Ten on Tuesday: 10 Last Books You Have Read

Long ago I signed up for the Ten on Tuesday emails. Sometimes the topics are interesting, sometimes they don't appeal to me, but either way I never get around to writing a Ten on Tuesday post. Remember yesterday, I said blogging sounds great in the abstract? I often think of great topics to write about, but then never get around to it? Yeah, the 10 on Tuesday topics tend to fall into that category. The post gets written, but only in my head. Not this week. For one day anyway, I'm going to keep my resolution to participate more in online communities.

Today's Ten on Tuesday topic is the last 10 books you've read. I read a lot and track what I read (and want to read) on Goodreads. Two of my favorite Ravelry groups are book related, Audiobook Knitters and 52 Books in 52 Weeks (a lot of us read way more than 52 books a year, some way less, it's just a personal challenge). Both groups are fantastic for recommendations, although be warned, your to-read list will grow exponentially, to match that SABLE yarn stash (Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy). The good thing is that with audiobooks, you can knit and read at the same time.

The last 10 books I've read:

1) California by Edan Lepucki - audiobook (Audible), 2 stars

I got this free from the Goodreads Ford Audiobook Club. Sponsored by the auto manufacturer, this group offered a few free audiobooks last year but seems to have gone dormant. I really didn't enjoy this book. It's set in a near-future semi-dystopia. No zombies or pandemic, just a continuation of current negative trends (crazy weather, extreme income inequality, political dysfunction). I normally like dystopian novels, but the characters have to be well-written and these weren't. A lot of the drama was manufactured because characters didn't talk to each other. I didn't much care for the narrator, Emma Galvin. Her voice sounds whiny to me, making me dislike the main character. She also narrated the Divergent series, and I thought Tris was whiny too. Maybe I would have liked California better on paper.


2) 14 by Peter Clines -audiobook (on CD from my library), 4 stars

A classic-style mystery/horror story. Nate moves into a new apartment in a strange building. As he and his fellow tenants investigate, things get continually weirder and scarier. A really enjoyable listen.

3) Kiss of Steel by Bec Mcmaster - audiobook (Audible), 3 stars

A good paranormal/adventure/romance/steampunk novel. Set in an alternate London, sort of Victorian Era, with vampire-like creatures. I enjoyed the story and cared what happened to the characters, although it is pretty much fluff. The narrator was good, but I think I would have liked it better on paper. Be forewarned: there's explicit sex. A lot of it. That goes on. And on. And on. I don't think I'm a prude and I don't object to sex scenes that fit well into the plot. But here I just wanted to get back to the story. In paper I would have skimmed ahead through some of it, not so easy to skim in audio form.

4) Half-Off Ragnarok by Seanan McGuire - paperback (library), 4 stars

Third in the Incryptid series. Set in the modern world, except all sorts of cryptid creatures are real. The series follows the adventures of the Prices, a family of cryptozoologists. Lots of fun. Escapist, light-hearted fluff, but really well-done escapist, light-hearted fluff. I want my own Aeslin mice.

5) Roseanna by Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö - audiobook (OverDrive), 3 stars

First in the classic Martin Beck series about a police inspector in Stockholm, Sweden. I didn't really enjoy this book, but I think that was largely due to the poor narration of the audiobook. The story itself is okay, although the writing, attitudes and style are a bit dated. It was written in the early 1960s. I think it's in that in-between territory, too recent to read as a period classic, but too long ago to read as modern.

6) Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein - audiobook (SYNC), 4 stars

I got this book from SYNC, a great YA program that gives away two complete audiobook downloads each week during the summer - a current Young Adult title paired thematically with a Classic or Required Summer Reading title. This year starts May 7. The books are each only available for a week, so grab them while they're there. Code Name Verity is a fantastic WWII spy story, very well narrated. I'm very much looking forward to the second in this series, which is one of this summer's SYNC books.

7) Queen of Hearts by Rhys Bowen - hardcover (library), 4 stars

Eighth in the Her Royal Spyness series. Fun spy/mysteries set in the 1930s. Silly, light-hearted, often laugh-out-loud funny.

