Deep Breath

Last night we uploaded our Knitcircus #4 files to the printer, so that's done. Now we wait about 2 weeks and then we have the 1000 copies to mail out and deliver to the LYSs.

So, on to other stuff.
I have a couple stealth projects in the works for Knitcircus #5, to be released in February '09. And some other ideas for stuff that I'll be able to show'n'tell about, once I get the "show" part done.



Meanwhile, the kids are home for a teacher service day!! Can you believe it? We had one partial week of school, one normal full week, and now, a day off.

Mr. SABLE has had some nibbles on his job search. He did get one very low offer (a federal agency job for which he wasn't exactly a highly-qualified candidate) and some biotech prospects for this week. He's been carrying a lot of stress and it's taking a toll on the rest of us, but I hope it will resolve soon. The best possible outcome would be for him to line up a new job that starts some time after mid-October. Then he'd get a nice long break before starting, and it would involve some school days, which would be nice.



Our weather here is just about perfect today: high in the low 70s and a bit breezy, very sunny. I'm amazed at how perfectly the weather correlates with the nominal season. We're going along through August: hot hot hot and humid. Then BAM, Sept comes and it's like the weather gods got the memo. The temperature and humidity drop (well, except for those two days it rained, but we did need that) and it's instant fall.

Here are some random photos taken over the last month or so.

More about Knitcircus

I've been formatting until I'm cross-eyed! Yowza. But I'm excited about the upcoming Issue #4 of Knitcircus. Jaala and I hope to email it to the lovely and talented Beth tomorrow afternoon/evening for a fine-tooth-comb editing. She's really good at that! She knows when we have a sneaky extra space to delete, finds all those hyphens that should be em-dashes, knows when to bold , when to italicize, and remembers all the formatting things that we set up on p.3 that are being done differently on p 38. After Beth sends back all the big and little things she finds, then we do a final check for any formatting problems that the printer won't like. Then, make the huge mega-file pdf (bigger than my first hard disc!) and off it goes to Texas. Then we wait seven business days for turnaround and about 4 more business days for shipping, and boxes will appear.

In Other News
We have been in the throes of a full-fledged machine conspiracy Chez SABLE. The focus of this one is cars and computers. Must be C is the letter of the week, eh? Both our vehicles have required very expensive repairs and maintenance of the mandatory kind. You know, the "Don't drive until you fix this" kind of stuff. The computer issues have been more annoying than expensive. Owen's laptop has gone in twice for a backlight issue (under Apple Care warranty) and my mouse needed replacing. Mr. SABLE found his PC had over 365 viruses!!! He thinks he got them all, but they were seriously messing with things over there.

The kids are settling into their school routines, which is a blessing. So far, so good.

I haven't knit at all in a week or so. I've just been plugging away at the 'zine. I'm eager to get back into it.

Sliding Into Home

We're in the big-push stretch of Knitcircus Issue #4. It's very exciting and I think we have a very strong issue. We plan to have this available to ship October 1. (If your local yarn shop doesn't carry it, ask them to think about it!)

Here's a little preview of some of the goodies you'll find inside:












There's more to come!

Click on through and pre-order your copy today!
Knitcircus.com

I Sense a Theme Here...

Kathy, from Milwaukee came over to Last Saturday Knitting with her friend Lynne. Kathy wanted to give me this perfectly apropos gift that she bought for me as a "Thank you" for organizing the Alt Knitting Camp aka Gourmet S'mores Camp. Now, when I see the WienerMobile in my neighborhood, I'll be ready!

Last Saturday Knitting was a gas, as usual. We had just about the largest gathering yet! It was all the usual suspects, only all of us were there. Usually, we top out around 6 knitters, but this time we had 10, plus Owen! Thankfully, the nice young man who works weekends seems happy to have us there.

I've been spinning on the Mixed Berries yarn and working on the plain grey knitting project. And of course, counting down the seconds until school starts tomorrow (for the little guy) and Wednesday (for Owen). And I've been sitting around on the porch, under the fan, waiting for this little heat wave to pass. Tomorrow will be steamy again, then nice cooler weather blows in. Ah! True autumn can't be far behind, right?

Tiger Swallowtail

What's summer without gratuitous butterfly pics?


There are three of these working over the butterfly bush in our yard right now.

I saw a hummingbird earlier out there this morning, too. We haven't had many of those this summer.

Owen's Quilt: Quilted!

I picked up Owen's quilt from Franco's yesterday. I'd say $60 was a bargain to jump past all the hours of quilting (even by machine) and move right to putting on the edging. I'll probably get to that after the school year starts, when I hope life settles down a bit around here.

Mixed Berries Yarn!

