The Independent Stitch

A few ways to help save rare breeds and species that produce irreplaceable fibers

I got interested in rare-breed conservation when I realized that the animals that produced most of my favorite handspinning fibers were on the watchlists posted by organizations like the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy and the Rare Breeds Survival Trust.

That was a number of years ago. Because of the ongoing support of a number of people, some of those breeds are in much better shape now. Some are still very precarious. They all need our interest and help.

Here are some ideas and actions that can make a difference:

• Experience rare-breed fibers for yourself. Some are even clean and ready to spin, knit, crochet, weave, or felt! Check out sources like (in alphabetical order) The Spinning Loft and Spirit Trail Fiberworks.
• Join and/or donate to organizations like the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (ALBC), the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, and other organizations (list here). ALBC publishes an annual directory of breeders who may have yarns, rovings, or fleece you can buy. (Google searches can also be interesting, as can careful browsing of the booths at fiber festivals.)
• Support people who are raising rare-breed fiber animals; this includes individual farms as well as historic sites like George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens and  Colonial Williamsburg; help a nearby living history site with its livestock program (help it develop one if it doesn't have one already). When you make contributions, make sure people know you are especially interested in the fiber animals!
• Wear your heart sheep on your sleeve shirt. (With a rare-breed sweater on top for warmth.)
• Learn about the conservation of biodiversity in domesticated, as well as wild, animals; discover and support the work of the SVF Foundation and the National Germplasm Project (through ALBC).
• If it suits your lifestyle, make room in your life for some rare-breed animals. (For genetic conservation purposes, cross-breeding doesn't count. It has other uses. Just not in keeping rare breeds around.) Or help someone who does have them.

Okay, that's a lot. Just pick one thing to learn a little bit more about . . . or just pick up a skein of breed-specific yarn to play with, whether the breed is rare or not. Educate your fingers about what different wools feel like (although this isn't just about wools, of course; we've lost cottons, and we need to safeguard our flax quality, and . . . ). "Merino" and "100% wool" are just the entry points to an amazing universe of options. I've been engaged in this process for years. It's fascinating, and extremely rewarding.

A couple of books:

• Handspun Treasures from Rare Wools (out of print, but still available from some retailers; Google finds it): a small book, full of inspiration about what to do with rare-breed wools
• The Encyclopedia of Historic and Endangered Livestock and Poultry Breeds, by Janet Vorwald Dohner: a big book, full of information and stories; borrow it from the library until you decide you want your own copy; she has the best information I've seen on Santa Cruz sheep

Have fun! And surprise yourself, as I just did in the discovery process of the most recent three posts.

News from Estes Park: Keep the Fleece contest

At the Estes Park Wool Market, I learned about an upcoming project being sponsored by Wild Fibers magazine, along with some other folks. Called Keep the Fleece, it pertains to topics I care a great deal about—and I'm working on a related project myself. There will be a web site, but it is not active at the time I'm writing this (at www.keepthefleece.com, when it's ready). So I'd like to share the initial information that I picked up at the Wool Market here. If you want to submit your work to a contest like this, you can't ever get started too early. It's good to have lots of imagining time, as well as working time.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, when I was editor of Spin-Off magazine, we sponsored a project called Save the Sheep. It included what turned out to be an international juried competition, a traveling exhibit (on the road for two years), a book called Handspun Treasures from Rare Wools (now unfortunately out of print, but still in stock at some vendors), a slide show, and a trunk show of rare-breed samples. It was an amazing endeavor to be involved with, and. . . .

It's definitely time for the next step! How nice that Wild Fibers is the primary catalyst this time.

Here are the basics:

• 2009 is the United Nations International Year of Natural Fibres.
• There's an international contest, with a deadline of April 1, 2009.
• There will be a book published in September 2009 (fast track from the deadline!) that includes selected winning entries.

Here's the front of a brochure on the contest (many details still being ironed out):

Here's what it says inside:

• "We want people from around the world to be inspired by the versatility of natural fibers, and to understand their importance not only as a natural resource, but to the environment and the people who are directly involved in the farming, harvesting and manufacturing process."
• "Four Simple A's (otherwise known as the contest rules): Anyone can enter. This contest is for everyone—professionals and amateurs alike. There is a separate category for professional designers although a single item may be entered in multiple categories where appropriate. For example, a scarf designed by Pam Allen made from Shetland wool could be entered in both the Island Life category (for the island wool) and Pro-create (for professional designers). Anywhere in the world. "Keep the Fleece" is focused on creating a universal fiber community including women who knit with feverish abandon Down Under and cops who crochet on the beat in Guatemala. Any fiber—naturally. "Natural" fiber includes any type of protein fiber (from animals) or cellulosic fiber (from plants). April 1st, 2009. No fooling—that's the deadline. A select group of winning entries will be published in a book available by September 2009—so get busy!"
• "Contest Categories (this is only a partial listing): Camelot, Fiber from camelids: guanaco, vicuna, alpaca, llama, and camel; Island Life, Any fiber that originates from an island, such as Icelandic wool, or sheep native to North Ronaldsay, St. Kilda, etc.; Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, Plant fibers, including but not limited to cotton, hemp, jute, and coconut; Inch by Inch, 100% pure or recycled silk; Like a Virgin, Any fiber from a young animal (kid mohair, baby alpaca, etc.) . . . "

Because the organizers haven't completed the categories, I'm not going to key in the rest, but that gives the idea. Whatever natural fiber anyone wants to work with, there will be at least one category and probably more to choose from.

Sounds like fun. My time's already committed, so it's extremely unlikely (one chance in a million) that I'll be entering, but many of the activities I'm committed to are related, so some of my posts may be helpful to those who will be participating.

I'm planning, for example, to talk soon about today's task: washing some rare breed wool that sure wasn't raised with handspinners in mind. But now I've got to go tend the soaking bowls again.

