The Independent Stitch

Where most of the work gets done

I've written about the wonderful places to which I've traveled within the past year to work on the major project that is nearing its deadline (I'm not saying "completion": it will be pulled out of my hands, far from complete, because otherwise it will not be ready for a few decades).

I spent most of a week in a rented cabin shared with other writer friends.

Another set of friends helped me obtain the delight of a full week's residency.

And I retreated for a too-short weekend with co-author Carol Ekarius.

(That's me with Tuf, one of Carol's dogs. Carol took the picture.)

Yet I haven't shown where most of the work is getting done. That's partly because I'm embarrassed. It's organized, but it also looks like, as we used to say, "ten pounds in a five-pound bag."

I've worked in this office for many years—I think it's at least fourteen or fifteen:

For the final four or five years that I edited Spin-Off magazine, most of that work was accomplished in this space. Now this is where I do all the work on the books published by Nomad Press and for my freelance editorial clients. It's compact, but I have a window (the high, basement kind, just out of sight), and the tools I need are close at hand (an understatement). I do go off to a coffeeshop or the library several times a week, taking a single set of tasks with me. It's refreshing.

The photo above was taken during the time when the computers were breaking down, and just before Jessica Derksen, who has been an enormous help in my continuing efforts to accomplish the impossible, showed me how to fit yet another major job (The Project) into my office. It was April 2008. I'd signed the contract for this work four months earlier. Already 14 boxes of fiber were in the dining room (because there was no room for them in the office), and it was obvious that many more boxes would be part of this undertaking before it was done.

There was a storeroom adjacent to the office, separated from it by a wall. When we bought the house, this space was called a bedroom. We learned later that technically it shouldn't have been listed as a bedroom because there's no closet (there was also no closet in the formerly so-called bedroom that is now the office, although we have since built one).

The only access to this room was through the laundry area. This space has a nicer window than the office does. And a heat vent. The office doesn't have a heat vent.

Jessica got the idea of taking down the wall between the two rooms. The primary reason for this was so we could use the small hallway/entry between the laundry area and the storeroom to stash boxes of fiber. It was only about 10 square feet, but that can look like a lot if you are tripping over boxes. If we took down the wall, we could fill that entry space with boxes because we could walk into the storeroom through my office. The change was kindly, quickly, and neatly implemented by Jessica's husband, Jonathan.

I did lose a floor-to-ceiling wall of bookcases, shown here when I'd almost completely dismantled them:

I still haven't found permanent, orderly homes for everything that was displaced. However, these lines on the wall are the start of a big change.

And the wall came down:

Here's the view of the office from the former storeroom:

And the former storeroom as seen from the office:

Most of the work on The Project now takes place in that former storeroom, which, a year and a half later, looks like this:

You can't see all the active boxes in that picture. There are now 54 (if you don't count the ones that contain the extra bits that are not directly part of the book), so in addition to what's here there are more in the laundry room, in that entry/hallway this exercise freed up (which you can see a bit of between the bookcases in the photo above and, from the other side of the opening, below), and in the downstairs bathroom (as seen from the laundry area in the photo below):

I can't get a photo angle that shows the boxes on top of the dryer.

We're not done yet. There will be more boxes, and I'll need to figure out what to do with them. There's still space for about 3 on top of that pile in the bathroom.

It's been nice to pack 12 boxes (the number that will fit) into the car, along with the tools and the computer, and to go elsewhere. It's easier to focus when everything is neatly organized and I'm not having to juggle all the other responsibilities of these spaces and of the house, although I can only withdraw from the other dimensions of my life for a few days at a time.

Yet day in and day out, week, month, and year in and year out, most of the work gets done right here. The trips away have been real boosts to my progress: I'm amazed at what can get done with the support of those protected times and places. Yet plodding along in the middle of everything is also part of the whole package, and without it the job as a whole would be unreachable. 

I'm constantly grateful for Jessica's idea to tear down a wall, for my willingness to say yes, and for Jonathan's help in getting the restructuring job done so I could move forward.

Fleeces: variations and consistencies within and between breeds, using the Leicesters as an example

This post will consist of ideas and musings, not pronouncements.

Having been fascinated by breed-specific wools for years, especially the rare breeds that will vanish if we do not have adequate financial support for the shepherds who want to care for flocks of them, I have jumped off the deep end (again) in another study of fibers.

This is the Big Project that I've been talking about. It will result in a book. Carol Ekarius and I are working on it together; I'm responsible for the fiber aspects. Done right, it would take another several decades. We have deadlines (although they have flexed as our vision has expanded, they still exist). The results will not be perfect. However, I tell myself that I've already put several decades of preparatory work into The Project, and whatever I accomplish now will help someone else in the future take this work to its next step (maybe I'll even have the opportunity to take it farther, after The Project has been completed). Similarly, I am, of course, depending on the labors and observations of those who have written down their thoughts and ideas about wool before me.

I'm going to use the Leicesters as an example for this scattered group of thoughts-without-conclusions. In these thoughts, I'm only looking at the wool from these breeds, not all the other aspects of how and why they came to exist as separate entities, what sizes the sheep are, what ecological and cultural niches they fill, and so on.