After a recent frustration with some alpaca, I wanted to spin something fast, easy, and fun.

One ply came from this:


I took some white wool and mohair from the giant Brown Sheep mill ends batch I bought a while back and blended with some red and blue generic wool I got at Wisconsin Sheep and Wool last year, plus a bit of red silk thread from sari-silk ends.


The other singles came from this batch I bought last winter at The Sow's Ear.

All in all a very fast fun fiber to spin: wooly and smooshy. I don't have any specs on the finished skein, but it seems like a good fingering weight to me and feels light as air.

I have enough of all the parts to make a whole lot more of this.

In Other News
I saw the Wiener Mobile again last night, parked in the same place as last time, on a side street about a block from my house. Either someone takes the work car home or has a honey on the side. Hmmm.

Project Updates

Taking my cue from Bezzie (whose rant here on the so-called "green" reusable grocery bags got me thinking), I made these two cloth bags yesterday. I had bought a small stack of the green pseudo-cloth bags from my supermarket last winter, at 75 cents each. Although they stand up to more use than a paper bag, they have started to self-destruct. Rather than replace them with more of the same, I decided to put some stashed fabric to use. I bought the fabric at a thrift shop in Quincy IL over a year ago, thinking it would be nice for something. I just didn't know what. I have enough fabric to make at least 4 more bags this size, which is a bit smaller than a standard paper grocery bag. I need to buy more nylon webbing, though.

I've been working on turning a few older projects into patterns for the fall Knitcircus. We plan to have it available for purchase by Oct 1. I'm also working on a new project for that, but might not finish in time. That's ok. We can use it in Winter, and we've had great submissions, so we have enough good material for fall.

In Other News
We're counting down to the beginning of the school year. The little guy starts second grade on Tuesday, Sept 2, and Owen starts 8th grade on Wednesday the 3rd. We're having all kinds of behavioral issues with the little guy, but I have to say, Owen has suddenly crossed into a new mature, mellow version of himself. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this isn't just a phase for him. I never would have believed that there would be a time when I would call Owen "mellow".

I did send Owen's quilt out to be machine quilted at the local place. I have no idea what I'll get back, but it should be coming soon. They charge about $65 for a twin size, and have stock patterns that their machine does. I'll still need to put edging on when I get it back, I think. For local folks, this is a funny little building on Regent Street, probably a survivor of the great Greenbush Urban Renewal of the 1960s.

We're still in limbo on Mr. SABLE's job front. He had a chat with a VP at a small start-up last week. He felt very positive about that and it could lead to a job offer soon. He's also encouraged that if he has to do free-lance stuff for a while, there are a lot of people in town who can throw him some work. The downside to that plan is health insurance, but it would be income. Time will tell. Stay tuned.

I hope to see all my local buddies at Last Saturday Knitting on the 30th!

Late Summer Blahs

I'm just slogging along here, feeling a bit groggy and sinus-y. The kids' school registration days are tomorrow and Thursday. The little guy is systematically working his way through all the Star Wars movies on DVD and I'm just letting him. It gives me a bit of peace and time to put two thoughts together.

I tried to spin a bit of some alpaca roving I bought at the Alpaca Festival in the spring. It was a disappointment, because there's a lot of very short sections, like second cuts, in this roving. Very frustrating and leading to a lot of bad spinning. I might need to just put it aside and work on something fun.

I have a knitting project in progress, but it's slated to appear in fall Knitcircus if I finish in time, winter if not. Stay tuned for photos on that. The project is a solid grey one, though, and I think I need a shot of color to liven me up when I finish it.

I guess we're all just in the post-vacation recovery mode. Couple that with the underlying anxiety about Mr. SABLE's future employment, plus a big car repair bill, I can say that our house is in a bit of a funk.

Vacation Wrap-Up

August 2: We set out from home. We began looking for lodging on the far western fringes of the greater Cleveland area. No lodging. We tried at least 15 hotels over 4 major intersections. Eventually were told there was a Twins Convention in Twinsburg OH and that there was no lodging until Pennsylvania. So we pressed on to the Pittsburgh Area. We were thrilled to get a room at a Comfort Inn near the airport at about 1 a.m. While I was booking the room a young woman, looking exhausted, came in and wondered, barely daring to hope, if there were rooms. I asked her if she, too, had been traveling across Ohio. Yes indeed.

The next night we stayed with my sister and her family in their funky old house in Pittsburgh.

We had a hard time getting the Little Emperor to sit for a family picture. Kate's husband was the most consistently photogenic of all of us.

From there, we drove on to Treman State Park near Ithaca NY. The kids loved swimming in a natural pool and under the waterfall.