8) Hush by Laura Lippman - audiobook (Overdrive), 3 stars

Twelfth in the Tess Monaghan series about a Baltimore PI. I used to really love this series, but the last couple entries haven't been as good as the early ones. In this one, Tess is juggling being a detective with raising her toddler. I think the author may have recently had a child in real life, because the story often gets side-tracked by motherhood. If you have a toddler, you may enjoy this. If you're looking for a good mystery, not so much.

9) The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan - audiobook (on CD from my library), 3 stars

The story of an Australian survivor of a WWII Japanese POW camp in the jungles of Thailand. The book jumps around in time and it took me quite a while to get involved or care about the characters. Parts of the book are really good, parts aren't. Parts come across as a bit sexist or misogynistic - not badly so, but definitely a male viewpoint book. And be forewarned, there's graphic violence and torture. The conditions in the POW camp are atrocious and described in great detail. I might have liked this better on paper where I could more easily have skimmed past the goriest parts.

10) Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood - audiobook (on CD from my library), 4 stars

First in the Phryne Fisher mystery series about a woman PI in 1920s Melbourne, Australia. There's a tv show based on this series with fantastic fashions. I've watched the first season and a bit of the second and would recommend it. This was my first venture into the novels. I enjoyed it, nothing fantastic, but a pleasant listen while doing household chores. Didn't leave me desperate for the next installment, but I expect I'll read it sooner or later.

That's the 10 last books I've read. What are you reading? And don't forget to check out what everyone else is reading in the links from Carole's blog,

Love Your Blog Challenge: Interactions and Community

Kate of A Playful Day (AKA GreenTriangleGirl on Ravelry) has issued a "love your blog" challenge for the month of April. Every week she's going to post a prompt for us all to blog about, with the goal of making us fall back in love with our blogs. Or, for me, maybe the goal should be falling in love with my blog in the first place, since I'm afraid I've never really shown this blog much love.

Blogging in the abstract always sounds like a fantastic idea. Throughout the day I think of great topics to blog about, lots of things I want to say, pictures I want to post. But I rarely get around to actually blogging. I've committed to the Love Your Blog Challenge to try to change that.

The prompt for this week is Interactions and Community. I've been thinking about this for the last few days, trying to decide how I interact both on and off line. In real life I'm a bit of an introvert. That seems to translate to being a bit of a lurker online. I follow quite a few blogs and read quite a few Ravelry forums, but I don't comment a lot. I think part of that is my natural introvert tendencies, and part is my inner critic/perfectionist thinking no one would be interested in what I have to say. Outside of Ravelry, I've never really gotten into any social media, although I do have twitter and pinterest accounts.

In thinking about my real life interactions and community, I realized I enjoy socializing with a few people or attending small group events like knit night. I'm also comfortable speaking to large groups. But I loathe the in-between size, especially casual mixing with people I don't know well, like during meeting breaks or at parties. I feel awkward trying to join a conversation and have no idea what to say. I fail at small talk. And it seems a lot of social media are the online equivalent of small talk. I know on twitter I always feel like I've walked into the middle of a conversation and I have no idea how to join in without feeling like I've barged in.

So, any other introverts/lurkers out there? Silly question really, because if you're like me, you'll be reading but you won't comment. I'm going to challenge myself to comment more - mainly because I do enjoy getting comments. Presumably other people like getting comments too, so I'll start by picking one blog post each day to comment on. And I'm challenging myself to participate a little more in online communities, starting with this "Love Your Blog" Challenge. Wish me luck.

Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival

Wow, I've been ignoring this poor blog for over a year. I'm planning to start posting regularly this fall, but I've made plans like that before, so don't hold your breath.

This past weekend I had the treat of going to the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival in Canby, about an hour and a half north of Corvallis. After last year's hurricane, the weather was perfect this year, mostly sunny with highs in the 70s. My friend Amy picked me up early Saturday morning. We were at the festival with our tents set up not much after 9am.

There were alpacas

and sheep (I think these are Shetland)

lots of sheep

The Clackamas county fairgrounds used to have a really old, falling apart barn where the sheep would be during OFFF. Last winter we had some really bad snowstorms in Oregon that were the final straw for that old barn. It partially collapsed and had to be torn down, so this year the sheep were in a great big tent. It seemed a lot nicer, airier and no smell of decades of animal inhabitation.

