The Independent Stitch

Save the Children: Knit (or Crochet) One, Save One is back . . . as are computer glitches

The campaign to save newborns with hand-knitted or hand-crocheted caps is on again. Information is available from Save the Children.

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The computer production file for the book continues to produce strange results, even though I have removed all character styles from the file that I am working with.

One of the bizarre things is that the character styles sometimes show back up in what was supposed to be (and not long ago was) a clean file, having been lifted from somewhere else for no apparent reason.

Yet when I go back to an earlier version of the file that should have the character styles . . . from before I removed them . . . the styles are listed in the style palette (correct) but the type they're supposed to be applied to has all been changed in color and font to something else (incorrect).

So in addition to everything else I'm dealing with (i.e., strange behavior within any single book file), there appears to be cross-file activity that should not be happening. Even in the crazy world of computers. Under these circumstances, it is (almost?) impossible to locate and remove the source(s) of the problems.

I'm babying the files for this complex book along, with the plan of shifting to different software for the next title.

Computers are completely logical. They perform actions in given sequences, according to orders they're given. But sometimes those orders get scrambled and the computer appears to go insane.

Producing the risk of similar results in the operator.

Back to basics: Navajo-Churro fleece, raw and gorgeous

There's something exquisitely elemental about raw fleece of any breed, and there's special joy for me in Navajo-Churro, a rare breed that's most at home in the southwestern United States. On Saturday I began to get acquainted with a few samples that have arrived here as part of one of the Big Projects I'm working on:

Although I now live in the Southwest, I've been aware of the situation of these sheep since 1985, when I lived in New England. I first learned of them when I was sitting in a barebones office in West Hartford, Connecticut, as the new and on-the-spot editor of Shuttle Spindle & Dyepot, reading a communication from Lyle McNeal. In the past 23 years, I have had a number of opportunities to explore their history and situation through library and internet research, talking with quite a few people, and some travel. Also, of course, a bit of spinning.

The wool in the photo was grown by animals under the care of Connie Taylor, registrar and recorder of the Navajo-Churro Sheep Association, in Hoehne, Colorado, not far from the New Mexico border. (For those who can get to New Mexico: The Taos Wool Festival is next weekend, October 4th and 5th. I wish I could be there. If you can go, tell me stories after you get back. Aside: That's a leaf on the white fleece. It looks fuzzy in the web-quality photo.)

The progenitors of the Navajo-Churro arrived in North America with Spanish explorers in the 1500s. These weren't the fancy Merinos but the sturdier, more common sheep. Between the sixteenth century and the late twentieth, the history of these animals and their connection to the cultures of the Southwest was been marked by significant heights of artistry and sometimes, as in the government-instigated Long Walk of 1865 and stock reduction of the 1930s, tragedy. By the 1970s, almost none of these sheep were left.

What a loss that would have been. Navajo-Churros are uniquely adapted in many ways to a harsh climate with little water or vegetation. They are closely entwined with the Hispanic, Pueblo, and Navajo peoples of the area. They produce a versatile, durable wool that comes in a wide array of natural colors.

Fortunately, a few visionaries working hard for many years have pulled the breed back from the edge of extinction and re-established it in its natural and cultural niches. There are Navajo-Churro flocks now outside the Southwest as well; having some geographic diversity of genetic resources provides a safety net for their long-term survival.

There's lots more to say about Navajo-Churros. For the moment, though, I'd just like to appreciate their fiber . . . although I'll do so with some details.

As usual when you have such a spread of colors in a breed of landrace origins (one that is adapted to a particular geographic niche, instead of having been bred for consistency), the individual fleeces have different characteristics, all within a range that becomes familiar over the years as you see wool from a variety of animals. Among all of the Navajo-Churro fleeces I've seen, there's been more or less double-coatedness. The most remarkably single-coated was in the back room of a trading post on the Navajo Nation. It was being reserved for local weavers, but we were allowed to admire it. Some of the Navajo-Churro wool I've seen from outside the Southwest has carried much more grease, perhaps from the change in climate or shifts in husbandry practices (especially, I'd guess, feeding).

Stepping out on a personal limb here, I'll say that Connie's wool seems to me to epitomize the unique character of the breed as a whole. (I'm not an expert on any specific breed, but I've seen a lot of wool in my life.)

Here are locks from each of those four samples. The gray locks are obviously longest and the white are shortest. Yet all of the locks have similar "personalities," if I can go so far as to use that word. Which, of course, I just did.

