• Cruise to Alaska with JC Briar and me aboard a Craft Cruise scheduled for September 6-13, 2009! We promise it will be full of knitting and great fun!

June 28, 2008: You Should See My Hair

Yet another thing I love about Montana is the average 25% humidity—totally unlike here in northern Ohio where it's 99% on a good day. In Montana, I can have straight hair without too much work. In Ohio, even special shampoo and a flatiron are no match for the curls and frizz. I'd show you a picture but I am having Dreamweaver issues. Let me get them straightened out and then I'll post some pics.

Our three-day jaunt was a lot of fun, even though it rained on us at Put-In-Bay. The kids seemed to enjoy the ferry ride and riding around the island on a golf cart. I got to have a perch sandwich for lunch. I would have one at every meal if possible—perch is my favorite fish. Lucky for me my mother's business partner has a boat and catches a lot of Lake Erie perch and walleye which he sends to us in Montana. Yum.

We noticed that attendance at Cedar Point was way down from previous years. The lines were much shorter than I expected—good for us but probably not good for the park. We went to Soak City (the waterpark next to Cedar Point) yesterday and it was the same thing there. We split our time between the wave pool, the lagoon, and the water slides. The ride home was quiet because we were all exhausted.

I finished the body of my current sweater project, the one out of the Rowan Cashsoft Aran yarn. While I think the finished sweater is going to be great, I am a tad concerned about the yarn. The bottom edge of the sweater is beginning to shred, and that's just from carrying it around and working on it. It's a raglan design, so I am putting the body aside for a while to work on the sleeves. Hopefully I can keep the yarn from falling apart while I work on it.

June 25,2008: A Quick Drive-By Blog Post

We flew to Ohio Monday, spent yesterday hanging out, and today we're going to up to the islands (specifically Put-in-Bay). Tomorrow it's Cedar Point and then Soak City (the waterpark) on Friday, if the thunderstorms hold off. I will have pictures when we get back on Saturday!

June 22, 2008: MAWS

No, it's not a bunch of gigantic mouths.

It stands for the Montana Association of Weavers and Spinners and I was at the biennial MAWS conference in Helena, MT this past weekend. I taught four knitting classes and it was great fun.

When we were getting ready to move to Montana, the husband knew I was rather ambivalent about the idea, so he came home from a scouting trip to Kalispell armed with information. "Look," he said, handing me the local guide to Flathead County put out by the Chamber of Commerce, "Kalispell has a weaving and spinning guild. You'll make new friends right away." And so I did. One of the first people I met when we moved here was my friend Susan (my childrens' other mother), who is also a spinner and weaver. She just happens to live a few miles down the road.

I also met spinners and weavers (and knitters!) from around the state at the biennial MAWS conferences. The conferences move from city to city (hosted each time by the local guild) and they are the reason I have traveled so much within Montana and seen so much of the state. The Kalispell guild has a member who will be 90 years old next week and she has been to every single MAWS conference ever held. We should all be so fortunate.

This year's conference was very well-organized. We stayed at Carroll College and when I arrived, I found a wonderful Starbucks gift basket in my room. As an instructor, I always consider that kind of stuff a real plus. The only negative about the weekend was that my classroom was a bit small, but it had been reserved early on in the registration process when it looked like my classes would have 10-12 people. As it turned out, I had more like 21-22. The students were lively, engaged, and asked lots of good questions.

One thing that I really appreciate about MAWS as a state organization is that it made a committment some time ago to bring ALL the fiber arts under its umbrella. When I first got to Kalispell, there was an undercurrent of tension between the weavers and the spinners and I caused more than a bit of a ripple when I came to guild meetings with my knittting (no one had ever done that before). The dynamics have shifted since then, and I think our guild now has more active spinner/knitters than weavers. But MAWS has always included spinning, weaving, knitting, dyeing, and basketry classes in its conference offerings and I think that's great.

I was the MAWS newsletter editor for a couple of years but it has been some time since I was a board member and actively involved. It was great to see people I haven't seen for a long time, and to make some new friends, too.

