The Independent Stitch

Moose!

It's been silent around here because I said "yes" to too many things, some of which don't help pay the bills (but were irresistible) and thus make paying the bills even more challenging than usual. I've been teaching; planning for future teaching events; freelance editing; trying to keep on top of Nomad Press concerns; and writing articles on topics that are huge, complicated—and fascinating.

There will be an article in the summer 2012 issue of Spin-Off on the relationships between fiber diameter, softness, and crimp (not a full discussion, because that wasn't possible).

Most recently I've been working on another article for another publication, on a HUGE topic that I only took on because I wanted to know enough to write it. Which means I've been researching. And thinking about how to condense the information into the available, limited space. I've been poking at the subject(s) for several months, collecting bits and pieces, writing sections, getting flashes of insight. But I have been frustrated by my inability to bring the scraps together into a coherent whole. In the past, I have been blessed with a week here and there at one or another location away from home, where I could concentrate. I've had an open invitation to use one of these places since January, but I haven't been able to get here.

I saw a two-day spot in my calendar and seized it. I drove up yesterday. I'm in the mountains. It's quiet. While there are uncounted numbers of items on my "to be done by last week" list, my goal for these two days is to complete writing that piece.

As of this morning, I have 1600 of the 3000 words written, and I think they're in decent shape (i.e., won't need to be ripped completely apart and rewritten). There's plenty of material to fill out the remaining 1400 words, although I need to do a little more research before I can write the next section. Plus I slept on an air mattress for the first half of last night, and only the second half of the night (couch) was really restful.

So I decided that after lunch a walk would be a good idea: between snow flurries (the snow from early this morning didn't last past noon).

I intended to walk up to the highest point on the road, then turn around and walk back down. That's always a wise approach to exercise on the first day at an altitude higher than the one I'm accustomed to. Just before the turn to the last switchback, I heard something crunch and looked up.

My camera has a little zoom lens on it, but definitely not a telephoto. (To quote the manufacturer's specs, "a full 6.0 megapixels of imaging power and a high-quality 4x optical zoom lens.")

The reason I heard the CRUNCH was that the other obvious megafaunal inhabitant of that piece of the planet had just taken a bite. And I was that close.

I decided to retrace my steps instead of taking the switchback, which goes up the hill just behind the amazingly multi-hued diner.

Here's what I saw as I descended:

That gives a sense of how steep the terrain is and how the moose and I hadn't noticed each other until I was pretty much eye-to-eye with it.

Heading downhill again, there was this:

And then this:

Which turned out to be this:

That photo isn't as clear as the first one because I was walking on the far edge of the dirt road, to give as much space between us as possible, and I just held up my camera as I was passing and clicked the shutter. The first moose seemed calm despite my presence. This second one was a bit skittish, and less sanguine about my presence. I didn't want to disturb either of them. The path of least disturbance was the one I took.

To get enough walk in, I went to the bottom of the road, coming across this:

Apparently at least one of the moose had been down lower earlier in the day. Not much earlier: the scat was pretty fresh.

So I huffed my way back up the hill, feeling like I'd chosen the perfect time for a break. Here's what the weather looked like as I climbed:

And now I need to sit here at the table and sketch out a timeline of a couple thousand years so I can write the next paragraph or two of that article.

There's a lot of sheep-related stuff going on in my life, including several blog posts I've started but not had time to finish. Those stories will have to wait, unfortunately, for clearer brain-space.

Happy moose day, though!

How I came up with the numbers I used in The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook, part 1

I've been promising, or threatening, to write a post about how I came up with the numbers used to describe the fibers in The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook—you know, the parts in the boxes, where the text talks about fiber diameters, staple lengths, fleece weights, and the like.

The short answer is that . . . well, there isn't a short answer. The shortest is that I didn't just copy numbers from somewhere else. Instead, I did research, drew on almost forty years of experience looking at and handling wool, and came up with numbers that I thought would best represent what a fiber person (for example, me) could expect to find.

Two decisions, one philosophical and one practical, set the foundation for my work with the numbers.

Philosophically, I wanted the data we provided to reflect what fiber folk were likely to hold in their hands: in other words, to give a reasonable ballpark idea of the range of fibers an animal, or breed, is probably growing.

From the practical perspective, I wanted a consistent approach to underlie all the sets of numbers.

Co-author Carol Ekarius and I had already spent months deciding what would be on our list of animals to cover.

The first thought that arises for anyone engaged in such a quest is to use the numbers published by breed associations. Yet those aren't available for all breeds and not all types of animals have breed associations. In addition, those numbers may reflect a particular group of people's ideal for judging animals in the show ring, not what's showing up on the shearing floor.

What comes next is wondering how people who have written down numbers before have decided what to use—but that lasts only a moment, because in almost all cases the back stories can't be discovered. A reasonable approach would be to choose an ostensibly reliable source and copy its numbers. I've done this in the past, as a result of personal curiosity and for my own notebooks, and it takes a long time.

Yet this time I was responsible to more than my personal curiosity—or, rather, to new levels of that curiosity as well as to a potential community of fellow fiber-users. So I moved to a new level that involved gathering as many numbers as possible for each type of fiber from a wide variety of sources, and then taking a look at them to see if I could discern patterns or irregularities.

To demonstrate my process, I'm going to use four sheep breeds that presented radically different problems in deciding what numbers to use:

• a very consistent breed (Cormo)
• a breed with a lot of variety (Romney)*
• two breeds with almost no data (Santa Cruz and Hog Island)

 

* If I'm feeling brave when I write up the "a lot of variety" section, I'll mention the Cheviots again. . . . Does it indicate anything that, when I went to link to a blog post about the Cheviots, I could remember the EXACT MONTH AND YEAR when I had a serious tussle with their identities and data? I have a good memory, but for things like "when did I write that specific post?" I generally need to refer to my notes. Not in this case.

___

The numbers part of writing The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook operated as a separate sub-project and had its own dedicated working spaces, including a physical folder:

It was about 1.5 inches (4 cm) thick. Inside were sections with pockets:

It also willingly held a few extra manila envelopes of papers.

I happened across this organizer while I was buying yet another dozen cardboard file boxes to hold fiber samples. I bought it on a whim, feeling extravagant because I had no precisely defined use for it. It became a reliable sidekick. Although the data it held was partnered with a lot of computer files, my thinking processes took place with the help of the papers it protected.

As I mentioned, I began by simply gathering data presented by other people. I looked at the Oklahoma State University site and at Wikipedia, of course, in part because many fibers are listed and it's nice to start a search with success (or to be warned that the digging will need to be deep). It was interesting to discover later what the sources of these sites' data were—when I located matching material elsewhere that appeared to predate the compilations. I was able to perceive this cross-linking between sources (print and web) from time to time throughout my research, and it helped me evaluate and weight my results.

Then I consulted as many breed and trade associations as I could locate, performed multiple web searches, and prowled through a couple of shelves full of books. Repeatedly.

When I had exhausted at least myself, if not the options (although I worked to plumb those as deeply as I could), I assembled in a spreadsheet the data I had found for each type of animal or breed of sheep.

___

Example 1:

Cormo

Cormo is a relatively modern sheep breed developed with strictly defined performance standards, including for the quality of the wool. Individual animals that don't meet those requirements are culled. You'd think I could have almost instantaneously processed this breed through the numbers-cycle. While it was easy relative to other fibers, it shows that none of my decisions worked by cut-and- paste.

Sometimes I obtained information in imperial designations, sometimes metric, sometimes the Bradford or USDA numbers. (These two systems use the same notation system, although they are not completely interchangeable.) I started by putting whatever information I had on one sheet of paper (well, sometimes, as for the Romney, two sheets of paper).

Here's my Cormo list, in its neatly presented spreadsheet form:

Because I ended up looking for regional variations, I coded the column just to the right of my source indicators for the potential geographic bias of the data, if I could perceive one. (1-US, 2-UK, 3-NZ, 4-AU.) If I wasn't sure, I left the column blank. (Fournier & Fournier sometimes got coded as 3-NZ—when the data matched what I found in a New Zealand breeders' association. Sometimes I could tell where Wikipedia's information had been drawn from. In this case, the Oklahoma site referred specifically to Australian sources.)

While Cormo was one of the simplest breeds to come to conclusions about, you'll note discrepancies in the collected numbers.

In staple length, the two sources I found said 2.5 to 4 inches OR 4 to 5 inches. Well, 4 inches seemed like a safe place to land, but there will always be some variety in a natural item like wool. I knew from experience that not every Cormo fleece is exactly 4 inches long.