One of the things I love about wool—especially in some breeds, like Navajo-Churro—is that not only each fleece but each lock is distinctive. Here's a closer view of one lock from each of the selections above. I think it's easy to identify which lock I selected from each group.

And some people think all sheep look alike, and all wool is the same as other wool. [Walks off shaking head in amazement.]

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Yes, I'm avoiding the computer. Somewhat. I'm about to go back at it.

Reading: Shimmering Images, by Lisa Dale Norton

Good new book for writers to know about: Lisa Dale Norton's Shimmering Images: A Handy Little Guide to Writing Memoir. It arrived at our local independent bookstore yesterday as a result of a special order I placed. I found out it was coming up from Susan Tweit, and I trust her recommendations.

It's a quick read—an hour, thick or thin—and is simple in the way of things that consist of an essence, distilled from a larger mass.

I'm about two-thirds of the way through. I'm not rushing, because it's one of those books whose company I enjoy. I started it at about 4:30 this morning, then went back to sleep for a while, read a bit more, am working now, will read a bit more later. Nice to look forward to. Useful concepts, well presented.

Bikes, computers, prairie dogs, yarn, and the like

The first part of this post is about my bike ride last weekend, in conjunction with the Rocky Mountain Sustainable Living Fair, and then I get into what I've been doing with the computer files . . . and a few other things. The first section will have lots of pictures. The computer part will be brief because it has consumed a lot of time and produced a small amount of information but no major change in the situation.

Biking back from the Rocky Mountain Sustainable Living Fair

It's just under 6 miles (9.6 km) from my house to the site of the Sustainable Living Fair. However, I love the bike paths and will travel quite a bit farther in order to use them rather than the streets. Like probably 9 miles (14.5 km) for this route.

This year I only rode back from the fair, because the large portions of the bike paths were closed all morning to accommodate a running event. My daughter and I had breakfast with a friend. In conjunction with that we transported my bike to within a mile of the fair in the back of my daughter's car. After breakfast, she went home and I strapped on my helmet.

What was interesting, of course, was not the ride to the fair (less than a mile) but the ride home. I love it when I see "new" things in places where I've been frequently. I don't live near this piece of the path, but I have probably walked and ridden here several dozen times. Or more. The city has apparently relocated part of the path, which may be why this structure, which I hadn't noticed before, was suddenly pretty obvious, off in the bushes:

(That's not the main bike path, which is wide and paved. It's a dirt trail off to the side.)

It's a bridge across the river. But what kind of bridge?

That's my bike. I did have to leave the trail to get decent photos.

Not a foot bridge, although it could be made into one . . . or into a one-lane bike bridge. Far too small for a railroad bridge, although that's what it most closely resembles. There's a trough under the framework of metal.

Here's a wonderful, sturdy cable that's part of the bridge's support system:

On the other side of the trail, in direct alignment with the bridge, is this:

Here's the structure at the near end of the photo above, seen from the other side:

It's a gate for the release of irrigation water, shaped to fit the trough that carried the water.

Interesting, curious, and somehow sensible (for this area) that this is a bridge apparently built to carry irrigation water across a river. Here's the river itself:

And another view from very close to that:

The river's under this big bridge. That's why there are so many trees. Did you notice the cottonwoods at the end of the irrigation trough in the earlier photo? In this landscape, trees = water.

(The orange cone is left over from the morning's half-marathon.)

There's a big movement afoot to dam our river. I think it's a lousy idea, for a lot of reasons, some of them relating to having lived very close to the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts. (There is no question that the Quabbin is beautiful; however, its history runs troubled and deep.)

Water is always a difficult issue out here. However, the existing supplies and structures are not being used as efficiently as they could be. (The Quabbin drowned part of western Mass to provide eastern Mass with water; a reservoir out here would not be built for the benefit of the people in the immediate area. The water would be moved elsewhere.)

Here are some other things I saw on my ride:

They're prairie dogs. There are lots of places where they're no longer welcome, even though they're an essential part of the non-human ecosystem, but this is a spot where they seem like they're still okay. They stand at alert outside the entrances to their burrows and chirp at each other about what they see. In this case, that was me. I love watching prairie dogs. I hope they like watching me at least a little bit. They didn't dive for safety in their burrows, so I think I didn't alarm them.

On such a gorgeous day, it's possible to simply appreciate what I'm seeing and not think too much about the bigger issues: to be grateful for seeing and exploring the old bridge, to enjoy the fact that the prairie dogs have a colony in the city, that there are some places on the trail where I ride my bike past pastures that contain horses, that it's a perfect day and that I am outside in it.