On missing BookExpo America, and on the new IndieBound

This is the first year since 2002 that I haven't been at BookExpo America, the massive annual convention for the book industry. I like going, not so much for the mobs of people and the free books and the "scene" (which are all overwhelming) as for the people and the ideas. There are many people I don't see elsewhere that I won't be visiting with this year.

The convention opens today in Los Angeles, and I'm at my desk in my basement office, just as if today was a normal day.

The massive computer problems I've had this year ate up both my time and any cash I might have diverted to pay for the trip. I usually find a local hostel to stay in, so the big-ticket items are airfare and the pre-BEA educational gatherings sponsored by what used to be PMA and is now, more appropriately, The Independent Book Publishers Association. So it's a lot less expensive trip for me than for many attendees, but still out of reach this year. I need to be here working on the book that will be published in October (Ethnic Knitting Exploration: Lithuania, Iceland, and Ireland, by Donna Druchunas).

Nonetheless, I can read about what's happening at BookExpo.

This morning, Bookselling This Week, which arrives in my inbox on a more regular basis than I have time to keep up with, let me know that the American Booksellers Association has announced a new program called IndieBound, connecting independent booksellers to the "live locally" movement. Here's the gist of what they said about it:

• "Following a year of study and planning, ABA designed IndieBound to tap into the growing national localism movement, with fresh ways for independent booksellers and other independent businesses to better convey their core strengths —independence, passion, community—to customers. A community-based website, IndieBound.org, has launched today as well, and will serve as the gateway for the entire indie community, with access to The Declaration of IndieBound manifesto, book-related related content, and more functionality planned for the coming weeks and months."
• "The program is designed to unite booksellers, readers, indie retailers, local business alliances, and others in support of local activism and local economies and to lead an Independent Revolution."

Anything that brings independents together is a good thing. It's too easy for any independent business to feel like it's the only one swimming against the corporate tide, and sometimes our arms get tired and we want to rest for a while, but if we do that we'll end up being swept out to sea and drowned.

The project's website talks about the title and focus of the endeavor:

• "Each page of a book carries something totally incredible and unique, but when they are all brought together, they build something infinitely greater."

And here's a quote from a bookstore owner about the project:

• "An integral part of IndieBound's purpose, to bring together local businesses of all stripes, is what appeals to Kelly Justice of the Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia. 'The most exciting thing to me about IndieBound is being able to officially partner with my neighbor businesses in our pride and passion for the city of Richmond and the things that make it unique. . . . [T]his flexible, modular revolution allows me to focus on relationships with my fellow merchants and customers. . . . I'm ready to save the day in my hometown! Are you?"

I think, in lieu of a trip to BookExpo this year, I might splurge on a t-shirt. But which one?

Going "home" to Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival

Warning: Long post, with a walk through past calendars, and a bit of spinning/knitting content toward the end.

Going back to Maryland

It's hard to believe that a week from today I'm scheduled to be at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival for the first time since 2000. On Thursday morning, I'll pick up Sharon, another former Interweave Press employee with whom I've almost always attended the festival, and we'll head for the airport.

In past years, Sharon and I have gone to Maryland because Interweave sent us. We had a great time, in addition to working really hard. This year, neither of us is an Official Presence any longer (me since 2000, Sharon since 2007). We're just going to Maryland because . . . we had a great time, and we miss the folks we regularly saw there. Not everyone we'd like to see is attending, but enough people we know will be there to make it worth the travel and the time. Because most of the people we know work the festival, as we did, we'll probably mostly just get to say hello, but still. And we never know who we'll meet that we don't know yet and will be keeping up with for years to come. Plus we both could use a short break from our respective "normal" lives.

It says a lot that . . . given all the possibilities of where we could go and what we could do, either separately or as a tag-team like we used to be . . . we've chosen to head for a fairgrounds in West Friendship, Maryland, on the first weekend in May.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've wondered how many times I've been to the Maryland festival before (nine) and what year I first went (1992). In going through my calendars, I discovered a few things. One of them is how tightly we had to work the publication schedule out a year in advance just so we could handle the logistics of being out of town right then. Another is . . . well, I'll wait for 1998 to talk about that realization, which ties to 2008 in ways I hadn't put together.

Going to the festival for the first time

Not in the calendars but in memory: Linda Berry Walker first suggested that Spin-Off magazine should be represented at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival and urged us to get there. (This was before the World Wide Web, which wasn't created until 1989, and Linda's farm was as fine as it is now, but smaller!)

This goes back a way. I think I first met Linda at a weekend conference at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. The topic was "Wool as a Second Crop." I've never owned sheep, but I'm the sort of spinner who has always been interested in them (at least in wool-growing sheep . . . not all sheep do grow wool) so whenever possible I've attended workshops about the economics of wool, wool-grading, and the like. I already knew who Linda was, in part because she had written some articles for the early issues of Spin-Off, which I'd subscribed to since it started up in 1977 when I still lived in Washington state, but I don't think we'd met face-to-face.

That workshop took place some time between 1983 and 1986. I think my daughter had been born by then and that we had probably moved into town (early 1982), but we definitely had not yet moved from Massachusetts to Colorado. That move happened in 1986, when I started at Interweave as book editor. A year later I was asked to take on the editing of Spin-Off as well, which I did, starting with the Spring 1988 issue (my tenure ended with the Spring 2000 issue).

From Spring 1988 until mid-1991, Linda wrote terrific columns on specific sheep breeds for Spin-Off: Border Cheviot, Border Leicester, Coopworth, Corriedale, Jacob, Karakul, Lincoln, Merino, Rambouillet, Romney, Scottish Blackface. Plus an article called "To Save a Sheep, Spin Its Fleece."

