Chapter 13 of New World Order, “You Can Pick Your Friends…” is posted on Taurus and Taurus. Enjoy!
Weaving, Woven, Fabric!
I’ve been weaving, as I mentioned in my article “Weaving!” My fourth class was tonight and I’m nearly done! I’ll need to finish the actual fabric coming off the loom in my next lesson, which will be the first in a series of learning how to use a four harness loom. But I unwound the fabric today and… my goodness! It’s really long!
The Cricket is portable! It fits well inside a Peapod bag, and isn’t very heavy. It’s a little unwieldy, but I was able to carry it on the train without too much fuss.
This is the fully-dressed loom, with the warp all wrapped around the beam.
I decided to look down inside the bag, just to show how compact this little guy is. I’m also amazed by how big the Peapod bag is. ~grin~
I’ll post more later, about the beginning process of the weaving, the yarns I used, and the ending process – with the finished fabric – after I get some sleep.
Happy weaving!
Association Meme
Have you ever played the word association game? In that game, someone will say a word, then the next person says the first word they think of. Each person who follows simply says what ever word comes to mind, based on the previous word.
For instance:
Person 1: red
Person 2: bull
Person 3: pasture
Person 4: grass
etc.
For the meme, it would look more like this:
Alice said excitement
Hootin’ Anni said thrill
Mari said ride as in roller coaster
Here are the rules:
1. Anyone can play, whether they have been tagged or not.
2. Include the rules and logo in your post.
3. Copy out all the responses that were made before you.
4. Link to each of the people who responded before you.
5. Put in your response. Your response can be as little as a single word or as much as 100 words. It can be a word, a phrase, an image, a song, a video, a story, or a short rant.
6. Tag anyone you would like to challenge to play this game. You do not have to tag anyone.
7. You can do this any time you run across it, even if you were one of the previous responders.
If you have done this meme on your blog, you are welcome to put your link in here. Be sure to link to the specific post, and welcome to the Association Association.
Want to simply jump in? You are welcome to start with the word “Excitement”, or to take off from any of the responses you find among the players listed below or from anywhere you see this meme.
Alice said I remember riding the “Batman” roller coaster in Great America. You dangled from it with your feet hanging down. There was a pile of shoes under it and a sign warning that if you lost them, you wouldn’t get them back. So my response is “shoes”.
Noony said:
Shoes remind me of shame, of having my feet measured by some stranger and then having to wear clunky, ugly Famolare’s to school. When I got there, though, my shoes became cool and so it didn’t matter as much. But I secretly harbor the desire to wear fancy, flashy, electric-pink shoes. So my response is “yearning.”
Thursday 13: Thirteen Prompts
The Evanston Writers Workshop holds Prompt Group sessions every second and fourth Wednesday at the Barnes and Noble in Evanston. While you could certainly join us, I figured I’d feature a mini-session for today’s Thursday 13: thirteen writing prompts to prime the pump and get you moving. If you decide to try one or two (or all!), please link to the result in the comments so I can come visit and see!
1. You are a middle-aged woman, dressed in black, walking in New York’s Central Park at six o’clock in the evening on a Sunday. Who are you, and what are you doing?
2. Go to your bathroom and find something scented: soap, bubble bath, cologne or perfume. Take it back to your desk or wherever you write. Close your eyes and inhale the scent. Then write.
3. Try a picture prompt. You can go to Google Images and look up random things, or use this one as a starter:
4. Try using prompt cards: take 6 settings, 6 plot ideas, and 6 characters, shuffle each set and pick one of each. Then write about the combination.
5. Setting: desert. Plot: betrayal. Character: Charlotte, 33, hairdresser.
6. Go to Pandora dot com and enter the name of a band you don’t often listen to, but that a character might. Listen to the resulting station and write a story with your character.
7. Open a book at random, and pick the first sentence on the left page. Write that sentence on your paper or type it into your word processor and write for 500 words.
8. “Martin never thought he’d see the day when…” and keep going.
9. Take a short story or flash that you’ve written and rewrite it, from the perspective of another character or with a different type of ‘feel.’ Example: if it’s a romance, write it as a spy story; if it has a happy ending, change it to a murder.
