Donna Druchunas's Blog

Check it out! One of the yarn shops I visited in Vilnius has a website with this cute logo:



I did get a batch of spaghetti sauce made today but that's all. I feel like doing nothing all week, even though I have things that are due. Have you ever played hookey from work when you have a deadline? I haven't. But I want to.

I once worked with a guy who used to call in sick every time he had a deadline. The day after his work was due, he would come in and finish it as his own pace, the urgency being gone since the deadline was already missed. I worked with another guy before who would slow down to a snail's pace when a deadline was approaching or whenever our boss put on the pressure to work faster. I think I need to learn something from these two guys. Up until I was writing Arctic Lace, I never, ever missed a work deadline. During Arctic Lace, I did miss a major deadline but I was clinically depressed, so I figured it was a glitch. Now I find myself wanting to check out every time a deadline is approaching. I just don't like the pressure of deadlines any more and I don't feel like I should have to subject myself to the stress just to make a buck. I resent it.

I've been rereading Grammar Lessons: Translating a Life in Spain by Michele Morano, and she talks about being a hyper/spastic American while living in Spain. When she first moved there, the school where she was teaching told her they only had one class for her to teach, not two. She freaked out and made them give her another class, only to find out later that they would have paid her the full fee either way. She also found that she was frustrated by trying to get everything on her to do list done in a hurry when no-one in Spain seemed to see the urgency.

I wish I hadn't come back from my trip to Europe this summer. I was completely relaxed while I was there, and I've had a shitty time since my return, being busy and stressed out with work the whole time. I'm frankly sick of pushing myself to make a buck all the time and trying to do my best and work my fastest on projects that I don't always care about, just for money. It's no way to live. Next time I go to Europe, I just might not come back.

So there.

I'm a little behind, nu? I am working on my spring cleaning this weekend. Today I scrubbed the baseboards and floors in the bathroom, washed down the laundry room, cleaned out the linen closet, and rearranged my bedroom so I could vaccuum under the furniture, and I'm about to clean out the bedroom closet before dinner.

As a reward, this came in the mail:



There's one page in the book that I wrote. Now I just need another weekend to play hookey from work so I can read the other 207 pages!

I decided deadlines be damned. The dust bunnies in my house were making it impossible to work or be at peace so I took the weekend "off"... Tomorrow after I get the last batch of spaghetti sauce canning done, I'll be cleaning the kitchen and the coat closet and who knows what else....

The blog tour is getting off the ground! It doesn't officially start until Monday, but today an excerpt was featured in the Craft Magazine Pattern Podcast. The excerpt includes everything you need to design and knit your own Norwegian headband.

Here's what Natalie Zee Drieu had to say about the book:

I love Donna's new book because she gives us the history behind certain knitting patterns and motifs that are created by certain countries. This easy to knit headband shows you three pattern motifs from Norway you can knit: the Saint Andrew's Cross, Snowflake, and Diamonds. As you know with my previous posts this summer on Travel with Craft Books, we are continuing this theme with this book, but with a greater sense of historical technique. It's so fascinating to read how certain patterns and techniques develop in certain areas based on climate and think of how they pass orally through families and towns for generations.

This is all perfect timing because the books just came from the printer today! I'm so excited!!!! I love getting the first glimpse of a brand new book. And this one is just gorgeous. I love everything about it: the cover, the paper, the illustrations, the smell of the fresh ink, and even the type. Oh, I love the part I did too: the writing. :-)



I hope you'll check it out and keep stopping by over the first 26 days of October to follow me around as I go to 26 different blogs on my virtual book tour. Have a great weekend. I'm going out to find a bottle of champagne.

Hi Everyone.

I wanted to let you know that someone has started a new Arctic Lace knitalong. I'm not affiliated with the knitalong, but I will be checking in from time to time to answer questions and to see what everyone's knitting. If you've been wanting to make something from Arctic Lace, or if you have some qiviut (musk ox) yarn you've been waiting to use, here's your chance!

Here's where you can sign up:




Click to join ArcticLaceKnitalong


UPDATE: Over 60 people have signed up for the knitalong in the last 2 days! Don't miss out on the fun. Click the link above and join in with us. See you there.

For lace junkies like me, here's another new lace book! It looks fabulous.

Knitting Lace Triangles by Evelyn A. Clark

I haven't played with triangular shawls much yet, but I love them because they drape around the shoulders so much more gracefully than rectangular stoles. This book sounds like it would be good for anyone who wanted to get started knitting triangular lace shawls, or (even better) for those who want to move from knitting from patterns to designing your own.

The short 70 pages are jam packed wtih information that is organized to help you design a triangle using four simple lace stitches. Bonus material includes tips on using transition rows between patterns, selecting materials, correcting mistakes, and joining yarns (always an adenture in lace). Line-by-line instructions and charts are included.

The author says:

"This book is organized to help knitters design their own triangle using four simple laces: Flower, Leaf, Medallion and Ripple. Each lace can be used alone or combined with any or all of the others."(pg 6).

Here are a couple of detailed reviews from people who have already seen the book.

Isis Rising

Knitter's Review

I can't believe so many people ahve already heard of this book. I just discovered it today, but I'll be ordering a copy soon!

UPDATE:

The list below is the original schedule for the Ethnic Knitting Discovery blog tour. For an updated list with direct links to each of the tour posts, please go here.

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Hi all, here's a heads up about the three week Ethnic Knitting Discovery blog book tour that will be starting on October 1st.

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WEEK 1: Mon Oct 1- Sun Oct 7


10/1 CRAFT Blog

The CRAFT Blog is the online companion to CRAFT magazine. It's your daily source for craft projects, inspiration, and more!

Natalie Zee Drieu will interview Donna about the book, diving in more detail over techniques. An excerpt from Ethnic Knitting Discovery will also be featured.

