Where The Magic Happens

Sketch: More Bunny Egg

2010-04-26T20:10:00.002-05:00

I've got round 1 of the materials finished.

You might notice the embroidery isn't as shiny on the new one (on your right) as the old. That's intentional. I was never quite happy with how it came out the first time. I'll work on it some more, but first I want to gamma correct the materials. Gamma Correction is the coolest discovery to hit Poserdom since MAT poses. It's absence is responsible for the infamous distinctive "Poser murk". As it turns out, a lot of the data Poser's rendering engine is outputting doesn't display correctly on a monitor. Hell of an oversight there. :P You can correct some of that in post, but what I've seen so far, having the engine do it (Poser Pro 2010) or doing it in materials gives results I like better. It's the engineer in me; I rather get good data directly than massage bad data to something workable.

Oh, the feet there? Same deal as the ears; the soles are part of the same material zone as the legs. I'm so proud of those, because that is three materials mixed together. (33 nodes, if anyone's counting. But I suspect some of those can be optimized out.)

It wasn't necessarily picked for this reason, but this project is actually a great one for learning the Matmatic compiler. It touches on tons of the main concepts. Once I finish him, I'll probably try to spend more time learning Python programming full out. I want to learn it for other reasons, and it'll only help me with the shader building.

Excited nerd sketch

2010-04-25T21:00:00.000-05:00

I'm working on rebuilding and improving the shaders* for the little Pysanky bunny-egg thing I did at Easter. So far I've got the ears.

So why am I excited about the ears? After all, they look basically the same. Well, let me do some isoteric babbling that most people won't understand. There's an important difference here. The model on the left, I remapped so that the inner ear could be a different material than the outer ear. On the model on the right, that's all done with a single shader that contains both the satin and the velvet. It takes 9 extra nodes to do it just for this relatively simple case and would be more or less insane to assemble in Poser itself.

Luckily, someone built a compiler that lets you write materials in Python code, and then translates them into Poser nodes. I'm working on learning it, and trying to learn shaders as well. It allows you to combine separate materials into a single shader fairly easily, which will be even cooler for more complex situations.

* Properly speaking, they're actually materials. Shaders are the pre-existing nodes they're built out of. But that gets confused with the laymen definition of material, which would view the satin and the velvet separately.

2010-04-04T09:03:00.005-05:00

(It's Ukrainian. I looked it up.)
(OK, I'm taking the internet's word for it that this means "Happy Easter". It could actually be something really rude for all I know.)

As an extra Easter gift, here are some "tubes" (actually PNGs with transparent backgrounds) of the little bunny egg: the above image, one with the bunny-egg sitting, and one with him standing. Enjoy!

Download Pysanky Bunny Pics

Pysanky Bunny Tubes 1 by Jinnayah is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Sketch!

2010-03-30T19:40:00.000-05:00

You sketch your way, and I'll sketch mine:

I'm working on a pysanka texture for this little guy, and these are my base materials. I especially like how the velvet has come out, but I'm worried about how to light the egg part. It is not going to take much to blow those highlights out.

Let the cursing begin.

2010-02-03T20:59:00.002-06:00

Gauge swatches are lying bastards.
I did a gauge swatch for the Wonderful Wallaby sweater I started on New Years. I did.
I think I may have done it in Magic Loop, not realizing I knit more tightly when Magic Looping than when knitting on needles normally.

In any event, my sweater that was supposed to be 43 1/2 " around the bust, about the size of the largest commercial hoody I find comfortable. It's actually going to end up 46 1/2" around the bust -- much too big.

My options are to frog an entire month's work, or work another month for a sweater that will never fit right and so rarely if ever be worn.

The choice seems obvious to me. Frogging it is. :P Suck!

While I'm at it, I think I'll change the various garter edgings to seed stitch. I like the look somewhat better.

I'm going to have to figure out how to compensate for a larger upper arm diameter, too. I want more ease there than the pattern allows.

Gosh, this is frustrating.

I think I'll frog the sleeves back to the ribbing, and do them first before redoing the body of the sweater. I'm not enjoying knitting them, so I can get it out of the way, and the ribbing is OK to a bit large already so I don't have to start completely from scratch. Mostly, but not completely.

I mentioned suck, right?

I haz a sad.

2010-01-25T18:43:00.000-06:00

The alpaca yarn I was going to knit into an Ishbel? Yeah, something about it is causing allergy-like symptoms. I'm thinking maybe I'm allergic to some of the VM in it. Whatever it is, though, I start working with it and my eyes start watering in a matter of seconds. First time I hoped was a fluke, but the second time in a completely different environment? Nope, we're talking irritant. Not gonna keep going with that

Sigh.

Guess I'll wait until my Thursday knit night, have the yarn shop wind a skein of Cascade alpaca lace I bought a while ago, and buy a size 3 needle while I'm there.

Started my Ishbel

2010-01-24T20:53:00.000-06:00

I balled up my special alpaca yarn and started my Ishbel scarf. Let me tell you, though, I was threatening to confiscate the skeiner of the person who wound that hank. Messiest skein I personally have unwound. It doesn't help that the stuff is full of sticky grabby vegetable matter, either.

When I started knitting, my eyes started to water and get that "puffed up" feeling, so I'm a little afraid I may be allergic to something about it. I doubt it's the alpaca itself -- alpaca is considered hypoallergenic -- but it may be the VM is something I'm allergic to, or something used in the processing. Or it may be throwing off dust and fuzz as I'm working, and it's more an irritation than an allergy thing. It did seem to clear up as I work, so we'll see if it gets better or if I have to bail and pass this skein on to someone else.

Suddenly developing an alpaca allergy would be utter cruelty on the part of the universe. I hate to say it, but if that were to happen, I'd go back to wool and the cat's on her own. (Well, you know, with the meds to help.)

I started this thing with US5 needles, but that was way too loose, so I switched down to 3mm (European size, between a US2 and a US3.) If you're wondering the method to my madness, those happen to be the sizes of Addi Lace needles I own. Going up a size from the 3 mm would probably be better, but not enough to wait until Thursday when I get back to the yarn shop. The 3mm is giving a pretty nice fabric and should block out OK, but I think I will be a bit below gauge even blocked. (Yes, I'm a bad girl who didn't do a gauge swatch. It's a flippin' scarf.) I was already thinking of doing the larger stockinette section from the shawl but stay with the narrower border of the scarf to get a little more size out of it.

I thought on it some more.

2010-01-23T21:42:00.001-06:00

The lace + locally produced alpaca thing. What I've gone and done is bought myself a copy of the Ishbel shawl. It seems all the time someone in one of my Ravelry groups is sharing one they've done, and I click on their thumbnail going "ooh, pretty, what's that?" and it's the Ishbel. My 540 yards should be more than enough to make a nice triangular scarf. Because it starts with a good chunk of stockinette stitch, by the time the growth function gets intimidating I'll be well committed, and even on the big size the last row isn't that big. As an extra bonus 80% of the purchase price goes to Doctors Without Borders to help in Haiti. :)

I hate it when this happens.

2010-01-22T21:20:00.000-06:00

Although I guess I hate when this doesn't happen even more.

This afternoon I was really jonesing to ball up some locally-produced alpaca laceweight I have and start a Swallowtail Shawl. So this evening I brought up the Ravelry page to see if there was an easy download location, since I'm not exactly sure where I stored my copy. And suddenly it hit me: I don't really like the Swallowtail Shawl.

Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely shawl. I just don't care for it. I'm not very fond of the leaf pattern that makes up the body, and the transitions from body to border and border to edging are a bit abrupt for my tastes.

I'm glad I realized this before knitting several tens of thousands of stitches into the thing. But, now what do I do with 540 yards of locally-produced alpaca laceweight?

Guess that'll live in the stash for a while.

I'm still kind of jonesing to knit some lace, though. But not the Alka shawl I've got started. I'm barely into it, and each row already takes 1/2 hour to do, and it's a top-down faroese so it's one of those shawls with a growth function that just gets worse and worse.

I'm thinking maybe a Frost Flowers and Leaves shawl or a Cap shawl (both Ravelry links; you'll only be able to see if you have an account, I'm afraid), but both are knit from the center out, and the Alka has me a little gun shy about those growth functions in laceweight.

I'll have to think on it some more.

For the people who claim Martha Stewart Isn't Sexist...

2009-12-25T21:28:00.000-06:00

I present exhibit A. Notice her reaction to the backhoe design and its intended recipient at 1:35 in. Rather insulting, huh? Notice at about 3:25, the way she emphasizes the pink T-shirt is for a "cute little girl". Contrast the two.

I rest my case. :P

Attention Panic-Striken Christmas-Gifting Crafters

2009-12-19T12:49:00.000-06:00

It is December 19th.

Stop for a minute. (No, I don't want to hear that you don't have time to stop; if you don't have time, you need to stop even more than most.) Take a deep breath. Now, take a look at all the knitting/crochetting/sewing/art of choice projects you are "supposed" to finish for Christmas.

Can you reasonably finish that in the next 5 days? Without risk injury yourself? Be honest. Aim low.

1) You still have time to buy something.

If you can't afford to buy something, you have time to make "gift certificates" for those projects, to be redeemed in a more reasonable timeframe. Christmas is a nice holiday, but it is not worth injuring yourself (or your sanity) over.

2) Look at all you've got finished, and all you have no chance of finishing. What you've got finished or can reasonably finish in the next few days ("reasonably" means without staying up to 3 AM one or more nights and pushing on through pain) is your crafting capacity for Christmas. I want you to remember this for next year. Next year, either start earlier or keep your projects below your crafting capacity. (I vote for number 2.)

Also, if you need permission, it really is OK to give people storebought gifts or giftcards instead of making something. Even if your gifts would be small. Be honest with yourself. The person you're injuring yourself for, if two items were on a table, would they chose your handmade creation or a gift card to their favorite place in the amount that the supplies cost you? If the answer is "gift card", for love of God, self, and recipient, just give them the gift card!

3) Remember, you do this for fun. In the future, do what it takes to keep it fun, even if it means someone gets a $5 Amazon gift cert.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled panic.

Willpower Recovery Rolls - I botch them

2009-11-24T17:41:00.000-06:00

The vacation sewing is not going according to plan. At all.

About a week and a half ago, I bought a brand new super awesome sewing machine with buttloads of decorative stitches. Have you ever looked at a sewing machine and gone "who actually uses all those embroidery stitches?" It's me. I'm the one who uses them. I like crazy quilting. I don't like embroidering over the seamlines by hand, though. So I use the machine for the seamlines and then do hand (or in the future perhaps free motion) embroidery in the patches where it's fun.

So, I buy this awesome brand new machine a week before my vacation, and I bring it home, and... it doesn't zigzag properly. So then there's a big fiasco with a snotty and insulting salesperson at the store until I finally got around her and got the owner/technical person to look at it, and he agrees the machine isn't all it ought to be. Most people wouldn't notice, but most people don't use every single stitch their machine has to offer either, and I more or less do. So he's going to replace it, but because of the holiday, the new machines won't be in until next week.

I do have another machine to do the straight stitching with, so I've assembled the crazy quilt piece big enough to ultimately turn into a fat quarter project bag with full lining. It's all ready to be attached to the foundation fabric with decorative stitches -- but unfortunately, the machine with the decorative stitches is not here. (The owner did offer to let me borrow the one he'd worked on, which is now in "good enough that most people wouldn't notice but you do" territory, but I didn't really want to be schlepping a 30 lb machine back and forth.) So that's on hold -- although on the up side, when I do get the new machine, I've got the perfect project to run it through its paces with.

OK, no worries. A few weeks ago in a fit of passion I bought a ruffler which fits the old machine. I was planning to use it for doll clothes. I even have fabric to make a circle skirt with tiered ruffles for Rose that I never got around to because I wasn't up to ruffling so much fabric by hand. So I put it on my Old Trusty, and pull out the instructions from Youcanmakethis.com.

Now, typically when you're doing a not-insane ruffle, you want to original fabric to be 1.5 to 2 times longer than the finished ruffle turns out to be. The youcanmakethis.com instructions start you with the minimum your ruffler will reliably do, and then show you how to tweak your settings upward until you get to 2. So I get started, I find where it just starts to ruffle and DAMN. The things goes from nothing to insane immediately. I take the measurement, and with the minimum ruffle depth and a 2.5 stitch length, the ratio is 3.3 -- way above where I want to end up. Making the stitch as long as the machine can handle will just get me down to a skosh over 2.0.

From past experience I know that the circle skirts with tiers look better around a 1.5 to 1.75. When you're doing multiple tiers, that exponential growth catches up to you fast. But now I'm out of levers to pull. (Well, I can do a deeper pleat every 6 stitches, but that doesn't look the same as the gathered look you get with a very shallow pleat every 1 stitch).

I guess when you pay $15 for an accessory that usually starts at $40, you kind of expect this. So, if anyone was considering the Inspira ruffler because it's too cheap to resist, warning: you're getting what you pay for.

It works OK as a pleater. I could do some cute pleated sailor skirts if I wanted to. Or if I get really desperate, I can pull out the old Izek and use it, since it has a longer top stitch length. I don't really want to keep the Izek around indefinitely, though. I have a gathering foot around here somewhere, too, so maybe I'll give that a go.

This ruffler won't work on the new machine anyway, assuming the new new machine works out. If the assumption is correct, I may see if I can get that brand's ruffler for it before Christmas, and use it over my next vacation.

From the Department of "You've Got To Be Kidding Me."

2009-10-17T11:27:00.000-05:00

Floss storage. There are dozens of ways to store embroidery floss out there, and for each one there's someone who claims it's the One True Way.

Myself, I've liked bobbins since the first time the local Big Box carried Anchor floss already wound onto a bobbin. Sure, winding can be a pain, but once you're done you've got your floss on this little easy to store, easy to sort piece of cardboard. The floss isn't going to tangle and it's easy to wind off the amount you need.

Some of the other methods look promising, but they all use some sort of plastic. I'm trying to reduce my consumption of plastic. I won't pretend I can eliminate all plastic, but you know, the less you use, the better.

So this is where we come to the "you've got to be kidding me" part: plastic floss bobbin. WTF?
Someone needs to explain this to me, because it makes no sense. They're more than twice as expensive. They take up more space than the cardboard ones. You can't write the numbers on them except with a Sharpie marker. And of course, most plastic never goes away. It can break down into a state that's no longer useful, but it doesn't break down into something that normal biological processes can use. You just get tinier and more useless particles of plastic.

Is it an archival thing? Because I'm thinking the cardboard ones could be made of acid-free lignin-free material and still be cheaper, and frankly, your basic "hi, I'm a cheap plastic" isn't archival either. Outgassing and breaking down and stuff.

Is it stiffness? Because using two of the cardboard bobbins is still cheaper than one of the plastic, and again, I'm thinking using a thicker cardboard would still be cheaper than the plastic.

These are the only reasons I can think of to use the plastic bobbins instead of cardboard. Yet of the three big craft stores in town, only one carries the cardboard. I was afraid I was going to have to special order some.

I do not get it.

Cross Stitch: Is the Laying Tool Worth It?

2009-10-16T19:23:00.000-05:00

That's what I'm trying to decide right now. I've been working on the Evil Tiger Cross Stitch of Doom. It's one of those projects that I pull out whenever I get into cross stitch, and I work on it for a few weeks until I get so frustrated that I shove it back in the bag until the next cross stitch phase. (The chart isn't well designed, in my opinion.)

I got myself a stand for help with the big projects. Now, I'm short overall (and thus have short arms), and I'm extremely short-waisted proportion-wise on top of that, and I stitch sitting back on the couch. Each of these makes a frame a bit of a difficult decision, so finding a stand that suits me with all of them is a tricky proposal. Add to it that I don't have a local needlework shop, means I basically have to buy to try, and most needlework frames aren't cheap.
That said, I think I got about 80% positive on my first try, and I don't expect that I could get much better.

So, I'm working on the Evil Tiger Cross Stitch of Doom with a stand. This piece is 3 strands on 14-count Aida cloth, so the stitching is pretty dense. Three strands mean it isn't really suitable for railroading. To be honest, I'm somewhat dubious about railroading in general, although I do use it on pieces when I'm doing 2 strands and working in-hand. It seems to affect the amount of twist in the individual plies, though, and that's not easy to correct.

So, I've been using a laying tool (OK, a hair stick) with the Evil Tiger Cross Stitch of Doom, and I will absolutely admit that it makes the individual stitches look better. It also makes the work progress at a speed usually only seen in tectonic plate movements. If I'm getting even a hundred stitches an hour I'd be shocked, and when you're doing a piece with more than 30,000 stitches... That isn't pretty math.

I got kind of fed up this evening, put the laying tool down and started doing the work two-handed since I am working in a stand. Whoo! Much faster! We're at least up to glacial speed here. Of course, the individual stitches don't always look as nice. But it occurs to me, there's this thing called "gallery distance". Gallery distance is the distance from which an object is meant to be viewed, and in fine arts should at least theoretically be kept in mind when working details. Details that are too coarse for their gallery distance appear rough, and details that are too fine can't be seen.

This thing I'm working on is a 10" by 28" picture. It is intended to go on a wall. Its "gallery distance" is between 2 and 15 feet. Individual stitches are most assuredly in the "too fine to be seen" category; hell, I'm still thinking I should get a magnifier to be making them. Now, there will be a difference in how light reflects off stitches depending on whether they are laid or not, and that may cause a difference at the gallery distance. But if I'm observant and careful to untwist my floss when the stitches start to twist, I'm thinking that's not enough difference to be worth my sanity.

I would feel differently if I were entering competitions, but I'm not. I do this for fun, and I can't have fun while being the level of anal required to win a dedicated cross stitch competition. (Besides, competitions require that there be no pet hair, and that ain't happening in this house. I do my best, but cat hairs are sneaky.)

In any event, I've got a trolley needle and a Best Laying Tool coming to me, so when they arrive I'll give them a try and see what I like. The trolley needle in particular may get a "best of both worlds" going where I can do two-handed stitching without as much slow-down. If not, gallery distance. And the fact that I do this for fun, not for other people.

OMG Squee!

2009-10-08T21:15:00.000-05:00

Hansi Singh has a book!

Hansi Singh is the mastermind behind Hansigurumi and hands down the best pattern writer in modern knitting. I've done her squid and started her octopus, and you absolutely can not beat her for creativity or for completeness. She documents the hell out of how to make her stuff. I really can't say enough good things about the way she writes her patterns.

And she's got a book out! Amigurumi Knits! Brand new. The knitting store just got it in today, and they don't have it anymore, because I bought it. (Well, hopefully they have more copies.)

I'm super glad I stayed late, because I hadn't seen it on the table earlier. I'm not sure if Lynn or someone brought it over to look at or if Deb had set it out for perusing, but I look down and I see a book with Hansigurumi's octopus on the cover. Oh hey, she must have contributed to a book. Wait, that's her praying mantis. And her hermit crab. Oh, she's the author; it's all her stuff. *snatch*

There's tons of stuff in here I've wanted to do, but couldn't really justify buying the individual patterns for until I was ready to make them. The mantis, the hermit crab, the Loch Ness monster, the jackalope, and several more. But to have a whole book of them right there in front of my face and in my hot little hand... Yarn stores are dangerous. It HAD to come home with me.

Now, flipping through the book I can see that not all of the photos in the stand-alone patterns were put into the book, but it looks to me like the most crucial are. The mantis especially has tons. So if you're a knitter and you like awesome toys, go buy this. I'm sure you will not be disappointed. And she's got even more in her Etsy store.

Hee, how fun!

2009-10-07T20:51:00.001-05:00

I ordered The Best of Teresa Wentzler Fantasy Collection, Vol. 2 and it arrived today. I'm so excited. I want to do The Storyteller. Or maybe The Guardian. Or maybe start a little smaller with Above the Clouds, which is sort of a smaller and easier-to-acquire version of The Castle to my eyes.

Are y'all seeing a theme here?

I don't plan to start a new big project for a couple/three months yet. November's NaNoWriMo, and I intend to take a go at it (with a "can bail without shame" disclaimer), which may not leave much project time or energy. Also, I've never worked cross stitch on even weave, so I'm thinking of starting small. My plan is to get some next time I'm out shopping (I know Hobby Lobby carries it if Michael's doesn't) and do a few Christmas ornaments for practice. And I do need more Christmas ornaments; I still don't have very many.

But, one of these would be great to start the New Year with. I can buy/order the supplies as a Christmas present to myself.

Blog Division

2009-10-04T19:30:00.000-05:00

Some of you may have noticed that some entries have disappeared. I've decided to break this blog up into three seperate ones, based on topic.

This one here will be dedicated to my hobbies, mostly various forms of handicraft (although occassional collections may slip in as well). Hopefully I can think of a better name for it. :)

A Fine Line is dedicated to fiction. This is where I will have my movie and book reviews, and also talk about my own writing and events like Nanowrimo.

And finally, Fire and Spice will be for my socio-political writings.

Hope I haven't messed your bookmarks up too much.

This Week In WIPs.

2009-10-04T19:24:00.001-05:00

I thought it would be fun to show the projects I've worked on this week. So, in no particular order...

First up, a ginormous cross stitch of a mama tiger and a few cubs. Ultimately it will by 10" by 28" and look like this:

You can see I've got a long way to go. I didn't do all that this week, either. I started this thing way back maybe even in college, and I usually work on it for a few weeks, get fed up with it and shove it away somewhere for a few years before going at it again. It's been excruciately slow. I hope it speeds up a bit once I'm not having to sort through floss and add several new colors a row, but I think it's always going to be slow.

This time around I'm using the parking method. I was so excited when I found out about this method. "Oh wow, you mean the cross stitch police won't come after me if I do this?! Yay!" When I was taught to cross stitch, that way was verboten, but it's very logical to me. I think it's come about because computer use in cross stitch design has resulted in a large number of modern patterns that are beautiful, but not what I would call well-designed. I'll go into what I consider a well-designed pattern in a later entry. For now, though, this one is not terribly well designed IMHO.

Also cross-stitching is this little kimono card.

Also started long ago and picked up again. This little guy is living in my bed to work on while waiting for appointments and what not. Since I have a kimono hanging on my wall, I am regularly laughing my ass off at how completely not accurate that silouhette is. But at the same time, the actually outline of a kimono hanging with the side panels spread wouldn't translate well to cross stitch, so I can maybe forgive it. Although they could have been a little less extreme in the wrongness.

Also worked on a piece of crazy quilting:

I need to put the cross stitch down and work on this a bit more. The size of the tracing paper transfer isn't much smaller than the hoop, so I can't really take the hoop off between stitching. I don't want to leave it on indefinitely, though, because it can distort the fabric.

This is part of a piece that's going to be made into a duffle bag. The white basting you can see is lining out approximate cutting lines and where the straps will be. This are blocks that were originally intended for a coverlet back before I had a queen-sized bed, and now I'm trying to use them in other ways. Another week maybe I'll think to lay it out on the floor and take a picture of the whole thing.

And of course, there is the infamous Spiderman blanket:

Growth functions suck. You can see I'm really far along on this. I only have to do two more wide stripes, one in blue and one in red. The problem? Thanks to the growth function, on a stitch-count basis this is only about halfway done. I still have 46% of this bastard to finish. :P
It's TV and social knitting. Luckily it's a super-simple pattern; I hardly have to look at it.

Ack, I'm going blind!

2009-10-02T20:27:00.004-05:00

I am in the midst of a Hobby Hop.

I have a tendency to dedicate myself to a craft almost exclusively for a period of time ranging from a couple of months to a couple of years, and then switch with almost no warning. The "no warning" bit is actually rather annoying, because I have a bad habit of buying the materials for the next 5 projects or so, and then they don't happen. They usually don't happen on the next round, either, because they no longer interest me.

Well, it appears that knitting is swiftly being relegated to a social and movie-watching activity while crazy-quilting and cross stitch duke it out for new art-of-choice. Cross stitching appears to be winning. This is actually kind of unfortunate, because I have a plethora of crazy quilting materials and a use for the finished objects, whereas cross stitching just sorts of sits there being a picture.

Then again, I have wall space. Pictures are nice.