Owen and I hiked down the gorge, which was still a bit strenuous because sometimes you have to go up to go down. We showed Owen the house we lived in when he was born. It was a short stay and went pretty well. Our second night was rainy, so we had to pack up wet camping stuff to drive to NH.

On to New Hampshire where we saw my folks and swam at our favorite top-secret pond. My mom and I went to the League of NH Craftsmen annual fair. There were a few truly remarkable artists, a lot of work that looks like all the others, and a few real duds. But fun to look.

August 10: on to Quebec.
Not long after we crossed the border, a seagull committed suicide on our windshield. It was a terrifying moment, but neither humans nor van suffered any damage.

We stayed at Chateau de la Terrasse, the middle building in this image:

The structure to the right is the US Consulate.








A ship on the St. Lawrence at dusk.


Benches on the boardwalk


Petit Champlain, as viewed from the Terrasse Dufferin.


On our way to the Old Port area

Near the Old Port, we explored the Ephemeral Gardens, an interesting sort of art space constructed for the 400th anniversary. This mirrored graffiti house was one part of it:


Then we went to the farmers market to buy some veggies and cheese. While there, we had crepes, prepared by a nice woman and her two daughters.


Cannons are just play equipment in Quebec nowadays.


I just really liked this house.

During a light rain, I was knitting on the little front balcony of the hotel. Two different American tourists stopped to take my picture! And then, a wild looking older man stopped and stared for several long moments. Eventually, he told me that I reminded him of his mother knitting back in Ireland. Hmm.

We had some very dramatic clouds in Quebec. Indeed, there was a tornado someplace in the province that day! It rained on and off, and we watched the lightening over the evening sky in Levis across the St. Lawrence.

Long Drive Home

Near Ottawa, we saw this Really Big Thing on the highway.
We stayed in Pembroke Ontario.

Upper Peninsula, Manistique MI

Manistique in da Moonlight

Somewhere between Manistique MI and Green Bay WI, we took a little break at a wayside park. The Little Emperor dove right into the sand.




Finally, on August 15th, Home Sweet Home.

Far From Home

We've suffered through a dearth of lodging in eastern Ohio, stayed with my sister and her family in Pittsburgh, camped a couple nights in Ithaca NY, stayed with my folks four nights in NH, and now, we're in Quebec City for three nights. It's the four hundredth anniversary of the founding, so the city is a mad-house. But beautiful as ever. Then we high-tail it back across Canada, through Sault Ste. Marie, and home.

More details and photos to follow when we're home.

Oh, and we saw the Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile again! Didn't get a pic, but it was in easter NY state. Maybe it's stalking us?

Neighborhood sighting

It's not every day a person sees the Oscar Mayer WienerMobile parked a block from her house. On a residential street. With nothing going on. In front of a mid-'60s ranch house. Very mysterious.

Busy Busy Busy

I've been piecing a quilt top for Owen the last couple weeks:



I plan to send it out to be machine quilted because otherwise, it will end up as a permanent UFO. One woman I found online charges about $75 on an average twin size quilt, which is a pretty good deal considering the hours of my life I would spend (not to mention the frustration) if I tried to do it at home. I did notice a business here in Madison with a sign in the window advertising "Machine Quilting" so I'm going to phone them up today and see what they say.

I made this quilt top from a lot of Mr. SABLE's old plaid and striped shirts that had ripped out at elbows and pockets and such. I also picked up a few more shirts at Digger's Outlet to throw in a bit more diversity in the color scheme.

There has been knitting, too, but I have to keep that under wraps a while.

In other news
Today is the Little Emperor's seventh birthday. Hard to believe how fast the time has gone!

Our lives are stressful these days. Mr. SABLE has some employment uncertainty ahead. His company wanted him to move to way-southern NJ by Sept 30. He decided that he really wasn't willing to go to those lengths to stay with that company. He's hoping to find other employment that keeps us in the Madison area soon, but he's considering jobs quite far away, too. As it currently stands, his last scheduled day of work is Sept 30, so after that, who knows? There is a severance package for those not willing to relocate, so we should have a cushion for a few more months after that, but it's a lot of stress and anxiety for us right now. Stay tuned.

Alt Knitting Camp 08

Or The Gourmet S'mores Knitting Camp


I took three group pictures. This one was the best for everyone but me. So, I pulled a fast one. I took my head off of one of the others and photoshopped it onto myself in this picture. But everyone else was smiling nicely!

A great time was had by all. We ate, drank, went yarn shopping, yakked it up, slept a bit. Some of us even went swimming!

Now I'm off to bed. Must rise early to fetch Owen from Geek Camp in St. Paul.


The Swap
Meanwhile, here's the yarn we all brought to swap around/destash.