A quick overview of "the Leicesters"

"The Leicesters" is not an official group of sheep breeds. People who know very little about sheep think all sheep are the same, except most are white and a few are black. People who have dug a little deeper and know about breeds get confused by the Leicesters because of the similarities of their names—Leicester Longwool, Border Leicester, and Bluefaced Leicester. These breeds are, indeed, genetically related. Their wools can be radically different . . . or, in some cases, a bit similar. More different than similar, though, at least when seen from where I'm sitting.

Leicester Longwools came first, a breed refined during the 18th century from early Lincolns and Leicesters (geographic variants of the same ancient breed). They have a lot of other names, including English Leicesters.

Border Leicesters have also been around since the 18th century, but their breeding was based in part on the then-recently-developed Leicester Longwools.

Bluefaced Leicesters are the relative newcomers, having been developed early in the 20th century by selecting Border Leicesters that had "blue" faces (black skin under white wool) and . . . most importantly for fiber folk . . . fine fleeces.

Differences between breeds, looking at "the Leicesters" all at once

Here are some samples from the three breeds (clean locks, shearings from different sheep for each):

It's easy enough to see the relationship between the Leicester Longwool and the coarser (left) lock from the Border Leicester, as well as between the finer (right) Border Leicester and the Bluefaced Leicester.

Variations within a breed: Bluefaced Leicester

The photo also hints that it may be easier to predict what type of fiber you'll get when you have a Bluefaced Leicester fleece, as compared to a Leicester Longwool or a Border Leicester.

Although a sampling of two means nothing, there is a useful bit of information behind the consistency that we think we perceive in these Bluefaced Leicester locks: the breed standards for Bluefaced Leicester are narrowly defined, and the wool tends to be in the range of 24 to 28 microns (equivalent to Bradford counts and USDA grades of 56s to 60s), and the staple lengths are between 8 and 15cm (3 and 6 inches).

Those are, for wools, quite narrow ranges. (And just look at that crimp: all of the Leicesters have delightful crimp, although of different character.)

Differences between breeds: Leicester Longwool and Border Leicester

Here's where matters get complicated and it gets harder to make generalizations.

These are older breeds with less stringent breed society constraints. There's much more variability in the wool right from the start, and that variation is also pushed in specific directions by breeders' preferences, both in their individual goals for their flocks and in different parts of the world. In addition, white and natural-colored sheep don't have the same wool profiles.

Overall, Border Leicesters can be slightly finer than Leicester Longwools, although their micron count and Bradford/USDA ranges very nearly overlap (the finest Border Leicester is not, on paper, quite as fine as the coarsest Bluefaced Leicester, although it's very close). Border Leicesters can also be as strong (or coarse) as Leicester Longwools. (Except for . . . oops, that's a digression for another time.)

Let's say Border Leicesters run from 29.25 to 40 microns (40s to 50s) in the British Isles and North America, and between 32 and 40 microns (36s to 46s) in New Zealand and Australia.

And let's say Leicester Longwools run from 32 to 38 microns (40s to 46s) in the British Isles*, North America, and Australia, and between 37 and 40 microns (36s to 40s) in New Zealand.

* (except for British natural-colored Leicester Longwools, which, according to the British Coloured Sheep Breeders Association, range from 37 to 46 microns [40s+])

Oh, and staple length. Both of these breeds can be shorn twice a year, so depending on whether you are looking at a half-yearly shearing or a full year's growth, you may see between 12.5 and 25cm (5 and 10 inches) for the Border Leicester and between 12.5 and 35cm (5 and 14 inches) for the Leicester Longwool.

There are a lot of possibilities in these two breeds. Yet we can still draw some conclusions. I won't do that now, because that's the work of The Project, and I have to read, spin, and mull a lot for each breed in order to come up with something resembling conclusions. I'll probably be right in my conclusions part of the time, and wrong part of the time. I hope there won't be much of the latter, but I also hope that whatever "wrongness" ends up in The Project spurs someone else to dig even deeper.

Wool in the hand

Numbers can be helpful, but spinning the fibers tells so much more. It has seemed to me, over time, that fibers with exactly the same numerical identifiers—micron count, staple length, and so on—can feel significantly different, likely because of differences in the patterns of the scales on the surface of the fiber, possibly the way the cells that make up the insides of the fiber are arranged, and other things we don't usually get to look at in detail.

Nor do we need to, if we take each fleece in front of us on its own terms, having trusted (and trained) our fingers to feel the individuality of THIS fleece by comparing it to other fleeces we've spun before. (The same goes for working with commercially spun breed-specific yarns, although some of the most subtle individualities are smoothed over in large-batch processing.)

Leicester Longwool

Glorious, lustrous, heavy in the hand, Leicester Longwool makes me think of rugs, and durable bags, and how beautiful and clear the colors will be when it is dyed . . . because of that luster. It could also be used to make interesting large-scale laces. It could make a lovely, nicely draping blanket, and for someone who is into making home furnishings it would also make great pillow or upholstery fabric—very hard-wearing! There's something about that crimp, too, that wants to be part of a fleece rug or heavily textured tapestry . . . especially in that shorter fleece on the right.

