Sometimes I find human beings incredibly disappointing

Before I begin today's rant, please read this press release: SPCA Rescues 100+ Animals From Buffalo Apartment. Go ahead and read the whole thing, take some time looking at the pictures. I'll wait right here until you're ready.

Read it? OK good. Here goes: I adopted my rabbits from that SPCA. As far as I can tell, they were part of this rescue in July. Make sure that you look at the pictures. After adopting, I began volunteering at the SPCA to do as much as I could for the rabbits waiting for adoption and for the families who might wish to adopt them. There is space at that particular location for about 8 rabbits, and although a few get adopted each week, and most wait only a month or less to be adopted, there is never an empty cage. As soon as rabbits get adopted out there are more to take their place. Many of the rabbits that come in in such big groups are fostered in volunteer's homes until there is room for them at one of the shelters. There is no lack of really nice bunnies who need good homes.

Neither of the cases I've linked to seem to be issues of active abuse, they both seem to be cases of extreme neglect. How on earth could anyone live with animals every day who were this sick because they weren't being fed, because they were packed in too close and fought each other tooth and nail, and/or because they needed vet treatment they weren't getting? How can a human being allow animals to suffer like this, right in front of them? I have seen rescued rabbits with their ears chewed off because they were stuffed into a cage with lots of other rabbits, none of them neutered, and little or no food. At that point, it's a fight to the death. In some of the cases I've read about nationally, rescuers came on the scene to discover a number of dead animals in amongst the living, or they rescued animals who were so sick and so close to death it was deemed most humane to euthanize them as soon as they were rescued.

Again, what human being can do this? What part of them is so fundamentally broken that they can blind themselve to thier animals' suffering? The couple being charged in the first story I linked to have been quoted in the news as saying that they hadn't done anything wrong. Did you look at the pictures?! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THESE ASSHOLES?!?!?!?!?!?! I'm sorry Mom, but I can't express my feelings on this without the cursing. And now these poor animals have a long road to recovery as they get medical treatment and wait to be given the chance to be adopted into new homes. I'm still spending time each Thursday night with rabbits who came in as part of that rescue in July. I'm also seeing rabbits who were born in the shelter because their pregnant mothers were rescued in July. And now we have more rescued bunnies who did nothing to deserve their crappy circumstances.

I love volunteering for the SPCA. I have a great time playing with the rabbits every week, getting to know their personalities, and getting them to open up to human contact. My visits with them are also intended to help them combat the stress of being in the shelter, which is not the easiest situation for a rabbit. I've only been able to get one rabbit adopted out since I started, but I could tell that he went to a great home. The mother and son who adopted him came back to buy him more food and hay and said "hi" to me, and told me what a good time they were having with him. I'm so glad I could be a little part in making an improvement, but it feels overwhelming when I compare getting one bunny adopted over the course of 3 months with an influx of dozens of miserable abused rabbits who all need decent homes.

I will not give up. I really enjoy the rabbits at the shelter, and it's amazing how sweet a rabbit can be, even after horrendous treatment. So I will continue to volunteer. Although I got Rusty, the best bunny in the world, from a breeder, I can't imagine ever getting a rabbit from a breeder again so long as there are so many rabbits in the shelter who need homes, and so many more waiting to take their places. I will continue to donate to both the National House Rabbit Society and the New York State House Rabbit society. I will continue to buy my rabbits' food and supplies from the Eerie County SPCA, to donate my time, and to donate money whenever I can. I will continue to introduce friends and family to our rabbits, and to work toward educating responsible pet owners about the joys of rabbit ownership. Rusty was so awesome that our vet used to introduce him to anyone who came in and thought that they didn't like rabbits, or weren't interested in them. She called him "The Bunny Ambassador" and would let them offer him a treat so that he would run right up to them and let them pet him. He just loved it at the vet's, which was great considering how much he was there!

If you're looking for a pet, please check your local shelter, there are lots of wonderful animals looking for homes. If you're looking for a rabbit, check your shelter and your local chapter of the House Rabbit Society, and if you have the means, please make a donation to any of the organizations I've linked to, and buy a rabbit a little time.

A Word About The Future

Lately, I’ve been downloading some classic science fiction from Audible. I finished “The Robots of Dawn,” by Isaac Asimov and am more than half way through “Player Piano,” by Kurt Vonnegut. Both stories were written in the mid-twentieth century and set in the future. Vonnegut’s is in a near future that could be now, and Asimov’s is in a far flung future in which humans have colonized multiple planets and built “humaniform” robots who can do much of the hardest work and are kept in check by the three laws of robotics.

