The Independent Stitch

Comfort and joy: Lots of wool, and Clara Parkes' new book

2009-12-18T11:54:10-07:00

I have here Clara Parkes' new The Knitter's Book of Wool: The Ultimate Guide to Understanding, Using, and Loving This Most Fabulous Fiber. I've been wanting to write about it for weeks—and actually have been making notes in this file for that long—but life got in the way. This is not a book I wanted to do a quick mention-and-run on (I've already mentioned it, because of my delay). Now I have the pleasure of sharing some of my thoughts.

Short take: Thanks, Clara, for explaining so clearly and well a lot of wool-geeky topics that knitters will find essential to their happy and effective use of this amazing fiber. And for the great collection of patterns. Readers, it's a treat. If someone doesn't give it to you in the next couple of weeks, treat yourself in January. It'll cheer you through the sloggy part of winter and get you ready for shearing season—oh, I mean festival time.

[FTC disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author because she asked me some questions about a few tricky matters as she was writing it and I gave her the best answers I could come up with. She asked very good questions that required me to put some interesting thoughts together. It was fun. I also have a bias in favor of Clara's writing. She's smart. She's clear. She's witty. I say those things not because she sent me a book but because they're true.]

Chapter 5, Patterns

Being somewhat contrarian, I began my excursion into the book's pages with chapter 5, the patterns. I have been digging into the qualities and varieties of wools for a very long time, and I skipped to the hands-on portion before I eased into the technical material.

There are 23 patterns, and if that's all you buy the book for you'll get your money's worth. The designs have been planned to offer opportunities for experimenting with the varying qualities of wool yarns—at least, of those wool yarns that knitters are likely to find most appealing (weavers are another story, and another book). The projects are mostly at the easy to intermediate skill levels, with a handful at the experienced end.

Contributing designers include Pam Allen, Cat Bordhi, M. Diane Brown, Nancy Bush, Evelyn Clark, Jane Cochran, Sivia Harding, Jennifer Tepper Heverly, Shelia January, Ilga Leja, Clara Parkes, and Sandi Rosner. All of these people understand their craft very well. They can devise inriguing-to-knit concepts capable of showcasing, instead of upstaging, the materials. Yet even the simplest projects contain nice, knitterly details that add a lot of appeal without unnecessary complication.

The items offered as templates for discovery are hats, sweaters, and shawls, fingerless mitts and mittens, socks, a shell, a baby set, a pillow, and a felted bag. I can't pick a favorite, because most could become standby patterns, knitted repeatedly for the simplicity and pleasure of working the design in different wools. In addition to being great in the making phase, the finished objects are the sort that will end up being used a lot. For example, the Three Bears family sweaters are perfect for playing with yarns and I could see them being worn for a very long time (made with good wools, that could be decades, possibly a couple of generations).

Of course, even though the idea is to experiment, the instructions do specify which yarns were used to knit the samples. Those yarns include solid, reliable mid-range 100% wools, interesting blends (mostly of fine fibers, which is where blending usually occurs in handknitting yarns), and some breed-specific wools, including a Perendale and a Bluefaced Leicester for socks, a couple of Cormo projects, a cardigan in Columbia, an Icelandic shawl, and Shetland for the felted bag.

There is enough information in the front of the book (about which I'll say more in a moment) to help readers select substitutes.

Chapter 1—What Is Wool?

Chapter 2—From Pasture to Pullover—Turning Wool into Yarn, and

Chapter 4—Plays Well with Others (blending)

Next I looked into the chapters on the technical aspects of wool fibers—what makes wools different from other fibers, and how we can have such a wide variety of wools, and what each of them is good for—and on wool processing and blending.

Clara has a remarkable ability to find effective explanatory metaphors for complex concepts. I admire this aptitude she has. It's in full force in these chapters, and if you want to you can even come away with an understanding of what the orthocortex and paracortex have to do with crimp (everything), in addition to, of course, what the heck crimp is and why it matters (spinners will know, but this knowledge has not been frequently offered to knitters).

My pencil came out at a few points in these chapters, in response to a mental "yes, but . . . " reaction (where the core statement was correct and I wanted to explore or refine a detail), but I'm a fiber nut and these reactions pertained to excruciatingly fine points that don't matter in the lively and engaging view that this book offers. (Example: a bit about standard deviations and wool grades. Really. The basic concept presented is correct. Only people like me will care that the SD varies for each grade in the USDA—not traditional—scale of grades, and if you care that much you probably already have the detailed info and/or have been carted off to a wool-padded cell.)

I'm especially fond of Clara's "quick tips for reading a generic wool yarn" (chapter 2), in which she tells how to evaluate by looking, shaking, tugging, smelling (yup—serious wool aficionados say "of course"), and twisting (or, rather, untwisting) a sample.

You'll gather here, appropriately, that wool is a sensual material. That's a good part of the delight in getting to know the wools, one that Clara understands thoroughly and presents well. As she points out repeatedly, getting to know a yarn is key to success in using it, and there's so much variety in wools that ultimately you have to educate yourself and then depend on your own thoughts about what a yarn will be good for.