If I decided not to use the locks as locks or simply flick them open and then spin, I would comb both of these fleeces, to keep the fibers parallel and thus conserve as much of the shine as possible all the way through to the finished yarn. I'd use my Viking combs (I love my Viking combs). The fleece on the left would be challenging to comb, because of its length—not something for a beginner. It would require very long strokes to keep it from tangling. The fleece on the right would be better for someone who is either new to combing or impatient.

Border Leicester

With Border Leicester, I'd have to do more evaluation before planning a project or the preparation technique. At the finer end of the breed's wool range (something like the fleece on the right), I might be inspired to make a hard-wearing everyday sweater or mittens or socks. At the coarser end, I'd be looking again (like the Leicester Longwool) at sturdy rugs or bags, wall hangings, and the like. A coarser fleece with long staples (like the one on the left) could be used to make a fleece rug or blanket. There is plenty of luster to these fibers and they will show off dyed colors very nicely.

That longer fleece on the left would require some experience to comb. It might be fun to simply flick the locks open at both ends and spin. See the different length samples in the fleece on the right? It would be best to sort that fleece and prepare the different sections in different ways. The shorter bits might be carded and the longer ones combed.

The fleece on the right could become a nice sweater. The one on the left would, perhaps, rather be spun fine and woven into a coat.

Bluefaced Leicester

As we've noted, the Bluefaced Leicesters are more predictable, although husbandry, health, and weather all can produce fleeces that don't fit the regular profile.

  

The wool from Bluefaced Leicesters is soft enough to be used for next-to-skin wear. It will make lovely sweaters, scarves, mittens, gloves, blankets—it's easy to see why this wool is so popular (and it's easy to forget that there are jobs the other Leicesters can do much better). The staples are often long enough to comb, and some fleeces might be amenable to carding as well. Again, the luster means dyed colors will be clear and bright.

Conclusions, which I said I wasn't going to provide

The Leicesters share some genetics, and propensities toward luster, well-defined crimp, and enough staple length to suggest spinning from the lock, flicking, or combing as the first ideas about preparation for spinning.

Yet depending on which breed you select and which individual's fleece (from which year) you have, you could end up deciding to make anything from an heirloom-durable rug to a lacy camisole.

Organizing fibers for the big project

There will be two versions of this post. I hit the wrong button and published it at the note-taking stage. If you're reading this note, you likely have the full post.

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Keeping the fibers for this project organized and constantly identified is a job in itself. Having edited Spin-Off for so many years, I knew how challenging it can be to try to remember which of several closely related fiber samples the one you set on that table over there was, expecting that of course you could remember what it was . . . oops, that was day before yesterday, something came up that needed to be dealt with immediately, and was that the Dorset from project A, or the Hampshire from project B? Dang.

Anyway, I started off with what I hoped would be a flexible, strong organizing system. It evolved slightly. For example, instead of trying to economize to the penny on labels, as I did at the start, I now print plenty in both sizes and keep coming up with ways in which they're handy to have.

So the first large chunk of work to be done when I receive new fibers involves entering them in the inventory sheets (two separate databases), printing up their labels, and making the bags and cards that will keep everything sorted from receiving through photography, and perhaps beyond.

I print two sizes of labels. The large ones go mostly on the bags, and the small ones go mostly on organizing tools. Extra labels are top center. To their left, a tag for a sample skein (there will probably be at least one more skein label, which is a reason to have extra small labels, but I start with one). The large card next to the tag stays with the wool during washing and other processing. The small card goes at the edges of photos so we don't have to keep massive notes about what fiber was in which photograph. We shoot the tiny card at the edge of the image and it can be cropped out later. Small labels also get used when I pull a sample for OFDA testing (scanning for the physical fiber qualities, including length and micron counts).

There are two large plastic bags, one that will stay with the bulk fiber supply and one, marked "samples," that will go in the file that will be transported to the photo shoot. There are two small plastic bags, one for raw wool locks and one for clean wool locks. All of the labels on the plastic bags have to have clear tape put over them or they won't stay stuck to the bags. (There's one more larger card with a large label that goes in a card file, a physical inventory record, which comes in very handy despite all the computer database information.)

Once the fiber's checked in and the organizing tools are prepared, it's time for washing. This is when fibers will most likely get confused, so I need to pick batches that can be distinguished from each other and that fit my various colander-and-bowl configurations, which have different capacities.

In this morning's first batch, I have three black wools and one white. The three blacks are easy to tell apart, even though two are Soays. My larger cards from the photo above (they're old business cards) stay in the room with the fibers being washed, then travel with them to the drying racks and stick around until the fibers are dry and back in their labeled bags. I've already pulled the grease locks on all of these, of course.

Here are the pots of water on the stove, heating up to supplement the tap water for getting the wool clean.

