The Independent Stitch

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.

Estes Park Wool Market: some comments, and a few goats and sheep

The Estes Park Wool Market was held near the roof of the Rocky Mountains this weekend, and I was there both days. I just cruised around and visited and generally took a break from being in the office and beset by deadlines. Yes, I got some work done, but it was hanging-out-and-learning kind of work. It was both productive and low-key.

I don't have many photos, because I was knitting and listening and watching and chatting most of the time (I had a spindle, but never stayed in one compatible-for-spinning place long enough to pull it out).

If you just go to Estes Park and visit the vendors, it's worth the trip but you've missed a lot. In addition to the fiber-related vendors, the sheep-to-shawl, the skein and finished item competitions, the workshops, and the regular sheep and goat fleece show, the Estes Park Wool Market brings in a lot of species- and/or breed-specific shows. This year, these events included:

• Camelids: 2008 AOBA (Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association) Certified Alpaca Fleece Show
• Camelids: Paco-Vicuna Fleece Show
• Camelids: ALSA (Alpaca Llama Show Association) Llama Show
• Camelids: Llama Fleece and Fiber Show
• Goats: Angora Goat Show
• Goats: 2008 Nationals of the Colored Angora Goat Breeders Association
• Goats: Cashmere Goat Show
• Sheep: Natural Colored Wool Sheep Show
• Sheep: 2008 Bluefaced Leicester National Show
• Sheep: Classic Breeds Specialty Show (Shetlands, Black Welsh Mountain, Icelandic, and Jacobs)
• Sheep: White Handspinning Sheep Show

There was even more, of course.

Whenever I go to a festival without a teaching agenda, I can't possibly see everything that goes on, so I pick a couple of activities that seem interesting and/or handy and that I don't know enough about and I settle in for a while.

Animal judging takes time. On Saturday I spent several hours around the Colored Angora Goat Breeders Association contingent's 2008 national show. There were a lot of great goats, and I have no photos of them. I did complete about another inch of my blue Aran-style cardigan (I'm on the body).

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I wandered around the vendors' barn on Saturday afternoon, managing to see about half of it after the morning crowds had dissipated.

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And on Sunday morning, I watched the Youth Showmanship part of the goat shows, which was open to any young person with fiber goats to show but the part I saw was definitely dominated by the cashmeres. The three classes were: Novice, 10 and under; Junior, ages 11 to 13; and Senior, ages 14 and up. Most of what I saw were the senior exhibitors.

Here was one of my favorite goats:

This is, indeed, a cashmere goat, although the cashmere (undercoat) has been combed out. Each of the exhibitors carried a great big bag full of fiber so the judge could evaluate that as well as the animal. There's one edge of a fiber bag visible on the left side of the picture above. In the photo below, you can see one of the bags of fiber produced by the goat in the background: the exhibitor has goat lead in one hand and fiber in the other.

That goat in the front was called "Grandma" by the judge. This goat apparently has triplets every year. And, as the judge pointed out, she is "still covered in cashmere" (even though a bunch had already been combed out and was in the requisite bag). The cashmere the judge was referring to is the soft down that looks like fluff all over her. Grandma was awarded first prize in the "aged doe" (adult female) class, and she and one of her offspring took home the blue in the "mother-and-daughter" class as well. I liked that she won lots of recognition. The judge remarked several times on how old she was, and how good she was.

Later in the afternoon, I made my way through the goat, llama, alpaca, paco-vicuna, and sheep areas, with intervening forays into the vendors' area to see what I'd missed on Saturday and to visit with friends. Sunday is lots quieter than Saturday.

I'm quite fond of Karakul sheep. I like spinning their wool, too. Long ago, when I was learning to spin, I ordered three Karakul fleeces—black, white, and gray—and washed and spun them all. It was a great experience and I wove the results into a rug. Karakul makes fantastic rugs: colorful, durable, with appealing texture.

Here's a lovely red Karakul, with a black one behind her and a multicolored one on her left. I haven't seen mixed coloring like that lefthand sheep before (at least not on a Karakul).

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The Karakul's coloring looks like it has had an influence on our dog Tussah's. Tussah will be featured in tomorrow's post.

Sunday at Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival

Sunday at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival is always quieter than Saturday. It's still plenty busy and crowded. A lot of people who did their reconnaissance on Saturday are making final evaluations for (and completing) major purchases. I'd guess that more spinning wheels depart the site on Sunday than on Saturday, although I saw a lot of demos and test runs going on yesterday.

But on Sunday it's easier to choose where to go, rather than being pushed by the crowds or—my choice—retreating to the location of least population density.

Today I went to a few more short classes on specific aspects of wool, but the highlight of the day was the annual Parade of Breeds. As one of the handouts for one of the classes pointed out, "there are more breeds, types, and varieties of sheep than of any other domesticated livestock." This year's parade included significantly more breeds than the last time I was here in 2000—I'd guess somewhere between thirty and forty.