10. Rewrite a story from the Bible. Old Testament ones are interesting: try the story of Ruth or maybe the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah.
11. Rewrite a modern story that you like (this one is tricky, because it can be plagiarism if you mimic word for word, but I’m speaking more of using something as a model and creating your own story from it). Example: Star Wars is about a young man, coming of age, on a hero’s journey. For your story, set that same saga somewhere else, like a young police officer in modern-day New York…
12. Tell a story from the point of view of your pet. Make it serious, not a parody. Make the setting without humans.
13. Write a story without a sense: sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, something. Don’t use that sense at all in description. Bonus points if you eliminate one that you use all the time: if your characters are usually very visual, then eliminate that and describe everything by sound and touch.
~Happy TT!~
Tunisian Snafu
As in anything, the grace to be a beginner is a necessary prerequisite to becoming more than a beginner.
I suppose, therefore, that I’m doing it right.
In working with my new Mochi Mini yarn, which is coming off the hook beautifully, I encountered the same problem I have with ‘regular’ crochet: I added stitches.
As you can see in the image on the left, there is an extra stitch hump moving out in a graceful wave to the left. What happened was that I counted the stitches on my hook, and got 40. Before the last stitch, I should have had 41 so that the last stitch makes 42.
I added a stitch, and went on like normal.
Then, I counted.
I have 44.
For you math geeks, 44 = more than 42.
~headdesk~
I took it off the hook and started back up with a test yarn, Lion Brand’s Wool Ease worsted weight in ivory. This way, I’ll be able to practice the stitch in a larger yarn that I can easily see. I’m having trouble making the left edge neat, but I’ll keep trying. I may need to go back to the instructor and review that last stitch, or see what I can find on You Tube that works with my way of thinking (I have trouble translating stuff sometimes, so I usually do better with a live instructor).
Thursday 13 – 13 Things I’m Excited About This Summer
With all the doom and gloom repeatedly in the news through all media channels, it’s easy to forget that it’s good to just be alive. It’s even better when we can muster some excitement to be here. In honor of this sentiment, I would like to share thirteen things I’m excited about this summer. Enjoy!
1. I’m learning to weave! I’m attending the Chicago Weaving School and wrote about it last week – with pictures. More pictures will go up after tonight’s class, where I learn to put the weft on and actually weave some fabric. Yahoo!
2. I put in a garden! We have lots of new plants to play with, even some flowers. I also, it appears, have a very industrious squirrel who is soon to be a dog toy.
3. My dog is getting better at behaving when on a walk. We might even get to have some guests over!
4. I have a house guest coming next month for almost a whole week! I can’t wait! Rachel’s visiting the first week of July and we’re going to paint the town red and even visit Madison, the setting for our first serial novel, New World Order.
5. I’ve started back up with Skep, Old Tools For the Present. It’s a blog that I write with my friend and circle partner, Dorothy.
6. I’ve also re-started Eclectica, which used to be a print newsletter. It’s now on the web in blog form, and actually has been since 2008. But I recently re-started it and am blogging about chocolate, gardening, and some other cool things.
7. My writing group is going very well. We are planning our next events, including an Artist’s Way workshop that starts this Sunday and a retreat in August.
8. I was invited back to Michigan to distill oregano again. We’ll be making hydrosol and essential oil. There are possible opportunities to go back and make lavender and lemon verbena, and I couldn’t be more excited.
9. Tunisian knitting class starts a week from Sunday. It’s only two Sundays, but I figure it will be a neat way to learn another way to knot yarn. Knit yarn. I meant knit.
10. Going to Starved Rock in August for our retreat with EWW. We’re working out details, but it should be really fun.
11. Going to Las Vegas in September for our annual writing retreat with a small group of writing friends. I’m excited, since we have a couple new people joining us. We’ll even check out Zion National Park. Can’t wait!
12. Submitted a novel to a publisher a couple weeks ago, so I’ll hear, one way or the other, this summer. Either way, it’s exciting to take the next step in being a New York Times bestselling author.