Here's one of a sequence of signs along the bike trail:

Good advice. Especially considering what my work life has been like lately.

The computer stuff

I've spent a couple of days working on the things the latest tech support guy at Adobe suggested that I try. This has involved having Adobe Creative Suite (CS1), Adobe Creative Suite 2 (CS2), and Adobe Creative Suite 3 (CS3) installed simultaneously on my computer and moving InDesign files back and forth between them using something called an interchange format (.inx).

I haven't been able to successfully install a necessary patch in CS1, so that piece of the operation has failed (and it's the most likely to solve my problems). When I'm moving the current book file, I get messages that what I've created is "not a valid InDesign Interchange document." Or the program just crashes. When I go through the same process with the file for Ethnic Knitting Discovery—which is almost identical to the current file in structure and complexity but which I successfully sent to press last year—the interchange process works . . . at least at the CS3 end, because the CS1 end needs that uninstallable patch (so the time I spent installing that set of programs has gotten me nowhere).

In sum: the book file has been corrupted. No one knows how to locate or quickly (ha) remove the source of the corruption.

Although there is one more thing to try . . . it will take at least a week of work to try that thing. And it will be an incredibly boring week. It involves removing all of the styles from the document, then rebuilding them, one at a time (there are a lot of styles). OR I could break the file into sections and try the process I went through (over two days) with the previous files to see if I can figure out that ONE section has the problem, and then work to eliminate it. Somehow.

There is no way out of this that is not astonishingly tedious and frustrating, and that includes buying Quark and rebuilding the book in an entirely different program.

Which is why I'm not talking about it here. It's bad enough to have to just do this stuff. I don't have to drag other people through it, too.

And in odd moments. . . .

I am cataloging more wool for the big sheep project that I'm working on that relates to rare-breed wools. Nothing much to see there, either, although at least when you wash wool you know you've accomplished something.

There's good news and progress in the Rook-y department:

I think what I have in mind is going to work. I'm still not saying what it is because I don't know for sure yet whether I'll like it or will be ripping. Looks promising, very promising, though.

Problem-solving techniques and knitting progress (same, or not?)

The book that I am publishing is being proofread and indexed. I have not solved the horrendous computer problems, but I did come up with a series of workarounds that allowed me to reach this point. Today I need to call Adobe tech support and locate someone at a level I can talk to about this sequence of difficulties. If I can't rely on this particular suite of software, I will have to close my publishing business. It's that serious.

Yesterday I was thinking about how I have learned (over time, and the hard way) to come through things like this in one piece (more or less). As I pondered, I identified and articulated a few personal operating principles, one of which is in the form of a question. This list is not definitive, but it felt good to say to myself, "Yeah, that's some of how I ratchet myself through the hardest days."

1. Don't worry about next week's problems today. I do think about them, because I might come up with a solution, but worry doesn't change anything. This principle was one of the hardest for me to discover. I used to think that if I was worrying, I was working. Not.
2. Can I think of one more thing to try? This one is huge, and is what got the book to the stage that it's at. I need to reiterate that I have neither located nor solved the software problems. Even after consulting a whole bunch of people who earn salaries solving problems like this. The problem isn't critical to them. It is to me. So when it became obvious that help was not going to be forthcoming, I came up with, one more thing at a time, a set of workarounds that let me baby the file to this point. And this was after I'd spent more than a year coming up with "one more thing" ideas and trying them out . . . including "one more consultant," "one more tech support call," and so on. I thought I'd hit the end of the line. And then I thought of one more thing to try. . . . It led to partial success, and led to one more thing. . . .
3. Take small steps, and keep going. Often when I think of the entire project I am engaged in, I become overwhelmed and paralyzed. This is actually a variant of #2: what is the one next step I need to take to keep this project moving? As long as the project is worthwhile, it's okay if it takes a long time to finish. I just need to continue piling up the small tasks. I do, also, need a big-picture overview of where I'm going, but that's the easy part. Sometimes the one next thing has to be focused on the horizon, rather than the object in front of me. A corollary of this is keeping the butt in the chair (or the paintbrush moving, or whatever) longer than I'd really like to. And that needs to be balanced by. . . .
4. Do something else for a while. This, too, took me a looooooong time to figure out. Sometimes focusing on the same problem for too long produces tunnel vision, and sometimes a solution will only come with time and a bit of relaxation. As the people who know me are aware, I'm never at a loss for potential other projects. The trick in my life is keeping the number of interesting endeavors large enough to provide variety and small enough that many of them do actually get completed. It's also important to come back to the original issue, not just escape it.