I had to leave the conference a bit earlier than I would have liked, but our friends around the corner were hosting their annual Summer Solstice party and I didn't want to miss it. And today I need to empty one suitcase, do a couple of loads of laundry, and load another suitcase so we can leave for the east coast. If you're going to be anywhere near Billings, MT, in the summer of 2010, make sure you put the MAWS conference on your calendar. It'll be great fun.

June 17, 2008: Riding the Clutch

We finished the last of the in-studio DVD filming yesterday morning. I am eager to see what it looks like as it comes together. There are only so many ways to show a basic cable cross and make it interesting, so I tried to put a lot of stuff in there that you might not find in other videos about cabling, like discussions of yarn, needles, and various tips and tricks I've learned over the years.

This evening we're heading up to a place across the road from our house to do some outside shots for the intro and ending. The light should be just perfect and it'll give me a chance to model some sweaters.

I'm just glad that the bulk of this DVD is done, and now that I know exactly what's involved and what's it like to work with this particular producer, the next one should be much easier.

I'm well up into the body of the man's sweater and it's just beautiful. The yarn is Rowan's Cashsoft Aran, which at first I thought was a bit mushy for my taste. The skeins like to disintegrate in your hands (I have to rewind each one on my ballwinder before using it) and that characteristic always sets off alarm bells in my head. Knitted up, though, the yarn makes a nice solid fabric with a luxurious hand.

If only I had a better system for getting all these designs from my head to a swatch and written pattern so I could farm more stuff out to my test-knitters. Lack of ideas is not the problem. I tried to write out a pattern the other day and I haven't written a pattern for that particular style (top-down saddle shoulder) in so long that I had to sit for a moment and really think about what I was doing. It's that thing about switching gears from right-brain activities to left-brain activities that always makes me slightly nuts.

Speaking of switching gears, today is a big day for DD#1—both the girls have checkups with the eye doctor this morning and then haircuts this afternoon. DD#1 asked if she could drive to town and I said okay. She's done plenty of driving out here—to the elementary school and to the church—but she hasn't driven in town since driver's ed. And that was in a car with an automatic transmission, not a truck with a 5-speed.

I think she's ready. I noticed on Sunday that shifting has become a subconscious thing, allowing her to pay more attention to the road and less to the truck. I told her that she could start out driving today and that if she felt overwhelmed at any time, she could pull over and I would drive for a while. But I am pretty sure she will be fine. With parents like us she should be a fabulous driver.

If only my work could go as smoothly as my driving.

June 15, 2008: Running Out of Yarn

I remember now one of the reasons I don't do a lot of mens' sweaters. Don't get me wrong—I love and adore the one I started the other night, the one with the cable pattern at the bottom followed by plain stockinette. It's all I've been working on this weekend. However, after knitting up the first skein—which only got me 2" into a circularly-knit sweater that is 40" around—it quickly became apparent that I may not going to have enough yarn to knit the whole design. It's going to take eight skeins just to get me to the underarm, another five to get the body finished, and seven divided between two sleeves is cutting it a bit close. I bought two full bags (20 skeins) from Melanie at Camas Creek. The total yardage is 1900 yards. I thought I could squeak a smallish man's sweater out of that yardage but apparently I guessed wrong.

Melanie is going to see if she can order me another bag in the same dyelot. Even another bag in a different dyelot should be okay. We talked a bit about what she might do when we put the sweater up for display (I offered it to her as a shop model when it's done); will she keep three full bags of each color in stock for knitters who want to make a man-sized sweater, or will she just tell them she'll order it? I feel bad for stores who get put into this position, and it happens a lot. As a designer, I just hate going into stores which only have enough of any single yarn to knit a vest—forget trying to do a full-size sweater (Michaels, where I like to buy Lion Brand Lion Wool, is notorious for this). But the store also doesn't want to stock yarn that isn't going to sell. What if this sweater ends up requiring *twenty-one* skeins of yarn—would you want to be the yarn store left with nine orphan balls of yarn?

