proefrocks

A review: The Interrogative Mood

debra — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:11:30 +0000

by Padgett Powell
Here is where I usually link to a reading/discussion guide or two, I’m not really sure one needs a guide. The book, itself, is a guide to discussion.

a summary
A book of questions, sometimes the questions relate to those before and after sometimes not.

a review
I couldn’t read very much of the book at a time, it overwhelmed my brain to the point of pain. The the more I read, the less nonsensical the paragraphs seem so I am able to read more at a time. I have found that skipping forward and back to be the best way for me to enjoy the book. I wish there was an index so I could find exact questions again. If you have someone in your life you’d like to know better, grab a copy and have a go at it. I think I would rate this book for adults, some of the questions I wouldn’t want to explain to my 5 year old even though I don’ have a five year old. I may add this to my library if I happen upon a copy for a reasonable amount of money.

A few of my favorite questions, copyright of course belongs to the author, quoted here only to entice others to read it.

Would a catastrophic global war be required to restore us to simple living? p17
Have you any skills in the area of weaving or knitting? p35
Do you miss Tab and do you fully understand its disappearance? p43
Can you knit? p61
Would it be reasonable to ask someone if he or she has a favorite musical note? p66
Why is a banana yellow and not banana? p67

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Wool 100%

debra — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:33:24 +0000

I started a list of movies I wanted to watch in August of 2007 and when I remember to find them at the local rental place, I watch them. The list was growing because the movie place doesn’t get all the movies that come out during the year. We started a Netflix trial subscription this week and my first movie arrived. Now my list is online and the movies are delivered to my door, two out at a time. We’ve tentatively split them one for me and one for husband. Wool 100% is the first movie I requested.

I saw something mentioned on a forum I frequent about Wool 100% and put it on the list. I knew next to nothing about it except it featured knitting. I’m glad it’s a Netflix movie, I’d feel horrible borrowing it for $3 at the local place. It was quite entertaining, but definitely out there. It’s a Japanese movie subtitled in English. The movie opens with children singing a song to two elderly sisters about a sheep eating an apple and the wool turning red as a result. These two elderly sisters collect things that others discard but rarely does anyone see them. They have been collecting for sometime. Their house is covered inside and out with the treasures they find. The treasures are gently wiped clean and drawings of the them are systematically cataloged special books.¹ One of the treasures they collect is a bunch of red yarn. The yarn leads a young girl to their house. When she finds the red yarn she spends a bit of time knitting the yarn into a garment of some sort, tries it on and screams, “Damn! I have to knit it all over again.” This one of the odd parts of the film, she seems to have supernatural powers at this point because her screams are deafening as well as haunting. Over the course of the movie she rips out her knitting and knits the sweater/dress/garmentagain many times.² The ladies call her “Knit Again” because she doesn’t say anything other than variations on having to knit the garment again. She won’t stop to knit, so they feed her, she won’t wash so they wipe down her legs, arms and face several times. While she knits the red yarn, the two sisters go on a walk down memory lane remembering their childhood and early adulthood. If you can put reality aside and watch a movie for the beautiful art work and creative story line, go for this one. If you need a bit of reality, steer clear.

¹ which caused me to wonder why hebrew, japanese, chinese and alike are read right to left and we English speakers go left to right I wasn’t interested in an answer, just a question
² makes me wish I had counted how many times she ripped it out, I’ve been known to rip out what appears to be perfectly good knitting many times

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Post tags: movie review

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Foggy February

debra — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 03:43:33 +0000

I haven’t been focused on crafty things as much as I would like to lately, Boo (understandably) takes up more time than I seem to have in a day. With one week left in February, I’m not sure if I have finished much but I’ve had fun thinking about crafts.

After Christmas, I needed a quick break from long projects so I knitted a bunch of quick things:

Spinning Wheel bag
Lunch bag for Jason
Two reusable mop covers (which desperately need to be tested)
coolie ear warmer

I took lots of knitting with me out east when we visited my family for a week. I started knitting a bear for Boo before he was born and am stuck on the head. I keep ripping it out and trying again which slows the progress. I also brought my Christmas cross stitch project, an advent calendar. I purchased it as a kit a number of years ago, 2006 I believe, and work on it when I can. Now that Boo is here, I need to finish it. Next on the needles will be mittens and a hedgehog from my homespun yarn that I finished just before our trip. Already on the needles to finish: aforementioned bear and a few other plushie toys.

