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April 28, 2009: Some Days the Bear Eats You You know, there is a reason I am a control freak and I don't like to farm things out to other people. It seems like whenever I do, something goes wrong. That's not to say that I don't screw up on occasion. However, I don't usually screw up at the order of magnitude that other people do. The shipment of DVDs arrived Friday from the duplicator. I packed up orders and sent them out (many by Priority Mail) on Saturday. Yesterday, I received an e-mail from one of my customers, who had received her DVD and was trying to get it to work. It wouldn't. It wouldn't play in her computer or on her TV. I put one in my computer. It wouldn't play. I called the head of the production company. He couldn't get it to play, either. I could have saved some money by simply getting the master from the production company and duplicating the DVD on a small duplicating machine in my office. However, I thought it would be more professional to have the DVD duplicated by a company that does that sort of thing in large quantities. I researched a bunch of different companies, found one whose prices were competitive—not cheap, but competitive—and went with them. The production company followed the duplicating company's guidelines for producing the master, which I mailed in. The graphic artist I hired to do the cover and label uploaded the files. I thought all was well until the DVDs came and THEY DON'T WORK. The head of the production company called the duplicating company yesterday, but the people he needed to speak with had left for the day. He's going to call them first thing this morning and let me know what he finds out. Fortunately (expecting a scenario exactly like this—how sad is that?), I ordered a fairly small initial duplicating run. This is fixable. But I am irritated and annoyed. I didn't need for this to happen right now. I was actually feeling a bit lame that I haven't done more to market this DVD, but in light of the current situation, that's probably a good thing. The girls and I are heading to Missoula tonight because we're flying out tomorrow for my sister's wedding in Charlotte this weekend. It wasn't my first choice to fly out of Missoula, but we could not get a flight from Kalispell that didn't go through Timbuktu and took less than 15 hours. Fortunately, I was able to get all my errands done yesterday and everyone is mostly packed. I need to write a pattern for one of my test-knitters today, darn in the ends on the Pure Pima sweater, and figure out what knitting project to start next and take on this trip with me. Debbie, you asked about the earrings: DD#2 and I are still wearing ours. She tolerates the titanium alloy earrings just fine; I still have trouble with the alloys and can't keep them in for more than 8 hours or so. I can wear the pure titanium ones 24/7, so that's what I have in right now. I'll post again next month.
April 24, 2009: Font Gremlins If you have recently purchased either the Fall 2004 digital download or the Volume 4 digital download which includes the Fall 2004 issue, please be aware that some of the charts and symbols are missing in the Happy Husband sweater pattern and the Hearts and Ladders baby blanket pattern. Without getting into a long and technical explanation, it has to do with the charting font and how it exports to a PDF. The hard copy version of that issue is fine. I've fixed the digital versions; if you purchased that issue and want a corrected replacement, e-mail me privately at Janet at BigSkyKnitting.com and I'll send you one. I really appreciate that a customer let me know there was a problem, because I had absolutely no idea what had occurred. It bothers me to no end when people go to a public list and complain loudly about errors in a pattern and then acknowledge that no—they haven't actually contacted the designer to discuss the problem. I don't try to hide from my customers; my contact info is all over my patterns, and it's there so that knitters will come and talk to me, not a list of 1000 knitters. It only took about 20 minutes for me to correct the problem and send a copy of the corrected file to the customer who let me know about it. Speaking of the Happy Husband Aran, you can see a wonderful finished version at knittingmama's blog. I have no idea how she gets any knitting done with five kids under the age of 12, but she did a great job! I had a lovely knitting-filled day yesterday. I knocked out a couple of swatches for upcoming designs, and finished the bottom, the neckband, and the sleeve on the Pure Pima sweater slated for the Summer issue. I tried it on and it fits me perfectly—too bad it's in a color (olive green) that I don't wear very often. I just have to finish the second sleeve and darn in the ends and then it will be ready to photograph. I read an interesting article online yesterday (it's at msnbc.com if you want to go and look for it) about women who have stopped using shampoo to wash their hair. It sounds gross, but it does make a certain kind of sense to me. Instead of washing their hair with shampoo, these women either wash it with a rinse of baking soda followed by vinegar; rinse it with hot water and use only conditioner; or just rinse it with hot water. The idea is to get the hair clean without damaging the hair follicles. I've always had really frizzy hair (and I am really vain abut my hair). One of the things I love about living in Montana is the complete lack of humidity. My hair is straight and smooth here. In Ohio, though, it doesn't matter what I do to my hair—even if I use a flatiron on it, it still looks like I have brushy wires sticking out of my head. I read somewhere that the sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium laureth sulfate used in most shampoos have a tendency to roughen the hair follicle (leading to frizziness), so about six months ago I switched to Burt's Bees Grapefruit and Sugar Beet Shampoo. It doesn't have any of those ingredients. I have noticed an improvement in the surface texture of my hair—when I was in Austin this weekend I let my hair air dry and even in the rain it didn't frizz up. So I might try the no-shampoo routine for a while and see what happens. I don't think I'll use the baking soda, though. Our water is really hard and alkaline. I'll probably try the hot water rinse followed by conditioner. I'll keep you all posted.
