Sheeptoshawl.com Blog

New Blog software / New RSS feed

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:32:08 -0700

Hi, because of the number of spam comments I've been getting and the fact that my blog software does not have good enough security features to prevent this without turning off comments completely, I'm switching to a new blog. The archives will stay here, but I will turn off the comments. The new blog is fully featured and will be active effective immediately.

NEW BLOG: http://sheeptoshawl.com/blog/

NEW RSS FEED: http://sheeptoshawl.com/blog/xml-rss2.php

Thanks!

Donna

Women in Afghanistan

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 09:37:06 -0700

Here's a post my friend, Gayle Brandeis, posted on her blog today. She's going to be a guest columnist on Knitting for Change this month, and she's also the author of my favorite writing book, Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write.

I have been deeply concerned about the plight of women in Afghanistan for many years. Since Self Storage [ed: her 2nd novel] has been out, I've felt a real responsibility to support groups that are working to improve the situation of Afghan women (I considered traveling to Afghanistan myself last month as part of a women's delegation; it ended up not being the right time for me to do so, for many reasons, but I still hope to go some day.)

MS Magazine sponsored a recent forum on Women in Afghanistan. You can watch videos of the forum here and ask your Congressperson to cosponsor the Afghan Women Empowerment Act of 2007 here.

I know I've written about this before, but for knitters who want to help women in Afghanistan with their yarn and needles, don't forget about Afghans for Afghans, "a humanitarian and educational people-to-people project that sends hand-knit and crocheted blankets and sweaters, vests, hats, mittens, and socks to the beleaguered people of Afghanistan. This grassroots effort is inspired by Red Cross volunteers who made afghans, socks, slippers, and other items for soldiers and refugees during World Wars I and II and other times of crisis and need. Read about the Red Cross knitting tradition."

One of Afghans for Afghans' patterns, a vest, was featured in the recent book, Knitting for Peace, and they have a great knitting bag for financial contributors, that says "In Vest in Peace," a worthy goal for all of us.

Do you know how to think?

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 13:26:29 -0700

Do you know how to think for yourself? I didn't learn this important skill until I was almost thirty years old. In grade school I memorized times tables and spelling, in high-school I learned how to pass standardized tests, and in church I was taught to follow rules simply because they were written in the Bible.

Today, someone got pissed off at me on the Knit Design group because I said that I think that many knitters suffer from an inability think for themselves regarding their knitting because they got gipped in school. Instead of learning how to think, we were mostly taught what to think. This has consequences in many areas of life, including knitting.

We were talking about the differences between line-by-line instructions and charts, and I said that in my classes, I find that many people have troubles with charts because they try to translate each symbol into words and then translate the words into stitches on their needles. The techniques I teach allow knitters to move directly from symbol to stitch, without looking at the chart legend every few stitches. I try to help my students learn how to read their knitting, so they can also memorize the patterns they are working on and free themselves from needing to slavisly follow line-by-line instructions or charts.

When I teach lace knitting classes and show my students how to read their knitting so they can anticipate mistakes as they go, by matching their knitting up to a chart, instead of blindly following instructions without paying attention to the fabric on their needles, I always have 2 or 3 students who are so excited to learn that THEY are in charge of their knitting and that they can decide what is right and wrong in a pattern for themselves.

Too many knitters go along blithely following the line-by-line instructions in a pattern without understanding how knitting stitches are formed, what the shapes of garment pieces should look like, or how the stitches on their needles work to create the pattern stitches they are trying to make. Without these skills, they are destined to remain chained to patterns, always worried about what to do if there's a mistake in the instructions. How freeing it is to grow past this beginner stage!

The person on the Knit Design group who attacked me, said I was being insulting by criticizing the US educational system. Far from it! Criticizing a faulty system has nothing to do with insulting the people who have gone through that system. The students in my classes are intelligent and bright women. But some of them have gotten ripped off by an educational system that did not give them the confidence or critical thinking skills they need to realize that they do not have to follow rules and stay inside the lines! I hope that confidence and independence are two things I can impart to all of my students, regardless of their knitting skill level or past educational history.