Staple length can be defined either as "how much wool can these sheep grow in a year?" or as "how long was the wool that the shearer clipped off?" They're not the same. Which were people talking about?

Suspending judgment temporarily, I simply moved to other parts of the summary to see what I could learn.

In fiber diameter, I found additional intriguing oddities. Initially, the numbers looked pretty consistent at 17 to 23 microns, with 21 to 23 microns coming from In Sheep's Clothing (Fournier & Fournier), possibly a reflection of the authors' New Zealand origins. (The breed developed in Australia, but there might be more focused goals among New Zealand breeders. Or not. This was part of my discovery path.)

Turning to ASI, which is the American Sheep Industry Association, I found an even more arresting set of numbers. These were at cross-purposes to each other. This source specified both 17 to 23 microns AND 46s to 56s USDA grades. The micron equivalents of USDA 46s to 56s are 26.4 to 32.7. The site did helpfully specify that it was looking at American Cormo, which might mean it was recording information on a regional variation, even though with this breed the standards appeared to be both strict and internationally consistent.

Fournier & Fournier, with their 21 to 23 microns, in addition specified 64s to 58s. They didn't say whether this was Bradford or USDA, but in either case a ballpark equivalency would be 21 to 27 microns. The grades corresponding to 21 to 23 microns would instead be roughly 64s to 62s, a much narrower span.

I'm skipping lightly here over a discussion of how Bradford numbers differ from USDA grades. We did talk about that in the book. By the way, I constructed the chart comparing fiber counts and USDA grades that appears on pages 12 and 13 of The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook to help myself keep track of all this stuff.

Now, without having resolved anything, I turned to fleece weights. As an initial observation, rams and ewes tend to produce different amounts; rams grow heavier fleeces. Yet a lot more ewes are kept and shorn, so sometimes fleece-weight numbers ignore the rams. Like staple lengths, fleece weights are subject to a lot of interpretation, because the parameters aren't specified. In addition to "ram or ewe?" there's "a full year's maximum growth?" and "skirted, or not?"

The general assumption is that a fleece weight will be grease, not clean; a full year's growth; from a ewe; probably lightly skirted.

But you never know whether that is the case for a particular set of numbers unless it's spelled out.

Where my chart says (e), that means the source specified that this was the weight of ewes' fleeces. (Similarly, some of my charts have both (r) and (e) measurements.)

The Cormo Sheep Conservation Registry liked 12 pounds as a nice, single number, presumably an average. Fournier and Fournier were in the same vicinity, with 9 to 12 pounds. ASI thought fleeces from this breed would be a good deal lighter, 5 to 8 pounds, but they also specified that they were talking about ewes.

When I did my research on Cormos, I did not find micron counts or fleece weights on the Cormo Sheep Conservation Registry website, which is now listing 21 to 23 microns and 5.5 to 12 pounds.

Okay, what to do with all these flying numbers?

At this point, I began to draw pictures.

When I first felt backed into one of these corners, I was on a retreat in Salida, Colorado. This was fortunate, because my retreat times gave me opportunities to stick with one thorny issue or another until I had resolved it, something that wasn't anywhere near as easy when I was home and juggling writing tasks with regular duties and interruptions.

I remember the morning I stared at a sheet of statistics that were not coalescing. I felt compelled to confront the problem with a pencil and some graph paper. I took a brain-clearing walk to the office supplies store and splurged on a spatious pad of quadrille paper, 11 x 17 inches of open territory on each sheet. Back at the cottage, I wrote reference numbers across the long side of one sheet and then sketched where all my different sources thought a particular breed's wool should be (I may have started with the Romneys).

This turned out to be a breakthrough. During my retreat time, I hand-wrote a number of these sheets and refined my system. When I got back to my home computer (and its printer), I made up an Illustrator file with the key across the top and lots of guidelines, like my quadrille paper, in the body of my form. I printed out blanks and used them the same way that I had the big sheets. With pencil. These got tucked into my blue pocket file, either alphabetically by breed or, when I was looking for patterns in particular groups, in clusters by family or fiber type.

The top row of numbers represents micron counts, in crisp, even numbers. Next comes the Bradford scale, and below that the micron counts broken into fragments (with standard deviations) assigned to Bradford-like numbers when the USDA grades were established. Below that, there are the traditional fine/medium/coarse/very coarse designations, and the bottom row relates all the other measurement methods to the old blood system.

What I ended up with for Cormo, as my final numbers to go in the book's box of data:

• Staple lengths: 3.25 to 5 inches
• Fiber diameters: 17 to 23 microns (in the realm of spinning counts 62s to 80s)
• Fleece weights: 5 to 12 pounds

I'm sure some Cormo fleeces are as short as 2.5 inches, but the wonkiness in the ASI wool grades made me mistrust that low end. Of the Cormo wool I've seen, the 4- to 5-inch range seems typical, although some has been shorter.

It seems clear that 21 to 23 microns is where the breeders would like the wool to be. It also seems likely that some may be as fine as 17 microns.

Because of the difficulty of confirming Bradford versus USDA throughout the entire inquiry, and because many people are familiar with those methods of describing fiber diameters, we supplemented the micron counts for fiber diameter with what we called spinning counts, meant to communicate in terms similar to those of the two closely related older systems.

For this breed, one developed at a time when micrometer measurements were coming into fashion and one that is defined in part in terms of the micron counts of its wool growth, I gave more weight to the ranges in microns than to the USDA-Bradford-style numbers that were causing problems. In order to get our "spinning counts," I translated from the micron measurements, coming up with 62s for the 23-micron end of the range and 80s for the 17-micron end. It seems pretty clear that most of the wool will be 21 to 23 microns, or 64s to 62s, but we couldn't write a whole essay like this about every breed.

I settled on a range of 5 to 12 pounds to take into account the span from what was probably a light ewe fleece to what was likely a heavy ram fleece.

Wool is a natural, not manufactured, material. It will always have variability—more than anyone coming newly to the topic of studying it can begin to imagine. Getting more precise numbers would require a dedicated research project for each breed (with an extensive budget for communication with breeders, likely including travel, as well as sampling and analysis). The end results would not serve our intended purpose any better than what I'd done.

___

Having wrestled a clutter of numbers to a ground of my own defining, I would let myself spin some samples, as a reminder of what it was all about: a person, at a wheel, with some fiber, enjoying the process of making yarn.

And that's enough for one day. I'll continue later.

Spinning photo taken on a writing/research/spinning retreat in the mountains of Colorado, March 2009. Photo by writing friend Judy Fort Brenneman.

_____________________________________________________

Information and new sources continue to appear. Here are a couple of items that would have fed into my research, except that they appeared after I had to call it quits and give the manuscript to the publisher. (We tweaked until the last minute, but couldn't continue the fundamental heavy lifting for that long.) First there's an article with great quotes from Ian Downie, who developed the Cormo breed. Second, a new registry was established in 2009, also too late for inclusion.

The new Cormo Breeders Coalition has this to say about the wool: "Sample from mid-side 17–23 micron. Consistent wool with 90% of wool within a two micron range. Staple length 3.5” to 5.5”. Dense soft wool. Fleece weight mature ewe 5–8 lbs." Add this set of numbers to my list.

There's always more to be discovered! Sometimes those discoveries will result in corrections to previous conclusions. In this case, I read that and said, "So far, so good for my conclusions on that breed."

Scrivener and the Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook

—> Long post warning

Before I launch into a fairly technical discussion, I want to mention one of the things that makes it all worthwhile. This week's Spinning Daily newsletter shows what Betsy Alspach did following the SOAR workshop that she took with me this past October. Thanks to Betsy for continuing her enjoyment of the fibers we played with; for making her magic skein; and for sharing it and the story. Click the image to read the whole article online.

_____

The nitty-gritty

I've been researching and exploring new software solutions. As I do so, I would like to shine a spotlight on a piece of software that I came across by accident, as a result of a series of computer disasters. I treasure it. It is, and will continue to be, key to my work.

When I began research for The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook, I employed PCs running Windows XP and, the primary machine for that project, a laptop running Linux. I organized my research in traditional computer folders. The method was cumbersome, but familiar. I did a lot of tedious keyboard work—for example, making notes from websites—while remembering, and being glad to be past, the days of writing longhand on index cards.

About that time, the PCs started not playing nicely and I lost about two years' worth of income-producing work: not because my hard drive crashed or my files were lost, but because all my time (and a lot of money, hiring consultants) was spent trying to get the PCs to let me get something accomplished other than talking to tech support.

