awayuq

book puzzle

Yesterday I discovered the Lacis catalog. No doubt it's been there a long time. What a great book collection! I am especially intrigued by Makiko Tada's book on Andean Braids. I am pretty sure I have met her, at Convergence 2000, when she was conversing with the greatest north american sling braider. (He happened to be a good friend of mine.) Has anyone seen this book, or any other of her books? I've looked in all the library catalogs I have access to and haven't found a copy. I have a feeling it could be important for my collection; on the other hand, it is a bit pricey, so I'd value comments from anyone who has read it. It would be great if it gives sling braiding directions that are less confusing than Adele Cahlender's, or at least a different perspective.

Braids are seductive... lately I've seen some amazing peruvian braids and I am sorely tempted to try some. If only I didn't already have so many other fiber pursuits.

I also saw three lace knitting books on their site with knitting patterns by Christine Duchrow. (sp?) Again I can't find them within my library resources. So, lace knitting gurus, how do they rate? Are the patterns unusual and complex enough to warrant purchase? Are they charted? Are there stitches you don't find anywhere else?

change of plans

Yesterday I prepared a little andean woven band for a class demonstration today. It's a class my boss is teaching and he asked me to give a short explanation at the beginning of the session before we moved on to talking about the assigned articles. I trundled in this morning with a simple warping board and some cones of yarn.

At quarter to ten I got a phone call from my boss, sounding very out of sorts. He said his wife's car had broken down and he was running late. At quarter to eleven, he fumed into the office. "My car almost blew up!" he shouted. "I can't believe this! It was spewing smoke..." he spent the next half hour or so on the phone to AAA and car dealerships, and said "you'll have to take over class. I'm out for the day. Just give them a weaving demonstration, discuss the readings, you know."

Um. Yeah. Did I mention I'm not a professor?

So around eleven this morning I found myself with a one and a half hour class to teach, starting at one thirty. Thank goodness I'd already planned on the demonstration, otherwise I don't know what I would have done. Luckily I also found in my office cabinet various weave structure samples and some examples of cloth from the Andes that I've used before. How long can you keep non-weavers interested in weaving techniques?

As it turns out, almost an hour and a half. Explaining spinning to people who have never thought about yarn as something that needs to be made can generate a lot of questions in itself. Then there's warping-- what's a cross? Why do you need it? What's a warp? What's a heddle? I confess it's rather fun to talk about one of my favorite subjects. They had lots of great questions. The girl who usually dozes through powerpoint presentations seemed wide awake the whole time. At the end, as I was gathering together the examples I'd spread out all over the table, one of the girls asked me if I teach. Not often, I told her, but I've taught at some weaving conferences and given little workshops here and there. "What's the best way to learn?" she asked.

"Around here... probably the best way would be for us to get together and I'll show you what I know."

"Really? Would you do that? Because," nodding to her two friends, "all of us live in the same house and we really want to learn, we think it's totally cool."

Imagine that!

reappearance

Some of you have been so kind as to wonder where I have been. The answer is: right here, enduring the buffets of life. And, in recent days, transforming chaos

into (relative) order:

My closet is still too small, but at least it's better. Now that all the current home organization projects are done, it's time to move on to actually doing things in the new space. First some socks which were finished a while ago and have been complaining because they didn't get their moment of fame.
They are very nice socks, very warm, perfect for the the kind of day we had today, snow falling for hours and hours. That's my grandmother's rug, by the way. My mother wants you to know. Big Blue Orenburg is getting a little more attention lately. My current listening favorites are old radio mysteries from the 1940's. Could this be linked to my recent discovery of Brenda Starr? In any event, here's an image of Big Blue; you can just make out the center squares which are beginning to close up.

It's still very relaxing, orenburg is not very difficult lace; but as usual, I'm dreaming of all the luscious things I could start if only this one were finished. I'm longing to try the circular daffodil pattern from "Modern Lace Knitting" in--you guessed it-- yellow.

Before that though, I need to give a weaving demonstration for a class tomorrow. Since I haven't done it in a while, I decided I'd better make a small warp and see if I still remember how it's done.

Phew. That wasn't so hard. Thank goodness I can still do the basics.

Finally, there is a sort of indirect result of the great studio clean up. In going through all the boxes of stuff I found this girl, along with some half-finished clothes that I'd started oh so long ago. You would not believe how small I can handstitch when I have a mind to. Perhaps I should say could, since I haven't tried to replicate these tiny rolled hems in a long time. Anyway, in my lust for tidying up, I decided one evening to just finish the darned dress for goodness sakes! I found some lace tucked away in a drawer which made it more fun. Now she's fully clothed again, hand-worked buttonholes and all.