Of course, if Melanie does order me a third bag of yarn, that will just about guarantee that I will be able to fnish the sweater with the 20 skeins I bought originally. Just another of the joys of designing. But I do love how the pattern is coming out. It's one of those designs that I stop and admire frequently while I am working on it.

I need to pay a visit to the chiropractor this week. I had an appointment last Tuesday which I cancelled because of the snowstorm. I wish I could have kept it. I have issues with my neck and we've decided that it all boils down to the kind of pillow I sleep on. I've slept on feather pillows for years—beginning with ones made from my great-grandmother's geese. However, they have to be really really firm feather pillows, otherwise my head goes wonky in the middle of the night and my neck gets all screwed up.

I've bought more pillows in the past year than I care to admit—everything from $15 pillows from Target to a $150 pillow from The Company Store (billed as the "ultimate" pillow for side-sleepers and which was the worst offender—go figure). I've tried sleeping on synthetic pillows, which I dislike intensely. I even tried the memory foam contoured pillow and threw it out after one night. The only time I haven't had a problem was at the Holiday Inn in Neenah, WI, which had the most comfortable bed and pillows I've ever slept on. Unfortunately, I don't know which of the six pillows that were on my bed I actually used when I was there or I'd call them and find out who makes them. Maybe I'll call them anyway and ask.

So I'll get the chiro to straighten out my neck again this week and see if I can keep it that way. If I don't address it immediately the problem just gets worse and spreads to my shoulders, which is what it's doing now. It's uncomfortable, but as long as it doesn't interfere with my ability to knit, I think I'll make it until I see the chiropractor Tuesday.

June 14, 2008: A Sad Way to End the Workweek

What a shock it was to see Tom Brokaw on CNBC yesterday afternoon, announcing the death of Tim Russert. While I didn't often watch "Meet the Press," I still enjoyed hearing Mr. Russert's thoughtful analyses of the political process. He was proof that you can be in that business and still behave with integrity—a rare commodity, indeed. He will be missed.

In knitting news . . . I am in love with my knitting again. I've been in such a slump this spring that I was beginning to wonder what was going on. A couple of nights ago I started the vest that is slated to be my east coast travel knitting. I had so much fun watching the pattern emerge that I had to force myself to stop working on it lest I get it done before I leave.

Last night I started a man's pullover as a substitute project. I love the cable pattern on this one, too, and I can't seem to stop working on it. This particular design has a cable pattern at the bottom followed by acres of stockinette. That fact actually might make it a better choice for travel knitting. I'll work on it a bit this weekend and decide which will go with me when I head east. Maybe I'll take both. It's nice to have a choice.

I took DD#1's truck to town yesterday because one of the tires had a slow leak. I got to Les Schwab and settled down with a cup of coffee and my knitting, thinking I would get some work done—but they fixed the tire in a mere ten minutes! (Broken valve stem.) Darn. The husband thought it was funny that I was disappointed. I told him that knitters never mind waiting if they have some knitting with them.

Here is the weather forecast for the coming week. It's a huge improvement over last week's. I think we deserve it. And if it keeps the midwest from being washed away by any more floods, all the better. I can't imagine a city—like Des Moines or Cedar Rapids—under such huge amounts of water.

Even though it's supposed to be nice out, I am staying inside and working in my office today. The garden seems to be recovering and there isn't much I need to do out there. I have a lot of stuff to get ready for my classes at the Montana Association of Weavers and Spinners conference next weekend. So I'll throw open the windows and enjoy the fresh air while I sit at my computer.

June 12, 2008: The Orphan Works Bill

A bill is currently before Congress which has me (and my fellow knitwear designers) more than a bit worried. It concerns "orphan works," creative works whose copyright owners cannot be located. Because those owners cannot be located, those works currently are not available for use by anyone.

While I don't disagree that making more of these works available for the public to use is a laudable goal, Congress now has its fingers in the pie and is doing its usual excellent job of working to pass legislation with unintended and widely-damaging consequences. The Orphan Works bill before Congress would loosen existing copyright protection to the point where it's possible that artists would have to spend considerable time and effort defending the illegal use of their work from people who want to profit from it.