Asimov predicts a world with interstellar flight, advanced robots, and sexual morays vastly different from those of mid-twentieth century earth. Vonnegut predicts a much closer world in which efficient machines have taken over most human jobs, so that only the very intelligent are employed as engineers and managers, only a tiny proportion of the population has the chance to go to college, and even secretaries and barbers need a PhD to be qualified for their jobs. Everyone else must join the army or work on a road crew and settle for government pay.

The thing that amazes/annoys me is that neither one of them, in all their intelligence and imaginative capacity, conceived of a future world in which women could fill roles beyond wife/lover, secretary, or homemaker. There are no women taking significant roles in the work force or in the course of history in either novel. Are the 1950’s really so far away? Both these men were very intelligent, but boy did they get it wrong about human potential. I mean, I don’t have a single robot to my name, but I’ve had a significant job since finishing college. My family relies on my income just as much as my husband’s. In fact, I’ve been gainfully employed in my field since before finishing high school. I also have a high (erroneously labeled as “genius level”) IQ and a physics degree, both of which would have placed me in a desirable position in the world of either book. But no, women figure in both books as objects of attraction for the main characters, secretaries, or wives whose sole function seems to be party attendance and social climbing. In Player Piano, most housework is finished in seconds by automated machines, but still the women do not work. Yes, most of the populous is underemployed in this story, but the men are still sent out to do something.

I’m hoping that both authors changed their minds over the course of the next fifty years. Both lived long lives but are now dead, so I’ll have to take this up with them in the after life. (Both were secular humanists, so I’m not sure we’ll actually be able to contact each other in the after life. Maybe there are day passes to other eternities?) I won’t stop reading their books, but I sure do find science fiction stories written by women to be a relief after this stuff!

I've done it!

After about a year of procrastination, I've actually listed stuff for sale in my etsy shop. I don't know why I've put this off except for an irrational fear of buyer dissatisfaction, or people arguing with me about whether I deserve a living wage for my time. But enough griping! You can check out my shop here. I'm still adding to it, and will hopefully continue to replenish once I see how each category of item sells. I can't allow myself to do any more etsy knitting until I finish Mom's incredibly late birthday socks. I do however have a large stash of tee shirts I can make into rugs if other people like them as much as I do!

Also please check out my friend Margaret's shop and make her rich, and friend Emily's shop which includes some amazing resin pendants.

As for Mom's socks, they are much further along, and I hope to either interest Knitty in them or sell the pattern in my etsy shop.

Knitting Slump

Now that it is over I will admit, I have been in a knitting slump. This is the first time this has ever happened to me. I'm usually thrilled to to be knitting a project from start to finish, while thinking about and planning the next, and maybe spinning for something still 3 or 4 projects away. I spend time knitting every day. At some point in August, my enthusiasm crashed. Multiple days went by in which I didn't knit. Not one stitch. I had no idea what the next project would be. I had a friend with a baby coming, but kept putting off choosing a pattern and buying yarn.

I'm not sure how the slump happened, but I think that this was a factor:



Although this sweater is actually finished, I'm dissatisfied with the results and therefore never took a finished photo. There are things I need to change about the fit, and honestly, it may just not be the right sweater to make with this yarn. The other problems are fixable with some fitting, pinning, and re-calculating, culminating in ripping out most of the sweater. Frustrating. Disheartening.

Then I started the baby clothes. Now, the pattern is super-cute, but somehow knitting it was less than satisfying. I blame this almost entirely on my state of mind going into the process, not on Debbie Bliss's cute pattern. However, for me there are several things about this pattern that are my less favorite things in knitting: flat knitting, sewing, and intarsia, which I keep doing because I see so many intarsia designs that I love, and it is only when I begin to knit them that I remember how much I hate the act of knitting intarsia.