It's really hard to take photos at the parade. Lots of people want to see the animals, and there are lots of critters and people to coordinate to pull off this event. I got a few photos, mostly of the breeds in the earlier part of the alphabet. I caught the best photos while several of the sheep were waiting their turn in the ring. My camera has a delay between when I click the button and when the photo is snapped, so lots of other images that should have been sheep-heading-into-ring ended up as sheep-butt-moving-away-from-me.

Here, however, are a few of the photos that worked (more or less). If I've misidentified any breed and someone else knows what it is instead, please drop me a line. When the sheep have been shorn—which is true of almost all the animals at a show in early May—I, as a spinner, have lost access to one of my primary clues to identity: the fleece. (Yes, of course they announced the breeds as they went into the ring, but I was hunkered down in a corner, poking my camera in between people, mostly avoiding getting stepped on by sheep, and did not quite manage to write down legible reminder notes as I grabbed shots.)

This is a Black Welsh Mountain, ready to be first into the ring. It took me a number of years before I realized that the sheep paraded in alphabetical order.

I caught this Border Cheviot while it was waiting its turn:

Here's a California Red:

And a Clun Forest:

And the Columbias are always so massive . . . they look like ponies, especially next to the Black Welsh Mountains, the Icelandics, the Shetlands, the smaller Jacobs. . . . This guy'll gain another several inches in height when his wool grows in:

And a Cotswold, one of my favorite faces, with the start of a lovely fleece to go with it:

I wish I hadn't missed the white Icelandic ewe and her two spring-loaded tiny black lambs. Well, I got a photo, but it wasn't very good. They were so wonderful I'll put it here anyway. The mom still has some fleece on her.

And I caught the Merino rep within the ring:

Again, the wool's just starting to grow in for this year.

The thing about these sheep is that as varied as their appearance and personalities are, their fleeces are equally diverse. That continues to fascinate me. That and the fact that a number of these breeds embody a cultural treasure that is, in many ways, at risk of being lost. So I especially love seeing individuals from the rare breeds come into the ring.

Later in the day, I went over to the breed showcase barn and visited the Hog Island sheep that came to the festival from George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate and Garden. They'd been in the parade, but about at the point that I lost my photo vantage point entirely.

Even among the rare breeds, Hog Island sheep are especially uncommon; there may be two hundred of them. Here are two, one of whom has been newly shorn and one of whom still has her coat:

The dark one enjoyed having her head scratched, right between the horns, please.

At the end of the day, she and her buddy headed home in a truck with this license plate:

Anybody who feels inclined toward a good cause: if you can't conserve some of these animals by keeping them yourself, find a place like Mount Vernon that's doing the crucial work of being sure that these living resources stick around and earmark a contribution for the livestock program.

Maryland Sheep and Wool, Saturday

Yesterday was the first day of the full Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.

Here's what the parking lot looked like at 8:15 in the morning, about forty-five minutes before the festival officially began:

As I thought, the rabbit building's overflow area was put to good use for the Ravelry gathering:

It was packed inside. I didn't even get in there.

Here's the aisle where I took the photo of the truck parked in the main building on Friday:

And here's the area outside that building:

Those are food lines, early in the day, at a twenty- to thirty-minute wait length. Later they got longer. In the way background is the area with the sheepdog demos.

At mid-afternoon, there's a sheep-and-wool tradition:

It's made with real lemons, right there. There's also a booth that has real, old-fashioned carbonated beverages, like birch beer and cream sodas. (You can also get the standard stuff.)

Toward the end of the day, I was able to catch up with one of Bryan Bowers' performances. He's one of my favorite musicians, and was cultivating a few new fans at the festival:

I'd hoped to be able to ask him if he'd consider playing "The View from Home," which is one of my all-time favorite songs, but it was a short concert and I was feeling lazy enough just to listen to whatever he felt like playing.

There's really good music at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. Maggie Sansone is a regular. She often plays at the end of the main building, so while I'd spin in the Interweave Press booth she'd be providing music to the whole place. It was lovely. Over the years I've brought home a number of CDs, as well as fiber and tools.

And here's the end of the day:

I've got two ounces of fleece (two different kinds) and three skeins of a yarn that I'd been looking for since last October. The two ounces doesn't seem like much, but it's special stuff that you can't get just anywhere and it's got immediate uses in my life.

I didn't get to the big Ravelry party at the Sheraton in Columbia, although I'd intended to. I went to supper with a small group of friends. By the time we actually ate and then I drove one of them back to the farm where she's staying, the Ravelry party was almost over (it was nearly 11), and I went back to the hotel to gather my forces for the next day.

My way of navigating the festival is to avoid crowds, so there's a lot I didn't see yesterday. Also, I was showing a friend around, which affected where I went and what I saw.

Sunday is traditionally quieter. I've got several things in mind to accomplish today, and I'll have time for some browsing.