13. I’m re-doing a camera bag design I’m doing, and have a better design. I don’t know that I’m happy with a curl in this one, so I may make a third, but the design process is rewarding.
I’m so excited, I can’t stand myself! Must go clean something… (bonus points if you can tell me where that comment comes from… hint… it’s an animated movie…)
~Happy TT!~
Weaving!
As some of you know, I’ve recently purchased a Cricket Rigid Heddle Loom. I didn’t post an update on it when I bought it, but I’ve been collecting weaving books (there aren’t a huge number for the rigid heddle loom, but there are a few).
Last night, I took my first class at the Chicago Weaving School! It was great fun. Natalie Boyett is a great instructor. If you are ever in the Chicago area and have thought of weaving, this is the place for you. She has actual dressed looms that you can use without having to work through the setup process, and thus can see if it’s even something you’d like to try or not. But believe me, it’s fun!
I’ve taken a couple pictures of dressing the loom, and wanted to share my experiences.
First, one has to put the loom together. I didn’t think to take before pix, but it was a challenge for me since I don’t translate 2-D to 3-D very well. But if you don’t have that problem, it’s easy, and even if you DO have that problem, I was able to follow the instructions and get things going.
Once the loom is put together, the next step is to dress it, or “warp” it. The warp are the long continuous threads in the fabric, the weft are the crossways ones. The Cricket comes with two skeins of Lion Brand Wool Ease, which would work, but Natalie suggested I try some weaving yarns and do a color sampler. Color interacts much differently with weaving than knitting, so I followed her advice.
My loom is ten inches wide on the warp surface, with eight pins to the inch – think of that as the gauge. The eight pins are one inch wide, so there are ten sets of eight across width – giving me ten colors, each one inch wide, to work with.
We went left to right, the colors of the spectrum (remember Roy G. Biv from art class? if not, read on and I’ll explain it) as well as black, brown and ivory. Roy G. Biv is a mnemonic to remember the colors of the visible spectrum, or, in layman’s language, the colors of the rainbow. They are Red, Orange, Yellow (Roy), Green (G.), Blue, Indigo and Violet (Biv).
Here’s what the loom looks like half dressed, with the warp threads still wound around the warping peg:
A view from the top, looking at the back of the loom, is here:
This particular warp will be the length of the table (and as I’m typing, I realize that I neglected to measure that, but I’d guess around five feet or 60 inches). If I wanted something longer, I would use a warping board.
We did finish dressing the loom last night, but it was very late so I didn’t take pictures. I will post another update once I get some more pictures to share.
Thursday 13 – 13 Thoughts About the Body
In honor of joining a new gym, the Evanston Athletic Club, here are thirteen thoughts about the body and being in it.
1. Stress is a fact of life. It is dangerous, because it causes the body to secrete chemicals that are harmful to it, but that are helpful in the fight/flight response. This is necessary for survival; however, too much of it can create harm long term.
2. One of the ways to combat stress is to make an effort to get into the body. If you are great at this, you probably don’t need to read the rest of my post. But if you, like me, sorta suck at it, then read on.
3. Yoga is one of the ways I’ve found that helps me get into my body. I don’t have to “do” anything actively, which is counter-intuitive for an intense person like me, but as I follow the instructions of the teacher (in a group class), I find that I can unhook my mind’s chatter and just do the poses.
4. Being in the body isn’t spectacular, or earth-shaking. It’s quiet. At the end of yoga class, for example, I don’t leap up filled with an epiphany or anything (or, at least, haven’t YET), but I feel calmer and more centered.
5. There is a difference between Grounding and Centering. Grounding is merging your energy with that of the earth and the world around us, and is an act of connection. Centering is pulling our attention and energy back into the physical center, what the Chinese call the Dantian.
6. We have a lot we can learn from the Chinese and Indian philosophies of the body.
7. Massage is another great tool for stress management and physical health. In particular, related to stress, the muscles and connective tissue form something called adhesions in the fascia. If you imagine the fascia as a strip of stretchy fabric or canvas, it wraps around the muscles. It should move smoothly across the muscles and not get stuck. In the process of exercising or being stressed, collagen deposits act like glue between this fascia and the muscle fibers and literally adhere them together. This is what accounts for the crunchy feeling when you run your knuckles along the big muscle of your thigh. Breaking them up can be a tad unpleasant, but will help you feel a LOT better and looser.
