The Bog of Lost Scholars

27 December 2011

2011 Craft Goal Update

Filed under: Crafts — Castiron @ 13:11

While it’s not quite the end of the year, it’s close enough for me to check in and see how I did on my 2011 craft goals.

1. Finish all the projects started before 2011 (except for sweaters/vests and Heere Be Dragone) in 2011. I made a good dent in this, finishing the following:

  • Blue Curacao Shawl
  • CTH Peacock Socks
  • Hobby Horse
  • Katika
  • Garden Gate Socks
  • Bear Rug
  • Copper Penny Socks
  • Spot Check Socks

Still unfinished, and not likely to be done in the next five days:

  • Linen Bag
  • Loud Escher Socks
  • Shall We Dance Doily
  • Medallion Travel Bag
  • Microsock

2. Finish at least two sweaters/vests that I started before 2011 in 2011. Done; I finished the Oblique cardigan and the Flutter Cardigan.

3. Successfully complete the 52 Projects in 52 Weeks challenge in June and sign up for another year of it. I did successfully complete it, but I decided not to sign up for another round. I want to focus on finishing my existing projects, not on a goal that encourages me to start a bunch of small easy-to-finish projects instead.

4. Start at least ten projects with stash I’ve had for more than two years.
 Done; Cast-on Mania did help with that!

5. When I buy new yarn, start the project it’s intended for within a month of purchase.
 Ha. Not even close. Definitely a sign that I have too many projects in progress, if I can’t start a project I’ve specifically bought yarn for.

6. Make at least ten projects from patterns that have no Ravelry pattern photo (i.e. my Needlecraft for Today patterns), and take a good picture that can be used as the pattern photo.
 I finished nine. Some others are in progress but won’t be done by the end of the year.

7. Start a blanket to use up sock yarn scraps.
 Done.

8. Start at least one project from my stash of wool that’s stored in the freezer.
 Done.

9. Weave some towels from the gazillion cones of cotton yarn I’ve bought.
 Still haven’t finished warping the loom after a year and a half. I’ve resolved that by 1 January, I have to either warp it or rip it out.

10. Go through the bins of yarn I got with my loom, and log everything I want to keep in my Ravelry stash.
 Not completed, but I’ve made a start, and I also got rid of a bunch I knew I didn’t want.

11. Knit five pairs of plain socks.
 Done! Also knit three pairs of patterned socks.

12. Use all the remaining yarn from the Loopy Ewe orders that made me a Loopy Groupie.
 Not done, but I made progress; I’m down to six skeins.

13. Knit all the kid sweaters that I’ve bought yarn for (one in progress, three unstarted).
 Didn’t happen.

14. Reduce my knitting/crochet yarn stash so that it fits on my allotted yarn shelves (or at least is out of the closets).
 Not even close.

15. Start working regularly on all the cross-stitch and sewing projects.
 Nope.

Still, overall I’m satisfied with what I actually did accomplish in 2011. I finished 42 knit and crochet projects: four sweaters, six scarves, ten pairs of socks, three hats, nine dishcloths, a pillow, a shawl, five ornaments, a stuffed toy, a rug, and a bag. And I still might manage to finish a cross-stitch ornament before the year’s end. There’s a lot of stash for me to use, but I am actually producing a bunch of finished projects.

22 October 2011

Morning Pages Revisited

Filed under: Uncategorized — Castiron @ 18:09

Back around 2000, I read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and decided to try the exercises she recommended for clearing creative blocks, particularly the morning pages — three pages of stream-of-consciousness longhand writing, first thing in the morning.

As far as helping me write went, it was a dismal failure. When I started doing morning pages, I was still writing, just not as much or as easily as I had in the past. After several weeks of morning pages, my writing had dried up almost completely, and it stayed dried up for years; some years, the only writing I managed was 1500 words for a Yuletide Exchange fanfic.

In retrospect, there were two reasons for this.

First was the reason that should have made me veto this practice: early mornings were my only reliable writing time. Instead of getting up and working on my stories for an hour, I got up and wrote morning pages, with the result that I wasn’t doing my real writing at all. By the time I gave up on morning pages, I was out of the habit of working on stories, and after a while I no longer had a regular time for writing.