Warming up for Maryland

Travel: a shift in environments

Yesterday as we prepared to leave Colorado for Maryland, we drove toward the airport in quite a May Day snowstorm. This is what it looked like through the window of the van that took us from off-airport parking to the terminal:

Our flight was delayed by an on-ground detour to the de-icing area.

The rest of the journey went well, and by supper time we were on the ground in Baltimore.

This morning's class on some technicalities of wool

This morning, after (free, hot) breakfast in the hotel lounge area, I headed over to the fairgrounds for a morning class called Wool Science 201, taught by Robert Padula, who's a Wool Quality Improvement Consultant. He works with the American Sheep Industry Association, which is the commercially oriented advocate of sheep-raising in the United States. (He personally raises Targhees, with an emphasis on . . . wool quality.)

The class was taught primarily from the perspective of the wool industry's, rather than handspinners', needs, a difference that was acknowledged and interesting to observe. Handspinners have a lot to learn from industry, although the information we need is usually buried in masses of data. One of the things I like to do is find the spinner-useful bits and pull them out and play with them, or to act as a kind of translator between the sides. This morning was extremely valuable from that perspective. It's going to take some time to digest all that I got introduced to or, in several cases, finally found answers to . . . data that resolved several questions I've been researching with only moderate success got laid out right in front of me.

My trip's already been 100 percent wortwhile, and I haven't been here twenty-four hours yet.

(While looking for links for Bob Padula, I found a nifty article in the New York Times about Morehouse Farm, where they understand both sides of the equation—industry's and spinners'—and have found their own unique way to balance in between.)

The festival prepares

Backing up a bit to before the class: I arrived a little early at the fairgrounds and took photos of the "before-festival" atmosphere.

This morning, there was lots of parking available:

I parked about fifty feet past the truck and the bus, maybe five cars from the main gate. I briefly pondered what it would be like if I could reserve my parking space for tomorrow as well (maybe leave the car here and hitchhike back to the hotel, and get here the same way in the morning?). Exhibitors' parking is great. But the exhibitors need it a lot more than the visitors do, no matter what we visitors may think from time to time.

Here's the rabbit building, just inside the main gate, where the two fairgrounds-based Ravelry gatherings will take place (11:30 to 1 on Saturday, 1 to 2:30 on Sunday) . . . apparently a thousand people are in the Ravelry MD S&W group. I'm sure that a bunch of folks who participate in Ravelry will be at the festival but have not joined that group, and there are also the Ravelry-interested. The space could end up pretty crowded, but it looks like it's semi-expandable and won't be overly claustrophobic.

Here's the lawn outside building V (now Main), where the Save the Sheep project idea began in 1998:

Here's what the inside of building V (Main) looked like this morning at about 8:45:

The Interweave space that I spent so much time in between 1993 and 1999 is halfway down the lefthand outside wall. Amy Clarke Moore, who's now the editor of Spin-Off, will be spending her weekend there again this year. It's really a nice home base.

Those who have been at the festival know that this space will be crammed by the same time tomorrow . . . with exhibitors . . . and about 15 minutes later it will also be crammed with visitors.

Right now, it's open enough to fit big trucks in the aisles. As I was walking around today, I was reminded of how well the companies that rent cars, trucks, and trailers must like the festival, if they know enough about to realize why their business is looking so good this week:

That's looking down just one of the two aisles of the main building.

And something new since the last time I was here:

There was another ATM unit by the main gate, with two terminals, in a mobile trailer. There may be more scattered around. I'll bet they see even more use than the porta-potties.

Some of the vendors stay in local motels, but others vendors and shepherds camp out in the vendor-specific parking area. As I walked by this morning, a parent was getting three kids breakfast. So this, like the other parking areas within the gated area adjacent to the buildings, is also a type of home base for the exhibitors:

There were two people putting up a banner that said "Welcome to the 35th anniversary Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival":

I love that there are both black and white sheep on the banner. The presence of the black sheep reflects the handspinners' presence and influence in the mix, although this festival has an equally strong industry focus. Black sheep aren't of much use to industrial producers of wool. Black fibers (or fibers of any color other than white), prized by handspinners, are classified as contaminants when wool is bulk-processed. If industry wants black or another color, it can dye white wool to get it; colored fibers, on the other hand, mar whites and pastels and brights, also dyed.

Here's another pre-festival sight—no lines for the bathrooms:

And here's a ram getting its pre-show grooming. The judging he'll face will be on factors other than the fleece, which is trimmed to make the animal as a whole look great, by industry standards, and he does indeed look so fine:

Lots of the exhibitors know each other, both from connections outside the festival and from coming here year after year. I miss the pre-opening (and post-festival) camaraderie as much as anything.

And I miss the sheep, so I went to visit a few:

And that lovely face (a colored Lincoln) represents the spinners' side of the sheep world at Maryland.

Whenever I'd get a break from the booth, I'd go recharge my batteries by taking a stroll through the barns. I saw about twenty different breeds this morning, and only a quarter to a third of the stalls were occupied.