8. Trigger points suck. But if you find a good massage therapist that knows trigger point therapy, keep them!! (The therapist, not the trigger point.)
9. Swimming is good food. I find that floating on my back, using my legs to kick gently and my arms to guide myself along the lanes, helps my neck to relax. It takes a while, like sometimes thirty or forty minutes, but it really helps with stress and pain associated with computer work.
10. Chinese Baoding balls help prevent, or manage, carpal tunnel syndrome and other tendonitis associated with typing too much and knitting too much. They’re tricky to explain, but I did find a You Tube that might help. (As I watched it, I thought, I could do a You Tube – the Noonychannel!)
11. I actually HAVE a Noony channel. Not much is on it, just a video about Chuck the Sheep (no, it’s not salacious in any way and yes, it really is about a sheep), and a poor attempt at my first movie… with a twist… (Yes, video quality is awful, but a) it was my phone, and b) I don’t know anything about video production.)
12. The Noony channel has nothing to do with managing stress. Or being in the body.
13. I begin to see my problem. Attention span much?
~Happy TT!~
Thursday 13: 13 Conference Epiphanies
In preparing for our first writing conference, Evanston Writers Workshop 2010 “In the Trenches With the Writer,” May 15 and 16, 2010, I have learned a few things. Some of them are useful, some obvious, and some… well, it is ME, after all, so what do you expect?
1. Debbie did a great job designing our website.
2. I didn’t learn this, but the others doing the conference with me are newer at running events, and it was new to them: the last week ALWAYS has flux. We’ve had lots and lots of swapping and changes. This is normal and is no cause for alarm.
3. When you’re not working for a major corporation, you don’t have as much money as you do when you plan an event for one. This means, you can’t just schedule a car service to pick up your keynote speaker at the airport.
4. Which means, I get to pick up our keynote speaker at the airport.
5. Which means, she’ll be trapped in a car with me for an hour between Midway and the hotel.
6. I sure hope we still have a keynote speaker Saturday. o.O…
7. I designed the program in Microsoft Word. This is much, much easier than other people think it is. I should remember, just because something is easy for me, doesn’t mean it’s “easy.” I’ve had lots of classes and stuff and lots of years of training to make it look easy.
8. I had fun designing the program. (This is an important epiphany.) It’s 11×17, which gives me four full letter-sized pages to play with.
9. I could have used twice that, even three times, with all the content I wanted to put in it.
10. I REALLY love to write. And create. And make programs, newsletters, print stuff, online stuff.
11. You can register at the door, either with a check made payable to “Evanston Writers Workshop” or online (we will have a laptop available since there’s wifi). We will take cash, but may not have any change, so exact change is preferable. Prices:
Member Full Conference Price: $90.00
Member One Day Price: $54.00
Non-Member Full Conference Price: $100.00
Non-Member One Day Price: $60.00
Student Full Conference Price (proof required at the door): $60.00
12. The support of our members and friends means the world to us. We’ve even had members join who were crunched for cash, simply because they believe in what we’re doing. We really, REALLY appreciate their support. Thank you.
13. I’m getting really excited about the conference. Registration starts at 8:00 in Winnetka; hope to see you there! The conference website has more information.
Update on Design
My bag is coming along. I’ve finished the main body, and put in a round of purl stitches for a fold. Then the lining is stockinette.
The unit is 12″ wide, 9″ deep, and 0.75″ thick. This view shows the 12″ width. I’ll need to block the outside, the 9″ part, to make sure it fits. I’ll pick up stitches at the top and add an envelope closure, and probably make a button.
This view shows the lining inside the bag. I couldn’t get it down inside deeply because of the needles; while I could slip the stitches off to a string as a holder, I don’t really need to see how it works since I can size it by putting the unit itself inside to ensure it fits.
This shows the ridge of the purl row separating the pattern fabric from the lining. You can even see in this shot how the lining leans away from the body. That will make the lining sit down inside without tacking.
I’ll update soon with more.