On the spinning front, I just ordered larger bobbins, more smaller bobbins and some attachments for the wheel so that I can ply longer sections at a time. My prototype ball winder is great as long as I keep the right amount of tension on the yarn. I attached another clamp so that I can keep one hand on the yarn at all times. Next up I need a swift, I think that may take care of some of the tension issues.

I need to finish Julie’s placemats, 11 more to go I think. I’ve started thinking about my Christmas 2010 project, I’ve got an idea, but it needs some work.

Boo’s borrowed cloth diapers are getting small, so I’ve been cutting out new ones like crazy. Seven cut, two more sewn but needed modifications and zero in currently circulation.

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A book reivew: Flatland

debra — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:36:29 +0000

by Edwin A Abbott
reading guide 1
reading guide 2
Flatland text from Project Gutenberg
Annotated Version of Flatland
Wiki background

a review/summary

I first started listening to this on Craftlit and found my attention span waning. I decided to stop listening to this book for a few episodes then checked out a hardcopy from the library. I started with the text on Project Gutenberg, linked above, and wanted to hold it in my hand and flip chapters. I found that I enjoyed understood it better to read first then listen.

While I don’t fancy myself anything special when it comes to reading deeper into what an author means, this author made it quite easy to see his points. The author used satire to convey his thoughts on social classes as well as gender inequality using personified flat two-dimensional shapes. I feel as though I can’t say too much more without revealing what can be discovered while reading. I found myself pulling for the poor square after a while. Please use the links above to read more about the book or the book itself as it is in public domain.

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Whirlwind Weekend

debra — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:08:44 +0000

I’ve had a busy weekend spinning, knitting, and cutting fabric for Boo’s diapers. The spinning is brown Shetland wool I bought in November with my spinning wheel. I’ve certainly improved my spinning since then. I made a 3ply yarn this weekend and I think the best bobbin was the last one I prepared and the worst was the middle. It appears as if I spun with my attention on something else during that second one. I had huge deviations in thickness over the bobbin. I have about 354 yards so far, with a bit more on the wheel still to ply. I’m going to n-ply or Navajo ply because I don’t have an even amount left, the middle bobbin ran out much quicker because I measured the bobbins by weight and some of the fiber was used up in thick areas rather then length. N-plying will allow me to ply each single against itself so I can’t run out. I think I’ll make mittens, scarf, maybe a hat of some sort.

I finished some this weekend: a reusable washable mop cover and a Calorimetry for keeping my ears warm. I followed a free pattern from a big box craft store sponsored by a big yarn maker for the mop cover or it’s online. I didn’t so much like the pattern and won’t make it again. I didn’t make pieces and sew it together, instead I picked up stitches and made the rest up as I went. The Calorimetry is from Knitty. The light brown thing is the bottom of a lunch bag for my Sweet-ums. It’s almost finished now, I’m working on the last few rows, then I have to make the draw string and handles.

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First FO of 2010

debra — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:56:04 +0000

Here are my first finished objects of 2010. I’ve been busy trying to finish knitting projects. My Cozy shawl from Knitty is finally finished after repeated ripping out and reknitting. The last time I ripped it out was the weekend Boo was born. To use up the scraps I knit a Tribble dishcloth. They look more neat with variegated yarn, but it used up the small ball I had left at the end.

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Christmas 2009 sewing project update #4

debra — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:42:03 +0000

I was able to complete 5 more placemats for Julie. Even though one picture shows 6, only 5 were delivered because I found a small 2 inch section that needed to be sewn again. I’ve ripped that section and repinned. I discovered that I needed to pull out new pins and trash the old ones. A craftier would have kept them and made some new thing out of them, but they were too dull to keep using on fabric. Now I’m on to the winter/summer placemats-one pinned, nine to go.

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Christmas 2009 sewing project update #3

debra — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:22:37 +0000

Today I was able to sew more of my super top-secret Christmas project. I’m willing to say that I am about half way through the project.

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Fiber Friday – in which I am still learning

debra — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 04:07:43 +0000

My 2lb ball of Shetland wool and current bobbin, it takes a long time to spin as thin as I am. I need them as thin as I can so that when I ply two or three thickness together I won’t end up with a 5 inch thick yarn.