Speaking of such things, I'll have a few more photos from the weekend as soon as I can write something to go with them. At the moment, I have a couple of knitting reports.

I have been wearing the Must Have Cardigan (heavily modified in the stitch-pattern department) without buttons since August 11. I took it with me on the road trip to Washington, thinking I would locate buttons en route, and then it was chilly, I needed another layer, it was there. And I didn't connect with buttons anywhere during that adventure. The sweater works, so I've continued to wear it almost daily, buttonless. But last week, I attached a quick button-quest to another errand:

And I'm continuing to knit on the "not sure what it will be" Socks That Rock project in Rook-y. I've been corrected about the source of the yarn. I said earlier that it was given to me; I'm told that it was a trade for consultations I'd offered. Works for me. It's lovely, fun to knit with, and the project I think I am making seems to be working. It's no longer a rectangle.

I love the way the colors are showing up. You'd see that in a sock, of course, but I am greatly enjoying the color variations on a larger canvas.

The big question I had in embarking on the idea I'm trying is whether I'd have enough yarn. There's enough for two socks. But is there enough for what I have in mind? I could get all scientific about it, but I'd rather knit (and even rip) than do a bunch of calculations right now (all my calculation-energy has been going into solving technical problems with Adobe software). So I did baseline math and then cast on.

I'm making the largest piece first, then weighing the yarn-used and comparing to yarn-left. Looking promising. The little lace panel on the left does match the one on the right when it's stretched out. The yarn-overs on that side just close up a bit more while the work's in progress.

This is one of the current activities that gives me a sense of accomplishment to balance out the sense of frustration with the computer challenges. (We're actually beyond challenges here, but I'm defining them that way for my own peace of mind, or in order to salvage a piece of my mind, or something.)

Because I knit, I will probably not yell at whoever I get on the line at Adobe.

No, I don't want to call. If I'd fixed the underlying situation, I wouldn't have to. I do want to continue publishing knitting books. In order to do that, I need to make this call.

Breakfast first.

Then: the one next thing.

Rocky Mountain Sustainable Living Fair: Ideas slowly into action

Last year I went to the Rocky Mountain Sustainable Living Fair, biking back and forth, and I've been looking forward to this year's event ever since. Nothing earthshaking or of immediate import happened last year, but I had a fine "day off" and learned about new things that I've slowly but surely been able to implement. Same sense this year.

One of my goals is to get solar panels on my house. So far, I haven't been able to find a way to afford them. (Fantasy: a booth with a sign that says, "You provide the roof. We provide the power." There was an outfit that was close to that offer last year, which worked because the excess power was sold by the panel-provider back to the grid, although the start-up costs were still beyond my budget.)

Another connection I located last year provides locally recycled printer cartridges. I've recently managed to shift to using their products in my printers—it takes a while to make such a change. Part of making this particular shift involved connecting with the suppliers when they're open . . . no weekend hours, and my weekdays are pretty crammed with work. So are my weekends, come to think of it. . . .

Recently I read in Edible Front Range about SPIN farming, the use of suburban land that would ordinarily be covered with lawn for the production of food. SPIN in this case stands for Small Plot Intensive farming. My type of spinning involves fiber, but this kind is extremely intriguing as well. There's no way that I have time to take on a major gardening project (beyond my plants on the deck), but I'd sure rather look at a garden than deal with so-called lawn, which isn't an appropriate use of space or water in a semi-arid climate.

The article mentioned that the initial steps of such a project were being undertaken in the city where I live, although there was no contact name. After reading through the property-providers' guidelines for the Boulder project (our space qualifies), I e-mailed Kipp Nash, who is coordinating the Boulder efforts, who forwarded my message to someone in our county offices here who is just at the initial stages of developing a resource list of interested people. She asked if I'd be willing to be a guinea pig on a collaborative mapping project, I said yes, and our site is the first on the list of available spaces. However, it's hard to tell how long it will take the local interest to reach critical mass since so far there are only about seven people on the mailing list for the mapping.

While at the fair, I was talking with my friend (and fellow shape-note singer) Hill, who is spearheading a local food project called the Northern Colorado Food Incubator. (I wish there was a similar business-support effort for very small publishers: I could use it.)