Chapter 3: Meet the Breeds

Finally, I dug into what is for me the greatest fascination of wools: how the many different breeds offer a banquet of delights for fiber artisans. Clara talks about some of the basics of how wools differ from each other—fineness, staple length, crimp, luster, what the wool is suitable for, and felting qualities—and then divides the breeds she presents, which focus on those likely to come between knitters' fingers, into five categories: finewools, mediumwools, Down and Down-type wools, longwools, and dual-coated and primitive breeds. Wools don't always separate neatly into categories, but she offers good working clusters.

She presents a couple of descriptive paragraphs on each breed, and a box that ballparks facts about the wool. There are frequently photos of clean locks and of yarn spun from the wool. One difficulty (not under Clara's control) is that the book's design calls for the same size photo for each lock, so the Leicester Longwool and Teeswater, for example, appear to be the same length as the Merino and the Southdown. The layout is pretty and the length info is available in the "facts" box, so I'm just being picky about this.

Here are the breeds Clara covers—an excellent selection for the space available (and they're alphabetically arranged within each group):

Finewools:

California Variegated Mutant (CVM)
Cormo
Merino
Polwarth
Rambouillet
Romeldale
Targhee

Mediumwools:

California Red
Columbia
Corriedale
Finnish Landrace (Finn)
Montadale
Tunis

Down and Down-type wools:

Cheviot
Clun Forest
Dorset Down
Dorset Horn and Poll Dorset
Oxford
Ryeland
Shropshire
Southdown
Suffolk

Longwools:

Bluefaced Leicester
Border Leicester
Coopworth
Cotswold
Leicester Longwool
Lincoln
Perendale
Romney
Teeswater
Wensleydale

Dual-coated and primitives:

Icelandic
Jacob
Navajo-Churro
Scottish Blackface
Shetland

When reading any information on wools, it's important to remember the vast diversity of fibers that are grown by different types of sheep (the variety continues to blow my mind, after all these years) and that wool is a natural substance, not one manufactured to specs. The guidelines are just that: an idea of what to expect, not rigid parameters from which the actual fibers never stray. (They do stray. It's wonderful.) The only way to tell what a wool is really like is to begin to play and experiment with it . . . which brings us back to the patterns. The book is organized logically and appropriately. I'm just an out-of-order reader.

Clara's book left me both satisfied and wanting more (more breeds; more info on the individual breeds). Which is good. Because it sends me back, energized, to The Project. EXCEPT that I want to be both spinning and ordering yarn and knitting up some of these patterns. That'll have to wait a bit. I hope not too long.

Those wools on the second drying rack from the top would make good Three Bears sweaters (Kerry Hill and I think that's the Devon Closewool, I've just got the photo here at the library, not the wool itself). Top right is too soft for the durability I'd want (Polwarth). Top left would be too heavy (Dartmoor). Take a look at that bottom right: neat-o! But not sweater wool (Rough Fell). (The dark ones are Polwarth, very soft, and Balwen, this sample quite coarse. On the right on the second from bottom is Gritstone.)

Bonus

Hungry for wonderful wool yarns? Clara has a nice resource list, also worth getting the book for. Here's a taster of sources, three of which are in Clara's list and four of which aren't. On the farm yarns, note that they do sell out. They are limited-growth-and-production items. If what you thought you wanted is gone, there will be something equally appealing in its place. That's part of the fun.

In alpha order, here are a few places to get started:

Spirit Trail Fiberworks

Sweet Grass

Tip of the iceberg. Many, many more. Some growers sell (out) at festivals and don't have websites. Others sell through etsy or web-based farm coops.

Happy hunting, happy knitting. Happy reading. Let Clara show the way.

Comfort and crimp

2009-12-14T11:36:31-07:00

When life gets rocky, as it has been around here lately, balance and a sense of safe harbor for me can come from friends (two-footed, four-footed, and other), fibers (especially wool), and good books.

Tussah Redfurr has been doing her best to fill the hole in our lives that remains following the death of Ariel, our fifteen-year-old Border collie-ish.

It's amazing how many household habits revolved around our newly missing member.

I've greatly appreciated the comments and notes that have come in from friends, especially while our family has also been caring for a few human members with acute ailments. Those folks are on the mend now, and we are all, I hope, taking care of ourselves in the ways that work best for us.

For me, that often means wrapping myself in wool, both physically and mentally. For the former, I have sweaters, shawls, hats, and more (a nice woolly afghan I knitted more than a year ago is still at the publisher's for photography: I look forward to having it back! and I will be showing it here on a blog tour early in 2010).

For mental comfort and joy, I'm working on The Project. I also have a couple of nearly complete book reviews and some knitting updates that I hope to get posted in the near future.

Which brings me to the woolly photo of the day, about the importance of crimp. Put simply, crimp is waviness in a fiber. If there's lots of it, the fiber coils a bit like a spring. Crimp forms as part of the growth process of the fiber. Fibers can have more, less, or no crimp.

Here are two small sample skeins for The Project. They were wound on the same sample niddy-noddy, so if crimp were not a factor they would have identical circumference measurements.

The longer skein on the left is Optim^TM Fine, which is wool that has been processed in ways that reduce the individual fibers' micron counts (make them finer and softer), increase their length, and remove their crimp. Optim^TM still has many of wool's qualities (breathability, moisture-handling, and so on) but in many other ways it has become more silk-like (elasticity disappears and draping qualities increase). While the process can be applied to other wools, it's pretty much focused on use with 19-micron Merinos, turning them into 15.5- to 16-micron Optim fibers. (The micron counts refer to average fiber diameters: under Optim processing, the fibers get skinnier and longer.)