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Christmas 2009 sewing project update #2

debra — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:45:09 +0000

Well, the best laid plans . . . Here it is December and I’m still working on my super secret family Christmas Elf gift. I had hoped to be done before Boo arrived, but at least I’m not late, yet. This is post number 2 because in July I posted a bit about what I was working on, of course I danced around what it the project actually is and I’m still dancing. Until the gifts are presented I’ll not be sharing too much, only what I think can safely be viewed without giving too much away.

Should you happen upon a password protected post for the 2009 Christmas season and you feel I am not making the gift for you, please leave a comment here with a valid email address. Your email address will not be published. It will only be used so that I am able to send the password your way, unless of course you are the recipient of this gift. The password will be the same for all top-secret posts this season.

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NaBloPoMo 2009

debra — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 06:16:59 +0000

I have successfully completed another Nov. 30 posts in 30 days. I have learned some valuable lessons and managed not to blog about the 30 posts in 30 days as any of my Nov. posts. Well, mission accomplished by the skin of my teeth no thanks to my webhost going down for several hours just as I was finishing my post. This week has been lousy for my satisifaction rating with goods and services.

I have a bunch of new Gerber vinyl diaper covers that were given to me proceed to degrade with each use. I have received a note back from the customer service people at Gerber saying that if I send the product into them I will receive replacement/refund. That’s possible for three of them, but the others were thrown away one at a time as the holes developed, which means people purchased gifts for us that we basically threw away. Why is our society so disposable? Why, oh why, has it taken me this long to get our cloth diaper supply up and running? Well, procrastination and unscheduled abdominal surgery at the end of September, but mostly the first and only a little of the second.

I tried to order prints from webshot.com, which by the way I will never recommend to anyone and will not attempt to use them again. It took me most of the day but I uploaded a bit over 460MB of data to their site before the colossal fail. They had a nice coupon deal wherein I could receive 100 free prints, I had 150 I wanted to order. Apparently, despite the fact that it is still plastered all over their site at 1AM EST, you can’t actually use the coupon. That, however, was not my problem because I didn’t try to order them on Dec 1. It was still Nov 30 when I was ordering but the clock switched as I clicked to pay for my order. My order suddenly when from $13.45 to over $20. I deleted my cart, my pics and sent a complaint email as well as a request to delete my account.

Maybe Dec 1 will be better, it really can’t be worse. To end on a positive note, my MIL (mom-in-law) came over this morning and hung out with Boo so I could work on my Christmas project. After I found the iron I misplaced, I spent an hour and a half in the morning and a few minutes in the evening working so that I am 37.5% completed which is to say, well, I’m working on it.

I will not be late this year.
I will not be late this year.
I will not be late this year.
I will not be . . .

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Post tags: Christmas, Dreamhost, gerber, rant, webshots

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A book review: Spin Control

debra — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:15:41 +0000

by Amy King, 2009

a review/summary
I borrowed this book from the library along with many others to evaluate what books to add to my spinning library. This one will be joining my library at the end of the week, making an Amazon order for Christmas. Amy challenges the readers to play with the wheel. It’s nothing I couldn’t have figured out on my own but to see it written down, permission to play with the wheel whether it seems conventional or not, somehow makes it ok to set about doing. She tells us to change a specific setting one way then spin, then make another change and see what happens. Then change another setting and asks how it changed from the previous ones. (scientific method anyone?)

After the introductory chapters she gets to the business of explaining many of the questions I had in a blog draft like how to know how much twist to put in the yarn. She shows us how to evaluate previously spun or purchased yarn in an effort to reproduce it and encourages us to keep a spinning notebook. She shows us how to spin a variety to novelty yarns and even shows several knitted swatches of different prep and spinning techniques on the same base fiber. I feel like cover to cover gets me a spinning class. Can’t wait to get my hands on the book permanently. I’m off to browse the rest of the books, stay tuned for more reviews.