So anyway, I pull out this little cross stitch kit intended to be made into a greeting card (like I'm going to send that many hours of work to someone as a throw-away card. Pfph.) that I'd started during the last cross stitch round years ago and not gotten far on, and OMG! The stitches are so small! Were they always this small? Gosh, I'm getting old!

Actually, perceptually they weren't always that small. When I first started the project, I was wearing glasses with a weaker prescription. I love my contact lenses, but the convenience and improved distance vision comes at the price of near objects appearing smaller. Not blurry, just smaller. When I could only wear them for 10-to-12 hours a day I just gave up trying to estimate sizes of anything ever, because size perception between my glasses and contacts was just too different. Now that I can wear contacts all the time, I'm getting better at guesstimating sizes again, but yes, the this project does appear smaller, and it has little to do with me getting old.

So, that feeling that you're old when you're actually not? When you've got more than half your expected lifespan left, it's just that for the first time in your life, music you listened to when it was released is now on the oldies stations and childhood toys are now collector's items and clothing styles you've worn before are back in fashion? When does that feeling stop? When does it actually get into the deep part of your brain that this is normal adulthood and not "old", and the 'everything is new' was actually part of being really terribly young?

Because academically I know I'm not old; I've hardly started. But the deep down part doesn't always listen. I'd like it to get on the bandwagon and stop the whining, please.

Barring that, you kids get off my lawn. ^_~

If you didn't know better...

2009-09-28T18:52:00.003-05:00

I am culling my library pretty hard and getting rid of the books that no longer delight me. As I go through I'm realizing that if you didn't know me and you looked at my shelves, you might think that I am a quilter.

More accurately, you might look at my discard box and think I was a quilter. That would be closer to the truth, but only slightly.

I did dabble with quilting briefly in and shortly after college. I even got so far as to finish one quilt top, get it basted (using three different techniques in a vain effort to find one that didn't make me want to hang myself with a spool of quilting thread) and started tying it as I had no room for a quilting frame. The kitties thought that its presence in my wicker project basket transformed both into a marvelous cat bed, and so it has remained ever since, half the safety pins and basting still in place. Binding was right out.
I don't mind a bit, because they love it more than any human ever would. It is still the sleeping spot; Bunny's in it right now this second.

That was the closest I ever came to completing a traditional patchwork quilt project.

The truth of the matter is, I love the look of a well-executed quilt. Particularly the tessellating ones like Snail's Trail or Milky Way. Absolutely beautiful. I admire the people who make them, because they require a great deal of planning and precision, and I do not have the aptitude to do that.
Actually, I suppose I do have aptitude for planning and precision, but the 40+ hours a week I get paid for it pretty much empties the storehouse. A quilt like that isn't fun for me to make. The truth is, part of the reason I have so many quilting books is that on some level I was convinced if I just looked enough, I would find a method that would make quilt-making not painful.

Didn't work so good.

I need to find a quilter who wants some large handknits done, so we can trade. They can make me a Snail's Trail and the paper-pieced Pegasus quilt I have a pattern for, and I'll knit them a couple of sweaters. We'll each pay for the materials for the projects we're getting back, and the labor will even out. And we each get to do a hobby we love on someone else's dime, kinda.

So anyway, most of the quilting books are going. Not all, though. I do crazy quilting, and some techniques, especially applique, still work. (And some of the stuff like in Fantastic Fabric Folding I will make work, because it's just too cool not to.)

Just a random thought

2009-09-10T15:52:00.005-05:00

I wonder: how well would beadwoven bookmark made of seed beads work? Would it be too thick, or would it be OK? I'm almost sure Delicas would work fine if the normal Czech beads don't. I know they're supposed to be the same size (11/0), but they're not. They're so not.

I'm going through my craft magazines and culling pretty hard, and the beadwork magazines are getting hit the hardest. Some of them have patterns for loom woven or peyote stitch bracelets. I don't wear bracelets, but I do use bookmarks. I'm just wondering how they'd port over.

That is some successful marketing

2009-08-01T15:08:00.003-05:00

Just recently (i.e. in the last week), I thought I might try my hand at scrapbooking. I know, I know, that was the hot thing like 5 years ago. There's a story there, but it's a sad story (actually, it's the sad story), so I'd rather not go into it. However, I've always been a photo person and a diary person, so it seems like a logical thing for me to get in to.

I've decided to do most of the work digitally and have it printed, and then maybe occasionally adding some physical embellishments later. There are a number of reasons for this: I've done quite a bit of computer graphics hobby work before, I've got the equipment I need already, cost is lower, and so on. However, I think a lot of the advantage can be summed up by two words: "undo button."

So basically all I needed was an album or two, and as it turned out the local craft stores were having big sales on scrapbooking items this week. (I have had several such incidents of synchronicity in the last year, especially when I most need one. It's been very cool, and very appreciated.)

What amazes me is just how much stuff there is for physical scrapbooking. There's albums and papers and cardstock and punches and letters and quotes and geegaws and... stuff. Lots and lots of stuff.

Which makes me glad that all I needed was an album or two (OK, I got two, different sizes), because this could very ea$ily turn very dangerou$ very fa$t.

It amazes me that there's still such a market for the physical supplies, because I would expect a lot more people to be doing layouts digitally. After all, I think most people have digital cameras these days, and the more photos you take, the more likely you are be digital because film and developing are expensive. I look 93 photos at the zoo on Monday -- small local zoo and I don't have kids (but one of the giraffes was positively playful that day, so I got buttloads of him running around and goofing off). That would have been 4 rolls of film (24 exposure) at $2 a pop, plus developing and prints at $3 a roll (if I mail them off). That would have been at least $20. Or, more accurately, that would have been 69 photos that wouldn't have been taken.

So, most people are digital these days, especially if they are non-professionals who take a lot of photos, like scrapbookers. You're already on the computer. Why not do it all there? You've got all sorts of tools, you've got an undo button, there are tons of free papers and embellishments out there or you can even scan the ones you already have. (Ignoring the intellectual property issues, because I don't even know where that lies in scrapbooking. If EVER there was a fuzzy line around "fair use", scrapbooking has got to have it.) You never run out of supplies, and you never have to worry about a toddler glueing herself to what would have been your latest project. If you want to share with another family member, you just print out an extra copy.

Of course, I suppose I am looking at it like an engineer, aren't I? After all, scrapbooking get-togethers wouldn't be so much fun if everyone just brought a laptop. Also, a lot of people are very tactile. They just don't connect through a computer the way they do to physical paper and photos. I admire their abilities to be precise and flexible with their supplies, because I'll admit I get balled up trying to scrapbook physically.
And, there are a lot of people who think they can't "do" computers. Some of them will even tell you that they can't do computer while they are in the midst of correct photo red-eye, cropping out the messed up bits of a photo, and then correcting the exposure. *shrugs*

Still, I think there must have been some good marketing behind all the scrapbooking stuff out there. And maybe an "ooh, shiny" factor, too. :)

Official Knitting Fail

2009-05-06T19:50:00.005-05:00

So, as I talked about a few posts ago, I started a 1/3 scale shawl with the, as it turns out, massive amount of laceweight I have that wasn't suitable for the intended project. (I thought I had three skeins. Turns out I had 10.)

This is not the knitting fail, but I very quickly discovered that triangular shawls have the same problem that circular shawls have and then some. They, of course, have a significant growth function, starting with just a few stitches per row and ending with a few hundred per row. This makes them prone to project slog. But on top of that, half of those rows are (dun dun dun) purling. I don't have an epic hatred of purling, but it is a little slower, and takes about twice the finger movement for me, so I rather avoid it.
That's not the knitting fail.

This is the knitting fail. My cat Malcolm (the tuxedo, and only boy) was on my lap while I was knitting, being surprisingly well behaved. He got bored. So JUST as I was about to finish the first motif on this shawl, in the middle of the final row of it, he stands up and jumps off my lap with tail held proudly in the air -- directly behind the knitting, in perfectly alignment with the small gap between the needles while I was working. Hits right where there is no needle to resist, and pulls the project half off them. Of course, I'm working with alpaca, so those stitches immediately make a run for the cast-on with no way to pick them up, and there's nothing I can do except rip out the whole shawl beginning.

Ouch.

At least I learned that when there were 9 and a 1/2 rows, not several hundred and just short of putting in a lifeline.
He doesn't get to sit on my lap while I'm doing lace any more.

Cue the Dammit Chorus

2009-05-04T16:35:00.004-05:00

Middle of last month, I ordered 21 skeins of cotton yarn: 20 to make myself a Wonderful Wallaby Sweater, and 1 for swatching.
Got a ship notice.
Shipping company never updated that they'd gotten the package.
Waited a reasonable time, then contacted them asking for a status update.
Package is MIA. They will start a trace, but in the meantime, they'll put together a replacement.
Problem: They only have 19 skeins of that yarn left. Discontinued colorway, not getting any more.

I told them to go ahead and send it. It's a very good price and I'm sure I can find something to use it with. But I just don't think there's enough for the Wallaby. Maybe if it were wool, but cotton I have to wash a swatch to see how much it shrinks, and once it's shrunk I can't frog the yarn and use it to finish the project made of otherwise not-already-shrunk cotton. Even if I had enough, I'd be just squeaking in, and I wouldn't be sure until I was done. I wouldn't be happy with leaving off the hood, and pouch is knit in and can't really be removed later to unravel for the hoodie.
Nope, I just don't think it'll work.

I wonder how well it cables. There might be enough there for a Corona.
And now I'm back to square one on the Wallaby. :P

Let's Talk Lace Knitting

2009-05-02T21:15:00.006-05:00

1. I'm glad to say I did a little more on my Juno Regina weekend before last. This is a good sign, because it means for at least a few days my stress level had lightened enough that I felt up to lace knitting rather than nearly-brainless blankets in the round.

The thing is, I'm just not feeling it any more. I know it's a odd. When I started it, I was so excited about it, and so eager to start, and it was going to be so awesome. Now I look at pictures of the finished stole, and they just kind of look boring to me.

For my own project, I've reached the widest point of the diamond and it's not as wide as I wanted the stole to be. And honestly, I look at the vast expanse of flat stockinette with the occasional YO K2tog, and part of me just cringes in anticipation of the boredom.

I think I'm going to put it on waste yarn, take the needles out, and pack it up completely for a few months. I don't have any projects I want the yarn for right now. Although honestly, even if the love comes back, I think I'll want to start over with a somewhat heavier yarn, more of a heavy lace or light fingering than the thin Alpaca with a Twist Fino. It's beautiful stuff; I'm just wanting a larger piece.

2) Me, and my thing with mystery shawl knit-a-longs. If I'm really honest, the shawls that come out of them usually strike my tastes somewhere between "Meh" and "eww!" That's not to say anything bad about the designs or the designers, not at all. It's just that mystery shawl designs tend to have certain design elements that I don't care for, such as pictorial motifs done in yarn-overs on a stockinette background, or a visible periodic nature -- not necessarily a hard break between clues, but shifts were you can tell where each clue was.

And yet when I find one while it's still open, I feel compelled to sign up for it. I've at least gotten to the point where I don't feel obligated to knit it until enough clues have come out that I can tell if I like the design. (One bad burn took care of that, methinks.) But I'm still there. I think it's that fear of missing out. What if this is the one that turns out awesome and just perfect for me and I missed it? That part of my brain doesn't want to listen to the answer "Then you plunk down $8 at the end when the pattern goes on sale." After all, if it was that awesome and perfect for me, odds are I'd buy the pattern at the end of the knit-along anyway to thank/reward the designer for making it.

Oh well, at least adding another group onto my Yahoo account is harmless.

3) I am dubious about triangular shawls.

But, before I get into that, let me get into a needlessly technical discussion about the nature and function of shawls with far more thought than anyone sane has ever put into the topic. Why? Because I'm an engineer, and as scary as this is, my brain actually works this way.

Now, there are two schools of thought on what a shawl is for. One school is that it is to warm your arms, much like a light sweater, while another is that it is to keep your shoulders warm, like a vest. To complicate matters, it's not unreasonable, and yet not a given, to argue that keeping your shoulders warm keeps your arms warm in the same way that fingerless gloves really do keep your fingers warm by warming the pulse point. (I was dubious about that, too, but experiment has shown me that it does indeed work. I wouldn't have a snowball fight with only fingerless gloves, but they're quite nice in a cold office or on a brisk fall day.) However, as the shoulders are much larger than wrists, and not wrapped by a shawl as completely as a wrist is by fingerless gloves, I am unconvinced.

So personally, I'm in the shawl-to-warm-arms camp, and a triangular shawl doesn't seem like a good way to do this. The most common shape is a right-angle triangle with the hypotenous at the top edge and the right-angle point hanging down towards your butt.

Actually, I'm going to take an aside here. A lot of women don't like triangular shawls because they feel the point forms an arrow pointing to their hinder. However, that's not my experience. At least the way I perceive things, the point is more of a container that holds the eye and keeps it away from the butt. The eye follows the point down, hits the bottom, and then is drawn outwards by the border or pattern.
But that's just me.

Anyway, we've got a right triangle, with the right angle pointing at your butt, and then the narrower points are brought around to the front. This usually means that the part of the shawl covering your arms is roughly half as long the distance from hypotenuse to point (varying on the size of the lady and the shawl). This is not enough cover on my arms for me, especially since triangular shawls are often made so that the hypotenuse length matches wingspan. Make it large enough for adequate arm coverage, and there's tons of material in the back that serves little purpose except to get sat upon. Extra unused material = wasted work.

And yet some of the patterns are so pretty.

A popular construction for triangular shawls right now is this: Still imagine your right triangle with the hypotenuse at the top. Now, draw a straight line from the bottom point to the middle of the hypotenuse, so that you have two right triangles next to each other, with the right angles at the middle and top. The shawls are laid out like that, start at the center top with a few stitches to start the right angles, and then increase outwards to build the two adjoining right triangles.

So, I'm thinking of ways to alter the patterns to get more arm coverage. An obvious one is to just double it and make a square shawl with 4 component triangles. And that's certainly valid. Ironically there, though, a solid square shawl is usually folded in half and worn as a triangle.
However, you can put a split in it so it is worn like a cape. Put it between two triangles, and you'll get something shaped like a poncho, only with an opening in the front -- so consider yourself forewarned. ;) Or, I have some patterns in my queue that are build like this, but have the slit from the center to the middle of one of the square sides. It takes a little (just a little) more work to locate that, but avoids the poncho look.

The other idea I've considered is three component triangles instead of the usual two, which forms a shape like a square with one side removed. It almost looks like a sailor collar laid flat, or a faroese shawl on steroids (or maybe just LSD ^_~ ). I don't know how this would lay when worn, though.

Then another possibility is to put a wedge of material between the two triangles to form a sort of mock Faroese shaping. This is probably the most design work, and isn't suitable for all patterns. But, on some you could do some very nifty things with the back panel. For instance, putting a dragon silhouette in yarn-overs on a panel added to a Dragon Wings shawl.

Now, I've got some lace yarn laying around that I ordered for a project, but found when it arrived that it was unsuitable. I'm thinking of balling up a hank of that, and doing some doll-sized shawls to study the trade-offs of the various shapes that can be done with a triangular shawl pattern. That may seem excessively anal (and I don't think I'm prepared to deny that), but at the same time, when you consider all the nice triangular patterns out there and all the time that goes into a human-sized shawl. Well, it'd be nice to open up my possibilities and yet know beforehand how much work I need to add. Two-foot shawls are a lot faster than 5-foot ones.

Adventures in Katidom

2009-05-02T16:31:00.005-05:00

I went on a little road trip today. Today was the Illinois Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association's annual Alpacafest.

First, feel free to sit in surprise with me that there are enough alpaca owners and breeders in Illinois for there to be an association.

OK, anyway. The Alpacafest was held in East Peoria in previous years, but lost their venue, so this year they were an hour+ north in Princeton.
I'm not a "small town" kind of person, but I have to give some respect to any place that has a tattoo parlor named "Torrid Tattoos."

I've never been to the Alpacafest, but the fibery people in my life spoke rather gleefully about it, and I need to get out of the basement more, so I went up with not much idea of what to expect. It's a fairly small show: two buildings of I'd guess 1000 sq ft each of animals waiting to be judged, and another building with half a dozen or so vendors.

Alpacas are smaller than I realized. Most of them were about waist/ribcage high on me at the shoulders and as tall as me at the head -- and I'm right at 5', and short waisted. So about 3 feet at the shoulders and 5' at head. The nice lady who sold me toys told me they usually weigh around 160 lbs. I'll confess to jokingly thinking "a girl could just about hide one of those in her basement."

Seriously, it's one of those shows that makes you go "I wanna be an alpaca farmer!" Until you see someone sweeping alpaca poop, and then you think "On second thought, you be the alpaca farmer. I'll just pet your critters and buy some fleece."

No one told me that alpacas make the cutest noise! It's this squeaky whiney cooing thing. It's cute, especially coming from a critter this size.

And of course, I bought things.

That's 500 yds of laceweight alpaca yarn (enough for a basic shawl), 4 oz of cria roving (baby alpaca. It's soooo soft!), and a teddy bear made from alpaca. The bear isn't squishable, but it is really terribly pettable. The fur is so soft, you'll pick it up and not want to put it back down.

I got a chuckle out of the vendor with the roving and bear with one of my usual mannerisms. Said I wanted 4 oz of roving, and "one of the bears wants to come home with me".
I also do enjoy a show where when you walk up to one vendor carrying bags from another, they go "ooh, where'd you get that?" in a yummy voice.

If the Alpacafest is back around Peoria next year, I'll definitely go again, but I'll probably skip it if its in Princeton again. It was fun, but as I said, small. I only spent about an hour there, and spent more than twice that on the driving.

On the way back, I went through Chillicothe, and along the road saw a sign for an antique store that said "Big sale today". I'm not the type who stops in every antique store along the way, but I do enjoy them. They sell me fountain pens cheap. So I found somewhere in town to get lunch, then went back to it.
It was one of those places that isn't really so much an antique store, as the stash of a packrat who justifies their collecting by claiming it's a store. Very packed with everything to really old unopened soda bottles/cans (seriously, Coke in the old bottles, some M.A.S.H. Beer), to a Gameboy that was running around there. No prices on anything, and the owner absolutely talked my ear off. No fountain pens, either, but I did find some pirns with yarn on them, and a miniature spinning wheel.

Everything spins that's supposed to on the wheel. Just add a little driveband, and it'll actually work. Well, technically; you don't have a whole lot of capacity on the spindle there.
And, all of that there was $5. If I'd known he only wanted $1 each for the pirns, I might have cleaned him out. Not that I have any idea what to do with the things, but they're kind of cool.

Oh, it just hit me that most people don't know what the hell a pirn is. It's used in weaving to hold the thread in the shuttle that makes the weft (cross threads). Handweavers often use them, but I understand a lot of modern weaving mills no longer do (although they're still common in less developed countries). They end up in antique shops or eBay when mills close shop or upgrade, and often they still have the yarn on them.

So, that was my day. :)

Design decisions

2009-04-10T12:28:00.003-05:00

I'm working along on my Ondas blanket, which I've renamed "kitty crack" for it's feline attraction due to the yarn and all the stitch markers. And I think I'm pushing my luck on whether I'll have enough of the green yarn for it. If I can make it to row 27, I'm probably OK as long as none of the other skeins are shorter. But I'm just not convinced that's going to happen. And on top of that, oops, the LYS doesn't carry this color after all.

Now, I could probably buy an extra skein or two off another Raveler. But where's the fun in that. The LYS does carry a blue colorway I thought would work with it, so I got a couple of skeins of that just in case, since if I need them, I'll need them before next Knit Night. Pic:

I probably wouldn't have bought the two colors together for this, since the green is to the yellow side and the blue is quite blue. But I don't think it'll look bad. Sort of a "grassy bank to a river/lake/pond" kind of thing.

I've thought of several ways I could put the blue in, but what I'm liking most right now is this: The green skeins don't match each other. Normally one would alternate rows to blend them together to avoid color jumps, but when I thought I would use just the green, I intentionally didn't do it so I'd get some subtle stripes -- which I think would look nice in this pattern. So now I'm thinking a narrow stripe of the blue between each skein of the green. That'll be three blue stripes, and four green. The farther out to the edge of the blanket I get, the narrower the green will be due to the joys of growth functions. (Each row is an average of 4 stitches larger than the last. So the outermost rows suck up a LOT more yarn than the inside ones.) Then when I finish the last green stripe, I'll do a wider band of the blue, and maybe end with the Wave Edging from Walker's second stitch treasury (which happened to arrive earlier this week). And maybe I'll lop off that outermost row of eyelets on the edging.

The edging is still up in the air. It maybe be a little too much, in which case I would do either a simpler edging, or the garter band the pattern calls for. Either way, I'm going for that 'grassy bank' look.

If I have blue yarn left over, I really do think it would make a nice hat.

That there be a finished object.

2009-04-08T17:41:00.005-05:00

The Strawberry Pie shawl is off the blocking pads and ready to show on backgrounds that won't strike you blind.

On the back of my couch:

It really would look nice there permanently, wouldn't it?

Full view of the circle:

And a modeled pic:

Me and the camera timer, we're not such good friends. But hey, I'm doin' what I can.

Unfortunately, the yarn went kind of... stringy feeling when I blocked it, I guess because it was stretched so hard in the process. It's a shame, because it was wonderfully soft and snuggly while I was working on it. I would absolutely use the Elann Baby Silk again, but not on something that's blocked so hard.

Ondas Update

2009-04-07T20:11:00.004-05:00

I'm moving along on my Ondas blanket. The center set-up is finished, and I'm ready to start on the lace-y part. I have a feeling I'm going to have to buy more yarn, though. I definitely will if I want to make it Kati-sized rather than baby sized, but I think I may need another skein or two just to finish the pattern as written. Luckily, the LYS carries it, including this colorway, and I don't need to worry about matching dye lot. It's Araucania Atacama, which is hand-dyed. I got the drab green in a swap, which isn't a color I would have chosen but is working up fairly nice. It would have made a nice hat or beret, if I'd wanted to use it for that.

... And Ravelry tells me it's been discontinued. Dammit. Well, it won't take me too terribly long to get through the first skein, and I've figure out stitch counts for the whole blanket, so I can figure out if I've got enough based on how far that first one takes me. I'll keep a watch on the store's stock/the discount wall, and if I see it down to a skein or two before I can make a call, I'll pick them up. Shame, though. It's not bad yarn. A little 'rustic', perhaps (OK, it's scratchy as common wool), but not bad.

Whew! Blocking lace is hard work!

2009-04-05T12:43:00.005-05:00

I haven't talked about my creative endeavors nearly enough in that past. I should remedy that, starting right now.

I have been working on a Strawberry Pie shawl converted to circular instead of semi-circular, and I finished it up yesterday, so I blocked it today. This involved a lot of crawling around and a lot of stretching wet knit. I do have photos, but let me warn you first that my blocking pads are bright neon green. Perfectly saturated 00FF00 green. This means they throw the camera's sensor for a bit of a loop because THAT color isn't supposed to appear in nature, and photos of things block on them tend to look not so good because of it. I've desaturated it so you can see the shawl without going blind, but it still looks a little funny.

Here it is blocking:

And here it is all curly pre-block so you can see the color. (Which is against the ass ugly carpet currently in my craft room, which is also green but not such an eye-bleeding bright color that it screws with electronic minds.)

I plan to take a final picture with a nicer background, or a modeled one, once it's dried off and ready to wear.

It's a pretty color. It's an alpaca-silk blend I got it in a swap for some of my wool yarn, which I really enjoyed. I've still got four balls left.

I should have kept going on the shawl a few more pattern repeats. It's about 4-feet across, which is shoulder shawl sized. I'm not big on shoulder shawls. I want something that'll keep my arms and chest warm. But, I'll figure something out with it. I bet it would look damn cute on the back of my couch. (The kitties would like that, too, although that's more of a detriment.)

This also has me thinking that I need to indulge my Startitis more often than I do. Startitis is the condition wherein a knitter starts projects more quickly than they finish them. Now, I've been a relatively monogamous knitter lately. Not truly "mono"gamous, but a limited number of projects with different purposes. One complex for a challenge, one easy for TV and knitting group, one small and simple for waiting rooms, for example.