By noon, the booth set-up had proceeded significantly, a few of the food vendors had opened up to serve the exhibitors and workshop attendees, and the working folk had begun to walk around the grounds a bit:

It's all getting ready. . . .

Coals to Newcastle, or a spinning kit for Maryland

So I'm about to leave for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, where there will be an abundance of tools and fiber, and I need to pack . . . some tools and fiber. I'll be leaving home a good 50 hours before the festival opens, and my budget also is both slim and dedicated to specific items that I need to locate, not including materials to work with during this weekend.

Here's my minimal travel spinning kit:

It's not much of a photo because the sun's not up yet.

The kit includes:

• a plastic tool container from the hardware store, just right to fit
• a specific Magpie spindle
• a comb from the pet supplies store, which is the smallest fiber prep tool I've got right now
• a sample-sized niddy-noddy that also comes apart into pieces and can fit in the tube
• a packet of Polwarth wool
• a packet of Borderdale wool

I have no projects in mind for the wools; they're just a couple of New Zealand-origin fibers I'd like to play with en route. I'd rather card the Polwarth than use the grooming comb on it, but even a small pair of carders exceeds what I want to carry.

• Polwarth: Merino X Lincoln origins, ending up 3 parts Merino to 1 part Lincoln
  
• Borderdale: Border Leicester X Corriedale origins
  

There's a bandanna that gets wrapped around the spindle in the tube. I can also fold prepared-but-unspun fiber into it to keep the locks in order until they get spun. The comb doesn't fit into the tube or my kit would be even more compact. It's that handle. And I don't have time to find something smaller.

In addition, for times when spinning doesn't fit the mood, I have two small packets of knitting:

• the final swatches for the upcoming Nomad Press book
• the sleeves for my Aran-style cardigan, plus paper to start designing the body

That should hold me through the flights and other waiting times.

Holiday travel knitting that didn't get done

The quest: yarns for swatches that will be scanned or photographed

For holiday travel knitting, I had intended to work on color swatches to be scanned or photographed for a book Nomad Press will be publishing next year. But I had a yarn problem.

Usually I knit swatches in Brown Sheep Top of the Lamb worsted. It's a simple, basic yarn that's pleasant to work with and is consistent but not boring. My favorite shades for this kind of swatching are 100 (natural, which is not so white that detail burns out in the photos or scans) combined for colorwork swatches with a lovely gray-green that isn't currently produced (it's dark enough to give adequate contrast and light enough that you can still see the individual stitches within the color areas). I have some of that color in my stash.

Because it's a singles yarn, Top of the Lamb doesn't have the visual static of a plying construction to interfere with what the swatches need to show.

However, it works up at 5 stitches to the inch (2.5 cm). With the necessary margins around the pattern area (clear stitches for image-cropping and a border to prevent roll and edge-stitch distortion), I can work a swatch with a maximum repeat of 55 stitches by 39 rows, or 32 stitches by 64 rows. That has been plenty for the swatches for the past several books.

Sometimes, though, this isn't big enough. I've been facing the limits with some swatches I've been working on for Priscilla Gibson-Roberts' revision of her book on Cowichan knitting, and I've run into it recently on the swatches for another title that's in development.

Choices: switch from scanner to camera (has some advantages, but more disadvantages) or find a yarn that works as well as the Brown Sheep worsted at a smaller gauge. Brown Sheep Top of the Lamb comes in a sportweight, but it isn't stocked locally.

1. I tried Cascade 220 in 8412 (natural) and 9464B, which is very close to the ideal Brown Sheep green. Cascade 220 is also a worsted-weight yarn, but it can be knitted up a little more densely than Brown Sheep worsted. While it's a four-ply, the plying structure doesn't interfere much with the view of the stitches, although because it's a little softer than Top of the Lamb the definition's a little "squishier" (that's a technical term that I just made up).

I worked out a few of the challenges of this particular set of swatches on my Cascade 220 trial, and the results nearly fit on the scanner bed, but not quite. I could try to scan it in sections nice and squarely (there are ways to do this that are not perfect but can be managed) and then combine them in Photoshop, but I'd rather knit than mess with a computer so I continued my quest for the right swatching yarn. I've got several swatches to which the solution to this problem will apply, so it's worth the effort of getting the yarn right.

After visits to all the local knitters' haunts, I went to the chain stores, thinking they might have a sportweight wool in stock in decent colors. Nope. Even the acrylics weren't available in appropriate colors; the fact that I was considering acrylic is a sign of my desperation. I'm happy enough knitting swatches, because I learn something from every swatch I make, but I don't enjoy knitting most acrylics. It's kind of like having pasteurized process cheese instead of Tillamook extra-sharp or Kerrygold cheddar.

