Ravelympics: Who Wins?

The Ravelympics will have to undergo a name change: Ravelry members can vote here on a shortlist of contenders, none of which have quite the same significance or resonance as the original.  I haven't even officially chosen or signed up with a team for the Event Which Must Not Be Named, but I'll be knitting.  And I'll be calling it "Ravelympics" here on my blog even if I can't on Ravelry.  And I will be taking every opportunity between now and then to put the words "Olympics" and "Olympian" in their proper context, which I do not believe is as the exclusively trademarked property of an American corporation.  Expect to see reviews of books featuring Olympic deities, references to Mt. Olympus in classical times, and maybe some talk about the Olympic Peninsula right here in Washington State.  I think I will be okay, because this is a small blog, and because it's not making a profit.  But you never know.  Just in case, I want to be buried in my orange Rhinebeck sweater.

I despise a bully, and although I understand why Ravelry feels it must comply with the U.S. Olympic Committee's "cease and desist" letter, I think there are far deeper issues involved than copyright infringement.  Ravelry itself is a for-profit corporation, yes... but it's also a social networking platform, and its 2 million members should be viewed as private individuals with the rights to free speech and free association that all Americans enjoy.  The Ravelympics is an all-volunteer effort, run by ordinary members of Ravelry and not by its employees.  So for the USOC to dictate what private citizens can call their own hobbies and groups really does ring a lot of free speech bells for me.  And if you're not a knitter, consider what might happen if you invited a lot of friends to come to your house for a party to watch the Olympics... and you used the Facebook platform to do it.  Or your email program.  Or your cell phone.  Would the USOC go after these corporations because you used them to infringe on their copyright?  And if not, is it just because those are big corporations, and Ravelry is small (in profit, not membership)?  Then shame on the USOC, because that's the very definition of a bully.

The internet is still in its Wild West phase, and the rules are unclear.  But I don't think the legal department of a for-profit corporation that is turning a tidy profit exploiting the efforts of amateur athletes (well, they used to be anyway) to market them to TV viewers should be the one to set the rules.  This is what the term "crony capitalism" means, and it's not pretty.  Now, I know better than most that knitters are all over the map politically.  I myself am a proud conservative Republican, and I like free enterprise, and I like businesses to be able to turn a profit as long as they do it honestly (which I think they do, most of the time).  Where there's real copyright and trademark infringement, I'd like those things to be sensibly protected.  But I utterly fail to see the business sense in alienating a large group of potential customers, some of whom have been eagerly looking forward to the games.  It's like winning the trademark battle and losing the fan base that made the trademark worth something.

The ironic thing, of course, is that 5 days ago most knitters didn't think one way or the other about the USOC.  They were generally positive about the Olympics and many were looking forward to watching the games while working on a project that would be personally challenging to them.  One crazy day turned that all upside down.  Very few knitters are going to be watching with the same spirit of goodwill towards the Olympic organizers and profiteers that they might have had.  It's all left a sour taste in our mouths.  It's so very petty, like the jocks in high school who picked on the artsy kids.

The USOC has created a massive PR problem for itself, and I can't say I feel too sorry for it.  I've watched with a small amount of schadenfreude as the social media have exploded with outrage about this issue over the last few days.  For sure, when the history of social networking is written, the Ravelympics will have its own chapter. 

I'm looking forward to watching the London games and cheering on the athletes who are doing their best to be the best in the world at what they do, but I'll be muting the commercials.  Or, perhaps more to the point, I'll be giving serious thought to whether I want to support the attempt to commercialize excellence.

Randomday: Keeping Out the Damp

Some days are more random than others.

Our downstairs ceiling is leaking.

That means it's coming in from the upstairs.  This is the closet of the girls' room.  It smells really bad in there right now.

It's running all the way down the joist onto the living room beam and then wicking all the way across the beam.  Probably has been doing this for several months now.  We cannot afford a new roof at this time, but Handyman Can is on the job.  Let's hope we can get the repair made next week and it's relatively simple.  And that it stops raining!

The Shakespeare Love mug Primigenitus bought me at the Folger Shakespeare Library came with a link to an instructional video.

I took Primigenitus and Secundus to the DMV this week; Primigenitus needed to renew his learner's permit and Secundus needed to get his.  I got two whole rows of the final border on Color Affection done while waiting for their numbers to come up.

I keep checking to see how seven kittens in Pittsburgh are doing.

Star Trek had much better writing after Gene Roddenberry departed.