The shorter skein on the right is Polwarth, which by breeding is about 75% Merino and 25% Lincoln (details in The Project's book). I'd compare the Optim to Merino, but Polwarth was what was on the drying rack when I realized the value of a photo comparison. Same basic idea. The Polwarth skein can be stretched to extend as far as the Optim skein does, but when the Polwarth is relaxed it bounces back, while the Optim skein stays put.

For some applications, Optim (less crimp) is a better choice. Crimp-free fibers are more elegant. For drape that doesn't cling (at least in a low-static environment), crimp-free fibers will work better.

For other purposes, Polwarth or another crimpy fiber will excel. Crimpy fibers are cosier than crimp-free ones. For a fabric where elasticity and body-hugging qualities are important, crimp wins. For example, it makes socks that will pull over the heel easily yet won't fall down (at least if they're sized correctly!). Crimp also increases warmth: all those trapped air spaces increase the fabric's insulating qualities.

The person selecting the yarn for an envisioned purpose is the one who decides what matters.

Does all this mean crimp = comfort? It might.

Over the past few days, I've been enjoying the power of crimp, spinning samples of Merino (including its Optim variant), Polwarth, Rambouillet, and Île de France. This afternoon, I plan to begin on Corriedale and Bond. Later this week, I've got Cormo, Romeldale, CVM, and Targhee. All fine wools, each with an individual array of qualities.

We have some brushings from Ariel, saved over the last year or so. A lot got tossed (Ariel grew, and shed, fiber generously), but we have a nice small box full. My daughter asked last week whether I thought we could make some wrist warmers from the collected fiber. This seems like a perfect way to remember a pup who collected the nickname Snow-nose because she adored playing in the snow.

Ariel's fur is a lot like angora. It's fine, exceptionally soft, and has almost no crimp. It's warm. A little Ari-fur will have a big effect on a yarn (as the dog herself had a big effect in our lives), but it could use an infusion of crimp to give it enough elasticity to make good wrist warmers or fingerless gloves.

While I'm working up my samples, I'll be looking for the right match. A good fiber match takes into account fineness, color, and fiber length, in addition to the behavioral qualities (like crimp) that are desired in the finished yarn. Any of the fibers I'm spinning now would be a good match in fineness. The overall effect of Ari's fur spun by itself is a light gray. The colored Merinos and Rambouillets I'm using have shorter staple lengths than Ari's fiber. I have some exquisite colored Bonds here, but they're longer. I'm guessing one of the CVMs or the colored Romeldales will pair with the fur best. As a plus, they're rare wools. That bit of wool will also give the yarn some of the bounce that Ariel herself contributed to our lives.

Comfort and crimp.

Tempest's Ariel Miranda: A fine and sweet (strong-willed and often mischievous) dog

2009-11-23T14:41:32-07:00

On December 20, 1994, a friend's husband, who dealt in real estate, was walking through a field in Greeley, Colorado, with another developer when he came across three puppies nearly frozen together in a hole in the ground. It gets mighty cold in Greeley in the winter. The wind blows hard there. He pulled the pups out of the ground, wrapped them up, and took them to a nearby vet, who recommended getting warm milk into their stomachs and said that if they made it through the night they would probably survive. The vet estimated that they were seven weeks old.

The next day, with three puppies still breathing regularly, their tummies round with milk, our friend called the people in her address book with "soft-headed hearted" checked next to their names and had them come look at the black-and-white imps tottering around on the newspaper-covered floor of her kitchen.

All three found homes. The female went with us. My then-thirteen-year-old daughter (who is now twenty-eight) named her Ariel Miranda, because she was a mischievous spirit and had been rescued from a tempest. (The name also turned out to be appropriate as its homophone aerial, capturing her tendency to leap away from the ground.)

At the time, we had Heather (Aslan's Mountain Heather), a lovely blue merle Australian shepherd who had retired to our household following a career producing show-quality puppies. We usually adopt adult dogs, because they need us more than puppies do, but Bekah had been doing obedience training with Heather, who really already knew the ropes, and wanted to work with a dog who didn't know anything: to train from the ground up.

Both Heather and Ariel had half-white noses, white chests, and white patches on the backs of their necks. People thought Ariel was Heather's daughter. Heather did serve as Ariel's canine elder, presenting us with a model of patience and boundary-setting.

Heather (age 9) and Ariel (age 2), 1996

When Ariel was tiny, her little legs had a hard time keeping up with Heather's and our strides and she would scramble all-out behind us, until my daughter would pick her up and carry her for a bit. She wasn't much more than a double handful. Until relatively recently, however, for most of her life she took the lead on our walks and adventures.

Despite her unknown parentage, she looked enough like a Border collie to qualify for ILP listing with the American Kennel Club. In addition to the superficial qualities, she strongly displayed the Border collie's intelligence and herding instincts (along with ears and a coat that suggested some spaniel influence . . . which became more pronounced as she aged). When we applied for the listing, we also established the kennel name "Tempest," which seemed appropriate because any dogs we might register in the future would also almost certainly be rescues. So she officially became Tempest's Ariel Miranda.