Saturday afternoon we went to an interesting talk by Jeanne Carver of Imperial Stock Ranch. I love their yarns and enjoyed hearing the story of the ranch and its history, tho I wish the acoustics in the upstairs of the main pavilion building had been a bit better. Jeanne didn't have any of their yarn with her but had a lot of samples of clothing (including the Ralph Lauren USA Olympic sweater) and some beautiful blankets produced from their wool.

OFFF has started a Focus on Fiber series. I think they plan to focus on a different breed each year. This year was Shetland. I hope they do offer this on other breeds in future years - a short workshop and 4 sample balls of Shetland yarn for $3 was a really good deal. Amy went to the first hour on spinning with Shetland. Since I don't spin, I spent that hour checking out the vendors, then joined in for the second hour on knitting with Shetland wool.

I'm afraid I didn't get the name of the woman presenting, but she did a great job sharing info about differently spun Shetland yarn including how to match yarn and project. Best of all there were lots of samples to pet and admire. The only Shetland I've ever knit with is the now-discontinued Alice Starmore Scottish Campion, which was produced by Jamieson & Smith and I think is very comparable to their 2-ply Jumper Weight Shetland yarn. I've therefore always considered Shetland a fairly scratchy, stiff yarn. The presenter pointed out how much sproingier handspun Shetland can be, and wow, was she right. Some of the samples of handspun Shetland and shawls knit with handspun were so much softer and squishier than I would have ever expected. The comparison in feel with a sample she had knit from commercial Shetland was really eye-opening. I may need to keep my out for some handspun to buy. Or I joked about buying a fleece and making Amy spin it for me :^) 

Sunday there are spinning competitions which Amy participated in, including spinning blind-folded

and spinning with rubber gloves

While Amy spun, I helped out Scarlet of Huckleberry Knits in her booth and then participated in the last competition, team spinning. One person treadles and the other spins the yarn while walking backwards. First team to the finish line, about 50 feet back, wins. I treadled while Amy spun and we came in 4th out of 6 teams. Well, at least we weren't last, and everyone gets prizes, so I even won some yarn. Then I helped Scarlet tear down her booth and another OFFF was over.

I was pretty restrained in my spending at OFFF - here's the haul I came home with

From left to right, that's the four balls of grey and brown Shetland samples, a 1000yd skein of Dicentra Alpaca lace weight yarn in lovely shades of blue, a skein of natural cream sport weight Corriedale from Sincere Sheep (a team spinning prize), a brownish skein of Navajo Churro yarn from Shaggy Bear Farms (another team spinning prize), and a lovely purple skein of Cascara Lace from Huckleberry Knits. That photo really doesn't do justice to the amazing shades of purple in that Huckleberry yarn. I really need to work on my photography skills, or maybe just break down and buy a better camera.

I got lucky!

I follow a lot of knitting blogs. I mean a LOT. Google's discontinuation of Reader last spring left me panic stricken. What would I do when they took away my "Next" button for paging thru all those blogs? I procrastinated, in denial that Google would actually be so heartless. After all, isn't their motto "Do no evil"? And taking away Reader was definitely evil.

As the July 1 execution date approached, I faced facts that there wasn't going to be a last minute reprieve for Reader. So I did some research, and finally migrated over to Feedly. Surprisingly, after all that angst, I've adapted well and am actually fairly happy with Feedly.

I've continued to follow way too many knitting blogs.I might listen to/watch a lot of knitting podcasts too.  A lot of these blogs and podcasts do giveaways, and yes, I shamelessly enter all the giveaways. Well, not all. I don't spin, so I usually pass on the fiber giveaways. Though sometimes I enter those too because spinners occasionally appear on my gift list. My luck seems to come in spurts. I won't win anything for ages and then, bam, I win several things.

This held true a couple weeks ago. I was feeling like I never win anything (not true, but reality isn't always a big influence on my feelings). I've been playing with dyeing yarn and had dyed a skein of yarn for the summer dye-along of The Dyer's Notebook video podcast. This is a wonderful podcast from Laura of Gynx Yarns. You should definitely check it out. My skein came out lovely and really was it's own reward.