Second, when you do a stream-of-consciousness writing exercise at a time when a lot of things bother you about your life, those things will tend to show up in the writing. I have occasionally joked that morning pages killed my first marriage; that’s not actually true, but over time the morning pages made it impossible for me to ignore the problems we were having. Awareness of the problems led to more time and energy spent, first on trying to resolve them and later on ending the marriage — which also left less time and energy for writing.

In short, morning pages were a bad idea for me.

So why on earth, you might ask, have I started doing them again?

Because circumstances change. Because I have a pile of blank books I want to actually use. Because this time, I actually wanted to do them. My writing time is in the evening now, so morning pages don’t interfere with that. I’m using them differently now; I’m still writing about random things on my mind, but I’m also using the morning pages to noodle story ideas and to write really stupid stuff that won’t go in the real story. (Surprise — sometimes I look back at it and find that actually, it’s not that stupid and a revised version does belong in the real story.)

And this time, they seem to be working.

Since starting morning pages, I’ve written three stories totalling 33K words. Not a novel, granted, and unpublishable because it’s fanfic, but this is the most writing I’ve completed since 2000.

I don’t know whether this is a temporary upsurge or a long-term change. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to transfer the developing writing habits to original fiction. But I’m delighted to have these characters and scenes coming out of my head and onto the page again.

3 July 2011

Craft Goal Progress

Filed under: Crafts — Castiron @ 11:41

Now that the year’s half over, time to check in on my craft progress.

1. Finish all the projects started before 2011 (except for sweaters/vests and Heere Be Dragone) in 2011. I’m making pretty good progress on this. I’ve finished the following:

  • Blue Curacao Shawl
  • CTH Peacock Socks
  • Hobby Horse
  • Katika
  • Garden Gate Socks
  • Bear Rug
  • Copper Penny Socks
  • Spot Check Socks

Still remaining to do:

  • Linen Bag
  • Loud Escher Socks
  • Shall We Dance Doily
  • Medallion Travel Bag
  • Microsock

I’m not sure I’ll get all these done; the Linen Bag, in particular, is very slow. But if I can get at least one or two of these done, I’ll be satisfied.

2. Finish at least two sweaters/vests that I started before 2011 in 2011. Half done; I finished the Oblique cardigan earlier this year. So far I’m on track to finish at least one more by the end of the year, especially if I can focus on one.

3. Successfully complete the 52 Projects in 52 Weeks challenge in June and sign up for another year of it. I did successfully complete it, but I’ve decided I’m not going to sign up for another round. I want to focus on finishing my existing projects, not on a goal that encourages me to start a bunch of small easy-to-finish projects instead.

4. Start at least ten projects with stash I’ve had for more than two years.
 I’ve almost met this goal; I’ve started nine projects with stash bought or received before 1 January 2009. (Thank you, Cast-On Mania.) If one counts old scraps, then I’ve met the goal, but I’m limiting this to unused stash.

5. When I buy new yarn, start the project it’s intended for within a month of purchase.
 Failing miserably, but I’m not surprised. It’s a further sign that I have too much stash and too many projects going.

6. Make at least ten projects from patterns that have no Ravelry pattern photo (i.e. my Needlecraft for Today patterns), and take a good picture that can be used as the pattern photo.
 Eight done; four in progress.

7. Start a blanket to use up sock yarn scraps.
 Done.

8. Start at least one project from my stash of wool that’s stored in the freezer.
 One sweater started, though I haven’t gotten very far with it.

9. Weave some towels from the gazillion cones of cotton yarn I’ve bought.
 If I ever finish warping the loom…..

10. Go through the bins of yarn I got with my loom, and log everything I want to keep in my Ravelry stash.
 Not completed, but I’ve made a start, and I also got rid of a bunch I knew I didn’t want.

11. Knit five pairs of plain socks.
 Three done, one close to done, and two likely to be finished by the end of the year.

12. Use all the remaining yarn from the Loopy Ewe orders that made me a Loopy Groupie.
 Ha! Though I’ve actually made a little progress on this; there’s only seven skeins left to use. I don’t expect to meet this goal this year, but I might get several items started, at least.

13. Knit all the kid sweaters that I’ve bought yarn for (one in progress, three unstarted).
 Not yet, and probably not happening, but I hope to at least finish the in-progress one.

14. Reduce my knitting/crochet yarn stash so that it fits on my allotted yarn shelves (or at least is out of the closets).
 Ha! Not yet.