I could have converted the pattern to be knit in the round. I often do, but for some reason thought it would be a bother this time. And yes, I do sew for a living, and teach other people to sew or sew better, so you may think that sewing shouldn't be on this list of stuff I dislike, but here's the thing: anything one does for 40+hrs per week, no matter how much one loves it, feels like work. Doing it in on ones time off feels like unpaid overtime. In addition to that, I think that knitting a garment piece by piece and then sewing it together misses one of the great things about how knitting structure differs from sewing structure. In knitting, one is making the fabric as one goes, and therefore is not limited to what can be done with flat pieces. One can make tubes and shapes and attachments as intrinsic parts of the fabric, instead of manipulating it later. Also, one can avoid the unnecessary bulk of extra seams. There is a great place in the dress where Ms. Bliss makes use of this by decreasing fairly severely in the row after the skirt is finished. The effect is of a skirt gathered and then sewn onto the bodice, but it is done skillfully all in one piece and without a bulky seam around the little one's middle. I often wonder if designers are asked by their publishers to write their directions for knitting several pieces flat instead of making use of knitting in the round and picking up pieces off of the main body, like picking up a sleeve around the finished armscye and knitting down circularly toward the cuff. If any published designers stumble across this, would you please share your experience in this matter?

Now that I've complained about the baby clothes, let me also say that I can credit them with helping to end the slump. Towards the end of the baby knitting, I did something I never ever do, which is to cast on a new project before the old is finished. I'm not sure exactly why I did it, except that I had an idea for writing a pattern and wanted to start working out how I would go about it. I worked some of it out on paper, but quickly needed to get onto the needles to finish thinking. I would like to make a square baby blanket for my cousin's baby on the way, in a feather and fan pattern, that radiates out from the center of the blanket. The yarn was a gift from the students in the first play last fall, and the colors are, I think, to my cousin's taste. The challenge is to increase rather often in a very regular lace pattern, and keep the increases in harmony with the overall pattern. I think it is quite successful so far, and hope to submit the pattern for publication or sell it through my still empty etsy shop. That bit of procrastination will need to be it's own blog post.



After getting the blanket far enough under way to solve the patterning, I finished the baby things, and boy are they cute. I'm so happy I made them, and really, I don't know why they were part of the slump. (Remember what I said about only remembering that I hate intarsia when I am doing it?)



And finally, thanks to the slump I purchased yarn and cast on for my mother's birthday socks way too late to have a hope of getting them done on time. Even the yarn harlot would have been hard pressed to manage that deadline, and she knits much faster than I do. Mom's socks are also an original design which I am very excited about and again, am hoping to submit for publication. The whole pattern is not yet visible in this pic (I keep ripping them out and knitting them bigger) but it is beautiful after a few repeats, and since these are knee socks they will feature some really clever shaping down the back of the leg.


These are the final proof that my mojo is back. I hope to make good use of it on Wednesday when I teach a group of friends how to knit a mobius scarf. All that time Dad spent showing my brother and me how to make mobius strips is finally paying off.

100 Life Experiences

I got this from Mary Ellen's blog Yours 'til Niagara Falls.

(Things I've done in bold.)

1. Started my own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than I can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sung a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched lightning at sea
14. Taught myself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown my own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitchhiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of my ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught myself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had my portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had my picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a lawsuit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Rode an elephant

So what have YOU done?

Vandalism Update

The Fire Family Living Room, Wednesday evening Crews finished repairing Friday night's bunny vandalism today. After installing new connections, or "rubbers" as wheel-maker Gordon Lendrum termed them, the repair crew added metal springs surrounding each piece, in hopes of thwarting any future attempts at vandalism. "You've got to keep ahead of these rabbits, always fixing and re-enforcing, otherwise the living room could go to hell in a couple of weeks, and that would bring the property value, and the whole neighborhood down faster than you can turn around," said project foreman Joe Sixpack.As crews were cleaning up, someone spotted a rabbit eyeing the new connectors. This reporter was able to get a photo of the rabbit who, in this reporter's opinion, appears to be prime suspect Pepper Fire, out on bail and currently awaiting trial. Pepper's lawyer could not be reached for comment. "We wouldn't have to do so much clean-up if these trouble makers went to jail like they're supposed to, but the bleeding heart lawyers always keep them out. It's a real shame for the neighborhood. This used to be a nice neighborhood," said Sixpack.

Bunny Delinquents Charged With Vandalism

December 14, the Fire family living room. Early yesterday morning, police were summoned to the living room to investigate a reported act of vandalism. Police were led to the spot by distraught owner, Erica Fire. Ms. Fire explained to the officers that she had been giving the living room “a quick tidy” when she initially discovered the damage to her 10 year old Lendrum spinning wheel. “I pulled a cardboard tube that the rabbits had been chewing on out from under the treadle. Normally the treadle wouldn’t have moved, but this time it fell all the way to the floor,” said Fire.