But Laura had lots of prizes for the dye-along, including some yarn I was really hoping to win. The odds of winning something were like 1 in 4, so I was hopeful. I watched the episode where she announced the winners late one evening and didn't win anything. I went to bed with a "Hrumph. I never win anything". So not true. I had already started knitting a pair of socks with the yarn I'd dyed.The pattern I'd chosen was The Uncanny from Teresa Gregorio's Ghosts ebook. Which I'd won a year or so earlier from the herrlichkeiten blog, so yeah, never win anything. It's a lovely pattern - I''ve finished the first sock.

So I wake up the next morning, check my email and my luck had changed. I had won two blog contests! Knitting The Uncanny must have given me good karma, because the first was from Teresa Gregorio's Canary Knits blog. I won a gorgeous skein of Bijou Basin's Tibetan Dream sock yarn, 85% yak and 15% nylon. It's oh so squishy and soft and such lovely colors.

It came with a nice sock pattern too, Woven Socks by Jill Wright. Though this yarn might be too lovely to become socks. I might have to use a plainer yarn to make the socks and use the yarn for a shawl or cowl. It's one of those skeins that's almost too wonderful to actually knit with. I think I'll admire it as a skein for a while until it tells me what it wants to be. (What, your yarn doesn't talk to you? Mine does.)

The second contest I won was from Stephannie Tallent's Sunset Cat blog. She has a pattern, the Arrows mitts and hat, in KnitPicks' Wool of the Andes 2013 Collection. I won a copy of the book and 4 skeins of Wool of the Andes to make the hat and mitts. I chose the Spruce and Haze Heather colors. Wool of the Andes comes in so many nice colors, it was hard to choose, but I think I picked well. Purple and green, pretty much my favorite color combination.

I can't wait to knit these. I'm not sure if I'm going to make them for myself or maybe give them as a Christmas gift. There are a couple people on my Christmas list who might really like those mitts. There are a couple other patterns in the collection I'm tempted to knit too, particularly the Insulate cardigan by Christina Harris.

That was a really lucky day for me. I haven't won anything since, but I'll keep shamelessly entering all those contests. I'm bound to have another lucky day sometime...

Joining in on Fiber Arts Fridays over at Wisdom Begins in Wonder.

WIP Wednesday

I'm knitting Grace by Jane Richmond out of Kollage Riveting cotton in a lovely teal color.

The sweater is knit top-down seamlessly. The first part was challenging, getting the lace pattern right while including the raglan increases. I had to rip partway back a few times. Now I'm into the endless stockinette body, although it is nice to have something mindless to work on like earlier this evening at Stitch Night at my LYS.

If you want to see more Work-In-Progress posts,  check out Tami’s Ami’s Blog

WIP Wednesday

Last fall I knit these fingerless mitts out of Shibui Sock in the periwinkle color.

I liked them and wore them a fair bit this winter, but I never wrote up the design. I just wasn't happy with the way my i-cord bind-off curled under. It's hard to stop reverse stockinette from curling under like these do. I played with the i-cord bind-off and think I have a version that won't curl.

I also wanted the pattern to include versions with a longer cuff and with fingers (you can't really see in the above photo, but that cuff ends pretty much right inside my jacket). Over the winter I knit this version out of some lovely Knitted Wit Rambouillet fingering in the thistle color.

 

 

Now I'm working on an updated version of the short sample with no fingers, again in Shibui Sock, this time in the Kiwi color.

Joining in with Tami's Amis for WIP Wednesday.

 

What are you working on?

4KCBWDAY1 The House Cup

It's Knitting and Crochet Blog Week again!

A bit like Harry Potter, but not quite, this year’s Knitting & Crochet Blog Week is split into 4 houses. Don your favourite knitted or crocheted hat and let it guide you to which house you will be in.

The House of Bee: Bees are busy and industrious, but can flit from one interesting project to the next as bright and shiny things capture their interest.

The House of Manatee: Manatees are gentle, calm and cuddly. Relaxed and unflashy they represent the comfort and soft side of knitting and crochet.