Our conversation naturally came to the point that anyone who wants to start this type of farming in our area needs to be locating space and beginning to prepare the soil and plan crops now if they have any hope of getting it off the ground (pun intended) next year. Hill's on the county-person's guinea-pig list for the development of the map and knew that I was interested in this. We talked about accelerating the communication to see if we can jumpstart the effort. I'm going to be sending him info on our space and he's going to send it to his mailing list and we'll see if anyone bites.

Maybe by the time of the fair next year we'll have instigated a bit more change in the local food scene. . . . Hill's effort is already well on track. I'd like to be part of a parallel project, while continuing primary work on my own passion of writing and publishing and textiles.

A whole lot of potential:

A whole lot of potential from another direction:

It might look pretty much the same next year. It might not.

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Three days a week, I leave my office and spend a couple of hours at a coffee shop or the library, where I can focus on one or another task without many interruptions. On Monday mornings, the coffee shop of choice is part of a renovated building that contains offices with a shared receptionist in the front lobby. The receptionist puts a different quote in a frame on her desk every day. Here's today's, which seems like a particularly appropriate follow-up to the overall atmosphere at the Rocky Mountain Sustainable Living Fair:

• "Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility." —Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902)

Lots of dogs, and some progress on the book

The day started and ended with an extra dog: Jasmine, the young husky from across the street, who moved into the neighborhood this summer, has been leaping out of the back yard and going wandering when her people are not home.

Three sets of neighbors got involved in catching her again this morning. When we went out to take our walk, the folks who live next door to Jasmine's house were in their car driving around to see if they could catch the dog, because they'd not only seen her go over the fence but managed to snap their old dog's leash on her collar before she bolted. They're not too mobile any more, so they resorted to wheels for chasing her.

While we were talking, another very new neighbor that none of us had met yet—carrying a baby probably no more than three weeks old and hanging onto the black leash—brought the dog back toward the bunch of us standing in the middle of the street.

Because none of her people were around, we took Jasmine for a walk with our two.

Jasmine spent time in our back yard as part of an earlier adventure (we have pretty escape-proof fencing and gate, thanks to our pups), so our dogs know her. But they are mature and she is not.

By the time we got back from the walk, one of Jasmine's people was home so we turned her over. Her absence had not been noticed, but she was gratefully welcomed back.
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Later in the day, I took a break from the computer and went to a friend's farm pond at the north end of town so Ariel could do some swimming therapy.

We walk down this road to get to the pond.

Some ducks beat us to it. They stayed during our visit.

Ari loves to swim, but only paddles around for a total of three minutes or so, in perhaps thirty-second segments. She paces herself well. We usually spend about twenty minutes at the pond.

The swimming makes a huge difference for her arthritis—worth the drive across town. She wears a flotation vest to keep her ears out of the water and as insurance that she'll stay at the surface in general. Tussah just wades.

The first time Ariel went swimming, a few weeks ago, she couldn't stand up when she got out of the water. She'd rest a while and then go back in for a few seconds. Each time she came up on land, she was a little stronger. That's still the case, although today she was relatively strong right from the start.

While the dogs goofed off in the water, I took stock of the insect population (mostly bees, several kinds) on a nearby rabbitbrush. This was the prettiest bug.

And I enjoyed the view. We need to sieze the beautiful days when they're available.

At the end of the day, Jasmine had gotten out again and the people next door to where she lives had her in their house. We offered to take her for another walk.

When we got back, her primary owner was home and we turned her over again.

Dogs do bring a neighborhood together.

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I've done all of the pen-and-ink drawings for the book I'm producing, and have scanned them and put them in the file.

All of the good wishes that have been coming my way have been helping with the computer problems. I haven't heard back from tech support, nor have I had time to make another call in their direction (admittedly, I'm not very motivated to call because the previous connections have resulted only in a huge waste of time).

I've been continuing to devise new workarounds. Some of the electronic misbehavior is still happening (even though I've removed the offending components of the file), and I have neither diagnosed nor fixed the problems. But I can override them with comparative ease after my recent modifications and have been able to make progress. It feels like I'm flying an airplane that's held together with duct tape and baling wire. The wings are vibrating and the rudder's a little wonky, but nothing has fallen off completely this week. I'm grateful.

The page breaks are back where they should be, and they've stayed there for several days (knocking on wood and crossing fingers).

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While I'm waiting for the computer to recover from a crash, to reboot, or to otherwise unscramble its brain (still happening), I've been reading Barbara Walters' Audition. Good book. Makes the computer problems not entirely a drag: "Oh, a crash, I get to read a few pages. . . ."