On further investigation she discovered that the connecting piece from the treadle to the footman had been severed. After a brief inspection, Detective David Rodriguez stated with some certainty that the connection had been chewed, most likely by a lagomorph. Upon further questioning the Fire family revealed that Pepper Fire had been seen lurking in the vicinity about 12 hours before, possibly “casing” the wheel. After her arrest, Pepper went before Judge Richard C. Kloch, where she entered a not guilty plea. Bail is set at 5 carrots, a large broccoli head, and a bale of timothy hay. Charges are pending against her brother Dutch Fire who the police, at this time, characterize as a material witness. Dutch is currently awaiting trial on a previous charge involving several pillows and an expanse of carpeting.

Vandalized spinning wheel causes great distress.

Frank Lipinski, the court appointed lawyer for both rabbits, hopes that he can convince Judge Kloch to go easy on the rabbits, in light of their troubled upbringing. “These aren’t the sort of fluffy bunnies you read about in stories, who come home at night to a mother with chamomile tea and dandelions. These rabbits grew up in squalid conditions, packed in with nearly 50 others, surrounded by excrement, and often going to bed at night hungry. In their short lives they’ve already been diagnosed with e. cunniculli and the snuffles. Even though the SPCA was able to rescue them from these deplorable conditions, and place them with the Fire household, there is no record of psychiatric evaluation or attempts at positive rabbit role modeling for these two. They don’t have the tools to make moral choices right now,” said Lipinski. Neither rabbit could be reached for comment.

Judge Kloch seemed unimpressed. “Yeah, we’ve all got problems,” he said, “but the law applies to all citizens equally, regardless of how many carrots they missed out on as kits.”

A court date is set for January 26th. The courtroom will be closed to cameras and other recording devices. “I don’t want this to turn into another OJ style media circus,” says Kloch.

Foxfibre

I'm in love with handspun cotton. I've been spinning cotton one and off for a few years now, and the sweater's I've knit from handspun cotton are some of my favorites. I've been looking at Foxfibre cotton for years now, and finally bought some a few months ago. I don't think as many people spin cotton as other fibers, so I offered to teach a cotton spinning class at my local shop.

To get ready for class, I pulled the Foxfibre out of my stash and started spinning for some colored washcloths. I had a very early version of the color "breeder's green," so when the roving looked more mustard yellow to me, I figured it just wasn't perfected yet. But then I remembered reading something about the color getting deeper with washing in hot water. I looked it up and discovered that it's a matter of boiling the cotton for an hour with something alkali, like washing soda. I boiled my finished skein in a gallon of water with 1/4 cup of washing soda and the results were amazing.

At the bottom of the picture is the original roving, at the top is a washcloth knit from the yarn after treating it. Look at the color difference! Now that's green! Man, better living through bio-chemistry. I wish I knew how and why that happened. I'll try to get my Dad the chemist on it. I got a little more foxfibre in two other colors to use in my class. I can't wait to see how much they change.

The story of how Foxfiber was created is fascinating. You can read about how Sally Fox crossbred wild brown cotton with domestic white cotton to create a sturdy viable colored cotton. She was even able to breed several different colors out from that original brown. And she grows all of it organically. I think I need to buy enough to make a dress.

Why I Love My Work

The other day, I spent most of my work time online, first researching depression era feedsack dresses, and then at a motorcycle parts page, among other things. The best part is, I wasn't screwing around--that's what I was supposed to be doing! Both were research for "Grapes of Wrath" coming up in the fall. OK, so that explains feedsack dresses, but motorcycle parts? As you may recall, Rosasharn is pregnant throughout the book, so we'll need to make a pregnancy pad for the (hopefully not pregnant) student who plays that part. I like to use open cell air filter foam for padding, as it has a nice texture and memory, but more especially because it dries quickly after washing or sweating. The motorcycle place sells sheets of foam so that if you have a vintage bike you can't get new filters for, you can create one. I love the spirit of that all on it's own, and am giddy with the idea of further re purposing the foam for a pregger pad!

A Little Perspective

The Republican party just spent $150,000.00 on new clothes for Sarah Palin. When it comes to politics and government, it's easy to let very large monetary figures wash over you. With a national debt in the tens of trillions of dollars, it can be difficult to remember just how large a sum $150,000.00 is.

On my way to work this morning I started calculating to try to put this kind of clothing budget into terms that intersect with my life and finances. After all, I make clothes for a living. The largest costume budgets I've come into contact with have been for operas. I don't handle the money or purchasing, so I don't usually know the exact budget of each opera on which I work, and I especially keep myself ignorant of the per yard cost of most fabrics before I cut them up. However, I do know that the costume budgets are generally in the tens of thousands of dollars. One of the first operas I worked on had a budget of $20,000.00 which the designer not only went over, but tripled. Even so, let's figure from $20,000.00 to $60,000.00 to costume an Opera. In all fairness, that budget does not include my or my crew's income, so add in between $9,000 and $13,000 for us. So an Opera could cost from $29,000.00 to 73,000.00.