In part because of the complications of publication schedules and budgets, Linda had to drop loud hints about Maryland for several years before we got the go-ahead to check out the festival.

• 1992 Went to Maryland to see what all the fuss was about. Came back registered for a booth for the next year.
  Friday, 5/1: 8:10a pick up Sharon. United 468 DEN-IAD, 10:41a-4:02p.
  Monday, 5/4: United 127 IAD-DEN, 9:15a-11:01a.
  Friday, 5/8: Spin-Off to press.

So in 1993, we were there officially for the first time. I spent my weekends demonstrating spinning in the booth. We didn't sell things. We just spun and chatted up spinning, and sent people off to the other booths to buy Interweave's books and magazines. I met a bunch of folks whom I only knew from online connections, through CompuServe's fiber forum.

Because demonstrations need to attract people's attention, for the first several years I did my weekend's work with a Navajo spindle. Most people hadn't seen one in action, and I enjoy spinning with this type of tool. It's both eye-catching and efficient. Here's a YouTube demo of the technique.

As the years went on, I made a tradition of buying something fun at the festival to spin up before I got home. Because of the circumstances, it was usually prepared fiber, dyed in a color that would catch people's attention as they walked by. By the end of the weekend, after between fourteen and sixteen hours of spinning, the bones of my right hand were usually pretty sore but I'd had a fine time and produced several random skeins of yarn.

• 1993 First year with a booth. Well, half-booth. Building V, booth 18B. It was a narrower-than-standard space in front of the utility closet, which fairgrounds staff needs to get into from time to time. That was fine for us, because we could just step aside from our chatting and demonstration and let them through. Building V is now called Main.
  Friday, 4/30: Summer Spin-Off to press
  Friday, 4/30 (same day): 8:15a pick up Sharon. United 348 DEN-IAD, 10:36a-4:04p.
  Monday, 5/3: United 126 IAD-DEN, 9:05a-10:50a.
  Tuesday, 5/11: Spin-Off blueline (final review of printer's proof before magazine goes on press).

Maryland becomes a regular event

For the first several years, we flew into Dulles. Later we sometimes went into Baltimore; everything depended on which was least expensive. We'd generally arrive on Friday, set up that evening (the other booths where people actually sell things spend all day Friday setting up), and then do the demo work all day Saturday and Sunday.

Sometimes it was hot, and a few times it rained prodigiously. Mostly the weather was great and the fresh lemonade tasted fantastic. We generally didn't have time to leave the booth to stand in line for food at regular lunch time, so we'd stock up with healthy snacks at a grocery store, stash them under the table in the booth, and nibble our way through the days.

• 1994
  Friday, 4/29: Summer Spin-Off to press.
  Friday, 5/6: United FNL-DEN-IAD.
  Monday, 5/9: United return.
  Flew to Maryland out of the local small airport, which had a connector flight to Denver for a few years; there was no extra cost on our tickets, but usually much extra turbulence on the short flights along the foothills; sometimes the connector flights were canceled.
  Tuesday, 5/10: Spin-Off blueline.
  
  
• 1995 My daughter went along to Maryland one of these years; neither of us can remember exactly which year, but it was between 1994 and 1997.
  Friday, 4/28: Summer Spin-Off to press.
  Friday, 5/5: Continental 1817 & 225 DEN to either IAD or BWI, via somewhere else, 10:10a-?p.
  Monday, 5/8: Continental 220 & 1804, 8:45a-3:09p.
  Tuesday, 5/9: Spin-Off blueline.

• 1996
  Friday, 4/26: Summer Spin-Off to press.
  Friday, 5/3: American 424 DEN to IAD or BWI, 8:49a-6:30p.
  Monday, 5/6: American 1677 & 419, IAD or BWI to DEN via DFW, 7:53a-11:53a.
  Tuesday, 5/7: Spin-Off blueline.

• 1997
  Wednesday, 4/30: Summer Spin-Off to press.
  Friday, 5/2: 7:15a pick up Sharon. United 296 DEN-IAD, 10:40a-3:47p.
  We almost never did anything but go to the festival, work, and come home (note pattern of to-press and blueline dates tucked around the festival; this wasn't easy, because every magazine's schedule affects every other magazine's schedule, and we were dodging around multiple publications to make this happen). Sometimes there was a contradance at Glen Echo Park on Sunday evening, after we got the booth packed up, and we'd stop and check it out. In 1997, however, Sharon and I stayed an extra day and took public transportation into D.C. and went to The Textile Museum to see two exhibits, one of very fine knitting and one about netted structures. They were fantastic.
  Tuesday, 5/6: United 1821 IAD-DEN, 8:55a-10:35a.
  Wednesday, 5/7: Spin-Off blueline.

A pivotal year: 1998

Trudy and Jan Van Stralen of Louet offered to stop on their way from Canada and bring my daughter to Maryland for the weekend from the school she attended for two years in New York. The scheduling didn't work out, but it would have been great fun all around!

The big deal that did happen, though: 1998 was the year that Don Bixby, the director of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, and I sat on the grass outside building V and had a conversation that led to the Save the Sheep Project.

Judy also came along to Maryland. (She was getting interested in spinning. The spacious room you see in the photos on that last link was made available to us for the final judging of the Save the Sheep entries because of Judy's efforts. But none of us could foresee that, of course.)

• 1998
  Wednesday, 4/29: Summer Spin-Off to press.
  Friday, 5/1: 6a pick up Judy. United 276 DEN-IAD or BWI, 8:32a-1:33p. We didn't have to get to the airport two hours ahead in those days, or I would have had to pick up Judy before 5a.
  Monday, 5/4: United 1227 IAD or BWI-DEN, noon-1:38p.
  Tuesday, 5/5: Spin-Off blueline.

