enlightenment yet just leave that part blank, we'll dummy something in until you get it.

And, later on:

From: Maxine@bigdaybooks.com

To: Amandala@yahoo.com

Interesting story in the Times today about yoga teachers trademarking the names of certain yoga postures. Very foresightful of them. I suppose "yoga" was taken centuries ago, but any way we can lock up the word "enlightenment"? Please look into it.

Except that the last sentence would have gone to the publisher's legal department rather than the author, this is bizarrely too close to reality for comfort these days.

Enlightenment for Idiots has a chick-lit-style cover and many characteristics of that genre, with more depth than is common in that (ouch) marketing segment. Cushman manages to explore the topic of enlightenment in a variety of ways throughout the text. As she says in an interview about the book, "I’ve always been interested, in my writing, in exploring the intersection between the lofty ideals of spiritual practice and the way those ideals actually play out in our flawed but beautiful human lives. I’m particularly interested in the experiences of contemporary Western women as we practice these paths that were designed primarily by and for celibate Eastern men."

The plotting tends to be too orderly in some ways (characters show up at just the right times, and so on), but it was an entertaining (amusing but not fluffy) read.

Great for the current circumstances.

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Speaking of specialized knowledge, there's a story about hemp near the end of Enlightenment for Idiots that I want to check out. It's offered as a sort of parable, but refers to the use of the plant's roots to make rope (p. 339). Hemp's a bast fiber, so the parts that are useful for textiles come from the stalk, not the roots . . . as far as I know. Anybody else know something about the roots that I haven't come across yet?

Knitting: mystery project for an upcoming book

I'm knitting on deadline (again). It's a mystery project for an upcoming book that I've been involved with from the start. It won't be published by my micropublishing company, so I'm just a contributor and mentor for the title.

With the way of these things (which I'm not completely in agreement with but respect), only hints can be released in advance. Thus: it's lace, and I'm knitting with Brown Sheep Burly Spun (spelled "Burley Spun" on the website and "Burly Spun" on the skein tags). Eight-ounce (227g) skeins—about the size of a paperback book. I'm going through yarn pretty quickly, even with that much in a hunk.

The trick of managing large-scale lace is keeping the tension loose. I tend to knit loosely anyway: I'm on 8mm (size 11) needles and a "normal" knitter would be on 9mm (size 13). Even at that, I'm consciously keeping my tension very relaxed in order to reduce stress on my hands and make it easier to work the decreases.

It's an enjoyable project, and it looks like I'll make the deadline easily enough.

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Ship date for Ethnic Knitting Exploration!

We finally got a ship date from the printer for Ethnic Knitting Exploration: Lithuania, Iceland, and Ireland, by Donna Druchunas. It is scheduled to leave the plant on 2/18/09. It will take between three and five days for the trucks to reach their two destinations—one warehouse on the East Coast and my garage (must make space here for 35 more boxes of books by the time the truck pulls up).

Then we redistribute from there: about 50 cartons will ship out immediately from those two locations.

It's coming!

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Spin-Off's new site

Spin-Off magazine, of which I was the editor from 1988 through early 2000, has a new website. It's about time it had its own space in the cyberworld. No great surprise to anyone who knows me, here are my favorite parts so far—reconstituted from the old site.

They've set the site up for social networking. That could be great fun, if I can find time!

Printer's proofs! Ethnic Knitting Exploration

This post is a bit late because of technical challenges in getting the last post onto the blog.

While I was working to get the raspberry mitten material through "save," BIG events were happening in the background. I returned from the library (with my post written but not successfully released) to find this:

That's not just any FedEx envelope. It contains the proofs for the next book to be published by Nomad Press: Ethnic Knitting Exploration: Lithuania, Iceland, and Ireland by Donna Druchunas.

Printers' proofs are an interesting phenomenon of the publishing world. This is not, by the way, the time when "proofreading" takes place. That needed to have happened before the book was ever sent to the printer. This is an opportunity to see whether there have been any errors in the way the printer has interpreted the materials we sent: to "'proof," and approve of, what will happen on press. It's an opportunity to fix grievous errors before the book is multiplied by several thousand copies. And that's all. (That's plenty!)

Printers don't usually send notification that the package has been shipped, yet the proofs have to be turned around within 24 hours. Most places I've worked (including for myself) require that proofs be reviewed and all communications about them be completed by the end of the day they arrive, so it's not like we have 24 hours to eyeball, fix, and reply. If any corrections are required, the materials to implement the changes need to be prepared, transmitted to, and received by the printer within that 24-hour window.

Assuming that the proofs arrive by regular overnight delivery (appearing by 10 a.m.), they need to be back in the shipping channel before the day closes—traditionally this has meant through a 5 p.m. standard pickup or drop-off deadline, or, if the extra hour or so has been needed, courtesy of a hurried special drive to the carrier's hub, which has a later cut-off, like 6 or 6:30 p.m.

I've been doing all of this since before fax machines, much less computers, were part of everyday publishing lives. Some things have changed for the better with these shifts in technology. We no longer have to return all proofs (which were formerly used as references by the press operators), so now we can often fax in approval (which has to have real signatures because a lot is at stake) and we can electronically transfer PDFs of pages with corrections, if any are required. A race to the drop-off site is no longer scheduled into my day as a certainty the instant I see the proofing package. My reflexes kick into action, but I rarely end up having to make the drive any more.