And here are some of the washing-related systems: the baggies in the white not-a-wastebasket are the fibers currently in the tub. The box contains a few of the fibers next in the lineup (there is another large box to its left, out of sight . . . I'm pretty well caught up, but got five new samples yesterday). The post-its on the outside of the box have small labels on them. With more than forty file boxes in action, it's good to be able to tell easily what's where. The bright yellow means the sample started as grease fleece. Light yellow means it started as clean fiber. There would be a black checkmark on those labels if they'd been washed already. I'll have more shots of boxes later.

Okay, I'd better get this really posted. The truncated version would be pretty funky.

The Big Project: hints can be revealed (pertains to fiber, surprise, surprise)

Last weekend I drove south and into the mountains to spend a couple of days working on The Project.

(I've finally got the energy to see if I can cover the information the computer powers-that-be evaporated on me just as I'd finished writing a post on Monday. This time I am working in an offline composing program called Ecto. I don't know much about Ecto, so we'll see if this goes better than Monday did!)

I stayed in a cabin courtesy of Carol Ekarius and her husband, Ken Woodard. Ken went off to spend the time playing music with friends, leaving me and Carol to work on The Project. Yep, The Project requires two of us, and we both are the sort of people who are challenged, rather than daunted, by large, complicated tasks. Still, we haven't felt comfortable talking about what we're thinking (and working on) previously. Even though we've been working on it for a lot more than a year already. It's big. We do, now, suspect we will be able to pull it off in the foreseeable future.

Here's Carol at the cabin with Red, one of our weekend companions.

Chickens are not allowed inside, although Red forgets that from time to time in her quest for yummies.

Carol is passionate about livestock and small-scale farming. Her books include Storey's Illustrated Breed Guide to Sheep, Goats, Cattle and Pigs: 163 Breeds from Common to Rare (Storey), which just won the Colorado Book Award in the general nonfiction category; How to Build Animal Housing (Storey), which won a Colorado Authors' League award; Storey's Guide to Raising Sheep (Storey), written with ground-breaking handspinner Paula Simmons; Storey's Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breeds (Storey); Pocketful of Poultry (Storey); Small-Scale Livestock Farming: A Grass-Based Approach for Health, Sustainability, and Profit (Storey); and Hobby Farm: Living Your Rural Dream for Pleasure and Profit (Bowtie).

I'm passionate about fibers and rare breeds, as those who know about my work at Interweave Press and Shuttle Spindle & Dyepot and as a freelancer and as the publisher of Nomad Press are aware.

We've both been involved for years with the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.

I'm doing fibers.

(That's Tuf, one of Carol's dogs.)

Carol's doing critters.

We're both working day and night.

Theresa and Red are doing eggs. They helped out a lot over the weekend.

Even though there is a MASS of work left to do on The Project, we made great progress and feel hopeful that we'll be able to change it from a bunch of separately written pieces into a coherent whole—while continuing to generate still more separately written pieces.

One of the things I like best about working with Carol is that when we get together and compare notes and I show her my research and the charts I'm drawing and the details that I'm endeavoring to condense into useful summaries that take into account geographic and biological variations and all sorts of other random differences . . . she doesn't say that I don't have to do all that and she doesn't tell me It would be faster if I just pulled somebody else's information and got on with it.

No, what she does instead is tell me about the weird and obscure and interesting books she's gotten through interlibrary loan and ask me for a reminder about a weird, obscure, and truly fascinating book that I got through interlibrary loan (because she's going to request the book, too, now that I've returned it). . . . She also doesn't imply that it was silly of me to pay $25 to borrow a book for a couple of weeks from the National Agricultural Library because it was the only copy of that book in the United States and it's not in print elsewhere any more. No, she gets on the computer and finds sources for more fibers and orders them and has them sent to my house.

It's great to be collaborating with Carol on this project. We're both nuts in some of the same ways. We won't ever do as much research as either of us would like to (we would like to finish), but we'll get enough done to have fun and to produce something we think fiber- and critter-appreciating folk will find useful and informative in a way that's unlike anything else that's come before it.

Of course, we also both work full-time at other jobs while we're doing this. Carol is the executive director of the Coalition for the Upper South Platte (we met when she was in this role and I was working on a heritage preservation project in Park County, Colorado). I juggle this project around freelance writing and editing and Nomad Press.

We might get tired from time to time, but neither of us is likely to get bored.

Time to get back to work. I don't think this is as good a post as the one I lost, but at least it is written and about to be published.

More about this project will be revealed as it moves (reasonably swiftly, we hope) toward completion.

Where I'm working on the project this weekend

Here's where I've been fortunate enough to be able to move some of my boxes to work on the project this weekend:

The big yellow and red container is the backup water supply (it backs up what is in the kettle inside). See the large black bell on the pole at the edge of the deck, to the right of the big windows? Before walking down to use the facilities, especially after dark, it's wise to pull the rope and make it clang loudly to let the bear (which I have not seen) know that there are people in the area and it should amble off as quickly as it can, if it happens to be around.

