I'm participating in the recently-opened UK Swap, and I'm required to post the answers to this questionnaire, so that my potential swap partner can read a little about me and what I'm into, crafting-wise. I'm also asked to post a single photograph or picture as sort of a me-theme thing. Both the questionnaire answers and the photograph are beneath the cut tag; there's no need to click through unless you're just interested. :-)

( Questionnaire answers and a single image. )

Some of you might remember that I posted a message here and to a few communities, asking you to send My Little Ponies to Gwen Zak to put a smile on her face after a difficult summer. The background is below, as is the address to send more ponies. I just want you all to know that the magic is working!

I received this from Gwen's husband (known to many of you as k-mac) this morning.

( We have Pony sightings! )

( The Address )

( Why should you sed a pony to Gwen Zak? )

I'm a guest blogger now! otherdeb asked me to talk a little more about pens and notebooks and the writing process over at her Wordpress blog. You can read it here.

I remember, before Squishy got so sick, that I used to have a terrific rhyming dictionary on him, called simply "Rhymes". Now that he's all better, I want it back! :) Doing a google search on this gives me nothing, and searching for "rhyming dictionary"+pda comes up with a bunch of applications for Windows and Symbian OS, but nothing for Macs or PDAs, except an add-on to an application called BDicty, which I didn't like when I tried it years ago.

Can anyone help with a reference or a recommendation?

What I'm looking for in a rhyming dictionary is something comprehensive that includes not only single words and endings, but also phrases and word combinations. My all-time favourite rhyming dictionary is Sue Young's The New Comprehensive Aerican Rhyming Dictionary. Yes, I know it has the word 'American' in there, but it really is a terrific rhyming dictionary, despite its geographical origin! Honest; I'll show it to you sometime.

Anyway, back when I was writing lots of songs, that and David Grambs' The Describer's Dictionary, a wonderful little book either recommended to me or given to me by relentlesstoil (I don't remember which), were the blocks upon which I built an awful lot of songs.

I emphatically do not think that using a rhyming dictionary is "cheating" when you're writing poetry or songs, and I've never regretted carrying around my copy of Miller Williams' Patterns of Poetry either, so there! Right now, I'm going through The Ode Less Travelled, and I'm finding these resources very helpful. Now, if only they all fit into a little box smaller than a paperback book....

Some of you in the filk community may know, either through ladyat's note and updates here and here or from wulfrich's two posts, here and here that well-loved artist, filker, and all around beautiful and shiny person Gwen Zak suffered a moderately serious heart attack in mid-June. If you are a filker and you don't know or remember Gwen, chances are you have heard her song "Circles", one of those filks that has actually become more popular than the song whose tune it borrows. I first heard that song in the pagan community, ten years before I had ever even heard of filk.

Gwen is a lovely person who loves lovely things. She loves, for example, My Little Pony (not unlike some other very shiny filk persons on my friends list), and she really likes to rescue old My Little Ponies by buying them at garage sales (although she appreciates new ones in the box, as well)! I know things are tight for everyone out there, but I also know how much even one My Little Pony will brighten Gwen's day. Suppose you have a few old ones lying around in your garage or your attic, or you're a collector and you have some duplicates. Or suppose you're passing by a garage sale (boot sale over here, and yes, apparently MLPs are different in the UK) and you see a couple of shiny ponies for sale on someone's table. What if you, yes, you, whether or not you know Gwen Zak personally, picked up that pony and put it in the post to the address I'll put at the bottom of this message? Imagine what a boost to her day it would be if she got just one My Little Pony in the mail from a thoughtful person miles away, just to brighten up her day. Imagine the smile on her face if one day she received two My Little Ponies from two different people. Gwen needs our strength and love, good thoughts and good energy, and she loves those ponies. When things are rough, it can often help to see a physical representation of all those good wishes. With each pony (or, you know, each shipment ;>), please write a little card to Gwen. Send her a good wish.

Below the cut tag is an address where ponies can be sent.

( Send Gwen Zak A Pony! )

It's OK to pass this message around to your friends and other filk groups and communities, and you emphatically do not have to say where it originated. Gwen's the star here, not me.