Here's what a few of my DayTimer notes look like from my meeting with Don:

I'd been interested in sheep, especially rare-breed sheep, for years. I'd first become aware of the rare-breeds issue when I edited Shuttle Spindle & Dyepot for the Handweavers Guild of America and published an article on the Navajo Sheep Project.

My fascination had continued to grow, and a few years before my conversation with Don at Maryland, I'd had a jolt when I looked over the list of endangered sheep breeds and realized how many of the names on the list corresponded to classic handspinning fibers that I'd hate to do without. Lincoln is a rare breed? Yikes! Leicester Longwool, that glorious, shiny, exquisite stuff? Jacob? Shetland, with its incomparable colors and textures??? Cotswolds? Oh, my.

And I hadn't even encountered yet some of the almost magical island breeds, remarkable for their tenacity as well as their wool quality.

Over the next two years, in addition to my regular work, the Save the Sheep project came into being. I'd initially thought that I'd simply gather existing research to provide the background for the project. As it turned out, nobody'd looked at sheep from this perspective before. Oops. I spent my evenings and weekends putting together the resources we needed to form the project's foundation.

One last official trip to Maryland, and one on my own

In 1999, the budget was a little tight and there was some talk about canceling the trip to Maryland. Those of us who had been attending said we would cut expenses as far as we could, but we thought it was important to be there. We stayed at a different motel (an inexpensive one that usually is booked up a year in advance . . . we lucked out); I slept on a rollaway. My daughter graduated from high school the next month.

• 1999
  Wednesday, 4/28: Summer Spin-Off to press.
  Thursday, 4/29: United 1618 DEN-IAD or BWI, 12:45p-5:38p.
  Monday, 5/3: United 1641 IAD or BWI-DEN, 3:10p-4:52p.
  Tuesday, 5/4: Spin-Off blueline scheduled; actually arrived Wednesday, 5/5.

My last day as an Interweave employee was Wednesday, 5/31/2000, a few weeks after that year's Maryland festival. Amy Clarke (now Moore) had stepped up from assistant editor to editor and the Summer 2000 issue of Spin-Off was her first.

I spent my last weeks on staff finishing off the book that went along with the Save the Sheep project, which had come into being because of that conversation Don Bixby and I had sitting on the grass outside building V at the festival in 1998. So in 2000, I went to Maryland as "just me," not as a representative of Interweave. I shared a motel room with friends I'd met through the years at Maryland.

• 2000
  Friday, 5/5: United 250 DEN-IAD or BWI, 12:39p-7:53p.
  Monday, 5/8: United 1507 IAD or BWI-DEN, 5:15p-6:53p.
  Thursday, 5/11: daughter home from college (freshman year).
  Friday, 5/12: Handspun Treasures from Rare Wools to press.

• 2001 Maryland festival dates marked in calendar but X'd out; unable to attend.
• 2002 Maryland festival dates marked in calendar but lined through; unable to attend.
• 2003 Maryland festival dates not marked in calendar.

Maryland: reminders

On one of the Maryland weekends, I bought a cherry lap spindle from Noel Thurner at Norsk Fjord Fibers. And another year the weekend-spinning fiber I bought was a mix of blues, greens, and purples with some flash in it.

I spun all of the yarn for this vest (except the trim around the edges) while talking to people at the festival. I started the spinning after I got to the festival and I finished it before I got on the plane back to Denver. That's the spindle that I bought from Noel, which I used to make this yarn (and a lot of other yarn at other times):

. . . along with the book that wouldn't have happened without Maryland. The yarn is two-ply, sportweight (6 stitches to the inch in stockinette).

This vest reminds me: I've been talking about the cabled sweater I'm knitting, and have mentioned the way that I like the ribbings to flow into the patterns above them. Here, from the back of the vest, is an example of that idea in action:

The vest appeared in an early issue of Interweave Knits as part of a staff-knitted collection of vests, but when the pattern appeared it called for a regular 2/2 ribbing. For written-out patterns, that's the easiest solution because describing in line-by-line instructions what I actually did was a bit complicated. For charted patterns, you can easily put in (and knit) what's really there!

From 1998 to 2008

The rare breeds are still endangered, although some are in much better shape than they used to be (and some are just as vulnerable as they were).

And that's the connection to 2008. I'm still here, doing many of the same things to raise spinners' and knitters' awareness of where our materials come from (and that the best of them will disappear if we don't take at least some action), although under very different circumstances. I hadn't realized how much the Save the Sheep Project marked the close of my time with Interweave, nor the symmetry between that time and some of the major endeavors I've got underway for the next couple of years. I still want very much to do everything I can to keep the materials and the skills to use them alive and available, as part of our everyday lives as well as our human heritage. They can enhance our contemporary lives wonderfully, both in the doing and when we use the items that we make.

If we humans lose the skills of making things from scratch (like growing food, building canoes, spinning yarn for fabrics)—and we will lose the skills if the materials are not available to us—we will have lost something that is thousands of years old and of inestimable value, not just historically but spiritually. And that doesn't even get into the individual characters of the creatures and what they can teach us. . . .

A few days ago I got a lovely packet of Soay ram's wool that I'm looking forward to spinning, and—thanks to Donna Druchunas—twice last week I met with June Hall, who's been working on sheep conservation in the British Isles and Lithuania. June has written and published a delightful little book about Herdwick sheep called Henrietta Herdwick that is illustrated with charming felted images, and she keeps Soays herself (although my Soay packet came from a U.S. flock).

I'm unaccustomed to meeting other people who are interested in rare-breed sheep. It was quite astonishing to meet June, and I hope I can get to Woolfest some time!

Spring in Maryland and spring in Colorado

Usually when we have gone to the Maryland festival, we've been able to catch what is for us an early spring, with the dogwoods blooming. Here in Colorado, the crabapple blossoms began to open yesterday, and this morning we had both bright blooms and a light snowstorm:

• 2008
  Thursday, 5/1: 8:15a pick up Sharon. . . .