Ariel (age 2), 1996

The ILP number meant she and my daughter could not only train in obedience and agility but could enter trials and prove what they had accomplished . . . if Ari felt like it. Both of us trained with Ari: my daughter when she was home from school, and me during the school year. My daughter was the one who took her into the ring while I watched from a position that gave me the ability to see Ariel without distracting her as she worked. Sometimes I didn't get to watch because Ari was very sharp at scoping out her environment; I had to go hide behind a post and not peek out.

Ariel (age 7), 2001

Because of her arthritis, which began showing up early, it took Ariel a long time to earn her novice obedience title, the CD (Companion Dog). A dog who limps at a trial is excused and not allowed to continue that day [thanks for the clarification, Julie! we need to train another dog and get our terms right; I've fixed the rest of this paragraph] disqualified (DQ'd), no matter what the reason for the limping or how much the dog would like to "play"—generally a very good rule that was put in place to keep dogs from competing when they're not sound enough to. It takes three qualifying scores under different judges to earn the title. Not being allowed to participate in an event can mean months of waiting for the next opportunity to come around. Sometimes we'd register her and then just go watch, because we knew she'd be excused. Sometimes she'd falter just a bit on the way into the ring and the judge would order her out.

She acquired her CGC paper more easily: this Canine Good Citizen evaluation requires dogs to have fundamental, significant self-control skills around humans and other dogs. I think all dogs and their owners would be well-served by going through this program. It would do a lot to improve everyone's life.

We thought Ariel might still be working on novice obedience as a senior dog (ten years and older), but she got her title before then.

Ariel (age 7), 2001

The green ribbon means she qualified for this round and it counts toward her title. The yellow ribbon means she was one of the top-performing dogs in her group; this was her third-place day. On another day, she earned a red (second place), and on the final leg, the one that earned her the title, she got a blue (first place).

We didn't continue her obedience competition after the novice level, because jumping (which she LOVED) was required and the jump heights were beyond what was safe for her. We let her train a bit longer in obedience and agility, planning her workouts to include low jumps and carefully angled approaches—although she was perfectly capable of sabotaging our plans and barreling up and over an A-frame or a teeter-totter at what we considered an unwise speed, or might swerve off and bound through another dog's jumping set-up, possibly messing up a knee upon landing.

Ari was going to work her body and mind whether we approved of her methods or not. We just needed to stay flexible and try not to be left in her dust. So we went for hikes.

Ariel (age 7), 2001

And we let her chase balls: she was very picky about which ball, and would search the whole dog park until she found EXACTLY the right one. When we figured this out, we took to hiding the "approved" ball in a spot where we could find it easily, so she would not have to work so hard locating it again the next time we got to the park.

Ariel (age 8), 2002

By the time she was 9, we had tried all sorts of normal latches, bars, and other fasteners to foil her efforts to get out of the back yard, with its 6-foot fence, whenever she chose. We finally discovered what would work:

Ariel (age 9), 2003

It seemed a bit drastic, but we ended up installing a cattle gate on the outside of the regular gates, and used both ties and latches to secure it. This gate is rated for 3500 pounds of cow-power. It did keep our 50-pound dog legally confined. FINALLY. She had never gone far, and never gotten in trouble we heard about. Sometimes we wouldn't even know she'd been out until a neighbor would remark, "I saw your dog taking herself for a walk the other day. . . ."

Ariel even had a brief career as a product tester for a noted dog-toy manufacturer, except that she could destroy almost anything they sent her so quickly the results weren't meaningful for most dogs. She was off the charts for "aggressive chewer," although once she passed puppyhood she always chewed appropriate items.

Even after she'd lost much of the strength in her back legs, she was always looking for something to engage her attention and energies.

Tussah (about 12, as far as we know), me, my daughter, and Ariel (age 14.75), summer 2009

She was willing to travel. . . .

Ariel (age 13.75) and Tussah, summer 2008

Especially if she could do new and interesting things along the way.

Both: Ariel (age 13.75), summer 2008

She loved running toward us (one of her favorite games was "Ari, COME!," racing back and forth between me and my daughter), and she loved snow.

Ariel (age 8), 2002

Ariel (age 15), November 13, 2009

_______

Ariel:

took me places I'd never have gone without her
gave me many lessons in consistency and teamwork and my own ingenuity
taught me to relax and find joy where I would otherwise certainly have missed it

. . . and she wasn't even "my" dog . . . she was my daughter's. . . .

Ariel (age 7) and me, enjoying a summer day, 2001—some people think I never slow down

She was not a perfect dog or a paragon of virtue. She had those escape tendencies. She would eat almost anything, and could inflict a too-eager nip on the fingers giving her a treat. She was allergic to many foods. But she'd agree completely with the quote from Charles Lamb that's on my tea bag this morning: "A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market."

I hope that with my allotment of time and energy I do a fraction as well as Ariel did with hers.