An excerpt from the book will also be featured in the CRAFT Pattern Podcast, that is published every Friday. Check out the archives.

10/2 Go Knit In Your Hat

Carol Sulcoski's blog contains honest, funny, often irreverent commentary, on knitting and whatever else occurs to her. She likes to provide technical information to other knitters on topics like substituting yarns, and she tries to include previews of coming yarns and knitting books.

Her blog is also home of the No-Bull Book Review, in which she takes a frank and balanced look at new knitting books. You may glimpse the infamous black bunny rabbit, Charcoal, who is the namesake of Carol's hand-dyed yarns, Black Bunny Fibers.

I will write a guest post for Carol, where I talk about investigating the various knitting techniques used in Ethnic Knitting Discovery.


10/3 Community of the Land

Susan J. Tweit's blog contains thoughts on the community of the land, the web of interrelationships between species large and small that shape the landscapes where we live. A look at what humans have to contribute to this unique blue planet, and where we belong in the ongoing dance of life. 

Susan will interview me you about what ethnic knitting patterns have to say about the cultures and landscapes that inspire them. For instance, are the designs strictly geometric, inspired by natural forms, a combination of the two? Do the colors relate to the climate and landscape of the region they come from?


10/4 The Keyboard Biologist

Theresa Walunas is a 30-something woman living in Chicago working in the biotechnology world. Her blog is a journal for the side of her life that doesn't come to work. It's mostly knitting, but spinning, quilting, paper arts, wood working and other crafts all show up from time to time along with some of her commentary on life in general.

Theresa will write a post that is a more detailed discussion of technique, combined with a short interview.


10/5 Women Writing the West

Women Writing the West is a non-profit association of writers and other professionals writing and promoting the Women's West. Their blog is a collective attempt for the members to share their passion about women's stories in history and contemporary culture.

I'm a member of Women Writing the West, and I'll be writing a post about how I got started on a freelance writing career, and what led me to write about knitting, and how women's work has been viewed at various times in history.


10/6 The Hook and I

Amy O'Neill Houck's fiber rants and raves including original designs and patterns, tutorials and techniques, links to sites of interest and reviews of books and products.

Amy's "in the throes of writing [her] own book" so I'll be writing a guest post about the ins-and-outs of being a crafts book author. If you've always wanted to know what it takes to get a book written and published, you won't want ot miss this.

10/7 Riehl Life: Village Wisdom for the 21st Century

Janet Grace Riehl's blog about exploring connections through the arts, across cultures, and among families and generations.

Janet will do a four day blog tour stop (she's energetic!)
1) day one--review
2) day two--interview
3) short excerpt from the book
4) guest post by me

Janet's blog tour stop will not be focused on technique and knitting how-to, but on the idea of craft and art, how knitting is connecting, how knitting is making a come-back and why.

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WEEK 2: Mon Oct 8 - Sun Oct 14

10/8 Velda Brotherton

As an editor, and columnist for her local newspaper, Velda Brotherton has published historical non-fiction books and short stories, but her first love is writing novels. Under her pen name, Elizabeth Gregg, she wrote four historical western novels for Topaz. Her agent is currently marketing Velda's mainstream women's fiction novel.

Velda's blog covers the craft and business of writing. She also write about her book signings and other events.

Velda will review Ethnic Knitting Discovery and talk about how she gets inspiration for her own work by reading the books of other writers.

10/9 The Independent Stitch

Knitting, spinning, and other textile crafts, plus independent publishing and other thoughts about books. Publisher of Nomad Press, and of Ethnic Knitting Discovery and Arctic Lace, both by Donna Druchunas.

Deb Robson is my editor and publisher at Nomad Press. She will talk about the development of the illustrations for Ethnic Knitting Discovery.


10/10 I'm Knitting As Fast As I Can

Susan Lawrence is a long-time knitter and incorrigible yarn-stasher who chronicles her spinning, dyeing, and knitting escapades on her blog. In addition to her self-published patterns, she has designed for Knitty, MagKnits, Knit Picks, Lion Brand, and Vogue Knitting.

Susan will post a short description of the book, then she will ask her readers to leave questions for me in the comments section of the blog. She will then post my answers on the blog.


10/11 Designer's note

Knitwear designer Leanne Dyck shares tips, techniques, news and views.

Leanne will write a review of Ethnic Knitting Discovery.


10/12 Yarn Spinner

Joanne Seiff is a writer and knitwear designer.  She's currently writing on a book about fiber festivals all over the USA called Fiber Gathering.  Visit her blog to read more about Joanne.  To read more of her work or download a knitting pattern, check out her website.

I'll be writing a guest post for Joanne, specifically about designing sweaters using your handspun yarn


10/13 Knittin' Mom

The wild & wooly world of knitwear designer Chrissy Gardiner, a work-at-home mom of two small children who spends as much time as possible knitting and designing knitting patterns. Chrissy is also co-founder of the breastfeeding advocacy group Mom's Milk Anywhere.

Chrissy will interview me.


10/14 FitterKnitter

My adventures in knitting, spinning, designing and discovering vintage lace with a passion for bicycling thrown in for better health and balance. One doesn't have to be fit to knit, but after a day on a bicycle, knitting is a great way to relax on a more comfortable seat. I just wish I could figure out how to knit and bike at the same time. Oh, well, you can't have everything. I have often compared bicycling to spinning — both involve pedals and drafting.

Cindy will write a review from a graphic designer's perspective focusing on the overall design and beauty of the book. A book that is properly organized and easy to look at is a book someone will cherish and use forever.

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WEEK 3: Mon Oct 15 - Sun Oct 21

10/15 physicsknits

Every day life of Connie Chang, a former physicist and beginning knitwear designer working in NJ.

Connie will write a post highlitghting one of the knitting techniques used in Ethnic Knitting Discovery.


