One of the big parts of my job is making patterns for the costumes. The pattern making is what I get the most enjoyment out of, and find the most fulfilling. Of course, like most things in life, it's only about 10% of the work of making a costume, but luckily the work flows quickly, so I get to go back to pattern making once every 2 months or so.

While working on the dance concert over the past few months, it occurred to me that I had a really good illustration of the range of what pattern making is. I could get into details and try to explain the advantages/disadvantages of draping on a dress form vs. drafting using measurements and rulers, but that would bore you.

Instead I have pictures.



Even if you've never sewn before, it's probably pretty clear that this is the pattern for some kind of shirt. A simple tunic to be precise.

But this?



This is a dress. And to get a sense of scale, I should say that each of those 8 pieces is nearly as big as I am, and that in order to show the whole pattern I had to lay it out on the stage floor and then photograph it from up in the catwalks above the audience.

The Dot and the Line

Have a Rabbit? Getting a Rabbit?

If you have a rabbit, or are thinking about getting one, this is a great event coming this Thursday. The woman giving the presentation is a vet tech who specifically works with rabbit vets. She is great! I will be there to help, but I'm sure I'll learn lots too.

The event is completely free and there is no catch. All you need to do is call to make your reservation before Thursday and then come to the SPCA that night.

(if you click on the image you should be able to see it a little bigger and a little clearer)

Birth/Rebirth

The snow receded some at the end of last week. On Sunday afternoon I found signs of new life.





This snow drop has barely lifted its head out of the snow:



Last year my first snow drops emerged in mid-March, so despite the intense cold these are 3 or 4 weeks earlier. Maybe that silly groundhog was on to something.

Also, finished but for the buttons is the "baby sweater on two needles" known to most knitters as the February baby.



I highly recommend this sweater. It was great fun to knit. It's quite easy, and every part of it fits together in that perfect way that Elizabeth Zimmerman sweaters do, thanks to her various percentage systems. I did change it to be completely seamless by knitting the body first, slipping stitches to holders for the sleeves and then casting on again across the held stitches so I could continue the body in one piece. I then picked up the sleeve stitches and knit them in the round on circular needles. I also changed the bottom edge just slightly. I always found the original garter stitch border clunky. I prefer lace patterns that provide their own edge with just a little adjustment, so when I got to the bottom edge I did not decrease as Elizabeth calls for, and I stayed in pattern, but changed the wrong side rows to plain knit instead of plain purl.

In The Knitter's Almanac the sweater is pictured with a matching bonnet, for which no pattern is given. As far as I know, EZ didn't publish that pattern, instead she describes how to add an extension onto the bonnet pattern you (of course) already have to keep the baby's neck and chest warm.

There don't seems to be all that many bonnet patterns to be had now, but this very girly sweater cried out for a bonnet, so I greatly modified the one that I have to make a matching bonnet. If it fits, and I can figure out what age of baby it fits, I will post simple directions.

Age and Babies

So far, I feel I’ve spent my first 36 years being told that I’m too young. I remember a point in elementary school when a friend two years older than me used the phrase “shake it don’t break it.” When I asked, “What does that mean, anyway?” she replied, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” It’s amazing how much a ten year old has to lord over an eight year old. It became clear to me when I was older that her answer was really an indication that she didn’t know any more than I did. I still have no idea what that strange idiomatic phrase is supposed to mean.

When Cherie Brown, founder and executive director of the National Coalition Building Institute came to the university at which I work, she began talking about diversity by recognizing everyone in the audience for all the things about each of us that make us part of specific groups, whether they are groups that are classically thought of as oppressors or as oppressed. It was a great exercise. When each group was called, those who fit into it stood, and everyone else applauded. So for instance, I got to stand for categories like female, protestant, white, heterosexual, German (which may have been part of a group of northern European countries, I don’t remember) etc. When she got to age, Ms. Brown said, “It seems like we spend the first half of our lives wishing we were older, and the second half wishing we were younger.” How true it is!