Pen, ink, and smooth paper

Having reached a temporary place of accomplishment with the electronic layout files for book, I am turning my attention, with great relief, to the question of illustrations. Usually the illustrations are completed long before this stage in book production. In taxing circumstances, we have to keep inventing and reinventing both ourselves and our working processes.

(I have no idea where the previous glitches that have been affecting work for nearly a year have been coming from, so I have no idea when or whether they will show up again. I am only looking at right now, and I do have a PDF with the correct page breaks, so we can begin proofing the text and indexing. I can, for the moment, move to a different critical task.)

I clear a small table (a board resting on cardboard file boxes), turn on a one-dollar lamp that has been more useful than I ever imagined it would be, collect my working papers and vellum (an extremely smooth paper on which I'll draw the final schematic images), and line up my pens.

Of course, I could do this set of drawings on the computer, using Illustrator. I know how. In fact, I sketched in this rough placeholder for the raglan silhouette using 100% technology and no handwork. It was easy and fast to do.

However, it was not to measured proportions (it could have been) and there is something about working with hand-drawn images that I like and that seems more compatible with the handmade approach to textiles we are presenting in the book. Plus I am moderately fed up with computers.

There was another, less important, factor in my choice of media: I worked on the measured-proportions part of this project while I was on vacation, so a pencil and graph paper were available and my computer with its heavy-duty graphics programs was not.

Here's a simple measured-proportions reference sketch for the saddle-shoulder body. I had to remember to sketch both the low-shoulder line (where the body stops) and the line marking where the saddle shoulder forms part of the body. I'm working on 4/inch graph paper, with one square per inch.

These sweaters represent concepts, not specific designs. They will teach design principles and practical application, so I select generic measurements for all the parts. I do make sure all the pieces go together. I develop my reference sketches by following the instructions and the sample measurements on the book's worksheets, which have been tech-edited several times. Generating the drawings from the instructions builds another cross-check of their accuracy into the flow.

Here's the matching sleeve, with its saddle-shoulder extension.

The extension will be knitted to match the width of the shoulder on the sweater, so I don't worry on my sketch about exactly how long it is. I mark the center of the sleeve all the way down, because some of the images I generate from this information will just show the front of the sweater and some will show the pieces.

Back home, I scan in and assemble full reference images for each drawing. Here's the round-yoke sweater—it was the hardest in this set to get right:

The drawings for this book (Ethnic Knitting Exploration: Lithuania, Iceland, and Ireland) are more complicated than those for the first in this series by Donna Druchunas (Ethnic Knitting Discovery: Denmark, The Netherlands, Norway, and the Andes), which were all drop-shoulder garments. The sweater shapes in this second all involve different structures within the shoulder area, which in two cases change the angle at which the sleeves intersect with the body.

(Link for Ethnic Knitting Exploration goes to GoodReads.com, where, no surprise, there are no comments yet. The book is listed in all the appropriate channels. Pressure, anyone?)

After drafting out each element, I combine the parts in Photoshop.

I'm working at the same scale for all of the drawings, and I will use the same pens to draw all of the finished illustrations. Ideally, each drawing will be reproduced at the same percentage of its original size, which should keep the line weights consistent throughout the book. I'm needing to fudge that a little bit for this book because I'm short on time; in some cases, I'll be using the same drawing at slightly different percentages for different purposes. I do keep the ideal in mind, though. Most of these drawings will be reproduced at 50% of their actual size. I always work larger-than-final, as do most people who prepare illustrations by hand. Sixty-five percent is about ideal. The math is easier for 50% (easy is good right now) and that ratio works with my graph paper.

I try out one set of pens for the first drawing, scan it, and put it into the book to see what it's like. This first attempt is shown at the top of the next photo:

It's too heavy. The line weight coordinates with the subhead type (the bold), but it is out of balance with the page design as a whole. We can adjust the line weight a bit in Photoshop later, but it's easier to make the drawings closer-to-right in the first place. So I shift to a different set of pens and make the second test drawing, shown below the first. The line weight falls between the weight of the type in the subhead and that in the text, leaning slightly toward the text. That's where I want it.

So far the images are showing up in what look like gray boxes because the scanner is sensitive enough to pick up even the slight shadows of the ripples in the paper. We'll clean up the images before we go to press, so all that shows is a nice, crisp outline. Right now that doesn't matter.