10/16 MK Caroll

Begun as a way for MK Caroll to write about the fiber projects she was working on without boring those immune to yarn fumes, this blog has become her way to track progress on her projects, designs, and reviews of the books and patterns in her collection.

MK will write a book review.

10/17 Queen of Socks

Dani Greer's blog can be described in a few words: Nothing but the Best for our Monumental Feet.

Dani will interview Donna and may design ankle cuffs using the stitch patterns in the book.


10/18 Knitting Matters

Knitting Matters is where Kim Smith writes about her new designs and the rest of her knitting-related life.  She started knitting in 2001 and has been designing since 2005.

Kim will start working on a design for a sweater and will share her swatches and sketches, explaining how she made her decisions about sizing, yarns, colors, and pattern stitches.


10/19 Modeknit / Knitting Heretic

Annie Modesitt, aka The Knitting Heretic, blogs about everything in life, including knitting. She shares her designs in progress, so you can get a glimpse into the workings of a designer's mind.

I will write a guest post on working with texture and color in knitwear design.


10/20 Carol's Experiments in Textiles

Carol Metzger's blog is full of knitting and textile adventures and personal commentary. She also uses her blog as a place to put photos of her recent works and WIPs, and to document important events in her textile (and real) life.

Carol will write a post discussing one of the techniques used in Ethnic Knitting Discovery, and, if time allows, she will come up with a design based on the ideas in the book, and post a swatch and sketch of her design with a discussion of how she made her choices.


10/21 Keep Talking

Joanne Conklin's blog about knitting, music, travel, and more knitting.

I'll be writing a guest post on Joanne's blog about choosing the right weight and texture of yarn when designing your own sweater from scratch.

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Bonus Days

10/22 Fiber Femmes

Fiber Femmes - Great Women Building a Gracious World - Fiber Femme celebrates, encourages, promotes and supports women in the world wide fiber industry. FF includes knitters, spinners, weavers, felters, dyers, paper and book makers, crocheters, quilters...anyone who works with fiber of any kind is a Fiber Artist!

I'll write a guest column about Ethnic Knitting Discovery where I will talk about my favorite project in the book.


10/23 Marnie MacLean

A website in which Marnie pretends to talk about knitting and spinning but mostly talks about her dogs.

Marnie will interview me. Here's an interview she did with Jennifer Stafford of DomiKNITrix.


10/24 Double Header
Knitting in the Shadows

Ramblings about knitting, life, exploits, and other things.

Helen will design a project from Ethnic Knitting Discovery and share the steps she takes in her design process and working out the sizing.

Fruitful

Fruitful is the blog of writer and activist Gayle Brandeis. She is not a knitter herself, but her poem "When You Knit My Sweater" appears in the anthology The Knitter's Gift, and a reader informed Gayle that she wants the poem read at her funeral while her family wears items she had knitted just for them.

Gayle will be interviewing me about creativity and writing.

10/25 FEAST

Rosemary Carstens is the editor of the award-winning FEAST, a quarterly eZine. Her blog features creative musings on the topics of FEAST: books, art, food, film, and travel in between issues. The latest issue of FEAST can be accessed at www.CarstensCommunications.com/FEAST.html

I will write about traveling to follow your passion on a craft or hobby, specifically about knitting. I will write about my travels to Lithuania and Alaska and talk about how I tie my interests, travels, and work into one life.

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That's it! It should keep me busy, don't you think?

Hi All,

Below are a couple of excerpts from Ethnic Knitting Discovery. The book will be published in October! You can preorder at Amazon and Needle Arts Bookshop, or ask your local yarn shop to stock the title.

Here's what you'll find in the book:

Introduction

Chapter 1 : Freedom from Patterns
What you don’t need to know • What you do need to know

Chapter 2 : A Few Basics
Yarn and supplies • Knitting in the round • Working from charts
Centering patterns • Three-needle bind-off

Chapter 3 : The Netherlands
Texture patterns • Simplest sweaters with some challenges
Project 1: Seaman’s Scarf
Project 2: Pullover with Single Motif
Project 3: Sampler Pullover

Chapter 4 : Denmark
Texture patterns • Welts • Half-gussets
Project 4: Cap
Project 5: Pullover with Simple Patterns
Project 6: Fitted Pullover with All-Over Pattern

Chapter 5 : Norway
Color patterns • Stitch-and-cut armholes and necklines
Project 7: Headband
Project 8: Boatneck Sweater with Optional Turtleneck
Project 9: Crewneck Sweater

Chapter 6 : The Andes
Color patterns • Andean-style knitting • Puntas • Steeks
Project 10: Monedero (Change Purse)
Project 11: Unisex Pullover
Project 12: Girls Only Pullover (with Boys’ Alternative)

Bibliography
Index

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These excerpts are from Chapter 5: Norway


Introduction: Traditional knitting techniques and stories from Norway.


Project: Recipe for Designing your own headband.


Enjoy!

Here are a couple of interesting articles about the differences between old and new media, and where the two might be heading in the future. They're both written by guys who are quite interesting and, incidentally, cute. (No. I'm not posting photos. So you'll have to check out the links even if you're only interested in that last comment.)

From Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy:

I like print magazines, I honestly do. I prefer to sit and read an actual glossy hardcopy. But they are on the way out, I think. There is simply too much in them the reader doesn’t want, and it’s very easy for that same reader to find blogs that give them precisely what they do want. Books, however, are different. I’m not so sure books are on the way out; very few people I know like to read that much content on a monitor. That’s one of many reasons I may stick with writing books. There is something magical about holding a book in your hands… and publishers are starting to see advantages of new media. I know of a couple of people who turned serial podcasts of their work into novels into "real" publishing deals. My publisher appears happy to have me working hard on the ‘net to promote the book as well. Old and new media can work together and make the transition not only painless but profitable for both.