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What’s for dinner?

debra — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:47:36 +0000

I like how many of the large recipe sites have a search function so you can enter the ingredients you have on hand and what ingredients to exclude and then search for what you can make for dinner (or lunch or breakfast or snack). Today I found a site that searches all the other sites with that functionality, I present SuperCook. I am in no way affiliated with them nor do I receive compensation for writing about them. This site allows the exclusion of individual ingredients or the options of: all dairy, all meat, all fish, all shelfish, all gluten and all nuts. The draw back to all dairy is that I have good butter substitutes, but milk is mostly out of the question when used as a thickener. I think I will plan a menu using the site to see if it offers up any new recipes that I might enjoy. When I search the recipes, it lists the ones first that have only the ingredients I listed (if any exist) and then offers up other suggestions if I have other ingredients on hand. I don’t know all the recipe sites it crawls but it seems to have many, including sites that have recipes but are not exclusively food sites. I leave you with this interesting quote from the FAQ:

Are there any default ingredients Supercook assumes everybody has at home?
Yes, Supercook assumes your kitchen at home has salt, pepper, sugar and water. There is no need to add these ingredients to ‘your kitchen’ on Supercook.

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101 things in 1001 days

debra — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 04:16:57 +0000

A long while ago, I found a site that challenged readers to make a list of 101 things to accomplish in 1001 days, if you search for posts here with the 101 in 1001 tags or use your favorite search engine, you’ll find it. I jumped on board and am almost half way through my 1001 days. I have made some progress, which is exciting and had to remove some things from the list that are no longer relevant or impossible to complete at this point. While I am fairly certain that I will be fortunate to complete 60 or more of the 101 things, I have learned how to make a more feasible list in May of 2011 if I choose to try this again.

Art/Craft
12. Purchase or make a drop spindle (9/2008 made 2), spin at least 6 oz. of pre-dyed fiber & knit into socks
18. Finish R2D2 hat, write instructions (11/2008)
21. Frog Homespun blanket and reuse yarn to make hoodie (2009)
22. Stamp cards to use for special occasions: have 20 in reserve – 10/20 (11/2009)
26. Calculate yards or number of projects in stash, get to work (this is in constant progress which would be finished if I would stop adding to the list and stash)

Education/Self-Development
1. ~~Play guitar on worship team (requires learning to play guitar)~~ no longer on the worship team, need new task

Health
2. Lose enough weight to fall into healthy BMI and keep it off (I do have an exact number for a goal weight) (in process)
4. Kayak ~~at least 15 times each year~~ as often as possible

Literature
1. Read/listen to 15 Classics (1 every other month) – in progress
2. Re-read Wheel of Time~~, creating personal encyclopedia to track characters/plots~~ – 5.5 of 11 reread
3. Read 10 biographies from individuals who dedicated their lives to societal change (1 every 3 months) – in progress
4. Join a book club: IRL or virtual (2/2009)
5. Write a review for each book read as a result of this 101 in 1001 list – in progress

Organization/De-Clutter
13. Basement organize boxes into smallest floor area possible, maximize work area: accomplished when there is room to host video game night with friends or craft session (summer/fall 2009)
15. Sort teaching boxes, condense by at least one box (summer/fall 2009)

Random
1. Rediscover natural hair color, no dyes until 100% natural again (fall 2009)
2. ~~Go to the beach at least once a year: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011~~
3. Commit 9 random acts of kindness without receiving/accepting/admitting credit (in process 2 out of 9)

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How people found my blog, part 3

debra — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 04:03:17 +0000

I like to check my site statistics every now and again to see how people arrived here. Sometimes I can’t understand how his/her search engine directed them here and other times I can. I hope he/she was greatly entertained if the search was a bit errant in sending the traffic here. I present a random assortment of phrases that landed many people here:

writing prompts generator software
prompt generator
random writing prompt generator
christmas prompt generator
writing prompt generator
tigerheart club
books by janette walls
the glass castle book club
curious case of benjamin button
the shack book club questions
the shack book club guide
bookclub reviews of the shack
the shack bookclub review
schacht matchless spinning wheel
best travel spinning wheel
suzie spinning wheel
louet s51 dt
lime and violet cant listen I admit, I don’t completely understand why the poor person was directed here for this one, the l&v part-yes, the can’t listen part-no
alan dart finished knitting projects
alan dart patterns
spinning wheels have to go round
tessellating fish pattern
tessellated fish pattern
yarn traverse pattern software I admit, I have no idea why the poor person was directed here for this one.

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