Now that I have both of y'all's attention... ;-)


Even if you think I have read them, please comment with a list of every work of fiction you can think of that is:

• based on an English, Scottish or Appalachian ballad;
  
• includes a character who appears in balladry or is based on a character from balladry, no matter how small a part they play in the book; or
  
• incorporates a theme or storyline from balladry.

I would love it if you could note which characters/ballads/themes you're thinking of, as well.

I don't mind if you repeat things other people have said, so there's no need to go trawling through the comments (I am sure there will be at least two!) unless you're just looking for something new to read. ;-)

Harper, who is definitely looking for something new to read.

PS-- Also, harps. :-)

OK, I don't usually post publicly about software and gadgetry I've fallen madly in love with, but I'm going to make an exception today for a product I discovered quite by accident (OK, I was using StumbleUpon), Delicious Library.

Delicious Library is a cataloguing application. It uses the MBP's built-in webcam to scan ISBN numbers from the cases or covers of books, CDs, DVDs, video games-- and it then goes BEEP! After which a nice voice reads out the title of your newly catalogued book to make sure it hasn't made a mistake, it searches its cover art database to produce a reproduction of your book/dvd/cd cover, and it adds it to a neat little list, with all kinds of information already in, from title/author to genre, to number of books in a series, to how much this book would be worth if you sold it used on Amazon. You can even choose books to sell used on Amazon using the application.

I have been happily scanning books and CDs all day. So far I've done all 140 of our DVDs (I didn't even know we had 140 DVDs until a few hours ago!) and 139 books. I estimate there are about 1,100 more books to go, so I've barely scraped the surface.

( But what does it look like, Harper? )

It's been a good way to feel productive on a Sunday -- and it goes BEEP! :-D

Last night, I picked up and began knitting the sleeves. The sleeves are picked up from the armhole corners, and then the saddle stitches are incorporated and stitches are picked up o the other side. Then, they are knitted flat for awhile.

( Picture below the cut tag )

It's too late for me to really write a lot about it and give much technical detail, but I've cast off the bottom now, and will begin the sleeves tomorrow.

( Pictures below the cut tag )

I have bee trying to get a little work done on this each day, but it's not been very exciting -- until today.

( photos and technical notes )

Because a couple of people have asked, the icon photo is a Romney sheep. Romney fleece comprises about half of the fleeces I have to work with. I'm not sure whether the one I brought home is a Romney or a Lleyn, but I think we found out today that whichever one it is, it's OK for hand spinning.

Remember last night I took a bit of fleece and soaked it overnight in an effort to "wash" the wool and remove the suint, or sheep sweat (which is what makes it so sticky to the touch), some VM, and dirt, without removing the lanolin. The pictures and captions below tell that story, along with showing you what my carded wool looks like.

I have one more experiment to perform. Yesterday, pola_bear and I hand-cleaned a bunch of still sweaty wool, just picking out VM with our fingers. I'm going to try flick carding a little bit of that tonight to see what the consistency turns out to be, and how different it will be from both the washed and soaked examples you'll see photos of below.

( Photos below! )

This morning, filceolaire and I went to the Handweavers Studio so I could pick up a couple of carders, some drop spindles, and some commercially prepared fleece for spinning so I could get an idea of what it felt like. Nancy, the lady who owns Handweavers Studio, spoke to me for a few minutes, explained drop spindles to me, and absolutely advocated not washing this wool. She said we should just start carding, and if it was dirty, we should soak the dirty bits in water, just like standing in the rain.

Well, that was all well and good, but the fact was that the wool is sticky, and it's hard to get out all the straw, dirt, leaves, whatever, because everything sticks to everything else. PB and I hand-cleaned a bunch of the stuff, measured the fibre length and kinkiness and found it Good, tried to card a small bit to see if that would get rid of the rest of the dirt and impurities (it didn't), and so then we decided to experiment. We took everything we did for the first hour or so, which amounted to about 50g of wool, and took it through the washing process I'd found on the internet. We filled the sink with very hot water and added some mild liquid soap, then immersed the small amount of fleece and soaked for 45 minutes. Then we put it in the spin cycle on the washer, took it out, and rinsed it twice, the second time with vinegar, spinning in between each rinse cycle and afterwards. After that, I took it out and put it on the porch to dry. It is amazingly white and fluffy, although it still looks too dirty before carding. After carding, it seems to be doing a bit better.