I feel like I could have written his entire post. It matches my own thoughts about writing books, articles, and patterns, too. Phil's my neighbor now, but we still haven't met in person. It's my own fault. We were even in the same room once, but I was too shy to say "hello." Pout.

While knitting magazines are not quite as behind the times as some others, they are suffering from competition with online magazines like Knitty and Black Purl, blogs galore (do a google search on "knitting blogs"), and the plethora of free patterns that can be found (to the dismay of many struggling-artist-designers) on the internet.

From Wil Wheaton at Suicide Girls (NSFW, so if your easily offended, skip this one):

These are just two examples that I believe are driving the frantic efforts by the old media companies and their allies in government to rip apart the Internet, take away our ability to communicate with each other, spy on every single packet we send, and somehow return to the good old days when ignorance was strength and war was peace. Why do you think the justice department decided to get involved in the network neutrality argument? It certainly couldn’t be because the free flow of information from investigative reporters or eyewitnesses that could contradict the carefully structured narrative threatens the powerful, could it?

This ties back into my earlier post about my thoughts about copyright, which would have been stronger except that I sent it to my editor to review before posting. She's much more diplomatic than I am. Sometimes that's good, but not always. :-) I totally agree with Wil's article and had a hard time deciding what to quote from it. The one I warned you not to read if you're squeamish. I take back the warning. Read it anyway. If you don't understand it, you really need to catch up on what's happening in new media and US lawmaking policies.

What's interesting is that words and pictures can be concrete (in a book or magazine or on a piece of film) or virtual (pixels displayed on a computer monitor or a TV screen). They can be analog or digital. But some things in life can't be virtualized. A virtual piece of knitting is missing the real, tactile, physical existence that makes knitting such a wonderful experience. Although you can "undo" in knitting, it's a much more intricate process than typing CMD-Z on a Mac keyboard.

Have you ever read a book that changed your life? I've read several. Here are the ones that I still remember, which to me means they had the most significant life changing results. I'm going to list them in reverse chronological order, from the present to the past.

I just bought a book that I hope will change my life! It's called Vagabonding: An Ucommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel. I feel like travel is going to be my next obsession. I will be spending six weeks in Lithuania next summer, I'd like to spend a year in Europe fairly soon, and I want to spend a month or two in a different country every year or every other year (depending on how often Dom can get off of work). Since the work I do is portable and conducted over email and FTP, there's no reason I have to be sitting in my office at home to get it done. As it is, I am usually working in different rooms around my house or at different cafes around town. So why not in a cofee bar in Lithuania or a pub in Ireland? Where there is wi-fi, there shall my work be also. (Actually, it may be Grammar Lessons: Translating a Life in Spain by Michele Morano that gave me the travel bug. She's written such a wonderful memoir about living in Spain while learning Spanish that if you don't want to spend a year in a foreign country after reading it, you might not be alive.)

The last book that aligned with a significant change in my life was Kiss Off Corporate America: A Young Professional's Guide to Independence by Lisa Kivirist. I already knew I wanted to quit working a corporate job when I read this book, but I was not sure how to get out of the rat race. In her book, Kirvisit explains how she used three main techniques to get herself out of the corporate trap. These are 1) Dream Funders, or jobs where you make the most money doing the least work possible so you can fund time to do what you love, 2) Stepping Stones, or small things you can do to feed your creativity while you're working on getting out of the rat race, like writing articles if you plan to eventually write books, or designing for magazines if you plan to eventually have your own line of patterns, and 3) Mindfeeds, or educational programs you participate in to build the skils you need for your new life and non-corporate career. This book is out of print, but if you need to ditch your cubicle, try to find a used copy. You won't be disappointed. One warning: It's written for young Gen-Xers, but don't be put off by that.

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter was recommended to me by someone in my class when I was learning C++ in the early 90s. This book changed my thinking so drastically that I can hardly explain it. It was one of the first books I read after I started allowing myself to read things besides the Bible and books about the Bible, and it was probably the first time I considered that Descarte may have been wrong about the existence of an ethereal soul. I read it at the same time that I read the novel The Goldbug Variations by Richard Powers. Both of these books completely blew me away and opened my mind to a huge range of reading materials, both fiction and nonfiction. I've never stopped my voracious reading since. Well, I've read voraciously for my entire life, but for the middle portion (from 15-27), I limited my reading selections in scope and topic in a way that I now consider to be unhealthy. Reading only what you agree with is a sure-fire way to stunt yourself intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. I still can't adequately desribe either book, but both are superbly written. If you feel like your brain is getting flabby, pick up either or both and take the weekend (or a week) off to read.

During the time I was only reading Christian books, I stumbled onto Decision Making and the Will of God: A Biblical Alternative to the Traditional View by Garry Friesen. It was this book, I think, that started me on the path that ultimately led to atheism, although I doubt that most readers end up in that place. From the time I cared about such things, until I read this book, I thought that God had a specific and perfect will for my life, and that I needed to consult his will when making every decision -- should I go to Bible School? should I date Joe? should I move to Tennessee? should I wear pants or a skirt? -- and that you could know if you'd made the right decision, after much prayer and consideration, because God would give you a "warm velvety" feeling in your gut. But still, how could one be certain? Maybe I just felt good because it was a beautiful sunny afternoon. This book uses scripture to offer a different view about the will of God, one that gives you freedom to make choices for yourself and the confidence to decide what is best for your life. If you find that you are always stressed out, not knowing what God wants you to do and not sure that you're in his "good," "acceptable," or "perfect" will, this book will help you make peace with yourself and the decisions you have to make, both big and small.

Hmm. I've read a lot of great knitting books, but I can't say that any have changed my life. My two favorites for reading are Knitting Heaven and Earth: Healing the Heart with Craft by Susan Gordon Lydon and The Knitting Goddess: Finding the Heart and Soul of Knitting Through Instruction, Projects, and Stories by Deborah Bergman.