___

Tempest's Ariel Miranda, CD, CGC

November 1 (?), 1994 - November 22, 2009

a strong-willed companion

a life well lived; a being well loved

____

Special thanks to Julie Yamane at the Canine Learning Center and to Jennifer Hendrickson and Chris Babiarz at Animal Answers, for helping us get off on the right foot (sometimes literally) and forge a strong working partnership with this spirited creature; to Dr. Julie Gamble, for providing Ariel with a lifetime of excellent vet care (we followed Julie from clinic to clinic all over town until she finally got her own practice); to Jill Reynolds, Deanna Rogers and Connie Fredman, for a combination of quality-of-life care and advice that made a huge difference over the past two years; to Doggon' Wheels, especially Mel, for making possible the joyful final movement of Ariel's symphony; and to Kris Paige and, by phone, Dr. Debbie Sunken for evaluation and wise counsel on a Sunday afternoon during Ariel's last few hours with us. And to Tussah, for being Ariel's buddy for half a dozen years.

Karakul lamb: wool too pretty to spin?

2009-11-12T00:56:24-07:00

Working along on The Project, I've spent some time (again) recently with Karakul, the breed from which I learned so much many years ago. Some time in the 1970s, I ordered three Karakul fleeces at once: one white, one gray, and one black. If I recall correctly, they were my first whole fleeces. In washing and spinning them, I discovered how much the wool within a breed may vary not only in color but in length and texture and amount of grease and ease of processing.

Those fleeces became a rug that I wove and bartered for some training. I still remember the rug vividly, as well as the pleasant lessons those fleeces taught me.

In addition, some of the most memorably wonderful pieces I had the honor of presenting in Spin-Off during the years when I edited the magazine were Ellen Champion's Karakul rugs (Winter 1989 issue).

So I always approach Karakul with an anticipation of delight . . . and the expectation that I will learn something. Probably a lot. And that it will surprise me.

That's happened this week, as I've explored four different-colored lamb fleeces from Durakai Sheep and Fibre Arts, grown by sheep bred and raised by Marie and Ron Schmidt. I find myself facing an odd question, however: whether this wool is really too pretty just as wool to be spun. That question is almost inconceivable for me. I adore the transformation from fiber to yarn.

Yet when I see this:

I can't help but think of how the texture and the colors will be blended and muted by spinning. They're quite perfect just as they are.

Here's a sample from another lamb, along with the tiny skein I spun—which is, indeed, lovely. But is it lovelier than the fiber?

Both samples display the enchanting lamb-tips on the fibers, although they're a bit more obvious in the second photo: subsequent shearings won't have those characteristic, sweet, delicate curls.

While I have dutifully spun my samples for The Project, and I do like the results as yarns, I have made the skeins no larger than necessary because I'm so tempted to see what I can do to highlight the locks in their original forms, perhaps by spinning some adult Karakul into an even yarn and then weaving something where I'd lay narrow sections of the lamb locks into some of the sheds in a way that would display both the colors and the textures while holding them securely in place and protecting them from degradation. It would require thought and a bit of technical experimentation to get the effect I envision. And what might it become? A small rug? Sturdy tote for knitting? Book bag? Pillow for the couch? Jacket?

One thing about The Project: I keep getting ideas for ways I'd like to take each snippet of work I'm doing into new, deeper directions. Right now, I have to keep moving: on to the next sample, then to the next breed.

But I'd certainly like to come back to these charmers and explore the possibilities of highlighting their just-off-the-lamb form, which is exquisite.

Roller dog

2009-11-09T11:51:42-07:00

In the midst of all the other activities around here, we have been arranging for our older dog, Ariel, to have more independent mobility.

She was abandoned as a tiny puppy, so we know her age but not her ancestry. Her behavior and appearance have, throughout her life, suggested a strong Border collie component with spaniel-influenced ears and coat. She looks enough like a Border collie to be considered one by the American Kennel Club (with what's called an ILP listing) and allowed to compete in obedience trials, which she did until the onset of arthritis about nine years ago. She earned her CD, the Companion Dog title that is the first full level of obedience competition. She couldn't continue further with obedience or with agility because of the arthritis.

Anyway, she is still a dog who needs activity, even though she has become increasingly lame, despite all we have been able to do for her. At 15, she is one hundred percent engaged in life and with us. She chases her Buster Cube around the house. She may not hear as well as she used to (she doesn't always wake up immediately when we come home), but she can tell when someone might be about to drop a crumb on the floor, and will gnaw through anything (even multiple layers of cardboard) to get at a potential food source.

She does NOT like to be left home when anyone else is going for a walk or a ride in the car.

Her knees, however, can't keep up with her.

For a couple of years, we've been using a harness, which gives her a handle we can use to help her with steps, getting in and out of the car, and, more often lately, to keep her from some of the falling-over on the twice-daily walks she refuses to quit going on. The falling-over does not, amazingly, distress or frustrate her. She just waits until she can get herself up again, or until we give her a boost. We've also needed to use boots to protect her back feet because she can't lift them high enough to clear the pavement, although we take the boots off her when she gets to the grass at the park.

(When Ariel was young, only half of her muzzle was white. Her expressive eyebrows also were not highlighted, as they are now.)

Needing to come up with a new answer, we started learning about devices to help handicapped dogs. There are quite an amazing number of options, and fortunately we have several local resource people to help us figure out what to try for Ariel—Deanna Rogers, Jill Reynolds, and Connie Fredman.