Well, lately there's been a bit of a wrinkle in that. There is only one sort of project I want to do right now: relatively simple circular shawls and blankets. The complex stuff has been mothballed, the small projects I usually enjoyed are going "that's nice, but I don't want to do that right now." I know why this is: I'm under such a massive amount of stress between work and family problems that the last thing I need right now is a flippin' challenge. I want something meditative, comforting, and satisfying. Simple-but-not-boring circular pieces are the comfort foods of the knitting world to me right now, and I'm perfectly OK with that.

The problem there is that right now, for example, I finished my comfort project. Now I need to start a new one.
I don't want to start a new one, I just want to work on one. Starting is harder than continuing. Only I don't have that option right now. My options are start something new, work on something that isn't my comfort knitting, or not knit at all. So as soon as I feel up to dodging around the drying shawl so I can ball up some hanked yarn, I'll get going on an Ondas blanket. I know I said I was going to do a Radiating Star blanket next, but I don't want to work on the Radiating Star. I want to work on the Ondas. And in a couple of days if I want to work on the Radiating Star, I'll start it then. Or if instead I decide I want to work on my Maelstrom shawl, I'll cast it on. Hell, I might even get enough of a bug to order the yarn for a Spiderman blanket. (Yes, you read that right. Go look; how cool is that?)

I guess I've just got different hobby needs at different times. Before the economy self-destructed and I ended up doing the work of two or more people, I needed some challenge and the sense of accomplishment from finished projects. Sometime down the line I'll probably feel the need to stash knit, or to kill off UFOs. For now, I need lots of easy comfort knits I can just pick up and do. So, for now, when I get the urge to cast something on, I will do it right then and there so that I don't have to do it when I don't want to. At absolutely worst, there's not much in my stash that can't handle being frogged if I completely change my mind later. Project bags are cheap, after all. I can make project bags if I need more. And UFOs can be put onto scrap yarn for holding if I need to reclaim the needles for something else. There's absolutely no reason not to do this if it's what I need to help maintain my sanity right now.

I'm glad I hit Ravelry first.

2009-04-04T12:06:00.003-05:00

I am desiring a skein winder if I am going to be spinning regularly -- and I certainly plan to be. I have a homemade one from a former acquaintance, and a horizontal 4-arm swift that can also be used to wind. Neither works well. The homemade one was not as well thought out or built as it could have been. As its aged, the 'windmill' portion has started to droop so that the heaviest arm hits the main post in use, and there's no way to fix it because that person used wood glue instead of bolts to fasten it to the post. The horizontal one does not work well for me because I'm five feet tall, which means short arms, which means it's difficult for me to reach the handle without having the end of the arm slam into my tummy.

So, I've been in the market for a vertical skein winder. I had it narrowed down to either a Fricke, or a Will Taylor. Both have marvelous reputations. The Fricke's disadvantage was higher cost, especially for an adjustable one. The Will Taylor's downside is a 2-4 month waiting period, and no built-in counter. A counter is really a necessary to me, and not nearly as common a feature as it should be on skein winders, so I would be hoping that Noellenoodle was still selling her electronic ones when the WT came in. I wouldn't want to order it in advance, since the counter warranty period is about the same as the wait for the winder itself.

It's shocking to me how hard it is to find those add-on counters. It's just a magnetic pick-up! (*eye roll* 'just'. That's the engineer in me talking. ^_~).

Well, I was about ready to order the Will Taylor, realizing there was a risk of not being able to get a counter for it later. But before I did so, I decided to stop in Ravelry's 'Spinner's Marketplace' group to see if anyone was selling a skein winder, or even if I could get a Will Taylor secondhand without a potential 4-month wait. And from there, I was directed to WoodenSpinner's Etsy shop.

Wow. I ordered one of her skeiners right there. I won't be able to comment on the manufacturing until it arrives, but the engineering looks positively brilliant. It's adjustable, but with pegs instead of screws -- no stripping holes with age or having yarn tension slide your skein a little smaller as you go. There's a tensioned bobbin holder right on it, so you don't have to dig out a lazy kate. And of course, a counter. I am a little concerned about one feedback comment that complained about the windmill hitting the main post, which I didn't see until after I had ordered. I'll just have to see how it goes there. With cotter pin construction, though, worst case scenario I could probably knock out the pin and put a shim in place to fix that if it happens.

Anyway, I'm excited. I can't wait until it arrives and I can try it out. I guess I should ply something between now and then. (Ah, plying. My mortal enemy.)

Nice try, but no dice

2009-03-29T09:23:00.004-05:00

Some news agencies (ooh, nebulous blamee! You know what you're in for here ;) ) have been reporting more people turning to fiber arts like sewing and knitting during this recession 'to save money over buying'.

That's a stupid statement that can only come from someone who doesn't knit, sew, or otherwise make things for themselves.

The simple fact is that an individual can not compete with a large corporation where manufacturing costs are concerned. You're saving labor costs? Big whoop. Labor costs are a very small part of a soft product's cost. Furthermore, you are often competing with workers making less than $1 a hour and working on machinery that pumps out clothing far faster than the best hand knitter or seamstress could. And forget about getting ahead on materials. You've got to pay retail; the big manufacturers are buying such huge quantities that they can get massive discounts.

If you want to save money, you don't make it yourself; you go to Wal-Mart.

So why are more people knitting and sewing (assuming that is the case)? Because it's a stress reducer. I knit and spin a lot more often when I'm stressed, because it helps relax me. Furthermore, you've got affordable luxuries, another way to take the edge off. When you don't know if you'll have a job in a week, a new TV doesn't seem like such a good idea. $10 of yarn, though, that isn't such a big deal, especially when you're looking at at least 10 hours of stress relief and entertainment.

In Which Kati Waxes About Yarn

2009-03-28T12:05:00.004-05:00

My favorite LYS is having a big sale this week, and I didn't go to knit-night as usual because I was sick, so I went in this morning to do a little stash enhancement. And ooh, I thought I'd found the yarn for my Wallaby sweater. It was all cotton but not stringy, pilly, or excessively heavy; surprisingly inexpensive; there was a colorway I really liked and there was just enough of it on the shelf to make a Kati-sized sweater if I cleaned them out. Only one problem: I finally had to admit that as much as I liked it in the skein, that colorway was just not going to look good with my complexion. It was too pink, and too much of a ruddy pink. A little more lavendar could have worked, but not this.

I did, however, buy enough of it for a throw I plan to make next, a radiating star blanket. (The pattern is on Ravelry, but this way all y'all can see what it looks like.) I was planning to do it in Plymouth Kudo, a long-color-repeat cotton/rayon/silk blend I'm looking forward to trying, but the LYS won't be getting it in for a few weeks yet, and I expect to be ready to start my next project before then. Besides, photos of finished projects suggest that the Kudo's color transitions are fairly harsh, and I haven't liked the radiating star blankets I've seen with hard stripes. This may work out better. What I've got is multicolored but not striped. Each ply is a different color, so it should knit up with a tweedy look that hopefully will add visual interest without overwhelming the star pattern.

As I'm shopping, though, I'm realizing that I don't really like buying just one ball to sample with the wool-free stuff. Maybe not so much the alpaca, but with non-animal fibers, I question the usefulness of that single ball in my knitting life. I can do a lot of projects with a single ball of wool (or alpaca, really), depending on the yarn weight: winter hats, scarves, mittens. But cotton or linen doesn't make good winter wear. And there's not a whole lot of other one-skein projects I'm into.

So I'm thinking that I should buy enough for a project I would actually make. Granted, it will cost more that way, but yarn that is never used and never will be is money wasted. A lot of people do this and buy sweater quantities. I'm not willing to go that far, though. I am not a small woman.

Actually, an aside here. I'm a slightly-below-average woman -- which is absolutely unforgiveable in this country. This article here makes an excellent point right in the first 2 paragraphs: the average American man is a little bigger than designers think, but he can walk into any non-specialty store in the country and find fashionable clothes that fit him, look good on him, and unless he is very eccentric, suit his tastes.
The average woman, on the other hand, is defined as "plus size". If you've ever tried to shop plus-size clothing (and statistically speaking, more than half the women reading this have), then you know that plus-size is the nemesis of fashionable, or good fit, or variety, or generally worth wearing except to not be naked. More than half of the female population is defined as niche! It's insane, it's stupid, there's no logical reason for it, but institutionalized sexism sure explains it well.

I also like the quote from the model on the second page, who is considered "plus size" because she wears a 10 (horrors!): "On the street, I'm skinny. At castings, I'm a cow." This is getting into "scary stuff" land.

Anyway, back to yarn. A sweater for an average size person takes between 1500 and 2000 yards of yarn. I don't care to buy quite that much at once, especially since that would typically be over a $100. Not always; the yarn I was looking at today would have been around $50 for the 1800 yards I need for the Wallaby (as I said, unusually inexpensive), but usually good basic yarns starts around $3/100 yards and goes up from there.

However, I have REALLY been enjoying working on a simple circular shawl. Specifically a Strawberry Pie Shawl somewhat blasphemously converted into a circle instead of semicircle. (I say blasphemous because the design specifically made it semicircular because she doesn't like circular shawls.) The radiating star blanket is the same general idea, as are several others on my list to do. They're easy, sometimes I don't even have to carry the pattern which makes them excellent waiting room knitting, you can pick them up and put them down at any point because they're circular, and they look awesome. The nasty critical part of me gripes "isn't that a waste of your mad knitting skillz", but the rest of me goes "Maybe, but I don't care because it's so damn fun! Nyah!"

One of those in worsted or bulky takes 500 to 600 yards of yarn. That's a doable quantity to buy at a time. Not necessarily cheap in some stuff, but doable. And there's a lot of flexibility in what fiber you use. Even a cotton blanket can be nice when the themostat is just a little low, or if you want something to sit on at the park. Or just to look nice draped across furniture.

Thinner yarns will take more yards, but they also come more per skein. I'll just have to dig into some patterns I like and figure out some average yardages.

So, in conclusion: Yay yarn!

I'm going to be testing yarns FOREVER...

2009-03-21T20:42:00.004-05:00

I went and became obsessed with the Wonderful Wallaby sweater pattern. It's a pullover hoodie with a kangaroo pouch, that's all, but it looks like it'd be fun to do and comfy to wear. The problem now is choosing a sweater yarn.

A year ago, this would have been easy. I would have gone to Jojoland and ordered a buttload of Rhythm in either M05, M06, or M13.
But nooooooo, I have to have a wool-allergic cat and an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. :P

Doing a search on finished projects on Ravelry with wool and merino filtered out doesn't really bring up anything that grabs me and goes "Me! You want to make one just like me!"

I'm probably going to have to swallow my pride and use an acrylic blend. The idea of doing this in pure cotton makes me woozy just thinking about it. My poor hands, to say nothing of the weight! Linen and hemp have the same hand problem, although less weight, but more cost. Alpaca would cost, maybe not more than I'd care to spend, but enough to make me think twice or thrice about my choice, and I think it would be too hot for me to wear most of the time. Not that acrylic is much better in the heat department. Acrylic yarns have this unfortunate trait that they don't breath, so I personally tend to get hot wearing them in moderate temperatures, but at the same time they don't insulate well in cold temps.

Still, since the Uber-fiber is verboten, the fact is that none of my remaining options are really ideal. So, I think I'm going to be doing a lot of sampling before I commit to a yarn, although you never know. I might get lucky on my first or second try and go "yup, this is it."

I at least have a start on it. I went to Hobby Lobby today and picked up skeins of several different yarns I wanted to try for it (although I forgot to get one of Lion Cotton-Ease. I seem to have this mental block where Lion yarns are concerned). They include Caron Simply Soft Shadows, a 100% acrylic but with a long color repeat, which I like; Bernat Denim Style, which was on sale and looked like it had potential; Hobby Lobby's house brand I Love This Cotton, which is probably a bit thin and would have to soften up quite a bit in the wash; and Patons new Silk Bamboo, which is surprisingly around the middle of the price range I'm willing to pay.

I decided to borrow the "swatch tube" idea from the Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook, except work it comfortably around 16" circulars for heavier yarns. Who knows, maybe down the line it'll make a nifty scarf, or can be turned into Christmas stockings, or something. In any event, since I'm not nearly as familiar with wool-free yarns as I am with the wool that's out there, there's going to be a lot of swatching in my future until I get some staple yarns settled on.

I started the sample tube off with some Andean Treasure from Knitpicks, which is 100% alpaca. It actually feels pretty nice, but it's the most expensive option on my list right now AND none of the colors really grab me. If only one of those were true, I'd probably have my sweater yarn picked out already, but with both of them working against, I'll probably try a few other things before making a decision.

I guess I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed. There doesn't seem to be a clear best choice for me right now, and it's going to take some patience to come up with the best of available options.

Project Musings

2009-02-22T13:31:00.003-06:00

I am wanting to make a Strawberry Pie Shawl with some pink Elann Baby Silk I got in a swap.
Well, kinda.

I don't get how she wrote the strawberries. When I follow her instructions I get lopsided thingies I don't care for. I don't know if it's her or me, but I recharted the strawberries.

And I don't think the shape was fully thought out. It appears the thought process was "I don't want a solid circle. What I want to do is take a circle and cut a slit in it so that it goes on like a cape." So there are normal circular increases, but when you reach the end of a 'round', instead of going around, you turn and knit back in rows. Sounds like it should work, right?

Not if you're using spiraling increases.

It's got this odd shape where one side is straight and the other's flared. It's very obvious why that happens. Each 'wedge' has increases on the right side, only. So your right side has increases, and the left doesn't. In circular knitting, you just keep going around and that's cool, but in back and forth, not so much.

So, I'm trying to figure out how to address this.

I could just do it as a circular shawl. That actually makes things easier, because it becomes all knitting instead of having to purl back across some long-ass rows at the end there. But, I'm not completely sure I want a circular shawl. They take more futzing to wear, and really need a shawl pin. (Although that would be a good excuse to get myself a nice shawl pin. ;) )

To keep it cape-like, I don't think I could just put another increase at the other end, because then that last wedge is going to grow faster than the others. Even if that would work, then both ends will flare, and that will hang oddly. Trying to straighten the increases wouldn't really be practical; single increases in circular knitting naturally want to spiral.

So, after mentally rambling for far too long, I guess my options are J-shaped or circular. If I can't have what I really want without lots of redesign, I'll go for the option that saves me metric buttloads of purling. I'll do circular.

If it pisses off the bigots, it's gotta be good!

2009-02-10T18:01:00.006-06:00

1) The "Conservative Knitters" group on Ravelry might as well be renamed "Bigots R Us." (Stumbled into it by accident via another member's profile.)
2) Although not directly related to that, they made me laugh quite heartily with their hypocrisy, too. Direct quote: "No surprise that she is a nasty lefty (but that’s redundant). She isn’t satisfied with talking about her book, she has to go insult conservatives." Look me in the eye and tell me you didn't snert.
3) This is the book that has them all a fluster. You can see just how horrible and insulting it is. (Hell yes I want a copy.)

Today's Awesome Vendor Award Goes To...

2009-02-03T16:59:00.004-06:00

Sophie's Fine Yarn Shoppe.

Due to my new wool-free status, I was looking for some alpaca or llama in yellow/gold to make a Gryffindor-colored felted hedgehog. (No, I don't have a reason for a Gryffindor hedgie. I just want one.) My wonderful LYS identified a likely candidate, Alpaca with a Twist Baby Twist in Lemon Zest, but they don't carry it themselves and I couldn't make up the minimum order.

Well, a search of the internet suggests that Sophie's is the only place in the States that carries the Lemon Zest. Which is awesome, but not why they get the awesome vendor award. I placed an order with them for (1) 50 g ball of yellow, (1) 50 g ball of red, and (1) 50 g ball of grey to fart around with.

Package arrived today. I opened it, dumped it out, and out came (1) 50 g ball of yellow, (1) 50 g ball of grey, and (1) ginormous hank of red. Baby Twist comes in two sizes, 50 g and 250 g. The 250g hanks do not give you a discount. So immediately I think "Oh no, what stupid-ass thing did I do? I could have sworn the check-out was priced for three small balls." So I look for the invoice to try to figure out how I screwed up this order, and on it is a little sticky note:

"We have sent a jumbo hank of Red at no additional charge as the small hanks are backordered."

O_O
Guys, one hank costs more than my entire order. They just sent one along instead of making me wait for a back-order or asking if I want to cancel? First time, small order customer? WOW! That is above and beyond in the area of customer service.

I know where I will be getting my Alpaca With A Twist from now on.

Why I Am Sad.

2009-01-24T15:19:00.002-06:00

That's minus a week's worth of stuff I've already traded off, BTW. There's still some stash that needs to be sorted, but it's mostly... yeah.
In general, there's also a big quality difference between the stuff in tub A and the stuff in tub B, too. :P

I'm thinking I might as well drop out of my "stash knit down" group. That tub on the left there, that's not a stash. That's leftovers. I can't go shopping in there! :P

Look, you didn't even get your PUN right.

2009-01-24T07:51:00.003-06:00

Ravelry sells ad space to knitting stuff. Tasteful, out of the way, they've got to finance the largest fiber arts site on the planet, and some of the stuff advertised is really awesome, so that's cool.

One ad I was today was for Knitch Magazine, a new online magazine for knitting fashion.
Uh huh. I'm not going to say anything bad about the content except that I really sincerely doubt that monk's robes are going to be the hottest thing in evening wear this year. Or day wear, for that matter.

However, the word I think they're trying to pun there is "niche". Notice the 'e' on the end. Despite what teh internets seems to think, "nitch" is not even a word. And "knitch" is a terribly arcane word meaning a bundle of plant stalks.

Suffice to say, I am less than impressed.

The Source of All The Trouble

2009-01-20T19:23:00.003-06:00

Some very nice people wanted to see the kitty for whom I am dumping most of my wool fiber, so here's my pretty girl:

Here she is with another cat, Malcolm. No good can come of this.

See, I told ya.

This photo here succintly demonstrates the problem:

(That's pre-haircut and pre-house-recovery, BTW.)

She knows she's worth it.

Well, that was depressing.

2009-01-10T22:07:00.003-06:00

As I wrote about the other day, it turns out that my cat Mara is allergic to wool among other things. The vet is sending me a complete list of what she was tested for and what substances were positive. (So there's always the hope that maybe it was lanolin or sheep dander and not actually wool. The vet tech on the phone was having trouble reading off some technical term and then went "oh, wool!", so maybe she made a mistake. I'm not going to plan on it, though.)

Although she has other allergens, wool is the easiest of the ones I know about for me to manage, so for now I'm concentrating on it and the dust mites. Of course, I knit and spin, so this is not a trivial activity.

And that what brings me to what was depressing: preparation for major destash. I've decided that if it's got wool and I don't love it, I'm going to try to destash it.

I have a lot of wool and wool blend yarn. I divided up the portion of stash I already had organized so wool was in one storage tub and wool-free in another. The wool tub was about 1/4 full. The wool-free had four items in it. :P
If you're not a retailer, you can't get a good price for yarn. Especially the single balls I've got. If I get back half of what I paid on any given item, I'll probably be lucky.

This is about the best argument against keeping a stash that I've ever received. :P

In the next few days, I'm going to try to put together a page of some of the wool-containing yarns I need to destash, and open a "want to trade" post on the nicer of my regular knitting boards. I'll come out ahead if I can trade for wool-free yarn, even if it isn't a one-for-one trade, but that's probably not going to get a whole lot of takers. What's left there will go up for sale on Ravelry, where I won't get much for it. I don't know a better place to go, though.

Oh no! She's allergic to WHAT?!

2009-01-07T17:10:00.002-06:00

Last month I had a pretty impressive vet bill for my cat Mara because she needed an allergy test. She just keeps getting infections and irritations in her ears and other parts, and it will help her a lot if we find out what it is and work to desensitize her to it.

Well, the results came back today, with several positives. Ragweed and a few other weeds that don't surprise me. The dust mites I was dreading, but that can be handled. But then came the last thing on the list: sheep's wool.

SHEEP'S WOOL?! O_O

I knit and spin. There is sheep's wool EVERYWHERE. You walk in the living room, there's sheep's wool cat toys. (Well, not any more, but there was one sitting right in front of me as I talked to the vet.) Walk into my bedroom, there's a wool hat and pair of slippers on my dresser. We won't even talk about the craft room, with the wool spinning fiber and the wool yarn. Go downstairs, there's a flippin' fleece in the laundry room. My mittens are wool. My winter hat is wool. The scarf I just finished is wool! The sweater I'm knitting on is wool. The shawl I'm making... Well, that one's alpaca, so that's OK. But still!

I'm really not sure how I'm going to manage this one. I'll do my best to keep wool away from her, but there's so bloody much of it! 90% of my stash just became verbotten. And technically the other 10% is contaminated. Thankfully it's not a matter of life and death. Given that, though, and given how much of it there is,I think I'm going to have to go for a "minimal harm" model. Keep her out of the craft room, put wool items in that room as I find them, put her in another room if I want to work with wool outside of the craft room, always wash my hands after doing so (or wearing my mittens) before touching her,and trying to minimize or eliminate wool from future incoming stash. Any other ideas?

I guess, as much as the cover offends me, that a copy of No Sheep For You is in my future. I know my LYS carries it.

So, how about some vibes for the desensitizing medicine to work and work fast? (And hope she doesn't bite my hand off at getting pilled every single day.)

Lookie what I finished!

2009-01-06T20:02:00.003-06:00

My tiger eye scarf!

They look more like owls than tigers to me, but I still really like this pattern. I've been working on this guy since late May. Not exclusively, of course, but it has been my main project for the last month or more.

Just in time for the cold weather to move in (again).

Is Alden Amos good for anything?

2008-12-31T08:42:00.004-06:00

A few years ago I borrowed Alden Amos' Big Book of Handspinning from the library, and I was less than impressed. Even if the book had been completely accurate, I would have turned off by the ego, the constant pimping of his products and dissing on others', and also the lavish praise on a seemingly unrelated person's products who if you look it up, you'll learn is his significant other. But the book is NOT completely accurate. It is littered with errors. From telling you to wind spindles off the end (please do not do that. Depending on the yarn you might be OK or you might end up with a horrendous mess, but it is always better to wind off the side), to the directions for measuring WPI that are completely wrong (he says to pack to refusal. No. It's not measured that way. The yarn should be gently laid next to itself, no gaps and no crowding).

However, he does have the only really detailed explanation of how a double-drive wheel's ratios work to produce take-up, so when I ordered a double-drive wheel, and got one of Borders' rare really good coupons that brought the book down to a reasonable cost, I bought myself a copy just for that section. I read it over again, and... it's basically bunk.

The math is perfectly fine, but it only works on paper. He's neglecting major contributors like, say, driveband drag -- which is the single biggest factor in determining take-up once your whorl ratios are set. Adjusting driveband drag is how you set your take-up rate. So the three pages of calculations are basically worthless except as academic interest to set your minimum. He does eventually talk about driveband drag, after many many pages of theoretical babblings. So the whole theoretical thing is basically worthless.

Just like Scotch tension, with double-drive you set your whorls, and then tighten something to adjust your take-up. Double-drive pulls in more gently and adds twist as it does. That's all you need to know.

Then, just to add insult to injury, another huge glaring error. Alden tells you that your driveband MUST cross a certain way on a double-drive wheel, and you must change the crossing to the other direction when you switch between spinning and plying. The only way to change this crossing is to either cut the driveband off and tie on a new one, or take the drive wheel off.

Luckily, I stopped, blinked a few times, and said to myself "There is no way our foremothers were destroying their precious hand-spun drivebands or taking their wheels apart several times a year." So I went elsewhere and looked it up.

You know you switch from spinning to plying on a double-drive wheel? You pedal the other way. That's all. You don't do a damn thing to the driveband.

Honestly, I have never seen another instructional book with so much that's just flat out, disasterously wrong. I'm honestly getting to the point where I wonder if anything in this book is right. I really do think it's more wrong than right, so it is really sad that this book is one of the "spinning bibles" out there. Luckily most people either can't afford it or aren't that interested in the theory, and own better more correct books, because if this had been the most common book for new spinners, the community would spend the next two hundred years undoing the damage that man had done. It absolutely blows my mind.