April 23, 2009: A Blustery Day The dogs and I spent an hour from 7 to 8 this morning in the garden—me cleaning, them playing. The temperature was actually quite pleasant. It started to rain, though, so I came in. I've been knitting and watching TV since then, so I hadn't noticed that the wind had picked up until I walked into my office, looked out the window, and saw this:
We're now on the back side of a cold front, which always means strong winds from the east down the face of the mountains. And the temperature has dropped by about 20 degrees since this morning. I have a crock pot of beef stew cooking. It's time for me to build a fire in the fireplace, too. Oh, and it just began snowing. I just hope we don't lose any more trees (even rotten ones). The dogs wanted to come in, so they are napping on the laundry room floor. It's a good day to knit.
April 22, 2009: So Much for Earth Day My Earth Day rant in a moment, but first . . . I have a tracking number for the shipment of DVDs, and they should be at my house this Friday afternoon. If you ordered one, it will go out on Saturday morning. Thanks for everyone's patience. I learned a lot from this process. And silly me, I thought it would only take a few months from start to finish. But the next one shouldn't take as long. I have plans in the works for another DVD—I've had lots of requests for one on the FLAK sweater, so that's what is up next. We probably won't film until early July. I've just got too much other stuff going on between now and then to fit it in. It's Earth Day, and I am sad to report that biodiesel is no longer available in Kalispell. I went to fill DD#1's truck yesterday (now that it's warm, I can use bio again without worrying about it gelling), and found out that the station where I had been getting it is no longer selling it. I suspected this might happen when the price of diesel tanked (no pun intended). Where is the incentive to use alternative fuels when diesel is so cheap? The husband bought a 1500-gallon diesel storage tank last year and it's sitting in our yard. We haven't filled it yet; he was going to put regular diesel in it, but he said if I could find a source for B5, we could fill it with that, instead. We could use B20 or B99 or B100 in the older trucks, but not in his or mine because of the warranties. So far I haven't had any luck finding a source for B5. The fuel company in town basically told us they don't want to sell us bio because they have to blend the B5 from straight B100 and it's too much work. Great. I used to feel guilty about not doing more to help the planet, but I can only do so much. I can't use biodiesel if a) the vehicle manufacturers won't warranty its use and b) it's not available for sale where I live. We have started recycling more at our house—#1 and #2 plastic, cardboard, and aluminum and steel cans—but even the husband noted yesterday that the cardboard collection container at the "green boxes" (we have county garbage collection sites) hasn't been emptied in weeks and is overflowing. He thinks it's because there is no demand for fiberboard for the building industry. We can't get rid of glass, and I would imagine that pretty soon, no one will want plastic, either. Oh well. I am going to celebrate Earth Day by going out to my garden. It's supposed to get cold again and snow. I'd like to get as much cleaned up as I can before that happens.
