Tricotomania and more

The washing and combing of Romney fleece continues apace. I have quite a bit in a pillowcase in the corner of the living room but the bag of unwashed fleece still looks substantially full. I suspect if I just plod along with it, it will eventually all be clean and ready to spin. I’m thinking that maybe I should invest in a metal afro-comb as the cheap and easily available alternative to actual wool combs.

I’ve bens pinning the mystery brown top Cate gave me back in May. I’d like to get it all spun and plied and then contemplate doing something with it. I’m enjoying the spinning of it. But we need more bobbins because I’d like to try a 3 ply and only have 3 bobbins AND because Tigger often wants to be spinning something, too. It is a great incentive to spin, ply and get stuff off the bobbins quickly but sometimes it creates a disincentive to start something.

The shawl is also coming along well. I’ve turned the last corner and am steaming up the 4th side. It is an easy enough edging pattern that I can do it in company as long as folks don’t mind if I look down and count from time to time. Photos when it is all done and blocked and no sooner.

Socks have not been touched for a bit. I had gone too far on the foot and had to rip back a couple of inches so I’m about at the point where I need to start toe decreases on the first one. Folks who have seen it say nice things and I am impressed with how good this rather simple stitch pattern looks.

My living room looks like someone went in there and threw yarn and fleece and things all over the place. We have both been spinning. Tigger has been doing needlepoint (and leaving ends of yarn all over). I’ve been drying and combing fleece in there. Etc. But it has to be tidied today because I am hosting a meeting at 6 p.m. So no fleece washing today.

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This summer I purchased a pack of 22" x 16.5" sheets of dry erase graph paper. It is self-stick so although it is stuck to the fridge with magnets in the photo, I could have peeled off the backing and just stuck it there. This has been a hugely popular purchase. Tigger can’t wait to get to the section of her Geometry text that requires graph paper (we’ll need it when we come to learn about area) and has taken to drawing charts of our scores in various games.

We typically play a game after supper and before bedtime stories. We have been doing this since she was quite young (probably 2 or 3). Lately she wants to draw a graph of all the scores and has even been choosing different games to see what shape of graph they might produce.

The one in the photo is nines, a game where you take tricks, with the trump predetermined for each hand (it rotates among the suits, with a no-trump hand, too). Each player starts with 9 points and if you take 4 tricks (of 13) you stay the same, going up if you take fewer and down if you take more. The first player to 0 wins. It produces a rather interesting chart. (let me know if you want more details of the game)

We have also played games where it is possible to score negatively and the scores can vary considerably from hand to hand producing very jagged graphs. And others, like Boggle, which produce quite smooth orderly graphs.

The graphs sometimes produce a bit of concrete evidence that she really does lose concentration as she gets more tired, though that very poor ending to the game in the photo (she went up precipitously at the end) is more an effect of bad luck than bad judgement.

I have just purchased a few more dry erase markers so that we can each have a different colour instead of requiring some shape to distinguish our lines.

You may recall that Cate enabled the purchase of a Romney fleece back in May at the NH Sheep and Wool Festival. She went so far as to split it with me in her enabling, which I’m sure was a great sacrifice on her part. Ever since then I’ve been talking about how I must wash the fleece but haven’t actually been doing much about it.

Well, the vegetables kicked the fleece out of the freezer the other day. (If I were Franklin, I’d have some sort of nifty cartoon to illustrate that but you will just have to use your imagination.) I put the bag of wool in the bathroom over night and in the morning was subject to questioning about the “funny smell”. Someone may have compared it unfavourably to “one of Daddy’s bad poos”. So I got washing.

It is going slowly but I’m very pleased with the process and the result. I got out my big dye pot, heated water, squirted in some dish detergent (enviro-friendly stuff — what I have in the house), and put some in to soak. After a bit (but before it got too cold and the lanolin would solidify again), I drained it, put the wet wool on a tea towel temporarily, refilled the pot, heated the water, and plunked the wool back in to soak. Drained again, put the wool in the washing machine for a spin. Laid it out on a sweater rack to dry.

I pulled apart the tips (and the clumps in general) gently. Some of them I did while it was still damp so they would dry faster and it doesn’t seem to have harmed anything. The second batch, which I did today, I let dry and then combed out with a regular wide-tooth comb. Folks had said you could use a dog comb but I don’t have one of those so I used a regular comb. (Yes, I’ve put it in the dishwasher so it’ll get washed before a person uses it to comb their hair.)