15. Start working regularly on all the cross-stitch and sewing projects.
 Not yet.

Overall I’m happy with my progress. I’ve started a lot of projects that have lingered in the queue, and finished a bunch as well. Participating in Cast-on Mania did throw off my finishing progress, but at least it got other stash into use.

16 June 2011

Reading The Wealth of Nations

Filed under: People, Culture, and Society,The Castiron Reading Journal — Castiron @ 18:54

For several months now I’ve been working my way through Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations; I’m not quite a quarter of the way through.

Why read The Wealth of Nations? It’s a foundational document of Western economics; it was hugely influential when it was published in 1776, but all I knew about it was the idea of the “invisible hand”.

And there’s a reason most people today haven’t read it. It’s long, and it’s often tedious. (Smith was well aware of the latter; early in the book, he says, “I am always willing to run some hazard of being tedious, in order to be sure that I am perspicuous.”) If my goal was a greater understanding of economics, I’d be better off reading some shorter and more modern works.

But the book has little rewards that make it worth the slog. So many of Smith’s examples still make sense 250 years later and resonate with situations in the modern world. And it’s a huge pleasure to see what makes Smith himself tick — when his tone has been even and rational for a hundred pages, and then suddenly he’s discussing legal restrictions on workers’ ability to switch jobs, the shift in tone jumps off the page. You’re in no doubt that he considers it appallingly WRONG.

At the rate I’m going, it’ll probably be 2014 by time I finish reading the book, and it’s worth the trouble. (And this is a perfect book for reading on an iPod Touch. It’s dense reading, and the tiny screen gives about the right amount of text for me to process in one chew.)

20 May 2011

Competition

Filed under: People, Culture, and Society — Castiron @ 21:01

On various articles discussing the problems of education, and in discussions among my own relatives, I keep hearing the opinion “They’ve taken all the competition out of education, and that’s a bad thing. We keep protecting kids from losing, and then when they get to the real world they can’t cope, because some people are better than others, and you shouldn’t get a position or accolade just because you happen to show up.” Which I’m generally in agreement with, but then their solution is to rank kids and not worry about someone who loses; that kid just needs the incentive of losing to make them work harder.

And I’m not convinced they’re right.

Or rather, I think it’ll work fine for some kids, and will be an utter disaster for others.

When I was in school, I played clarinet. I was very good, but I figured out early on that I wasn’t nearly as good as a couple of the other students. According to the “let them fail” crowd, this should have given me incentive to practice my butt off and try to beat them. Instead, I decided that there was no way I was ever going to be as good as them — let alone good enough to actually pursue a career in clarinet — so I shouldn’t even try to be.

Oh, I still practiced; I liked the music and wanted to do a good job. But in retrospect, because I knew there was a level I wasn’t going to reach (and I still think that assessment was correct), I didn’t try to be as good as I could get.

The attitude of “I can’t be the best at this, so I’m not going to even try” is a dangerous one, and one that a competitive environment can encourage. Have some competition with others, certainly, as a reality check for where everyone’s skills lie. But the most important competition shouldn’t be with the fellow student who’s a genius in this area, or with the student who’s hopeless at it. It should be with yourself.

Are you better at this skill, this task, this technique than you were last week? Are you doing as good a job as you can reasonably do (or, if it’s something that’s actually worth it, as good a job as you can possibly do)? If you can answer “yes” to these questions, you may never reach the highest levels, but you’re a lot more likely to reach the “good enough for my daily life and my community” levels. I don’t have to be good enough to play for the New York Philharmonic in order to be good enough to play for fun with my friends.

19 April 2011

Spinning

Filed under: Crafts — Castiron @ 23:50

Spinning was on my list of things-to-learn-someday, but given an autistic child with an obsession for shredding fluff and a full plate of crafts I’m already interested in, I figured I wasn’t going to learn it until at least 2020.

Then I got a drop spindle for Christmas 2010.

I’ve now been spinning for almost four months. I’ve made ten skeins of yarn, ranging from 17 to 180 yards, and have five more in progress. So far I’ve mostly spun two-ply yarns, though I’ve done one n-plyed sample, and I’m considering doing a four-ply cabled yarn from one top if the singles are compatible.

Spinning is addictive; I really enjoy playing with the fiber and watching it turn into singles. I’m still a beginner; I’m not yet to the point where I can decide that this top should be made into this kind of yarn and actually get the results I want. But that actually makes it easier for me to just spin and see what I get.