Somehow, I came home with more yarn than I unloaded. Hmm.

It's Here!

Soon I'll be getting some envelopes stuffed to those of you willing to help distribute to LYSs in your area.

But it's a crazy week coming up, and following on an utterly insane week just past.

So, the 'zine: well, I think it looks pretty good. There were a few glitchy things that happened right at the end, resulting in a bit of confusion (on my part) and a couple little edits and improvements that should have gone to press were left out of the final version. But it was a huge learning experience. It can only get better from here, right? This issue was a bit heavier on sewing, but the fall issue will be fatter and heavier on knitting. Stay tuned.

Butterfly Season

This Swallowtail emerged in our garden yesterday. I got this image of it while he was still drying his wings.


Here's a closer view of his face:


I tried stalking a monarch in the last couple days, but that one was too manic to stay put for even a second. Later in the season they settle down more and pose for pics.

Garden Pics

A couple garden pics to tide you over until I have more knitting to show. The top one is Bee Balm. I have been admiring Bee Balm in gardens all over Madison for many years and we finally have some growing in our own yard. When you see a big stand of it in full bloom in July, you know it's summer. We don't have a big stand, yet, but in a few years, I hope to have it all over the yard.

The second image is just a lily. We have several different kinds of lilies. I love how agreeably easy they are and they always put on a good show.

Material Culture

Regular readers know I'm a great fan of thrift shops. One particular store in my area holds a singular fascination for me: The Diggers Outlet, run by St. Vincent de Paul Society. Diggers Outlet is the last-chance store for merchandise that has run through the other thrift shops. Most goods are sold by the pound with only the most cursory sorting: clothes in giant boxes, household items of every type in another section, etc. Diggers Outlet is where you see first-hand the cast off material culture of modern American society: the clothing fads, the electronics that were cutting edge and now are obsolete, the particle board furniture that self-destructs after 5-10 years of regular use, the must-have kitchen gadgets of yesterday, and so on. A trip to Diggers Outlet jars me into thinking about how short our collective attention span really is.

I'm a textile nut. If you read this blog, you probably already know that. For most of human history, textile production has been slow and labor-intensive. Spinning was done on drop spindles and later, by hand on spinning wheels. The Industrial Revolution started the change that continues rippling today: toward higher efficiency in production, cheaper goods, viewing laborers as part of the machinery, toward ever-changing cycles of fashion and the disposable culture they foster. I'm not a rosy romantic about life in the years before the mid-18th century. I know that life was often nasty, brutish, and short, to borrow a phrase. But it was, by and large, more sustainable than the life we now live.

Textile production used to be so labor intensive that textiles had to be preserved and used up. Only the very wealthy could afford to have several sets of clothes. If you have ever made a garment, from fiber to fabric to finished object, either with knitting or weaving, you know how you feel about the resulting item: it's a treasure! If one use doesn't work out, you find a way to reuse it in another that does: unravel the sweater and reknit the yarn into something new or give it to a person it will fit, or something. Handmade fabric from handmade yarn is not something you want to discard easily.

Mass-produced fabric is so cheap that we generate tons (TONS!) of excess textiles in our society. Unbelievable excess. We shop for and replace clothes with little thought. Some items find their way into the landfills, though they are perfectly usable. Many get donated to charities for resale or distribution to the needy. While searching for images of baled clothing, I found this article.

In particular, I was struck by this quote:

The need to minimise all waste is more apparent when you consider that :

More than 80% of materials are consumed and waste generated by less than 20% of the world's population.

The growth in the world's population and the spread of wealth is rapidly exacerbating the problem.

In order to sustain human life under the present system, global environmental efficiency will have to increase by as much as 50 times.

The whole concept of product life cycle, design, fashion and the responsibility for re-use have to be reassessed. A culture built on the idea of wastage needs to be dismantled and a new way introduced.

Further search led me to another eye-opening article.

What if we all tried to stop thinking like Consumers and redefined ourselves in other terms? What if all our textiles were produced in ways that did not exploit the laborers or the planet? And what if we all recognized that the cost of a basic outfit would be higher, but our expectations about our clothes would be different? We would spend more, but spend more wisely. We would seek quality. We would reuse and re-purpose our textiles. We would choose clothes that wouldn't look dated next year at this time; clothes constructed with future alterations in mind; clothes from quality fabrics that stand up to hard use.

I wonder what our society will look like in 10 years. Or 30. Will we be buried in the excesses of the Industrial Age? Or will we learn to live as though our resources matter?

Note: image found on Buffalo Export website.

A Little 'Zine Teaser...

Just a peak at one of the Knitcircus patterns coming out soon! Tango!
Click here and scroll down for purchasing info. (New site coming soon!)