I was right!

2008-12-30T21:24:00.005-06:00

Over the summer, I called bullshit on the old "whatever group that isn't us makes intentional mistakes to show only God is perfect" crap.

Someone kindly directed me to this article, specifically the second on Humility Blocks. End result of research: it is crap!
Amish do not intentionally put a mistake into quilts, and are aghast at the idea that they would or would think they would need to.
I lambasted the idea towards Navajo work last time.
And the article there talks about how experts in Persian rug and that history also believe the Humility Boof to be BS.

So, enough with the racist crap, fellow artisans.

First Ornaments!

2008-12-05T17:16:00.003-06:00

Straight off the scroll saw, so not sanded or finished or anything:

Enjoy my geekery

2008-10-27T19:29:00.003-05:00

I want to decorate my house for Halloween.

I don't have a lot storage space for decorations after the season this year.

I do have an Internet connection and a buttload of spare paper. Thus, lookit the awesome stuff I found:

This site is the best. LOVE the mechanical bat. Oh, and I think I need to wear a shirt with a pocket on Halloween just so I can have a pocket monster in it.

I think these will be too much work for this year, but they've got some cute things. I like the winged jack-o'-lantern.

These little buggers are cute. I need to put a couple of them together soon.

Spin-In News

2008-10-18T16:28:00.005-05:00

Whew. Just got back from the Spin-in. Downtime was not a significant problem. Ooh, let's see...

My gloves won second place in their category! Go me.

I was not insane-impressed with most of the vendors. I didn't come home with any yarn. I did come home with a bunch of roving, because I'm like that. I am a sucker for silk, especially tussah roving and mawata (i.e. silk "hankies"). But I didn't spend nearly the amount of "petty cash" that I took.

I did, however, buy a spinning wheel. Actually, a bit more than that. I bought THE spinning wheel: a Schacht Matchless. I got to try one there, and it was soooo nice. Absolutely lives up to the hype.

I was planning to order a Kromski after this event unless I found a wheel I liked, but I did have in the back of my mind that if I found a Matchless for a good price, I'd go for it. I did, so I did. Got some nice freebies, too. The only down sides are 1) it's an order, not a carry-out, so I'll have to wait a week or two to play with my new toy, and 2) it's a single treadle. Under normal circumstances I slightly prefer a double, but the huge treadle of a Schacht makes it not normal circumstances. Because of the design, I think a single will be just great, and quite a bit cheaper.

So, very soon I will have in my possession a spinning wheel that will do everything I ever ask of it. So of course, then I HAD to buy roving, you see. :)

I think I've gotten enough big toys until after November, though. ^_~

I also tried the Schacht Ladybug. That is also a very nice wheel. It can have a place on my short list, too.

Oh, and I learned microwave dyeing. Given my love of insane-bright varigates, hand-dyeing may be in my future.

I don't have a project?! What do you mean, I don't have a project.

2008-10-17T19:39:00.006-05:00

This posts is actually about three posts. And I'm running around trying to get ready for the spin-in/itty bitty fiber festival I'm going to, so it might be disjointed as well.

Lookie what I finished!

They're blocked and everything, but still a tiny skosh damp. At the suggestion of my knitting group, I'm planning to enter them into the "Viewer's Choice" awards at the spin-in tomorrow. Unless I get lost and don't get there in time to enter. Think kind of like a county fair type of competition. Just friendly, the most you stand to win is a ribbon.

It's always amazing to me what is hard or easy to people. One of the ladies at my knitting group brings these amazing lacework shawls and she's just whipping through them while chatting up a storm. I have to be completely alone in relative quiet to handle lace. On the other hand, just about everyone went insane over these little guys and were absolutely amazed (and asking me to teach a class on it). Yet the reason that I brought these is because up until I got to the original colorwork fingers (not used because they were too tight), they were a project I didn't have to pay much attention to.

At least to me, the hardest part about colorwork is learning to knit with your off hand. Once you know that, you're just switching which hand you wrap the yarn with.
However, motif work like this is the one time I wish I was primarily an American knitting instead of continental. For absolute best appearance, for most people and myself included, the background yarn should be knit with the right hand and the motif yarn in the left. Because of the way the yarns lay on the back, the left-hand yarn pops out a tiny bit more. However, I am MUCH faster and more natural wrapping with my left hand. Trying to do all the background with my right would not be all that much fun, not to mention slooooow. And the effect is so subtle that it's literally a subconscious perception; only the most absolute expert would be able to tell which yarn was in which hand looking at the finished pieces. As long as you're consistent, no one will consciously notice.

Anyway, spin-in tomorrow. If I'm entering something, I've got to be there for at least five hours. It's an hour away, so I can't really leave and come back. I've never been to this before, so I don't know if that's a problem or not. There are workshops, but I'm unclear whether the ones I most wanted to take have been cancelled or just aren't on the online schedule for some reason. I've heard the vendors are amazing, though. I'm hoping to stock up on pretty yarn (dude, I need buttloads of fingerweights in bright multi-colored colorways), and if I'm really super-duper lucky maybe I'll even find a spinning wheel -- but I won't hold my breath there.

Nonetheless, being a spin-in, eventually I'm probably going to want to sit down and work on a project. I'll throw a spindle in my bag, but knitting is cool too and keeps me occupied longer. But, I've discovered I don't have a project I can take!

What have I got going right now? Um... two lace things. I can't work on lace and be friendly and social at the same time. (And one's going to be frogged anyway.) I finished my gloves. I haven't started my sweater, and I need to measure, wash, and re-measure the swatch first because I've never used the yarn before and I'm going to basically rewrite the pattern. I guess I'll start something. I was going to start a sweater for an MSD, but that has to be custom fit and I do NOT want to carry a doll around. So I think I'll take the stuff for the nerdly mittens I want.

I have got to just buy a metric buttload of Dale of Norway Baby Ull in black and in white. I'm thinking 5 to 10 skeins of each color. I love the stuff.

Anyway, I need to be getting stuff together for tomorrow, so ja ma!

Options, I still haz dem.

2008-09-26T15:07:00.005-05:00

So, I'm working on this pair of gloves:

And ya know what? They're gonna be too small. The hand is OK, if a little tight, but the fingers? Totally not going to happen. It's time I faced that fact.

So, my options:
1) Finish them by the pattern and give them away. :P No! Mine! Mine, mine, mine!
I think that shows what the inner child thinks about that option.
2) Frog the pinkies and turn them into fingerless gloves. I'm thinking do a couple of rounds of ribbing at each finger, and half the colorwork thumb then a couple rounds of ribbing there. That should give me enough width at the fingers, but I don't know if I'll have enough length in the right hand to be comfy.
3) If that doesn't work, tranform them into fingerless mitts. No finger divisions, just a few rounds of ribbing around the top. I'm not huge on fingerless mitts, but if it's the only way these will fit, it's the only way they'll fit.

Fountain Pens

2008-07-13T20:32:00.003-05:00

Dear Red Platinum Preppy, If you wanted to be an eyedropper filler, you could have just asked. You did not have to spontaneously split your cartridge and send hot pink ink sloshing all over the inside of the barrel. Nice seal on those threads even without silicone, though. New rule: Noodler's Bulletproof inks only go in cheap, easily replaceable pens. There was so much stuff in my poor pink Cavalier, I think I'm going to run a load of J. Herbin through it to try to redissolve/suspend some of it. Just rinsing wouldn't do it. Sadly, most of my Esterbrooks meet the criteria of of cheap and easily replaceable. Not the Icicle (no way in hell), but right now I've got a plain black SJ with strange shrinkage issues filled with Zhivago (which is actually near bulletproof). Once that's empty, well, I've got a Platinum Preppy that wants to be an eyedropper filler. ;)

Some foot fetishist is going to love me.

2008-07-06T19:35:00.003-05:00

I don't usually keep a design notebook, so you all will have to put up with my ramblings instead. (Well, not really, you can always scroll right by me.) Anyway, the socks in progress:

Learning process. First, learned that I really am pale enough to glow in the dark. Lookit my ankle blow the top right off the photo histogram there.

Ahem, anyway. I did an afterthought heel, but next time I think I might use Charlene Schurch's "forethought heel" method instead to avoid ungodly fighting with getting stitches picked up without getting needles tangle while having two balls of yarn hanging off the project. OK, the two balls of yarn part would have been inevitable, but I think the picking up stitches bit would have been easier still. I probably did not start the heel in the right place; next time I'll do the math with the row gauge, conveniently available there on the sole of the sock. Still less frustrating than a short row heel is for me, though. I might also work the heel over closer to 2/3 of the sock stitches instead of 1/2, but that needs some playing around with.

Ignore the gaping hole of death right at the ankle. I know that happened because I didn't pick up a stitch across the end. At that point, I'd literally been fighting with needles for 45 minutes, I couldn't figure out how to nab that stitch in the two-at-a-time method, and I didn't bloody well care anymore anyway. I'll duplicate-stitch that closed later.

I also learned that my ankle is about an inch larger around than the ball of my foot. This is not what designers usually assume; socks are basically designed as a tube with a heel stuck somewhere in the middle. In the future, I'll try to sneak in a few increases between the toe and the heel to compensate for this. It kind of pisses me off on these particular socks, because I thought about doing a chevron pattern on the cuff, but it has an 8-stitch repeat and I was at 60 -- about half an inch off of either interval that would work. Didn't realize I could use those extra four stitches anyway, and now I don't want to rip back. Although there or a little higher up might not be a bad place to switch to the chevron. What do you guys think?

I may have spoiled myself doing my first real pair of socks two-at-a-time, because I don't think I'll ever want to do them one-by-one after this. I think the magic loop method is growing on me, too, which is good. I discovered by accident that two-at-a-time two-circular method won't work with one of the circulars being a 16", so I'd have to buy extra needles for that method that I wouldn't normally otherwise. Ultimately, I am a cheapskate, and magic loop has the advantage that one long circular needle is usually cheaper than two shorter circulars or two sets of DPNs.

Unfortunately, I realized that I may not have needles for the next project I want to do. When I finish these, I'd like to start either another pair of socks, or a pair of mittens, and I don't have a lot of bunch of needles in smaller sizes -- and none other than the one I'm using long and flexible enough for two-at-a-time. If I get lucky I might hit gauge for something on the current needle, but I've got nothing else in the house to try if I don't. So now I'm trying to get up the guts to push the "order" button on a fairly large Knitpicks order to fix that needle deficiency. :P

Heading out to the old frog pond

2008-06-29T13:36:00.003-05:00

So, working on these socks with the Red Heart sock yarn to try out the two-at-a-time magic loop technique.

And... I need to frog back a bit. I was a little overzealous with the toe increases. I need that blue part there to be 6 to 8 rows shorter, I think. Guess I'll toss in a life life and go for it.

So, what I think about the technique. Magic loop two-at-a-time I'm not liking so much, because the cord is under my fingers as I knit, especially on the second sock. I'm thinking two circulars might work better, so I may give that a go next time.
The two-at-a-time part had to grow on me, but I think it has. Managing pulling from both the inside and outside isn't as bad as I feared it would be, and it is nice knowing the numbers of rows match without having to count. Not to mention the future when I cast off, and get to be finished instead of having to start all over again.

At least I can haz squid:

Yes, his eyes are uneven. No, I don't really care. I've never been quite thrilled with the way the yarn eyes look on this pattern. I'm thinking next time I make it, maybe I'll go for big wigglely eyes instead.
Was a pretty fun pattern, though. I can see myself making it again.

You know what I hate?

2008-06-20T22:46:00.002-05:00

The old "Navajo/Persians/Amish/Islamic Artists/whatever group isn't us always put a mistake in their artwork to show that only God is perfect" BS. It's the definition of glurge, in that something that's supposed to be 'sweet' and 'inspiring' is actually amazingly racist.

It's completely out of touch with reality. Example: A Persian rug has a few hundred thousand knots in it. Hell yes there's there's going to be a mistake in it somewhere. There's no need to add a fake mistake.
It accuses the other group of amazing ego. They think they could make something perfect and Godlike, so they chose not to.
With some groups, it's a major projection of Western Christian belief on others. For example, why would the Navajo feel the need to show only God is perfect? I know little about their religion, but enough to know that they have multiple deities, and perfection is not a requirement. Just the idea itself reflects the Western belief that perfection is desirable and the goal that must be aspired to in any endeavor.
With some cases, it's disrespectful and denigrating to the actual work. Again with a Navajo example, an odd bead in a piece of beadwork is not necessarily a mistake. Often they are intentionally added to mark some event that happened in the maker's life, which might be minor or major.
What group hasn't been accused of this at some time or other?

Suffice to say, every time I hear that troupe, I want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon.

Knitting Fiendery

2008-05-26T19:05:00.004-05:00

So, as I think I've remarked, I'm taking an online class on Reversible Cables. Practice projects are scarves. Class started Saturday. Check out this baby:

Three days, four feet of cabled scarfy goodness. And not only is it reversible, it's wonderfully smooshy, too. A little shorter than I usually like my scarves, but out of yarn, so what can I do? The color doesn't look as nice on me as it could anyway, so I might end up giving it away. It still needs to be blocked, which will nicen up the somewhat icky end. That'll have to wait until next weekend, though, because lesson two involves some tips on doing it. And I need to get my hot little hands on some blocking wires, too.

Monogamy Is Overrated.

2008-05-26T11:55:00.003-05:00

Project monogamy, that is. Like in knitting and stuff.

Somewhere along the line, the idea spread among knitters that project monogamy is the ideal to be aspired to. I don't know where it started; probably with some Big Name Knitter. I know Wendy Johnson is a monogamous knitter, which certainly helped the propagate this idea even if it started elsewhere.

There's nothing inherently wrong with project monogamy, if it works for you. It does help finish projects sooner. Some people express that as "faster", but that's not really accurate. A knitter might get a small benefit from monogamous knitting if it helps him memorize the pattern, thus spending less time looking at the sheet and more time making stitches. But even that's going to add up to a very small advantage. Nonetheless, if a project takes a month of solid knitting time, you will finish one worked singly sooner than you will finish either of two worked in parallel. But two projects get finished in the same amount of cumulative working time.

However, there are disadvantages for many people in monogamous knitting. A big one: the project slog. Sometimes when you're working on a project, you just get flippin' bored with it. Sometimes you even get to the point where you just don't want to do another stitch on it. Twice this weekend alone I've seen people say that they've been avoiding knitting because they just don't work on their monogamous project. Dude, put it away and cast on something else! This is supposed to be fun. If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong.

I'm coming to embrace my polygamy. On the other hand, I am trying to keep it under control. Right now I've got three project bags. My idea is to have that many going at a time, and not to start another until I've either finished or frogged one of those. I'm not sure three is the optimum number, but it's a starting place. (Right now I've got a scarf for my Reversible Cables class, the Baby Draco sweater I'm so bloody sick of that I just can't work on it much right now, and a lace scarf that turned out harder and slower than expected. I might need a fourth bag for a 'definite no-brainer' project.)

Next topic: Maybe I need to rethink my approach to online patterns. Currently I've been bookmarking just about everything I like, and then going back as I have time and saving them to my hard drive in neat formats. That means I've got, according to file count, 183 patterns saved in neat formats, and another 9 or 10 that need some cleaning.

Now, saving patterns isn't a bad idea. The internet is not a permanent media, after all, and the Wayback Machine is far from perfect, especially on anything graphic intensive. But, I'm never going to make all those things. I find myself thinking, if I don't like something enough to put it in my Ravelry queue, or at least on my favorite patterns list, maybe I don't really need to take the time to save it. The odds are good that I will NEVER get to it. And frankly, with the exception of some toys, I think at this point that there are few patterns that I couldn't recreate if I realized that yes, I do absolutely need that after all, and no, it isn't available any more. It's not as easy, granted, but I think for me its doable.
I think I could at least handle cutting down. Of course, this is an invitation for my Ravelry queue to grow out of control, but that's OK. It's fairly easy to manage.

Yay, Dobby socks!

2008-05-15T20:17:00.003-05:00

Here, in all its unblocked glory, is the sockmark.

And the photo even came out all Slytherin-y this time. It'll be a bit better behaved once it's blocked (sometime this weekend), but is very cute in person nonetheless. I don't plan to do this pattern again unless I get some wood or bamboo glove needles, though, and even then it's unlikely. LOTSA work in that little guy.

It's time for me to accept that I'm just evil.

2008-05-11T20:02:00.004-05:00

(I shouldn't use that subject line the same day I do a religious rant. Ah well.)

I decided to try making a Dobby-style sockmark, which is a bookmark with miniature socks at the ends. Guess what colors I used.

Slytherin. (That's green on there. Really. Stupid indoor lighting.)

The baby Draco sweater's coming along.

Slytherin again.

On the planned list is a Weasley Sweater Cell Phone cozy. Only I don't care for the Gryffindor theme, so when I make it with a "K", what color scheme will it be in?
Slytherin.

Of course, I had to get worsted weight yarn for that, and I'll only need a little. And I also need two colors of worsted yarn for the squid I'm going to make, and there's no sense being wasteful, so what color scheme will my squid have?
Slytherin.

OK, I like the idea of the Slytherin squid. But I still think it's time for me to just accept that I'm evil.
Actually, I'm not evil I'm ambitious and clever. :)

Actually, if you went by personality, I'd be a solid Ravenclaw. But bronze does not look good on redheads with classic Celt coloring. (And I thought the change to silver in the movies was a cop out.) Likewise, red and gold is right out, and yellow-black not much better. But green, green I can wear. Green I look fabulous in. Green and gold is better, but silver'll work OK.

That little sockmark thing is far more evil than you'd ever guess. Ignore it's size; that bugger has a LOT of stitches on tiny needles. The thing is an absolute hand-killer, too. I don't know if it's because I'm using metal needles, or because there's so much extra needle compared to the stitches on each, or the low number of stitches that doesn't give me a lot of working room to begin with, or what, but it'll make you stiff fast. This little guy is a good reason to practice project polygamy, so when your fingers can't take him anymore, you switch to something with bigger needles you can actually get a grip on.

I am also sooo sick of working on the baby Draco sweater. No more baby shower knits unless it's for someone I know well and really like, or it's quick socks or a bib or something. I've got one more sleeve, and two rounds of stockinette stitch on the body bottom. Then I'm going to neaten up the color joins on the side and do a border of two garter stitch ridge along the fronts and around the collar, then return to the bottom and do a similar garter stitch border there. The ideal thing would be to do the bottom and sides at the same time, but I don't have a circular needle that long, and I don't care about this project enough to go buy one. I'd like to just leave the side of the fronts as they are, but they look very unfinished in person. I think the garter stitch border will be a big improvement if I can figure out the right number of stitches to pick up for it.

Zealots ruin everything.

2008-05-11T12:21:00.004-05:00

During my last chain store visit, I was frustrated to discover that prayer shawls are going the way of the WWJD bracelet: something that had good meaning and intention when it was limited to a small group who believed in it, moved into yet another brainwashing technique, and is now on its way to becoming meaningless commercial fluff.

I suppose first I should specify that I'm talking about Christian prayer shawls, not to be confused with the Jewish Tallit or any other article of religious clothing. A Christian prayer shawl is given to someone during a time of hardship. The very original seed of the idea was a wonderful one. The idea was to mindfully knit a comforting items for a (preferably specific) person in a difficult time in their lives, keeping them in mind while working. It was to be a very spiritual, meditative practice, basically a physical manifestation of a prayer.

Well, it went wrong almost as soon as it started with The Prayer Shawl Ministry. Yes, I am aware that I'm saying the people who first codified the idea are doing it wrong. You know why? 'Cause they're doing it wrong. As soon as just about anything becomes a 'ministry', it becomes a failure at its original purpose. Why? Because the focus is no longer about helping people in need; it's about 'spreading the word of Jesus'. Only last I checked, the 'word of Jesus' was about loving and helping people. If you stop concentrating on loving and helping people in favor of talking about it, you've failed. It's a terribly tragic spiral. People are the message, and if you've put aside the people in favor of the message, you've put aside the real message.

In the case of the Prayer Shawl Ministry itself, almost immediately the focus was no longer the people in need, but rather the shawls. Prayer Shawls became yet another way for churches to get face time, and giving aid to people in pain was a convenient side effect. Many makers are not mindful, but rather crank them out, just thinking or praying for the recipient "when they come to mind" as one maker put it on Ravelry. Some churches keep a stock of them back to hand out whenever they're 'needed', which can be anything from a tragic accident to a birthday gift. It doesn't matter who gets them; it only matters who from what organization makes them. So, basically the original idea is in the toilet.

Naturally, Lion Brand yarn is very happy to help you with your Prayer Shawl. They recommend Lion Homespun. Interestingly enough, it seems that most prayer shawls are made out of Homespun. So much for grass-roots and non-profit.

Suffice to say, I'm pretty disgusted, both in how this particular idea was corrupted into a propaganda scheme, and how that seems inevitable with anything spiritual in modern American Christianity.

Well, baby Slytherins have to wear something, don't they?

2008-04-24T19:40:00.004-05:00

There is a very good reason why I'm knitting a baby sweater in Slytherin colors. When stash yarns will work for a project I want to do, I should use them, right? Efficient resource usage and environmental friendliness and all that. These were the were two coordinating baby yarns in my stash that I did not have earmarked for another project, and I don't think I have quite enough of the green to make the baby sweater I've been wanting to try in a solid color.
It's a very cute color combination, the bright green with the "thought about being white but it seemed like a lot of work, so I went with this" grey.

The grey is a little blow out, maybe, and the green is really a bit more subdued, but I think this gives you an idea. I can see little baby Draco wearing something like this (when it's done, of course) -- except it'd probably be professionally knit out of unicorn hair or something. Bet baby Sirius got subjected to one, and it's left him bitter ever since. ^_~

We just bought a new camera, and if I may say so, it totally rocks. It was actually able to get this picture, no color correction needed, in the crappy lighting in my room.

I zoomed in to the eye white to get a sample to color correct, and found the color was already correct. And no blurring even thought it was hand-held in my bedroom's crappy lighting.

The hat there is another FO, btw. It's dollfie-sized by coincidence, though. It's actually a cap for premature babies. I wanted to play with how I held and tensioned my yarn, and it's a pretty quick and yet utilitarian project. And one I basically have the pattern memorized for; I just have to look up measurements. On this one I did a tubular cast-off with the "proper" four set-up rounds, and I don't like the effect the set-up rounds had. Probably none of you noticed until I said something, but it tightens up and there's a bit of a ridge there. You can see it especially right in the middle of Nick's forehead. Someday when I've got some of these together, I'll see which of the local hospitals takes them and drop them off. Or mail them somewhere if no one local does. Or maybe there'll be another event like Caps to the Capital.

I love my cat Angelina, but she really tries my patience. I caught her chewing on the wrist strap of the brand new, not even a week old camera -- which she had hauled off my desk for the purpose. And then later she went for the transfer cord. I'm not having a good day to begin with, so this did not help in the least. (Any day that starts with a fasting blood draw is not going to be a good one.) It also reminded me why we never put on the wrist straps, so I took it off again. I feel bad that the lady at the camera store spent so much time and trouble trying to get it on. :(

Darn it, I'm going to have to practice what I preach.

2008-04-17T19:44:00.003-05:00

I once again tried swatching for the Fiber Trends Felted Clog pattern, and I once again completely failed to make gauge. My unfelted gauge on the suggested needles are right where the felted gauge is supposed to be. This is positively bewildering to me, because I usually knit more loosely than patterns call for. It's also very annoying, because there's not a lot of larger needles sizes for me to try.

I'm starting at a 13. I own a pair of 19s, and I have absolutely no idea why. Probably for this pattern, because otherwise I do NOT do 'big needle' knits. But, I flat out refuse to use those things. They're evil, and the points are stupidly long, and I won't do it, no I wont. You can't make me, you can't make me.

The next biggest size I own are 15s, which are only 1mm larger than the 13s (because US sizes are stupid); that is not going to get me what I need. My odds of finding 17s are not good. Clover doesn't make them that size, so it's unlikely any of the big-box brands do, either. Unless they're in plastic, and I am not buying plastic needles that I will never use again. Actually, the 'will never use again' is why I won't order 17s, either; that and the $29 the two pairs (24" and 16") would set me back.