There's a fantastic view from the front deck:

Although I have the cabin to myself, here are some of the neighbors who live just past the facilities:

That's Jewel; Dancer, who is a BLM rescue horse; and donkey Duke (sort of hiding). The aspens in front of them have had their bark chewed off by the equines (who are not allowed near most of the trees) because these trees are intended for use in some projects and stripping aspen bark is difficult, whereas horses like to eat it.

Here's Nickers, who is a chow-hound:

The person feeding him is Carol, who is also involved with The Project and invited me to use the cabin. Behind her is one of today's visitors, Tuf:

 
Lou also spent the day here:

 
Because of the rain, of which we had a bit more this afternoon, the wildflowers have been blooming abundantly this year. Here's a kind of penstemon:

and wild geranium:

We accomplished a number of things by working all together. Yet it took much longer to get here last night than I thought it would, and then I didn't get to sleep easily, so now it's time for bed. Tomorrow we have another day to make the most of—although I'll also need to drive back to where I usually work, which will cut the available hours in half, unfortunately.

Who needs running water and plumbing?

Why I have been leaving home to get work done

There's way too much happening in my work space at home. This is far from unusual. The professional organizer that I work with just says I'm doing too much in too little space. Then we work together on making the best of it.

I like the space, although I sometimes express a desire to work above ground. I do have windows set high in the wall and, in summer, a view of rose bushes (or at least their bases). Neighbor cats occasionally prowl along under the shrubs and look in at me, curious. The angle from my desk to the window lets me see the sky.

In that space, I do freelance editorial work—in the past several weeks, I've edited two entire books there, and done a final review on parts of a third, and I'll be working on another starting today. The freelance projects cycle in and out. They take time. Each needs a bit of space.

I also run Nomad Press there, Nomad being a very small, independent publishing company that releases about a book a year, technology and energy and finances permitting. These books are on knitting and spinning. They require some space, too, as do all of the functions that support a publishing company—bookkeeping, shipping, promotion. I'm working on three books for Nomad right now, as well as a special pattern by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts for Sock Summit 2009.

Generally, I don't do my own writing in that office. Several times a week, I head for a coffee shop or library or other neutral territory to do that work. It's easier to shift mental gears if I change locations. The laptop makes it possible for me to use these alternate sites. I'll do things in these outside spaces like plan my classes for Sock Summit and write blog posts, as well as any personal writing I can fit in (it's been a while).

I'm also working on a rather large research and writing project, and I work on it everywhere: in the office, at the coffee shop, in bed. Twice in the past few months, I've had the opportunity to set up a base of operations for a week or so at a time in a different space entirely, and I've devoted that time to this research and writing project (and a few blog posts). It's been heavenly. I've gotten so much done.

Here's a view of the desk in my home office before I left for the second of those opportunities, a residency in Salida, Colorado, last month:

The file boxes piled up there went with me: there are more boxes, the ones that didn't take this trip, in the hallway and in the adjacent bathroom, as well as in the part of the office that's around the corner to the left . . . I think the project as a whole is up to around fifty of these boxes, with perhaps another twenty or thirty to go before I'm done. . . . There's a space challenge. Twelve of the boxes have gone with me on each trip out of town. That's the number that fits in the back of my car. So far, I've been able to work on seven or eight boxes' worth in each of those extended trips away.

Here's the space I worked in during the residency:

The space was heavenly! There was even a closet where I could put the items I wasn't working directly  with. When I went into the bedroom, it was amazing—there was just a bed!

Of course, if I'd had other freelance work and the publishing with me, I wouldn't have had any more space than I do at home. But the point is that those other responsibilities weren't in the away space, and so I had this lovely, productive environment—one that lets me continue to hold in my mind the idea of enough space and the possibility of working with a lack of the clutter that simply can't be avoided in my "normal" life.

More materials arrived while I was gone. Here's what my home office looked like when I got back:

The pile of plain cardboard boxes and shipping envelopes behind and under the white file boxes are new materials for this project that arrived while I was gone. Some of the white boxes that came back with me from the residency had to be stacked around the corner in front of the washing machine, which was the only available space. The new stuff needed to be logged in and processed and assigned to its own file boxes. A month later, I've almost completed that task.

The trick with the office under these circumstances is getting to the desk chair. Once I'm there, I'm okay. Sometimes it feels like I'm in the cockpit of an airplane. An underground airplane. Fortunately, all the work I do is interesting: my flights head for intriguing destinations.

But this morning, I'm heading for one of the coffee shops, taking the laptop and just one or two jobs to think about. Simplicity is a form of bliss.

Nearing the end of editing a book

I need to check how many years the book with a deadline this week has been in the works, but . . . as of last night at about 10:30, it's all in one piece and that piece is a near-final draft. This is freelance work, so I'm not doing the graphics or layout . . . just the words, which can be plenty. All intense editing jobs should incorporate free access to a gym (preferably within fifty feet of the desk the editor can't leave for long), regular massages, and, near the conclusion, sessions with a good chiropractor.

Fortunately, I've learned pretty well by now how to pace myself, that exercise and food are essential, when to set aside a particularly sticky task and come back to it later, what types of breaks work best for recharging both body and mind, and when (and when not) to take them.