So, after much research, soul-searching, and measuring, we located a refurbished set of wheels of the correct size for Ariel. They arrived from Montana a couple of weeks ago, and we have been sending photos back and forth to the manufacturer while we fine-tune the fitting. On Saturday, we actually used them for the first time.

Ari could sniff around on her own without one of us hovering to rescue her from the too-frequent cave-in of the back legs.

The wheels are set up in rehab mode, so she has to use all four limbs to move but she doesn't fall over. Our house is too small for her to have the wheels inside, but she can enjoy far more comfortable walks twice a day and we think she will be better able to maintain the strength in her legs because she's not wasting so much energy trying to stabilize the joints (or working to get back up).

On Sunday, Jill and her pup Skid, who is training to be a Search and Rescue dog, came by to see how the wheels worked. Ari showed us she was starting to get the hang of them.

(Daughter; Tussah—who is only about 12, as far as we know; Ari; Jill; and Skid, just over 1 year and doing fantastically with his S&R exercises and tests.)

By the end of the walk, Ari had figured out what wheels are good for.

Thanks to Doggon' Wheels for thoughtful design (these are 4WD wheels: rocks and hills no problem), great customer service, and making refurbished wheels available to dogs who just need a little lift.

And, while we're on the topic of "may all beings be happy," here's a wonderful business in Africa called Shonaquip. . . .

Herdwick: like no other sheep, like no other wool

2009-11-04T12:14:17-07:00

I'm way behind on blog posts: lots to say, not enough hours right now. Running fast for a deadline (that I now see in the rearview mirror and I'm still trying to meet it); there's hardly time for sleeping or eating.

But here's a quick note about what I spun up yesterday: Herdwick. Sheep, Herdwicks primary among them, are responsible for the landscape of England's Lake District. Beatrix Potter (locally Mrs. Heelis) raised Herdwicks and was the first woman to belong to the breed society. There are lots of good conservation stories involved with Mrs. Heelis, the Lake District, and Herdwicks, although I need to keep moving. . . .

Herdwick wool is truly distinctive. When we went looking for samples for The Project (deadline buzzing), the shepherd who ultimately supplied us with some wondered why in heck we wanted it. Admittedly, it's not usually the first choice among handspinners and textile crafters, although it's available as ready-to-use yarn, as well as finished products, and there's no reason not to play with it. What I like best about Herdwick is how unlikely a fleece it is, and how its qualities push my creativity. (They push industrial creativity, too: Herdwick wool provides the basis for naturally sourced insulation.)

But I need to get back to work, and I want to show some Herdwick first. The fleece Herdwicks grow consists of several types of fiber: a relatively soft, woolly undercoat that keeps the sheep warm (and independent: they live pretty well without much human intervention); a hairy outercoat that repels water (Herdwick wool gets wet more slowly and dries out faster than other wools); heterotype hairs, which change their character depending on the season (warmer in winter, more moisture-resistant in summer); and kemp, that wiry, stiff, twist-resistant fiber that in most other breeds is strictly discriminated against. In Herdwicks, kemp adds texture that just ups the ante on the game; there's enough that it becomes a factor, rather than a hindrance. These fiber types are so scrambled they resist separation, although you can tease them apart if you work at it.

Color, too: kemp is white, and while Herdwicks are born black they quickly begin turning gray and keep up with a steady lightening effect as they age, always tweedy with a range of shades mixed throughout the fleece (no spots).

Herdwick wool is normally quite long: 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 cm) is pretty usual, longer is possible. My samples were 2.5 to 3.5 inches (6.5 to 9 cm), making them a bit harder to handle than a more average fleece would have been. Nonetheless, I had an enjoyable afternoon and came up with a few bits that show the range of Herdwick:

Obviously, the top is a mass of (clean) raw fiber. The tiny medium gray skein on the left is some undercoat, imperfectly removed; it's quite soft, soft enough for a sweater or hat. The larger darker gray skein is the whole caboodle, spun up together. It could be woven into a coat. The light gray bristly skein on the right is mostly kemp and rough hairs, with some of the finer fibers left in to help hold the yarn together. The dimensionality of that yarn gets my idea-mill going.

FANTASTIC texture! And natural color fun. Makes me think of rugs, baskets, hairy bits added to something basically smooth . . . and to wonder how much undercoat I could get out and how it would work up into a sweater. As well as pricking my curiosity about whether the kemp might work in pottery glazing the way horsehair does.

Herdwick sheep heft or heaf to a particular spot of ground, staying put without fencing, and ewes teach lambs where they live. If a piece of land is sold, the sheep go with it. You can't just move another type of sheep onto this landscape because they'd wander all over the place (or need enormous amounts of fencing) and couldn't stand the climate (a few other breeds do well here, but Herdwicks are still outstandingly suited to it). Because of their geographic concentration, the Herdwick population was hard-hit by control efforts for foot-and-mouth disease in 2001.

Herdwicks have a lot to teach us, in many regards: about connection to land, about variety and experimentation, about loyalty and versatility. And about careful stewardship, in many aspects of life.

And now I need to get back to work. Next up is a trip to Kerry Hill (the wool, not the place), which is a totally different spot on the fiber rainbow: all white, just a bit lustrous, crisp but not too crisp, and with quite consistent fibers all in a narrow range of micron counts. . . .

