• I'll be teaching for the Tucson Knitters Guild in Tucson, AZ October 10-12, 2009.
• Join me at the Izaak Walton Inn (Essex, MT) on January 23-24, 2010 for the 2nd Annual Camas Creek Winter Retreat.

September 28, 2009: On Fire

Esther, the information we got with Lila said that she's a shepherd/lab mix. She's awfully tiny if that's indeed what she is. And I think she needs to put a little meat on her bones. We're giving her some extra food every day.

The only bad habit she has is coming in the living room and leaping up onto one of the couches—some people might think that's okay but I don't allow animals on my furniture. We're working on that. Apparently she was allowed to do it at her old home.

I was working in my office Saturday night when the pager went off for a forest fire above the town of Lakeside, down on the west side of Flathead Lake. In a very short time it got out of control and by yesterday morning had grown to 220 acres. I took a picture on my way to church yesterday morning:

It's hard to see much because I am taking a picture from 15 miles away, but if you look closely you can see a plume of smoke. It's much more impressive at night when the flames are visible. Voluntary evacuations are in place for some homeowners. The weather is supposed to improve tomorrow (we consider "cold and rain" an improvement during fire season) so that should help the firefighters get this under control.

I did see a forest fire (a very very small one) start the first week of November a couple of years ago. Normally, though, fire season should be winding down now and we shouldn't be seeing new starts like this. It's rather scary—if it could start there, it quite easily could start above my house.

I also have an errata to mention: the chart for the Kettle-Dyed Neck Scarf in the Fall 2006 issue of the newsletter is wrong. I will post a PDF with the correct chart on the errata page today. It's unusual that it's takes three years for me to hear about an error in one of my patterns. And it was a bonehead error on my part, that's for sure. Somehow the "simplest" patterns are the ones that are easiest to screw up.

September 25, 2009: Meet Lila

The husband and the girls went to the shelter today and brought home a new dog:

Her name is Lila and she's about a year old. She was an owner turn-in, had been adopted out by someone and returned after a week because the second owner just didn't have enough room for her. The information we got with her said she needs "room to run." We have that, and then some.

Lila settled right in. She figured out the electric fence, got to know Rusty (who doesn't seem the least bit bothered by her), and has spent most of the afternoon exploring the backyard while the husband and Rusty hang out on the porch. I think she will be a great addition to the pack.

The husband liked one of the other dogs at the shelter, a mastiff mix with an extremely laid-back disposition (probably why the husband liked him). The husband said he was already big, even as a puppy, and he thought we probably wouldn't do well with a 250-pound dog. The neighbors behind us breed mastiffs and have about ten of them. We hear them barking a lot.

We're awaiting a dry cold front. The whole county is under a red flag warning because it's so hot and dry, and the front is supposed to bring 80+ mph at the tops of the mountains.

And we have a new dog.

September 24, 2009: Still No Ravelry Downloads

You'll have to ignore the previous post. The consensus among my fellow designers is that the Ravelry Terms of Service (both of them) simply do not adequately protect designers and their intellectual property rights. Even though it looks like we're only governed by the Ravelry Store Terms of Service, in reality, we're subject to both—and the first one has that licensing terminology that makes me really uncomfortable. Jess and Casey know about our concerns; the ball is in their court as to what they do about it. I won't be selling on Ravlery until the wording changes.

[It might help if knitters complained, too, that they can't buy patterns through Ravelry because their favorite designers won't agree to the loosely-worded Terms of Service.]

I've been subbing this week for the music teacher at our school. I did find out what it would take for me to have a job like that: two years full-time to get an elementary education degree. The great irony about all of this is that our school could pull one of the other K-8 teachers in as a music teacher—even if that person had no musical ability whatsoever—simply by virtue of the fact that he or she had an elementary ed degree. But the school cannot hire a highly qualified musician to teach only music without an elementary ed degree. That equation just doesn't make sense.

My sister-in-law lives in California. They have no music program in their schools because of budget cuts, so she takes a 2-hour class twice a week to learn how to teach music to kids, and then she gets to go to the school and teach the kids.

I got to give a kid his first trumpet lesson yesterday but I had no idea that a trumpet lesson was on the schedule. He's coming in again today so I am taking in my trumpet and we'll play together. I also have beginning/intermediate band again, and I think that's my favorite time of the day.

My FIL leaves today. I hope he has a safe drive back to Colorado.

September 22, 2009: The Thing About Digital Dowloads

Katya and EJ, thanks for the vote of support for offering downloads of patterns on Ravelry and here on my website. I know how popular digital files are becoming for more and more knitters.