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What books have changed your life? I'd love to hear about them!

On this day when everyone is going to be posting about how we should never forget a terrorist attack on the United States, I am going to say that we should never forget the peaceful, happy times. I am so sick of being told I have to remember dates about war and destruction. When my husband got home from work on 9/11/01, we said, "Oh shit, now our country is going to attack someone because we have to flex our national muscles. Here we could do something different, but we won't. We will be big frakking bullies." Guess what, we were right. Unfortunately. But not suprisingly.

I refuse to live my life in fear. Instead of spending my day remembering death and destruction, I choose to remember the times I spent with my grandmother learning how to knit, and the times I spent walking on the beach on Long Island on cool autumn afternoons, and the times I spent visiting my mother's friend, Phebe, who had a huge garden and who was busy canning and bringing bags of produce to her friends all summer, and so many more wonderful, peaceful days. And I will do what I can to ensure that children everywhere will grow up with the same memories of peace and love.

If I have any spare time today, I'll be rereading this book and I'll be remembering peace, not terrorism. Practicing Peace in Times of War by Pema Chodron.

If you prefer to focus on your knitting, take a few moments to read a chapter from Knitting for Peace by Betty Christiansen.

Better yet, place an order from Peace Fleece, read some of the stories on their website, and knit up a small item for your favorite charity.

Episode 15 of Britknit features Woolfest in England and a bit about the lace workshop that I taught there. Great fun, and it may even inspire you to go to Woolfest next summer. Alas, I won't be there because I'll be at the summer language school at Vilnius University.

One of my beloved childhood authors, Madeleine L’Engle, has died. She's the author of A Wrinkle in Time, on of my all-time favorite books. (No book will ever be as good as the best books you read before puberty.) It was published in the same year that I was born (you'll have to do your own detective work to figure that out), and I read it when I was about 7 or 8, after graduating from the picture book section to the "big kids" department at the public library. I'll never forget Meg, the heroine, and how brave and independent she was.

I must admit that I have lost a tiny bit of love for L'Engle's books since I discovered that they're full of Christian undertones, much like C.S. Lewis's Narnia books. But I was blissfully unaware of these allusions and allegories when I was a child reading these books, and I was actually quite pleased with myself to discover these things upon subsequent readings as a teen. As it turns out, L'Engle was much more of an independent thinker than Lewis. Although I can't follow her to her conclusions about God and faith (I disagree with her comments about Harry Potter, too), I find her ideas interesting and refreshing against the background noise of fundamentalism that seems to be swallowing the world of late.

Here are a few interesting articles about L'Engle's faith and spiritual journey.

A Wrinkle In Time: Study Guide

‘I Dare You’--Madeleine L’Engle on God, ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and aging well

Slightly Creased

My favorite quote from the last piece is this:

In the end, what warms you when reading A Wrinkle in Time is just how warm the book is toward difference, alternate ways of thinking, heterodoxy, and the like. Madeleine L’Engle shows a kind of tolerance greatly needed in today’s religious based books, a tolerance for ideas no less than for people.

Amen!

If you've never read A Wrinkle in Time or The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, I still highly recommend both. Especially if you're under 13 years old. Ignore the religious undertones or have fun discovering them, but don't take them too seriously in either case.

I'm sorry if you've already seen a movie version of either. Books are always much better and should always be read first so you are not simply re-watching the movie in your head when you read. (I posted my review of the Narnia film on my old blog.)

I have a spinning wheel and several gorgeous drop spindles and I know how to spin well enough (on the wheel, at least) to create a yarn of the girth and twist that I desire. But I haven't done any spinning in several years. I think that's about to change. I want to spin some natural colored alpaca to make an Andean-inspired sweater from Ethnic Knitting Discovery. Since I'll be teaching at the Taos Wool Festival next month, I'll have ample opportunity to shop for some new spinning fiber. I really need to unload a bunch of wool, though, before it goes rancid in my closet. I keep telling my mother that if she wants to keep it, she needs to get it cleaned so it's not so full of grease. Since I'll have a new schedule starting next month, I am hoping to be able to fit spinning into my life again on a regular basis. It's so relaxing and rewarding, and I just love knitting with handspun yarn.

That said, the real reason I am writing this post, is so I can quote this funny bit from a German-English knitting blog that I read. It made me laugh out loud. From knittinganarchist.de:

Neues Zubehör / New Tools

So, sollten die Zeugen Jehovas es nochmal wagen, mich zu belästigen, werde ich vorbereitet sein (Scherz)… Dies ist mein neues Spinnzubehör, bestehend aus zwei Dizzes mit unterschiedlichen Durchmessern (Dizze? Dizzi? Dizzim?), einem Handkamm, einer Kammstation und zwei Flickkarden. Die Kämme sind höllisch scharf, und man muss richtig damit aufpassen. Begeistert bin ich von der hervorragenden Verarbeitung der Werkzeuge.

Should these Jehova’s witnesses dare to ring my bell once more, I will prepared (just kidding…). These are my new tools for spinning. There is a table comb, a small comb, two hand carders, and two dizzes. The combs are razor-sharp, and I strongly feel they want to be handled with care. I am very enthusiastic about the quality, it’s excellent.

I'm actually afraid of some of these tools, and don't have them in my house. I will card wool, but I don't like combing it. I prefer to spin woolen yarns from batts or rovings anyway, so that's not really a problem for me.

Musk oxen, as I mentioned in Arctic Lace, can overheat at 70 degress F. I don't see much hope of them surviving as the Earth's temperature increases, particularly because cimate change is happening faster and more extremely in the arctic.