The House of Monkey: Intelligent and with a fun loving side, Monkeys like to be challenged with every project presenting them with something new and interesting.

The House of Peacock: Peacocks take something good and make it brilliant. Buttons, embellishments and a bit of sparkle prove that perfection lies in the details – like a Peacock's Tail.

Which house am I? Aspects of the House of Bee fit me. I sometimes flit from one interesting project to the next. Without necessarily seeing a project through to the finish. Like all those designs I haven't written up the pattern for yet, like these shawls:

The House of Manatee isn't a bad fit either. I like traditional, oversized, comfy sweaters like my Irish Fisherman's Sweater.

But the pictures above show which house I fit best in: The House of Monkey.  "Monkeys like to be challenged with every project presenting them with something new and interesting." That's me. There's no such thing as too many cables in a first knitting project:

Complicated lace: bring it on.

 And don't forget that finicky picot cast-on.


 Fair Isle: a pattern that repeats would just be too easy:

Yup, that's me, always wanting to try a new technique. The more complicated, the better.

RIP Tuft

Tuft

February 14, 1996 to April 12, 2013

He was a good cat and I miss him terribly. He'd been in decline for the last year, not eating enough and a bit wobbly on his feet. His vet hadn't been able to find anything specific wrong with him, he was just old. Last week it reached the point where he was miserable so I had to say goodbye to him. It was a really hard, but I know I made the right choice, not prolonging his misery.

The last week has been rough. My apartment seems so empty without him, I find myself looking for him when I come home. And I keep running into his adorable face all over the internet. See, I'd used the picture above as my avatar on all sorts of sites: Ravelry, Craftsy, Twitter, Google+, Goodreads, I keep logging in somewhere I haven't been and his little face breaks my heart all over again.  It seemed like a good idea, having a single picture that would identify me across various platforms, but in the last week I've been regretting it. I'm replacing Tuft's photo with various photos of my knitting designs, because I just can't take seeing him everywhere.

Favorite Things Friday #1 and #2

The last couple of weeks I've noticed Alex Tinsley posting Favorite Things Friday on her blogs, Dull Roar and Classy as F***. Vivian of Spindleshanks recently started Favorite Things Friday with Star of Keep on Knitting in the Free World and Lee of talkin' under water also joining in. I really liked today's categories, Favorite Modern Convenience and Favorite Discovery. Alex said on her blog to email her if you want to join in, so I did. Now I've got a whole long list of categories in which to find favorite things for future Fridays. Today I'm catching up with last week's, favorite animal and favorite superhero/superpower, and this week's, favorite historical discovery and favorite modern convenience.

Favorite Animal

Without a doubt, the sea turtle is my favorite animal.

Photo by: www.tropicalsnorkeling.com

They're so graceful in the water. They get to live on coral reefs and bask in the sun. If I believed in reincarnation I'd want to come back as a sea turtle. Presuming, of course, that we don't drive them to extinction before I die. Hmmm... maybe a donation to the Sea Turtle Conservancy is in order.

Favorite Superhero/superpower

This category is a bit harder for me. Comics superheroes like Batman and Superman have never really interested me. I like tv shows and novels with supernatural elements though, so maybe I'll go that way. Let's see. It'd be nice to be immortal like a vampire. Oh, but there's that slight problem that I have been known to faint at the sight of blood. And I get to craving the sunshine during Oregon's gloomy winters. Perhaps vampire isn't that good a fit for me.

How about magic? One of my favorite book series is The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, especially the audiobooks read by James Marsters (aka Spike on Buffy/Angel). The hero of the books, Harry Dresden, is a wizard in Chicago. One of his oft-used spells is fire. Wouldn't it be fun to be able to shout "Fuego" and throw fire from your hand? Though I hope I'd use my power more for starting campfires rather than for taking out enemies like Harry does.

Favorite Historical Discovery

There's a lot of contenders in this category. This is, after all, a knitting blog, so I could pick knitting, but that'd be a bit trite, wouldn't it?