Here's the thing, though: It's rather interesting to me that the downturn in newsletter subscriptions began around the same time I began offering the newsletter in digital format. I have no way of knowing if the two are connected, and I don't want to accuse anyone of stealing. However, the reality is that it's pretty easy to pass along a PDF. Someone who wouldn't have stood at a copier and made copies of a 24-page newsletter for a friend might think nothing of e-mailing them a copy of the file. Same thing with patterns.

While I would like to think that we've moved beyond this kind of thing, I know we haven't. At the welcome cocktail party onboard the Alaskan cruise, one of the students in the group said she had asked the cruise organizer if the ship had a copy machine we could use. "Wouldn't it be great if we could make copies of the patterns we have and share them with everyone else?" she said. While I was trying to recover from shock, another student piped up and said, "Copying patterns is illegal." Whew.

Another issue we designers have to consider is "who controls our intellectual property?" This has been a topic of discussion on a designer list I moderate. Ravelry recently changed its terms of service for designers offering digital downloads. Specifically, the content portion of the Terms of Service now states (the italics are mine), "You represent that you have the right to post or transmit such Content, and, by posting or transmitting such Content, you give the Company a license to publish and distribute such Content though the Services and to incorporate such Content into other works in any format or medium now known or later developed. "

ETA: Katya did some digging and discovered that I was reading the wrong part of the Ravelry Terms of Service. The TOS for designers can be found here and doesn't include the wording I originally stated that it did (that is for general Ravelry users). Thank goodness! That's what I get for coming in late to a discussion on a designer list because I was sailing the Pacific Ocean!

Danger, Will Robinson! Designers have gotten burned by that kind of clause before. The last thing I want to do is post my patterns for sale on Ravelry and find out in the future that they have been included in a publication (and note the part about "any format now known or later developed") without any further compensation to me!

Knitters don't see these kind of behind-the-scenes issues that designers grapple with, and why should they? It's not their concern. But it does concern me and my business, so while it seems like I might be proceeding slowly or dragging my feet, it's really more that I am being cautious and trying to protect my intellectual property.

Currently my patterns are available through Fiber Trends (hard copy) and Patternfish (digital downloads). I will continue to explore other avenues of distribution, but right now Ravelry isn't among them.

September 21, 2009: Five More

Just a point of clarification from my previous post: the Winter issue of the newsletter gets mailed every November, so the last issue of the newsletter will go out in November of 2010. I have five more issues to produce. Most subscriptions will run out sometime during the next year, which is why I chose to make the announcement now. Only one-year subscriptions are available now, and after the end of the year no subscriptions will be available. Stopping publication of the newsletter is not a quick, clean, or easy process—there are a lot of administrative loose ends to tie up.

I'm still sorting through how I feel about all of this. Mostly I am curious to see where knitting goes in the next ten or fifteen years and who actually succeeds at making a living as a knitting designer. I think the whole industry will suffer as a result of this unreasonable demand that everything be free, and that makes me sad. Sometimes I think we women are our own worst enemies.

I'm hoping to visit with some people today about the requirements for getting a teaching degree. It looks like there are a couple of ways I could go about it: 1) keep my bachelor's degree and take enough classes to get certified or 2) get a master's degree in education. I'm not sure which is the best course, or how long each would take.

Today I have no subbing duties. I need to catch up on errands and office work. And I have a couple of "Torchwood" DVDs that will be a nice accompaniment to some knitting time.

September 19, 2009: Twists and Turns® Is Ending

This is a difficult post to write and it doesn't come without a lot of soul-searching and angst. I've decided that 2010 will be the last publication year of Twists and Turns®: The Newsletter for Lovers of Cable Knitting. It will cease with the Winter 2010 issue.

It's time. The subscriber base has steadily dwindled over the past year or so and the newsletter isn't really supporting itself financially anymore. As I've noted in previous blog posts, I'm finding it harder and harder to compete with all the free knitting information that can be found all over the Internet. I've been in this business for 13 years, and it's gotten a lot harder in the past couple of years to make a living at it. Perhaps if the economy hadn't tanked I might be willing to ride this out. At this point, I'm not.

I still plan to design. However, the idea of not having a production deadline every three months is very appealing and I suspect it might even free up the creative juices. I would like to finish the two other cabling books and perhaps revamp the finishing book. But knitting likely won't be a full-time pursuit for me any longer. I want to continue subbing this year and decide if I'd like to enroll in a program to become a certified teacher here in Montana.