By the way, when I went looking for a brown-haired sister for this girl, I found that these dolls are not produced any more, and the ones in existence appear to be getting quite valuable. Guess I'll hang onto her for a while....

the burdens we carry

In this case, many pounds of wool yarn that I am hoping to give away at my lunchtime knitting group. If you recall the recent studio makeover, you'll be aware that extreme reorganization recently occurred in my textile world. I came across lots of bulky wool yarn that has been in my possession for... a long long time. Thinking back over the kinds of things I've been knitting recently, I had to admit that I am much more likely to knit something with size 1 needles than size 10. Please somebody take this lovely wool yarn! I don't want to carry it home, it's too heavy and besides I got all hot and overworked lugging the bag through the sad sinking snow.

I've been working on the Big Blue Orenburg recently, and I've discovered the rythyms of the pattern again, which makes it a pleasure. The center has concentric diamonds, four of them, and one way of judging my progress is by looking at how many diamonds I've completed. Currently, two. No pictures, because lace all bunched up looks like a big heap of nothing exciting. I'm already dreaming about what the next shawl will be.

friday gripes.

Ok. I’m a positive person, really. But right now I am about ready to scream. The next “however”, “thereby”, “as well as”, or contorted dependent clause that comes into my view is going to get pounced on, shaken, and wrung to within a frail millimeter of its life. Yes I am a gentle peace-loving soul! But bad writing is rubbing me the wrong way today.

Here’s the story. My boss and I are co-authoring an article. I’m very happy to be co-author, good for my list of publications, etc etc. And I did discover the stuff, so I don’t think it’s outrageous. He wrote the first version, and I made all the figures. I proofread it of course, but I didn’t quibble because I know what his writing style is like and, well, I didn’t want to get into it.

However. In the fullness of time came the discussion of where this thing should be published. “Oh no!” I hear one day from the inner sanctum. “We can’t submit it to xyz journal because they won’t consider anything over 10,000 words.” There followed a panic-stricken (on his part) and conciliatory (on my part) discussion about options. Finally I ventured to suggest that “you know, if it really should go in that journal, I’d be happy to try cutting it down. With all due respect, your style is verbose (yes I actually said that!) and I bet we could get it under 10,000 words.”

There it rested, on my promise. The original was almost 15,000 words. In a day or so I got it down to 9,779, preserving import and intelligibility. Great! He didn’t like parts of it, “too abrubt”, but given the constraints of the journal, everything seemed set. And I was much happier with the style.

I digress here to explain how I made that tremendous cut in the prose. It was not by eliminating entire sections. It was not by restructuring the argument. It was not by substituting words of 18 syllables for 8 words of one syllable. No. The process was in fact simple:

1. Remove parenthetical clauses which do not add to the argument.
2. Remove phrases surrounded by dashes, as they interrupt the flow and can be incorporated in other ways.
3. Remove lists of synonyms and use one good word.
4. Remove sentences that repeat each other; combine into one sentence.
5. Remove meaningless phrases such as: inasmuchas, as well as, thereby, on the one hand, on the other hand, thus, see below, at this point, in respect to, however, therefore, regarding, it is important to note that, in fact, that is, indeed, we suggest that, e.g., etc.

Trick 5 accounted for half of the cuts, the rest was achieved through condensing what was left using tricks 1-4.

Yesterday my boss got a call from a friend and the article now has a home in a book soon to be published. Hooray! Good news. The book, however, has no word limit on submissions. Guess what? Yep. That’s right. He took the pared-down (dare I suggest much clearer, more concise, and easier to read?) version and *started adding everything back in*. Then, this afternoon, he lays it on my desk and says ok, put in these changes.

I had to take a break and go for a walk. I don’t know why I get so upset by contorted prose. I should just let it be. However, whenever someone in fact edits my changes—and, as a result, makes “corrections” that are exactly what I was trying to avoid—I get, as well as irritated, profoundly frustrated, grumpy, and, indeed, angry. (see above). That is, were I to suggest alterations or adjustments to an article (e.g., the one described above), thereby improving the clarity of the argument, or narrative, I become on the one hand grieved, and on the other hand outraged, to find all of my changes with respect to intelligibility nullified, or obviated, by a careless scattering of irrelevant fluff.

Ergo, as my father would say, schmergo. Had to vent somewhere. What I need is one of those old fashioned carpet-beaters, and a carpet to beat.