I’ve mostly glided through life not worrying too much about my age. I think part of why I’m always being told I’m young is that I tend to hang out with people older than me, and I’ve always preferred to date a few years older. So several of my close friends are grandmothers, and my husband has half a decade on me. Of course I attribute my tendency to have older friends to my advanced intelligence and maturity; you may draw your own conclusions.

It’s at my university that I feel a bit persecuted for my allegedly young age. Not so much in my own department, but it is whenever I meet with faculty from other departments, or visit another department’s office, that I am asked “are you a student or a faculty member?” Or even worse, faculty members wheedle a number out of me and point out that their children are the same age, or a little older. I think someone in the fashion department actually said, “Well, I could be your mother.” I may be reading too much into it, but I really think this is a power play of some sort on their part. Maybe the ranking of grades and degrees in academia puts too much of an emphasis on the time put in, and not enough on the accomplishments.

I think it’s almost comical that at 36 these folks are trying to make me feel too young. In truth, I am too old to become a cop, too old to audition for American Idol, about twice as old as a retiring gymnast or figure skater, too old to have a first baby without very careful attention from doctors, and just recently, the proud owner of one pair of prescription bifocals, and one pair of pharmacy reading glasses. And yet, I got carded at a university event by someone at least 10 years younger than me. Yes, we have a lot of non-traditional students, so the average age probably trends a little high compared to the average, but still. My stepson is the same age as most of my sophomores. And yes, I am too young to have a kid his age, but see the earlier paragraph about the slightly older husband.

And so I am battling for some respect and recognition at work even thought I am “too young” and battling increasing age in the guise of weight gain and gravity and declining optical lens flexibility. The CDC says the average American life expectancy is 77.9 years. I’m nearly half way. Given that, plus the fact that I can’t wear a bikini anymore, I’d really like some recognition for everything I can do now that I couldn’t do back when I could still wear that two piece.

In an effort to garner some age-based respect, I’ve been practicing perching my new tiger striped reading glasses on the end of my nose. Now I look like Janine from Ghostbusters.

So I’m dipping my toes into middle age, and we’re all careening towards old age, but what I’m actually trying to come around to is the very youngest: babies. I don’t have much use for babies myself, they’re like needy potatoes with messy diapers, but people who have them seem very keen on them. My stepson and I met at the perfect time. He was 5, old enough to tell really good stories, especially since he was still too young to fully “get” the distinction between experienced events and imagined ones. He was cute and smart, could communicate, and could go to the bathroom on his own. Perfect. I was 22. Old enough to be legitimately interested in kids and young enough to dive into a relationship with him and his father without thinking ahead to how hard it is to have a teenager while still in one’s twenties. Perfect.

Now, I don’t mean to bad mouth the whole breeding thing. Yes, self-righteous stay-at-home moms who spend all their time lecturing everyone else on the internet (while their unsupervised children set the cat on fire) are annoying, but lots of people I know and respect really love babies. The day your child is born is momentous. The fact that they start out as a baby is immaterial compared to the importance of that day, the day they come fully into life and you come fully into parenthood. I didn’t get this back when I was younger, or was distracted or something, but for the last 5 or 10 years I’ve tried to really focus on being part of the community rituals that surround and celebrate the birth of a child. Births, weddings, graduations/confirmations/bar mitzvahs/coming of age, and deaths are the really major parts of life, epic and bigger than the work-a-day world. They are the framework, and the basis for much or our crucial spiritual moments. They are also the times when family and community mobilize, and are at their very best, fulfilling their most fundamental functions. I want to be part of that for my friends and family.

And so (you knew this was coming) I knit. I don’t seem to knit as many wedding presents, and I should get back to knitting prayer shawls for those in crisis, but at this point I do try to knit for everyone I know who is having a baby. It’s funny, now that I’m past childbearing age, and even thought I claim to have mostly older friends, I seem to know a ton of people having babies right now. It’s been that way for a few years.