First I have a bunch more drawings to do, and some of them are much more complicated than these. I start with simple images that let me work out the technical kinks (like which pens to use and what size to work at), and then move to the more intricate ones. I think I have around thirty to do, although I haven't counted.

I'm going to repeat a version of the image at the top of the post and make a couple of additional points about my working methods.

1. Because the vellum is translucent, I can place it over my reference sketches. At the left are two of my heavy-line test drawings on vellum.
2. This is one of the printed reference drawings, made on the computer from hand-drawn elements.
3. Here's a drawing I'm working on. I can see through the vellum quite nicely. There's a plain sheet of paper over the right half of the drawing so my hand doesn't smear any of the lines I've already made.

I'm using permanent-ink pens of the sort that were developed to replace the old Rapidographs and other technical pens. They don't do as good a job—the lines I draw are not as dense or consistent as they would be if I were using "real" technical pens—but the old pens require significant maintenance, especially when they are used infrequently. So I compromise.

It's peaceful work. And the computer lets me fix any slight pen glitches electronically, so it's relatively low-stress.

Right now, those are very, very welcome attributes for a task.

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I don't have the right gear to ride my bike to the library this morning, but in Colorado we are almost always very grateful for rain.

High IQ Kids wins Legacy Book Award

I just received this message from Free Spirit Publishing (I've added some links):

"High IQ Kids: Collected Insights, Information, and Personal Stories from the Experts (978-1-57542-261-9), edited by Kiesa Kay, Deborah Robson, and Judy Fort Brenneman, has won the 2008 Legacy Book TM Award in the parent category.

"The Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented (TAGT) honors outstanding books annually for their positive impact on the lives of gifted children. The Legacy Book Award is the only American book award focused on meeting the unique needs of gifted and talented children."

There are three categories: educator, parent/family, and scholar. News of the 2008 awards is not on the site as I write this, but here is information about previous years (and probably 2008 as soon as they update).

Hurray! This project took many years and a bunch of people to put together. Nice (fantastic) to see it being acknowledged.

Perseverance furthers

Guidance from the I Ching, the Book of Changes: Perseverance furthers. One thing I've gotten a lot of practice with over the years is perseverance. I do hope it furthers—gets me where I need to go. So far it has seemed to, although there are times (like now) when I can't imagine how.

A friend called yesterday to ask whether the silence on the blog meant I'd resolved my computer problems and was working away steadily and productively on the book.

Unfortunately, no.

At least, "no" to resolved problems, "no" to doing new things on the book, instead of still fiddling with workarounds. Oddly it feels productive to fix something I've fixed before and this time to have the solution stick (so far). As of today, some of that is happening. I'm grateful.

Backtracking. . . .

Last Tuesday, I spent 1.5 hours on the phone with a thoughtful and helpful tech support person. I think this was the fourth person I'd talked with, and he was the best yet. We ended up uploading my file, which misbehaved on his machine as well as mine. That was useful information, but in the end he was stumped about why. He said he would need to consult with some other folks and would get back to me.

On Thursday, I called and reached another tech support person who offered to e-mail him with a request for a status update.

Late Friday afternoon, I called and reached yet another tech support person. I have all these people's names, and they have both my e-mail and my phone. That information is confirmed at the beginning of each call. They can get back in touch with me, but I take pot luck when I call and haven't been able to figure out how to reach somebody I've talked with before, although I've asked.

This new person was convinced that he could solve my problem, and ran me through the hoops I've already gone through over the past nine weeks of intensive work with this company's tech support. He finally asked me to upload the file in the interchange format, which is supposed to work to clean out problems (I'd used it with the previous file, but then opened and converted to a regular format before uploading; this time we skipped that step). Just before the upload finished, the phone system cut me off from the voice contact. The upload completed. I have no way to reach the tech person. He has two ways to reach me. I have not heard back from him.

In the course of the conversation, he had said that if this was a problem with one of their fonts they would have a team on the problem because they'd know a job would be held up by the malfunction. I pointed out that my whole business was being held up by this malfunction, but he was better at posing questions than listening to the answers and better at making pronouncements than hearing the person on the other end of the line.

I haven't heard back from anybody. None of these people has yet been able to help me fix the problem with the file, although they have experienced it for themselves. If I hadn't paid for this assistance, I would feel better about its lack of success.

