/">String Notes

Complex Weavers was wonderful. I met many people, attended interesting classes, spent plenty of time on a hammock by the beach chattering away with Laura, and all the other things you might expect.

Now I’m home, and engaged with yard work, house cleaning, and all those things that accumulate when you step out for even a few days. I have pictures to share, and more thoughts on the symposium, but they’ll have to wait a day or two until I get sorted out again. I will share the most surreal moment: I’m standing in line one evening, and the person behind me in line looks at me, reads my nametag. “Your blog says you’re at Complex Weavers right now.”

“Er, yeah, it does. And it’s even right!” I guess people do read this stuff.

To occupy you until I get back into the swing of things here:

- An essay on Loony Tunes by poet Billy Collins (probably my favorite modern poet).

- Calendar Geeks.

For those in the US, happy Independence Day, and to the rest of the world, at least it’s Friday!

I’m off to the Complex Weavers 2008 Seminar. Yes, it’s in Tampa at the end of June, and no, Peter Collingwood won’t be able to attend, but it will be just full of string geekery and other fibery goodness. I’m taking some interesting-sounding classes, including a couple that are well outside my usual interest zone. I’ll report back later.

Laura and I are meeting up in Philadelphia - she managed to get on the same flight to Tampa, and going on to share a room in the dorm accommodations. So obviously this would be exceedingly fun even without all the other weavers to meet, but should be just fantastic with them!

I will be taking the camera, but am trying to resist the urge to take the laptop. So, no blogging until the end of next week. Not that you could distinguish that from this week - I have been rotten busy, and devoting my limited spare time to making sure that dog fur doesn’t envelope the living room, and that the house isn’t swallowed by rapidly-growing grass. I’m looking forward to a few days away, and I think they should be really away, not in constant contact through the wonders of the internet. I know you all can cope - there’s plenty of good stuff out there to read!

In the interest of catching up on some back files (and in the interest of not having to actually think of anything to write today), here are some of this spring’s flowers. (How behind am I, you might ask? Well, none of these are still blooming.)

Okay, I realize that the title of this post is both a: not news; and b: a vast understatement. Really, weird is the wrong word. Circuitous, synergistic, voyeuristic, participatory…

I was reminded of the existence of a band I used to like, The Flash Girls, by a blog post a while ago. In my quest to locate their music (now available on last.fm and through Amazon, though it wasn’t when I started looking), I ended up corresponding briefly with author Will Shetterly, who was handling the music distribution for his wife Emma Bull, also an author and one of The Flash Girls (with the Fabulous Lorraine Garland).

Looking for the music, I found many other interesting things about everyone involved. All parties have blogs, and put at least some part of their lives online for others to read. Thus, the voyeuristic component. (Circuitous you should already comprehend.) Which is how I ended up making the nice Mr. Shetterly’s cookie recipe last night. (He is very nice, or at least was very helpful with the music acquisition.) His cookies are pretty good too. I used dried cherries instead of the raisins.

Morgan mugged Nick for a cookie, actually forcing his way into Nick’s lap and biting off chunks. Morgan really is a ferocious monster.

There was no substitution of catnip for any other ingredients, honest.

Now that I’ve worked in a few gratuitous cat pictures, back to the internet…

As a sort-of-related consequence, I’ve started participating in the comments/discussion of one of the earlier-mentioned people, which has led to a highly entertaining incident that I can’t really talk about yet, I don’t think, but will report on later (fringes of the rich and famous, sort of). Thus, participatory.

There are good and bad aspects to the voyeuristic and participatory components of this whole internet thing. You can peer into the lives of a wide selection of people, or at least as much as they are willing to share. I’m not sure this is entirely a good thing, as you can end up an observer rather than a participant, or only a virtual participant, reading about the things that others do rather than doing yourself. Author Robin Hobb has a scathing essay on bloggers. Worse, you can gain a certain measure of validation from this participatory voyeurism, because many internet-famous people are quite good about responding to comments or emails, and any old person can end up feeling included.

On the other hand, though, this free access to other people’s lives makes it abundantly clear that the folks who do whatever it is that you’re interested in are real people with real lives and do the same sort of things. That layer of polish that was present between you and “famous” people when everything was screened through journalists and publicists has eroded away. The mystique of being an author, or musician, or artist wears off along with it, and I think that lowers the perceived barriers for entry. Not for success, but for trying it.

My blogroll is wildly inaccurate, but I read four types of blogs. Friends, of course - it’s become one of the prime methods for keeping up with each other’s lives. A few authors of great interest who can also manage good blogs (not a given - there are some authors I love as novelists who write dull blogs), artists, fiber and not, whose blogs I read for inspiration, and academics (mostly scientists). In the latter three cases, voyeuristic elements aside, I find the blogs remarkably reassuring - other people do the kinds of things I’m interested, and encounter the same problems, same excitements, same successes. Even the famous ones.