On Saturday, I drove nearly 200 miles round-trip to go to half of an all-day shape note singing (singing from Denson (red book) and Norumbega (black book), with a few forays into Cooper (blue) for some alto harmonies). That would seem excessive if I had more opportunities to go to all-day singings, but I only have access to a few a year. I wanted to go for the whole day (9:30 to 3:30), but couldn't let myself leave until I'd reviewed (and returned to the author) everything BUT the one hardest-to-edit chapter in the book. I'd spent time on that chapter earlier in the week before I decided that this was one of those tasks that, if I let it, it would suck up every scrap of energy and time we had, so it needed to be shown who was boss. I put it back in the "in progress" folder and turned to work on the rest of the book.

At 10:19 a.m. on Saturday, I completed the last file on my list (except the set of files for that one chapter). There was not a single editing-capable brain cell left in my skull. If I'd tried to continue, I wouldn't have accomplished anything. At 10:45, I was in the car. By 12:45, I was at the singing. Home by 6:30 with groceries (no time for restocking the pantry all week), then to a play (I'm Not Rappaport, by Herb Gardner, at Bas Bleu Theatre). Straight to bed, no editing.

Sunday: completely dedicated to dealing with the final chapter, which was, indeed, like obedience-training a giant octopus. All the information was there. The author just knows his material too well. I needed to make the chapter work for a reader who does not live and breathe this particular topic (like me). I started at 7:30 a.m. and finished at 10:07 p.m., having taken three short breaks for meals, two to walk the dogs, and a couple of hours in mid-afternoon to do essential errands.

I've still got work to do on the manuscript, but it is now (finally) clear that we will turn it in to the publishing house this week.

Cue "Hallelujah Chorus." I'm trying to think of equivalent works from other musical traditions that are appropriate to the situation and I'm coming up blank. Do Buddhists have celebration songs with that much enthusiasm?

The book we are working on will, by the way, be an extraordinarily fine and useful title that will do excellent work when it is out in the world. (For those who know me, it is not about knitting.) It should be published in the first part of 2010.

Moving to and from an off-site workspace for The Project

I haven't been posting much lately, having been slammed by deadlines from all sides . . . not including the deadline for The Project, on which I recently spent a blissfully concentrated week. I have a few additional photos of that endeavor.

Easily amused, I enjoy the pictures of how the car looked, coming and going. Rotating around the doors, beginning with the front passenger side:

Of course, that's the spinning wheel on top (Lendrum folding, single-treadle). Yes, it's belted in. Its top end rests on the box of reference books that went with me. Its lower end sits on one of the boxes of fiber. The blue sticky notes mean the fiber came to me clean. The green notes mean it came to me in the grease. A black checkmark means the fiber is clean and ready for me to work with. A big green dot means I've put it through all the necessary steps. Big green dots are good. They don't mean I'm done, but they mean I'm about three-quarters of the way there. My Cowichan-style sweater is tucked into the gap, along with an old blue towel. Old towels come in very handy on The Project. The white thing next to the towel, right under the dash, was probably my lunch, wrapped in a paper towel.

Moving to the next door, the rear passenger side:

The red bag in the distance is my suitcase. It also went to Maryland on this trip, so it held enough for ten days away from home. The wood-and-metal structure is my daughter's high chair/toddler seat, which makes an excellent stand for wool combs and is friendly to have around. But I wouldn't pack it if it didn't do the job better than anything else I could imagine having access to. Within its frame is a cardboard box of labeling materials for wool at various stages (sticky notes, adhesive labels, string tags, index cards, old business cards, and plastic ziplock bags in quart and gallon sizes). On top of that is a small blue plastic box of food: cereal, soups, Teeccino, along with brewing supplies, and tea (Good Earth Original, black, green, and Celestial Seasonings' Fast Lane.

On the floor is one of my knitting/crochet bags, with a bit of stray (clean) wool in a bag above it (I try to avoid stray bags of wool: this is clean wool bits left from combing, that I'll use to stuff something with). The atlas is just behind it: within reach of the front, if needed (there are also maps in both of the front doors' pockets). The black-with-blue bag on top is Computer Central Backpack.

Moving to the back of the car:

This is the core of the work. I can fit 12 file boxes in the back and still have full rear-view mirror scanning available. The green boxes contain the final record files. The white ones contain samples and clean wool ready to be processed (I didn't transport any boxes that were not ready for this step). That top box on the left in the row that can be seen was a bit overfull, but there was no room to put the excess in any other box. Tucked into the right side are my yoga mat and my rain jacket. There's something under the yoga mat, but I don't remember what it was. Behind them, aligned with the 6 white file boxes that aren't visible, is a case with two pairs of Viking combs (one-row and two-row).