Here are more pictures of musk oxen taken on our 2004 trip to Alaska. These were pictures taken with Dom's film camera, and we just got a scanner that can scan negatives. A few of these photos were in Arctic Lace but most are unpublished.

According to a recent article in the Guardian:

The Arctic ice cap has collapsed at an unprecedented rate this summer and levels of sea ice in the region now stand at a record low, scientists said last night. Experts said they were "stunned" by the loss of ice, with an area almost twice as big as Britain disappearing in the last week alone. So much ice has melted this summer that the north-west passage across the top of Canada is fully navigable, and observers say the north-east passage along Russia's Arctic coast could open later this month.

I saw an interview with author Christopher Hitchens on BookTV the other day where he expressed what Dom and I have been saying for a long time. It doesn't matter whether or not global warming is caused by human activity or not. We should act as if it is, and do whatever we can to stop it because the results will be bad for human society, regardless of whether it's a natural trend, a man made disaster, or some combination of the two.

(BTW, and completley off topic, I highly recommend Christopher Hitchens's latest book, god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. I wasn't going to read it, because I'm not a big fan of Hitchens, and I have generally considered him to be an entertaining ass. But I got a free audio book before I went to Europe, so I downloaded it and have been listening on my iPod. It's eloquent and articulate, witty, and very interesting. Whether you're a believer or an unbeliever, it will give you some serious things to think about, and possibly a headache. Hitchens does slide into snarkyism a couple of times, but not too often. I guess there's a fine line between being witty and being snarky. I may actually read more of his books. If this one is any indication, they're much better than his shorter writings.)

I want this for Christmas.



It's an iPhone without the phone...

Since I dont use a cell. I have a cell, but I keep it off most of the time, and I'm thinking about shutting off my land line. Why? Because people call me. If I just have a cell, I won't give anyone but my and Dom's parents the number. And I won't be listed in the phone book. Everyone else will have to email me. What a heavenly idea! I hate having the phone ring, it's really annoying. Even when I don't answer it (which is usually). And I reply to phone messages with email anyway.

Erasing Memory: The Cultural Destruction of Iraq is a 28-minute film from the Archaeology Channel which documents the plundering of Iraqi archaeological sites and looting and destruction of priceless artifacts. (You can watch it online.)

This film in very shocking fashion details the horrendous destruction of the oldest treasures of human civilization held in the museums and archives of Iraq in the wake of the 2003 U.S. invasion. At that time, millennia of history were bombed, looted and destroyed. With them went a large part of our precious memory and knowledge of Iraq as a cradle of human civilization. Much of the footage shown is from the time and place of the destruction, which stands as a prime example of the loss of treasured cultural patrimony that often is caused by war.

I knew about this already, but after visiting the British Museum and seeing the amazing artifacts from ancient Iraq, and after visiting Lithuania and seeing the depression and ugliness that results from decades of foreign occupation, I'm doubly saddened by this destruction. Why can't people seem to respect and value the accomplishments of other cultures? Are we still stuck in the rut of tribalism from our hunter-gatherer days? It often seems so to me.

My brief experience in Lithuania has really given me empathy for the people in the Middle East. The West has been screwing around with them for decades, the way Germany and Russia were screwing around wtih the Baltic states. It's no wonder they hate us. It's the same reason the Lithuanians hate the Russians. We won't leave them alone. We keep trying to change their culture. We don't respect their right of autonomy. And our occupation will do nothing but strengthen the militant Islamic forces, the way the oppression of the Soviets strengthened the Catholic faith of the Lithuanians. Their faith was one of the only ways they could hold onto their identity under the pressures of "Russification." I fear that by trying to "Americanize" or "Democratize" Iraq, we are leaving the people no out for maintaining their identity but through extremism in religion.

This is from my European vacation blog:

Although I was inspired to visit the museum because of the Egyptian collection, I was even more impressed by the Assyrian collection. Here are a couple of photos of a sculpted relief of an Assyrian lion hunt. The relief, taken from a palace in Nineveh (northern Iraq) illustrates lion-hunting expeditions of the last great Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal (668-631 BC). The detail in these carvings is simply amazing and will not show up in photography. You can see the strands of thread on the balls of string this hunger is carrying. The people are drawn with cuticles and lines on their palms, and the animals and people show the shapes of muscles and ligaments under the skin, something I'd thought wasn't adequately shown in artwork until the Renaissance painters started studying anatomy and dissecting bodies to study bone and muscle structure.

It's not just happening in Iraq, either.

As poverty deepened in Nigeria from the mid-1980s, Pentecostal Christian church membership surged. The new faithful found comfort in preachers such as evangelist Uma Ukpai who promised that material success was next to godliness. He has boasted of overseeing the destruction of more than 100 shrines in one district in December 2005 alone. Achina is typical of towns and villages in the ethnic Igbo-dominated Christian belt of southeastern Nigeria where this new Christian fundamentalism is evident. The old gods are being linked to the devil, and preachers are urging not only their rejection, but their destruction.

I am constantly amazed by how small the world is. Last year I saw a guy sitting in the cafe at Borders with a Lithuanian dictionary on the table next to him. Hmmm. I'd been wanting to learn Lithuanian, but I didn't know where to start.

Learning Spanish had been easy; I took classes in high school. German hadn't been too hard to learn even though I didn't start until I was almost 40; I took classes at the local community college. But where does one find classes in Lithuanian? It turns out there are only a few places that show up on a quick Google search: Chicago, California, and Lithuania. I wasn't ready to go to any of these places. I just wanted to get my feet wet.

I went up and said hello to the stranger with the Lithuanian dictionary. I could hardly believe that there was another person in Longmont, Colorado, who was interested in learning Lithuanian. It turns out his wife is from Vilnius and he'd been studying Lithuanian for some time. I, on the other hand, didn't even know how to say hello or thank you. He wrote down the name of an audio CD for me to get started with, and we said goodbye.