Cutting to the chase, after waiting far longer than I should have (because although the solution cost a lot, so did the troubleshooting), I ditched all but one of the PCs, bought a couple of Macs, and . . . discovered

I like Scrivener so well that even though time now is short, I opened up Illustrator and played with some type in a garish display of enthusiasm. (That's P22 Vale Pro, a dignified face that I've abused amused(?) with an array of colors.)

In 2011, a version of Scrivener became available for PCs; in 2008, it was Mac-only. If I'd known about it, I would have figured out how to buy a Mac just to run it. Wow, did it make my life easier for the extended, focused, broad-based, complex project that became The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook. I'm not sure who told me about Scrivener: my niece, Corey, or my daughter's best friend, Jenny, or both. They, and the program, saved whatever shreds of sanity I had left after the PC nightmares.

This will be a nuts-and-bolts post about organization and process. Keep in mind that I was using an earlier version of Scrivener. I've upgraded, but I haven't implemented any new tricks in this legacy file. I also didn't master all of the software's capacities in the version I used then. I didn't have to. Without asking a lot of me, Scrivener provided a flexible, friendly, reliable foundation for a huge project.

_____

The Scrivener screenshots should be clickable for larger versions. I generally try to keep my images small, but because some people may want to see more detail and I still don't want to hog bandwidth for my friends who are on dial-up (yes, some are), I'm trying something new.

_____

Moving into Scrivener

I'll start with my overall organizational scheme. I'll drill down into it, then back up to show part of my working process. The entire process would require another book to explain. . . . I hope that what I'm presenting here is helpful and clear.

Keep in mind that you're seeing the final working file. It evolved over several years and through many iterations. Scrivener is so accommodating that way. I would save a snapshot (so I could go back, if I needed to), move things around, and keep making forward progress as I did so. I never did have to go back to a saved version. And I should mention that one of the things I like about Scrivener is that everything in it can be accessed without the program, should computer disasters occur. I don't find a link explaining that detail right now, but I remember it clearly. Scrivener's storage methods are not proprietary.

I started by importing my existing PC folders full of files into Scrivener, which was easy, even though there were heaps of them. Then I started arranging and rearranging, as well as continuing with my research and doing things I couldn't do before—like importing web pages instead of re-keying the pertinent bits.

The Draft folder: overall conceptual framework and a container for final files

In Scrivener, a Draft folder can contain only text, not images or other miscellaneous file types. So I used that top, Draft section for an overview of where we were going, and then as a container for final files. The heavy lifting took place in the Research folder.

This is the big picture, the view from space. Within each folder, we estimated the components' final page counts. The associated file for each family or group sketched out how we intended to use those pages. The allocations changed, of course, but you see the "introductory section" above was scheduled for about 28 pages.

I also ultimately made a second Scrivener project file for Fleece & Fiber. The original project collection ended up being dedicated to the sheep, with cross-references to the second file for all the other animals and the peripheral research (synthetics, silk, and plants). I did keep the old folders in the original file, mostly because I didn't need to take them out (speed, speed . . . ).

Here's the breakdown for the sheep section:

At the bottom of the sheep folder, there's a subfolder called "Sheep reference files for proofing," which contained the text-only versions that we compiled into the final manuscript. I worked FROM this area in Research down into the Draft folder, and then brought my finished work back up here.

The next view shows both the organizing pane on the left and a portion of one of the component files in the window on the right. I've highlighted the file for the English Longwool family. At the right, you can see what breeds we planned to include in this section and the estimated number of pages for each (the bottom showing some of the other breeds we needed to keep in mind as we prepared this section, even though they aren't English Longwools):

A good six months' worth of work preceded the establishment of these folders, during which co-author Carol Ekarius and I went back and forth through e-mail, Skype, and in-person meetings about what would be included and how we would organize it. That's where the "family" and "group" units originated. Sheep breeds can be sorted and associated with each other in infinite numbers of ways. Our final method balanced my fiber-related wish list with Carol's livestock-focused perspective.

I haven't checked yet to see how closely the finished book conforms to the listed page-count targets. Everything changed constantly as we proceeded. (Silk and synthetics obviously weren't part of the scope of our finished work. We pulled them out in the interest of completing the book before the turn of the 22nd century.)

The Research folder: where I lived

Unhampered by the sensible yet strict limitations of the Draft section, a Scrivener project's Research area can contain many types of files: text, images, imported web pages. . . . Because of its flexibility, the research section of the Fleece & Fiber projects (numbers 1 & 2) became my electronic home for several years.

Here is the highest-level view of the sheep-corral Scrivener project, with the research subfolders revealed. It's deceptively (and comfortingly) simple.

Yarns contained details about potential sources for sample yarns (as opposed to fibers). That was mostly Carol's department, although when I came across options while I was doing other research, I'd make notes here and then tell her about them.

I'm going to demo with the SHEEP research.

To make the second project for the OTHER MAMMALS, I copied the original all-encompassing file, renamed it, and deleted all the sheep info from that copy. The X and Z codes in the folder names are my signals that this is information peripheral to the current project, although it's stuff I want to keep track of.

Going deeper into research

Now we begin to get serious. Here's the next level of files and folders under SHEEP research:

At the top are templates that I used for specific types of files, and a couple of running bibliography files. Scrivener now has (and may have had then) better ways to manage templates and bibliographies. My manually implemented methods worked fine, although I pushed the limits of practicality. For the next big project (she says, with trepidation), I'll do more with templates and corkboards. I really didn't need them this time.

Here's a quick side trip to see the contents of my templates folder:

Back to the main tour.

I organized the sheep breeds (and types) alphabetically in subfolders. Initially the folders encompassed larger chunks of the alphabet, say A through F. As time went on, I had to slice more finely. The S breeds ultimately needed two folders!

Here's the C folder, which I'll use for the demo because there were enough breeds to make a one-letter group but not so many I can't get them into a screenshot of reasonable size.

My comprehensive list included breeds that were mentioned in sources I consulted but that have become extinct. (The x in front of the name reminded me not to pay too much attention once I had resolved the breed's status: having these records within the file was useful when I was tracing the development of other breeds that still exist.)

A few of the breeds in that list did not end up in the finished book because we ran out of time. If we had fiber, we fit the breed in. If not, we were forced to let some go. We discussed mules as a category (for example, Cheviot Mule), but mules are crossbreds so the many types of mules didn't get individual treatment.

There are also cross-references in this list. CVM ended up being filed under R for Romeldale, because CVM is currently being treated as a specific type of Romeldale and not as a separate breed (there was a time when it was classed differently). To keep myself from wondering whether I'd lost my CVM notes, I made a blank file to tell me where I'd put them.

Clun Forest is highlighted in the screenshot because I'm going to use it as my example in drilling down farther. Within the Clun Forest folder, which is shown in its finished form, are the DRAFT (working text), a SAMPLE (spinning notes), BREED NOTES, which contained my summary of my research, which is in the stack (rather than folder) of Resource files. The files within the folder progress, in level of completion, from bottom to top:

resources (research) —> notes (summarizing) —> sample(s) (spinning) —> draft (writing).

All of the files and folders contain the breed name, so if things got out of order I could put them back. Items moved constantly as I was working, and this naming convention served as a safety net. I added notes to the FOLDER names about the level of completion for that breed, so I didn't have to open the folders to see where I needed to turn my attention next.

EVERY BREED had a set of files that looked like these. Many sets were much more extensive.

The Resource files got the major action at the start.

I had a template file that stayed at the top of the resource pile called RESEARCH LIST. It summarized the basic resources that I wanted to be sure I checked for each breed. If there was no information on the breed in that resource, I'd mark "none" so I'd remember that I'd already done it. For example, there are no notes for the Clun Forest from Ryder (Sheep and Man). Because Ryder was a primary resource that I was unlikely to skip, yet the information in it is diffuse and requires time to assemble, I might think this was an oversight. I could check my research list and discover it wasn't. From here on, the screenshots show the folder organization on the left and part of the view of the highlighted file itself on the right. Scrivener, of course, has a larger screen area and shows more of the file. I've just cropped my images to keep this discussion as nimble as possible.

I had, indeed, checked Ryder. Yes, he had something to say about Clun Forests, but not enough to warrant a whole file of notes. (Often my Ryder notes were extensive.) On the summary page, I recorded page numbers and topics, in case I needed to retrieve a specific piece of information later.