Along the rear bumper on the left is the open toolbox, with three sets of carders (regular, fine full-sized, and cotton), spritzers, C-clamps, sample-size niddy noddy, four spindles, and Louet mini-combs. The cardboard box contains the master file of fiber inventory (index cards in a plastic box—I also have electronic records, but this is often handier) and more labeling and packaging materials. Oh, and I see the tip of the Eucalan bottle. I'm using Unicorn Power Scour, Unicorn Fiber Rinse, and Eucalan unscented at various stages of this project. (My daughter's aversion to lavender influences some of my choices.) Next to that: hand vac. I travel with a hand vac, specifically chosen to handle dog hair and fiber decently (although cleaning the roller is not my favorite job).

Moving to the rear driver's side door:

The suitcase (already seen from the other side) and an essential cardboard box whose contents I don't remember right now—oh! I'll bet it was the lazy kate and three extra bobbins, among other things, both above the pile of reusable shopping bags (wrapped around a few more groceries that needed some insulation). I think there might have been a small cooler under that pile. And on top, a planter (which made it home safe and sound)—thanks, Susan! The suitcases and boxes kept the planter upright and kept it from being crushed. The load was packed so nothing would shift en route.

And finally:

Room for a driver, with unimpeded visibility and movement options. Along with the green travel cup (containing tea or water), there's probably an apple or two. Just the other side of the console is a tiny space on the floor with CDs, although I usually drive without any additional car-noise input. Camera and purse are nearby, for easy access during stops.

And that's how The Project travels.

Walking Nature Home: A Life's Journey, by Susan J. Tweit

This is a stop on the blog tour for Susan Tweit's new book, Walking Nature Home: A Life's Journey, being published this month by the University of Texas Press. I've previously blogged snippets about this work.

The previous stop in this tour was March 27 at Janet Riehl's wide-ranging and delightful Riehlife. The next stop will be March 31 at Sharman Apt Russell's Love of Place blog. Both are exceptional, thoughtful, and delightful writers. Be sure to check them out—along with the rest of the tour, listed at the end of this post.

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Yesterday, I returned from a five-day writing retreat at a cabin on the Poudre River. I've never done anything like this retreat before; it was wonderful. Three writers shared the rent for what was intended to be a four-day session. Because of the weather, we had mostly overcast skies for the time we planned to be there. We got an extra day because we were lightly snowed in.

On the final, bonus night, I awoke about five in the morning and glanced out the window to find the real-life magic of more stars than I've been able to see for years, even when I've driven to the foothills outside of town, beyond the obvious light pollution (and I live in an area with relatively few streetlights).

I stayed awake in the dark for over an hour, walking from one window to another, seeing how many stars were visible in each direction. I felt like I'd been given an opportunity to glance into a forgotten part of my soul. It's a part I need to find a way to locate more often.

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When Susan Tweit was in her early twenties, she was diagnosed with an unspecified autoimmune disorder and told she would likely live between two and five more years. This book is the story of how she learned to make a life, and to love and find love in return, under a more immediate sentence of death than most of us are required to carry in daily consciousness.

Walking Nature Home is a strong and gentle book. It’s stronger than spider silk, which means, for a textile person like me, that it has more tensile strength than steel. And it’s delicately inexorable, pulling the reader forward less by the power of its narrative, as strong as that is, than by the grace of its telling and the unfolding wonder of the wide-ranging connections it makes between the elements of the world we live in, from ourselves to stars to microbes.

It's an easy read . . . meaning it flows beautifully, not that it is simple. It's full of surprises. It's a book whose presence continues to vibrate after its last page has been reached.

I read with sticky notes to mark favorite passages. Instead of dumping superlatives on the screen in an attempt to convince you to read the book, I've selected a handful of the flagged bits in my copy, each edited down to a nugget—one that unavoidably fails to reflect the delights that can be found only by viewing it in context. Each of these fragments, while it stands well on its own, is like a single note or chord extracted from a symphony.

Please: do something very nice for yourself—read Walking Nature Home and experience the resonance of these thoughts within their natural frames of reference, and within your life.

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"I instinctively treated what others labeled as a disease not as an affliction, infection, or enemy but as a teacher, a source of wisdom that spoke in a language I might not yet be able to understand, but which I was certain carried crucial lessons I needed to hear." (p. 24)

*

"In a sense my approach [to studying my health] is modeled on the organisms I studied in my fieldwork: plants. . . . Sometime in the long millennia of adaptation, big sagebrush . . .  developed a way to communicate using its signature scent. . . . [It] eventually developed a whole vocabulary of volatile compounds, including one chemical that acts like an aromatic air-raid siren to warn its community of grazing insect invasions; when other plant species pick up this signal, they flood their tissues with indigestible compounds." (pp. 32-33)

*

"I found part-time work cleaning houses and began lingering in the empty rooms after I finished, sitting in the dark and inhaling their fragrances, warming myself in the ashes of other people's lives." (p. 47)

*

"When I examine the stars, I'm not just looking for the myths and dreams we assign to the scattershot figures of the constellations, or for the flares of exploding supernovas, . . . or other hints of the formation of the universe. I'm seeking a kind of intuitive wisdom that my rational mind struggles to accept, much less explain." (p. 51)