April 21, 2009: I Love Texas The last time I was in Texas (San Antonio) was almost 20 years ago, in my previous life as a tech support specialist for a software company. This time I went to Austin to do a workshop for the Austin Knitter's & Crocheter's Guild. I wasn't sure what to expect about Austin—my sister-in-law and her husband lived there for a few years while he was getting his PhD at the University of Texas, and I don't remember them having anything good to say about it. I thought it was a wonderful city. Being in Texas is a lot like being in Montana, only warmer. And the food is excellent. I had a crawfish enchilada that was delicious. The Austin guild is filled with lots of accomplished knitters. I was particularly delighted to see how fearless they were: they weren't afraid to use the techniques I taught them in new and novel ways. One student in the class came all the way from Baltimore—her husband was in Austin for a conference so she came with him and took the knitting workshop. We discovered that she and my husband graduated from the same high school in Baltimore (although she was there a few years before he was). I'm always reminded of what a small world this is when I travel. My hosts for the weekend were Eileen Thompson and her husband Guy (and their dog Shadow). They provided a very comfortable guest room and Eileen made sure I got to see as much of Austin as possible while I was there. All in all it was a very enjoyable weekend. Before I left for Texas, I asked the husband to do me a favor. In my ongoing campaign to eradicate the quackgrass from my garden, I've discovered that it helps to have him take the big propane torch and burn the grass on the outside of the garden. He said he would do it while I was gone. I called home Saturday night and we had a short conversation:
So the first thing I did when I got home yesterday (even before I unlocked the house) was to go out and survey the damage in the garden. I should know better than to ask him to burn the grass in my garden without supervision. I forgot that last year he set a couple of my lavender plants on fire. I hope the asparagus is still underground—it's hard to tell if the carbonized stalks are grass or vegetables. What really astounded me was this:
We went out to the garden after dinner and I asked him how it was possible to torch a plant that had an identification tag stuck in the dirt next to it. He just shrugged and said, "Collateral damage. I was aiming for the grass." I guess I just need to live with the fact that he has unresolved gardening issues from his childhood and they pop up to the surface (in my garden, not his mother's) every now and then. And these plants are pretty hardy (they have to be, we're in Montana), so it's possible that they'll be just fine. I hope.
April 16, 2009: I Take My Hemp Black, No Sugar You might remember that I had plans to knit myself a black wool cardigan sweater back at the beginning of the year. I've reached the age where I don't want to wear pullovers any more, because I like being able to unbutton or remove a cardigan. And every time I assess my wardrobe, I think to myself how nice it would be to have a black wool cardigan. I've even got some black Lion Brand Lion Wool earmarked for a design. The problem is that now I want a lighter-weight sweater to wear this spring. Camas Creek is carrying the Lanaknits line of hemp yarns, and as hemp is one of my favorite fibers, I've done a lot of knitting with Lanaknits yarns. Two designs will be in the Summer issue. I picked up some of the Lanaknits Hempwol yarn last week—in black—and last night I swatched for a project to take with me to Texas. This is a point where "what do I need in my wardrobe" slams straight into "what is a good color for a sweater that's going to be photographed for the newsletter." Stitch detail is almost invisible in black sweaters. However, I don't want a visually heavy cable pattern that's going to make a heavy sweater. I swatched up a stitch pattern that is basically a knit-purl ribbing pattern with a very cool slip-stitch garter column between the ribs, and added some small 1 x 1 crosses in some of the knit-purl sections. I envision it being more of an overall effect rather than one in which the cable sections stand out. We'll see. It looks good in the swatch. It may be a challenge to photograph if it ends up in the newsletter. Hemp yarns have come such a long way in the past 10 years. Way back when I was still spinning, I found a source for some lovely, smooth, combed hemp top and made my own yarns because the only hemp yarns available were the hairy, scratchy ones. These days, though, it's possible to get some really nice hemp yarns. And now that Ron Paul and Barney Frank have introduced the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009 to Congress, perhaps US farmers will be able to start cultivating hemp right here at home (all the hemp top I used to spin came from China). From the Congressional Record:
How cool would it be if we could grow hemp here in Montana? And thank goodness some people have the common sense to realize that no one is going to get high smoking hemp—unlike Barry McCraffrey, former drug czar, who in 2000 waged a campaign to get products containing hemp oil off store shelves because he thought people might get high by using those products on their bodies or eating a hempseed granola bar. I just want to knit it.