"Dohner (and mixed sources)" above means that this was an imported file from early research and I'd keyed information from several locations into a single file. Once I was in Scrivener, I did separate out the Dohner portion, because the book (Encyclopedia of Historic and Endangered Livestock and Poultry Breeds) was one of my most important sources. (There's an individual file for it later in the list.) (Scrivener handles multiple files much better than my old C:/sheep folder did, and lets me look at the contents, not just guess at them based on the cryptic names I've given them. Oh, and its search functions are superb!)

The point was not to maintain the system perfectly but to set up scaffolding strong enough to support the bigger tasks of research and writing.

Once I had completed the review of resources, I compiled BREED NOTES into which I cut and pasted (or typed my comments about) the highlights from my searches. This file consisted of quotes and summaries, and is what I put in front of me when I actually started to write (using Scrivener's split-screen function, also a boon at many other times).

See the note about "Data transferred to Numbers" at the bottom of the righthand pane? While Scrivener doesn't handle spreadsheet information especially well, I managed to put some spreadsheets into my BREED NOTES files and to manipulate some data there. I supported this with Numbers (Mac spreadsheet) files; that's part of the "how did I come up with the numbers?" discussion. (Another idea on my list of topics to write about here is how I decided what numbers to put in the breed data boxes for The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook.But that wasn't a Scrivener task.) 

When I spun fiber from the breed, I made succinct notes about the samples, the tools and techniques I used, and my subjective impressions. I kept a number of the variables standardized, for speed and ease of record-keeping, so those items aren't in the notes. Unless otherwise specified, I used a Lendrum folding wheel with a standard flyer, on its highest-speed whorl.

For some breeds, I made a lot of samples. I chose Clun Forest for this demo because it has all the necessary parts but was not complicated. Each SAMPLE file refers to one source or color of fiber—i.e., one fleece or batch. If I made more than one skein from the same wool, all my experiments are in the same file. (My sample notes are backed up by a separate database (print and electronic) of the fibers we obtained, where they came from, and what they were like. There's enough information here—Hagerstown, MD—for me to locate more detailed background on this wool.)

Finally, I would write. That step occurred in a DRAFT file (still in the Research section, not the Draft section).

When I finished, I would send a copy of that file to Carol, because this was the point at which our writing process became collaborative.

When I sent Carol a file, I marked its status in another Scrivener record I made up to track where we were in our final coordination on each breed, because we sure didn't work in lockstep—as individuals or as a team—from page 1 to the final page! Our major collaborative activities occurred at the beginning of Fleece & Fiber, with a determination of what we would cover and how it would be organized, and at the end, when we blended our contributions into what we think, and hope, is a seamless whole. In between, we kicked ideas and tasks back and forth as needed, but worked independently for the most part.

I put this tracking file under "Templates," back up at the top of the Research folder so I could find it easily.

I still kept within this list the names of breeds and types that we were not covering. Having that information readily available saved time and sanity. In an undertaking of this size, the less time you spend hunting for or wondering about things, the better.

At the bottom of the Templates group, you'll see a TIME PERMITTING summary. This was a place for me to note tasks I'd thought of to do, if we had time: additional types of samples to spin from specific fibers I'd had to set aside in order to move to the next; sidebars we might have written if we had possessed infinite time and could have printed infinite numbers of pages; and so on. I did complete the most important tasks on the list.

And there is, of course, the whole second Scrivener project file for the Other Mammals, which ended up including the EXTENDED sheep as well.

_____

Scrivener, my stalwart companion, has requested some software allies

Scrivener is an amazing tool for organizing and writing a massive project. Carol and I also used a lot of spreadsheets. The array sufficed. We made it.

So why am I looking at other software solutions?

I'm asking Scrivener to do jobs it wasn't designed for. It's been doing them exceptionally well to date, but I need to reserve it for what it's best at: organizing and facilitating writing projects, large and small.

Scrivener is fantastic when you know what you want to do. There are other tools that will work better for the amorphous, preparatory stages, and for managing information that may be used in multiple projects, not yet defined. It's also been fine for organizing workshops so far—planning, tracking details, and putting together the materials and handouts—but as I teach more workshops, I need to quit asking Scrivener to bend over backward for me.

I need to supplement Scrivener with a DATABASE to track fibers, yarns, and workshop information. I need a dedicated BIBLIOGRAPHIC system. I need a way to save, sort, organize, and OCR the PDFs and notes I'm gathering, even though I'm not sure which project or projects I'll need them for. And I need a flexible technique for gathering and moving my ideas around before they've become projects, so I can see how my coming-into-focus thoughts relate to each other (by means of a tool that won't let my ponderings get crumpled up and lost in a pile of papers).

I'm currently beginning to learn:

• Database: Bento (the learning curve and price are appealing, and it already seems helpful)
• Bibliographic system: Bookends (coming along nicely, although I'm not yet sure how it will connect to the other software—actually, the matter of connection is a question I have about everything I'm doing)
• Collecting and organizing research: DevonThink (I have it, and have read the Take Control book and a bunch of stuff on the forums)
• Ideas: TinderBox (I have it, and have read a bunch on the forums and have loaded the tutorials onto my computer)

This is going to take a while. Researching, trying out, deciding on, and investing in the tools has taken about a year. Now I need to get conversant enough with them to entrust them with parts of my workflow. I also have deadlines, which would be easier to meet if I had the new systems in place. Yet the time I can dedicate to learning them is limited.

Onward. The eternal balancing act.

_____

I know this: Scrivener is solid. Even though I've discovered I can't do everything with it, I can do amazing amounts. It's gotten me this far. And Scrivener is a tool that makes work fun.

Holidays

The year-turning holidays are always a bit disjointed for me. Here are a few tidbits from recent travels.

First, an art assemblage I saw being constructed at Denver International Airport a while ago. It is ephemeral, as is its topic, and it will be going away. I'll miss it.

It extends through both sides of one of the arched bridges between the terminals and consists of 10,000 paper cranes constructed from an unpublished manuscript, along with similarly sized crystals. Called "Shadow Happy," it is by Brianna Martray.

DIA's copy of the artist's statement is here. There are many more photos on the artist's site, as well as a link to a YouTube video (about 11 minutes long) about the installation, which I'm so glad to have had the opportunity to see part of. I flew in and out of DIA a number of times during construction, guessing at and then having revealed the reasons behind the blue-tape markings throughout the passageway.

"Shadow Happy" will be in place through February 2012 along the walkway from the main terminal to the A concourse.

______

Because of our travel plans, I wasn't able to be in Salida, Colorado, for the winter solstice celebration of the life of my friend Richard Cabe, who left this plane of existence on November 27. Richard, who was among other things a sculptor who saw rocks as "ambassadors of the earth," worked in a way that was as elemental as, although dramatically different from, the vision in "Shadow Happy." (That last link contains a couple of pictures of Richard shaping granite, and a mention of a scholarship in his name to support other artists.)

In our luggage, my daughter and I carried with us some of the materials to make luminarias in Richard's honor, linking the memory of his life to another part of the globe that was important to him, the one we were traveling to, the Pacific Northwest. My sister and brother-in-law had on hand the other items we needed.

It was, fortunately, not raining. Beanie the cat supervised, as did the heron my sister received as a gift one Christmas.

The luminarias burned a long time (except the two that Beanie knocked off the deck rail).

____

Speaking of Beanie, she helped wrap presents:

. . . and got into my luggage and retrieved (and claimed) a plastic-wrapped fish knitted by my friend Jodie Aves. She liked it even better after we took the ripped plastic bag off.

It seemed to make her very happy.

____

The family gathering lasted close to a week and involved our two 87-year-olds, plus honorary long-time family members (I'm not sure what J. is doing with my aunt's cane, but neither she nor Mom looks worried) . . . .

. . . and, for the first time, one of the younger generation participating by video chat from across the country.

I spent a lot of time doing preliminary sorting of family photos and artifacts from the boxes we packed when we moved Mom to an apartment a couple of years ago.

That's just the start of one section of the 1940s material, which included about 200 photos Dad took in China/Burma/India.

____

We were home in time to pick up the dogs from the kennel on New Year's Eve, although I drove the backroads to get there because of the high winds—the interstate is exposed for most of its length. I learned later that it had been closed altogether for a couple of hours that morning. Our trip was uneventful, although the winds had also knocked out traffic signals along our route, and it was good to have the two-legged and four-legged household reunited.

A quiet evening was topped off by neighborhood fireworks (the official city ones had been cancelled because of the weather), which gave Ceilidh an opportunity to demonstrate exactly how small a corner a dog of her size can fit into.