Iit may be that simply taking a break from the nuttiness will help me get some much-needed prespective. Being a knitting designer has been great fun and it gave me a lot of flexibility in my life when I needed it. But all good things must come to an end, even Twists and Turns®. Thanks to every single one of my subscribers for your support over the years. I appreciate it.

September 18, 2009: Education

I subbed yesterday for the "clerk" of a neighboring school district. "Clerk" is in quotes because although that is his official title, he also does recess duty, lunch duty, teaches a math class, and answers the phone. The principal of that same school is also the librarian.

That school is less than half the size of our elementary school, but like our school, it seems to be a wonderful place for students and teachers. One boy told me at recess that he's sorry his school only goes through 6th grade because he doesn't want to go to the middle school in town next year.

I bring this up because our school recently announced that it plans to hold a vote on a $1.2 million bond issue to build a desperately-needed new gym. This would be the first debt our school has taken on in more than 25 years, and we would be eligible for a 0.7% interest rate (yep, that's not a typo) on the loan. The day the article appeared in the paper, some very nasty comments were made online at the newspaper's website by someone who thinks we should bus all of our kids into town and have them attend school there instead of putting money into our rural schools.

The comments made me very angry—although I have to remind myself that those comments are usually made by know-it-alls who haven't set foot in a public school since they graduated (and likely aren't voters in our district). I wanted to tell this person what a wonderful school my child attends. The teachers love what they do and the curriculum is strong—six of the top ten graduating seniors at my daughter's high school two years ago came from our little rural school and our students made up almost half of the students in the IB program. The teachers who work at our school also live in our neighborhood and attend our church. I want my kids raised by this village, not a bigger one in town.

My older daughter had to take a 40-minute bus ride into town when she began attending high school. Can you imagine putting a kindergartener on a bus with a bunch of older kids for almost an hour, expecting that child to find his or her way around a huge, unfamiliar school? What about children with developmental difficulties? My older daughter went from kindergarten through eighth grade with a severely autistic child in her class. It was a real kleenex moment at 8th-grade graduation when she and her classmates brought this boy into the gym with them for the ceremony. They were all better people for having had him in their class for 9 years, and that might not have been possible at another school.

I just wish that the people who think they know how to fix our educational system would come and spend time at a school for a week, and see what the real challenges are.

I am almost finished with my county sub application. I had to be fingerprinted on Wednesday and today I have to go back to the health department and have my TB test officially read (I am pretty sure it's negative). The county requested a copy of my diploma, but the husband and I have huge diplomas which are framed and hanging in the hallway upstairs. I asked my college to send me an official-looking letter that I could submit, instead.

The electronic file of the newsletter went out by e-mail yesterday. If you didn't receive it, or you are having trouble with it, please let me know: Janet at BigSkyKnitting dot com.

September 17, 2009: Glaciers and Whales

Alaska was filled with all sorts of natural wonder-ness. We saw lots of whales; this is the best picture I got of one:

The glaciers were quite amazing, especially when they calved (a very noisy process!):

The chunks of ice that came off the glaciers were much bluer than ice we're used to seeing. The naturalist told us it was because this ice has been compressed and all the air bubbles forced out of it—it's much denser than ice from the fridge.

I'll keep the pics coming in the next couple of days.

This week has just been nuts. I subbed Monday, had a meeting Monday night; subbed Tuesday, had a meeting Tuesday night; subbed yesterday, had a meeting last night that went way longer than normal because it involved some budget issues; I'm subbing today but fortunately don't have a meeting tonight; and I am subbing tomorrow and have a meeting tomorrow night. The only good part about all those meetings is that it's lots of knitting time. I did say to the husband last night, though, that I probably can't keep up this pace for long. I left yesterday morning at 7:30 a.m. and didn't get home until 9:30 p.m. I will have to figure out the right balance between working at home and subbing. I could do it full-time if I had to, but I think I'm going to have to have at least one day a week at home or I won't be able to keep up with the other stuff I have to do.

And the universe seems bent on keeping the newsletter from going out. I stopped yesterday to pick up the barcoded mailing labels for the newsletter yesterday—labels I ordered the day before I left on the cruise—and they couldn't find them. Nor could they find the disk containing the information. I had to send them the file again and they promised to run the labels and deliver them to me today. Aarrrrgggghhhhh.

I'm subbing today at a new school. A friend of mine gave them my name and they called while I was working at the elementary school yesterday. Lack of subbing opportunities is not going to be a problem.