April 15, 2009: How to Treat Your Customers I opened my Northwest Airlines WorldPerks Visa bill the other day and began perusing it—I like to look over all my bills is great detail—and you cannot possibly imagine my shock when I noticed that the interest rate has skyrocketed to 27%! It more than doubled! I don't keep balances on that card unless I've charged airline tickets for a teaching trip and am waiting to get reimbursed for them, so it's not like I am being gouged in interest rates, but it's the principle of the thing. I've got an excellent credit score, I've never missed any payments on anything, and all of sudden I see this absolutely exhorbitant interest rate. The husband and I were watching the news last night and there was a piece on banks that have jacked up interest rates in an attempt to raise cash to pay back the government funds they received in the bailout. Unbelievable. This is what I say to those banks: I'm sorry—you're already getting money from me in the form of my taxes, you're not going to get more by jacking up interest rates and fees. Any bank that pulls those kind of shenanigans is going to lose my business. The first thing on my to-do list today is calling US Bank and cancelling that card. I wouldn't be in business for long if I mismanaged my funds, got a government bailout, then went to my newsletter subscribers and said, "Hey, I need you to pay more in subscription fees so I can stay in business." What a great country we live in. Check your credit card statements carefully. The dogs and I got some work done in the vegetable garden yesterday. Three of the beds are clear of snow. I turned and raked two of them while Rusty hunted voles and Chester rescued It's supposed to be in the 60's and 70's this weekend. I am hoping that when I come back from Texas, the herb garden will be clear of snow and I can start working in there, too. It feels good to play in the dirt again. I also started working on a handout for a new class I am teaching at the Knit and Crochet Show in Portland in June on designing original cable patterns. I think design classes are great fun, but they are also the hardest ones to create handouts for. I'm not teaching techniques, per se, so I have to find creative ways to get the students engaged and get my points across. Learning to design isn't like learning a new technique—it doesn't happen within the confines of a three-hour class. And yet it's important to set the class up so that the students have one or two successful experiences with stitch pattern design, in order to give them the confidence to keep trying.
April 12, 2009: What We Did On Spring Break The husband asked me the other day why the living room looked like a craft store exploded in it. He forgets that he has a garage. I don't ask him why it looks like the auto parts store exploded in his garage. Anyway . . . at various times during the past week, we were working on a lot of different projects. DD#2 did a puzzle:
She has always been my puzzle child. She's very methodical about it, too. It was interesting to see her concentrating on it. She also discovered the glass marble thingies that we used to make thumbtacks a while back—she must have been little when we did this, because she says she only vaguely remembers (my kids used to make all their Christmas presents). She finished off a bunch of them and now I have a big supply of thumbtacks. I like these thumbtacks because they are so decorative.
Her sister spent most of the week working on scrapbooks. We started one for Europe.
She and I are taking turns making up pages. It's funny to see how our approaches to scrapbook design differ. I was making her nuts by putting my pictures it at odd angles; she wanted everything to be organized in a grid formation. (I used to be like that, too, but I've loosened up in my old age.) I like that this scrapbook will be a combination of both our efforts, because we had such different experiences on the same trip. For example, I plan to have an entire page highlighting the different foods we ate—she thinks that is just weird. It's going to be a big scrapbook. We have about a dozen pages already and we haven't even left Berlin yet. DD#2 and I also spent some time this afternoon making earrings. I love making jewelry—it's such an instant gratification project. I can whip out a pair of earrings in no time, as opposed to sweaters, which take weeks. Here are some of our first efforts:
These are DD#2's designs. I love both of them. She's got a great eye for what colors go together. We just need to wait until the gold anodized niobium wires I ordered come in and then we'll be able to wear these. All I have at the moment are silver and gray wires. Here are my first two pair (sorry the picture is burry—earrings are even harder to photograph than knitting):
Obviously I am something of a magpie, because I love a bit of bling. Those Crystallized™ Swarovski pieces are great fun to play with (the ones at the bottom of the black earrings). I wear a lot of black, too. I can never have too many black or silver earrings. Tomorrow it's back to school and work. But we might let the living room look like a craft store exploded in there for a while longer.