I wrote letters about this issue to each of my congressional representatives: Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester and Representative Denny Rehberg. From Mr. Rehberg I received what looked like a form letter thanking me for my input and indicating that he would consider all viewpoints when deciding how to vote on any legislation before him. From Mr. Tester I received a letter which read, in part:

As you may know, the Copyright Act of 1976 made it substantially easier for an author to obtain and maintain copyright for his or her creative works. Today, copyright becomes a reality at the moment an original work is created and need not be registered with the Copyright Office to obtain protection.

While this was a welcome change for many, it has resulted in a situation in which tracking down the original author to petition for use of his or her works can be a significant challenge. Some folks are concerned that these "orphan works" are being slowly lost to the public domain due to this obstacle to access.

In 2005, the Copyright Office was requested by the Senate to conduct a study of problems related to orphan works. The bill resulting from this examination is now being considered in the Senate, and will make it easier and less expensive to use orphan works. This is especially the case if those works are being used primarily for charitable, religious, scholarly, or educational purposes.

While I agree that we need to protect copyrighted works, it would be a shame if unnecessarily strict copyright laws kept these works from being rediscovered by future generations.

It sounds to me as though he has already decided to vote for the legislation. By sheer coincidence, the day after I received this letter from Mr. Tester, I happened upon this interesting article, In it, this gentleman details the story of how he found out that one of his late father's books (which was still under copyright) had been re-published without permission by a company here in Whitefish, Montana. He descibes how he did the research to make sure that the company had indeed infringed upon his father's copyright, how he contacted them and the POD (print-on-demand) company who printed the illegal copies of the book to notify them of the infringement, and—here's the kicker—how his lawyer informed him that getting any actual damages from the infringing company would be difficult and costly, despite the "protection" afforded by existing copyright law.

Those of us who are familiar with copyright know that it does afford "protection"—if you are willing to spend a significant amount of time and money to seek that protection. The proponents of the Orphan Works bill don't seem to understand that in their quest to free the use of some existing creative works whose owners cannot be found, there are plenty of people and companies out there who will see this as an opportunity to use whatever creative works—protected or not—in whatever way they want. They will be able to hide behind the provision of the Orphan Works bill that requires them to do a "reasonably diligent, good-faith search" for the copyright owner. What constitutes a "reasonably diligent, good-faith search"? In the case I cited above, the son of the author whose work was infringed upon notes that a 15-second Internet search was all that was required to determine that his father's book was still under copyright, and yet the infringing publisher failed to do even that. It's what I call the "It's better to ask forgiveness than to seek permission" model of behavior. Infringe first, and hope that no one notices. If they do, ask forgiveness. Never mind that the damage has already been done.

I forwarded the above link to Senator Tester in a second letter regarding the Orphan Works bill, asking him the following question: if this kind of infringement can happen under existing copyright law, can he imagine the kind of free-for-all that will result when the laws are relaxed even further? I am hoping that the fact that this happened in the state he represents may bring home the point that I—and others who depend upon their intellectual property for their livelihood—are trying to make.

I have first-hand experience as someone who is trying to get an out-of-print work back into circulation. I would like to republish a knitting book whose author died several years ago. Because my parents raised me to be a law-abiding citizen, I did not simply re-publish the book and hope that the author's family wouldn't notice. Instead, I went to my lawyer and asked him how to proceed. He located the current copyright owners (the author's children), and I began a correspondence with them regarding the book. This process already has taken two years and we're just now at the negotiating stage. Yes, it's a lot more difficult than I envisioned. Yes, it would have been a heck of a lot easier to cut corners and claim that I couldn't find the copyright holders and hope that they wouldn't spend the money to prosecute me should they find out that I had republished the book. But I respect the work of the person whose book I want to republish and I will do this properly or not at all.

Some additional research by my lawyer indicated that the illustrations in the book in question are under a different copyright which is held by the illustrator, not the author. I have made several attempts to contact this illustrator, all to no avail. It's frustrating, to be sure, but I have already decided that I will hire another illustrator to do a new set of illustrations if I do republish the book. Under the Orphan Works legislation I suppose those illustrations could be considered orphan works. I could claim I have done a "reasonably diligent, good-faith search" to find the copyright owner. It would make my life easier. But it's not an insurmountable obstacle.