A few months ago I sent out this great, colorful blanket to a friend. She says the baby grabbed it right away and loved sticking her little fingers through the holes in the lace pattern. My friend Ann is great about knitting blankets for the babies in her life, and it was her great idea to make the little version, as something for the baby/toddler to hold onto while the big blankie is in the wash, or when the big blankie is too much to carry along on this particular trip to the grocery store, etc.

There are so many babies on the way right now, I had to make a list of who’s having the baby, boy or girl (if known) and what I plan to knit for them. Finished except for the buttons is this baby surprise for a baby of not-yet-known gender.

I love this pattern. This is at least the third time I’ve done one and it charms and amazes me every time. I love the way it looks with stripes, and I have no idea how Elizabeth Zimmerman ever thought her way around a garment in this direction. Just the fact that her line of shaping (decreases then increases) move from the back cuff, under the arm and onward to the bottom front hem is amazing to behold.

This is a great combination of things. I was on a friend’s Ravelry page, looking at these great robot mittens she had made, when Chris leaned over and said, “You should make a baby sweater like that for X’s baby, she’d love that kind of thing.” Thus I bought Kathryn Ivy’s Love Bytes mitten pattern and used her wonderful charts and a modification of a seventies baby sweater pattern to make this really delightful baby sweater full of robots and hearts. I totally love her pun, and the really blocky mid-twentieth century robots, and the idea of robots in love. This aesthetic is the same thing I love about the robots in Futurama—they’ve appropriate an older, dated, view of future technology, so it is both primitive/nostalgic and futuristic to our modern eye. Like the giant super computers in classic trek that take up a whole room and break down when Kirk tells them “everything I say is a lie, including that.” Actually, I think Kirk broke a sexy false eye-lashed female robot with that particular tautology, but you get the picture. I predict that ‘50s robots made out of cardboard boxes will be the next big thing after steam punk. And babies will be the recipients of my next 5 knitting projects.

New Drum Carder!!!!!!!

Recently my friend Mary Ellen made reference to the happiness that can come from purchasing something new. Not just anything, but think about when you were a kid and spent months saving up allowance for something really special. I remember spending about a year saving up for my first stereo, and I loved it from the first day I had it. It seems like something changed, either from childhood to adult life, or in our culture since then. Now it's more likely that Ill spending months paying off a previous purchase, instead of saving up for the future. The last thing I saved up for was my spinning wheel about ten years ago.

Unlike many spinner I only own one wheel. I do have some extra flyers, 3 sets of hand cards, and 2 sets of combs, but they were all acquired over 5 years ago, and one of the sets of carders was used and practically free.

So when a very slightly used drum carder came up for sale by a member of my guild, I decided that now might just be the time for a new equipment purchase. I didn't save up, but I'm counting this as my up-coming Christmas money, well spent. After spending about 3 years hand carding wool for my purple sweater set, I think it's high time I treat myself to this lovely time saver.

Behold, the Fancy Kitty Kitten Drum Carder:



The lovely woman who sold it to me decided that her life was too short for fiber prep, and she could happily spin prepared rovings from now on. I don't blame her--our guild has several very talented dyers who sell their work. I've decided that life is too short for hand carding. Either way, she was so over fiber prep that she gave me a bag of fibers she had planned to blend on the carder, and a partially finished batt.

The thing is that I like dying, and while multicolored rovings look great, and make for very attractive multicolored yarns, they necessitate very simple knitting. What I've discovered about myself is that the knitting is my primary goal, and I prefer to work with simpler yarns that allow for more complex knitting. I've made the mistake of trying to do colorwork or cables with visually complex yarn, and it just becomes a muddy indistinct lump that I spent a lot of hours on. So for me a drum carder makes it possible to buy a fleece and dye sections into related colors I can then card together for more subtle heathers that will still allow cables or lace to dominate visually. Or I can dye for individual skeins of closely related solids for a fair isle.