April 10, 2009: My Lame Attempt at Helping Out Mother Nature I got the first draft of the newsletter put together and sent to my tech editor Wednesday, so I thought I would reward myself by going out to the garden. The snow had melted enough that I could push the gate open far enough to slide my body inside. I figured I'd get in there with the grain shovel and start shoveling snow off the beds and over the fence. My theory is that snow can melt outside the garden just as well as it can inside the garden. I got about this far:
The snow is heavy and icy and I can't get it over the fence. I shoveled it into the gravel paths (which are themselves covered with snow), but there is way more snow than space in the paths. After about ten minutes of this madness, I decided to call it an afternoon and go knit. Rusty wanted to stay out there and hunt voles, but I told him vole hunting would have to wait a few more days. Chester will only hunt voles if I can figure out a way to spray paint them Wilson green. The girls and I are heading to Missoula today for their day of shopping. It's a reward for me, too, because it's lots of fun to spend time with them. You'd never know they were five years apart in age. They bounce ideas and comments off each other and play games and just generally do stuff that makes me laugh. We're going to have a fun time.
April 8, 2009: Spring Break My kids are on spring break this week; I am not. I have a newsletter to put together, and because my tech editor and I had to shoehorn the edits into both our busy schedules, I have no wiggle room with this one. I did promise the girls that I would take them to Missoula on Friday to go shopping—in return, they had to agree to let me work in peace. You'd be surprised at the number of times they come into my office and stand there looking at me until they've succeeded in totally derailing my train of thought, and when I ask them what they want, they say, "Oh, nothing," and walk out. I've never seen them do that to their father. I also gave them a list of extra assignments, like cleaning out their clothes drawers—DD#2 has enough clothing to open her own used clothing store because she cannot bear the thought of not having 85 shirts to choose from when she gets dressed in the morning. As the resident fashionista, she seems to need a certain critical mass of clothing in order to put together her outfits every morning. However (as I pointed out to her while trying to convince her that some culling was in order), that critical mass doesn't really need to include clothing that hasn't fit her since 4th grade. We're making progress. There are a couple of bags of clothing to take to Goodwill, the laundry is done, the house is clean(er), and I got a huge chunk of the newsletter put together. The girls are working on a scrapbook of their adventures last summer, and when that one is done, DD#1 will start on one for Europe. I just love it that I can upload pictures to Walgreens and pick up the prints in 24 hours. I took some time yesterday to clean out my jewelry box. I sorted out those earrings I know I can't wear anymore, and changed over some dangly ones to titanium hooks. When I was done, I was left with about a dozen pairs of earrings I should be able to wear. I discovered that—now that my piercings are healed over from three weeks of wearing the pure titanium earrings—I can wear the titanium alloy earrings for a day with no discomfort. That gives me a few more options. I was able to locate a couple of suppliers of titanium earring findings, but those findings are mostly titanium alloy, not pure titanium. It's been so nice here for the past few days, and I could tell that people were getting out and working in their yards because there must have been half a dozen fire calls around the valley for out-of-control grass fires yesterday. There is a reason we on the fire department refer to open burning as "sport burning season." I think we're back to some cooler and wetter weather, so we'll see what happens today. Now it's back to work on the newsletter.