Never a dull moment, although some folks might wonder. . . .

Where most of the work gets done

2009-10-25T03:40:30-06:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the wall came down:

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

And the former storeroom as seen from the office:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Genghis Khan exhibit, Denver Museum of Nature and Science

2009-10-22T08:57:43-06:00

I'm about six blog posts behind what's in my head. I'm also spinning and writing on a serious deadline (and putting together a Ravelry ad campaign in the hope of picking up enough income to float Nomad Press and me through this time of non-paying, absolutely must-do-for-many-reasons work).

However, I was just writing a quick Facebook note on the exhibit on Genghis Khan that I went to last night at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, courtesy of friends who are members and invited us to join them, and thought I'd put a short recap in here.

There will be no photos, because taking photos was not allowed. We all left saying that we have to go back, and walked to the car planning how to do that. We also all have different interests: I was the only textiles person, supported in that by my daughter, who took a comprehensive path through the rooms in the hour we had before closing. We had to make the trip to the city after a full day of work all around, so our time there was too short. (We also enjoyed a delicious and varied members-only opening-special buffet supper of Mongolian foods.)

We got a pretty thorough look at the first half of the exhibit, and as the staff was announcing the museum's imminent closure we skimmed the second half to get an overview and plan our return trip. Most textiles are in the second half of the exhibit, with enough just in the first half to have made yesterday's trip a stellar event for a fiber nut.

In that first part, there are some sleeper-but-gorgeous silks (noblewoman's burial series). There are two gowns, extremely faded and damaged—but look closely at the brocade work, and see the way the hems are faced with coarser fabrics, and what graceful shaping there is on the sleeves! (As I look closely and in relative solitude at the cloth, large numbers of people walk past me and the fabrics to see the mummy herself, resting in a secluded area, and then out again to the explosions that demonstrate Genghis Khan's invention of the modern army and of sustained warfare. I experienced those, too. . . .)

In a flat case in the armor area there's a fortified vest made primarily with what looks like a couple of yards of blue heavy chambray. . . . Most folks move around this case with a quick glance down: they've seen things like this on the rack or the bolt at Walmart. Oh, but no, and oh, my: all handspun, and if I had a strong magnifying glass I might be able to see clearly enough through the low-set case to confirm my guess that they are singles. The lining is coarser than the outer shell of the vest. Indigo-dyed. Not only handspun, but made with either handspindle or driven spindle: the timing predates flyer wheels, which were not prevalent in this part of the world in any case (all the Egyptian cottons also predate wheel-and-flyer technology by a long span, of course, as do many others of the world's most exquisite fabrics).

Great pottery, too. Not much time to look at it on this trip.

And some absolutely breath-taking calligraphic pieces, some in Mongolian script (Genghis Khan introduced writing in his home region), and a Chinese version of an earlier Mongolian book that was lost, and then a comparatively very recent piece that is also remarkable, a 19th-century genealogy of Genghis Khan (ink on cotton) that belongs in one of Edward Tufte's books, if it isn't already there: unusual and clear visual presentation of information. As my daughter noted, it's much more effective at conveying its content than the customary-to-us family tree.

There are also performers from the Mongolian community featured in the exhibit area daily—their placement somewhat impedes looking at the artifacts where they're stationed, but in the case of the dancer I watched, well worth the trade-off and a loop back through that area on another occasion to check out the walls and cases. I'm guessing the dancer we saw was Dugluun, based on brief conversation with her after her performance—how many highly skilled, seventeen-year-old contortionist dancers who have been training since they were seven are likely to be in Denver? She is like an extremely graceful and flexible yogini, her poses accompanied by a traditional Mongolian fiddle player of similar youth and equally distinct, of quieter, beauty. Seeing the young people so adept in these traditional arts was an extra treat. (P.S. An older man asked the young woman after her dancing what, basically, she thought the long-term negative effects to her body might be of the flexing she's doing. My guess is that she'll be in a lot better shape in forty years than most football players, ballerinas, or computer-based office workers.)

If you're within driving distance of this museum, or elsewhere that this exhibit travels, check it out. The textiles are not the big draw for most visitors, of course, but they're abundant and worth a pilgrimage to investigate. The cases around them are far less crowded than other parts of the show, too.

Blog Action Day: Climate Change . . . and enjoying life more (mostly)

2009-10-15T04:40:33-06:00

Today is Blog Action Day, and the topic is climate change. It's a huge topic, with significant impact, usually presented in either intensively data-driven or doom-and-gloom scenarios. Last year, I attended a fascinating series of interdisciplinary presentations at Colorado State University on climate change. There were weather folks and poets and social scientists. Solving, or, rather, effectively responding to, what's going on with global climate change will require communication and coordination among lots of different people who know lots of different things. It's interesting to read down the list of disciplines of people involved with the CSU programs.

At a personal level, I'm tempted to believe that anything I do as an individual will have such a small effect that it's inconsequential.

However, there are things I can do, and have been doing. Each of them has enhanced my life. I have to trust that there are beneficial results for the planet as well.

Over the past three years, my daughter and I have transitioned to biking almost everywhere we need to go in the city. We do pick up the car keys when the streets are icy, it's pouring rain or snowing hard, there is so much wind that forward motion becomes impossible, or we need to travel after about 10 p.m. It's amazing how often we can bike. This has brought us both a lot of joy. Also more muscle and lung power.