Do I still knit from patterns? Sure. Sometimes it's relaxing to make a design that someone else has figured out for me! But my ability to understand the underlying logic of patterns and the structure of knitting stitches and garment shapes, means that I can continue even if there's a mistake in the pattern or if I want to make some changes to the design to suit my own tastes and body shape.

If I didn't learn to think for myself for almost thirty years, that just shows that it's never too late to gain the confidence needed to stop being a follower.

Question Authority is my favorite motto and it applies in knitting as much as anywhere else!

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 08:45:17 -0700

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Please do something this month to help spread awareness and stop sexual violence against women in your community.

Did you know these statistics?

The United States has the highest rape rate among countries which report such statistics. It is 4 times higher than that of Germany, 13 times higher than that of England and 20 times higher than that of Japan.

1 in 3 sexual assault victims are under the age of 12.

6 out of 10 sexual assaults occur in the home of the victim or the home of a friend, neighbor or relative.

Women are 10 times more likely than men to be victims of sexual assault.

22% of all women say that they have been forced to do sexual things against their will, where only 3% of men admit to ever forcing themselves on a woman.

Only 16% of rapes and sexual assaults are reported to the police.

Less than half of those arrested for rape are convicted, 54% of all rape prosecutions end in either dismissal or acquittal.

This month, I'll be featuring this topic on Knitting for Change throughout the month, instead of posting just once during the month. So check back for ideas on things you can do, knitting projects to promote awareness of this important problem, articles, and links to other sites with more information.

What's your philosophy?

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 07:56:27 -0700

Here's a fun quiz!

You scored as Existentialism. Your life is guided by the concept of Existentialism: You choose the meaning and purpose of your life.

“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.”

“It is up to you to give [life] a meaning.”

--Jean-Paul Sartre

“It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the Truth.”

--Blaise Pascal

More info at Arocoun's Wikipedia User Page...

Existentialism

100%

Hedonism

95%

Utilitarianism

80%

Nihilism

40%

Justice (Fairness)

40%

Kantianism

30%

Strong Egoism

30%

Apathy

20%

Divine Command

What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03)
created with QuizFarm.com

Needle Arts and AIDS in South Africa

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 13:22:41 -0700

In my normal periodic evaluation of my goals and purpose in live, I was recently re-reading this post that I wrote on Knitting for Change in January 2006, and I've decided that I still feel strongly about this, and have no need to change the statement at this time:

My purpose will be to help make the world safer and more comfortable for women and minorities.

How will I accomplish this?

By creating things that provide comfort, such as hand-knit items to donate to charity and knitting books that allow others to create comfort, and by continuing to provide free knitting patterns and charity knitting information on my website.

By using my writing to advance reason and enlightenment and to oppose fundamentalism and the beliefs that breed hatred, violence, intolerance, and ignorance.

By valuing--and encouraging others to value--the ideas, creativity, and contributions of women around the world.

By supporting secular organizations that help women and the glbt community.

By speaking out whenever I can in private and in public to point out injustice and to defy the censorship that silences those with no political power.

In each of these areas, I will volunteer, work for pay, and develop personal projects.

With that in mind, I want to draw your attention to this article from the Denver Post.

From S. Africa with stitches
by Colleen O'Connor, Denver Post staff writer

Leora Raikin grew up in South Africa with no television and few toys. Needlework was the evening entertainment. She learned it from her mother, who learned it from her own mother.

Embroidery "was the favorite family pastime," says Raikin, who now lives in Southern California.

In her works, colorful images - lions, hippos, rhinos, crocodiles, birds, flowers - frolic against a black background. The art form is growing in popularity in the United States, thanks to Raikin, who in 2003 started a company called African Folklore Embroidery.

This April, the art will be televised on DIY Network; this spring, workshops will be offered in Colorado Springs at Ruth's Stitchery.

"African ethnic art is about bright colors on black background," she says. "The contrast makes it exciting. What people like is they can choose whatever color they want. You want to stitch your elephant in pink and the sun blue, you can do that."