Finished: The chenille sweater

The chenille sweater! Finished!

A lot of constraints guided the design and construction of this sweater, which is for my acupuncturist. She has trouble with most protein fibers (wool, alpaca, and so on); she's either allergic to them or more sensitive than most people to the prickle-factor, even (as it turned out after many swatches) on the finer varieties of the more luxury fibers. Yet because of her preference for natural materials, I didn't want to head for the synthetics.

We finally decided on this old-gold color of Crystal Palace Cotton Chenille—not a color I would ever knit for myself (except as an accent ), and therefore a new experience for me.

She knew she wanted a cardigan; she's quite small and has trouble finding sweaters that fit. She doesn't like ribbing, especially at the waist. She wanted a V neckline.

She wanted quite a simple shape, so I started with a modified drop-shoulder (there are some stitches bound off at the underarm, so the top of the sleeve is closer to the actual shoulder . . . it doesn't "drop" as far onto the upper arm area, which was my decision because she is small and might have looked "swamped" in a regular drop-shoulder design). She also thought stockinette was dandy, so I needed to think of other ways to make this an interesting project for me to work up.

Playing with Korsnas sweater construction gave me an idea for finishing the edges without ribbing. I worked the lower edge of the body (A) back-and-forth in single crochet (Korsnas sweaters are worked in the round; the effect is slightly different) and then picked up loops along the top edge (B) and knitted up from there (C).

(These drawings are in no way to scale or proportionally correct. They're just sketches.)

When the body was complete, I worked the front bands in single crochet, putting in four buttonholes on one band; there would be five buttons, but the fifth would go close to the neck. I normally would have worked the edging all the way around the front opening and the neckline, but I wanted to take the finishing process in stages because I was making it up as I went along and there'd be less ripping if I did it incrementally. I actually ended up doing no ripping at all on the finishing, probably because I did it in stages!

Then I sewed the shoulders together and worked single crochet around the neckline, with decreases at points 1, 2, 3, and 4, and the fifth buttonhole at the top of the appropriate band. The sweater is shown as if it were worked in pieces, in order to show the whole neckline, but there weren't side seams.  The body was worked all-in-one, as it's shown in the first sketch.

Here's a drawing that shows the sequence of the bands (unshaded in this version) and the way I set the sleeves into the armholes. Each sleeve also started with a lower band worked in single crochet, with loops picked up for knitting. I worked the sleeves flat (and both at once). There's an underarm seam on each sleeve, but not on the body.

I hope she likes it!

P.S. She loves it. It looks both a bit elegant and quite a lot comfortable, and it's cozy. Not wool-cozy, but still. . . .

Around the neighborhood: bursting with color, if not yet much spring

While walking our dogs the other day, we saw this:

All of the notes say "yes," in several languages and many different ways. The front of the car looks like this:

There are also stickies on the hubcaps, door handles, and other places.

Sometimes the place where we live seems a little staid and over-engineer-influenced (there are a lot of high-tech companies here). Now and then it pleasantly surprises us. SOMEONE is saying YES! in response to a question that appears to have been (1) anticipated (it took a while to make, let alone apply, all those notes) and (2) welcome.

We chose the neighborhood we live in partly because it does not have covenants that dictate what color you can paint your house. A lot of neighborhoods in this city do have restrictions of that type, and the houses tend to be beige, sand, tan, and maybe light gray, with trim that is white, beige, or sand. It's all very tasteful. The truly risqué might use a light sage green.

When we were looking at houses, there was a house that was painted bright purple a couple of blocks from the one that we bought. While I like my own house's exterior colors a little less strong, every time I drove past that house I was reminded of a trip I took with my grandparents through the Gaspé Peninsula when I was thirteen. I still vividly remember Percé Rock, people selling handmade toy wooden boats by the side of the road (Grampa didn't stop, but I still hold one in my memory), and the brightly colored houses that were probably even more cheerful during the winter.

That house has since been painted a calmer color, but recently this appeared on the other end of our dogleg street:

Even the steel railing attached to the concrete front step is bright blue.

The color seemed a little shocking the first time I caught sight of it, but I'm getting used to it and I am glad the people who live there are free to use the color they like. It's intense. It's also very cheerful. And when I see it, I know exactly where I am: almost home.

How I get myself into knitting trouble (again)

I'm mostly knitting swatches for publication illustrations except that I've just finished two larger (and more complex) projects that will be given to other people (more on those soon, I hope). While attempting to knit one colorwork swatch as I was watching a video, I had to rip three times. Obviously, that swatch required more attention and I needed a knitting project that I could work on during movies.

I have several projects going, but none of them feels appealing.

In February, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, of Yarn Harlot fame, finished a Must Have Cardigan from a Paton's book. She liked it. So I ordered the pattern book to take a closer look. I liked what I saw. And I've been pondering making one.

But as I pondered, I realized I'd have to lengthen the body by about 2 inches (5 cm). I always have to lengthen the body. And as I thought about that, I realized that the way the primary cable interacts with the neckline might end up disturbing me. It would change, of course, from the way it works in the design.

Instead of neatly paralleling the front opening, the cable would probably turn a corner and dead-end into it. I could, of course, adjust where I started the cable above the ribbing to compensate, but frankly I don't like to pay that much attention to row gauge and I don't like to engineer things that closely (although when I follow my thought process, I realize that statement seems totally bizarre).

So I plotted out the basic structure of the sweater . . . noting how the patterns work together and how they fit into the shapes of the pieces . . . thought about just finding another 23-stitch cable panel to substitute for pattern B, one that would not have such neat diagonals and so wouldn't care how it intersected with the V neckline.