Part of what seems to be driving this Orphan Works legislation is the growing sense of entitlement that seems to be taking hold in our society. There were plenty of times when my children were young that they wanted something they could not have. We simply said, "I am sorry, that choice is not available to you. Please pick something from the choices that are available to you." They dealt with it. We now have a whole group of people who think that they are entitled to whatever they want no matter who it harms. Instead of saying, "I am sorry, that choice isn't available to you," we—as a society—are going to change the laws in order to make all choices available to them. And we'll see what unintended and widely-damaging consequences result. I may be something other than a knitwear designer and author ten years from now if this legislation passes in its current form.

June 11, 2008: Assessing the Damage

This may be a bit premature, as the winter storm warning is in effect through this afternoon and we may get more snow, but this is what it looks like at 6 a.m. The great thing about June in Montana is that it is light for about 18 hours a day, so it's possible to take pictures of snowstorm damage at the crack of dawn—and what a bizarre juxtaposition that is.

Snowfall amount: 5.5 inches

My front yard:

My poor (sob!) garden:

And lastly, a very cranky hummingbird who claimed the wind chime next to the feeder as his lookout yesterday. He was there every time I looked out the window:

The poor hummingbirds do not fly very well in snowstorms, which is probably why they stayed so close to the feeders.

I think the garden may be okay. The tomatoes are protected by water walls; I feel bad for our friend around the corner who put 40 tomatoes plants (grown from seed) in his garden last week. He's sure they are pretty much toast, and getting replacement plants will be next to impossible. I am worried about the squash, even though they are also in water walls. They may just die from shock (I would). And we'll have to dig up a few peas and beans to see if the seeds are sprouting or rotting.

We've got birds all over the porch, under the porch, in the rafters of the porch . . . I am wavering about putting some food on the platform feeder for them. It'll help the birds, but Rusty will think I imported a shipment of toys for him to play with.

I really thought we were going to have a sleepless night last night; our power went out around dinner time because of a tree down on a line, and our fire department got called to a couple more downed trees. The power came back on just before midnight, though, and we didn't have to go out again. I don't think it got below freezing last night. That would have been a disaster.

I have to go to town today. We're almost out of food and the kids are worried they are going to starve (like that's ever happened before). Plus, I need yarn. Can't forget the essentials, you know.

June 10, 2008, 1:16 p.m.

Getting worse as the day goes on. I cancelled everything I had to do in town and built a fire in the fireplace. The poor hummingbirds have taken up residence on the porch and are all fluffed up and perched on whatever they can find. This is not supposed to end until late tomorrow afternoon. Send us a snowplow.

June 10, 2008, 8:30 a.m.

Because no one will believe me without a picture.

June 10, 2008: Break Out the Wool Sweaters

A big Pacific storm is heading our way and the weatherman said last night not to be surprised if we wake up to an inch of snow on the ground tomorrow morning (hmmmm—I just looked out my office window and it's snowing even as I write this). I'm wishing we had been able to leave for the east coast right after school was out because at least there it's warm. The lack of sunshine, constant rain, and the need to dress like I live near the Arctic Circle are quickly becoming very depressing. But apparently it's supposed to warm up this weekend. Let's hope, or I'll have to spend most of my waking hours under my full-spectrum light.

Here is my material for the DVD. All swatches have been organized into separate, labelled baggies so I can find them easily:

I may be a lot of things, but scatterbrained and disorganized aren't among them.

I've been struggling with the fact that I haven't had any time to design (or work on Cables 2, but that's another issue altogether). I need to keep stuff in the pipeline so I am not panicking at the last moment because I don't have enough material for an issue of the newsletter. Fortunately I have a sizeable swatch collection:

One of the advantages of a swatch collection is that when I feel like swatching, I can swatch like a madwoman and throw the completed swatches into this bin for safekeeping. Then, when I need some design ideas, I revisit the swatch collection and pull a few things out. Some ideas actually look better after marinating for a while.