While I was in Seattle, I browsed the Weaving Works, looking for a nice, generic yarn. They had one option among the knitting yarns but it were pricier than I wanted to use for swatches . . . and it wasn't available on the spot in appropriate colors. Because of timing, I couldn't get to Acorn Street Shop (where I had other items I wanted to get, but that'll be next trip) or Fiber Gallery. Given my druthers, I'd get in at least a small amount of trouble at all three shops on each visit to the area.

However, as I was about to leave I cruised back toward the weaving area, thinking that some of the weaving yarns might work.

2. I found something with potential: Klippans Tuna, a Swedish yarn, 6/2 (weaving-speak), at 350 yards/100 grams or 1600 yards/pound. (For comparison, 220 is 220 yards/100 grams . . . the reason for its name . . . and Brown Sheep Top of the Lamb worsted is 190 yards/113 grams. 100 grams is about 3.5 ounces and 113 grams is about 4 ounces.)

It's a two-ply yarn, with more twist in both the singles and the plying than many yarns primarily intended for knitting rather than weaving. I didn't like the lack of clarity in the swatch I started. Comparing the 220 swatchlet above with the Tuna swatchlet, the Tuna stitches aren't as straight and well defined in relation to each other. Often a weaving yarn will soften when it's washed, and I might have liked the results better if I'd washed the yarn before swatching, but there were some other things I didn't feel completely comfortable with: the white was whiter than I wanted and the green, while adequate, was just a bit light.

I think the Tuna might make some terrific mittens, when I have time to play with the ideas in Terri Shea's lovely (and independently published) Selbuvotter, but that won't happen until I slam-dunk these swatches (and a couple of other work-related pieces of knitting).

3. So I gave up and ordered some Top of the Lamb sportweight from an online source. I chose the best of the available colors for the dark, number 310 (peacock), which is darker than ideal but should work. It arrived swiftly and I ripped open the envelope and thought, "Gee, those skeins of peacock look awfully similar to the worsted weight . . . and the natural looks about right for a sportweight. . . ." Yup, the peacocks were, indeed, worsted weight.

A phone call straightened that out and I should have my sportweight contrasting yarn soon. At 350 yards/113 grams (4 ounces), it's just slightly heavier than the Klippans Tuna, so it should work.

But meanwhile I haven't completed the swatches and I've needed to be knitting something else for travel. That's the topic for what should be the next post.

Car progress?

As the snow begins to melt, in exchange for patches of clear, slick ice where the runoff has refrozen, bits of clear, yellow, and red plastic are showing up in interesting places in front of the house. Also sections of car that are not related to brake, signal, or headlights have begun to appear. It'll be good to sweep up: an activity that will be enabled by claim progress and thawing.

As of this afternoon, our claim has been transferred to a new department at the driver-who-hit-our-car's insurance company: the Total Loss Department. I'm not sure I'd want to say I worked at the Total Loss Department, although I think the people who do work there probably clear up a lot of messes, and therefore are quite the opposite of a total loss themselves. Apparently the other car is also now being handled by this department.

Merry crashmas

Bump

This is not what you want your car to look like when you arrive home from visiting relatives for the holidays, especially when you left it innocently and intactly parked in front of your house:

We got home from the airport at 1:30 in the morning. The white car, known as the Mouse (a name it came to us with), had been relocated several feet east (backward) from where we left it several days earlier . . . and it was not in the same condition. We deliberately did not look at the car when we first got home, because (1) it was dark, (2) we were tired, and (3) we knew, thanks to friends, that although the house was fine the Mouse was "not so fine."

Here's another view of "not so fine," in full daylight:

Despite "not so fine," here's a series of good-news items related to the Mouse's changed circumstances:

• No person or critter was hurt in the crash, although I'll bet a couple were pretty shook up (driver and passenger in the impacting car).
• The driver left a note and phone numbers.
• One of our neighbors saw the whole event and recorded details, just in case (thanks, M).
• Our house-caring friends noticed the damage when they checked the premises after dark on Christmas eve (apparently about five hours after the accident . . . the basics were noticeable even with minimal illumination), found the note from the driver (thanks, K), and told us about the situation by e-mail so we could prepare ourselves and start playing phone tag with the driver (thanks, J).

Here are some observations we made about the scene:

• The front license plate was found in the snow about four feet in front of the vehicle.
• There are shards of red plastic scattered in the snow over an area extending several feet in front of the car. Red. Brake lights. Not from our car, of course, so from the other car, so its rear end apparently hit our car's driver's-side lights, bumper, and grill. REAR impact? Interesting.
• The bumper is still attached at the corner that appears to have sustained the most damage, and is detached at the other side.
• The grill is broken in its center and on the driver's side.
• Major impact to the frame underneath the bumper seems to have been pretty close to right in the center, although the Mouse as a whole was apparently shifted backward by several feet while its front was also shoved toward the passenger side (away from the street) by maybe 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 cm). Considering the extent of the jump backwards, it stayed pretty straight. Must have been hit quite squarely.
• No fluid leakage (from radiator or elsewhere). Sturdy car.