I feel obligated to go for at least a little originality or I'd copy Alex's pick of natural selection, which is what made me decide I needed to play along with the Favorite Things Friday meme. One of my favorite tumblrs is WTF, Evolution, which describes itself as "Honoring natural selection's most baffling creations. Go home, evolution, you are drunk." 

“Do you ever think that maybe there’s something more out there?”
“What do you mean, evolution?”
“I don’t know, like, that there’s some greater purpose for all these animals I’m making, other than just eating and pooping and having little animals.”
“I guess I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“I just wonder what the point is sometimes. What’s stopping me from going off the rails and making this sage grouse look completely absurd? Why don’t I just give it demon eyes and ridiculous inflatable chest balloons? Who cares? What difference does it make?”
“Aw, come on, don’t talk like that.”
“Why not? Seriously, I’m going to do it. See if anyone stops me. Bet you they won’t.”

from WTF, Evolution

Over on Keep on Knitting in the Free World, Star chose cave painting as her favorite discovery, and boy, could I second that, though I'd go for the petroglyphs. I do love petroglyphs and have even knit them, like my Hawaiian petroglyph sweater. 

Cave painting and petroglyphs got me thinking of basic discoveries, and suddenly I knew what my favorite discovery is - written language! Imagine a world without writing. Communication would be so hard. No novels, no newspapers, no blogs, no Ravelry. It doesn't bare thinking about.

Favorite Modern Convenience

This one's a no-brainer. Contact lenses. I can't imagine living without them. I haven't been able to see at a distance without glasses since I was a small child and these days I can't read or knit either. I wear these multifocals.

I even sleep in them so I only need to remember I can't see naturally once a week or so. 

Except when I read or watch a time travel show like Primeval or read a post- apocalypse novel like The Dog Stars. Then I realize I'd be worthless in these situations. Within no time I'd be blind as a bat. Seriously, why isn't anyone on The Walking Dead the walking blind?

The Twilight Zone at least got it.

And those are a few of my favorite things.

WIP Wednesday

It's still Wednesday here in Oregon for another hour, so I'm gonna sneak in a late-day WIP Wednesday post.

I'm working on some fingerless mitts:

I designed these with an i-cord cast on and twisted stitches. I'm knitting my sample out of Knitted Wit's Rambouillet fingering. It's a lovely soft yarn which I highly recommend, although I'm a little worried how well it will hold up to the hard use I give gloves. It seems like a delicate yarn and may have a tendency to pill. (What, me, knit, frog, and reknit a design-in-progress a bajillion times? Never, I say. Well, okay, almost always. And definitely this time). I'll have to keep an eye on how the mitts wear and maybe reserve them for Sunday best.


I also have a double-knit wrister in progress. I'm taking Alasdair Post-Quinn's Craftsy class Adventures in Double-Knitting (Full disclosure: I was given free access to the class to review it). So far I've only had time to watch the first few lessons, but I'm really enjoying it. I've done a little double-knitting before, so these first lessons have been more review for me rather than learning new skills.

The first class project is a little swatch:

 

I made mine out of some Lion Brand Fisherman's wool I had in my stash.

The next class project is a wrister I'm making out of some Kid-n-Ewe from stash. This is an old discontinued worsted weight yarn that I made myself a sweater out of back in the nineties.

I actually took this photo this afternoon and finished  the wrister this evening, but there's no light now to take a new photo. Maybe I'll give it a bath and do a FO Friday post :^)

The next few lessons cover increases and decreases, cables, and other more advanced techniques. I've only ever done straight double-knitting without even any increases or decreases, so I expect I'll learn a lot. I'll post a full review of the class once I've finished.

You can get the class for $19.99 (50% off the usual $39.99) here. Alisdair Post-Quinn is the author of the book Extreme Double-Knitting and is very much the expert on this technique, so it's a great opportunity to learn from someone who knows his stuff. Check out his website at http://www.double-knitting.com.

Linking this post up with Tami's Ami's WIP Wednesday.

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone's year is off to a good start. I'm not quite sure about mine. I was reading The Yarn Harlot earlier today. She talks about including in your New Year's Day the things you'd like the next year to hold. I'd like to get outside and walk/hike more than I have in the recent past. Oregon put on a sunny face today, after 2012 was our 4th wettest year ever, so I went for a walk at my neighborhood wetland.