And I also thought about how I like my cable patterns to flow out of the ribbing, even if that means my ribbing is irregular (i.e., mixes k2s and p2s and k3s, plotted to be in locations where they'll flow into the pattern above).

All this was looking like more time and planning than I had in mind, but this is how I get myself into knitting trouble. Something that was supposed to be simple ends up being a bit more complicated.

I also thought that with all the cable knitting I've done, I don't own any of it myself. I've given it all away. What I knew at this point was that I wanted a V-neck Aran cardigan for me, in worsted weight, with some combination of patterns resembling, but not identical to, those in the Paton's design.

So I went to a couple of local yarn stores in search of a nice worsted-weight wool that was light enough to show texture patterns and dark enough to be practical in my life. There's a skein of what I ended up with in that photo. It's Cascade 220 (again), color 9336. Brown Sheep's worsted was a close contender, and might have come out in first place if the shop had had enough skeins of any of the colors I wanted to use; someone else had gotten there ahead of me on the blues, purples, and greens and the shop hadn't had time to restock.

Good sign: I didn't get a bag for my purchases. I just carried my skeins (and the buttons for another garment) in my arms. As I was just outside the door of the shop, two people I didn't know at all asked if the yarn was going to be turned into something for me, because, as they said, "It's a great color for you."

Next I needed to wind the skeins into balls (I let the shop wind the first one for me, and I'll do the rest during family-and-friends visiting times). And I needed to look for a substitute cable.

I pulled out a bunch of my standard pattern references and my sticky notes.

I wanted a cable panel that felt as classic as the original, and that wasn't going to be boring (I have to watch out for this "not boring" inclination: my "carryaround, easy" knitting projects can too readily become "need to pay attention all the time" endeavors . . . there's a fine line between not-boring and much-brain-required).

Several of the books offered promising alternatives, but nothing felt right. I'm going to be working with some Elsebeth Lavold ideas for the embellishment of my daughter's (first) sweater and there's another Lavold design that I bought the pattern for last week . . . but I want to spin the yarn for that one, which means it probably won't get done for at least a year. So, in the interest of variety, I leaned away from Lavold-inspired options. I've been wanting to work a bunch of the patterns from the Japanese book, but the ones that I found most appealing kept pushing me in the direction of a totally different sweater concept. Some of the stuff in Barbara Walker's compendium (cable-specific volume rather than design collections, because I wanted the hunt to be easy) was nice but. . . .

AH! Where's my brain? I have two of Janet Szabo's books right here, and if there's anyone who knows cables, and knows how they can be both classic and contemporary, it's Janet. So I pulled her books off the shelf and brewed a cup of tea.

Fast Lane, from Celestial Seasonings, because I've been feeling kind of dragged out lately (computer problems and more). Since my acupuncturist said "no coffee" (to a serious coffee lover), I've come to appreciate the return of Fast Lane. At certain moments, it's medicinal. (It's not the caffeine she wants me to avoid but the coffee oils, also found in decafs.)

Meanwhile, I had knitted a first swatch and it's lying there drying. I knitted most of it in a darkened Cinema Savers theater while watching a bit of amusing fluff called Penelope with my daughter and some family friends. The swatch was simple enough. Stockinette.

Janet's Cables, Volume 1: The Basics is more comprehensive than the title sounds. There's lots of very cool stuff in it about how cables work. I'm looking forward to seeing what Janet comes up with in the next volume, although there's plenty here to keep me busy until she has it ready. And I'm looking through her Aran Sweater Design to see what kinds of ideas it gives me as well.

I had thought I would just replace the main cable, but now I'm thinking of that whole canvas of front cable panels . . . and I thought I'd keep the side edges of the cardigan in Irish moss stitch, but Janet's got some neat texture patterns that I'd like to try. . . .

In order to maintain this project's "carryaround, easy" status, I'll need to be really careful about which components I choose to combine. I'll be especially vigilant (I hope!) about being sure that the cable crossings occur on similar rows (or rounds, if I decide to steek, although I may not . . . this shows that I am already thinking of working the body all in one, instead of in three pieces; now, exactly what parts of the Must Have Cardigan am I using? . . . to be determined).

No, I wasn't born knowing how to do all this pattern modification. I learned it largely by trial and error over a number of years, but the thinking process that leads to my ability to make small (or large) modifications to patterns (or to launch into a design without them) comes directly from the lineage of traditional or ethnic knitting.

My strong belief in the power of the skills that come from understanding traditional and ethnic knitting is the reason that I publish the books that I do.

And where the path on this particular sweater will come out is anybody's guess right now. But I know I'll end up with a sweater that isn't just half-right. It'll be all the way right (or close enough to all the way right . . . I aim for perfection, but often take some risks that keep me from achieving it). And I'll undoubtedly learn something I didn't know before I started down this path. Which was supposed to be simple. And will undoubtedly be interesting. And may take a while.

• Aran-style.
• V-neck.
• Cardigan.
• Worsted-weight yarn.
• Similar combination of panels.
• Set-in sleeves.
• Bike.
  

Getting started in weaving (in Israel, or maybe elsewhere)

I never know what I'll find in my e-mail inbox. Today I received the note included below. I'm not entirely sure how I got this set of questions, because not that many people know that I have been a weaver even longer than I've been a spinner (but not longer than I've been a knitter). I met the woman who sent this inquiry at a writing conference in New York almost exactly two years ago.

My son-in-law in Israel, who is a weaver, wants to buy a non-computerized floor loom and was wondering if you could advise him on how to go about doing this.

* Should he buy a new loom?
* Do you know how and where he might be able to find an old and good looms?
* Do you publish magazines on weaving or can you advise where he can obtain them?
* Where can he find classified ads for looms and weaving supplies?