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Have I stopped work on my project because it can't be fixed by the experts, either consultants or those trained by the company that produced the product? No. I can't just say "Oh, well," and answer the next tech support call, forgetting about the one that got dropped off the line. It's my life and livelihood that are at stake. (The tech support people probably enjoy luxuries like regular paychecks. Maybe even a few benefits.)

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So what can I try next, working on my own?

I downloaded a 30-day trial of the newest version of the software, to which I have not upgraded because I never upgrade in the middle of a major project. The same problems occurred in the new edition, plus a few new ones that I spent some time trying to fix before I went back to my existing edition. I'd like to try out the new edition further, but my 30-day clock is ticking away and I probably won't have time to get back to it.

What else can I try to fix problems the so-called pros can't unravel?

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So that's the question I'm working on.

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And here, for sanity:

Work related to the book I'm writing, not the one I'm doing layout and production on (between, and in spite of, computer errors):

1. Raw wool. Best locks selected for photogenic qualities.
2. Washed wool. Ditto.
3. Clean wool, not as neat. Locks a bit hard to distinguish despite extreme care during washing. The locks in 2 came out of this batch; I just chose them carefully.
4. Sample of wool with vegetable matter.
5. A bit of hand-combed fiber with residual vegetable matter. By selecting locks carefully, I was able to get cleaner combed fiber that spun up beautifully, so I didn't use this bit. The locks were jumbled enough that I just lashed them onto the combs as best I could and then went at it. Two-row Viking combs.
6. But first I carded a few rolags and spun a sample skein. It was okay.
7. Then I spun a bit of the combed fiber but didn't get enough twist into it.
8. So I started again with more twist.

The end result is still a little light on the twist and heavy on the irregularities, but it feels (and smells) wonderful. It required no calls to tech support. And if I had enough of this yarn, I could make something that would keep someone as warm as a hug.

Unfortunately, all I can spin right now is samples. I need to keep going on lots of things that have deadlines.

Except this:

This is my current knitting-for-fun. I've done several re-starts of samples with this wool, and the current iteration looks like it's for real. The same friend who called to check in gifted me with this Socks That Rock yarn in a color called Rook-y, part of the Raven clan of colorways.

It's Merino. There is no way I'm putting Merino on my feet. Socks made of Merino do not last very long in my part of the universe, even when there is enough compensating twist in the yarn that the two legs of each stockinette stitch are different sizes.

For most people, I'm sure that twist quantity would give enough strength to the yarn for socks. I need to use something sturdier than Merino in any case.

So I have something else in mind. I love the colors in this yarn. In reality they're a bit darker than in my photos (and lighter than in the photos on the Blue Moon site). There's not much point in putting much texture into the fabric because of the darkness, so I'm sticking to mostly stockinette with a couple of columns of lace that I'll enjoy knitting. They'll also slightly modify the way the finished item fits, assuming it works as I think it might. . . .

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Which brings me back to the computer.

I am attempting to resolve undetermined and mystifying technical problems within the book file without rebuilding the file from scratch. That would be a horrendous amount of work (I've already done it once on this project), yet if I import elements from the existing file they might bring along the unknown glitch-producing elements.

So I'm working backwards from the file I have, revamping styles to eliminate the ones that are known offenders, and the like. I have also replaced a perfectly good and functioning font by purchasing the only other font that I can find that will do the same thing. InDesign cannot locate the original font, even when it is installed directly in the Control Panel. It previously worked, does not test out as corrupted, and has been tried with and without font management in place; with, it shows up unexpectedly to override paragraph style; without, InDesign can't "see" it. I've tried several other workarounds for that problem that have not been effective. The new font appears right now to be okay.

And on I go. Trusting that it will all come out okay, and that simple (although thoughtful) perseverance will, indeed, produce good results. Including income.

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Almost totally off-topic, here is a post about working Australian shepherds and "perseverance furthers."

And another note about Aussies, while we're digressing.

A friend lost her Aussie three weeks ago today—the same day our long-lived cat departed from this plane of existence. Yesterday, this friend opened the back of her car to show me something that she thought might lift my spirits. She revealed a wee male Aussie, probably ten weeks old. It was "too soon" to replace her sweet dog just gone, but a variety of people and events conspired to put the fellow in her keeping without the requirement of waiting in line for a pup from this particular breeder, which is the norm. She'll be training him for search and rescue. He's already been tested for both temperament and aptitude for the work, and passed with flying colors. His coat is deep, solid red (not merle) and white. He's cute and loving and, I can say with certainty, cuddles well. He's found just the right home. He'll be adored and kept mentally and physically active. Sometimes life works out just right.