So far so good. As is common at this time of year, sunny = cold in Oregon.

Yup, so cold there was ice. That boardwalk? Fine in the sun. Not so fine in the shade. In fact, very icy and slippery in the shade. My feet slid out from under me at one point and I landed on my butt. I do hope that doesn't mean my year is going to include a lot of falling, because I've always been way too prone to tripping on a flat sidewalk.

Outside of the fall, it was a nice walk. Oregon's furry trees are at there best on a sunny winter's day. No leaves to hide the fur and the sunshine brings out the green tint to the fur.

Hope you are having as nice a day, minus the slip-sliding on ice!

WIP Wednesday

Today I've been knitting on a stuffed dog I'm designing.

Can you guess what his name might be when he's done?

To see more WIPs, head on over to Tami's Amis. And that's day 7 of NaBloPoMo.

Wahoo!!!

Tomorrow I promise to return to my regularly scheduled knitting content - no more politics. Tonight I'm celebrating.

And that's day 6 of NaBloPoMo.

Election Observing

In yesterday's post I mentioned I'm the Benton County Coordinator for the Democratic Party of Oregon's Protect the Vote program. My day today started when I was awoken by the phone at 7:15am. The volunteer who was scheduled for 8am to noon today had just arrived at the courthouse where our election office is located and realized he'd forgotten the letter he was supposed to have with him saying he was the designated Democratic observer. He lives in Philomath, one town over from Corvallis, and wouldn't have time to drive home to get his letter. Luckily I had an extra at home. So I threw on yesterday's clothes and drove the 10 minutes to the courthouse to give him the copy. In heavy fog with no coffee in my system. Not an ideal start to the day. But I got there, handed the letter to him, and headed back home to start up my coffee maker.

Benton County Courthouse, built in 1868

 

I was the scheduled observing volunteer for this afternoon, so around 11:30 I headed back down to the courthouse and signed in for my shift. It's interesting to see how they process the ballots in a vote-by-mail election.

The first step is sorting. The ballots, still in their sealed envelopes, are sorted into mail trays by precinct. Each precinct can have different candidates and thus a different ballot style.

The next step is signature verification. The election worker sits at a computer and scans the bar code on the ballot. The corresponding signature from the voter's registration card pops up on the screen. The worker compares the two signatures. If there's any doubt, they can click on "full image" and get a display that shows all the registration signatures on file for that voter, so if you've reregistered because you've moved or changed party affiliation, they can see how your signature has evolved over time. They also see the signatures of any other voters in the household. This helps them detect cases where a husband and wife sign each other's ballots, maybe by mistake. If the worker judges the signature to be valid, the ballot is marked accepted and moves on. If not, the voter is contacted to come in and resolve the problem.

Then ballots move on to the processing station. Ballots are processed by teams of three workers. The first worker removes the secrecy envelope from the outer signed envelope. After this point there is nothing to identify the ballot as belonging to a particular voter, maintaining the secrecy of the ballot. The second worker removes the ballot from the secrecy envelope. The third worker unfolds the ballot and inspects it for stray marks that might confuse the counting machine or votes that aren't complete enough for the counting machine to see. If there are marks to be removed or more completely filled in, the third worker consults with the second worker and only if they agree are alterations made to the ballot. These workers must have different political party affiliations to prevent collusion in favor of any candidate or measure.

Then the stacks of ballots go on to the counting room. Today was the first day ballots were counted. The ballots are fed through the optical scanners and counted. This is done by teams of two workers, again with differing political affiliation. They had some problems with the feeder mechanisms early today and had a rep from the machine company out to fine tune the feeders. Things seemed to go more smoothly after that.

If the machine detects two votes for the same office (an overvote), it rejects the ballot.  The two workers then inspect the ballot. If they agree the voter's intent to vote for a particular candidate is clear, they use white tape or a stamp to amend the ballot so the machine can read it. If the voter deliberately voted for two candidates, or their intent can't be determined, the ballot is set aside to be counted later with the overvote rejection mode turned off. Thus all the votes for other races on that ballot will still be counted.