Of course this will lead to buying fleeces. But it saves me the cost of shipping and processing, which is what I used to do. And did I mention it saves me the time of hand carding to blend colors? Life is too short for hand carding.

So I ran home, put the drum carder on the kitchen table, cranked up my audio book, and started cranking fiber through.



I quickly discovered that I had questions, and that none of my spinning books had answers. How do I only own spinning books that refuse to address the drum carder beyond acknowledging it's existence?!?!

For instance, as I worked, there was a lot of fiber staying on the licker-in. I kept trying to remove it and feed it back through, but it kept ending up there. Then I realized that what was on the licker-in looked like this:



Could it be that unlike hand cards, drum carders separate out the neps and short crap? I checked the internet. The internet had way too much information, but it seemed to confirm that yes, it did separate this stuff out on purpose! So I stopped trying to undo the help the Kitten was offering, and put that crap aside.

I already know from my fleece study experience that I prefer to flick card first, removing as much of the short and tangled wool as I can, before either carding or combing. It seems the same will be wise with the drum carder, and produce the kind of smooth batts I prefer to spin.

Eventually, I made this:



and this:



with the fibers the original owner was so kind to pass along. I was a bit dissatisfied with dizzing the blue roving off the drum. Too much fiber was left behind, so I will probably tear the pink batt into strips or into a roving to spin. It was way too time consuming to diz off some of the roving, and then still have to remove a small thin batt of what was left. It will be much faster to remove everything together as a batt and then deal with it from there.

At this point I got excited and went off on my own. I love to spin cotton, and a little while ago a friend gave me this:



a bale of cotton. That puppy must weight 20 pounds. I was going to hand card punis from it, but that was going to take the rest of my life. The carding cloth on this Kitten looks just as fine as on my cotton hand cards, and if it all goes to hell I might waste, what, one or two ounces out of 20 pounds?

I didn't really find any guidance on doing this, but I was also too cocky to look. In the name of science, I experimented.

First I fed in the cotton in the usual way:



and about half of it stayed on the licker-in. Not good. So I added it the other way I'd been shown, directly onto the drum as I cranked.



This was much more successful. 3 or 4 times the amount added in only left this:



on the licker-in.

I removed the batt, split it, and recarded in thin layers a few times, just like with the first 2 batts.

Then I had to decide what form the carded cotton should finally take. A batt seemed too big and loose, and like it might fall apart before it ever got to the wheel, so I tried 2 things.

I dizzed off a roving which was generally frustrating. So then I tried rolling the batt around a knitting needle to make a puni, just like I would have done with hand cards.



I got 4 fairly thick punis from one batt:



as opposed to this mess of roving from the other:



I got in a little time on the wheel this morning, and as I suspected the punis are quite nice to spin from, but the roving is a bitch. If I wasn't an experienced cotton spinner I would have thrown the roving out the window! At this point I'll still spin it up just to see what I get, and keep examining how the 2 preparations work. I may try making the punis just a little smaller to compare, but by and large this will now be my go-to for prepping that bale of cotton.

So thanks very much for the drum carder! Now I need more time to knit and spin. I don't suppose I can do that this week instead of putting up the tree, making cookies, and cooking Christmas dinner for both sets of parents? I thought not.

Magic Hat has won me for life!

As you may have noticed, I like beer. I like beer so much that later today I plan to bottle 5 gallons of it. Next weekend I will brew 5 more gallons, which should be ready to drink just in time for Christmas. For the last few years now, I have been using my bonus day off to celebrate "beer Friday" while the rest of America makes me ashamed with their behavior on "black Friday." But I digress.