Thai Little Home is a really neat Thai restaurant that I hadn't been to until yesterday.  They advertise the biggest Pad Thai in town, enough to feed 4.  We might have to go back there with the family.

Also, it is really difficult to get Steve to buy shoes.  He looks, but nothing is just right.  He liked the bit in Mr. Magorian where he found the perfect shoes and bought a lifetime supply... and when the last pair wore out, it was time to go.  So far I have found out that he likes New Balance 10.5 regulars for sneakers, but they can't be in any funky colors.  And he likes Ecco for dress shoes, but when we go where they sell them, he doesn't find anything to buy.  And that he doesn't like Rockport.  And I'm not clear about Dockers and the other brand he tried on last night.

I had insomnia last night, worrying about the leaky roof, and went downstairs to listen to the drips and watch posts going live on Ravelry.  It's fascinating the list of countries I came up with: if you're in the UK you get to choose whether the UK, Scottish, English, or Welsh flag comes up on your profile.  Besides that, there were Australia, South Africa, Ireland, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Greece, Spain, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Singapore, India, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Hungary and earlybirds on the east coast of the U.S. and Canada.  Which brings to mind the international nature of Ravelry, and just why it is so annoying to be harassed by the U.S. Olympic Committee over the name "Ravelympics."  I've been joining in on the discussion about what to call it if they have to change the name, and suggested a move to Mt. Parnassus.  And the suggestion for the slogan "faster, bigger, prettier" was made, for which I came up with the translation "Citius, Magius, Pulchrius."  But frankly, I'm looking forward to the Tour de Fleece a little more.  And that's coming up next week, right after Primigenitus' 18th birthday.

I wonder if it will stop raining by then so I can spin outside?

Spinach Salad, and a Gaffe of Olympic Proportions

I made this recipe: Spinach and Radish Slaw with Crispy Chiles and Pepitas.  It's a bit of a production, and it makes a LOT.  I substituted red wine vinegar with a dash of sherry for the sherry wine vinegar called for.  And the only dried chiles I could find were "chiles negros" which I think had already been roasted before I stir-fried them.  The Pepitas are pumpkin seeds, which I had left over from my last batch of homemade granola.  This is a great salad, although rather soggy after the first day.  I'd make it for a potluck or cut it in half next time.

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Have you seen the Ravelry tempest in a teapot?  Seems the U.S. Olympic Committee has sent a cease-and-desist order to Ravelry claiming trademark infringement, because of the Ravelympics.  (The Ravelympics are a completely volunteer effort, in which individual crafters challenge themselves to complete a knitted or crocheted item during the duration of the sporting event the USOC thinks it is promoting).  To add insult to injury, the letter claimed knitting somehow "denigrates" the hard work and competitive spirit of the U.S. athletes (but only the U.S. athletes... I guess the international competitors aren't going to feel threatened by the sweater sprint).  Hoo boy.  They probably know, now that it's gone viral, that it was a mistake to do this.  Here's Mason-Dixon Knitting's take on it.  Although I'm not a huge fan of Stephen Colbert, I can see him having fun with this and would stand behind him, just this once.  The USOC has issued a semi-apology and suggested that knitters might like to knit items and donate them in honor of the games.  I don't think this is going to happen, at least not as the payoff the USOC seems to hint at.  They have proved themselves decidedly un-knitworthy.  Even after the second apology.

Ravelry, much as I love it, can be a rough crowd.  Rough as in "don't let your underage daughter go unsupervised here."  Some boards are as innocuous and friendly as you would expect from a knitting forum.  Some, despite vigilant moderation, are so overpopulated that threads degenerate and get locked quickly, but not too quickly for feelings to be hurt.  And some are actually set up to be a kind of verbal cage-fighting; no-holds-barred, no feelings spared, mob psychology and snark in full force.  I suspect that the denizens of the latter groups will not be called off easily.  Knitters have not been this vengeful since Madame Defarge.  I'm just as glad it's corporate America in the form of the USOC rather than political and religious conservatives they're targeting, this time.

As for me, I've (mostly) given up on the contentious groups and avoid the overpopulated ones as much as possible.  I will be knitting my Ravelympics project and calling it just that on this blog no matter whether they change the official name or not.  And somehow, I think I will be doing my part to work the words "Olympics" and "Olympian" into my blog as much as possible, but not in reference to the international summer games located in the capital city of the U.K.  Those shall remain nameless, since I wouldn't want to infringe on the rights of an American company to think it has a monopoly on the use of the word that refers to them.  Or denigrate the efforts of soulless fat cats to prove themselves pompous jerks.