So what I will be doing, nonnegotiably, is using the 15s from my interchangeable set for this. Which means to match the sizing I can either try it with three strands, or follow my own advice for figuring out what size to actually knit when your gauge is off. Although of COURSE this pattern has to NOT give finished sizes. :P
I should have enough yarn to use three strands if I need to, though. (At least in theory; I bought an extra ball of each.)

I suppose I'll go ahead and do swatches with both of those options, throw everything into the washer to felt it, and see which fabric I like better. But not tonight. I'm tired of dealing with the evil pattern tonight. (And I haven't even started knitting on the clogs themselves!)

Things That Bug Me (Knitting Edition)

2008-04-12T10:10:00.003-05:00

Well, not all knitting, but they're knitting triggered.

DOC is a lousy file format for sharing. People who use it, please go look up the word 'proprietary' in the dictionary, kthnx. Microsoft Word, you have to pay for. And it's an expensive SOB, too. Yes, there are other programs out there that will open that format, but Microsoft doesn't like to admit it for starters, and depending on the respective versions, sometimes it doesn't work well. PDF is also a proprietary format, but the viewer is free. (And you can make them for free, too, with CutePDF. Not even any ads. It's easy; you'll like it.) RTF and HTML are both non-proprietary formats.
OK, funny story. One of my coworkers needed something that would print to PDF, so I told him to call up the corporate help desk and ask for it to be installed under one of our corporate licenses. He thought for sure I was putting him on. "You're setting me up, aren't you? They're going to laugh and ask what I'm talking about when I ask for a program called CutePDF, right?"
People who have their head up their ass about intellectual property, please at least learn what is copyrightable and what is patentable, and what each entails.
Enough with the five bagillion patterns for fingerless gloves! I'll allow a few exceptions for actual design-element driven patterns, but most of y'all aren't fooling anyone. You're just doing "sleeve with thumbhole" fingerless gloves because you're scared of fingers. Don't be! They're easy! And frankly, 99% of fingerless gloves are more effective with little finger cuffs just a little short of the first knuckle. Maximum warmth, much better fit, and still leaves your fingertips with maximum dexterity.
With rare exceptions, Snap.com previews are not cool; they're terribly terribly annoying. Look, if I wanted them, I could install the end-user add-on. If your blog provider turns them on automatically (LiveJournal, I'm snarling at you), turn them off. If you put them on yourself, don't!
Elizabeth Zimmerman was not a deity. If you like her, that's cool. But she is not the end-all and be-all of knitting, she's not infallibly correct, and are some of y'all actually reading what she wrote, or are you skimming over what you wanted her to write? Because I don't think she said what you think she said.
The current knitting fashion of strongly shaped sweaters. It seems every time I find a sweater pattern I like, especially tanks and tees, the designer is bragging about how they "aggressively decrease at the waist." Um... My body does not aggressively decrease at the waist. And I'm so short-waisted that even if it did, their waist shaping would probably be at the point of my hip.
When I hit the "Publish Post" instead of "Save As Draft" button. Oops. Um, post away!

Flickr is owned by Yahoo, isn't it?

2008-04-10T20:29:00.004-05:00

*scrolls down* Yup, Yahoo. I went to go make a Flickr account, only to discover myself automatically logged in. And since Yahoo is the only place I've used the name Fyrejinnayah, I figured they must be the same company. It's actually very rare for the name Jinnayah to be taken when I sign up somewhere. I guess it is a pretty obscure word, and not the usual English spelling besides. (OK, this is funny. Throw Jinnayah into a Google search, and pages by or about me make up 6 of the first 10 returns.)

Ironically, the reason I even wanted a Flickr account is for an entirely different site. I finally got my invite to Ravelry, and wanted to start loading up some projects. Particularly, I want to prove that I actually do make things and not just talk about it. Admittedly, I probably research and talk about more than I actually do, but I do do! See, proof, right here:

OK, so Da Bunny helped a little. She's actually on top of the second slipper. I've been doing them more or less at the same time (a section on one, then same section on the other) to ensure I don't have radically different gauges between them. I'm not terribly far off from finishing them; just need to finish turning the heel, and put ribbing around the top. Of course, it would help if I were actually knitting on them right now instead of setting up my Ravelry account and writing this blog post, wouldn't it?

I'm cute, though. :)

It is really time to get a new digital camera. Actually, it's probably past time. I'm thinking about maybe one of Fuji's FinePix line, but I'm not sure. I want a compact digital with a fast response time and good low-light performance, because most of my pictures are taken indoors under nighttime lighting. I don't like that, but there it sits, and it's not changing any time soon. I'm thinking maybe this weekend of going to the local camera store and asking for a recommendation.

Knitting Tip For The Only-Slightly Math Phobic

2008-04-09T18:10:00.004-05:00

Don't fear math in knitting. Math is your friend. And I'm not even going to ask you to do anything hard like algebra or calculus, and I'll only ask you to do it once per project.

I'm going to say something blasphemous, but you have to wait for the but afterwards. Ya ready?

Blasphemy: That gauge on a pattern? That's just a suggestion.
BUT.
You need to know how to take that suggestion.

And yes, you do have to make a gauge swatch in order to take that suggestion. Maybe several. I'm not helping you weasel out of that now. ^_~

I've seen so many people tear their hair out because either they can't quite hit a pattern's gauge, or they decided they were close enough and weren't happy with the results when they actually knit it. This doesn't have to happen, if you just know how to do a tiny bit of mathematical finessing figure out what's going to happen, and how (sometimes if) you can work around that using the pattern as it's written, if it's a multi-size pattern.

Let's take for an example, you want to make Knitty's "Banff" (which I will probably always try to say 'Bamf', X-men fan that I was.) The gauge on that is 14 stitches per 4 inches. But, the yarn you want to use is TERRIBLE at the gauge when you made your swatch. It's like armor, it'll never work. So, try again until you get a fabric you like, and measure that gauge. Let's say, so I'll get some dramatic numbers here, that it comes to 12 stitches per four inches instead. And you want to make the large one.

Well, if you follow the pattern for the large one, your finished sweater is not going to be the 57 inches it was designed at. It's going to be a whopping 66 1/2".

What butt did I pull that number out of? Actually, it's pretty easy. Take the measurement, 57". Multiply it by the pattern gauge, 14. Yes, I know that's 14 per 4 inches, but you can ignore the "4 inches" for now (and I'll explain why in a minute). So, 57 x 14 = 798. This number doesn't actually equate to anything in real life, but it's an important step. Now, take that number, and divide by your gauge. In this case, that's 798/12, which equals 66.5".

To summarize, to figure out the actual size a garment is going to be, take the pattern's finished measurement, multiply it by the pattern gauge, and divide it by your guage.
(Pattern's finished measurement) * (pattern gauge)/(your gauge).

The reason you didn't have to worry about the "4 inches" is because both your gauge and the original are done over the same distance. They cancel out, so you can ignore them. Now, if the original was 4 inches, and you only measured yours over 3, then when you did the math, the gauges would have been (14/4) and (12/3).

If you're slightly math phobic, do it the easy way. Take both gauges over the same distance.

Anyway, back to the example. You don't want a 67" sweater, you want a 57" one. Is there another size you can knit to get what you want? Well, let's find out. (And, um, let's pretend there's more than one alternative there. ^_^;)

What to do? Just flip the gauges. In other words, take the size you want to make, multiply it by your gauge, and divide by the pattern gauge. So, take 57", multiply by 12, and divide by 14. That comes to 48.9". The Banff sweater doesn't have a 49" size, but it does have a 50" one. Would that be close enough?

Let's find out again! Do the first part again; use your gauge to figure out how big the sweater would actually be if you knit the smaller instructions with your gauge. Take 50", multiply it by 14 (the original gauge), and divide by 12 (your gauge). That's about 58 1/3". Now, take out a tape measure, put it around yourself, and see if you would be happy if your sweater was 58" instead of 57". With something this bulky, I imagine the answer is yes. But if it isn't, at least you don't have to knit the whole sweater to find it out. You've already done so without knitting a stitch.

So, to summarize again. You know what gauge you want to knit at (your gauge, of course).
To figure out what size THEIR pattern will actually be, multiple the supposed finished size by THEIR gauge, and then divide by yours.
To figure out what pattern size YOU should knit to get what you actually want, multiply the desired finished size by YOUR gauge, and then divide by theirs.

OK, let's take another example. Say you want to knit Knitty's Thermal in the 32" size, which has an itty bitty gauge for a people sweater. But, you're knitting just a skosh smaller. Instead of the 28 stitches per 4 inches it calls for, you're getting 28.5. You're thinking that half stitch won't matter, but everyone on the forum says it will. Will it really?
Let's find out! Take 32", multiply by their 28 stitches, and divide by your 28.5. That ends up with an actual finished size of 31.4". Decide if that's acceptable or not.

For the sake of argument, let's say that if this sweater is any smaller than 32", you're going to pop right out of the darn thing. So, what size would you need to knit to avoid spronging boobage? Take 32" (your minimum size), multiply by 28.5, and divide by 28. That gets 32.6 inches. Since you already know 32 is going to have you embarrassing yourself, you'll have to go up to 34". Which, if you repeat the math, will be 33.4 on you.

By the way, notice how this half stitch actually isn't making THAT much of a difference? In this case, it's half an inch all around, on a sweater made in a very elastic fabric. If I may say so, 'exact gauge' is kind of a bogyman. A half stitch off is not necessarily going to immediately equate to a sweater that would either be big on Goliath or stretch on a Barbie doll. So when someone tries to tell you "oh noes, your gauge will change if you get stressed or unstressed or if the humidity changes or with the moon phase, and if you don't measure it constantly and it shifts a tiny bit your project will be ruined, and the world will end!" Please blow them a big raspberry and go back to your knitting. Unless you're seeing wild changes in gauge, your base is probably going to be close enough. And if you are seeing wild changes in gauge, that's probably going to bother you well before the sizing does.

And now you know how to predict just how much that will affect you, and how to figure out what size to switch to get what you want.

This is supposed to be a professional?

2008-04-08T21:14:00.004-05:00

Magknits, a free online knitting magazine, has vanished with no notice at all except for a message from the editor that was posted in its place. Seriously, I was just there yesterday or the day before, and everything looked fine. Now the editor is throwing in the towel -- and apparently throwing out the baby with the bathwater too, while she's in a pitching mood.

A couple of points that particularly bewilder me:
"However, MagKnits has always been a huge investment in terms of time and effort and to date hasn't actually paid me any kind of salary."

... Did she actually expect to make money off a free e-zine? Has anyone ever pulled that off? I mean, Knitty's probably about the most successful one out there in the knitting community, and I always got the impression that the main benefit there was exposure for the personnel and it just kinda broke even. (Not that I have any idea for sure, but...) Furthermore, Knitty is quarterly; Magknits was, IIRC, monthly -- making it all the more difficult and expensive. And I'm afraid MagKnits was never as polished as Knitty. It just didn't look like a really professional endeavor; it came across more as a very dedicated fan effort. Honestly, I never realized it was supposed to be a serious business venture.

Seriously, so was there any sort of business plan involved before going into this? Market research? Anything like that?

Next: 'Someone made a comment about us earlier in the week that we would be stupid to run a business that didn't pay us a salary, this made us sit back and think "Yes, you're right. We would be stupid to carry on giving so much and getting little in return.'
Earlier in the week? Dude, it's flippin' Tuesday! Talk about snap decisions! Just toss away 4 years of work (including other people's work) on a whim like that? If I take her at her word, I can't think highly of that.

What's worst, though, is the complete lack of warning. According to the notice, if I read it right, this all happened today. You know, if I were one of the designers who contributed to the April issue, I'd be pretty upset. A pattern is a lot of work, to have it go up for a week and then vanish on one person's whim.

I gotta say, too, this can't reflect well on her print magazine, Yarn Forward. I mean, knowing that she has a history of flaking on a moment's notice on one magazine (albeit a free virtual one), I wouldn't be terribly inclined to subscribe to that if I were in her market. What if she suddenly decides Yarn Forward isn't worth the effort, either? Bye bye subscription fee, I suppose. And honestly, the web design of the Yarn Forward site doesn't instill a lot of confidence (nor has the magazine itself when I've seen it at B&N, which often gets British craft magazines.) The poor image resizing, the lack of sample content, the errata links that "will be available week beginning 7th April" (ma'am, I think you forgot one or more words there) that aren't yet active... What's really stylish is that the "free patterns" link still leads to Magknits. Except for one, the Cloud Bolero -- with all the images broken.

Maybe I'm just being harsh from the surprise and annoyance, but if Magknits was supposed to be a professional endeavor, and if Yarn Forward is still supposed to be one... Well, it isn't coming across to me as professional at all.

Sometimes other people embarrass me.

2008-04-06T08:33:00.006-05:00

Have you ever read something so stupid that you are embarrassed for the writer, even though you don't know them?
I've been getting that every time I see an article by Grace Hutton on Fiber Femmes. Every time she has one, she sounds like a flaming moron. Her articles are poorly researched, poorly thought out rants.
Take Predator Friendly -- Not Me. There are organizations out there that encourage livestock owners not to kill naturally occurring predators. There are areas with a near-natural wildlife balance where this is practical. She doesn't live in one; she apparently lives in an area where the black bear population is greater than the natural wildlife can support. Fine, predator-friendly livestock management is not a viable option for her. There's nothing wrong with that. But no, she has to go off on how the very concept is stupid, and makes herself look like a complete moron in the process. Some representative, but non-exhaustive examples:

She complains that yearly elk calf survival in Yellowstone is 14 calves per 100 elk cows, and obviously this horrible number must be because of predators.

Problem: Wild elk have an average lifespan of 10 to 13 years, which means the sustainable replacement rate is 7 to 10 elk per 100. So, depending on the number of males in that population and the adult lifespan for same, that could very well be a sustainable number.
Problem: Predation is not the only cause of death. There's also disease (sometimes transmitted, interestingly enough, by livestock), human hunting/poaching, lack of correct food, and so on.

She says that the Pennsylvania Game Commission advised her to bait her electric fence with bacon so that bears will learn this is not a place they want to be, and then states "Bear baiting and dog fights are regarded to be cruelty of the worst sort."

Hold on, so she's in Pennsylvania. Then what in the world does Yellowstone, a completely different ecosystem 1500 miles away, have to do with her situation?
'Bear baiting' was the practice of using a bear as bait for dogs, not of baiting the bear. The term is sometimes used for a hunting practice of leaving bait for a bear until it has established a pattern of taking it, and then waiting for the bear to show up and shoot it. It has nothing to do with developing a negative association in the bear against your property.

She attempts to redefine predator to include parasites, so she can then dismiss the idea of predatory-friendly as ludicrous because it protects parasites. *eye roll*
And at the end of the article, we have a nice little appeal to tradition. Killing predators was good enough for her ancestors, dammit, so it's good enough for her, and anyone who "ignores the lessons of history" must be a moron. Ma'am, I'd like to point out that one of the lessons of that exact same history and those very same ancestors is that if you eliminate the natural prey sources and provide an alternative one, you're going to have closer encounters with predators, while at the same time if you eliminate all of the predators you're going to have a terrible time with destructive, unchecked prey animals.

That was bad enough, but then I looked through some of the archives at the site, and found an article that made me want to curl up and whine, and then take her hand and say "Honey, you're making a complete ass of yourself. "'Ethical' Issues with Wool".

The very first sentence: "Lately what is making me so mad my hair is about to catch on fire is the notion that there are “ethical” issues with using wool."

The article argues that there are absolutely no ethical issues with wool. That's ludicrous! I've previously ripped PETA a new one for their misrepresentation of the issues, but going to the other extreme is just as insane and irresponsible. Again, let's take some key, but non-exhaustive, points from this article.

"Most of the plant and man-made fibers require some powerful chemicals to dye them pretty colors. Wool on the other hand can be dyed permanently with food safe colors - - think Kool Aid and Easter egg dyes plus diluted vinegar." This one's my favorite.

Yes, you heard it here. There were absolutely positively NO dyed cotton or linen ever before the invention of industrial aniline dyes in 1856. Except, um, there were. Even today some of our cotton jeans are dyed with indigo. Plant fibers can be dyed very well with natural dyes and safe mordants.
Food safe dyes on wool do not produce results that most people would call "permanent". They are infamously fragile and prone to fading, not to mention generally starting in very pastel shades.

She brings in the cattle industry, and then denies that existence of factory farms that never pasture their cows. Not only is that delusional, it's not even remotely topical. Last I checked, cows don't produce wool.
Because short-tailed sheep exist and there is an "ethnic market" (her term) that desires uncastrated lambs, the issues of tail docking and castration without anesthesia simply do not exist. She's not arguing that they aren't as cruel as they seem to an uninformed outsider; she's saying that because it is not an issue in all cases, it is not an issue in any case.

Every industry and every fiber has ethical issues. Cotton is usually raised with massive amounts of pesticides and fertilizers. Even organic cotton requires massive amounts of water, which is not a problem in some areas but could be in others. Hemp is illegal to grow in the U.S. Synthetics produce pollution. Corn can use genetically modified plants, with the issues that come with them. Soy fibers are a biproduct of a food industry that pumps them into foods as cheap filler with no regard for the long-term health effects of the extra plant estrogens. Cashmere can be made finer by underfeeding the goat from which it comes and there are currently huge problems with overgrazing causing widespread desertification. Sheep can be treated poorly, their waste can be managed poorly, or wool can be imported from countries with serious human rights violations. Any and all fibers can be harvested or produced and processed with dangerous chemicals, and by child labor, political prisoners, or underpaid workers.

It's up to each individual to determine what the ethical issues are with each fibers, and which best align with their values. Thus for some people acrylic is preferable to leather ethically, and for others the reverse is true. By all means address and, if possible, correct the ethical concerns with your own fiber of choice. But pretending that those simply don't exist is flat-out delusional.

Bwa ha! I know what let's do!

2008-04-05T09:04:00.004-05:00

This requires backstory.

A while back, I found a pattern for The Harry Potter Dark Mark Bag. I'm not huge on most knit bags, however. If you don't line them with fabric (a procedure which I suspect would suck) or felt them, they tend to stretch badly when used.

So, I thought maybe I'd make a sweater for myself with that design instead. Maybe a tank or at least a shell.

The problem: I couldn't find a pattern I liked to put it on. I want wide straps, a fairly high neck (for room for the emblem), and minimal waist shaping, and haven't had luck finding one. Furthermore, the time the search took got me wondering, do I really want to do this?
1) As is typical for me, I'm a much bigger fan of the series' potential than I am of the actual execution. In fact, I think the actual series taken as a whole is made of botch -- it is beyond made of fail.
2) Let's not forget what that thing actually stands for. It's basically a magical swastika.

So, I was about to put the idea aside, and it hit me. I can make it for him:

One of my dolls, Lord Mandali, whose character is a child vampire, one of the vampire lords of New Orleans, and a bit of an HP geek. (The snake's name is Nagini.) With any luck, I can find some fingering or lace weight yarn in black and green, and knit him up a sweater. A pattern is no problem: I've got both Knitting from the Top and Knitting in the Old Way. And believe it or not, a plain stockinette stitch sweater is really easy. I've done it (doll size) before.

That's one of the things I love about knitting. It can be so logical and mathematical if you want it to be. Sewing requires careful, in the cloth tweaking. Knitting you can map out on paper and get good results.

So I took the measurements, and... Oh, this isn't quite going to work. The Dark Mark motif is 40 stitches across, and I only have about 2 inches of room in which to work. 20 stitches per inch, that's beyond lace weight and into miniature territory. Out of curiosity, I pulled out a commercial sweater of far finer yarn than I would ever use singly for stockinette stitch and measured it, and it was 16 stitches per inch. No, not going to happen as is, so I can either find a different Dark Mark to chart smaller, or reduce this one, or abandon the project.

Long story short, I reduced the graph by hand so that it was half sized, 20 stitches wide instead of 40, and it ended up not looking too bad. That should be doable. I'm thinking of getting some Knitpicks Shadow Lace yarn in Midnight and Juniper, and at that price maybe a ball of Lost Lake just in case the Juniper doesn't have enough contrast. I'd like to smack someone for that gauge, though. "Gauge: Laceweight." Thanks so much! That can be anything under 8 stitches an inch, from my needed 10 down to 50, or even more insanity-tempting numbers. Judging from the weight compared to Baby Ull, which Lord Mandali already has a Slytherin scarf of, I'm afraid it may be too thin. But I KNOW the fingering weights are too large, and either doubling the yarn or knitting looser will look better than trying to cram too many stitches on. Although since it'll be a while before I place an order, I may try to do a swatch with the Baby Ull to see if I can get where I need to be without ending up with something like cardboard. That was nice stuff to work with.

What I'd like to do, at least academically, is make out a list of projects I plan to do, go through the stash to see what can be done with yarn I already have, and then for the rest of it do a big yarn order somewhere with swatching balls for each project. Then after I've swatched stuff, I can do another order for the actual project, and no risk of having a huge project's worth of yarn that turned out to be inappropriate.

I'd prefer to buy yarn from a local yarn store, of course. Unfortunately, we don't exactly have one. The nearest is a 20 minute drive away by major highway, and it's a bit on the small and limited side -- although I will grant that the staff is very friendly. I went there during my last knitting go to get yarn for the Fiber Trends Felted Clog pattern, and ended up having to settle because I just couldn't find a feltable color combination I liked. One of the yarns is now being used to make a pair of psuedo-ballet slippers, because I absolutely could NOT make the gauge on those. I just couldn't get big enough.
I'd like to try again, only this time get plenty of extra yarn, enough that I could work with an extra strand if I needed to.

You know, I need to get over my fear of felting. Maybe I'll whip up a mouse for the kitties and felt that. I'd like to try this handdone method, because I am REALLY iffy about felting in our washing machine. It's rather old, and I don't want the risk of wrecking it with wool fluff. And I'd feel bad about using so much water for a small item.
So, that sounds like a plan. I'll nit up a kitty toy with the feltable wool I'm not using for the ballet slippers, pop down to Lowe's for a 5-gallon bucket and an unused plunger, give hand felting a try, get incredibly frustrated, and then using a pillowcase in the washing machine will look MUCH more reasonable. :) [And frankly, I've wanted a 5-gallon bucket around the house, and an extra plunger won't hurt.]
Next time we're at a department store, I ought to see if I can find a zippered pillowcase, or a very fine mesh lingerie bag -- the one we already have is too widely spaced for safe machine felting. They're cheap; it wouldn't hurt to have one around.

OK, I've babbled enough. I think I'm actually going to go do something now.

Men's Crafts versus Women's Crafts

2008-04-01T16:50:00.005-05:00

OK, first off, apologies for the title. Naturally there's no such thing as a "man's" craft or a "woman's" craft. I don't know of a single craft done with the use of a penis, and you could probably use a dildo if there was. Likewise female genitalia is not used in any craft I can think of. So properly speaking, the title should be "Predominately men's crafts versus predominately women's crafts." But that's not as pithy and doesn't fit in the subject line as well. And certainly doesn't let me share the mental image of penile and vaginal craft projects.

Anyway, what I'm actually hear to talk about are attitudes towards intellectual property rights in scroll sawing and wood carving (traditionally male-dominated crafts) and knitting, crocheting, and sewing (traditionally female-oriented crafts). For some reason, women seem to be a LOT more stingy about the IPRs. You would be hard pressed to find a modern fiber craft book that does not have a "patterns may be made for personal use only" disclaimer in the front. I've seen ones that try to put limits on how many copies you can make for yourself to mark up as you work -- copies no one else ever even sees.

On the other hand, you pop open a scroll saw book or magazine, and there's good odds that there's advice on how to sell what you've made from the patterns. (For example, Scroll Saw Scandinavian has a nice little section on how best to display the items it's giving you patterns for.) Not to say I've never seen the complaint about someone making money off of a designer's work. I did once, from someone who walked into a Hallmark store and saw hundreds of lasercut ornaments made with his pattern and without a license.