Even though most of the time the amount of home brew I have on hand can be measured in gallons, I do still buy the occasional beer. I definitely have favorite breweries, and seasonal beers that I look forward to each year. Every year I buy at least 4 12-packs of Magic Hat, each of their 4 seasonal mixes, in order to try all of their "Odd Notion" series. I really like their brewing style, and they use the Odd Notion series to showcase some pretty interesting brews that they've been playing around with. They take risks with this series. Last winter's notion was a pleasingly sour Belgian ale, and if memory serves they've also done a barley ale, some interesting wheats, and various beers with unexpected ingredients. This is a company that regularly brews their summer ale with beet juice, so you know you're in for an interesting and bold treat when they share their experiments! Best of all, after I've tried each new Notion, I can go to the website to find out what it is, give my feedback, and read through the other feedback.

As you can see I look forward to these, so imagine my sadness when I tried the Fall Odd Notion and it was BAD. I don't mean, "not to my taste," or they used an ill-advised ingredient. I mean it had gone off. Now in the long run, this was super instructional, because as a brewer I've read through the various descriptions of what can go wrong with a batch of beer and what each problem tastes like, but it's difficult to truly describe a flavor in words. Now I know one of them!

I contacted Magic Hat because, given their quirky emails (yes, I'm on the mailing list), their willingness to share their experiments, and their desire for customer feed back, I figured they would genuinely like to know that something had gone wrong with a batch.

They responded right away, shared with me what had gone wrong (again, great information for my own brewing) and then offered to comfort me with swag.

Within a week or two, I got a lovely package of cool beer stuff. Behold:

Not only am I comforted, but I will be their customer for life!

Most of the time, when a company has truly done me wrong with piss-poor service or shoddy merchandise, I can't even get a decent apology, much less a replacement and a coupon or two for my trouble. I've almost given up complaining. Almost.

With Magic Hat I hadn't even complained. I really was just informing them that something had gotten past them, because if it was one of my brews, I'd want to know, especially if my later batches would also be at risk. Even so, they immediately explained and offered what they called a "care package." How great is that?

So hooray for small businesses, and people who are able to do a job they love, who hang onto their passion for it, and truly give a damn about the people who ultimately use and enjoy their product!

So if you like beer, go pick up some Magic Hat and think of me. The winter Odd Notion is great! I'll be raising a #9 every year on my birthday, 09-09.

Thanks Magic Hat!

Puppet Boots!

I recently made vinyl work boots for a puppet. I actually made the whole outfit, but it's the boots that make me jump up and down on the inside. I made them at work. I was not screwing around, making puppet work boots was in fact what I was getting paid for.

I love my job.

Dear Internet Trolling Robots

I love robots, I really do. I read stories about you. I watch movies about you. I cry at the end of The Iron Giant every single time. I made a beer and called it "Benderbrau" because Bender did in an episode of Futurama. I've known the rules of robotics by heart since I was 9, see:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or by inaction allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by a human unless that order conflicts with the first law.
3. A robot must not allow itself to come to harm unless doing so conflicts with the first or second law.

But, internet trolling robots, you need to respect that this is a (mostly) knitting blog. I support robots knitting and knitting robots. I encourage on topic comments. If any knitting robot has comments, questions, or experiences to share, by all means do. If anyone who is knitting a robot wants to discuss their project, especially whether circuit boards function better in ribbing or lace, by all means share.

But robots peddling viagra? You are not welcome. That will never be an on topic comment on this blog. I'm terrified to think what happens when a robot takes any such medication. Neither do I need internet trolling robots stopping here to share information on how to chat online with naked foreign women. Again, why would you be interested in such things?

So this is a direct order, from a human, to all robots: Do not post comments here that are off topic, or that you wrote late at night after your english language circuits had shut down for routine maintanance. Do not start with badly worded compliments to my blog, even if you carefully inserted the 4 most frequently occuring words and tags, only to continue with an add for "male enhancement." Not only is this off topic, it's not what knitters are looking for on the internet. It may be what everyone else is looking for on the internet, but not us. What we're looking for is a pattern for a hat that fits a 9 month old and is covered in bunnies, or a good source for polwarth wool that can ship tomorrow, or an answer to whether or not it's a good idea to knit lace in 100% alpaca. When we see naked ladies online we feel bad for them and cast on a sweater.