I'm a little low on mens' designs for upcoming issues of the newsletter. I pulled a swatch out of the collection which will become a man's Aran, and sketched out two more ideas: a man's pullover and a man's vest. I'll farm out the Aran and the pullover to my test-knitters, and take the vest design to Ohio with me as my trip knitting. I have yarn for the vest and the Aran; I need to get yarn for the pullover today when I am at Camas Creek. Now I just need to write up the patterns before I go. I had to write my to-do list for next week and tack it to my computer monitor because I am afraid I am going to forget something important.

June 6, 2008: Taping It Will Be The Easy Part

The thing I remember most about my Knitty Gritty episode was the huge amount of prep work required. I had three weeks in which to knit the afghan, as well as each of the seven squares in various stages of completion to use as demos for the techniques. If you ask my family, they will refer to that as "the month of frozen pizza" because I did nothing besides knit every moment I was awake.

I'm deep in the midst of getting things ready for the DVD taping next week. Not only am I knitting swatches, I am making up some "slides" that will be part of each demonstration. For instance, I plan to talk about reading cable charts, so I have a large sample chart to use as a visual aid. It's fun seeing this all come together.

I still have to decide what to wear. I hope it's not raining that day, so I can get my hair to behave and not look like I have a haystack on my head. The producer and I are negotiating about makeup. I don't wear it because it makes my face (especially my eyes) itch—and I've tried every hypoallergenic makeup out there, believe me. He wants at least a little blush and lipstick on me. We'll see.

The younger one and I did some cleaning yesterday. One of the cabinets in the kitchen has always been devoted to storage of coloring books, crayons, and other art supplies. I wanted to avoid the end-of-school-year phenomenon that usually happens—that of kids coming home and just throwing all their supplies from this school year into the cabinet—so we took everything out. Most of the coloring books went into the trash, the crayons are going to our church for vacation bible school next week, and all the pens, pencils, and colored pencils got sorted into containers and labelled. I cleaned out my office and my yarn room. We still have a lot of organizing and cleaning to do, but it was a good start.

The older child has to play with the band at graduation this afternoon. The husband said that while she's doing that, we would go and pick out a lawnmower for me so I could cut the grass. It looks like it's supposed to rain for the next five days so I may not get to try it out right away (and by then the grass will probably be two feet tall). But at least I'll have one I can start by myself.

Everyone's been complaining about how cool and rainy this spring has been. Last night on the news (it was a slow news night, apparently), the lead story was an interview with "experts" who claimed that this is a normal Montana spring and we've just all forgotten what normal is like. Then the weatherman said, "This week our temps will be 15-20 degrees below average for this time of year." I said to the husband, "How can this be a "normal" Montana spring when our temps are that much below average? If it were a "normal" Montana spring our temps should be right at average."

Yesterday it never broke 55 degrees and I even built a fire in the fireplace. Think of me, all you who are sweltering in the 100+ degree temps.

June 5, 2008: So Productive

What a lovely, quiet day I had yesterday. I spent most of it working on some website stuff. It's not stuff you can see; most of it had to do with the behind-the-scenes store software. I'm just so annoyed with my local ISP, though. I use that ISP's e-mail address for the bulk of my regular e-mail, and they have the most aggressive spam filters I've ever seen. I can never seem to remember to log in every couple of days to check the spam filters because the login process is so clunky. When I do remember, like I did yesterday, I find all sorts of interesting stuff. And even when I whitelist an e-mail address, a few months later they will flag it as spam again.

Yesterday I discovered that they've been filtering messages from the company that created my store software, so I completely missed the upgrade offer for $99 that expired June 1. I sent an e-mail to the company and told them I had missed the offer and asked if they would honor it anyway. They just sent me an e-mail saying that they would! Cool.