We still don't know whether the Mouse can be adequately repaired (largely a question of frame and suspension, not yet evaluated), but here's the overview and the really fortunate stuff. We're working to focus on the fortunate stuff.

A driver was apparently headed east on our street in a sedan, hit a patch of ice, and put a foot on the brake. (Drivers in the Midwest, New England, and other places where the snow stays on the ground for weeks or months at a time know—at the reflex level—that you don't touch either brake or accelerator when you hit ice; many people around here, where the snow most often quickly melts away, haven't developed ice-appropriate split-second reactions.)

When the driver applied the brake, the sedan started skidding and rotating. By the time it reached our car, it was still moving east but its front end was facing west. The skidding car connected with the Mouse back-end-first (red plastic) and the sedan's trunk was shoved in just about to its rear window at the moment that the Mouse was catapulted several feet backward, its license plate was ripped off and dropped in (or flung into) the snow, and its front bumper was removed from all but one of the bumper-mooring points (we hear that there was also damage to the front end of the sedan, although we don't know how that occurred).

When we think of a car skidding on ice down our normally very quiet street, we think of what it might have hit that would have stopped it. (Living beings are excluded from this list, because they would have been mowed down but wouldn't have brought the skidding vehicle to a halt.)

It could have hit:

• a tree,
• a streetlight,
• a house,
• a car.

Of all those items, the only one that would yield upon impact, and thus reduce the potential for injury to the people in the skidding car, was another car, preferably parked and unoccupied.

And that's what happened.

We now have a rental car, courtesy of the other folks' insurance company, and their adjuster was here today to do an initial evaluation of the damage to our car.

Yet because of what else might have happened in this situation, we're looking at our ailing auto as a hero of sorts. It probably saved the driver and passenger from some physical harm.

That perspective helps ease the pain of seeing our car in such a state. We're really glad we were out of town and didn't have to watch or listen to the actual crash.

I'll talk about knitting in an upcoming post before long. I did get some knitting done during our trip.

Today was consumed by calls and visits from insurance people, the delivery of two pallets of books during the adjuster's visit (a reprinting of Knitting in the Old Way, by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts), and my daughter's getting stuck (and unstuck) in deep snow with my car while she was on her way to work at just about the same time. (The white car in the photos here is the one she mostly uses.)

A good quote for the new year

And here's a quote I happened across today, that seems just slightly ironic following the story about our car, but might set the tone for a rewarding and productive 2008:

"I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker." —Helen Keller

A thought for the new year

When I was sixteen and learning to drive, my dad took me to an empty shopping mall parking lot on a winter Sunday (in the Dark Ages, malls were closed on Sundays). He had me accelerate and then jam on the brakes, then recover from the skid. It was a really good teaching technique. It was scary. Terrifying. But also fun, once I got the hang of it.

Skidding and recovery weren't on the driver's license test, but when you went to the Elston Avenue site in Chicago (which we did the first time) parallel parking was, so I flunked the test although I managed to get the '62 Chrysler (it was all white; no red top) parked between the orange cones anyway. I got it 12 inches (30 cm) from the curb and it needed to be less than 6 inches (15 cm) away.

Then Dad taught me how to really parallel park.

(The Chrysler was never easy to parallel park. One of my few car-damaging incidents involved peeling off a chrome strip on the passenger side while getting it out of a parallel spot on a narrow street next to the high school, on a rare occasion when I drove there for winter-vacation backstage work on a theatrical presentation. I hardly ever drove to school because I didn't have a car. Nor did much of anybody else in those days. Mostly I walked the three miles to and from school, or took the bus if I had to, although I could walk in just about the same amount of time as it took to wait for the bus . . . and in the winter, walking was a whole lot warmer than standing around. We had to wear skirts to school in those days. Even at -25 degrees F [-31 degrees C]. Yes, public school. No, that isn't a good idea. One of the reasons I went to the college I chose was because the women were allowed to wear jeans to class in the winter.)

The second time I took my test, we went to a different site—Libertyville. None of the testing sites was near where we lived. They were all at least a half-hour away. This time Dad sent me and my mother to the testing facility in a car that had a misbehaving ignition. I think (this may be legend, may be truth) it had been built as the prototype, intended for display at the car shows, and somehow Dad managed to acquire it, even though it had some mechanical quirks, not having been a finished design off the assembly line. (Dad's first recognizable word when he was a toddler was "car," and he was always magnetically attracted to interesting, preferably high-powered, cars.) Before we left for the testing facility, he showed us how to hot-wire it. We got the car running but the examiner wouldn't let me take the test and flunked me instead. Even though it was Mom who did the actual hot-wiring right there in front of his eyes. It wasn't me. Although Dad had showed me, too. As a safety precaution. Engine-access variety. So I could be sure not to get stranded in that car.

I got my license on the third try . . . I don't remember which testing site we went to; I was too scared I would flunk again . . . parallel parking was not required, and I don't remember which car I drove. In Illinois in those days, they'd only give you three tries before you had to wait a long time before testing again, maybe until you were fifty.