And that, I think, is one of the best things about the internet. Well, along with Google.

Indigo process will have to wait for another post, but here are some of the indigo results, now that everything has aired, and rinsed, and had time to dry.

Wool is easy, and the couple of skeins I threw in came out very nicely, not that you can really tell from this picture. Dark, even, rich blues. I like dyeing wool yarn - I can get it to behave itself, and usually end up with what I want.

Silk, though, is a challenge. Even with synthetic dyes it can be difficult to get an even shade that won’t bleed, especially in bright colors. I’m getting better at it with modern dyes, but am still not there with the natural dyes. I did a good job of matching the target colors on two large skeins of silk.

Not too bad, given my lack of experience with indigo on silk. I’ve done cotton before, and wool of course. It took a couple days of dipping and airing to get the shade I wanted when the skeins were dry. The problem, though, is that these are both fairly uneven (click for big on the picture below).

I wouldn’t hesitate to use these myself. A finished piece would certainly show some variation, but not as much as it appears from the skein, where light and dark patches appear. But I’m hesitant to send these to someone else, which was the original intent. The imperfections of my dyejob don’t match the intended use of the silk. But then, it’s indigo, and the replacements will be modern chemical dyes. I will leave it to the recipient to decide which would be better.

Question for discussion: how much of my hesitation is due to the ready availability of industrial-dyed yarns, which are uniform? While a medieval dyer would presumably strive for even color, how achievable was that, and how was variation within a skein actually viewed?

Whirlwind update with something for everyone. I’ve been collecting photos and not posting them, so here’s a catch-up photo essay.

I have a new reel, complete with rotation counter, courtesy of Nick. It spins beatifully, although the counter-post is going to need some work.

The furniture fairies (aka Nick’s parents) brought us some things last winter, and I appropriated one as a yarn storage cabinet. It’s in the hallway because it won’t fit anywhere else, but isn’t it just lovely?

And it looks like it was built to hold yarn, doesn’t it?

One of this weekend’s projects was a whole bunch of dyeing, including an indigo vat. More to come on that, but isn’t the result pretty?

The tomatoes are all heirloom varieties, some of which I’ve never even heard of: Flamme, Sioux, Pineapple, and Brandywine.

Don’t they have such evocative names? All are planted in the courtyard, and doing well even in the crowd of pinks that I couldn’t bring myself to pull out.

The first blackberry bush is blooming! They were planted next year, so I’m not anticipating a big crop, but I’d like a few berries.

The raspberries are making themselves right at home, sending up new shoots. No flowers yet, but I’m hopeful.

The bad news: I’m on the waitlist for SOAR.

The good news (I hope): I’m not very far down on the waitlist, so hopefully I still get to go. Not that I want other people to cancel, but… I have plans, you know!

This is something of a guest post, as these aren’t my adventures, but rather Tamie’s. Still, I’m the one writing about them (with her permission), though I fully expect to have her add her own perspective in the comments section.

First of all, let me point out that this sort of behavior is why Tamie doesn’t go in the field very often.

Eventually she settled down, and the crew got down to work. Something involving liquid hog manure, I’m afraid. Let me just say that I’m not involved in this project in any way!

But wait! There’s a poor unfortunate (and smelly) mouse in the vat! Look closer and see if you can find poor Waldo.

Can’t find him? Here’s some help.

Ignoring all warnings of “he’ll bite you”, and any other naysayers, Tamie and an assistant rescued the poor creature.

I hope he was properly appreciative.

Remember that meme that Abby tagged me for? I got tagged again (and I’m not going to do it over!), but that reminded me that I hadn’t quite finished. All that’s left is to tag some other people. This one seems to be rather popular, though, and everyone that I was thinking of tagging has done it already - people like Rob (who tagged me again), and Cyndy. I do still have one victim participant in mind - not only has Laura not been tagged yet, she hasn’t posted in a couple weeks. Hopefully this will inspire her. Plus I don’t know all the answers!

I had a longer list of meme-ies, I swear I did, but it fell out of my brain, replaced by a stack of work-stuff. I hate when that happens!

Oh yeah… writing this, then letting it sit in my files until mid-June would not be helpful, so I should actually post it. Worldwide Knit in Public Day is Saturday June 14 this year. Go somewhere and knit! Demonstrate to the world that knitters are everywhere, and in all ages and genders and attitudes.

For anyone in my area who reads this blog, the State College get-together is at Sunset Park on the 14th. (scroll down on the linked description). If you aren’t in central PA, the first, main WWKIP link, has all the information for get-togethers, well worldwide.

Now we just need a Worldwide Weave in Public Day!