*

"Apparently I didn't know myself intimately, if I was surprised by the feelings I heard in the silence of my journey. It seemed I hadn't been observing myself with acuity. Perhaps that was the message in the chill of Raynaud's [phenomenon]: slow down, thaw out, sit still, and listen. . . . Walking the days alone but for Sadie [a friend's dog] had forced me to pay attention. If I kept my awareness tuned within, I might yet hear what I needed to understand my health and, more importantly, my life." (p. 55)

*

"The five hundred to one thousand species and countless individual microbes that make up our gastrointestinal consortium, for instance, aid us in obtaining nutrition by breaking down carbohydrates we could not otherwise process. . . . These other lives interact so intimately with our existence that what we think of as 'I,' a solitary individual, is in reality 'we,' a thriving community. No wonder we have an inborn affinity for the rest of nature. It is who we are. The bonds we are born with to other species can't help but nurture our ability to link to each other." (p. 88)

*

"I grew up in the language of science; I know its idioms and its jargon. I also grew up with myth and star lore, the archetypical tales that illuminate humanity's dimensions in words that ring and stir and rhyme. Both shape my view of the world. . . ." (p. 107)

*

"Their hollow innards make bird bones ideal for musical instruments. The variation in the strutlike internal structures that strengthen these airy bones results in characteristic sounds produced by the bones of different species. Some birds' bones sound eerily like the living species' own calls." (p. 119)

*

"I came to love the desert for its spectacular contrasts and sudden magic, for the creativity shown by all the lives that call it home. But no matter my resolve or my efforts . . . I never quite felt at home. . . . Homesickness may not be a diagnosable illness, but it is more than mere sentiment. . . . Each time we draw a breath, we inhale our surroundings." (pp. 123, 124, 125)

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This is a story of discovering the importance of, and finding a way to be at, home. It is Susan's story, telling of her personal journey to find her unique home. But it's a good bet that if you let her show you her way, you will discover new ways to illuminate your own.

Walking Nature Home goes on my short shelf of books, the ones I won't part with. The book's place there is alongside Thoreau. Walking Nature Home is also a book that I, who rarely re-read books, will be reading again almost immediately.

If you decide to get the book and would like to share your experience with it, let me know: I'd love to hear.

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Table of contents and chapter sample of Walking Nature Home
The book is available everywhere (ISBN 978-0-292-71917-0).

Here's the link for ordering directly from the University of Texas Press. As I write this, there is a discount—hardcover for a paperback price—and personal experience indicates they ship very quickly.

Susan Tweit's website

Susan's Walking Nature Home blog—always worth reading

Illustrator Sherrie York's blog, with regular insight into her creative process

And here's the complete set of blog tour activities, as of today:

• 3/23 Susan Tweit's introductory post
• 3/25 Women Writing the West's blog
• 3/27 Janet Riehl's Riehllife village wisdom newsmagazine blog
• 3/29 That's where you are now
• 3/31 Sharman Apt Russell and friends' Love of Place blog
• 4/2 Knitting wizard and author Donna Druchunas' Sheep to Shawl blog
• 4/4 Brush and Baren, the blog of artist and nature journal publisher Sherrie York, who also is the illustrator of Walking Nature Home.
• 4/6 Artist, writer, gardener, and college professor Susan Tomlinson's The Bicycle Garden blog
• 4/7 Women's Memoirs, the web site of memoir authors and coaches Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
• 4/8 Sculptor Susan Gallacher-Turner's blog
• 4/9 Teleseminar with Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett, 6 p.m. MT. This is a free 20-30 minute interview where Susan will answer questions from readers around the country. Anyone can listen in by calling 1-712-432-0600 and using the access code 998458#
• 4/10 Telling HerStories: The Broad View, the group blog of Story Circle Network
• 4/12 Back to Susan's blog with a wrap-up of the tour, plus, Susan says, a surprise!

Off to the woods with wool

Having tested out the site in January, I've returned to this spot 30 miles up a canyon to focus on getting a book closer to done. It won't get DONE done this week, but I should make significant progress.

Here's what the car looked like this morning at home:

That's about half the stuff I could have brought for this one job. If I go through this batch, I'll take a trip back down the mountain mid-week and swap boxes.

Here's my workspace for the time being:

Some of the boxes are in the entryway. I'm just bringing in what I need most immediately.

There are three of us here. We're sharing the rent on this space so we can all get projects moved along. I'm in a different space than I used when we were here before. We didn't stay overnight last time, so this time we needed to rework the logistics. I'm sleeping on the floor in the living room, and I get one of the sunrooms (there are two) for my office.

The weather forecast has been ominous, but I've lived in Colorado long enough not to believe anything about the weather unless I'm looking directly at it. We got a few flurries when we reached the 20-mile point in the canyon, and the wind was blowing pretty hard as we moved stuff into the cabin. Now it's only about 40 percent overcast with no meteorological excitement at all. Just a nice bunch of breeze.

That's probably because I brought my snowshoes. It's been a really long time since I used them, and if we got snowed in up here and I didn't have them with me I'd be seriously disappointed.

Well, I'm here to work, so that's what it's time to do.

Does anyone else find this juxtaposition of equipment amusing?