I also tried spinning up some of what I washed yesterday and have about 10 yds of 3 ply hanging up to dry. The colour is really nice — a sort of mid-grey with some sandy coloured flecks (the tips were a nice sandy colour). I think it’ll be nice. But there is still a lot of it sitting in a bag waiting to be washed. So I’ll have to keep plugging away at it.

Some of you may have noticed that I was having my photo taken with a certain sock in NYC on the weekend (scroll down a ways). Not the most flattering photo but there you go. As Stephanie mentioned I was in NYC for other purposes.

Despite being a Canadian, I am on the board of a non-profit based in the US. The Alternatives to Marriage Project which provides information and advice to people in all sorts of unmarried relationships and advocates for an end to marital status discrimination. I feel very strongly that family is made in numerous ways, all of them social, and that what families need is support. Bickering about who is a “real” family doesn’t get the support to the people who need it. It makes it harder for some people to keep their families together. And it means that some people have real difficulties accessing things like health care, housing or even just security in the resources that they do have. In many parts of the US, it is actually really complicated to make arrangements to ensure that your home will be recognized as being owned equally by both of you, that your partner will be recognized as next of kin and allowed to make decisions for you if circumstances warrant, and so on. That is on top of all the issues about discimination in various forms of taxes and so on.

A lot of political attention has been focused on same-sex marriage and under cover of all that debate, some really nasty things are happening in many states in the US. In November 2006, voters in seven states will decide whether to amend their state constitutions to restrict access to marriage and exclude more people from the privileges of marriage. Most of these amendments go far beyond banning same-sex marriage. They undermine the legal status of existing domestic partnerships and civil unions. They will immediately affect all previously recognized unmarried relationships within those states. They reverse a trend of expanding civil rights and fair labor practices for unmarried people. Ultimately, all unmarried people may be affected.

The 7 states (so far) are: Arizona, Colorado, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Virgina. (Illinois was there but it failed to get on the ballot this year.) When AtMP contacted our supporters in some of those states many were not even aware that these issues were on the ballot and many were not aware of the extent of the amendment. I urge you to check the links above and let friends in those states know what is being done. And then vote. You know how I would vote but you need to vote. If you want to help AtMP educate voters about these issues there are contact details. I think there are also downloadable post-cards you can print and send to friends in the affected states.

This is about choice. If marriage is to be a genuine choice, then there have to be real alternatives. It does not devalue your marriage to recognize and support other kinds of families. It devalues your marriage when people get married because it is the only way they can get health benefits. It devalues your marriage when people get married in order to have security in their co-ownership of their home.

And if you are worried about children, then think about what your children really need. They need love. They need security. They need consistency and long lasting relationships. Relationships which are economically secure last longer. Relationships that are supported by others last longer. The statistical differences in longevity of marriages preceded or not by cohabitation can largely be explained by the fact that those who do not cohabit before marriage are significantly more likely to hold religious beliefs that make them highly unlikely to divorce.

But on some level, if you really think these amendments are a good thing, please ask yourself this. If marriage is such a good thing, why do you need to coerce people into it?

And if you don’t, please vote. Tell your friends. Sign the Affirmation of Family Diversity. Send AtMP some money (you get a tax receipt if you are in the US) so we can continue this work.

Normal programming resumes soon.

We got back today, after dropping in unannounced on an old friend in Montréal yesterday. We had a great time. More historic villages than planned but all were very well done. And we made some detours on our way home to visit old friends (in several senses of the world) who were very glad to finally meet Tigger, even if they couldn’t quite believe that she was 9.

We were toasty warm in our little tent, and bringing the double duvet was definitely a great idea. Tigger has body heat to share. And she learned things like how to use a propane stove and how to make coffee. No, she doesn’t drink coffee but she made mine most mornings (and also a herbal tea for herself). The weather was mostly great.

And I had plenty of evidence that those who propose that questions like “shouldn’t you be in school” are mostly conversational tactics (sorry, I can’t remember who proposed this but discussions have been happening) are right. Almost everyone was genuinely interested and positive when we said we homeschooled and could immediately see the value of this sort of trip over sitting in a classroom.

Okay, further updates later. I’m away this weekend so it might not be until next week.