Raikin's company is affiliated with a charity called KidzPositive, an AIDS organization in South Africa that helps HIV-infected women support their families through the sale of dolls, bookmarks and other products available through aflembroidery.com.

The rest is here.

Here are a few sites with more about Leora's work and about African embroidery:

African Folklore Embroidery and Needlecraft

African art at home

Crafting a Legacy

Arctic Lace on Knit Picks - save money!

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 13:25:26 -0700

Arctic Lace is featured on the Knit Picks home page! If you can't afford qiviut at $70US per ounce, check out the inexpensive yet luxurious yarns Knit Picks has used to work up the North Star Tam and Scarf projects from Arctic Lace!

More about qiviut!

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 12:28:19 -0700

Here's an article about Kelly Bridges from the Elegant Ewe yarn shop in Concord, New Hampshire, and her experiences with qiviut. Like me, she has fallen in love with the fiber and has recently been using qiviut from Greenland. Unlike me, Kelly got to collect fiber shed by wild animals! The article is from the Concord Monitor.

This photo is from Arnica, the only source of yarn made from Greenland musk ox down.

Fancy Fur

By JENIFER VANPELT
Monitor staff
January 16. 2005 10:00AM

Angora is so yesterday. Sheep's wool? No thanks. Qiviut is the fiber of
choice for Kelly Bridges, a knitting enthusiast from Gilmanton, and it
doesn't come from a rabbit or a sheep. It's spun from the under-fur of a
much larger and more unlikely beast: the musk ox.

Pronounced KIV-E-UT, the fiber is believed to be the warmest in the
world. It's as soft as cashmere, and, according to Bridges, it's eight
times warmer than wool.

It's a lot easier to deal with, too. Unlike wool, qiviut doesn't scratch
and won't shrink when washed.

It's hard to come by, though, and as a result it can be pricey.

Not for Bridges, however. She collected hers straight from the source.

Bridges, 26, has been the manager at The Elegant Ewe, a fiber arts store
in Concord, for two years, but she fell for qiviut in 2003 while on a
research trip to study air/snow exchange chemistry in Greenland through
the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.
She and her colleagues stayed at Summit Station, a science camp high
atop an icecap.

In Greenland, Bridges collected clumps of fur she found on the ground,
in bushes or blowing in the wind. Her fellow researchers helped, too.

Each musk ox sheds about 5 pounds of qiviut per year, and collecting it
in the wild from the animal itself is out of the question.

"If one of those is coming at you, you just clear out," Bridges said.

The ugly truth

Musk oxen aren't pretty.

They look a little prehistoric . . . and they are. They coexisted with
the mastodons and mammoths and are built to live in the harsh arctic
climate of northern Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Norway and Siberia. As a
result, they're covered with 24-inch-long hair all over their wooly
qiviut undercoats to protect them from frost and to provide insulation.

They have large, humped backs and can grow up to seven feet long. They
weigh up to 1,000 pounds, and both the males and females have long,
curving horns.

It's hard to believe a fiber as soft as qiviut comes from an animal like
this.

For Bridges, foraging for qiviut in Greenland was productive. At the end
of her trip, she had amassed a hefty pile of brown fur. That's when the
work began.

Before her qiviut could be spun into useable yarn, all the guard hairs
had to be removed - by hand.

"(It) took me about two months (to clean and spin it)," Bridges said.

In the end she had about half a pound of yarn, which she used to knit
two hats, a scarf and a wimple (a tube that can cover the head, neck and
shoulders).

Despite the hard work, it was a bargain.

According to online shops, two ounces of qiviut - about the amount
needed to knit a scarf - could cost $120. The amount of sheep's wool
needed to make the same scarf would set a knitter back about $10.

Those who don't knit can expect to pay anywhere from $230 to $330 for a
qiviut scarf and up to $1,100 for a sweater.