I think her perception is accurate that there is safety in the vicinity of a spinning wheel, a ukulele (the black case along the bottom), and a supply of dog food (the white container).

____

We also played Settlers of Catan on several evenings, as well as one round of Carcassonne, and my daughter and I got my mother and a friend of hers past their stuck spot on one of their jigsaw puzzles. I also managed to get almost all of the yarn samples prepared for teaching at Madrona, but that's a story for another day.

____

May 2012 bring us all lots of friend-visiting time, good conversations, rewarding work and discoveries, and restorative play.

___

Edited to add another "we're home" photo, actually the one that started me writing the post. I looked down this morning and saw this, which amused me a great deal:

It's obviously an indicator that I'm in a familiar environment.

Happy new year again.

Kristi's Nourishing (Nibbles and) Knits

During my years as an editor at Interweave Press, I didn't have time to participate in any fiber groups—other than those that naturally arose as part of work, which were more task-oriented than social. I still don't have a lot of time. So I'm especially happy to have found, a number of years ago, a particular knitting group. We meet one night a week. We have no scheduled activities. We show up, we knit, we talk, we occasionally vent, we often laugh, we go home. Oh, yes, we also eat. Because we start showing up at 6 and hang out until at least 8, maybe 9 or later, we do have food around, although it's not planned.

This is the group that supported me through the research, spinning, and writing of The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, although most often—unless deadlines were just too imminent—I'd take my R&R knitting, like the Ink sweater. When I showed up with my spinning wheel, these good folks would know that I was seriously scrambling. I'm grateful for the ongoing and unqualified friendship of each individual and of the cluster that includes us all.

(Four folks are missing from that picture: Kristi Schueler, who took the photos of the group at our gathering last week; Dee, whose dining room we refer to as "the clubhouse"; Irene, who participates more often in the summer; and Ashley, who now occasionally commutes from her new job in California. Present are Kathryn, Amanda—who can be recognized as one of the models in Nourishing Knits—Sarah, me, and Rebekah. Rebekah's wearing her first completed knitting project, a blue wool pullover with a cable motif on the front.)

This group has also informally supported another recent project during its development: Kristi's Nourishing Knits: 24 Projects to Gift and Entertain. This electronic book contains a dozen knitting projects and a dozen (well, a generous dozen) recipes. The yarn-related and kitchen-based components are paired, with stories about each. Kristi is a gifted knit designer, recipe deviser, and photographer (she took the author photo of me that's on the back of Fleece and Fiber). We watched the development of the patterns and we taste-tested the recipes, sometimes in multiple iterations (from yum to WOW).

In the next photo there's Dee, pouring the spice tea that makes our world go 'round. (Recognize the sweater I'm wearing? Sarah's working on a Swirl, and has actually figured out how many stitches are in each section, as well as a total, and gives us reports on her status. She's an engineer. Dee's working on a Swirl of her own, and being an accountant has prepared a spreadsheet and revised some calculations: her work-in-progress is on the table in front of her. I think Kathryn is knitting socks. Rebekah is making another sweater. I have no idea what I'm knitting. I may have ripped it out. No, I think it might be a Christmas present that will be ready by spring.)

In addition to providing perspective, useful and not, on Kristi's knitting designs, we have joyfully contributed reliable feedback on her kitchen adventures. In the reddish glass by Kathryn and on the plate in front of Sarah are a few remaining saffron pastries that Kristi brought last week. They were absolutely scrumptious: not too sweet, delicately flavored, satisfying.

Nourishing Knits contains lots of options of the knitterly and cooking varieties. I subscribed to the early version of the book, so I've been getting updates as things progressed. Now it's finished, and I have the whole thing! You can, too. It's currently available only through Ravelry, the online knitting community (free memberships), but Kristi is working on a landing page on her website as well so non-Ravelry folks can get it.

One of the patterns in the book is "Guided by Love," a sock design constructed on one of Cat Bordhi's architectures so that pawprints go spiraling from the toe area up to the cuff, with "guided by love" added in braille beadwork around the top of the sock. (Note: Designing pawprints in lace is no small accomplishment. I've done it, independently. Getting the components to line up correctly takes a lot of trial and error. Kristi's standards for how things will work are really high.) Early sales of this pattern earned $1400 in donations for The Seeing EyeTM. The accompanying recipe is for Bow Wow Biscotti, dog treats that were tested by Kristi's dogs. . . .

very sweet Emma, who will, if she knows you pretty well and you don't look at her directly, let you pat her:

and spicy Brandon, a more recent addition to the household:

as well as our dogs, Ceilidh (with some of the yarn for Dee's Swirl). . . .

and Tussah, who, like the others, doesn't get fed people food but is hoping for a pup-biscotti:

. . . plus Amanda's and Sarah's dogs, and maybe some others as well. Everybody's been involved in Kristi's book, at least at the tasting level. All of the dogs shown here are rescues. Being rescued to test Kristi's dog treats is a pretty good deal for a dog.

Looking over the finished product of Kristi's book brings back lovely memories for me. The patterns and food ideas in it have been carefully selected to create similar fine memories for you.

Because it can be hard to know where to start, I'll pick out four of my favorite patterns and recipes.

Although I like and would knit all the patterns, the specific designs that I personally would be happy to cast on for immediately, and be working on by tonight, include:

• "Buttercream," elbow-height hand and arm warmers with twisted-stitch patterning and shaped thumbs
• "Challah," warm warm comfort socks
• "Masala," unique slippers, and
• "Ciabatta," a sweater to steal from the guys

I'd revisit all the recipes. Yet the ones I want to make this week are:

• Savory Pesto Cheesecake, even though I don't like cheesecake! (it pleases cheesecake lovers and non-lovers alike)
• Smoky Sweet Pumpkin Seeds, which I should warn everyone are addictive
• Chai Concentrate, created in the spirit of a local restaurant's exquisite brew
• Pumpkin Fig Muffins, not too sweet, great texture, nice gingery punch, and
• Slow Cooker Black Bean Chili—this stuff is awesome, worth the price of the whole collection

Oops, it turns out I can't limit myself to just four.

Hmmmm. . . . They must have tested the Antipasti Bread Pudding while I was doing something out of town. I'll have to experiment with that one on my own.

Another plus of this book is that Kristi talks about her design processes, for both yarns and foods, and offers suggestions for modifying and principles for diverging from the written instructions. She's aware of allergy issues; likes whole, unadulterated foods; and is vegetarian-friendly.

Both patterns and recipes would be appropriate for the run-up to the holidays (even, for some of them, at this late date), but are also prime candidates for cheering up January, February, and mud-slushy-stormy March. And on beyond that. Check out Nourishing Knits. You'll be glad you did.

__

Photos by Kristi Schueler, © 2011 and used by permission. / I purchased my subscription copy of Nourishing Knits.

Blue sweater, Ink sweater

This is the story of a sweater that began in the middle of the 1970s, when I bought a few skeins of blue superwash yarn (superwash was relatively new then) and knitted a simple sweater with lace patterning and raglan shaping that I've been wearing fall/winter/spring ever since. That sweater has definitely earned its keep in my wardrobe, and is still a favorite. However, it has been showing its age. (Again.)

The next part of the story began at Sock Summit 2009. I was teaching and helping another teacher and had very little time to spend in the alluring marketplace. Yet as I walked past the market booths, moving at warp speed for somewhere I needed to be, a table at the end of a row caught my attention and I veered off-course to take a quick closer look. It was covered with beautiful colorways of hand-dyed yarn. I picked up the one that drew me most strongly, and was caught short by the label.

It said "Color: Ink for Deborah." Not only was it gorgeous, it had my name on it. Further study was obviously in order, despite wherever I needed to be.

The booth contained Karin Maag-Tanchak's Periwinkle Sheep offerings. The table that had stopped me short was filled with a set of special colorways she had dyed for Sock Summit, one for each of the participants in the Luminary Panel that would be taking place on Sunday. This was my color.

I'd never had a color before. Especially one that was called "Ink," bringing together all the knitting and publishing and writing that I have done, and continue to do, in a subtly variegated way that mingled a lot of my favorite shades. Sometimes I feel very scattered between all these activities, in addition to the need to earn a living. The yarn said to me, "It's all one, and it's definitely you."