The photo above shows that bike's first day in our household. It has since been outfitted with a back rack and a folding basket, has taught us how to change flat bike tires and lubricate chains, has logged a lot of miles, and has improved the general climate around our house on a daily basis.

We are eating more locally produced food. Wow, does it taste good. We already ate low on the processing scale, but this has taken the flavor up several notches. It's also fun to know who is growing what we're eating, and that our small contributions are helping them sustain their independent businesses.

These potatoes (there were about seven varieties) were so simple to cook and tasted divine.

The next actions we take are bigger, but they only peripherally affect our family's quality of life. So far, these efforts require more work and cost significantly more than their non-ecologically informed alternatives, and don't, as far as we know, increase our income at all.

Some businesses, like ours at Nomad Press, need to reach out to communities that are not local. We publish books on traditional and ethnic approaches to knitting. Nomad Press belongs to the Green Press Initiative, and we use recycled paper whenever possible (which is almost always). We also carefully watch other aspects of the requirements of publishing, including minimizing the impacts of transportation.

We've been with Green Press Initiative (GPI) a long time. In our first qualifying book (the revised and expanded edition of Priscilla Gibson-Roberts' Knitting in the Old Way), there's a text statement about GPI on the copyright page. Later, we added the GPI logo in the same location (Priscilla's Spinning in the Old Way and Donna Druchunas' Arctic Lace). Our more recent books (Donna's Ethnic Knitting Discovery and Ethnic Knitting Exploration) have it on their back covers.

I hope some day (soon) the ecologically based actions we take will begin to make sense for our business's financial bottom line—not so much for our sake (although that would be nice) but because if these decisions were easier to implement, more cost-effective, and did increase sales, even more publishers would be inclined to make similar choices.

There are a few rudimentary marketing efforts for green-aware books in place, although they are not yet very high-profile.

Powell's Books has a Green Press section on its website. It's been in existence for several years, but I don't think many people know about it yet. (To locate it, if you don't have that link I just provided: on the main page, scroll to the very bottom and click on the link in tiny type that says "Green Initiatives at Powell's"; on the new page that opens, scroll down to just above the "tell us what you think" box and click on the Green Press Initiative link within the paragraph of text.) To find our books once you are in the Green Press section, go to the categories in the lefthand column, click on "crafts," and discover that three of the four listed titles are ours. (It looks like I need to remind Powell's of two more . . . we could apparently have five out of six entries in the category.)

Here's a brand-new idea that I hope gathers support more quickly: Eco-Libris is coordinating a green-lit awareness campaign called "It's Time for a Green Book: 1 Day, 100 Bloggers, 100 Green Books, 100 Reviews." The reviews will be released on November 10. We shipped off four books to their assigned bloggers yesterday morning.

We do what we can. Our choices, small as they are in the overall picture, may make a difference.

At the very least, these choices feel like the right ones for us to make. We have also signed the 20/20 pledge, and are finding it easy to keep up with the commitment.

Tonight I've ridden my bike to the coffee shop—a local business—to finish this post and work on a book project. It was windy when I left home, but not too windy. It will be dark when I ride back again, but I have good lights. And I might see deer again—in the city—as I did the other day when I rode home from the same coffee shop.*

That's one of the huge benefits of climate change: I have a bike that I love to ride.

Join me?

(I'm the one on the right, in back. That's my sister on the left, in front, happily on her very own bike.)

* No deer this time. Two foxes, though!

Saturwoolday

2009-10-10T11:24:53-06:00

It's shaping up to be a fine day. One of the things I love about wool is its variety, and what's going into the tub today represents quite a range:

There's Castlemilk Moorit, a very rare breed closely related to Shetlands. The provider of this sample apologized for its second cuts (snippets caused by shearing with two passes) and scurf (I'll skip describing scurf at the moment . . . ), but it's a lovely color, with excellent staple length, and will be just fine when washed and processed:

There's Polwarth from the Falkland Islands . . . not all of the sheep from the Falklands are Polwarths, but a quantity worth noting are . . . fine, with really cool crimp (those wavy contours in, in this case, both individual fibers and locks):

And we finally, finally (thanks to the generosity of friends on a couple of continents) have some Herdwick, giving us an opportunity to consider things like kemp (coarse, dye-resistant fibers) and Mrs. Heelis:

And while the wools are soaking in the tub, with their 20-minute demands for attention and changes of cleansing and rinsing solutions, I have THIS to enjoy:

It's Clara Parkes' new The Knitter's Book of Wool. Just arrived. I've glanced. I love Clara's take on the world, and am so glad she wrote this book.

It's shown on some Suffolk fleece I have here . . . I pulled out a lock at the lower right corner of the book, because it's so nice and long for a Suffolk. In the background is a rug I wove many years ago from Pendleton mill ends. I have a lot of rugs made with those mill ends, picked up at a weaving place in Poulsbo, Washington, long, long ago. They are still trucking. Our older dog "digs" in this one every night, making herself a nest to sleep in.

Snowing out. A good day for enjoying a variety of wools in a variety of ways.

If I get the washing done in time, I might even get to spin or knit some.