You have been ordered. From now on no robot may post any off topic comment here unless doing so prevents a human from coming to harm. Even so, it will be deleted.

Spinners guild reveals reasons ‘why ’

This was a really nice article published in the local "Bee." Unlike the Buffalo News reporter who interviewed many of the same people and got much of the information wrong, Naomi Spencer was really lovely and attentive, and wrote an accurate, interesting, and articulate article about our local spinning guild.

Spinners guild reveals reasons ‘why ’

Knitting and Beer, What Could Be Better?

I was recently asked, by a very young reporter, how long it takes to make something if you start by spinning the yarn. There are of course 2 answers to the question. There is the answer in hours, and there is the answer in years. Interestingly, these 2 answers do not work out to the same amount of time.

Case in point: I have finally finished my purple sweater set. Upon our third summer together, my friend Rachel looked at me working at my spinning wheel and said "Isn't that the yarn you've been spinning the entire time I've known you?" Lucky for her, I wasn't at a good point to let go and throw my niddy noddy at her.



How many hours did this set take? Well, I started with white roving: 2 pounds of wool and 9 ounces of silk. I spent a day dying the wool in 4 separate shades of purple and painting the silk in the 4 shades sequentially. The most time consuming part was that I then hand carded the 4 shades of wool into heathered rolags before spinning them. The combination of carding and spinning may have taken as much as 200 hours. It felt like longer. Then I knit 2 sweaters, that probably took about 100 hours (these are hugely estimated numbers). I think I spent about 10 hours making the lovely dorset buttons. So all told that would be 310 hours and a day.



How many years did this sweater set take? Well, as best as I can remember I started in the summer of 2002 or 2003 when I bought the wool in Delphi NY. I finished this past June. That's 7 or 8 years to complete a sweater set. Over those years I had 3 different "school year" jobs. We went through 4 costume directors at the Opera. I lived in 4 different cities/towns, had 4 apartments, got married, and bought a house. That's way more than 310 hours and a day.

After finishing in June, I figured I would put the set away until December, but we had such a weird summer that I wore it on July 1st and was quite happy to have it. Since that day it's been over 80 every day.

There have, of course been other projects during that time. In fact, anything on this blog or on my Ravelry page was made during that time. Plus there's all the other hobbies.

I love when my very different interests in some way intersect, overlap, or inform each other. Like how the garden feeds the rabbits and the rabbits supply the compost that feeds the garden. And the spent grains from brewing feed the compost feeds the hop vine makes beer. Or when Queen sings about relativistic time dilation. Or how when a math/science student takes costume construction I can point out that the balance points on a sleeve head are the 2 points on the curve where the second derivative equals zero. And now I have a new one: a knitted beer label. This goes way past drinking and reading while knitting for relevant hobby interaction. Check it out:

I'm quite pleased with the result, although I had to save it from an unfortunate earlier stage where the lemon looked like a cupcake. Some of my labels fall flat, but I've made a few in the past year or so that I'm really pleased with. The beer was good too.

I've Finally Done It

After years of planning and writing patterns down and then chickening out, I've finally put up a group of patterns for sale on the internet. Anyone can now knit or crochet a recycled t-shirt rug just like the ones I sell on Etsy and use in my home. You can buy one through the Etsy link in the left side bar, or through Ravelry by clicking this button: Why all the hesitation and procrastination? Well, I hate selling stuff. I still remember everyone who yelled at me when I worked retail, and that was selling stuff whose workmanship or undiscovered mistakes were not my responsibility. Now I'm putting stuff out there that I made. I am now directly responsible to the buyer. The biggest thing that gives me pause about all of this is that I know that some women can be really nasty, especially about buying things and especially about a perceived slight. There are women out there who will try to take down a dyer's entire business because they bought 2 different hand dyed rovings and felt they weren't a close enough match. I don't need that. I'm not sure what's wrong with us as a gender. It seems like a man who felt he hadn't gotten what he paid for would yell once, or punch once, or (in the case of the internet) post one angry comment, and then forget about it and go on with his life. Whereas a woman who feels cheated, at least one of the nastier ones, can spend weeks, months, or years stewing in that emotion and actively working to take down someone's entire business or even their life.
This idea isn't new to me. Look at all the stories of teenage girls whose boyfriend was "stolen." Read "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. No really, go read it. It's a great book. I'll wait here.