I didn't know Karin. The whole thing seemed a touch magical. After having finished the whatever-it-was that I was scheduled to do when I went skimming along the edges of the market, I went back and bought a skein from the person who was assisting Karin, who was then on a break. Later I went back for a quick visit to tell Karin how much I liked the yarn, and she gave me a skein. (Apparently each Luminary was in line for a free skein, but the assistant hadn't known that, and also didn't have any reason to suspect that I had any special interest in the yarn I was buying, other than being a random person who thought it was pretty.)

I took the snapshot of one of my two skeins, opened out, shortly after Sock Summit, when I was at a family gathering that took place not far from Portland. The question I had begun to face, of course, was what to make with the yarn. At that point, I had two skeins. The more I looked at it, the more I liked the colorplay (as well as the colorway). I knew I would need to make something other than socks, even though I now had enough yarn for two pairs of regular socks or a nice pair of knee socks. Merino socks and I do not have long-term relationships. I tend to walk around either barefoot or wearing socks without shoes, and my feet behave like they belong to someone who walks around barefoot a lot. I need sturdy sock yarns.

When I got home, I contacted Karin to see if she had any "Ink" left. She had a few skeins. I bought four more, for a total of six. That would be enough for a sweater. Then lots and lots of other work intervened (mostly intense attention to The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook), although I kept looking at and thinking about the "inky" yarn. I wanted to make something I would wear frequently.

The following winter, I noticed that the previously mentioned favorite garment, knitted when I lived in Port Townsend, Washington, needed mending again. It had already had its cuffs re-knitted twice because of wear. I'd patched some other spots, too. Now new locations were showing holes, and this rude type of disintegration was the sort that is harder to fix than just re-knitting cuffs, or re-securing the neck facing, or tightening and re-fastening a broken strand.

Calculating from when I lived in Port Townsend, the sweater was at least 32 years old and probably more like 35. It might actually be time to think about constructing its successor. Perhaps the Ink yarn would be appropriate. The original yarn was a worsted weight of unknown breed, in a heathery, grayed blue. The new yarn was a superwash sock or fingering weight of Merino, in a subtly variegated brighter blue with bits of purple here and there.

I could not in any way duplicate the first sweater, but there was potential here for continuing in the same spirit.

So I began to consider why I liked, and used, this sweater so much.

The original:

Although I was tempted to think in terms of more complex and sophisticated structures, I enjoy the simplicity of this garment. It's plain 1/1 ribbing, and a basic raglan shape. The neckline is not shaped, so neither side is the front or back. It goes on correctly any way I grab it.

Yet within that simplicity resides a nice set of details. The body and sleeves are worked in the round, with an even number of repeats of the pattern in each of those sections. (This means the increases, for both body and sleeves, all occur in the final row of the ribbing. Both sleeves and body are worked straight from ribbing to underarm.) Although this part isn't entirely clear from the photo, the patterns match up along the raglan decreases, and because I worked partial repeats of the Horseshoe lace pattern, the design goes right up to the edge of the decreases. (It doesn't look that way in the photo, and I'm not sure what happened with the image, but the actual sweater does have partial repeats at the points where things look blurry along the raglan lines.) I found the original pattern in a 1970s issue of something like Woman's Day or Family Circle. I don't recall having modified the instructions, but I might have. I suspect the attention to partial repeats was my contribution; that sort of pickiness is hard to write into a published pattern that needs to convey enough information for multiple sizes.

I thought about using a Horseshoe lace pattern again, but it didn't seem like the right choice for this yarn, for reasons I can't completely explain. I felt a slight sense of anticipatory boredom when I considered it, even though I thought I could knit another type of Horseshoe-lace project (say, a blanket) in an instant, if that pattern felt like the right match for the yarn. I've learned to pay attention to even a hint of boredom in the design process and to quickly discard the idea that evoked it.

Yet lace felt like the right direction to be going to maintain the qualities I'd enjoyed in the original sweater.

I find leaf-lace patterns especially appealing, so I cruised my books for options and swatched several. The one I settled on was pattern 22 in Nihon Vogue's Knitting Patterns Book 300. I was partly charmed by the alternation between the smooth and textured edges of the leaves. While I was swatching, I thought about "fixing" them to match, and then decided that I liked the hint of two different types of leaves, with both rough and smooth edges, in one design. It reminds me pleasantly of working through tree identification books ("Are the leaves alternating or opposite? Are their edges smooth or sawtoothed or lobed?").

I measured the old sweater, then compared its dimensions to the raglan sweater proportions in Knitting in the Old Way. This sweater's sleeves are narrower than the percentages presented in Knitting in the Old Way. On other occasions, the additional ease in the proportions from Knitting in the Old Way would be what I'd want. But since I'd decided to replicate the old sweater, I decided to stick with its measurements. I calculated pattern repeats, thought ahead to the sleeve joins when I picked my cast-on number, and began.

I started with the sleeves. It's always handy to check out a pattern with a sleeve, because it acts like an extra-large swatch. Plus if I do the sleeves first, then when I reach the underarm on the body I'm immediately ready to join all the sweater parts and work the yoke area. I always feel like I've gotten a jump start when I've finished the sleeves. I completed them, and then began the body. Here's what the body of the sweater looked like last February:

I was on a ferry between Friday Harbor, Washington, and Seattle when I took that snapshot. I can tell because the photo carries the right date, because some of the Washington State ferries have bench seats in that color, and because some ferries also have linoleum flooring in the pattern that shows in the corner of the snapshot. So I was working on sweater 2 not far from where I'd made sweater 1. I like that part of the world a lot.

Much deadline-knitting and writing and teaching and traveling and other responsibilities slowed my progress, but it was always a treat to come back to the sweater, wherever and whenever I found myself with a few moments to work on it. When I reached the joining point—when I put both sleeves and the body together in one big loop and began to knit the yoke—I had to decide what to do about the raglan decrease areas. I decided to work the pattern as close as possible to the decrease points, and not to have a column of plain knit stitches run up those lines, in the way that had pleased me so much on the earlier sweater. This was an on-the-fly decision, made while looking at the fabric in front of me and deciding what I thought would work best for it. I was prepared to rip back to the joining area if I didn't like how it was looking after a few inches. I evaluated and pressed on.

And then, a couple of weeks ago, I reached the neckline. After wavering for a bit—Should I shape the neckline after all? It seemed like a dereliction of my design duties to leave it completely unshaped—I stuck to my original plan, knitted twice as much ribbing at the top as I wanted in the neckband, folded the extra to the inside, and tacked it in place, making my stitches loose enough that they would expand along with the ribbing when I pulled the sweater over my head but not so loose that the stitching would snag on anything. I washed the sweater and laid it out on towels to dry and find its destined shape.

When I put it on. . . .

it worked just fine.

How do sweaters 1 and 2 differ? The original sweater was made of worsted weight yarn at 20 stitches to 4 inches (10 cm), or 5 stitches to the inch (2.5 cm). The Ink sweater is fingering weight yarn, at 30 stitches to 4 inches (10 cm), or 7.5 stitches to 1 inch (2.5 cm). Sweater 2 doesn't have sweater 1's neatly angled raglan lines, but I did get pattern connections along the decrease area that please me equally well: the raglan joins meander back and forth with the leaf patterning and are almost invisible. There's more depth to the patterning in #2, and the yarn is livelier, so the result is more sculptural. Sweater 2 is slightly warmer than sweater 1 was, even though it's made of significantly lighter-weight yarn.

Similarities include the ease of wearing, the extra-long sleeves (I like my sleeves on the long side), the practical goes-either-way neckline, and the fact that I like it a lot.

It comes as no surprise to me that I'm wearing the sweater today.

Those aren't pictures from today, though. The pictures were taken a few days ago. Today we have a bunch of snow on the ground. The sweater works for both sets of conditions.

Sweater 1 can now take a well-deserved rest.

The previous photos have all been taken in sunshine. I like colors that shift slightly depending on the light in which they're seen, and the dyes on this yarn fall into that category.

There's one more photo I need to show, and this one was taken inside, without the brightening sunlight. I snapped it when I was cleaning my pen. The container holds water along with fountain-pen ink, dissolved from the nib that's soaking.

Could it be more a more perfect match?

Yesterday and today

It's been quiet around here for many reasons, including travel, planning and contract negotiations for next year's teaching, and . . . an online course I'm taking called Teach Now, coordinated by Jennifer Louden and Michele Lisenbury Christensen.