Ladies, what are we doing here? They're worried about mass production; we're worried about a church raffle. Why is this?

I know it's not that the men's crafts are harder or slower. I've been knitting and crocheting since I was a kid, but give me a choice of making a coaster with an elaborate design with yarn or on the scroll-saw, and I'll be down making some sawdust. It's so much faster.

Are men more secure in their IPs? I'll be the first to admit that men's crafts are more respected; it's much rarer for a woodworker to be told "you know, you can buy one of those" compared to a yarn artist. The hypothetical coasters: I strongly suspect the scroll-sawed one will get more wow's than the yarn.

I don't think the men's crafts have a larger customer base, and I'm quite certain that's not the cause in any event. In the 1980s, when knitting was a terribly niche market, many American patterns had a limited license (allowance to make 100 items/year for sale, or for 'pin money', or some other non-mass-production commercial use OK).

Is it related to the way women are taught to hate each other and view each other as competition? This is the one I always suspect, although I wouldn't try to say whether it's an effect or part of a cause. Is it really that horrible for your work to help another woman ease her financial burden? It's insanely rare for a crafter to be in direct competition with the designer selling the finished article, and the sort of person who would buy the pattern is not the sort to buy the finished article. (Otherwise we wouldn't be in this knitting thing; it's faster and cheaper to buy sweaters from the store.) So why not let other women sell what they've made?

I'd really like to see women's crafts open sharing back up. I mean, isn't it cool to think that the thing you designed has helped pay for another woman's car, or a meal, or a doctor's visit? Or even just a couple of balls of yarn? Designers don't have to close it off to individuals in order to prevent mass manufacturing. Heck, you will almost never see me suggest this, but grab a Creative Commons license. Instead of worrying about small losses, let's think about the big helps we can provide.

I hate the nonword "unvent"

2008-03-29T23:19:00.005-05:00

"Unvent" is an amazingly annoying knitting thing started by Elizabeth Zimmerman.

Now, I personally despise Elizabeth Zimmerman's writings. I find her unforgivably arrogant, and amazingly ignorant on some topics. The "grandmother of knitting" didn't know why wool felts, OK? (And the math on the Pi shawl is wrong, and I hate to break it to people, but laymen think the Baby Surprise Jacket is UGLY. I did a poll; only knitters think it's cool. And I don't care what gift recipients say to your face; there is a little thing called 'politeness' still in effect in most areas.)

One of Ms. Zimmerman's false modesties was the word "unvent". You see, she never invented anything, because surely someone somewhere in history had done it before. But she'd never seen it, so she "unvented" it.

I hate this pseudo-word, and I especially hate that I'm seeing it so commonly used on so many innovative knitting blogs, like TECHknitting. Why do I hate it? Because it robs women of self-respect, and appreciation (not to mention credit) for their innovations. It doesn't matter even if someone 600 years ago in the backwaters of Germany figured this out and never shared it. You figured it out now, on your own, in a vacuum, when no one else in recorded history has. Take credit. Have a little respect for yourself. Put the modesty aside, and have some pride in what you've shared with the world.

Dammit dammit dammit dammit DAMMIT!

2008-03-26T20:38:00.002-05:00

Lumpy, misshapen baby sweater. I now know WHY it's lumpy and misshapen. It's missing a few hundred stitches.

You take a pattern that has you start with two segments of W stitches and 6 small segments, and increase at markers every 2 out of 3 rows until "there [are] two times W stitches in the largest segment and W stitches in the others", you'd think that one of those W segments just stays vertical and the other gets increased, right? You would if you were me, and you would right now be titling a blog post with a string of mild curses. No, that should be "two times W stitches in the largest segments", plural. I'm missing two important wedges of fabric. And without those wedges I have a very nice... blob. And absolutely no way viable way to repair it short of taking it all the way to the frog pond* and starting completely over. Or calling it modern art, but I don't think anyone would fall for it.
*smolders*

I am not having a good week.

Well, I can finish one of the other two knit projects I had started, or I can restart this one the easy, better looking (for this pattern) way, or I can start swatching for a baby kimono pattern I wanted to try. Options 1 and 3 are looking best. I need some time to decide how much of this yarn I want to try to reuse.

*For my non-knitting readers, "frogging" is slang for unraveling a chunk of knitting, and "going to the frog pond" means unraveling a LOT of fabric, often an entire project. Why frogging? Because you "rip-it, rip-it." Hey, I didn't make it up; I just infect other people with it.

We now enter the 'I hate it' phase of the project.

2008-03-25T21:02:00.001-05:00

So, the baby sweater I was knitting. I got it ready to stitch up seams, and...
Ew. This doesn't look like I thought it would. It's lumpy and misshapen at the moment. And on top of that, there's an easy version and a hard version of this pattern. I did the harder version thinking it would look better. Now that it's put together, I see the easy version actually would have looked better. And on top of that, the color changes I thought were going on the side back are actually on the right front. ^_^; (I think they'll look OK once I get the ends work in, but... OOPS!)
And it's ginormous. I think my baby sweater may actually be a toddler sweater. ^_^;

Oh well, I'm SURE it will look better once it's seamed, edgings are knit on, and it's blocked. In any event, there's nowhere to go but forward, because I will NOT have knit several thousand stitches for nothing.

Maybe I'll hold off on those socks for a while, though.

Dear Knitting Drawer

2008-03-24T21:07:00.001-05:00

It's no use hiding them from me. I know, for a fact, that I have a 5-needle set of US4 Crystal Palace bamboo double-pointed needles, because I drove all the way to our not-terribly-local yarn store specifically to buy them and a matching circular for this bizarre baby sweater. So you might as well cough 'em up.

You know what makes me sad? Casein is too brittle to make circular needles. Actually, let's get more basic than that. It makes me sad that casein is brittle, period. I've had the tips of double-points break in my bag. That's sad. I love casein needles. But I love working on circular needles FAR more than straights, so I only get to use casein on small projects (suitable for 8 inch straights or all on double-points.)

When I can't get those, bamboo's a good second. Wood's nice, too, but the small sizes feel more brittle. And Bunny (Angelina, one of my cats) has eaten wooden needles before. Of course, last night..

OK, last night, I finish up the knitting on the body of the baby sweater, get it taken off the needles. Needles are on the arm of the couch, all my stitch markers on the side table, and a fountain pen is on the notebook on the couch beside me. I leave the room for FIVE MINUTES, and when I come back, Bunny and Keiko (another cat) are playing with my needles in the kitchen, all my stitch markers are on the living room carpet, and my fountain pen is behind the couch! Don't think I don't know who's responsible for that, Demon-Klepto-Bunny!

She didn't chew on the needles, though. She was still busy playing with the cord.
She tries to eat the casein needles, too. Although being made of a milk protein, I guess that's to be expected.

P.S. I did find my bamboo double points. They were, interestingly enough, in my nicer double-point case. (Yes, I have two double-point cases. Maybe more.)

P.S.S. Yes, I really do have a knitting drawer. Well, there's some crochet stuff in there, too. And some Kumihimo stuff I haven't tried for want of a real braiding stand.

OK, where can I steal a baby?

2008-03-22T19:14:00.006-05:00

I'm getting back into the knitting thing, and I'm one row away from finishing the body of a baby sweater I had started during the last go. I'm going to have a metric buttload of the yarn left over, so I thought it'd be cute to make a matching pair of socks and maybe mitts. (There should already be a hat running around here -- that's how I did my gauge swatch -- but I think I might have lost it.)

The thing is, the yarn is already set, and I don't like torturing it to match a pre-existing pattern gauge. This may sound geeky or pretentious or just plain weird, but I actually somewhat dislike row-by-row patterns for just that reason. Sometimes you need them, when there's complex shaping or patterning or just plain fiddly stuff. But I'm looking for basic toe-up socks here. Hell, I know how to make socks (well, know where to look it up), but I need to know how big a baby's foot is. I've got some baby feetie jammies running around, I guess I can use those, but I'm afraid I'll end up with huge socks that way since feetie jammies are looser. I wonder if I can find a size chart with length and circumference somewhere.

...

Nope, best I found find was a pattern that gave both for one size, and a chart of foot lengths. :P Damn, babies have big feet.
See, this is why I need to borrow a baby for a minute. Actually, I wish an actual life-sized baby doll was sold at toy prices (rather than collector prices), because that would be perfect for this stuff. Maybe I should try making Runo's baby doll sometime. That just seems like an awful lot of work, though.

Oh well, if I make them too big, the kid will grow into them eventually, right?

[And no, I can't just borrow the baby I'm making this stuff for, because it's baby shower and charity stuff.]

Now, mittens. That might be harder to find a size for. (But admit it, the bunny mittens here are cute!)

Kati-chan done good.

2008-03-11T20:46:00.000-05:00

Pens arrived today! The pink Cavelier is nice. Except it has a squeezey converter, and I hate squeeze fillers. The bar seems pretty substantial, though, some maybe it'll be OK.

The Tucky, though. Sa-weet! It is carmine, but beautifully bright and clear, and the transparent section is just about PERFECT. I'm eager to get it restored; I think it'll be a great little pen. I'd definitely prefer to go the Fountainbel (less invasive) restoration method with this little guy. Alas, we've already got four pens with Dillo between Laura and I, so I should probably wait until we get those back and I can try Regulus Black's pen, which will be repaired with that method. (What Regulus was doing with a women's pen, I don't know, but I'm not willing to ask too hard. ^_~ Maybe he likes a bit of a breeze about his pen cap. *<:^) )

does the Happy Djinn dance

2008-03-05T17:16:00.002-06:00

Buttloads of pen-related toys arrived today. I had orders to both Pendemonium and Pear Tree, and they both came in. I've now quadrupled my supply of bottled Waterman ink (from 1 bottle to 4), which is nice because I like to use Waterman for a pen's first fill and I don't like to have the same color going in more than one pen at once. I like to change which color I write my story in each day so I can tell what I did when. Not that I really have a deep need to know what I did when, but it's nice to be able to.
And a nice bottle of Magenta from Rohrer & Klingner, which I'll probably load up one of my Kulturs with and try tonight.
And a couple of insanely fine Platinum Preppies and a fountain pen ink fed rollerball. I'm hoping one of those will be able to pwn the cheap paper we use at work.

Most importantly, though, my new customized nib from Pendemonium arrived, and that's what's got me doing the happy dance! Yes! THIS is what I tried to order from Binder almost two months ago now. Now, I haven't done a full day's story writing with it and won't get to until tomorrow or Friday, but just testing it out, it feels so smooth! There may be a little less variation than the Binder nib, but it's also usable. And as an extra perk, it cost $40 as opposed to $70.
I'll give an updated opinion in a few days after I've put it through its paces.

Oh, BTW, the Falcon arrived... Monday. It's not quite what I expected. I knew it wouldn't be a highly flexible nib, but I expected it to feel somewhat like a sweet little BCHR I have. That little guy doesn't have any line variation to speak of, but the nib is rather springy, maybe even spongy. The Falcon right out of the box felt rather stiff. However, that seems to be loosening up a little as I use it. The fine nib is also VERY fine. At the same time, though, I don't want to go up to a medium because it would be almost twice as large according to Mottishaw's page, and that would be too big. It is very smooth, though.
Overall opinion: Well, I'm not sure what to say about it, except I find that I keep wanting to go back and use it some more. :)

Yay! I'm getting a Namiki Falcon!

2008-02-29T06:25:00.001-06:00

I know I talked about it for a while, but this morning I went and ordered it. World Lux is having a 1-day sale in honor of Feb 29; everything is 15% off their list price. Their price for the Falcon is usually $135, which is not the best but not bad either for it. With the discount, that brings it down to just under $115, hands down the cheapest I've ever seen retail on one. So I went for it. On top of that, some sort of glitch seems to have given me free shipping. ^_^ Even if that gets corrected I'll still be getting it for less than $125 shipped, good price. If the free shipping stands, it'll be a great price! Kati's starting the day great. :)

Oh no. "Snap"? Pens aren't supposed to go "Snap".

2008-02-28T20:39:00.002-06:00

And yet snap it did. Last time we were at an antique mall, I picked up a Cub Scout fountain pen. Yeah, Boy Scouts. Sac felt good, so I filled it up with obscenely bright pink ink and tried it out for a while. Nib actually isn't that great. Folded tipping. It feels pretty smooth, and it has a nifty stub effect, but the ink flow isn't so good. Well, got sick of it, decided to empty out the last three drops (I counted) of ink left and rinse it out. While doing that, the sac didn't seem to be re-inflating as quickly as it should, so I thought I should maybe resac it after all. Only, I tried to take the section off, and that bugger is NOT coming. Heat didn't do it, section pliers didn't budge it, and I didn't want to risk breaking it because I plan to resell this pen. (Or, if no one will pay the price I want, keep filling it with painfully girly colors. :) )

So, I decided to just finish rinsing it out, and warn potential buyers that it may need a resac soon. Only as I was filling, "Snap!" The J-bar broke! Right in the pen! Just snapped right under the lever while I was filling it! The thing is, it doesn't look rusted or anything. I do hope it's not a design flaw. It does seem like the lever might be longer than it should be.
...
Although, if the sac is going bad, it may have hardened more near the nipple, where I can't feel it. Maybe the J-bar's end was getting held up there, and so the sac was pushing it down into a bow shape.

I may actually send this one out for professional repair. When I get my vacuum filler back from Binder, I was going to send it to Dillo, so I'm thinking I'll send this along. He'll have more experience with really stuck sections, and he can adjust the nib while it's there, too.
Of course, if I'm going to do that, I'm half tempted to send along a nicer nib if I have one the right size, and have him put it in. ^_~

Oh yeah, Jinnayah's gettin' herself a new nib.

2008-02-24T16:47:00.002-06:00

...
Doesn't quite have a ring to it, does it?
My 0.5 mm cursive italic nib from Binder sucks. Bad. It's rough. And since the writing sample included with it (this time, grr) suggests that Binder thinks this is acceptable quality, I'm not inclined to send it back to him AGAIN to get it fixed. Actually, as soon as I get the pen written out of ink, I'm just going to sell it. There are people out there who like a lot of feedback from their nibs; I'm just not one of them. At all. So, this is what the penultimate nibmeister can do, huh? I am unimpressed.

(I am also unimpressed that I'm STILL trying to get the Taccia sorted out, too. It's been in his workshop for a week without so much as a peep beyond 'it's here', so I finally gave up, wrote again, and asked for an update. You know what? I had three items in that order, and they messed up every one of them.)

But ya know what? I learned that Pendemonium does custom nib grinding. Well, I knew that, but it took me a while to figure out how to arrange it. Best of all, the nib grinding fee is only $15. Hell, I'll bite for that. Can't do much worse than Binder did, for less than a third of the grinding cost, and if it's better, I'll (finally) have a nice 0.5 mm cursive italic for $40 -- much better than the $70 the current POS cost.

(I'm resentful about the quality level of my expensive custom nib. Does it show? ^_~)

In any event, at worst I'll end up with another data point on what a fine cursive italic should feel like when writing. Of course, if I don't like Pendemonium's either, I may give Deb Kinney a try. I'd give Mottishaw a go, but I don't know that he'll work on the steel M200 nibs, and I don't want to either pay for gold or wait 6 months to get through his queue with a pen of my own.

While I was ordering from Pendemonium, I was a bad girl and got a bottle of Rohrer and Klingner ink in magenta. Sight unseen except for the monitor swatch, since Pear Tree doesn't carry this brand. Here's hoping I like it. (Like I've ever met a magenta I didn't like. ^_~) And a few other things, but that's the big one, and the one I feel guilty about.

Sadly, I crunched the numbers, and we won't be able to go to the Chicago Pen show this year. But, assuming I'm still on the pen thing, I'm wanting to drive up to Pendemonium and test drive a Namiki Vanishing Point. They fascinate me, but the way I hold my pens and the way they've placed their clips may not get along. I'd like to try one in person. If I like it, I'll get myself one. It not, I'm thinking a Sailor Sapporo. (I don't know if Pendemonium carries those. But I'm sure they'll have something I want.)

Let's talk ink

2008-02-23T10:28:00.004-06:00

OK, it's more "let's listen to me rant about inks".

First, international short cartridges: Whose stupid idea were these things? I bet it was someone in marketing. "Hey, let's find out the smallest amount of ink a pen user will tolerate having available in a fill, and build pens around that! And then we can sell lots and lots of carts because they're so bloody small!"
Seriously, one of those things would probably hold maybe a day or two of ink for me. What a pain in the hinder.
____
Next...
You know, I want to support privately owned American businesses. But I'm ready to make an exception for Noodler's. I'm starting to feel towards Nathan Tardiff about like Tolkien. I'm not really thrilled with his work to start with, but his fans push me right over the edge.

What are my problems with Noodler's?
1) He mistakes quantity for quality.
a) Most of his inks are over-saturated, in the scientific sense. There is so much pigment that the ink base cannot hold it, and it falls out of solution. This leads to poor performance and clogging problems in pens. On paper, it causes slow dry times and smearing after dry. Let me really stress this: the excessive amount of pigment is a serious detriment to the performance of the ink. And yet if you point this out and suggest that he'd be better to balance with amount of pigment with the amount of carrier, he pulls out his favorite straw man. You see, if you don't like his overly saturated inks, you must "desire a weak ink akin to food coloring". That is a direct, word for word quote. Yes, you want his ink or you want diluted food coloring. There's nothing in between.
b) His ink bottles are often full to the point where it's hard to open them the first time. Of course, I'm sure if you pointed this out, he'd mock you for wanting less product. No, I don't want less ink; I want more bottle.
2) He puts his conservative politics in your face. Now, I do generally try to buy blue from corporations where I can, but privately-owned businesses, I'm not going to judge on the owner's politics unless he makes it an issue. Nathan does. From his "Iraqi Indigo" ink to the kerfluffle he purposely stirred up with his "would anyone call me a racist if I named an ink 'Heart of Darkness'?" thread to removing the mL measurements from his bottles because he's pissed about European regulations, he keeps forcing his political views into nonpolitical items, and often mocking the opposite side.
3) He's recently taken to answering complaints about product quality with whining about his business financials. Look, Nathan, your financially viable return rate has absolutely no bearing on whether one of your inks will instantly stain modern pens or not.
4) And in general, a constant attitude of victimhood whenever addressing the community, combined with a clear "I cannot possibly make mistakes, so the error must be yours. It's not my inks that's the problem; it's your use of them" or the pen company or whoever else is convenient and not him.
5) Questionable "tests" to show the superiority of his inks. The most famous is his pH test using aluminum foil -- a material not used in pens due to its reactivity with ink ingredients in general. But the only that really pushed me over was his "freeze" test with a bottle of water. He says it froze to the point of breaking the bottle in less than 80 minutes at 22F (-5.5C). There's only one way that would happen: he filled the bottle ALL the way to the top. No one with any sense, and no good ink company, would do that.

Now, let me share two specific examples which have led me to the "throw up my hands and give up" stage.
First, Nathan recently released a new ink called Baystate Blue, an eye-seeringly bright blue. This ink instantly stained the section of a brand new pen. In the time it took to dip the pen, fill it, and wipe it off, the pen was permanently, irreparably stained. Ammonia wouldn't take it off. Bleach wouldn't take it off. It ain't coming off. Someone later tried it on acrylic pen blanks (for lathe workers) and found the same result. This ink permanently stains the materials many pens are made of. What were Nathan's responses to this?
First post:
1) He quickly pulled out his favorite straw man again, the "if you don't want my ink, you want food coloring in water" one.
b) started whining about low profit margin, high taxes, European regulations, and return rates. What this has to do about the staining characteristics of this particular ink is anyone's guess.
c) threatened to pull Baystate from the market if return rates exceeded 3%. This caused a run on the ink. (IMHO, the people who bit are now getting what they deserve, as it's being widely discovered that the ink is also so prone to feathering as to be largely useless, and that if you really love the color, you're better off with a blue Sharpie marker.)
d) claim that this behavior should be expected because it is a "vintage style ink". And because it is labeled as such, anyone who didn't expect pen staining doesn't know what vintage inks were really like and the fault is thus theirs.

Vintage style ink. *nose wiggle* Well, I'm sure it was an interesting experiment, but I don't think the world really wanted the return of Superchrome 51. :P
(That's a terribly geeky joke. Superchrome 51 was a Parker ink that destroyed pens. When it was released, it would literally eat any pen except for one that was specifically designed for it, the Parker 51, and even those didn't do wonderfully with it.)
What a load of bullshit! My pen box is filled with cheap vintage users -- pens that were used and abused with impunity every day of their lives until they were thrown in a drawer with a full load of ink and left with it there for 40 years or more. Let's go and find one that was stained by real vintage inks, shall we?
Let's see... Um... Hmm. I don't see a lot of stains. What about that green tip dip I gave Laura? No, they came off with water. Red Esterbrook? Nope, came off with Simichrome, and good old pen cleaner probably would have done it if we'd had some.
OK, how about visulated sections? They're supposed to be terribly prone to staining. Surely one of THOSE has been stained by a vintage ink. Um... Nope. I can line up half a dozen Touchdowns of various models, including one I've just been working on that I've been soaking for DAYS to get all the old ink residue out of, and every one of them is perfectly clear, maybe ambered with age but not an ink stain in sight.
Vintage inks did not stain pens when used properly.

Nathan also likes to keep repeating what a "small" company Noodler's is. I question how useful that statement is regarding a company that sold product on five continents until just recently, and still sells on four.

Some of his fans took his statements and ran with them, basically boiling them down to "ink stains, duh."
Not only is this rude, it's not true. Actually, most fountain pen inks do NOT stain permanently. Many can be washed right out of paper and other fibers. This is also, perhaps moreso, true with vintage inks, as I was inadvertently forced to prove this morning. (While standing on carpet, do not play with the newly restored filler of a pen you've been soaking to get ink residue out of. But, the 50-year-old ink came right out with a little water. ^_^;)

So, Nathan's second response:
a) ink stains. Duh.
b) Oh, poor me, living in a lawsuit happy country. (That's, um... where did that even come from? And lawsuit-happiness is FAR overstated from truth in the U.S.)
c) Threats to completely drop a retailer who did not want to keep carrying Baystate Blue due to its risks.
d) Blame the plastics that the pen is made from, because obviously the problem must be with the pen since it can't handle his vintage-style ink. (Besides my counter-argument above, I'd also like to point out that LOTS of people use vintage inks -- actual 50-year-old inks -- in their modern pens without problems.)

Suffice to say, I lost a lot of respect for Nathan for the way he handled this. And then, the final straw: Polar Bear Inks.
Polar bear inks were originally formulated to be liquid at temperatures down to -114F. Thus, they performed best at -20F, and started to suck above 30F. Now, obviously this is going to have a very niche market -- people running cold room tests, working outside in arctic conditions, and... that's about it. Not realizing its odd temperature range, people bought it, had poor results at room temperature, and returned it at a rate higher than his 3% threshold (as he again likes to remind people of in his explanation.)
Nathan whines that he had a four-panel informational explaining this and telling how to mix it for better properties, and retailers didn't like it. Dumbass. Proper labelling, if I may say so? "For temperatures from -100F to 30F. Will not work at room temperature." None of this four-page shit. Short, simple, to the point, no confusion.
But, that's beyond Nathan, So he reformulated the ink so that it's usable at higher temps. To do this, it partially freezes but is still usable at 22F. Colder temperatures, like those found in a normal kitchen freezer, will freeze it solid.
Small problem. Nathan apparently neglected to inform some key people about this change. Many retailers still advertise it as being good to -120F. Absolutely everyone who wrote in on FPN was shocked when a member's bottle froze solid in his kitchen freezer, and several advised him that he must have gotten a bad bottle* and should contact Nathan.

*Any time there's a problem with Noodler's ink, the immediate Cult of Noodler's knee-jerk is "oh, you must have gotten a bad bottle." It's an anomaly, it must be. If they were right, it still wouldn't be a positive, because Nathan would have such a high fail rate that I'd wonder if he had any QC at all.

You know, I see an ethical problem here. Nathan HAD to know when he formulated the original that it would be a very niche market. I don't have a problem with him discontinuing that, or with developing a more mass-market friendly "chilly weather" ink. But I have a serious problem with him using the same name and not informing retailers or buyers that the formula was VASTLY different. May I suggest that perhaps he would have been better with a "Polar Bear" niche ink labeled as I stated above, and a second "Penguin" or "Husky" ink for the less extreme temperatures?