Operas have a chorus. Sarah Palin does not. Operas are often opulent, chronicling the lives of the rich, or even of royalty. The Palins claim to be a down-to-earth household run by a hockey mom and a laborer. Operas are opulent. We are told that Alaska is not.

Somehow it costs two to five times as much to clothe Sarah Palin for the last few weeks of a campaign than it costs to create costumes for an entire Opera which will run for 2 months and be rented out in perpetuity.

Here's another point of view: how long does it take to earn $150,000.00? The median income in the US is a little over $40,000. At that income it would take almost 4 years to earn $150,000.00. More, if you'd like to still have that much after taxes. For me, I'd have to go back to the beginning of 2004 and continue to the end of this calendar year to have earned that much. To take home that much, probably back into 2001. I'm one of the few people who even save my tax information for that long.

Finally, what if I had donated to the Republican party? I don't donate to any politicians, and it would be a cold day in hell before I supported a Republican campaign, but lets just suppose for a moment that I had. My charitable donations usually range between $20 and $100. If I were to donate to a politician or political party, it would probably be in that range. I know that's a pittance compared to donations from corporations and wealthy individuals, but it would be a lot for me. If I donated, it would be to further the cause, to get the word out, to raise voter awareness of my candidate, to fund studies crucial to the campaign. It would not, in fact, be to buy clothes for someone who already has an income to buy their own clothes. In the face of $150,000.00 what would my donation even buy? Shoe laces? A pair of panties? Maybe socks? I mean, I can only guess that with at least 2 Operas worth of funding they're buying the most expensive clothes possible. They can't be spending it on more items than she'll wear before they become unfashionable next season.

If I were a republican donor, with McCain falling further behind in the poles, I'd be livid to see my money spent this way.

Of course, after being given the clothing, and wearing at least some of it, Ms. Palin has decided to say "no thanks" and go back to her old wardrobe. They claim she will not keep them but eventually donate the clothes to charity. I'm betting it gets overlooked and she keeps them. Just like she was able to keep and spend all the money she accepted for the "bridge to nowhere" to which she later said "no thanks." Maybe this is more of the same.

For that kind of money, every stitch of that clothing better be American union made.

Priceless

I've always felt a little bad that I didn't choose an education and career path that could save the planet. I did well in Math and Science in high school, but decided instead to go into theatre. In fact, when I interviewed for admission into Boston University's theatre conservatory program, the 2 men interviewing me looked at my grades and test scores and asked why someone so intelligent wanted to go into theatre. To this day, I don't know whether or not they were serious. I chose to make costumes partially because of a small but growing talent for it, but also because it presented a challenge that I couldn't always solve on the first attempt, unlike most of my other academic subjects. It was probably the first time I didn't just choose the easy path. Eventually, I did go to a college where I could double major in theatre design and physics, but before anyone gets impressed, remember that it's a physics degree from art school!

The point being that, for the most part, making costumes will do very little for the environment. Even though I use all my pencils down to stubs, and tape my larger scraps of paper back together to make patterns out of, by and large what I do does create a small but significant bit of waste (if anyone has use for small fabric scraps, speak up! They're just filling landfills). We also use electric lights and equipment with a fair amount of energy draw and though I wish it were othersiese, all of that nice hydroelectric power from Niarara Falls gets sent all the way to New York City, while or power comes from coal, nuclear, and other nastiness that makes the city of Niagara Falls smell like acid rain.

I had all but given up on my work having any sort of positive environmental impact until just a few days ago. Now that I'm working at a college, it's important to me to cultivate some student stitchers, both to get the show done and because the whole point of college is learning, and this is what they can learn from me. In that interest I've gathered up the students who have expressed interest in learning about costumes and am teaching them how to sew. Some have a little sewing experience when they come to me, but I have 2 right now who had never picked up a needle before I showed them how to thread one, knot, and begin sewing. I set up one of these girls with a series of buttons to sew. After a few questions and approval of the first button sewn, I left her to them and returned to my work. After a little while she got a call on her cell phone. I heard her tell her friend that she was busy sewing buttons and then state, "I guess now when the button comes off one of my shirts I won't have to throw it out."