In these times of economizing, these proofs arrived by overnight saver (not by 10 a.m.). They arrived on Friday afternoon, due back Monday by 10 a.m. to preserve our place in the printing queue.

Speaking of schedule, I don't know yet when this book will be off press. Part of that's because the printer doesn't know if I'm going to, for some bizarre reason, hold the proofs for a week. So this is what it says about ship dates at our online account:

Let's look at that more closely:

Requested ship date: 12/31/19.

I don't think so.

Obviously it's a filler date: there has to be a date there, so they plug in something absurd.

Scheduled ship: To be determined. Yes. Exactly.

Because the materials all arrived at the printer on 1/19/09, my working concept of a ship date is 2/16/09. (The book is being printed in North America, so rule-of-thumb turnaround is four weeks.)  Nothing is certain until the cartons of finished books are on the truck. Might be sooner, might be later. This book is already late, because of the computer gauntlet of 2008, so SOONEST is what I'm looking for.

Fortunately, I had been checking our online account at the printer (another technological innovation) so I did know that the proofs would be arriving soon. "Soon" is not specific, but I knew not to schedule any meetings out of town for the next few days.

I'm here, therefore, shortly after the package thwapped down on the front step. I immediately opened it and got to work. Lunch? What's lunch?

There were two plastic-wrapped packages like this, one for the text and one for the cover.

 

Printers' proofs have changed a lot over the years. We used to be able to check color accuracy and printing quality. I have to hold myself back on that now, because while today's proofing systems are faster and less expensive than the former versions, they are nowhere near as precise in their representation of what the finished product will look like. You can still order old-style proofs, but they add a lot of time and expense to a project.

So the cover proof isn't accurate in terms of color, and the interior proofs aren't accurate for either color (this will be a two-color book) or clarity. Of the two black-and-white piles of pages above, the lefthand one came off my laser printer and the righthand one came off their proofing system. Mine is crisper and clearer than theirs. I have to breathe and trust.

What can I check from proofs?

On the cover, this is my last chance to be sure that the author's name is spelled properly and the bar code is correct and the machines are likely to trim the cover in the correct places (trims are marked on all proofs).

On the interior, I can check trims, again, and I also need to leaf through carefully and be sure that the images are correct and look okay (they won't go as far as looking terrific in this manifestation), and that nothing has gone wacko with the type (like substitution of a weird font), and that all the pages are present and in the correct order.

I have to avoid applying any value judgments to the quality of the will-be-color portions, which look pretty lousy when reproduced this way. I won't see the color for real until I see the color for real—in finished books. I've only seen it so far on my computer screen, which isn't the same at all. The way I have used my two inks (black and PMS 299) could end up looking interesting and good in the final. Or the colors could go blah, or look like a weird idea that almost worked. I trust (hope) they won't be awful. The proof copy gives me no clues whatsoever. I have to wait.

I do see a couple of things that make me cringe, but because they are artifacts of the computer problems of the past year I need to ignore them. Only type geeks will notice. Type geeks WILL notice. And the typographically unfortunate items are on pages 3 and 5, of course, not way back on, say 82 and 163.

I've marked them in yellow.

See on the lefthand page (the title page) how the initial letters in the words look much heavier than the other letters in those same words? The weights of all the letters, large and small, should be the same. It's true that this difference in weights commonly occurs when you are "faking" small caps in an informal typographic environment, like Microsoft Word. But I was not "faking" small caps, and I was working with both fonts and programs that have the capacity to produce real small caps. More on that in a moment.

On the righthand page (the table of contents), the chapter subtitle is not aligned correctly below the chapter title.

I approved the proofs without correcting these items, even though for me that's like trying to ignore the sound of fingernails on a blackboard.

Why?

The computer problems that over the past year almost drove Nomad Press out of business were most obvious in the way they affected typography. (They also caused random crashes, scrambled data in other programs, and additional aggravating time-wasting horrors. Various computer-smart people who spent a lot of time working with me to mitigate the effects of these problems diagnosed the situation as "DLL hell," and that name sounds like what I've been making my way through.)

Net result: I am NOT going to open the file for this book (on the PC) and run the risk of having MORE things go wrong unless the correction I'm going after will affect the reader's ability to benefit from the book.

These two items are simply embarrassing to me, and will reduce the book's chances of winning any publishing prizes.

They will have zero effect on the book's usefulness to knitters.

Here goes:

 

Two approval pages in the fax machine: one for the cover, one for the text. By 4 p.m. on Friday afternoon, with the slight hope that this will jumpstart the project's progress toward an actual ship date.

(The paper in the fax's supply tray has been printed on one side already: it's being recycled from the working drafts of the book. There's an approximation of my blue ink there . . . again, not accurate, because it came off an inkjet printer, nothing like the printing source for the final copies. In addition to using all sides of our office paper, we've selected Green Press Initiative-qualifying paper for the printing of the book as a finished object. We do everything we can around here to keep our footprint light.)

Now that I've signed off on the proofs (gulp), this book's production is completely out of my hands. I'm trying not to hold my breath, since there's nothing more I can do to affect the outcome.

Time for lunch.

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Monday: The online account's shipping dates have not changed yet, although receipt of the approvals has been recorded.

Late Friday, 2/6: We finally have a ship date (I've been checking twice a day). The books should leave the printing plant on 2/18/09. Assuming they depart on time, they'll reach the distribution points between three and five days later, and should be out in the world about a week after that.