I’m not getting nearly as much knitting done as I did before I learned to spin — it’s just as easy if not easier to pick up the spindle as it is to pick up a sock or sleeve — and at some point I want to start using the yarn I made, but for now, I’m enjoying the learning process.

19 March 2011

Lessons from Cast-On Mania

Filed under: Crafts — Castiron @ 00:01

There’s a group on Ravelry that does Cast-On Mania once or twice a year. The goal is to start one project every day for a month; the next couple months are spent working down the projects started. This year, I decided to participate.

Why would I do this when I’ve already got numerous projects in progress?

I was out of my mind.

Actually, given the number of projects I’ve bought yarn for but haven’t started, or that I’ve wanted to make for a while but haven’t gotten around to, Cast-on Mania was intended as a kick-start. Instead of putting them off and putting them off and putting them off, I’d start them and get them into my regular project rotation, so they’d at least be moving forward.

And in that, it’s succeeded. Sweaters and vests, toys and bags, socks and dishcloths that have been on my to-make-someday list are now on my work-in-progress list.

Sadly, they’ll be there for a long time. Adding 28 projects to my existing works-in-progress — well, it finally threw off the habit of working on projects as they turn up, because when I have ten projects come up on a weekday, it’s very hard to do even a row on each. However, I took a leaf from David Allen’s book and rescheduled the overdue ones, most with longer repeats. It’ll take longer to get them all done, but I’m getting back on track. (And honestly? Learning to spin has actually done more to hurt my knitting productivity than starting 28 more projects has; I’m spending more of my leisure time making yarn and less using it up.)

The biggest thing I learned from Cast-on Mania, though, wasn’t that I have the willpower to stick with it for a month, or that I’ve hit the limit of how many knitting projects I can reasonably keep going at one time. It’s that I have far too much yarn. I could’ve kept starting a project a day for at least two more weeks, and that’s not counting the multitude of sock yarn skeins. Needles and hooks were the limiting factor, not yarn.

I can see myself doing Cast-on Mania again someday, but not until I get my WIP quantity back into single digits.

9 January 2011

2011 Craft Goals

Filed under: Crafts — Castiron @ 20:44

My craft goals for 2011:

1. Finish all the projects started before 2011 (except for sweaters/vests) in 2011:

  • Blue Curacao Shawl
  • CTH Peacock Socks
  • Hobby Horse
  • Katika
  • Garden Gate Socks
  • Bear Rug
  • Copper Penny Socks
  • Linen Bag
  • Loud Escher Socks
  • Shall We Dance Doily
  • Medallion Travel Bag
  • Spot Check Socks
  • Microsock

Exception: the Heere Be Dragone shawl (if I finish that, great, but since it takes so long to do a row, I’m not holding my breath on it).

2. Finish at least two sweaters/vests that I started before 2011 in 2011. My options:

  • Humphrey Vest
  • Al-Araaf Sweater
  • Sherwood
  • Japanese Vest
  • Portland Sweater
  • Arietta
  • Oblique
  • Flutter Cardigan
  • Neon Turkish Sweater
  • Lace Coverup
  • Aran sweater

(Oblique will almost certainly be done by the end of this month if I work on it at all. The other is likely to be Sherwood or one of the vests, though I might surprise myself with one of the others.)

3. Successfully complete the 52 Projects in 52 Weeks challenge in June and sign up for another year of it.

4. Start at least ten projects with stash I’ve had for more than two years.

5. When I buy new yarn, start the project it’s intended for within a month of purchase.

6. Make at least ten projects from patterns that have no Ravelry pattern photo (i.e. my Needlecraft for Today patterns), and take a good picture that can be used as the pattern photo.

7. Start a blanket to use up sock yarn scraps.

8. Start at least one project from my stash of wool that’s stored in the freezer; my husband would like more room for actual food.

9. Weave some towels from the gazillion cones of cotton yarn I’ve bought.

10. Go through the bins of yarn I got with my loom, and log everything I want to keep in my Ravelry stash.

11. Knit five pairs of plain socks.

12. Use all the remaining yarn from the Loopy Ewe orders that made me a Loopy Groupie.

13. Knit all the kid sweaters that I’ve bought yarn for (one in progress, three unstarted).

14. Reduce my knitting/crochet yarn stash so that it fits on my allotted yarn shelves (or at least is out of the closets).