Though Bridges says qiviut takes dye well, she chose to leave hers
natural. The qiviut is a rich cocoa brown, but because some of the tufts
she collected had been out in the sun longer than others, their color is
faded. This variation in hue gives a soft, random gradation to her
knitted projects.

A call for help

During a second trip to Greenland, Bridges hit the qiviut jackpot.

A local man working with her research team noticed that she and her
colleagues were collecting the fur and told her he had a garage full. He
later sent over two boxes that weighed in at about 20 pounds.

It didn't take Bridges long to figure out that it would take her a
lifetime to remove the guard hairs from 20 pounds of qiviut. With a
little research, she found Mini Mills, a mill on Prince Edward Island,
Canada, that specializes in qiviut, buffalo and other unusual fibers.

For $600, the mill processed the 20 pounds of raw qiviut into 10 pounds
of cocoa brown, three-ply yarn. Some weight is lost in the cleaning and
de-hairing process, and some of the fur just isn't long enough to spin.

Unwilling to waste any of the precious fur, Bridges had the mill use the
short fur to fill a down comforter.

"It's so warm," she said.

Bridges doesn't have plans to return to Greenland any time soon, but
thanks to a few big, hairy, Arctic mammals she's weathering the New
Hampshire winter just fine. And she's got enough qiviut to keep her busy
for quite a while.

Frak the Koran, and the Bible for that matter

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 08:02:03 -0700

This is just disgusting. It does not belong in modern society. What is this frakking world coming to?

FRANKFURT, March 22 � A German judge has stirred a storm of protest here by citing the Koran in turning down a German Muslim woman's request for a fast-track divorce on the ground that her husband beat her.

In a remarkable ruling that underlines the tension between Muslim customs and European laws, the judge, Christa Datz-Winter, said that the couple came from a Moroccan cultural milieu, in which she said it was common for husbands to beat their wives. The Koran, she wrote, sanctions such physical abuse.

News of the ruling brought swift and sharp condemnation from politicians, legal experts, and Muslim leaders in Germany, many of whom said they were confounded that a German judge would put 7th-century Islamic religious teaching ahead of modern German law in deciding a case involving domestic violence.

The woman's lawyer, Barbara Becker-Rojczyk, said she decided to publicize the ruling, which was issued in January, after the court refused her request for a new judge. On Wednesday, the court in Frankfurt abruptly removed Judge Datz-Winter from the case, saying it could not justify her reasoning.

"It was terrible for my client," Ms. Becker-Rojczyk said of the ruling. "This man beat her seriously from the beginning of their marriage. After they separated, he called her and threatened to kill her."

Read the rest here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/world/europe/22cnd-germany.html

What a load of shit. This is why separation of church and state is SO important. This is what can and will happen in America if the religious right is allowed to retain and gain power. This is not a world I want to live in, where medieval bullshit is given precedence over modern morality. Yes, that's what I said modern morality. People who think morality comes from the Bible or the Koran are sadly mistaken. These ancient books are filled with immoral rulings created by tribal civilizations. This kind of thing should be laughed at like the backwards garbage that it is and not cowtowed to because it comes from someone's holy book. Modern civilization is based on constitutional law, not on ancient superstition. And I for one would like to keep it that way.

Now that I've probably pissed off half of my readers, we shall return to our regularly scheduled knitting content.

Lace Knitting in Denver next Month

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:11:30 -0700

Hi All, I just wanted to let you know that the Mile High Lace Knitting Conference is open for ala carte registration. If you live in Colorado and just want to sign up for one class, you can do that. If you love lace knitting, don't miss it!

April 18-22, 2007
Denver Colorado

Keynote Speaker: Margaret Stove

Instructors:
Nancy Bush
Joan Schrouder
Galina Khmeleva
Donna Druchunas

Gracie Larsen will also be there.

http://milehighlaceknitting.com/

Are you crazy about Knitted Lace and Lace Knitting? Come play with other lace enthusiasts at the beautiful Marriott Renaissance Hotel located in Denver, CO, for a five day conference with internationally renowned teachers, vendors, and awesome exhibits!

(I'm not affiliated but I am teaching at the conference.)