Score one for the planet!

New Bunnies

Our family lost Rusty the wonderbun back in May. I haven't posted about that loss because I haven't been able to put into words what an amazing rabbit he was, or how much his loss hurts. Also, I've felt the need to keep that loss fairly private. I don't think Chris or I can bear the hurt and anger of reading some stranger posting a comment like, "Oh come on, he was just a rabbit."

Have you ever heard someone who has had lots of a certain kind of pet always talk about one in particular? They may have had 5 dogs over the course of their life, but there's just one they always tell stories about, and talk about how great he/she was and how much they miss him/her. Rusty was that pet. Maybe I can illustrate it better than describe it. This is a quick video I took of Rusty in the last year of his life.



Not only did he regularly come when called, but Chris could get Rusty to chase him from the kitchen to the living room every night before his dinner. I only wish I had gotten a video of the chase.

We still miss Rusty very much. I especially miss the way he used to sleep on our bed each night near my feet. That being said, we did finally take a trip out to the SPCA a few weeks ago to visit quite a few rabbits who were there, waiting for good homes. We spent time with several rabbits, and decided that one rabbit would never be able to fill Rusty's shoes, so we adopted a pair.

Introducing: Dutch and Pepper. These two are litter mates, male and female, who were already bonded. They were rescued from cruelty/neglect at the end of July. We're not sure how old they are. The SPCA thought 5 months, but our vet suspects younger. We started out by putting them into the cage together with Rusty's old litter pan, which sort of worked, in that they used it, but they also picked 2 or 3 other spots in the cage to use. after reviewing the litter training bits of the House Rabbit Society website and talking to our vet, we added a second litter pan. Now they use only the pans, and often sit in them as if they're sitting in matching armchairs. They also currently have a litter pan in the living room for when we let them out, but we're hoping that when they're a little older we can eliminate the room pan. I mention all this because one of the first questions we're asked about pet rabbits is whether they're litter trained.

Dutch is the male rabbit, and mostly black; Pepper is the female and has more traditional dutch breed markings with her white shoulders and feet. We've been greatly enjoying their antics, although we wish they were more comfortable being touched. Right now, they love to come up to us, bonk us with their noses and even put their front feet on us, but they're skittish about being touched. This will change over time, as they get used to humans. It's frustrating right now, because they're so cute and we want to pet them.



Dutch's specialty is speed:

Cabled Socks and Finished Fleece

I do still knit. Check out these socks from "Socks Socks Socks" that I just finished. Love the color, love the cables. Didn't love the fact that the pattern was written to stop cabling 2 inches before the toe decreases started. It looked weird with all that blank space, and made even my size six wide feet look weirdly long and pointy, so I ripped back and continued the pattern until the toe decrease started.

Check out the duck in the background between my toes.

And for those who think that Buffalo's weather is unappealing, just look at that sky and water. Chris was kind enough to embarrass himself by participating in a public sock photo shoot in the middle of a park along the Niagara river. Oh, and this is after he was nice enough to buy me a lemon ice. These were taken last weekend on a beautiful sunny warm but not too hot day in mid-September. For the record: the upper Midwest is much, much colder than Buffalo, and Syracuse NY consistently gets more snowfall. The only reason Buffalo has the reputation it does is because the stupid football team plays in the snow belt in an open stadium. The rest of us live and work outside the snow belt.

I finished spinning the fiber study yarns a while ago, but it wasn't until getting home from my various freelance jobs that I was able to wash, measure and label the last skeins. What beauties! This is the whole study, all finished.

Right now, I'm planning to keep all of these samples in this form, so that I can use them as reference for how each breed looks and feels when spun. If I want to know how it knits up, I'll knit a sample, but I may return the sample to a skein when I'm done. I just find these so useful, especially in conjunction with the notes I took as I worked through the study, and the breed information that came with the study or was provided by Chris (spinner, not husband). Plus, they make for an incredibly appealing group of objects.

Recommended Reading

There's been some news lately about banned books. There is even a list of banned books circulating on the internet, erroneously claimed to be a list of books Sarah Palin asked to be banned from her local library. While that is inaccurate (after all, she couldn't have asked to ban any of the Harry Potter books back in 1996, before they were written) the list itself is taken from a compilation list of books that have been banned in different places at different times. It's a compelling list--some of the best books I've ever read are on it.