Wow! The course is as laid-back or intense as each participant chooses to make it. Of course, I've jumped in with both feet. Although I have taught classes and workshops and given occasional keynote addresses for more than thirty-five years, teaching has always been a once-in-a-while event. Next year, I'll be teaching as much as I have time to (my 2012 calendar is full) and I want to make sure I'm doing it as well as I can. I took a gamble on this course and it's been very worthwhile. It looks at teaching as a multidimensional activity, one that every teacher undertakes from a position of both knowing and not-knowing, that is both more valuable (and demanding) than we often recognize it to be, and that deserves attention in ways that will make it sustainable for the teacher to continue doing.

Jennifer and Michele provide lots of audio resources (a focus recording for each week plus interviews with master teachers), homework with deadlines, and conference calls in which we can all work through sticky spots or examine questions that have come up. There's also a private Facebook group for conversations between participants that is a delight. It's taking a lot of time, and it's also paying off in giving me more confidence in teaching (which I love) and ideas for different ways to teach. It's also helping me feel like it's okay that I have way more questions about the topics I'm teaching than I do answers! I know that I know a lot. (Putting together a course is no problem, as soon as I identify the topic. My biggest challenges then are how to focus and trim the material so it makes sense as a whole and can be fitted into the available time.) I'm always significantly MORE aware of what I want to learn about next—what I don't know yet!

One of the things I don't know is when Jennifer and Michele will be offering the course again. To find out, get on their non-bothersome mailing list. I recommend the course strongly to anyone who is teaching any topic at any level. It's best if you can clear enough of your schedule to take advantage of all the opportunities (in my case, drastic measures have been required), but it's also valuable if you can just sip from the fire hose, so to speak. I'm also reading Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life, which Jennifer and Michele recommend highly (with good reason), even though it's not a specific part of the course. (An interview with Parker Palmer is included in the course materials.) There are both independent and facilitated versions of Teach Now. The facilitated option is amazing.

____

Meanwhile . . . we have had one of Colorado's weather shifts in the past 18 hours.

I've also been appreciating our neighborhood, which is generally somewhat boring. Houses all built to the same handful of plans, too many of which are painted in shades of beige. Privacy fences made of cedar boards, arranged vertically, six feet high. Grass. A few trees. Not much individuality. Except. . . .

One of our neighbors has recently painted her fence! We're THRILLED! (And we told her so.)

Yesterday

Today

Her mural looks super whatever the weather. Note, though, how there are no tree limbs hanging in front of it in the first picture and there are several in the second.

I seriously wanted to bike to the coffeehouse last night for my evening work session, but it was spitting rain-snow at 5, and by the time I was getting ready to leave at 5:30 the back deck was completely wet. Worse, the forecast indicated that we would likely get several inches of snow and a significant portion might have fallen by 9 p.m. I usually work at the coffeehouse until they close at 10. Sigh. I took the car, even though I knew today would likely not be great for biking and thus I'd be losing my last opportunity for a while.

It turned out I wasn't just being a wuss. By the time I headed home, I had to scrape a couple of inches of snow from the car and free it from some limbs that were overhanging its roof.

Yesterday, briefly revisited

Here's more of yesterday:

Those are likely violas—maybe actual violets, although the blossoms are bigger than those of the midwestern violets I grew up with—that we've been enjoying all summer. They've grown through the street's asphalt. The truck parked behind them hasn't pulled forward over them, a fact for which we've been grateful every day when we've checked on them. The leaf blanket has been a new addition to the scene.

Today, again

This morning, our walking landscape looked entirely different and the flowers have yet another layer over them, this time white and puffy.

About seven inches (18cm) of snow lie everywhere. You can't tell we got that much snow from the street view, because it's a wet, heavy storm and the snow is melting quickly where it's warmed by the combined heat of the sun and of the dark roadway. The fact that our crew is walking in the street is a giveaway, though, of how much snow there is elsewhere. We're sidewalk folks. The sidewalks were either not cleared yet or were covered with backed-up, cold, wet, boot-invading slush. My daughter and our two dogs are turning a corner toward the house with the new mural.

Just behind her is another house that enlivens our walks, although we'll enjoy less of its pleasures for the winter. It has a spinet piano in the garage (in the GARAGE?) and the young man who plays it never seems to miss a note. When he learns a new piece, all the notes are in the right places but they don't come in as quick succession as they do when he's got the composition down. When he masters a work, it's hard to listen as fast as he plays, so we don't try. We just let the music swirl around us. It's such a nice experience and lasts for about a half-block in each direction (just past where the mural now is).

We're grateful for all the moisture of this snow, although it comes at a cost.

We've seen other trees that have experienced this sort of snow-induced split go back to growing just fine. I hope this one will. It was obviously pruned to take off some extra branches not long ago, so it was less vulnerable than it could have been.

Our neighbors, who just had the pruners out last week, lost part of their remaining big tree.

And another piece fell on their fresh paint job and new roof, although I don't think it did structural damage. I hope not.

So yes, I was out front at our house in my pajamas this morning, first thing, poking a shovel at the branches of the crabapple and bouncing them to get off as much snow as I could (and trying no to get it all over me). I think that tree is basically okay. The lilacs are also spreadeagled, but they tend to be resilient.

Lots and lots of neighborhood trees were less fortunate. Some people's lawns and porches were covered with broken limbs, and in other places drivers had to drag parts of trees out of the road to get to work.

Yet the storm also left some lovely sights in its wake:

It's supposed to clear up late this evening, and tomorrow's low is predicted to be 11°F (-11°C). I'm glad I located my winter coat and my boots today. I think before I get back to work in a few minutes I'll block the sweater I finished knitting on Monday night (photos to come).

Biking, utility boxes, and "our" neighborhood painter

A while ago, the city of Fort Collins figured out that the least expensive way to deal with graffiti on utility boxes was to hire artists to paint murals on them. A program hiring artists to transform the transformer boxes began in 2006, and is explained in part in a PDF of the city utilities newsletter from 2008.

I like graffiti that has artistry to it and that doesn't deface other artists' work. Unfortunately, a lot of the graffiti in this city consists of clumsy and ugly tagging and some of it does mess up other art.

The murals, on the other hand, are creative and diverse. The program saves the city money and stashes cash in artists' pockets, on its way to doing further good in the community.

Eighteen artists are working on boxes around town this year.

What a delight it's been for my daughter and me to discover that the boxes along our most-often-used section of bike trail have been scheduled to be painted. Most of the painting has been done in the more central parts of the city. One pair of boxes will feature birdlife, especially Red-winged Blackbirds (by Redwing Street; PDF here—I've only seen one of these boxes so far, and it's complete).

There's also a whole series of boxes offering new doses of evolving brightness, courtesy of artist Francisco Esteban. My daughter and I first became aware of the sudden addition of graphic imagery on the boxes. Here's one color set-up:

And another:

I was initially worried, thinking that the colors and white dots were interesting but would invite tagging, because of their simplicity. It was interesting to find myself considering that the design of the artwork actually goes a long way toward discouraging ugly additions later.

Later, we occasionally caught sight of the artist working on the pieces. Of course, we've been on our bikes so we've zoomed on past. I'd been planning to take my camera and get pictures of the boxes, just by themselves, figuring I wouldn't happen to be there when the artist was.

As the weeks progressed, we began to see that the white circles were turning into bicycle wheels, and small flocks of black-and-white cyclists were accumulating, slowly, on one of the boxes.

Sunday I biked downtown to have breakfast with a friend and remembered to take my camera. On the way back, this was what I saw . . .

I managed to overcome my natural shyness and stopped and asked if I could take some snapshots and share them on my blog.

Fortunately, it turns out that there's a lot more to come for these boxes. I love the radically different colors in this pair. And the whole painting set-up. This guy knows what he's doing, as an artist and from the pragmatic angles.

Many more of those ovals have already turned into lines of racing cyclists:

The work is proceeding steadily, and I'm enjoying watching the construction of these pieces. I looked up the concept PDF and learned that there will be additional colors coming in the cyclists' jerseys after the black-and-white portions are all in place. It turns out that I can also follow the progress of the murals online in another PDF, although I'd rather do it in person as I bike along the trail.

I also enjoy seeing how this artist gets to his work site.

On one of my trips past where he's working, I'll need to ask about the bike. I haven't seen many cargo bikes around town. These vehicles can handle up to 400 pounds (about 180 kg).

Fortunately, there's a summer ahead of us, and it's going to take a while to make those transformer boxes even more beautiful. Considering how long Francisco is going to be working on them, we're figuring he's a new part-time neighbor. It's really nice to have artists hanging out and doing good work in our part of the world. It makes me want more art, everywhere. It's also fantastic that artists are being paid to do work that has both aesthetic and practical value.