The machines are set in "no report" mode, so no one knows what the counts are. Only after the 8pm deadline tomorrow will the report button be pushed, generating the election results. This "precounting" allows Benton County to release results ten or fifteen minutes after the 8pm deadline that will include most of the ballots. Only ballots that come in late tomorrow will remain to be counted later in the evening. Unless it's a really close race, by 8:15pm, we know who won in Benton County.

Of course, if it's close it can be days before we know for sure. In Oregon a ballot is valid if it's placed in any ballot box anywhere in the state by 8pm Tuesday. Someone who lives in Corvallis but is up in Portland this week might put their ballot in a box there tomorrow evening. It can take a few days for all the ballots to find their way from the county they were deposited to the county that needs to count them. It happened a few years ago that the Corvallis mayoral race was so close that we had to wait for all those ballots to arrive before we knew who our next mayor was to be.

It was interesting to observe all this going on this afternoon, but it was a little dull too. Benton County Elections has a camera system with a video camera in each room. I sat at a desk in the hallway watching a computer monitor with the camera feeds displayed. I could display the screen divided into 9 sections (6 cameras were in operation), or expand one to see more detail. By 2pm or so they had processed all the ballots from the weekend and sent the processing table workers home. They continued with signature verification of ballots that came in this afternoon and with the counting, since that only started today and was a bit behind because of the feeder problems. Most of the afternoon I had the counting room on full screen. I sat and knit and watched them feed ballots into the machines.

Hey, we got to actual knitting content on my knitting blog. What was I knitting? I'm starting a new version of the fingerless mitts I showed on FO Friday. I thought a nice variation to include in the pattern would be for longer cuffs. I started another set, this time from Knitted Wit Feather Weight 100% Rambouillet in the Thistle colorway. It's a gorgeous bright purple. I'll post pictures soon.

And there's day 5 of NaBloPoMo. Come back tomorrow to see if I make it through day 6. And if you're a US citizen, make sure you vote (if you haven't already).

Getting out the vote

This is really a knitting blog so I don't want to get too political. It is that time in the US though - just a few more days until we pick our next president. Whatever your political views, make sure you get out and vote.

Today I went knocking on doors for the Obama campaign. It was a beautiful, sunny fall day.

A lot of our trees here in Oregon are evergreen, some of the others have lost their leaves already. Others are beautiful colors.

It was a nice day for a walk around town.

This was my first time canvassing this fall. From May to October a friend and I did voter registration at the Corvallis Farmers Market every Wednesday and Saturday.

The band isn't with us, they just set up next to us. After the registration deadline passed on October 16, it felt nice to take a bit of a break from politics.

Plus I'm the Benton County Coordinator for the Democratic Party of Oregon Protect the Vote program, so I had to recruit and train volunteers to watch our elections office handle the ballots as they come in. Last Monday I got to watch the pre-election certification of the machines that count the ballots. Benton County ballots are the "fill in the dot" type and they use optical scanners to count the ballots.

Today I knocked on 38 doors, most of whom weren't home. I talked to 12 voters and collected two ballots. Here in Oregon we do entirely vote-by-mail, so everyone received their ballot in the mail a couple of weeks ago. Ballots can be mailed back or put in any of the ballot boxes around town. Postmarks don't count so it's too late to mail them now - they need to be put in a ballot box.

I dropped mine in the box at the public library on Friday and it already shows as received. Anyone in Oregon can check if their ballot has been received at oregonvotes.gov. A lot of other people have also already voted. Benton County elections currently shows:

47.99%

Ballots Accepted - 25,025

Eligible Voters -  52,147

When knocking on doors, we can accept ballots from voters. While the campaign sets up canvassers with ballot receipts, I still can't imagine giving my ballot to some stranger who knocks on my door. But people do it all the time. I was very careful with the two ballots entrusted to me and put them in the ballot box on 5th Street by the police station.

It was a rewarding afternoon, but I'm beat. The area I was in is near campus (Oregon State University) so there are quite a few student apartments. I swear, almost all the doors in my turf were on the second or third floor. I climbed a lot of stairs today!

And there's day four of NaBloMoPo. Will I make it through day 5? Come back tomorrow to find out!