Conclusion du jour

When skidding, make no sudden movements. Your primary tool is the steering, but don't do anything sudden or rash with any of the controls. Ease off the accelerator just a bit. Although ABS systems (which were invented very recently by some standards) may be handled differently, in general do not let your foot get near the brake. Steer the car in the direction that you want it to go (this is sometimes called "steering into the skid," but it's easier to remember as "in the direction you want to go").

Ideally, practice this a lot in a safe area before you need to do it in a real driving situation.

Baggies for Christmas

So: At the upper left is the movie we got from the library and didn't have time to watch.

Lower center is a book that was on the "here and now" table at the library: three days free checkout, then 25 cents a day, and a way to jump the line for titles that have long hold lists. I grabbed it on a whim and read it while knitting . . . and waiting for the computer to reboot while I attempted to back up the critical portions of Nomad Press onto a USB drive.

InDesign was not wanting to package the latest project. It repeatedly hung up at 11% of "traversing links." I finally saved the components to a folder manually and backed that up. I'll deal with the underlying problem when I get back; the stuff I tried yesterday didn't work. This is probably a continuation of the RAM problems I've been having. The situation is better, but not fixed.

A couple of the swatches I knitted snuck into the background. I couldn't work the pattern rows while reading, but I could do the plain rows (which includes seed or garter stitch).

Run is an EXCELLENT novel! I haven't read Ann Patchett's work before, although I've been aware of it.

We're doing laundry and packing. The washer is making its now-usual racket, so much that I'll have to go upstairs soon because I won't be able to connect my thoughts.

Friends will check on the house while we're gone, both just to keep an eye on things and also to make sure that if it snows the shoveling gets done within twenty-four hours of when the snow stops falling, so the city won't send us a citation and a bill. Sometimes I think fondly of the more laissez-faire communities I've lived in.

The cat is being boarded at a hospital because of her medication routine, which includes subcutaneous fluids (we almost lost her last Christmas, but she bounced back when we started the fluids).

We'll drop the dogs off at the kennel in the morning.

Meanwhile, my daughter tussled with the older dog this afternoon, an activity that causes alarming growls to come out of the dog:

Although she really seems to enjoy the play. This is afterward:

All those baggies and miscellaneous items in the top picture are a Christmas present that we'll be delivering in person. There's a small story to go with, but I can't tell it yet.

And now I'd better finish packing. The foodstuffs are ready, but my clothing is not.

However, the daughter with the dog skills finished applying to three graduate schools as of yesterday. Whew!

Okay, I've had it with the washer and need to accomplish a few other things before the rest of the day gets away from me.

Happy travels to all who are traveling. Happy staying home to all who are doing that.

Where the musk oxen went last Wednesday night

Late last year, some dear friends gave me a pair of earrings.

They'd watched Arctic Lace come together from first idea to finished, now award-winning, book. (That's Arctic Lace: Knitting Projects and Stories Inspired by Alaska's Native Knitters by Donna Druchunas. I edited the book, designed its interior layout, did the technical production, and published it.)

So when my friends went to Alaska to visit family, they found these earrings in Anchorage at the Alaska Native Medical Center Craft Shop. That shop is described here as: "A hidden jewel. See the emphasis on the holistic nature of the Alaska Native culture and the value of art in healing." I haven't been to the shop, but I look forward to having the opportunity some day. I especially like that "art in healing" comment.

The earrings were made and signed by R. B. Kokuluk (tiny signature on the back of each earring). I've searched on the name and found other carvings, but none is at a link that I think will be stable.

Obviously, I'm likely to keep these little treasures safely tucked away and to wear them for special occasions. Not only are they wonderful as a pair, they're extremely fine individuals (who would like to stay together, so I plan to keep them that way). As the photo shows, they match in color and shape without being identical (yes, the left one came with different-colored guard hair on its shoulder).

A qualifying special event occurred last Wednesday. My daughter and I met Donna and her husband Dom in Denver for the awards celebration for the Colorado Book Awards, sponsored by Colorado Humanities (the state humanities council).

There are only eight categories in the whole Colorado Book Awards process: anthology/collection, children's literature, creative nonfiction, fiction, history/biography, nonfiction, pictorial, and young adult literature. Competition is stiff. Priscilla Gibson-Roberts' Knitting in the Old Way was a finalist the year it was published.

Arctic Lace had been selected as a finalist in the broad category of "nonfiction," along with The Apron Book by EllynAnne Geisel (published by Andrews McMeel), Pull: Networking and Success since Benjamin Franklin by Pamela Walker Laird (published by Harvard University Press), and Walking into Colorado's Past: 50 Front Range History Hikes by Ben Fogelbert and Steve Grimstead (Westcliffe Publishers).