September 16, 2009: The ms Westerdam

I spent all of last week on this:

The sheer size of the ship amazes me. What amazes me even more is that it didn't seem that large inside, or even on the Promenade deck (three trips around the Promenade deck equalled a mile, which I made an effort to walk at least once a day). Before I left, I tried to describe the size of the ship to my friend's 6 year-old daughter. I think she's just going to have to look at the picture.

Fun things about the ship included the towel animals left on our beds each night:

The monkey was my personal favorite. He was hanging up the night we were sailing in very rough waters, and it was a wild ride for all of us.

I did find a nice spot up on deck to knit, much to the amusement of my fellow passengers:

We knitters garnered a fair bit of attention as we sat around and knitted. One of our favorite spots was the Explorer's Lounge on Deck 2, where we gathered after dinner every night to listen to a wonderful string quartet. JC taught one of the wait staff to knit—her name was Rose—and she took to it like a duck to water.

I'll get more pics of scenery up in the next few days.

I was a bit annoyed to find out when I got home that the newsletter hadn't been printed while I was gone; I dropped the files off at the pre-press company the day before I left, thinking they would make the negatives last Monday and send them to the printer and the newsletter would be done by the time I returned. Apparently the pre-press people forgot about the file and they didn't produce the negatives until the day after I got back. Arrrgggghhh. The printer put a rush on it and it WILL get mailed by Friday.

I've been subbing this week; our school secretary's daughter had a baby and I've been filling in at the office. So far it's been relatively quiet, although one of the kinders (whose teacher is also pregnant) asked me if I had a baby in my tummy. I guess she asks all the women at the school that question. Gotta love those five year-olds.

After school today I'm going to run into town and fill out the application to become a sub for the county. When I began subbing at our school seven years ago, background checks and fingerprinting weren't yet mandatory. Now they are, and I have to have both done. I think it won't be a problem, as I don't have so much as a parking ticket on my record. I also have to have the TB test re-done. The person I spoke with at the county superintendent's office said that they've had a rush of people applying to be subs due to the economy, but being a sub requires at least a bachelor's degree, as it should.

My FIL arrives today for a visit. I think we'll wait until after he leaves next week to get another dog, although Rusty howls every night when we go to bed. He doesn't like being left alone downstairs while the rest of the pack is sleeping. The other night he was wandering around the living room and found a ball of some possum yarn in the basket next to my chair. The next thing I knew, he had picked it up in his mouth and trotted off with it. We had a little talk about how yarn isn't a chew toy, even though it might smell like a rodent.

And now I need to get ready for another day at the germ factory. No flu thus far, although we have one confirmed case of strep throat. Oh joy.

September 13, 2009: Back From Alaska

The Alaskan cruise is over and I am back home in Kalispell. I promise to write more and post some pics in the coming days, once I get my desk cleaned off and my vestibular system adjusts to being back on dry land. Thanks to a large supply of ginger pills, I had no trouble on the boat but I am a bit dizzy back here on terra firma. Go figure.

Alas, all was not well here at home. My beloved Chester had another Addison's attack but wasn't able to recover. He died Thursday morning. I found out when I called home from Ketchikan on Friday. The husband picked a beautiful spot in the woods just behind the garden and he and the girls buried him there. I am sure that wherever he is there is lots of snow and thousands of tennis balls to dig up. I wish he could have been with us a bit longer, but as the husband reminded me, I had already brought him back from the dead twice, and we gave him two years more than he would have had with anyone else. I can tell Rusty misses him. In another week or two I will send the husband and the kids to the shelter to pick out another dog. There are plenty of them out there who need a good home, and we do love our dogs.

We also lost a gentleman from our church in a four-wheeler accident this past week. I wish I could have been here for his funeral. He always made of point of telling me how much he appreciated it when our quartet sang in church.

And now I need some rest.

September 1, 2009: Fall Issue Sneak Peek

Here is a teaser for the Fall issue, due out in mid-September (it's a few weeks late because of my summer schedule):

The projects are, from upper left: The Regiment pullover, a unisex design knit in Dream in Color Classy; the Brielle Socks by Katya Frankel, knit in some wonderful Fyberspates Bluefaced Liecester sock yarn; the Saxon Braid Scarf, and old design of mine that I unearthed and reknit in an updated yarn called Sensation, from Naturally Yarns of New Zealand (carried by Fiber Trends); and the Duineil Cardigan, a great man's sweater designed by Jenna Hurry in Cascade 220.

This issue also has a wonderful article by Rachel Grey on adding waist shaping to cabled garments. You won't want to miss it.

List | Previous | Next