So I'm reprinting the list here, and I'd love to encourage all my friends and family, and anyone else with a blog who comes across this, to do the same thing I'm doing. Print the list, and in some way mark which of the books on it you've read. I'd love to know what you thought of them, individually or in general. I know a lot of my fiber friends love novels, as do college pals, theater friends, family, and everyone else I know who checks on my blog. Drum up some readership in the comments with a link to your post, I'd love to see it!

Here's the list. Books I've read are in green.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes s
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective*
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower**
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

*I never read all of "Our Bodies, Ourselves," but I did read the chapter on lesbians in my aunt's copy when I was a teenager, so that has to count for something.

**I've read the Bible a few times now, but I haven't read this particular translation.

My best criteria for whether something is a good book is whether it changes me, and many of the books I've highlighted here did just that. They're intelligent, they're challenging, not one of them is gratuitous or immoral. Interesting that only worthwhile books get banned. For instance, there isn't a single vapid romance novel on this list. I think I'll start reading the rest of the list.

hefeweizen tidbit

Interesting tidbit about hefeweizens. I’ve thought for years that I don’t like Blue Moon, an American made Belgian Witt, or wheat beer. Turns out I don’t like it in bottles. On tap it’s great! I’ve also discovered over the years that I’ve only really liked hefeweizens that were brewed at the restaurant I drank them at. I thought maybe it was a matter of freshness, so some time last year I brewed one of my own. Mine was good, but didn’t have the full fruity character that is characteristic of a true hefe–often described as a taste of banana and clove. Then I re-read something in a brewing book about Germans rolling bottled hefe on the table before opening it to mix the yeast in. I tried it with mine. What a difference! There was the flavor I was missing! If only I had re-read that before we were half way through drinking the batch!

Cherry Fever Stout

I enjoy freelancing. It’s great to have the chance to work in bigger cities that truly support the arts, or for bigger organizations with more enthusiastic support than is to be found in Buffalo. I love meeting other professionals from around the country, picking up ideas from other drapers, and making friends who are all over the country working in our small but spread out profession. When I got to the Shakespeare Theatre in DC, I realized that I had worked at the Santa Fe Opera at the same time as one of the other drapers at the Shakespeare. She just looked at me, and without batting an eyelash said, “Of course you did, because there are only six people who work in theatre.” It often feels that way, when I travel to a new city only to discover that I’m working with 5 people I’ve already worked with before.

The downside of freelancing is that, in the long term, it’s hard to feel like anyplace is home. For someone like me, who does have a home and more importantly a husband who is my real home, freelancing can start to wear me down. I’ve been gone for 5 months, and boy was it good to pull into the driveway and unload all my stuff for a good long time. (In case you're curious, “a good long time” is 9 months.)

There’s a lot of other little stuff I started to miss while freelancing, like easily available internet, my own bed, and my many hobbies, most of which don’t fit on a plane or are too much to pack in the truck. I was thrilled to pick up my spinning wheel half way through the journey, but at this point it’s been 7 ½ months since I’ve brewed a batch of beer. I had been planning to brew a German maibock in time for May, but Studio Arena closed just when I would have started it.

So after unloading the truck and kissing my husband hello, I cracked open a sweet stout from my last batch (Chris didn’t even make a dent in 5 gallons of beer over 5 months, so it was almost all still here waiting for me) and hit the books. I landed again on a recipe for a cherry stout, made some calls to locate frozen sour cherries at one of the local farm markets, and got to business.

I’ve had Belgian ales and lambics that included cherries, but not a stout. This is probably not the sort of thing anyone will be serving me anytime soon, so if I want it (and I do!) I’ll have to make it myself.


The cherries get added to the wort after the boil for long enough to pasteurize them, but the recipe (found in The Complete Joy of Homebrewing) cautions not to boil again with the cherries, or it will set the pectin and leave the beer with an unpleasant haze.

The last two falls, I’ve brewed a pumpkin ale, which calls for boiling with the pumpkin, but then removing it before the wort goes into the fermenter. This recipe ferments with the cherries for the first five days to make the most of their fermentable sugars. They won’t actually add any sweetness to the final beer, because all the sugar will be used in the fermentation and converted to CO2 and alcohol. They will add their amazing sour cherry flavor, but I have no clear idea about how the final brew will taste.