My responses were quite quick, because my breakfast is cooling and my list of tasks is long. But they may be useful to someone else as well, and I've expanded a bit from the request for information on a "noncomputerized floor loom" in my comments below.

New or old loom—doesn't matter, as long as it works. For a multi-shaft table or floor loom, it's good to know ahead of time that all the parts are there, that they are all hooked up correctly, and that all the beams are precisely parallel. That's harder with a used loom, especially from a distance.

Prices for looms can be all over the map. You can get set up with a primitive-style loom for $25 or so (you can even assemble or build a simple and effective loom yourself). Table looms and small floor looms run in the hundreds of dollars, and big floor looms get into the thousands.

The quality of the weaving depends on the weaver, not the sophistication of the equipment. I like all looms that work well (some fancy looms don't). You can do a lot of superb weaving on so-called primitive looms, like backstraps and inkles and rigid heddles or with cardweaving, but your son-in-law is obviously interested in multi-shaft looms. There are lots of reasons that they are wonderful to work with, even though they are more expensive than and not as portable as the simpler looms.

In the more complex styles of looms, a table loom is fine to start with, and useful forever, as long as it's sturdy. Four shafts (or harnesses) are plenty to work with, and a four-shaft loom always comes in handy even if a weaver decides to get another loom with more shafts later. I have eight shafts on one of my looms, but there's so much to do with four shafts that I really don't need them often. Even though they're fun. The floor loom he's looking for would let your son-in-law balance the effort of weaving between arms and legs, and there's a rhythm to working on a floor loom that isn't available with other loom types. I have both table and floor looms (as well as so-called primitive equipment).

There's a site for used equipment (and fibers, and books . . . ) called Spinners', Weavers', and Knitters' Housecleaning Pages; it's a terrific resource. Participants are being asked to contribute a bit to support the site's maintenance, and contributions are well deserved. The trick would be arranging shipping to Israel. The sellers tend to be individuals who might be challenged by the prospect of arranging for the safe movement of a large, heavy piece of equipment across multiple thousands of miles.

There are undoubtedly looms closer to Israel, but I'm not sure how to find them.

There are lots of other great new looms out there, and a number of fine makers of looms. Schacht Spindle Company produces a wide array of excellent looms and has been around long enough that the folks there could probably figure out shipping to Israel. Schacht's offerings should definitely be on anyone's short list of loom prospects. While you're checking out the equipment, take time to discover Violet Rose, the blog written by Jane Patrick, a gifted weaver and writer and the former long-time editor of Handwoven magazine (noted below).

I don't publish magazines on weaving.

Handwoven magazine is the primary resource for weavers and includes superb classified and display ads for equipment and supplies. It's edited by Madelyn van der Hoogt, who knows an astonishing amount about weaving, especially magically complex weave structures. She serves up a continually fresh array of projects and ideas in Handwoven.

The best publication that I know of for systematic understanding of four-shaft structures and design—for weavers at any level of experience—is Weaver's Craft; a set of back issues would be a good idea for anyone interested in weaving on table or floor looms. It's written and published by Jean Scorgie, another former editor of Handwoven magazine and one of the best technical weavers that I've ever met . . . who also has one of the finest design abilities I've encountered. Jean can present a weave structure that I know really well and I'll learn new things about it.

But I've been so busy with computers and publishing that I haven't woven in way too long.

Creativity and equipment failure

As I wrote the last two posts on the increasingly severe and frequent computer problems I've been having, I clicked the "creativity" category in addition to "publishing" and "web/tech." I knew it felt right to consider this discussion part of "creativity," although obviously I haven't been talking directly about creativity at all. Yet the critical topic for me is creativity: access to the tools that I need to do the work I have planned, on the one hand, and the need to use creative muscle to get through the logjams, on the other.

Faced with equipment failure or health challenges (or both, as I have been), I could shift directions and be creative in other ways, of course; that would involve abandoning massive amounts of work already done and commitments to other people. My preference is to stay the course.

We need materials and tools, and sometimes we are tied to deadlines and a change of activities will result in major consequences down the road.

I've just ordered a new computer. In terms of cash flow, the timing leaves a whole lot to be desired. In terms of work flow, the timing of not having access to adequate equipment is worse. Fortunately, I just need the box. I've got the monitor and all the other peripherals in place.

I spent some time online and found a computer that was in stock ("ships in 24 hours"), was just a box (i.e., did not require me to buy a whole system), has the appropriate capacity now and some expansion headroom for the future, runs the operating system that I need (no small matter in the current market and not available locally), and, while not budgeted for, was quite a good deal, looked at from a long-term perspective. While it's true that my secondary, not-quite-seven-year-old computer gives me access to e-mail and the web and some basic programs, it's also true that I click on Eudora to pick up my mail in the morning and then go do yoga and have breakfast and read the paper and it might have displayed the messages by the time I get back.

Running an independent publishing company and being a writer are challenging enough. Attempting to do these things without a fundamental set of tools, even for two weeks, is foolish. When the other computer returns, hopefully with all its so-called brain cells intact, it will be moved to a new role, upgrading the image-processing aspect of Nomad Press . . . i.e., it will replace my daughter's nine-year-old desktop with one that's only two years old and still under warranty.

One thought that came up during this overly extended ordeal was that I'd love to take a week or two and make a couple of artist's books. I'll need to keep that idea on the back burner . . . well, maybe in the pantry, to be pulled out later. Right now, I have deadlines. But I should be able to progress with plan-B work options for a few days and then . . . oh, start loading software and fonts again. But onto a different machine.

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to being able to process photos again. . . .

Computer returns to mothership

There are no pictures today. I don't know when there will be pictures again, although the camera is fine.