I saw this guy in Borders and other coffee shops from time to time, always armed with an iPod, flash cards, and his Lithuanian dictionary. I decided I liked him because he also wore a giant buton that said "Out of Iraq," but we didn't usually speak. A couple of weeks ago, shortly after I returned from my trip to Kaunas and Vilnius, I noticed that we were both studying from the same book, so I went over to say hi. It turns out that Jack and his wife Raminta were starting a podcast for learning Lithuanian. This morning, Jack gave me the URL for the podcast, and I subscribed on iTunes this afternoon and listened to about half of the recordings. This podcast will be an excellent tool for learning Lithuanian. The recordings are very professional with high quaity audio, and each episode is short and pithy, with some tidbits about Lithuanian history and culture, and a brief language lesson.

Now that I can say hello (laba diena), goodbye (viso gero), thank you (a?i?), and quite a few other travel phrases with ease, and I can struggle through my Children's Encyclopedia about Lithuania (Enciklopedija vaikams apie Lietuv?), I am ready to travel to take an in depth language course. I'll be going to Lithuania next summer to study at Vilnius University. In the meantime, I think I'll invite Jack and Raminta over for potato pancakes (bulviniai blynai).

P.S. One day soon I will figure out how to make the diacritical marks on the Lithuanian letters show up in a browser. Sigh.

Hey everyone, here are a couple of pictures from my next, next book, Kitty Knits. This book is coming out from Martingale & Company in January. I haven't added it to my website yet, because I'm waiting for the cover to be designed. But here are a few pages from the page proofs that I reviewed recently.

This book is a departure from the focus of my other books on traditional and historical knitting techniques. Instead, I've designed a bunch of fun projects that are based on my love for cats.












Here's a list of the projects (with skill levels):

Projects for Cats
Felted Eyelash Cat Bed with Cushion, beginner
Felted Catnip Mice, easy
Kitty Placemat, intermediate
Bull's Eye Cat Bed, intermediate
Eyelash Cat Toys, beginner and intermediate
Cat Doorknob Toy, easy
Needle Felted Cat Bed, easy

Projects for Humans
Duplicate Stitch & Lace Wrap Cardigan, advanced
Men’s Scandinavian Kitten Fair-Isle Sweater, intermediate
Women’s Scandinavian Kitten Fair-Isle Sweater, intermediate
Cat Ear Hat, beginner
Kitty-Cat Slippers, advanced
Peruvian Cat Colorwork Chullo, intermediate
Peruvian Cat Lace Scarf, intermediate
Kitty Socks, intermediate
Hidden Cat Scarf, easy
Needle Felted Carpet Bag, intermediate

Projects for the Home
“The Cat” Afghan, intermediate
Appliqué Felted Pillow, intermediate
Doorstop, easy
Embroidered Baby Blanket, easy

Yesterday, I received a message from a blog reader. Unfortunately, my blog software had a brain fart and did not include her return email address. Here's the message I received:

Hello,
I have come across your book and LOVE the patterns! I am a qiviut knitter, and was wondering if the product(s) of the patterns in your book could be sold by the people/person (me) who knit them? Just  thought I'd ask. I don't want to get into trouble. Amazing book. Hope to hear from you soon!
~Victoria.

Victoria, I hope you're reading this, because I'd like to answer your question.

Yes, yes, yes! But please include a note on the tag that says,  "Design from Arctic Lace by Donna Druchunas."

I'm happy when people want to knit my designs. I'm happy for them to use them for charity knitting, or for commercial purposes as long as I am given credit for the design. The way I figure it, it's free publicity for me. The person who buys a knitted item is not likely to be the same person who would knit that item for themselves. Or, if it is a knitter buying one of my designs, they'll likely be interested in seeing more of my patterns. Either way, people hear about my book and my work, and we are working together to spread beauty in the world. The person who knits the item is doing their own work in creating the finished product and I see no reason why they should not be able to  do that for profit if they so desire.

I am not fond of the current state of U.S. copyright law. Different knitters have different opinions, and my interpretation of how I want copyright law to apply to my work is not the same as the ideas held by many, even most, knitting designers today.

Here's what I think and how it applies to my work.

In 1790, the first U.S. copyright law granted authors sole rights  over their work for 14 years, with the option to renew for another 14. Over time laws have extended the duration of copyright to the  life of author plus seventy years for individuals, and to ninety-five  years for corporate authorship and anything originally published before 1978. As a result, no additional works will enter the public  domain United States until 2019. (Unsurprisingly, this act covers  several characters owned by the Walt Disney Company. Without the  extension, Mickey Mouse would have entered the public domain in 2004.  Hmmm. I smell corporate lobbyists, don't you?)

At first copyright extension might seem like a good idea to writers  and designers, but it hampers our ability to use sources that could  enhance our newer works.

Some knitting designers have even claimed that they own a certain  pattern stitch. In reality, it's not possible to copyright a knitting  stitch. No idea can be copyrighted. If you want protection for an idea, you have to apply for a patent. What can be copyrighted is the form in which the idea is fixed. That means that what can be copyrighted are the words (line-by-line  instructions) or pictures (charts) that are used to describe that  pattern stitch. So if you want to republish a stitch, you have to write your own instructions or draw your own chart.

Imagine if Barbara Walker did all the work of assembling her books of pattern stitches and knew that by copyrighting her books she would be consigning all of that beautiful creativity to oblivion because no one could ever use the stitches again! Imagine if she hadn't been able to  compile those books in the first place because other people owned the  copyrights to the pattern stitches! The whole knitting world would have been impoverished. Creativity would have been inappropriately hampered.

While I do respect the work involved with creating an original  knitting design and I know how hard it is to make a living as a fiber  artist and crafts designer, I also respect the tradition of sharing and openness in crafting  communities. I know artists have a right to make a decent living from  their work, but I despise the bottom-line-above-all mentality that has become so prevalent since the 1980s.