WIPs and Yarns

Jack Junior, my baby quilt bonus version of Jack's Chain (tutorial available here) is now on the Megaquilter frame.  I'm going for a simple point-to-point arc for the 9-patches and triangles, and a squiggle-flower for the white hexagons.  But I'm encountering frustrations... the rails for my Grace Frame, made of hard plastic, have cracked and abraded and they are putting unwanted jogs into my quilting, which I have enough of a hard time keeping smooth as it is.  I'm going to have to rethink before attempting quilting one of my larger quilts, and I was hoping to do a lot of that this summer.  Grr... the size of that frame takes up quite enough space in my family room.  I wish I didn't have so much trouble getting it to behave!

For the yarn-along, I'm halfway through the final border for my Color Affection.  That means probably another couple of evenings of knitting at the rate I go.  I'm reading Lord Brocktree, which is chronologically the first book in the Redwall saga by Brian Jacques.  Primigenitus and Quarta are having a Redwall race and I'm joining in for the books I haven't read yet.  There are a lot of them!  I need to get back to doing book reviews.

Short summary of needlework projects:

• Jack's Chain baby quilt top - on the frame for quilting
• June UFO project (felted sweater blanket) - not really even started
• knitting Black Roses/ Lady MacBeth stole - about 60%
• knitting Color Affection - about 95%
• finished spinning blue Wensleydale... yay!
• no real progress on other projects.  Dithering over my next sewing project.  Should also be working on scrapbooks, which I don't like.

Tuesday Spinning Report

It has been awhile since I did any serious spinning.  I finally powered through and finished my 8 ounces of Wensleydale.  I bought this back when Woodland Woolworks was going out of business, and I dyed it with Wilton's cake decorating gel "Delphinium" during one of the rest days of last year's Tour de Fleece.  I started spinning it sometime this year, I forget exactly when, but it was really hit-or-miss for a couple of months whether I'd even get any spinning in at all.  Now I'm gearing up for the 2012 Tour de Fleece, which starts June 30.  I've got a fairly massive amount of spinning to do, and then will come the Ravelympics, when I'll try to knit it all up.  But I needed to clear up the bobbins on my wheel first.

So I plied it all up.  Amazing how fast plying goes in comparison to spinning!  This is (my estimation) 816 yards of heavy laceweight or light fingering.  Wensleydale is a long-fibered wool, and it's very lustrous.  I used similar dyes to color the BFL that eventually became my Oslo Walk shawl, but it never posed for photos quite so well.  You can see how the color ranges from true blue to purple. This yarn will probably eventually become another shawl-that-I-never-wear. 

Quarta wanted to help with a silly pose.  Wasn't that thoughtful?

Design Wall Monday and Stash Report - Bonus Jack's Chain

This ought to be the last time for Jack's Chain on my design wall.  It's my bonus baby quilt that I made with all the extra blocks I ended up with because I didn't do my math first.  It will also give me a chance to practice whatever quilting design I choose on a smaller scale before starting the big one.
I made up a tutorial last week for how to piece Jack's Chain.  Check it out if you want to make one yourself!

I've been playing with the concept presented by Anita Grossman Solomon in Rotary Cutting Revolution and made these blocks.  They're on my design wall too, but they didn't turn out great because I didn't starch them first.  I'm still at loose ends with what quilting project I want to take on next.  It will probably be something very simple.

With graduation and end of school, it's been 2 weeks since my last of these also:
Stash Report:

Fabric used this week: about 1 yard for Jack's Chain Jr.
Fabric used year to date: 48 yards
Added this week: 0 yards
Added year to date: 27 yards
Net used for 2012: 21 yards

Yarn used this week: 0 yards (working on 2 shawls)
Yarn used year to date: 2506 yards
Yarn added this week: 816 yards (finally finished plying my Wensleydale)
Yarn added year to date: 1308 yards (all handspun, not purchased)
Net used for 2012: 1198 yards
I'll post pictures of my new handspun tomorrow maybe.

Randomday

The wanderers returned today.  Sounds like a great time in Washington, D.C.  Here is the slide show for some of you not on Facebook.  My son is always the blondest in any group.

He came back home and was shocked that the Value Motel, that Hazel Dell landmark, had changed its old sign.  It's now charging $39 a night and its sign looks halfway respectable.  I think it's a bit sad that my son associates that eyesore with being almost home!

Not as much has been done on the summer planning front as I would like.  I have the girls signed up for swim lessons and an opthalmologist appointment made for Tertia, but there's a lot more.  Funny how it seems like there will be enough time, but never is.