I also printed out patterns to fill some store orders, and worked on the swatches for the DVD. We worked on a storyboard at the meeting Monday, so I have a basic outline of what I want to cover. The problem is that I keep thinking of other things I want to talk about and demonstrate. I finally made a list of all the DVDs I want to do (there are about half a dozen), which is helping me to limit the material in this one to basic cable maneuvers and helpful information. I want it to be approximately an hour long. We'll see how well my plan goes.

The light was just wonderful yesterday afternoon so I went out and took some garment photos—a few are new and a few are updated ones for existing patterns. While I was searching the edge of the woods for a good spot to hang something, I happened upon this little fellow:

This isn't the actual snake I saw—I wasn't fast enough to snap a picture. I briefly considered picking him up and moving him to the garden but he zoomed off under a log before I could put down the camera and catch him. And I was only about five feet from the veggie garden so it's possible he may find his way there anyway.

A few years ago we had a lot of grasshoppers and therefore a lot of garter snakes. It got to the point where I had to look carefully before stepping off the porch or pulling a weed out of the garden because there was a good chance I would disturb a snake. I haven't seen any the past couple of years, so I was delighted that this guy was hanging around.

If you ever run into my mother, ask her about the time I brought her a garter snake from the woods. She doesn't think they are as enchanting as I do.

Summer vacation begins for DD#2 today. The older child has to take a history final Monday morning and then she's off for the summer, too. Hooray.

June 4, 2008: We Don't Do Anything Halfway

I got home from voting yesterday and it was so pleasant out that I was struck with the urge to mow the grass. I like to mow the grass. I always have—it gets me outside and it's good exercise. And we have five acres, so I can get a lot of exercise if I want.

However, standing between me and a relaxing afternoon of grass-mowing was this:

The husband, being of German over-engineering descent, did not go to Home Depot and buy a normal lawnmower. No, he bought a Billy Goat, which blows through the lawn at an amazing rate—if you can get it started. The husband and I have ongoing conversations (okay, less like conversations and more like me ranting) about things that are designed by men, for men. I've told him often that it is my fondest wish that he have to be me for one week out of the month (and I get to pick the week) because then he would know exactly what I mean.

I'm not a wimp. I drive a one-ton (designed by a man, no doubt) truck. I camp in crummy weather. I'd like to think that if I got stuck in the wilderness for a few days, I could survive without becoming fodder for some docu-drama on the Discovery Channel (a channel which features many shows for men, about men). I cannot, however, start this lawnmower. I tried. Eventually I gave up and left a long message on his cell phone in which I sighed loudly several times.

So after dinner last night he said, "Let me show you the trick to starting this thing," and proceeded to go out to the garage to get a can of starting fluid, because apparently the choke doesn't work so well anymore. Then he told me to pull the starter cord. I did—three times—and just about dislocated my shoulder. I know better than to endanger my means of making a living, so I just shrugged my shoulders and said, "I give up." He pulled the starter cord ONCE and the thing roared to life.

He looked at me and asked, "Are you going to cut the grass?" and I said, "Nope—that urge passed about five hours ago. I'm going inside to knit." I pointed out that if he wants to take advantage of my desire to cut the grass so he doesn't have to, he really needs to make it easier for me. I'm tempted to go to Home Depot and buy my own lawnmower, one that doesn't require the strength of Hercules (and a can of starter fluid) to get it going.

So instead of cutting the grass yesterday afternoon, I came inside and communed with my yarn for a while. I was searching for the yarn I want to use to demonstrate cabling techniques on the DVD I'm taping next week. In the process I cleaned out some skeins of yarn left over from recent projects.

I don't have to go anywhere today (hallelujah!). I've cleared off my desk in anticipation of a day of working on Cables 2 and the DVD. I think it's supposed to rain (that should make the grass grow more), so I won't feel the urge to work outside.

June 3, 2008: Driving Less Is Difficult

A few weeks ago the husband and I were discussing our driving habits. He wondered if I could limit myself to two trips to town per week and I just laughed. I'd love it if that were the case, but try as I might, I can't seem to organize the schedule to make that happen. This past week is a great example:

Wednesday: I filled the truck up with a tankful of biodiesel. I was in town because DD#2 had a ballet recital at a school which was right outside the city limits, so while she was at the dress rehearsal, DD#1 and I ran some errands. We picked DD#2 up and went home to scrounge up some dinner before heading back to that same school for the performance. (Home to town is 17 miles. Home to this particular school is about 15 miles. We could have eaten dinner in town but it would have cost more than the fuel to drive home and back.)