So, I'm a coin filler. I sit here and be a coin filler.

2008-01-30T20:32:00.000-06:00

Yes, pen stuff.

I won a little antique Eagle coin filler on eBay cheap ($9 shipped), most likely made between 1910 and 1924, and it arrived today. Sadly, I don't forsee it being a regular user. First, it has a trident feed, which IIRC were designed to get around someone else's patent, and are known for having irregular flow. More significantly, the top of the cap is just tabs of folded-over metal from the cylinder, and there's no inner cap. You can see straight through it. That'll make the nib dry out quickly. Worse, combined with the huge air holes of a trident feed, it may make the reservoir dry out quickly. And on top of all that, one of the nib's tines is bent, AND it's untipped. So, it's basically a demo model. BUT, since I mainly wanted a coin filler for the novelty of having one, and the price was definitely right, I'm happy anyway. :)

I'm becoming less and less pleased with my Binder order. The nib I sent back arrived today, but hasn't been looked at yet. :P But, on top of that, remember how I had problems with the Taccia I ordered at the same time? It would stop writing during pauses, sometimes even just the pause between words, so I had cleaned it out and put it away until I was less frustrated. Well, today I started thinking about filling it up and trying it again, and it suddenly hit me what must have been wrong with it. I came home, looked at the nib under a loupe, and I was right: it's baby bottomed. This is when the inner edges of a nib tip around the slot are curved so much that capillary action holds ink within the curve instead of delivering it to the paper. Once you get it going, it'll keep feeding ink, until something stops the flow -- like a pause in writing or even lifting from the page to start a new word. Sound familiar? I now really am beginning to doubt whether my order was given the advertised inspection and adjustment. This is an obvious problem. It never should have made it into my hands.

I have requested a refund for it, although it's not in compliance with his usual return policy. That stated policy on his webpage doesn't give me a good feeling, but I'll just have to see what happens.

Now, back to happy stuff. (See how I've got a bullshit sandwich here? ^_~) My happy spiffy good Snorkel arrived today. I think it might be Peacock Blue (a rare color, worth around $150 when restored), but I'm not entirely sure as I've never seen Peacock Blue or a normal aqua in person. Even if it is the normal color, though, I made sure to bid low enough that I could refurbish and resell it without taking a loss, and that's if I sell it. It's a nice pen in its own right, so I very well may keep and use it either way. Eventually a normal aqua pen will end up in this house, and I can compare. I really like the engraving on it: "Best Wishes". :) I've got another snorkel coming that I want to practice on first, though, as I've never repaired a snorkel before. It's just a normal Burgandy, so I can practice with impunity. :)

Sleepy djinn figures she has two choices.

2008-01-26T22:27:00.000-06:00

1) I could go to bed. 2) I could babble about fountain pens for a while. So, pens it is! ^_~ I did not have to eat crow regarding the customized italic nib after all. From the photos Laura took of my writing, Mr. Binder doesn't think I'm rotating my pen as I write, and so he asked me to send the nib back so he can check its alignment. Which I did. So now I'm waiting for it to arrive there and get fixed and come home, and hopefully work this time. The "rotating the pen" theory was one I could take or leave. I could believe I'm doing so (although not by much if I am), but at the same time I have other pens I have to rotate the opposite direction to hit their sweet spot (my little pearl-and-white Prick, for one, and the grey Sheaffer tipdip I just fixed last week), and they feel different. This one felt more like it needed to be tipped up rather than twisted back. I do have to say that I think Pelikan makes the nicest fine nibs I've yet tried in my not-terribly-expensive pen explorations. I'm told they have trouble with extra-fines and sizes above medium, but both fine nibs I've gotten have been so smooth. If someone wanted to try a fountain pen for the first time and was OK with the money, I'd definitely suggest an M150 or M200 with a fine nib as a first pen. The M200 marbled colors are lovely if you like them, the black in either is a nice stately pen if you don't, and you can easily (and cheaply) change nibs until you find the size you like without having to buy a whole new pen. The only down side is that either one might be a bit small for some people, but the length is fine if you post the cap, and someone coming from ballpoints isn't going to have any trouble with the diameter. Let's see. Since last I babbled, I finished fixing up two Sheaffer Tip Dip Craftsmans (Craftsmen?), one grey and one burgandy. Sheaffer's burgandy is a very pretty color. I'm about to swear off buying Craftsmen from eBay, though. You see, the sac protectors in the Craftsman pens are made of steel, and will rust when exposed to water. A Touchdown will suck in a small amount of water even if the sac is toast. Many sellers test the pen with water to see if the filler is working, and don't know to open it up and make sure it's dry inside. (Heck, if they knew that much, they wouldn't test with water until they'd cracked it open and made sure the sac was pliable.) Of two I've purchased off eBay, both have arrived with rusted sac protectors. One was past the point of saving -- its carcass is in the parts bin. Except for the section. I'm still trying to get the interchangeable nib out. The second pen just took some steel wool to clean up, thankfully. There is a spot where the rust went through the coating, but it wasn't too bad, so I coated it with carnuba wax to protect it and it should be fine. Nonetheless, I think I'm going to limit Craftsmen to in-person sales. I can tell if one is rusted the moment I turn the blind cap (nothing quite like that crunchy feel), but I have to be able to handle it. Despite that issue, Tip Dips are just totally bitchin' pens. Awesome filling system, easily interchangeable nibs. Best kept secret in pendom. Luckily, Cadet tip dips don't have the problem Craftsmen do. They have a chromed brass sac protector, which survives water ingress much better. And, as an added perk, the one I bought at the same time as the second Craftsman arrived in working order. Just needed a little ink cleaned off the cap, a little grease put on the Touchdown tube, and some ink cleaned out of the nib, and good to go. :) So, there's three pens restored. I also finished with a full sized lever fill (which really only needed a shim on the section and a polish, but still!), and the most adorable little black-and-white gentleman's vest pocket pen. Originally I thought it was a lady's purse pen, but when it arrived it had a stain on the cap where a glued on clip was, and no longer is. The glue stain wouldn't come off, but it isn't terribly obnoxious, and I think it's an interesting part of the pen's history. And also I've got another a mini purse pen to the point where it just needs to be waxed and it's ready for the collection box. I probably overstate the importance of a clip or its absence in determining whether my mini pens were ladies' or gentlemen's, but it's a convenient dividing point nonetheless. I had a humbling realization. I was thinking "I've got to get some of these pens in my work box fixed and turned around so I can get some cash flow back" (for more pens, of course). Then I looked at what's actually IN my workbox. There's the mini pens, but they're mine. There's a couple of first-year Touchdowns, but they're also mine. Then there's some no-name lever fillers I got to practice sac replacements on, before I learned how easy a sac replacement is. *sighs* I'll be lucky if I could break even on those. (Of course, if I can't, I'll keep them to give to friends or something. But still.) So the good news is that, at most, I've got maybe $50 tied up in inventory. But the bad news is I've only got about $50 in inventory. ^_~ I swear Esterbrooks are coated in cocaine or something. Even the good nibs are too rough for my taste, and I keep saying I don't want any more. Yet I find myself continually drawn to them. I keep looking at them for sale. I keep using them. I've actually got two Esties inked up right now. Two! And I am desirous of inking the third. WTF? At least they're easy to fix up. Esties are kind of the old Volkswagon bugs of the pen world. They're easy to fix yourself, they run forever, and they have no heaters. ^_~ I'll also say that Touchdowns are really satisfying to work on. Relatively complex filling system, and yet I can get one (that isn't rusted) in working order in half an hour if you don't count drying time for the shellac. They're just really fun.

Bookbinding

2008-01-26T10:15:00.001-06:00

Forgive the likely rambling nature of this post. I'm gathering up stuff for my latest fancy, which may end up on my webpage sometime in the future if it holds. Sprinkled through here will be various references for binding your own books and journals, mostly perfect (i.e. glue) bound. And one link on replacing spiral bound notebook covers with your own.

First, though, a rant on the price of books today. I went and figured out how much it would cost me to print copies of public domain books per page. Now, I only calculated the cost of paper and ink, so you can argue it's not a fair comparison, but here's why I think it's at least a rough indicator.

I'm paying retail for 24lb paper and home printer ink. A professional company would be using cheaper materials, and buying in bulk. Thus I think those retail costs roughly balance out a overhead costs and profit.
I didn't count the glue because such a tiny amount is used that a bottle will last ages and it only adds a few cents to the cost.
I didn't count labor because a) this is pretty fun for me, and b) it's all automated at the publishers, particularly when you're talking about paperbacks.

So, we're not really at a level where you can compare cents to cents, but I think you can get a magnitude idea. Now, take a book like, say, the public domain Arsene Lupin novel The Hollow Needle. 196 pages, more or less. Paper and printer costs, I could print and bind my own copy for around $5. (Actually closer to $4, but I don't know that I quite believe HP's claims about how many pages their black cartridge will print, so let's call it $5.) I would check how much it would cost to have Kinkos print it for me, but that's not a trivial estimate, so it'll have to wait for another day. To have it done by Lulu.com would cost $8.45, which I wouldn't begrudge too much since a print-on-demand company has higher overhead and labor costs than a large scale publisher. What's the cost at Amazon.com? $11.99. For less than 200 paperback pages!

Naturally, it varies from book to book. The widely-available Frankenstein (around 350 pages) would cost me $8 to print. The cheapest of mass market paperbacks will cost around $5, but they use cheaper paper. On the other end, though, if you were to take Proserpine and Midas... Wait, you can't take Proserpine and Midas, because it's not in print! *snarls*

An aside: Sooner or later, I want to do a post talking about the book "How to Suppress Women's Writing", which I recently read. For now, though, it's nicely summarized at Cupidsbow's "How Fanfiction Makes Us Poor." Don't let the title turn you off, because the point is that it is not fan fiction that makes women poor, but rather a system than minimizes (and in fan fiction's case, even illegalizes) women's artistic contributions.

Anyway, back to the rant about book prices, it seems to me that this should be something it wasn't even worth calculating. If a company is publishing a paperback copy of something public domain, they ought to be able to do it cheaper than I could do myself, full stop.

However, this does lead to one of my potential webpage fancies. Project Gutenberg is a wonderful thing, but a long novel can be a pain to read on a computer screen. I'm tempted to take some of their texts, format them to be ready to print and bind at home, and put those up in PDF format on my webpage. I could be formatting them as I read them, and it wouldn't be that much more trouble at all. And I like the idea of thumbing my nose at overpriced printing companies. (Actually, in an interview with Michael Hart, Project Gutenberg's founder, talks about how between 1955 and 2005, gas had gone up 10 times over and people bitched and moaned left and right, but in the same time period books had gone up 40 times over, and no one talks about it.)

Of course, once the book is printed, it's got be bound together. So finally, some tutorial links.
First, there's this guy who uses a book press. In the comments there are dimensions and rough instructions on making one. I used one when I bound a copy of Laura's Hand-Me-Downs for Christmas, and liked it.
But, you don't need one if you don't want the trouble, or only want to do one or two things. Instead you can use clothes pens, like this woman uses making her journals (which I think she sells professionally, BTW). Or another site had basically the same thing, except he used rules and binder clips instead of a homemade bookbinding press.
One note here: despite what the first tutorial says, don't use Gorilla Glue. It sucks for book spines. I don't know if the formula has changed since the tutorial was written or what, but it dries hard and brittle. Instead, white glue for a start, or a book-binding PVA glue. I've also seen Poxy Stix-On contact Cement or DAP Weldwood suggested.

If you want to kick it up a notch, Wayne Schmidt is very serious when he binds his books, even matching the size and formatting of professionally printed paperbacks and hardbacks. Even if you don't want to go that far, his instructions are pretty good (and he has another alternative for a bookbinding press).
FYI, I printed Laura's on letter-sized paper cut in half, which Kinkos did for $1.50 a cut (and it only took one cut on a whole ream of paper). A5 paper (or A4 cut in half) would work fine, too. Either is more convenient and less wasteful than cutting commonly available printer paper to professional book size.

One thing to keep in mind is that lots of home printers (ours included) can't print edge to edge. So if you're printing a cover that fills a whole page, either make the background white, put in a white border that blends nicely into the book, or have a professional printing service do it. Some photo printers can print edge to edge, so someone who was going to do a lot of these might consider one of those. (Neh, Laura, remind me. Do we still have that one that came as a near-freebie with my computer, or did we give that to my mom?)

Whomp. I think that does it.

Nothing worse than a botched willpower recovery roll.

2008-01-19T21:29:00.000-06:00

Because not only were you low on willpower when you started, then you end up even lower when you botch. :P I heard back from Binder, and he thinks maybe I'm twisting the pen and need an oblique nib. Which means I may be eating a little crow, but let me say that it tastes better than trying to swallow those emotions when I'm upset. We'll see. I decide to empty out the Taccia, clean it up, put it back in the pen box, and try it some other time when I'm not already upset at another pen. The way the ink was acting in the converter, I'm wondering if a flush with a little soap might help. (I shouldn't say this, and it's probably completely unfair, but I'm starting to wonder if my package missed the pass with the legendary Binder magic wand that it's supposed to get. I know the M200 nib must have been tested because it dropped a blot of ink onto the card it was packed with, but there wasn't the usual writing sample included in the package either.) I did get the Sheaffer tipdip I was going to pwn worked on. Unfortunately I was still a little upset, and ended up cutting the sac short by about a quarter of an inch. I decided to use it anyway, and it seems to be working fine now. It'll be a little short on ink capacity, but that's OK. Soaked up water OK (and STILL had green ink in the feed after going through the ultrasonic a full 9 times. WTF?!) Once it dries out, I'll fill it with the J. Herbin Bleu Nuit I took out of the Taccia, plus some extra. And I also get a sac put into one of the mini pens, so once it dries out from its own water test, I'll just have to pop it into the body, give the little guy a polish, and he'll be done. Hopefully tomorrow will be more productive. Meh.

Wrecking havok on the fountain pen world

2008-01-19T10:21:00.001-06:00

I kind sorta somehow ended up with 8 pens inked, in part because I forgot that dip testing exists when my little Sheaffer ringtop came in. ^_^; (And I finally figured out how to do it right and everything.) So, I told myself that I couldn't ink the new Taccia until I got two of the existing pens emptied out.
Well, the blue Esterbrook FINALLY ran out yesterday (I swear it's been a day away through a week of use), and to my pleasant surprise, so did the Waterman Kultur. Of course, the Kultur goes right back into the rotation, because it is the pen I use to test samples from Pear Tree. But it counts nonetheless!
Actually, I'm kidding there. The other pen I expected to run out when I made that rule is a green-striped vintage Diamond that I repaired, and I've had filled with Parker Washable Blue Quink to test it out. The damn thing is empty; it just won't admit it. No, really, it is. There is nothing in the sac; I've flipped the bar all the way open checking the level. (Kati lives dangerously with her pens. I have a bad habit of checking the ink level of lever fills but slowly using the lever until extra ink appears on the feed.) All the ink is left in the feed, and I just can't quite get it to admit that. But it can't hold out forever, and then I'm filling my Taccia, dammit.

I feel bad. My pen box has six pens that I have yet to ink. And that's going to get worse this weekend, as I plan to do some *takes appropriate voice* EXTREME PEN REPAIR! My repair box has 19 slots, and 18 of them are filled. I'm wanting to take care of as many of those as possible (which just moves them to my user pen box for testing, but what can you do?) I know I can't empty them all out, though. The remains of the rusted Sheaffer tip dip need to stay until I confirm that the one I cleaned mold out of is really clean. (Otherwise I'm swapping sections to get one good pen from the two.) And I've got two first year Sheaffer touchdowns that need bigger sacks than we currently have.

That was actually a little frustrating. I acquired four Touchdowns for the express purpose of learning to repair the system. Of them, one tipdip off eBay arrived rusted beyond saving, and the two standard ones were the first year "fat" models that require larger sacs. And not knowing this, I only ordered the standard Touchdown sac size. But I'm gonnna pwn that grey tipdip today, darn it.

*glances at pen cup* And I won't be able to ink it for a while yet. ;P

--Bwa ha ha! That green Diamond finally admitted it was dry! W00t! --

Now, I could use a little reassurance on this next bit.
Impressions of the customized Pelikan M200 from Richard Binder. Well, overall it's great. Nice variation and shading, easy to use. But, there's two things I don't like about it. First, the sweet spot is a little high for me. I usually hold my pen around 45° to 60° from horizontal; the sweet spot seems to be more in the 60° to 75° range. And, it's a bit dryer than I'd like. I was thinking I'd like nice average flow, not too wet and not too dry, so I asked for a "5" on a scale from 1 to 10. If this is a five, I'm thinking I actually want a 7 or maybe an 8.
In retrospect, I can't blame Richard for the wetness. The nib lays down a nice flat line. No skipping or skimpiness with the ink, but no extra moisture there. Thinking on it, that is a good place to set your "5". It's more than I misunderstood the range across which fountain pens can act, which means I misinterpreted the midpoint.

I'm thinking about contacting him about the sweet spot's vertical location, though. I feel like I have to hold the pen in a death grip to keep it there. I mean, it wouldn't hurt to ask if he would lower it without a fee, would it? (Someone reassure me here. Believe it or not, I'm shy.) The worst he can do is say no, I asked for the wrong range and that's what I got. And if he does I think I can train myself to use it as-is. But he can't say yes if I don't ask, and I'd be happier if I could use it at my usual angle.

OK, enough pens. Lets talk ink. ^_~

I HATE Parker Washable Blue Quink. We got some specifically to use as a tester ink for newly restored vintage pens, and... I just can't do it. It's so BORING! Waterman Florida Blue has character compared to blue Quink!
I'm switching to the Waterman blue-black and the J. Herbins for testing. Those more expertly than I suggest using one ink consistently for testing, but... That's just not in my nature. And really, the important part is that you be familiar with the properties of the ink so you're just judging the pen, and I feel pretty familiar already with the different types I'd be using.

Also, I got some new samples from Pear Tree, and I have very high hopes for J. Herbin Rose Cyclamen as a better-behaved replacement for my Noodler's Saguaro Wine. I'm madly in love with the Saguaro color, but it dries slowly and smears badly; seems I can't use it without ending up wearing some of it. The Rose Cyclamen is a very bright magenta, possibly brighter than the Saguaro, if you can believe that, and seems better behaved. So once my Kultur's converter deigns to dry out, I'm going to load it up with the Rose Cyclamen and give it a whirl.

I love the Pear Tree sampler program, and it's excellent for screening colors. Unfortunately, I think it may take me several pen fulls to really evaluate an inks full properties, so I'm just going to have to accept the possibility of dud ink bottles now and again. Ah well, every other store makes me try to full bottle right off, so there you are.

These are the kinds of problems you want to have.

2008-01-17T16:48:00.000-06:00

My customized tiny cursive italic nib arrived today! Which works out nicely, because my Pelikan M200 arrived yesterday, so in five minutes or so I should (knock on wood) be able to assemble what is hopefully a magnificent pen. And of COURSE I'm going to ink it right up. Never mind that I've got... 1, 2...7 pens already inked up (work pen shouldn't count, though). I've got to see if I have actually achieved uberpen status or not, after all. So, I've got to decide what to ink this puppy up with. The Saguaro Wine is my favorite color of the inks present in the house right now this moment and what was used in the sample I loved, but Noodler's is not the nicest of things to do to a brand new pen, nor the best for evaluating a pen's properties. Violette Pensee is my next favorite, but it doesn't shade. None of the J. Herbin inks that I've tried so far do, as lovely as the colors are. (I think J. Herbin is my favorite brand of ink so far.) I think I'll go for the Waterman blue-black. I haven't used it in a while, it's a nice color even if not my favorite, pretty shading, and you can't ask for a better behaved ink for evaluation purposes. And the Taccia arrive to. (Poor thing, destined to be overshadowed from the first.) The garnet red looks very nice in person, and it comes in a sweet zippered faux leather carrying case to boot. I'm not going to ink it up until I get some stuff cleared out of my pen cup, though. BTW, Mergle, I mixed up the Noodler's black/Waterman blue-black on Tuesday night. No precipitates so far, and the ink is just black on paper. I'm not really in a good position to evaluate the quality changes, though, because I put it in a pen I've never used before, so I don't know what's the ink and what's the pen. On my specific Sheaffer Prelude, though, it is the nib creepiest thing ever. Dayum. I've had a little trouble with flow tapering off, although a shake of the pen (I know, I live dangerously) gets it going just fine again, and it stays that way until it's sat for a while. Since it is a brand new pen, the feed probably isn't completely primed is my guess there. But, in any event, no instant pen death in the mix.

Pens Make Everything Better

2008-01-14T20:27:00.001-06:00

Despite some trauma with my water heater spraying water all over my basement, the day came out OK because I had some fountain pens arrive, and that makes everything better. Especially the prize among them, a gold-filled Sheaffer ringtop in beautiful condition, with a flexible nib. A nice wet-noodle-y nib WITH fast springback. Very much what I was looking for in a vintage nib. It's a little scratchy, and the pen is quite short even for my itty bitty hands, but a wonderful buy nonetheless.

And that makes me happy. :)

I don't really want to be a Noodler's basher

2008-01-13T21:09:00.002-06:00

BUT, if an ink

has flow properties that are significantly improved by adding an additional 10-20% of plain water, and
sends large flakes cascading through the water when rinsing a just used dip pen, and
is infamous for falling out of solution, and
shows absolutely no loss of darkness when diluted with an equal amount of water

then it's not highly saturated, it's over saturated. I'm sorry, but in my humblest of opinions, at that point the additional dye is detriment.

I'm not thrilled with the flow properties of Noodler's black, but I do like the waterproof part. So I thought I'd add some Waterman Blue-black to it and see if I can't get something that flows nicely while still retaining a waterproof component. And if it gets any slight blue shading, bonus. But, before I did that, I wanted to see how far the Noodler's black could be diluted before the black started to lighten, since if it got wet, the Waterman's would wash away and only the Noodler's would be left. So, first I tested by adding plain water to 10 drops of Noodler's ink, one drop at a time, writing a sample with a dip pen after each drop was added.
I stopped at 10 drops of water, which looked identical to the pure black ink. Worse yet, the first drop of water made the ink flow MUCH nicer, and two was pretty good. (After that, it started getting a bit soggy).

I think once my sample bottle dries out, I'll mix up half Noodler's black and half Waterman blue-black and see what happens. It should flow fine, since the Waterman is more viscous than water. It's mainly a question of if the color gets any nifty shading effects, I think.

(In case you're wondering, blue-black is the only Waterman I have right now.)

Now I'm curious to try this with my Saguaro Wine. Maybe a little water would keep it from smearing so easily. But I should have a J. Herbin Rose Cyclamen sample coming any day now, so it may end up being a moot point.

So much for world domination.

2008-01-10T21:09:00.001-06:00

My plan to conquer the fountain pen world didn't quite go according to plan. Ordered my marbley blue M200, and a "star trek" nibbed Hero just fine, as well as a glass dip pen hopefully acceptable for testing ink colors. Went to Richard Binder's page, ordered my customized 0.5 mm cursive italic nib just fine, went to get my Royal Purple Taccia Continental... Dammit. Between last night and this afternoon, they sold out of Royal purple. Do I want Royal Purple $20 more than another color? No. Well, do I want one at all if I can't get the one I want at the price I want...? Yes. -_- I talked myself into it. It'd be nice to have another nice converter pen to test ink colors in. (Believe it or not, I've managed to end up with a dearth of cartridge/converter pens. My pen box is invaded by lever fillers and touch-down variants.) And I really want to try a Taccia nib. I ended up ordering a garnet red Continental instead. I won't be completely surprised if I get an e-mail telling me they no longer have it in fine, though. In which case, cracked ice in fine or nothing. I'm not willing to go up a nib size; I write small. I'll confess I was tempted to go ahead and order my Falcon. But, I don't really want to get two REALLY nice pens at once. This way I'll be able to enjoy the customized one for a while, and then I get to get another new toy.