The primary business computer has just been boxed up and sent back to the manufacturer. I have learned what on-site tech support means: if the problem can be diagnosed from a distance and requires that an "expert" wield the screwdriver (e.g., replacement of motherboard), then an "expert" with a screwdriver will come here with the part and do that piece of work. If the problem cannot be diagnosed from a distance through the phone support system, the computer has to be shipped across the country for diagnostics. It travels ground and will likely be gone between 10 and 14 days.

I am not exactly sure how to run a business in the interim. I do have the old computer still hooked up—it regularly handles mail and web access—but it cannot manage the business-specific software. That's why I bought the other computer.

The problem at this point may be with:

1. video card
2. processor
3. motherboard
4. voltage issue

Today, working with two different phone support people, Harold and Nancy, I ran it through Stress Prime 2004 (again). It's called a "torture test" for the CPU. It can also test RAM, although we didn't use that version. Harold also had me download a program from Microsoft's web site and burn it to CD, and said when I called back we'd do something with it, but Nancy didn't know about that. I think that was supposed to test the RAM, but we've swapped RAM in and out since October, with no change in the erratic behavior.

The computer did come up with a few new tricks today. I still can't package a document in InDesign. However, in setting up to attempt to do that again I re-installed the font management software and prepared a set of fonts pertinent to the book I'm working on. Font management software is for people who keep many, many fonts on their machines. It lets us activate and deactivate fonts as we need them, so they're not using up system resources.

Anyway, there were 21 fonts in this set, which is a working set, not a final (it also doesn't include fonts that I keep activated because I use them very frequently). The fonts were things like:

    Arrows: Right, Left, Up, Down   
    Dingbats
    FFDingbests
    Gill Sans Standard: Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic
    LTC Goudy Sans: Hairline, Regular, Italic, Bold, Light, Light Italic
    LTC Vine Leaves
    Okey Dokey NF
    P22 Chai Tea Pro
    P22 Tulda OT
    TF Neue Neuland Ornaments

When I opened the InDesign file, the system found the fonts it needed but could not locate the links (the images). So I spent about an hour fixing the link problems. I tried to package; the program failed. This forces it to close.

Next time I opened the document, it couldn't find the fonts OR the links. I fixed the links (not the fonts) and tried to package. Nope.

I forget exactly when in here I took a look at the font management software to do something other than just check that my set was activated. I went and looked at the fonts in the set. They were now things like:

    Bauhaus Light
    Bauhaus Bold
    Adobe Janson: Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic
    . . . .

They were still fonts, but they had no relationship to what I'd selected. It was a random collection, and none of the fonts is used in any of my current projects (although yes, they are loaded on the computer in case I want to use them). And none of them was a font that was used in the document I was testing.

At this point, the malfunctioning software on this system included:

•     Adobe InDesign
•     Adobe Illustrator
•     Microsoft Word
•     ACT! 2008
•     Windows Updater
•     Bounceback Professional
•     FontAgent Pro

And the tech support person came back on the line after consulting someone elsewhere (several consultations today with someone elsewhere) and said, "We have other customers who have problems with InDesign and Microsoft Vista. Have you contacted Adobe about this issue?"

Me:"I'm not running Vista. I'm running XP Pro. The problem is not only with InDesign. I am using InDesign to test the system because it's the most important of my tools. All of this software has worked in the past. There is something seriously wrong here and the problem is not with the application software."

(Even though they have been performing a "torture test" on the owner and operator for five full days, I did not raise my voice. I think that's rather remarkable. The CPU didn't overheat and shut down while undergoing Stress Prime 2004, and I didn't overheat and explode while undergoing Stress Subprime 2008.)

After consulting again, they decided they needed to look at the computer. In Miami.

Good things:

1. The manufacturer is paying the shipping both ways. (It's not paying for packing, and of course I don't have the enormous original box any more.)
2. When I almost dropped the machine as I transported it to FedEx Kinko's for packing and shipment and the wind whipped the prepaid label out of my hand and toward six lanes of traffic, a woman coming out of Kinko's stabilized the computer while I chased the label. (Not working = their problem. Broken = my problem.)
3. When Kinko's didn't have the appropriate box (which they had described to me when I called ahead), one of the staffers helped me carry the computer back out to the car so I could take it to another Kinko's that they had called to be sure the right box was there. (The wind tried to remove the prepaid label AGAIN and take it out into the same six lanes of traffic . . . there has been a lot of gusty wind today.)
4. Although the other Kinko's is in a construction zone that has limited most access routes, it was possible to get there.
5. At the other Kinko's, another customer offered to hold the door for me when I carried the machine inside, so I didn't have to hit the handicapped access button with my foot as the staff suggested, and even closed the back of my car for me.
6. The computer is no longer in my office and I trust that I will not be spending the next five days either on the phone with tech support or doing things to the computer so we can test the next thing during the next call.

These are all very good things.

Now. Can I get done what I need to get done in the next almost-two-weeks with a seven-year-old computer onto which I can't load my most important software? Or can I figure out how to get a substitute computer in here and properly configured?

Things I will have to do without until I answer those questions:

•     Adobe InDesign CS2
•     Adobe Photoshop CS2
•     Adobe Illustrator CS2
•     Adobe Acrobat CS2
•     Quickbooks Pro
•     AnyBook (publishing order- and inventory-management software)

I can probably install on the old computer:

•     Remote-access software and security keys for checking distributor's inventory
•     Sweater Wizard
•     Knit Visualizer
•     Old version of Photoshop (ah! there's a cheerful thought! I still have the old version . . . maybe I can do pictures! . . . I have GIMP, but I don't find it easy to use for my routine tasks)

The old machine already runs Microsoft Office 2003, so I haven't lost that. I'll need to move the laser printer back onto to the old system, though.

Anybody who has an IT department that does its job well, this is what those folks are saving you from. You might want to bring them flowers or chocolate or something.

I look forward to being able to talk about knitting and publishing and fun things again.