Thursday: I drove to Whitefish (35 miles) for an appointment with my naturopath. The printer who does the newsletter is also in Whitefish, so I stopped to see if they had the newsletter done. They said it would be done Friday. I ran errands, went to the school where I played the piano for the second-grade musical, went back to town and ran more errands, came back to school to pick up DD#2, then went back to town to pick up DD#1 from her National Honor Society meeting.

Friday: I stayed home and worked for most of the day, then went to band practice at DD#2's school, after which we ran into town and picked DD#1 up from another National Honor Society event and ran back up to Whitefish to pick up the newsletters so I could get them ready to mail over the weekend.

Saturday: I drove back to town to teach at Camas Creek Yarn.

Sunday: I didn't have to drive. DD#1 drove us to church (four miles) in her truck. We're trying to rack up as much driving as possible before she takes her driver's test.

Yesterday: DD#1 asked if I could drive her to school early so she could finish a project with her lab partner (the lab partner was going to come to our house Sunday night to work on it but couldn't make it). We drove her in to town, and then I took DD#2 back to her school. I went to a meeting with the company that's making my DVD, then drove back to town to take the newsletters to the post office. While I was in town, I stopped at the salon and see if I could change my hair appointment (scheduled for this morning) to later in the week so I didn't have to drive into town again today. Lo and behold my stylist had a cancellation, so she fit me in. I was so proud of myself, thinking I had gotten all my errands done and wouldn't have to go back to town until Thursday or Friday.

Then last night at the band concert, the music teacher asked everyone to put their chairs away after the concert in preparation for today's primary voting. Aaarrrrgggghhhh. I had completely forgotten about the primary.

Do I vote at our elementary school? No, of course not—that would be too easy. We are on the eastern-most side of the district and we have to drive 15 miles over to that same school where DD#2 had her ballet recital in order to vote. This torques me every time voting rolls around. I don't understand why the district is divided up this way. So I am making the equivalent of another trip to town today in order to go and vote. It'll be time to fill up the tank again, too, although the only station selling biodiesel is clear on the west side of town. So I have to decide if I will put regular diesel in or travel the extra five miles for bio.

It'll definitely be easier to curtail driving after school is out, and DD#1 will have her license by the fall and be able to drive herself to and from school when necessary (although she knows it won't be every day). She's been really good about finding rides and organizing carpools, but sometimes—as with those National Honor Society events last week—it just doesn't work out.

In the olden days here in Montana, mothers sometimes moved all their kids into town for the school year and left the father out at the homestead. I understand the wisdom of that arrangement. While I love the spot we found for our house (and the husband could never live where there are lots of neighbors close by), I do get tired of driving. When I am driving, I am not home and when I am not home, I am not getting any work done.

June 1, 2008: Cruising to Alaska!

An Alaskan cruise has long been on my list of things I want to do. I've had feelers out about teaching on one, and this year the opportunity presented itself in the form of a Craft Cruise! What's even better is that JC Briar, that multi-talented designer and technical editor of my books and newsletter, is also teaching!

JC and I have put together a complementary slate of classes that will take your knitting to new heights while we cruise up to Alaska and back. What could be more fun? (Okay, maybe the cruise to China with Lily Chin, but I think ours will be great, too.)

The cruise is scheduled for September 2009, but I've been told that these cruises fill up fast. If you're at all interested, get over to the website and get your name on the mailing list. And if you book the cruise, please mention that you read about it here.

Alas, the husband will not be accompanying me on this cruise as he suffers from pretty severe seasickness. My father and I took him fishing in Lake Erie shortly after we were married. We were in a little boat and had gotten about a mile out when I turned around and looked at the husband and saw that he was a lovely shade of green. It was a short fishing trip.

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