I think I'm going to go get myself on trouble.

2008-01-09T15:32:00.001-06:00

I was going to send two nibmeisters requests for suggestions for the custom nib I've been talking about and let them duke it out. BUT, turns out one is in Japan for a few weeks, and there's a smoking crater where my patience is supposed to be, so I'm going with the first. He suggested a 0.5 mm cursive italic for an M200, which will be a custom order. And since I expected either that, a stub italic, or a "there's no way I can do all that in one nib. If you're willing to compromise on...", AND the other guy doesn't generally work on the "tradition" line of Pelikans, it sounds good to me and I think I'll give it a go. So, my master plan to take over the fountain pen world is to order the custom nib and maybe a Taccia Continental Royal Purple from him (because I'm a brat, and he has it the absolute cheapest I've seen, and I know he'll wave his magic nib-checking wand over it before it ships), and order the M200 that it'll go in from isellpens.com along with a cheap Hero "51" clone with one of the "star trek" nibs if they have a color I like, because I'm geeky like that. That'll about clear me out for this month, with a little left for play, and then next month I think maybe if I don't fritter away too much (or I'm smart enough to get it first), I might get a Namiki Falcon.

One part of me says I should wait until the Sheaffer ringtop and the Esterbrook with the 9314-F I've got coming arrive and try them out first. (It insists it's the sensible part.) But another part of me (which I say is the sensible part) says that after trying the Pelikan M150 (ooh... so nice...), there is no way any Esterbrook nib will ever be smooth enough for me, and even if the Sheaffer perfectly recreates the writing I want the way I want, no lever-fill ringtop will ever be able to keep up with a full day of intense story writing. Hell, I've killed full sized lever-fills with that. Can't guarantee an M200 will make it, either, but it's got a better chance and will give me warning if it won't. (Clear ink window, let's you see how much you've got.)

Now I just need to figure out what nib I want to get on the M200 when I buy it. I know from the M150 that I like the fine, but I already have a perfectly nice M150 with a fine nib I like. I'd like to try an extra fine, but Pelikan is somewhat infamous for not doing them well. Of course, it hopefully won't be in there for long, but if I end up not liking the customized nib, it'd be nice to have an easy fallback.

So, there it sits. :)

I admit it; it's just a matter of time.

2008-01-06T17:09:00.001-06:00

I am becoming more and more convinced that I'll need a custom nib to reproduce the writing style I want, and I'm becoming more and more eager to get recommendations and estimates on one from professionals. In fact, the only reason I'm not writing nibmeisters right now is that I really want to ink up the Pelikan M150 first. If I don't like the way Pelikans feel in my hand, that narrows my choices down to... one? My thoughts right now are either a custom nib for a Pelikan M200 (similar to, but slightly larger than, the M15), or a customized Namiki Falcon.

Of course, first I'm assuming that my customized nib would be possible. I'm asking for 0.1 to 0.5 variation, with no conscious effort, and no sharpness or roughness. This very well may be a "chose two" situation, and how much I'm willing to compromise will be inversely proportional to how much it's going to cost.

Actually, another reason I'm rather eager to get an estimate is so that I can budget for it better. My initial enthusiasm was supported by the saved allowance of several previous months where nothing interested me, so little was spent. That buffer is starting to wane now, and I'm going to have to start budgeting to get exactly what I want instead of dinking around trying to figure out what that is. Of course, I wouldn't know what that is if I hadn't dinked around, but I think I do now, so I can stop. (OK, you take my custom nib and grind it onto a Sheaffer Triumph nib on a periwinkle snorkel... OK, that's not going to happen. But let me dream for a second. Ahh...) Knowing how much this will cost me will let me better budget for pens to restore, which is pretty fun.

There's another problem. I have pens I like to write with, and pens I like to restore, and they don't always coincide. Sometimes, but not always.

People at FPN keep telling me dangerous things. First there was the thing about the saturated inks. Then someone pointed out to them, if they buy a pen at $100, enjoy it for a year, get bored, and resell it for $80, they don't view it as a loss, they view it as a rental fee.
Oh, that's a dangerous thing to tell me. There are many cases where I could live with that. ^_~

Thoughts on Saturated Inks in Vintage Pens

2008-01-05T12:05:00.001-06:00

There are two brands of fountain pen ink that are well-known for having highly saturated inks: Noodlers, and Private Reserve. They produce a wide range of very rich, very intense colors, but the trade-off is some additional risk using them. Therefore, the conventional wisdom is that these inks are fine for modern pens, but shouldn't be used in vintage pens.

Then someone pointed out something dangerous to me. Structurally speaking, vintage pens are not appreciably different from modern pens. To the extent they are, they were designed to handle the poorer quality, more corrosive inks of the past. Theoretically, then, it shouldn't really matter if the pen is vintage or new. And indeed, of the few arguments this person got, they amounted to one spouting the common wisdom, and two not wanting to risk damaging a vintage and the difficulty of replacing damaged vintage parts.

So I got to thinking about it, and there are really two issues to worry about with the highly saturated inks: staining, and clogging.

First, staining. Really, any ink has a risk of staining, and the further you get away from black and blue, the worst it is. Top risks are red, then purple, then green. Since highly saturated inks have more dye in them, theoretically they'll have a higher staining risk.
Now, there's only so far I can let staining fear hold me back, because any pen in my use will have purple ink it at some time in its life. It's a law of nature. But here's the kick that's easy (at least for me) to forget about: is there anything to stain? The only material on a pen that will stain from ink is transparent plastic. Demonstrators (transparent pens) and pens that have transparent sections can all visibly stain. Anything else? You'll never see it. Even if it does stain, it's on the inside of an opaque tube. Is it really a stain if you can't see it? (Wow, that's downright zen.)
For pens that do have transparent parts, it really doesn't matter if it's modern or vintage. Both are at risk for staining. Age doesn't really figure in at all.

I do have to remark that, of the five pens on my desk right now, only one has a transparent section. Ironically, it's also the only modern one, a Waterman Kultur. And it's the one I shamelessly put highly saturated inks in. ^_~

The other risk of highly saturated inks is clogging. I suspect this is where the "modern pens only" comes in, but again it has less to do with age and more to do with filling systems. Some filling systems are easier to clog than others, and easier to clean that others. 90% of modern pens are cartridge/converter, and that's perhaps the easiest system of all -- you take out the cartridge and either soak or push water through the section, feed, and nib. If it gets clogged with ink, the odds are good that you'll be able to clean it out with relative speed and ease. On the other hand, if an old Snorkel gets clogged with ink, there's a lot of time and a little prayer involved (as I know from experience. :P) But, a modern piston fill without a removable nib is also going to be a pain in the butt to clean, while a vintage Esterbrook with removable nib and feed unit is going to be very easy, despite being a lever fill.
Once again, it has less to do with age, and more to do with the individual pen.

So, my final decision on when and where to use saturated inks comes down to evaluating the individual pen without regard to age. Is it easy to clean? Is it unlikely to stain (or are you not bothered if it does, as with my poor Kultur)? If so, go ahead and use saturated inks with impunity. If not, you're probably better off staying with more traditional inks.

Tiny Pens Are Stalking Me.

2008-01-03T20:49:00.002-06:00

Yes, the latest hobby is still going strong. ^_~ But I'm gonna learn how to restore Sheaffer touchdowns soon! By necessity if nothing else. ^_~

Now, I'm purposely collecting vintage ladies' purse and ringtop pens, which means I also end up with some gentlemen's vest pocket pens in the mix. (Don't always see the clip before I bid. And sometimes it's just too damn cute to pass up anyway.) And those are all tiny by definition. But I'm not talking about those.

I'm talking about my everyday (well, semi-everyday) pens. I keep ending up with pens between 4-1/4" and 4-3/4" long. My very first vintage surprised me by being that small. The first Esterbrook I got was an SJ, which is that size. The BHR ringtop I got is that size. (OK, it's a ringtop, so it doesn't count.) I found another Esterbrook with a good nib at a local antique mall. Got it home, it turned out to be another SJ. Funniest, though, is that I bought a modern Pelikan M150 from Pendemonium when they had their end-of-year sale. Opened up? Same size as the Esterbrook SJs.

The nice thing though is that it's not a bad size for my tiny hands. Even better if it posts well.

Remember the Mabie Todd Swan that the person who sold me the Snorkel was going to send me. It arrived. My gosh, what a sweet pen! The cap, as warned, is banged up, but it's such a dark blue that it's hard to see in use, and it is sooooo smooth. He might stay in my rotation for a while.
And ironically, since I patched the cap with wax, that Snorkel is the most reliable pen in my cup right now. Hasn't hesitated to start once since then.

Now, you know the damaged Esterbrook nib that produced the writing I fell in love with. Well, it's smoothing itself out a little bit, which is good. But I was really studying it, and I think I've figured out what's going on. (No, really this time!) The slightest bit of pressure, even just that of the weight of the pen, immediately spreads the tines to produce a light of around .4 mm. So what's really happening when I write isn't that writing pressure is spreading it so much as lightening that pressure on the upstroke is drawing the tines back together to make a fine line (possibly all the finer because of the single bent tine.) The 9048 nib came in, but I don't feel like getting my fingers even more magenta by hot-swapping, so I'll try it out once either my blue SJ runs out of ink or I get a sack in one of my others. I'm kind of hoping an undamaged Esterbrook "flexie" nib might act the same way. If so, that might always explain why most people get little if any flex out of them, since most people keep more pressure than I do throughout their letterforms.

If not, I'm again toying with the idea of seeing if a nibmeister can't custom grind something to reproduce that behavior. I can even send them the Esterbrook nib that does it for an example if they want. It doesn't help that I discovered that isellpens.com has full M200s for $55, and I personally like the blue marble on those better than just about anything else on the Sovereign line. I keep trying to talk myself into a more expensive "more adult" pen (no, I don't know why), and I keep coming back to "but I like the blue marble", so why fight it?

Of course, I want to try out the M150 before buying another Pelikan.
And I'd like to try an Esterbrook 9314-F nib and a Duke 209 calligraphy pen before investing in a custom nib. If I just keep buying pens, maybe I'll never get to it. Of course, I'll have more that way than just going with the custom nib. But I'll have a bunch of pens out of the deal.
(I know, I only have two hands. I can't write with any more than that at a time. ^_~)

Best. Seller. EVER.

2007-12-27T17:00:00.001-06:00

As you may remember, I remarked on having trouble with my "new" Snorkel a few days ago. First, an update on him. As I mentioned then, a good soak and flush got the fill working again, and that half of the problem was happy. As for the cap, I decided to try sealing the hole with wax, as I had seen suggested for Park Sonnets. I didn't figure I could do any harm, as both inner and outer cap are metal, and it'd be easier to undo if it didn't work. Well, it did work, the cap is now air-tight, and we have been good friends since then. He's written well every time I picked him up since, and I plan to leave him in my usual rotation for a while. Well, the seller found the thread in the FPN Repair forum asking if the pen's behavior was normal or not, wherein I discovered the hole in the inner cap with the help of some of the other members. He then PM'd me saying he felt terrible that the pen didn't work. He apologized that, although he had similar problems, he'd thought that the repair he'd done had worked; and explained that he hadn't realized there was a hole in the cap, and that was probably causing the ink to dry out, which caused the pen to clog. (All makes sense; that's my end conclusion as well. The cap issue probably undid his clogged snorkel repair.) He reiterated that he felt bad to have sent me a "non-fully working pen" and asked that I send it back for repair or refund. (No! It's mine! Mine, I say! ^_~) I assured him that I'd gotten the problem fixed and the pen was working just fine. If he had the ability to permanently repair the cap, I'd be happy to send that part back once I'd written him out of ink, but otherwise the fix was working and I was happy with the pen. Also, I don't blame him at all for missing the hole in the inner cap, because I don't know what possessed me to check the cap for air tightness to begin with. I think it was because I had recently read a repair thread where that was the problem, but it's certainly not something I would expect for a normal checkout, and it's mainly coincidence I found him. Now, let me say that I don't feel bad about the price I paid for the pen at all. It was completely reasonable, maybe even a little low, for a Snorkel in working condition. Even when it was giving me trouble, my whining aside, I wasn't thinking "I got ripped off!" so much as "well, sometimes you'll see that with a vintage pen". So, seller wrote me back asking me to let him know if the cap started leaking again, and although he didn't have any spare Sovereign caps, he would send me a spare from another Sheaffer the same size. And, because people I buy from see my real name on the payment, asked "Out of curiosity, and considering your name: do you have any Mabie Todd SWAN pen?" Now, for the non-pen people, Mabie Todd is a well known vintage brand that started in, I think, the 1880s and stopped US production in 1941 (continued in the UK for a while). They are upper second-tier/lower first-tier pens (i.e. well regarded today, although not a Parker, Sheaffer, Waterman, Conklin, or Wahl.) Swans were their premier line, intended for upper class users who could afford some extra bling. They are also known for having marvelous nibs. As vintage pens go, their prices aren't as insane as some (at least, not always ^_~), but they are typically not what I would call cheap pens, either. I keep my eye out for them, but I've yet to find one at a price I was willing to pay. I kind of wondered if he was going somewhere with this question, but at the same time, it could also be a very conversational thing to ask another vintage fountain pen user who shares a name with a well-known brand. So I truthfully wrote back that I didn't have one yet, but I desperately wanted one, both on principle and because I hadn't yet found one I liked at a price I would pay. He wrote back that "a nice one" with some "unfixable surface flaws" in the cap would be coming my way. I squee'd. Loud. I love writing with vintage pens, so surface flaws aren't a problem to me on a pen that's structurally sound. (In fact, sometimes they're a perk. They keep people from trying to take my nice pens. ^_~) And the simple fact that he's sending something at all has me absolutely gobsmacked.

I didn't contact him with the problem. He actually sought me out.
The Snorkel works just fine now; there was just some birthing pains.
I'm sure he didn't make a profit on the Snorkel sale. Again, I think I got a good deal, even with the initial issues.
He's sending me what I'm sure will be a very nice pen to make up for the trouble.

Best. Seller. EVER.

Crăciun Fericit!

2007-12-25T19:21:00.001-06:00

.... It's Romanian. ... I looked it up! Merry Christmas, everyone, in whatever language!

A bratty user deserves a bratty pen?

2007-12-23T22:59:00.000-06:00

My "new" Snorkel is fitting the bill. I had enough problems getting him started writing and keeping him going that I finally asked for help at FPN's repair forum, and have diagnosed two problems with him: First, he was a little gunked up somewhere between the snorkel and the feed. Not enough to keep him from writing, but enough to make him hard to start. Got that flushed out and he's working fine on that regard now. If that were the only problem, we'd be friends again. But then, what I thought was a minor thing turned out to be a bigger issue: there's an air leak in the cap, which causes relatively fast dry-out. He needs to be a daily user when he's inked. I tracked down what causes that, and there's a 2-3 mm hole in the inner cap. *headdesk* I'm not entirely sure how to fix that. The problem is that where the hole is, the outer cap is hollow behind the inner cap, so there's not really anything to press a patch against. Someone suggested two-part epoxy, which would be a permanent fix if it works, but will be a pain to get back out if it doesn't. I've seen wax suggested to plug errant breather holes on Parker Sonnets, so I may try that. If it doesn't work, the wax can be melted back out. Which has a bit of a pain factor to it, but is possible as it is a metal cap. Or maybe I'll put a "Want To Buy" up and see what I can get. ^_^;; It wouldn't hurt just to check, would it? And since the only way to get parts for a snorkel is to take apart another snorkel, maybe someone's got spares running around from parts pens.

Oh dear, my self control is being tested

2007-12-17T13:59:00.001-06:00

Two of the in-working-condition vintage pens I had coming arrived today. Which might actually be the only two coming in working condition. One is my Snorkel (fast delivery on that), and the other is a 1924 or before BHR ringtop with a flexible nib. (Dated by its material, because BHR basically died in 1924.) And ooooooooh, I want to go ink them both up. But I know I shouldn't. I'm trying to empty out the Charles Hubert so I can fill it with bulletproof Noodler's black for check writing/other responsible stuff, and I'm trying to empty out the Pelikano so I can pack it up. (Nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't make me as happy as some of the other pens I have.) So I'm allowing myself to ink up one, and only one.

And ooh, I'm struggling over which one. I want to try out the Snorkel, since I have no idea what the nib feels like and want to find out, and it does have the coolest filling system in the world, but at the same time I also want to play with the flexible nib. It's a hard decision.

I'm just going to have to write more so I can empty out pens faster so I can ink up the ones I want to play with. :)

Things I've already learned about Shaeffer Snorkels.

1) They're not kidding about that thing being able to squirt water 1-2 meters. 2) They're kind of hard to clean out real good. There's really no good way to force water through the feed and nib. 3) The previous owner liked blue-black ink. ^_~

Oh, I also have to say that I am very impressed with Tryphon Enterprises. I placed an order for some more repair tools, and they accidentally miscalculated the total by only adding one of an item I'd ordered two of. When they realized it, they sent me a note saying what had happened and telling me they were shipping the second as well, and would also include an extra converter and a pack of ink cartridges with their compliments.

They're sending complementary gifts to make up for charging me less than they should have. *jaw drop* I am very impressed. We'll do business with them again.

Also, um... I'm sick. I went in on a lot of vintage "vest pocket" sized fountain pens, about half of them ringtops and all just needing resaccing according to the listing. And I've got several other things on my watch list at eBay. (Although in my defense, it's mostly stuff that "ah, I'll throw $5 at that if no one else bids.)

Actually, I did realize why I like ringtop pens so much. (Or at least came up with an excuse.) Ringtop pens were women's pens. They were meant to be worn on a chatelaine or ribbon, because women rarely had pockets. It's neat to be able to connect with my foremothers that way, imagining what women owned it before and how they used it. My little black rubber ringtop, did that belong to a suffragette? A flapper? Was she in the Temperance movement? Did she write love letters with it, or did she write to her congress people? Did she work inside the home? Outside the home? Was she well-to-do, or was that pen bought with preciously saved pennies? A gift from a suitor? Oh, it's so fun to think about.

Geekiness Update

2007-12-16T20:05:00.001-06:00

What's more geeky than vintage fountain pens? Vintage stylographic pens! More geeky, less loved. Eventually evolved into modern Rapidograph pens, when they no longer got any respect as writing instruments. I've got a vintage Ink-o-graph coming, as well as 2 actual Koh-i-nor Rapidographs. (Those can't be vintage, though. They've only been made for 30 years. If it was made in my lifetime, it's not vintage, dammit! ^_~) Also in that lot was the virtually unheard of Ink-o-graph fountain pen, the Ink-D-Cator. Pretty, though; a nice marbled red.

I also went and proved my theory that it can be cheaper to buy an Esterbrook pen with the Renew-point nib you want, than it is to buy the nib alone. Got a red Esterbrook J with a 2048 flexible nib coming as well. One of the photos made it look as though the outside of the barrel were stained with ink. If it's just an optical illusion and the barrel's fine, perk! If not, I bought it for the nib, so no biggie.

My restored Esterbrook SJ from Richard Binder did arrive, but I haven't inked it up yet. It has the default 1550 nib, which no one likes. No tip on it, so it tends to be scratchy. I did a dip test with it, making sure to soak the feed this time (figured out what was wrong with my dip tests), and it was terrible. I may eventually ink it up anyway to see how it performs with a full sac behind it, but I'm trying to empty out some of the pens I have inked now, so no sense adding another to the rotation.

I also started pulling apart some of the junker pens I already have to fix them up, although the sacs won't arrive until sometime later this week. One is a green stripe-y Diamond that I bet has an amusing story behind how it ended up in someone's junk drawer. When I cleaned it out, there was a ton of dried ink in the barrel and a positively ungodly amount in the cap (I'm still trying to clean out the cap, actually). On that one, also, what I thought was a badly gunked up steel nib turned out to be an even more gunked up yellow metal; I'm guessing brass. Looks pretty nice now, although there seem to be some burrs or something stuck in the nib slit. :P

One think I note about the fountain pen fandom, especially vintage pens, is that prices seem to be all over the board. For example, take the Parker 51, a relatively common but highly desired vintage pen. I've seen working 51s go anywhere from $35 to $200. The condition and restorer have some effect on it, but there doesn't seem to my untrained eye to be $165 of variation there. It's certainly not obvious to a noob what, if anything, causes it.

Actually, this brings up another acquisition that is on its way to me. I got it in my head that I wanted a Shaeffer snorkel. At the same time, four of them came up for sale over 2 days, so I was able to get one pretty reasonably. (I'd like to say it was serendipity, but actually, the first one that went up is what gave me a craving for one. ^_^;) Ironically, one of the reasons I want one is to get ink out of the little sample bottles I like to get from Pear Tree, and yet I don't think I'd have the guts to run a lot of those through a Snorkel. ^_^; But it's got the coolest filling system in the whole world, dammit! And that's enough!

I've also developed an irrational hatred of Wearever pens. I've been joking that the only good Wearever is a dead Wearever. Which isn't quite how I feel, but... Well, while a Wearever in an eBay lot isn't a show stopper, it is a mark against it.

Book Darts!

2007-12-05T18:31:00.000-06:00

They still make 'em! I love book darts. I want a big ol' tin of them.

In other musings, I would like to try my hand at repairing/restoring old fountain pens. Nothing rare or valuable or anything, just play around with some no-name pens. Start with a sac replacement and go from there. Now, I am aware that could be dangerous. It's a "you can pay as much as you want" kind of thing. But... If I'm careful to start small, maybe it'll be fun.

Where The Magic Happens

Sketch: More Bunny Egg

Excited nerd sketch

Sketch!

Let the cursing begin.

I haz a sad.

Started my Ishbel

I thought on it some more.

I hate it when this happens.

For the people who claim Martha Stewart Isn't Sexist...

Attention Panic-Striken Christmas-Gifting Crafters

Willpower Recovery Rolls - I botch them

From the Department of "You've Got To Be Kidding Me."

Cross Stitch: Is the Laying Tool Worth It?

OMG Squee!

Hee, how fun!

Blog Division

This Week In WIPs.

Ack, I'm going blind!

If you didn't know better...

Just a random thought

That is some successful marketing

Official Knitting Fail

Cue the Dammit Chorus

Let's Talk Lace Knitting

Adventures in Katidom

Design decisions

That there be a finished object.

Ondas Update

Whew! Blocking lace is hard work!

I'm glad I hit Ravelry first.

Nice try, but no dice

In Which Kati Waxes About Yarn

I'm going to be testing yarns FOREVER...

Project Musings

If it pisses off the bigots, it's gotta be good!

Today's Awesome Vendor Award Goes To...

Why I Am Sad.

Look, you didn't even get your PUN right.

The Source of All The Trouble

Well, that was depressing.

Oh no! She's allergic to WHAT?!

Lookie what I finished!

Is Alden Amos good for anything?

I was right!

First Ornaments!

Enjoy my geekery

Spin-In News

I don't have a project?! What do you mean, I don't have a project.

Options, I still haz dem.

Fountain Pens

Some foot fetishist is going to love me.

Heading out to the old frog pond

You know what I hate?

Knitting Fiendery

Monogamy Is Overrated.

Yay, Dobby socks!

It's time for me to accept that I'm just evil.

Zealots ruin everything.

Well, baby Slytherins have to wear something, don't they?

Darn it, I'm going to have to practice what I preach.

Things That Bug Me (Knitting Edition)

Flickr is owned by Yahoo, isn't it?

Knitting Tip For The Only-Slightly Math Phobic

This is supposed to be a professional?

Sometimes other people embarrass me.

Bwa ha! I know what let's do!

Men's Crafts versus Women's Crafts

I hate the nonword "unvent"

Dammit dammit dammit dammit DAMMIT!

We now enter the 'I hate it' phase of the project.

Dear Knitting Drawer

OK, where can I steal a baby?

Kati-chan done good.

*does the Happy Djinn dance*

Yay! I'm getting a Namiki Falcon!

Oh no. "Snap"? Pens aren't supposed to go "Snap".

Oh yeah, Jinnayah's gettin' herself a new nib.

Let's talk ink

So, I'm a coin filler. I sit here and be a coin filler.

does the Happy Djinn dance