15. Start working regularly on all the cross-stitch and sewing projects.

16. Keep practicing spinning.

1 January 2011

A New Year’s Story

Filed under: Uncategorized — Castiron @ 01:31

On New Year’s Eve, just before midnight, someone comes to every house.

Maybe it’s an angel, a messenger of God. Maybe it’s a brownie, or another one of the Fair Folk. Maybe it’s the old woman from countless tales who judges the young traveller. Maybe it’s a sentient being arising from radio waves. Maybe it’s the ghost of one of your ancestors — a woman who learned in a hard school and later became its teacher.

Whoever it is, someone comes to every house and inspects.

Under the chests and behind the television. In the drawers and in your hard drives. On the top shelf of the closet and in the bottom drawer of the desk. In that corner of the fridge where leftovers go to die. Over the toilet and in front of the stove.

That shelf in the utilities room that holds carpet left by the house’s previous owners and the eggshells from seventy-two baby lizards. That box in the closet that holds the present you forgot to give to one of your friends. That pile behind the sofa where your missing library book is. Someone looks at all of it.

Now, some people say that the visitor expects a perfect house before they’ll bestow their blessings on the next year. If the past year’s dirt is under the rug, or the past year’s dishes on the counter, or the past year’s laundry mildewing in the washing machine, or the past year’s bills sitting unpaid, then someone will bring you more dirt, more mess, more trouble.

But if someone sees a perfect house, everything in order, everything clean, everything incapable of improvement, why should someone bestow a blessing where it’s clearly not needed?

No, someone isn’t looking for perfection. Someone is looking for good.

The dishes are piled by the sink, but the guests are enjoying food and drink.

The bathroom tiles need scrubbing, but there is a full roll of toilet paper.

The files are full of old papers, but the shelves are full of beloved books.

The checking account is near empty, but it is balanced.

The laundry is piled up, but the baby creating the laundry is being rocked and sung to.

And someone looks at what has been done out of what could be done, and someone smiles, and someone leaves a blessing.

2 December 2010

Switching to Ebooks

Filed under: Publishing and Writing,The Castiron Reading Journal — Castiron @ 00:44

I’ve made the switch to ebooks — almost.

Recently I realized that I’m doing the majority of my fiction reading on my iPod Touch. I still have plenty of paper books, I still like paper books, and I still check out paper books from the library, but when it comes to actually making the time to read, I’m more likely to read on my Touch than I am to read the paper book. The Touch is always on me and easy to pull out when I have a few spare minutes. I can go immediately to where I left off; there’s no danger of a bookmark falling out, and because of the small screen size, there’s no hunting across two pages to find where I left off (a constant problem when I was trying to read Foote’s The Civil War, and one reason I’ve only finished the first volume). If I’m reading something huge, like The Lord of the Rings or The Count of Monte Cristo, that’s okay; the book still fits in my pocket and doesn’t weigh any more.

I knew I’d completed the switch when I read Bujold’s latest, Cryoburn, on the Touch. I’ve got the paper book as well; I only opened it once to look at the design and layout. Overall, I’m now an ebook reader…

…but I’m not yet an ebook buyer.

No, this is not a confession of piracy. All the ebooks on my Touch are legal copies. But most of them are free — Project Gutenberg downloads, fanfiction stories downloaded from Archive of Our Own, free sample books from various publishers, etc. I’ve bought a few Baen books and a few books from Fictionwise when it still had a good micropay program, but the total number of ebooks I’ve paid for might not hit two digits.

Why? Because when I buy a book, I want to own the book.

If I buy a book with DRM, what happens when I need to convert the book to a different format, or the DRM authorization server is shut down, or I switch to a new device and discover I’ve used up all the devices I was allowed to authorize the book on? I’ve lost the book, unless I want to break federal law and strip the DRM.

If I can’t own the ebook, then I don’t want to buy it. Baen’s books are great, because there’s no DRM and I can download different formats when I need to. But Baen only publishes a couple of the authors I really love to read.

I have a few hundred paper books that I want to get in ebook format someday. The books I love enough to keep in my house are mostly ones I love enough to pay twice for them, and some of them were bought used anyway, so this’d be a great chance to finally pay the author. But if the ebook comes with strings attached? I’m not that desperate to have it.

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