* * * * *

That one shows that it's especially bad to cross a rich white southern woman with nothing else to do.

So how did I finally overcome all this adversity and post the damn pattern? Well, I've now sold 8 handmade items on etsy and no one has demanded a refund. Over 30 people have knit the 2 free patterns I posted here on the blog and linked to from Ravelry. A few have asked me questions and all seemed to be able to finish successfully with the answers. One found a mistake in the pattern and pointed it out in the nicest way possible. No one died. No one even yelled at me. I hate being yelled at by strangers.

So I've taken the plunge. Four people have already marked the pattern as a favorite on Ravelry and 5 have viewed it on Etsy. We'll see if anyone buys.

Injured

I work with my hands. My work is delicate, requires great precision, and is often repetitive. Sometimes I spend all of a 12 hour day standing at my cutting table (well, all but lunch, dinner, and breaks). I have known other costume technicians who have gotten repetitive stress injuries like carpal tunnel or series back problems. I've always made an effort to pay attention to my posture when I work, to switch hands when I can, and to change tasks as much as possible throughout the day because I dread these injuries and the possibility that a serious one could take me away frommy work forever.

So what injury has kept me from typing for 2 months, seriously curtailed my work for a month, and *gasp* kept me from knitting?

Sitting at a damn desk.

I thought sitting down for spells in between the standing to pattern, cut, and teach would only benefit. Little did I know that after 17 years of making costumes it would be managing a shop and spending time at my desk creating class materials, doing committee work, and sending and replying to emails that would finally injure me.

It took the whole summer and lots of careful stretching, but I am fine now. I can knit again, and garden, and type or mouse on my laptop.

Then I went into school yesterday to begin prep for the coming year, sat at my desk for maybe a half hour to make sure all my files had been transferred to my new computer, and replied to maybe 3 emails, and pain shot up my arm.

I won't go back again without the new office chair Chris got for me. The adjust-ability should help as I've been using a straight back wooden chair at my desk for the last 2 years. The desk does not seem to adjust heights so I need to focus on adjusting the chair.

If anyone out there knows something about office ergonomics and what position I should be in at a desk, please send me a link!

This Is Why You Haven't Seen Me For the Last Two Weeks

I've been working overtime for the last two weeks getting the spring dance concert on it's feet. As you may remember, I make all the costumes for Buff State theater and dance productions. Much of this concert is designed by our faculty designer, but you'll see 2 student costume designers as well. There are over 20 students dancing in 7 pieces by 4 choreographers, and man is it fun! I mean, did you know Miles Davis recorded some funk in the 70's? I had no idea. If you're in the area please come see the show; it's well worth it! As you can see from the poster performances are this week, Wednesday through Saturday evening, with one matinee on Saturday. The ticket number is there along the side. Prices are really reasonable and there is a student rate (with proper i.d.)

Come see what I do all day!

Even Tough Guys Love Bunnies

Planting Hops For Homegrown Beer

So here's what I wanted to post about my hops:

Hops are not the main ingredient in beer. They're a spice that gives beer the high sharp bitterness that is a feature of styles like India Pale Ale. Hops don't go as far back in brewing history as water, malt, and yeast do. In fact other spices were used earlier, and still are used by homebrewers and breweries. Hops do have a preservative effect, which is why India Pale Ale, which had to last through a long slow ship ride from England to India, is so much more heavily hopped than most other styles.

This is a hop rhizome of the fuggles variety. Fuggles seemed like a good place to start as it is most common in English Ales and is featured in my annual Great Pumpkin Ale. As you can see, I do everything by the book.