Making individual photocopies of our books and patterns causes particular concern to many  knitting book authors. This is legal for personal use only. You can copy a pattern to carry around in your knitting bag. It is not legal to give copies to other people so they don't have to buy the book, pattern, or magazine. It is extremely not legal to copy material and sell it. (The issue of copying is being revisited in the courts because of the surge of new electronic formats, especially, but not only, pertaining to music.)

I have no problem with readers making copies of my  patterns for their own use or to share with a family member or a  close friend who can't afford to buy their own copy. (I frankly think it's absurd that such a thing could be illegal.) That's more generous than the current law, and I hereby give readers permission to do this. But please  don't make copies of my patterns and sell them!

Well there you have it. I like to share my work. I am happy when my  pattern stitches are used by other designers. Was it Mark Twain who said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? But I'm also  grateful when my permission is obtained to use my work for commercial purposes.

Thanks for asking, Victoria. Yes, you may sell items you make from my patterns, as long as you clearly acknowledge my contribution to the work you are doing in a way that accompanies the article to its buyer.



For more information on copyright, see the following links:
United States Copyright Office
Creative Commons
Electronic Fronteir Foundation

I have been so remiss in posting on Knitting for Change, but I finally have a pattern! Next year my charity knitting site will complete its evolution into a subversive knitting site. It will still have frequent charity knitting patterns, but it will become the sister site to the print 'zine that Naomi Dagen Bloom and I are working on.

I hope with my day job, my hours of work will be more under control so I can have weekends off to work on this kind of stuff regularly. For now, please enjoy my 100 Meter Dash Hat.

I'm still tired of knitting. I guess it's genetic. My grandmother went through several phases where she didn't knit for long periods of times, and instead worked on other projects like sewing, tatting, and crocheting. She even took up ceramics once and joined a musical group that played bells. She always came back to knitting.

Except I don't think it's exactly knitting I'm tired of. It's deadlines, it's tech editing patterns and worrying that someone will find a mistake and it will come back to haunt me next year when I've already forgotten about the job, it's thinking I have to knit every day or I'm not a real knitter (I don't knit every day anyway), it's thinking I have to write every day or I'm not a real writer (I don't write every day anyway), it's knitting things for magazines and yarn companies that I never get to wear because they keep them, it's doing what should be fun for money so it becomes a chore.

I'm tired of all that. So I'm going back to a day job soon, and the only things I'll have to knit are for me and for my family. I'll still be working on my own books, but I won't be doing editing or other knitting work to pay the bills. It will all be the icing on the cake. I hope that makes it fun again.

I'm not sure what Grandma would think of all of this. She never knit for money. But I bet she'd like my books.

Here's a picture of Grandma working on the very last sweater she ever made for me:


Here's something I wrote about this quite some time ago. It never found a home.

I know exactly when it started, when I remembered how to knit. It came to me the year my grandmother died, on a warm summer night’s breeze. I picked up some old needles, scraps of yarn and my hands started moving like a practiced musician. Memories may fade with time, but hands never forget.

Sitting on the couch in my San Diego condo, I told myself that grandma gave me this gift when she passed on, dropped it on me from the clouds, as if she couldn’t leave without passing along her knitting gene. The truth is she taught me to knit years before, when I was still a little girl in New York. Stitch by stitch, I struggled to learn. Knit, purl, cast on, bind off. I made a yellow swatch of honeycomb cables. And then I put down my needles and didn’t think about knitting any more. Until she passed it on.

My grandmother had always been “the knitter” in our family. Her daily ritual, stitching to the music of Mozart or the tempo of the evening news. Believing that all sweaters should go in the washer and dryer, she reveled in acrylic, polyester, and nylon. Living on a fixed income reinforced her practiced parsimony; with just twenty-dollars she could create a sweater or a shawl. Sale yarns from local shops became designer garments. Interesting colors, meticulous stitching, and unique buttons transformed each discount project into a work of art.

I still have a closet full of treasures – sweaters, capes, afghans and shawls. Her intricate lace twin-sets, crisp Aran cables, and elegant raglan cardigans inspire my own designs. I've carried these items back and forth across a continent as I moved from New York to Tennessee, to California, to Colorado. Now seventies colors and tight fitted sleeves date the sweaters grandma made for me. This forty year old body will never fit into my favorite neon blue cabled cardigan again. A sparkly rainbow shawl, perfect for reading in bed, no longer sees the light of day. My super-bulky hooded jacket’s acrylic yarn does not trap enough warmth for a Colorado winter.

The last sweater she made for me, finally oversized, finally simple shapes, finally my choice of yarn – bright purple and teal sprinkled with yellow and orange confetti – is a celebration of a life of knitting. I thought this would be my last sweater, to be treasured and saved and worn until it fell apart. I never thought I would make a single item for myself. Until she passed away.

I started knitting my own frugal cardigan with twelve-dollar yarn from a discount store. Simple cables, attached button bands, practical and neat. It worked up quickly and left me longing for more. But still I waited. The yarn store in Julian pulled me in every time we passed. Luscious mohair, hand dyed wool, kits with twenty-colors and simple stitches. I did not buy one tempting skein until their going out of business sale. Then, throwing frugality to the wind, I surrendered. I couldn’t resist the half-price luxury, the discounted beauty, the exotic novelty yarns – most beautiful jewels I had ever seen.

A cuff-to-cuff, one piece design, I never thought I would finish that sweater. I never thought I would always be on the prowl for my next project. I never thought I would hoard yarn in every nook-and-cranny of my house. I never thought I would collect knitting needles in every size. I never thought I would be “a knitter,” but I was hooked when grandma passed it on.

Maybe I'll make something just for fun next year and enter it in the fair.