I was so excited about the cherries that I decided to feature them on the label. I often draw my labels while boiling the wort, but this one took a lot longer than that, probably longer than the actual brewing process. I hand draw my labels (as opposed to using photos or clip art or asking Chris to do it) because I like the look, but also because I never do any real drawings anymore, just quick working sketches, usually of sweaters on headless bodies. The labels keep me in practice. It’s not as much about keeping the skill sharp as about the kind of observation needed to draw something. Looking at something to draw it involves analysis, not of what it is, but of what it looks like, and HOW it looks that way. Not to look and let the brain say, "hey, that’s a round cherry," but to break down and reproduce the visual cues that the brain used to interpret that it’s round. I seldom look at things that way in any other part of life, because there’s no time and I rely on my brain’s interpretation skills to understand things quickly. Drawing something lets me slow down and look at that thing, live in the moment, and understand what I’m experiencing without short cuts or assumptions. It’s like (my limited understanding of) Buddhist mindfulness, or like the scene at the end of Our Town when Emily, after death, is given the chance to live one moment of her now finished life over again. This time she really experiences it and treasures it and pays attention and LIVES it. When she asks if anyone can ever go through life this way, she is told no not always, but sometimes poets and artists come close.

Here’s what that has to do with beer (and don’t even think that was off track):


A fairly successful image of cherries. Because I was pleased, and loved the color theory involved, I also took a process picture to show the “underpainting” that I used to get the shadow colors. The cherry off to the right that looks like an olive shows only those colors, before I laid the red over the whole thing. I used water color pencils, so after drawing in the layers of color, I carefully painted over them with a wet brush to blend them and get a much richer color and more of a painted look.


This has been a good technique for me, as I’ve always been much more confident drawing than painting.

Right now the fermenting wort looks like this:


No, not a fashion statement. Ale yeast ferments best between 60 and 75 degrees F. It has been a bit over that in the apartment, but I didn’t want to wait until September to brew, so I’m using a trick I read in The Homebrewer’s Recipe Guide, which is to put a wet tee shirt over your fermenter so that the evaporating water will cool it. It’s working well, and has brought my wort temp down from 82 deg to 77.

Why 3?

I love the colors in Noro yarn. especially the long fading repeats. Recently, I started seeing friends using Noro's sock yarn, which uses the same kind of long repeat, but weirdly provides three repeats in a ball. 3? Socks usually come in pairs, right? I get two size six socks out of 100 grams of sock yarn with a fair amount left over. Lots of folks get 2 pair out of 100 grams with little left over, and some can make it on 100 grams if they do a contrasting heal and toe. I don't see how 3 repeats in 100 grams helps any of us. Also, at $20 a ball I wasn't buying another just to get the pattern right. I figured each sock would take 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 repeats, so I sucked it up and knit the first sock, cut the yarn, and knit another the same size. This is what I got.Having been a first hand for 6 years, this drives me absolutely nuts. In a costume shop, the first hand assists the draper and is in charge of laying out and cutting the draper's clothing patterns. That means one of the few things that is solely the first hand's responsibility is pattern layout. Not just the dreaded matching of plaids that you read about in Judy Blume novels, but also matching florals, paisleys, etc and arranging bias stripes to chevron at seams or patterns to mirror themselves at center back and center front. That being said, a heavy stripe pattern being two inches off, like those two socks up there when worn next to each other, is way worse than if the two had nothing to do with eachother.

I couldn't take it, but weirdly enough, for my little feet each sock took slightly less than a full repeat, so I picked the placement I preferred (the second sock I knit, which is the one on the left in the picture) and I started from the same spot in the pattern repeat and knitted a third sock.
Now, if the aliens land on a rainy day and get a soaker on their way from their ship to my door, I can offer a trio of dry socks, helpful to any tri-pedal alien who wears a woman's size six. It felt weird to still be knitting the same pair of socks after I had already finished 2, but look how much better this pair looks:

Now I can wear them in front of my first hand without shame, and can still hear what Chris is saying to me while I'm wearing them. much better.

Postcards From Cooperstown

It's been a busy summer, more hectic than some, but there's still time to do a bit of site seeing around the Cooperstown area. Of course I adore the Farmer's Museum, where the chickens walk around the grounds with you.

Various flowers are blooming around the house. I think these are the flowering sweet peas that Lisa planted.
This was my tenth year at the Springfield 4th of July parade. This tractor is just slightly earlier than my favorite style of John Deere. I think this one is late 30's early 40's, and my favorite is mid to late 40's.
I didn't get a picture of the Opera's float, but there are several at the Opera blog entry for Independence Day. I did check the corn, which was indeed knee high by the fourth of July.
Our attempt at going to the Sterling Renaissance Festival (which I was last at 19 years ago) was horribly rained out, so the only photo I got was of Brittney filling her tank in full Elizabethan underwear.