We were in extraordinary company with all the finalists in all the categories. While browsing the bookselling table, I made a lot of notes about titles I'll want to look up. Some ended up winning in their categories; even more didn't. Because the suspense of wondering who won isn't the point of this post, I'll let you know now that the overall winner in the nonfiction cluster was Walking into Colorado's Past.

Which doesn't dilute my feeling that we won just as thoroughly by making it into the small group of finalists. At that point, the winner's slot is luck of the draw.

So back to the question of what to wear. The usual jeans-and-t-shirt working clothes probably wouldn't cut it at an event announced as appropriate for "cocktail attire." I don't have cocktail attire, and would rather spend money on type.

I do have a qiviut gaiter (left below), which would have been mighty appropriate, but it's WAAAAY too warm for indoor wear.

I also have a lovely black Russian shawl that was perfect. It came from One People: One World in Anchorage, a gift from Donna Druchunas, author of Arctic Lace, and a reminder of our trip to Alaska last October for the book's launch at the Alaska State Yarn Council's Yarn Expo.

I was undoubtedly warmer than the MC, Natalie Tysdal, anchor of News 2 This Morning, who does own a cocktail dress. (The room was a comfortable temperature; I just enjoy being cosy as in "wrapped in a light layer of exquisitely spun and knitted natural fiber." That to me is warmth, and the reference only partially pertains to temperature.)

She looked really nice, though.

I also like my job lots better than I'd like hers. I may work twelve- to sixteen-hour days most days, but my alarm clock doesn't go off at 2:45 a.m. and I don't have to do my hair and makeup before appearing at my desk.

It's fun, however, to get dressed up for a special occasion like the book awards.

Here's Donna in her fancy duds (on the left) and my daughter in hers (on the right: she requested time off from one of her jobs to attend the party). You can't see my daughter's shoes in this photo. Mostly she wears reasonable shoes so she's only slightly taller than I am. This evening she wore fancy shoes that give her a good two or three inches (5 to 7.5 cm) over me.

About that basket my daughter is holding.

One feature of the awards celebration is a silent auction. The proceeds benefit Colorado Center for the Book programs for children's literacy, including Motheread/Fatheread Colorado, Authors in the Classroom, and the Student Literary Awards. My daughter and I bid on three baskets. We bid early, planning to support the process and to be outbid.

On a lark, we put in one later bid on the basket she's holding above: it contains all three books in a series by Hilari Bell, whose The Farsala Trilogy: Forging the Sword was a finalist in the young adult literature category. The basket also has several other neat things, including a weirdly wonderful plastic clock and a note from Hilari Bell (there's a real nice paragraph that she wrote on that link, similar in tone to the note in the basket). My daughter's been wanting to read this series ever since she saw the first volume when it was released under a different title (Flame).

We won it. I've never won a silent auction item.

Top place in the young adult category this year went to Laura Resau's What the Moon Saw (we bid on her silent auction basket but didn't win it).

Like I said, all the finalists in this event, not just the winners, were outstanding. The publishers run the gamut from the tiniest local presses to the biggest New York conglomerates.

Here's another winner by Shari Caudron, a fellow member of the Colorado Authors' League (I'm a member; so's Laura Resau), that I've been wanting to read since before it was published (Shari's was our third silent auction basket, another one that we didn't win). And another finalist I'd like to read.

Independent literary publisher Ghost Road Press had no less than four finalists, in anthology/collection, creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, and took the top honors for anthology/collection (hey! Sonya Unrein got to pick up the prize! an editor won a prize!) and for fiction.

Dominic Cotignola, Donna's husband, took many of the photographs for Arctic Lace. Behind the camera is a great guy:

And here's a photo that proves I was there, too (Dom took this one; I took the others):

Alas, you can't see my sweater, which is a deep-sea-blue cotton version of Ann McCauley's "Peri's Parasol," from her The Pleasures of Knitting. I'll have to get another picture some time to show that.

We had a whole bunch of the Arctic Lace collaborators at the event (I'm not calling us a "team," because I think we're all too independent-minded for that, although we work well together):

• Donna: Researched and wrote the book.
• Dom: Took most of the photographs.
• My daughter: Processed the images so they'd look good when they were printed, and consulted with me on most of the other design decisions.
• Me: I edited the text, designed the interior, did production, marketed, and the like.

I think it was really nice of Colorado Humanities to have a party in honor of how we spent a few years of our lives.

We stayed out late for all of us, then headed home so we could get back to our jobs on Thursday morning.

I've tucked the earrings back safely away so they'll be ready for their next special outing.

And Arctic Lace has now earned three remarkable honors:

• Silver award, ForeWord Book of the Year Awards (Priscilla Gibson-Roberts' Spinning in the Old Way won the bronze)
• Bronze award, Independent Publisher (IPPY) Awards
• Finalist, Colorado Book Awards (PDF of finalists)

First five photos © Deborah Robson. Sixth (final) photo © Dominic Cotignola.

UPDATE: Donna, who is much more technologically astute than I am, has a very cool slide show with more of Dom's photos on her blog.