A week away

Following the Colorado Art Ranch artposium over Memorial Day weekend, I was offered the blessing of a place to remain longer in Salida and get some (relatively) uninterrupted work done.

I've done this before, while working on the book portion of The Project. (The Project continues, by the way; it's just finding its next expression.) Since the book has just been released, my work needs to flow into new vessels, and my "concentrated time" lacks the strict (nearly rigid) focus of previous retreats. This is more challenging, and I feel less productive. So at the end of the week, I took stock.

I'm going to interleave a few more photos from the workshop I took with Dean Dablow, along with some more normal images later in the post. I had a great time in that workshop.

___

Week's planned tasks and accomplishments, completed:

• Article for PieceWork on four rare sheep breeds that are still around because of the actions of one or two people, 2500-3000 words. Due 7/15, finished and submitted at 3331 words, plus supplementary info. I will trim later. The concept is complicated and will include four accompanying projects that other people will design and make, and my contributions include source recommendations for yarns, leads for photos, and ideas for appropriate projects (an extra 977 words). That's a lot of moving parts and the editorial folks need the lead time to get them all synchronized, so I scheduled the basic writing early. The combination of pieces is slated for the November/December issue. Pays on publication.
• Short back-page essay for Spin-Off about writing the book, focused on supplies needed to get through all the associated tasks, 500-700 words. Due 8/1, finished and submitted, 676 words, with photos. Got a jump on this because I have another article due the same date that requires more prep work. Pays on publication.
• Some ukulele, mostly pleasant chord practice just before bed. I had a Homespun video by Jim Beloff out of the library that I listened to and practiced with (I see there's a second in the set to consider for the future; I may buy both, because I'm not proficient with the skills on #1 yet). I should probably not think of how long I've been using Homespun resources for independent music-learning. First there were cassette tapes, then CDs, now DVDs. The medium changes. The message has been constant.
• A bit of reading in Ensouling Language: The Art of Nonfiction and the Writer's Life, by Stephen Harrod Buhner, a book I found by chance one day at the Tattered Cover—one which needs open yet protected mental space to discover. There is nothing like browsing in an independent bookshop to bring a person in contact with treasures that wouldn't have been encountered otherwise.
• A smidge of narrative writing toward a book I've been working on for about eight years now.
• Blog post on Artposium.

 

 

Planned tasks started but not completed:

• Article for Spin-Off on qualities of wool, 2000 words. Due 8/1; sketched concepts and wrote 1300 words, but that's only a brief coverage of 2 of the 10 or so topics I figured I could get into the piece, out of 30 or more that might be included, although there obviously isn't room. I will need to keep going on the writing, see what ideas seem most pertinent and will fit, and then cut a lot. Pays on publication.
• Information sheet for Explore 4 workshop that I'll be teaching next year. Overdue, as is my blog post about this event (March 11-16, 2012). I created the file and got the text about 90% drafted out; layout not started.

 

 

 

Planned tasks not even started:

• Author/client introductory questionnaire for editorial business. Way overdue. It's close to done, but I didn't touch it. (I did get another idea for what it needs to take it to the next level. I keep getting "take it to the next level" ideas on everything. It's both blessing and curse.)
• Article for Spin-Off on Lincoln Longwool sheep, including a project (due 11/1), 3600 words. I didn't even start research—this will involve a lot of work, including spinning yarn and making something. At least I have bought the fiber. Pays on publication (income reduced by cost of fleece).

Unplanned tasks:

• Connected with The Book Haven about possible signing in November 2011.
• Talked with Organization 1 about teaching there in July 2012 (likely not a fit, but we're still discussing).
• Negotiated with Organization 2 about teaching there, with a potential add-on at a neat-sounding shop nearby, in July 2012. My final schedule may include Organization 1 or Organization 2, not both, because my workshops take a huge amount of prep work (finding, cleaning, and organizing fibers) and I can only do a few a year. Maybe neither of these will actually happen, if the details can't be worked out, but #2 is sounding promising. Pays/reimburses after completion of event.
• Came across an idea for another book that I might want to write, and made initial publisher contact to assess potential interest. (I might publish it myself, if they aren't interested and I don't want to let go of it. Too early to tell.) If someone else wants to publish it, there's an advance (likely small, but everything helps).
• Trip to Buena Vista, Colorado, to visit Serendipity, which has wonderful yarns and all sorts of intriguing stuff to look at. This was totally self-indulgent, but I met Mikki and Joan and it was fun to show them the book. I may do a signing there when I'm in the area again in November. Mikki took my picture with owner Tami's camera, which appears to work although I look a bit stiff . . . I'm not great at posing, and the book is heavy  . . . and then she wrote a blog post, thus revealing that I went shopping in the middle of my work week {grin}. It was fun, and I definitely needed the change of contexts.
• Lots of back-and-forth about a book I'm working on publishing (Nomad Press), including receiving essential files in an obsolete format and figuring out how to convert them when even the nearly-always-reliable OpenOffice refused to open them. (Zamzar rocks!)
• Talked with another writer about her multiple book ideas and helped her focus and prioritize them—a highlight!

Interleaved with:

• Yoga and meditation, daily.
• Visited the Salida Bread Company for the first time (and the second . . . would have visited more, except it took time to eat the bread I bought).
• Lovely dinner visit with Susan, Richard, Kerry, David, and Little (Little is a delightful cattle dog; I got to pat Little on both visits to the Salida Bread Company, too).
• A few bike rides and walks. Nowhere near as many as I would have liked, but getting stuff done requires staying inside and doing it.
• A bit of trash picking along the stream adjacent to where I was staying—I mostly removed plastic bags from the water, plus some old newspapers, a bunch of cigarette butts, and a soda can.
• Keeping up with a smattering of online networks, including stopping in at Ravelry once and answering messages.
• A little knitting of samples to use in teaching yarn/fiber workshops.
• Pleasantly simple meals, a number of them consisting of salads . . . with avocado, which my daughter prefers not to eat.
• Tea and a visit on the last morning there with Sherrie and David, since we'd barely seen each other because everyone was working so hard and it's silly to have traveled that far and be that close for more than a week and not get in a visit.

__

Biking interlude

Here are a few photos from my bike ride at the end of the afternoon on the day before I left. It had been hot, and several of the days the air was smoky from the big fires south and west of us, in Colorado, New Mexico, and even as far as Arizona. This day ended quite clear.

This is one of the county roads, with a bike trail next to it. Even when the county roads in this county are paved, they mostly don't have shoulders. (Some are dirt two-tracks.) That's the smooth, straight bike path leading to the west. On this particular day, there wasn't much smoke from the wildfires to the south. Or there was, but the wind blew it on past.

Deer hang out all over. This one was in a subdivision, between the houses and a church. There were three more hunkered down in the shade on the church lawn.

They're pretty acclimated to humans, and eat people's gardens, both flower and food types. If you're driving on the highways or county roads in the area, stay alert. They may cross the road in front of you at any time, often in groups of three or four. That wasn't a concern when I was on my bike.

___

Hey! A project really completed!

On the day I got home, the new issue of Spin-Off (Summer 2011) had just arrived.

It contains the article I wrote way back in January on Soay sheep (there was more to say than we could fit in The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, even though we included a lot there).

That sweet ewe on the far left is demonstrating the molting, or natural shedding, of her fleece.

Small samples of several types of Soay wool.

And lots of words. I like words. I also like pictures! The photos in this article came from varied sources, including my own camera, Interweave's studio shots, and Steve and Priscilla Weaver.

So nice to see a piece in print. (And since it's been published, I get paid!)

 

The spaces between things

One of the brief workshops I took at the Colorado Art Ranch artposium on Dwellings was presented by photographer Dean Dablow. He has photographed the spaces between dwellings, which are very revealing. He called his session "The Space Between Us," and offered a sampling of his photos as inspiration and then sent us out with whatever cameras we might have (some worked with iPhones) to look at the spaces between . . . anything.

I'm always interested in new ways of perceiving. We only had about 45 minutes, and couldn't go far. Fortunately, I didn't have to go far to find cool stuff. My "between" also occasionally morphed into "beneath." At the end, those of us who chose to do so could bring our image-capturing devices back inside where Dean talked with us about the photos we'd taken and what we'd discovered.

Here are some of the shots I took—I greatly enjoyed the search for the in-between.

*

*

*

*

Not exactly "between," but while I was framing the image above, I couldn't resist this one.

*

 
and . . .

I don't think I traveled more than 40 feet from the workshop space to find all of those, and more.