April 5, 2009: The 43rd Annual Creston Auction This was the weekend of our big fire department fundaraising auction. It's hard to believe that the first auction was held when I was 11 months old, and has been held every year since. This is a shot from the auction grounds yesterday morning before the sale started:
This sale is billed as "The Social Event of the Spring," and for many years, it was the first place you got out and saw your neighbors after a long winter. The auction has undergone a lot of changes in 43 years (haven't we all), but it seems to me that the past couple of years have brought a bit more upheaval. We sell general merchandise on Saturday, and on Sunday we sell vehicles, boats, and farm equipment. When I checked the Sunday sale field yesterday, we had one piece of farm equipment. It used to be that the Sunday sale was mostly farm equipment with an odd vehicle thrown in here or there. But no one farms around here anymore, so no one needs either to buy or sell farm equipment. When we first began helping with the auction 10 or 12 years ago, the Saturday sale would finish in time for us to go home, take a shower, and meet our fellow firefighters for dinner at a local restaurant. The Saturday sales began getting longer and longer and longer because so many people would bring stuff to sell (items are consigned to us, we hire the auctioneers, then we send the proceeds minus a commission fee to the consignor). We had one sale a few years ago that lasted until 11 p.m. (in a blinding snowstorm, to boot). Yesterday's sale finished at 5:30 p.m. (We could have gone out for dinner but we were all too tired.) People simply didn't consign as much merchandise to the sale this year, which was interesting to me. I would have thought that—in this economy, especially—people would have collected as much stuff as they could and brought it to the sale in an attempt to raise some cash. We have a couple of repeat consignors who make a lot of money every year doing just that. The weather was hideous on Friday, though, which is our consignment day. That may have kept people away. While we were at our fire hall on Thursday and Friday setting up for the auction, I spent the time cleaning and organizing some of the old fire department records I found stuffed into a box in a storage room. I am the secretary/treasurer of the fire department association, so this falls under my jurisdiction. I was surprised to find a lot of valuable old records (thank goodness they didn't get thrown away) like this:
It's a consignment sheet that lists the items brought for sale to the First Annual Creston Auction, held on October 8, 1966. We still use a version of this same sheet to record consigned items. I also found the books in which were written the details of each response made by the fire department in every year from 1959 to 1976 (now those records are computerized). The husband found those really interesting to read. There were a lot of chimney and grass fires, and a lot of fires started by "kids with matches." Each response has a place for comments by the person making the record. One that I thought was particularly funny was a description of a grass fire. The record lists the type of equipment used to fight the fire (a pumper truck) with the comment, "nozzles got plugged—don't pump off creek bottom." Another notes (after responding for the third or fourth time to the same residence for the same problem)—"same damn thermostatically-controlled heater" as the cause of the fire. I brought home these records and I am going to spend some time putting them in some protected scrapbooks so everyone can look back on where our department has been. The whole goal of this auction is to raise money for the fire department. Our chief estimates that we've raised over a million dollars in 42 years of auctions. Those proceeds have allowed us to buy equipment that most departments our size don't have. Our most recent acquisition is this rescue rig:
We just took possession of it about a week ago. It rounds out our equipment nicely, and can serve as an engine (it carries water and foam), as well as a command vehicle and even transport vehicle when necessary. In a few minutes we're all heading back over for the Sunday sale. The auction is very much a family event. When my kids were little, my mother-in-law would fly out to keep and eye on them while the husband and I were at the auction, and as they got older, she and the kids would come and help. Now the girls are old enough that they don't need Grandma's watchful eyes, so we go as a family. The girls have auction jobs, too: the older one cooks in the "brat booth" and the younger one works as a runner, taking sales receipts from the auction wagon to the finance office. And it's supposed to be sunny again today. Yesterday was just gorgeous.
April 2, 2009: Earring Update My earrings are still in with no discomfort whatsoever. The holes appear to have healed over. Theoretically—according to the woman who makes the 100% titanium jewelry—now that the piercings are healed, I should be able to wear even titanium alloy earrings. I'm not sure I want to take the chance, though. I may stick to wearing just 100% titanium and niobium earrings from now on. I also bought a pair of the 100% titanium studs for DD#2, and she has had hers in since Monday. She's as excited as I am to be able to wear earrings again. I found a jewelry supplier on the web who sells 100% niobium hooks. I still have all my jewelry, so I will transfer some of my old earrings to the niobium hooks. I'd also like to try making some earrings myself. I popped into Jo-Ann Fabrics the other day and happened to walk by the jewelry-making supplies. They had some fairly nice beads and findings. We'll see. It's not like I need something else to do.
April 1, 2009: No Foolin' The Cabling 101 DVD is available for pre-ordering. Thanks, Eileen, for asking about it. I got the web pages made up and the DVD added to the store catalog. The link is in the sidebar at left. I have asked the production company for a short clip that I can add to the website to give customers a taste of what is in the DVD. We've also talked about making individual chapters available as downloads, but that's a few weeks out yet. Here's the cover. I hired someone to do the cover and DVD label and I'm just tickled with how it turned out. We planned it so that additional DVDs (yes, I'd like to do more) will fit in with the same design, but different colors. It's just a shade under two hours long and the price is $23.95 US.
Whew. I'm glad that's done. I think it's a terrific DVD and I know it will be helpful for knitters who like to have an expert sitting next to them—or on their TV screen.
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