I did despair a little bit, because I wanted very much to follow Nancy's advice and not wash the lanolin out of the fleece. Then, I came upon this article about spinning in the grease and preparing grease fleeces. So I have another hank of fleece in to soak overnight in cold water, just to see what might happen. I also have another hand-cleaned batch, which I'll flick card and play with a bit on the drop spindle.

Of course, you want pictures. stevieannie, I'm afraid I didn't take any pictures at the Studio; the only meaningful memory I have of it other than Nancy being an awful lot like Kathy Mar in mannerism, is the parking ticket. :-/

( Pictures and some more details below. )

This morning, G and I went to Surrey Quays to pick up a jacket for him, as his old one is getting a bit ratty. We were successful! Then, we headed to Canada Water station to meet my friend A, who is in London for six weeks. After that, we got on a bus and headed up to Oxleas Wood.

We tromped from the Castle up to the cafe, and then down the east side of the wood, which just happens to be right across from Woodlands Farm. There, we met Janet, who is a volunteer at the farm. B had told her all about me, so she led me to the barn where my fifty-five fleeces are stored. The sheep were just sheared last week, and the wool is 18 months growth, because the old farm manager wanted to shear the sheep before Christmas, and when he left, they decided not to shear until the late spring the way most farms do, so they skipped the Christmas shearing and sheared in May.

Inside the barn, there was a huge farm cart full of big builder's bag, all full of newly-shorn fleeces. Wow! Some of course were dirtier than others. I told them I'd like to take one fleece away today, and Janet got me a bin liner to put my fleece in. I chose one from the extra builder's bag on the floor of the barn, because it was easier to get to. I picked the one with the longest, curliest fleece I could see, G helped with the bag, and then A, G, and I got on the bus for home.

Tomorrow, I'll head to the handweaver's studio in east London first thing in the morning, where I'll pick up carders and a drop spindle, just to see how it all feels. Then, pola_bear and possibly mokatiki will come over to enjoy(?!) the experience of washing a fleece for the first time. As some internet pages have suggested, I may soak the fleece overnight and see how much cleaner it looks in the morning.

The photos below the cut tag are of the fleeces in the barn, plus one photo of the one I brought home.

( Pictures below )

Still slow going to my mind, and it doesn't feel like I've made as much progress in the last few days. This could be because I got distracted by planning the EFA, or it could be because now that I have my PDA back I've been spending a lot of time playing with it, or it could be for any of half a dozen other reasons, but there are still 28 rounds to go before I begin the skirt, so I have done less than a full pattern cycle in the last seven days. It's still fun to knit, so I'm not sure why my pace has slowed, except maybe tht it's now pretty heavy and bulky and I don't feel like I should drag it out to work on it if I'm only going to be able to knit a round or two in the time I have.

Anyway, picture behind cut tag.

( Picture behind cut tag. )

I'm pleased to note that I'll be teaching a beginning knitting class at iKnit London on Saturday, the 14th of June. We'll start at 11:30 in the morning, and the class runs for four hours with a half hour break.

In this class, students will learn how to cast on, knit, purl, cast off-- and a little more than that! The aim is for everybody to leave with the basic skills they need to begin their first knitting project. I provide detailed handouts, hands-on teaching from thirty years of experience, and a supportive, affirming atmospher in which to learn a valuable new skill. iKnit London provides wool, needles and everything you need to get started on your own project once class is over.

This is a fun, fast-paced class for people who want to get started fast. It's geared toward absolute beginners, although people who used to knit many years ago have also found it helpful as a refresher course. Average class size is 3-6 people, which means a lot of personalised attention from the teacher and a small enough group that you'll all know one another before we're done.

I hope to see some of you there!

As you might remember from this post, this whole project is going to be an experiment on a grand scale. I've been wanting to knit this sweater since the pattern was first published in 1992.

( Photo and a few technical notes below. )

The Enchanted Forest Aran is going to be an experimental piece Because, you know, I just like experiments. And why not? Consider it an exercise in destashing.

( Photos and Technical Notes Below )

Again, just a few more inches worth of progress. A detailed photo today, just of half the back of the jumper, which I hope will show more pattern relief. I'm still unhappy that you can't see the deep, heathery purple colour the jumper actually is in these photographs.

( Click to see photo. )

Not much progress, just another status photo below the cut tag.

( Picture below. )