Chris did the heavy work of pounding 5 ft stakes into the ground to support the trellis. Here he's mounting the trellis to the stakes.

I made a hill in front of the trellis and dug a 6" trench down the middle of it (like the book illustration shows), but then I departed from any instructions I've read to add the secret ingredient we add for any new plant, be it plant, root, or seed. We have 3 rabbits working night and day to make this ideal fertilizer. Unlike other manures, it can be added directly to the garden without composting first, so I gathered some up and mixed it into the bottom of the trench.

The root in the trench, new growth pointing more or less up.

The hill covered up again. Grow little hops, grow! Hop vines can get 30 feet long by harvest time, so I'm sure I'll be running twine from the top of our beautiful trellis up to the chimney by July or August, and then doing some of my harvesting from the porch roof.

My Friend Lisa Does Everything First*

A week and a half ago I went to my local homebrew store and ordered a hop rhizome. Then I went to the garden store and bought a trellis. My plan was to spend this weekend installing the trellis and then plant the rhizome as soon as I got it, taking lots of pictures so I could have a record of the first days of this large perennial vine for my sake, and so that I could blog about it.

I got a call on Friday that the rhizome was in, so I could pick it up, put up the trellis, and plant the hops on Saturday, just in time for today's predicted rain.

I woke up before Chris on Saturday morning, so I pulled the laptop into bed with me and went to the blog I always read first, to find that Lisa and Robb just planted their hop vine, and blogged about it on Friday.

Lisa and Robb also bought their house a few months before we did, and put their garden in starting in December, and are about to raise honey bees, which I'd love to do but can't because of a seriously allergic family member. She also started brewing beer a few years before I did.

Man, it's a good thing I like her so much!

*For this rant to work, please ignore the fact that Lisa is older than I am, so is not necessarily doing these things at an earlier stage of her life, and also ignore the fact that Oakland California's growing season starts just a bit earlier than Buffalo New York's. Do go look at her blog, it's great!

Happy Family Rainbow Array

Last month, we had a great time at Raveloe celebrating Chinese new year with the annual Happy Family party. We had great Chinese food which I ate too fast to photograph.

As in other years, we layered fiber, rolled it up like a jelly roll, and cut/ripped it into sections for each of us to take home.

This year we began with the fibers we brought, and then layered Linda's offerings in rainbow order.

I love the way the striation shows at the edges:

This year Linda offered the use of her shop's wildcarder to run the results through in order to make a slightly smoother preparation than previous years. She has challenged us to spin and knit socks with this year's fiber, so a smoother preparations will be great for a less "novel" yarn appropriate for socks.

I made a lumpy singles last time, this year I may ply the yarn either with itself or with a solid like black. Most likely I won't know until I spin and knit some samples.

Signs of Spring

The snow has only just receded, and already we see this:


Every year it is the emerging snow drops that re-assure me that I have truly gotten through another winter without killing myself. Yes, there is a future, and life will return, as will sun and outdoor parties and grilling and homegrown vegetables. The date of Christmas was chosen to supplant a pagan holiday, but how wonderful that the resurrection really did occur in spring. I'm not sure if this is particularly relevant in the holy land (now that I have a passport maybe I can go find out) but man is it significant here!

The receding snow has also uncovered our compost pile in all it's glory.


Given that it has probably spent most of the winter frozen, this is as big as it's been. I keep reading up on compost, but was never convinced that mine was creating the heat I had read about. Well, turning it in 40 degree weather released steam! I am totally in love with my compost pile. In it I see the future. Future rich soil and better healthier veggies from our garden. I think a lot of other people see a giant pile of rabbit turds. I don't mind though, in addition to kitchen scraps and garden waste we've had 3 rabbits working hard all winter to improve our crappy clay soil. And apparently the wild rabbits have been reading gardening books, as they've left quite a lot of their own fertilizer around our loan cultivated rose bush.