Friday, February 02, 2007

A Few Technical Difficulties

That’s what I had yesterday here at Damselfly’s pond. I had some trouble with the Blogger interface and it ended up getting repeat-posted 3 times. Then I got a spam comment. That’s a first in almost 2 years! My comments are not moderated nor do I even use those stupid “type-the-letters/numbers” things that foil the more automated types of spammers. I can however delete any comment or post that I please, so that’s what I did. This is my blog and I can do what I want to! I am in control. Sorta.

So right around now (Feb 1 or 2 depending on who’s talking) it’s Groundhog Day, Imbolc, Candlemas, and St. Brigid’s (actually the Celtic goddess Bride in Christian disguise). Halfway between winter solstice and spring equinox and the full moon tonight as well. A pretty special time of the year even though we don’t get any stat holidays. Here in Canada Wiarton Willie didn’t see his shadow because it was snowing in his part of Ontario. I just found out that there are other groundhog predictors in Canada: Nova Scotia's Shubenacadie Sam, Balzac Billy in Alberta, and Manitoba Merv, north of Winnipeg. I don’t know about the western ones but Sam and Punxsutawney Phil didn’t see their shadows either so spring is definitely coming. Good thing there isn’t a groundhog here in Vancouver — he would have seen glorious frosty sunshine and we’d be in for more winter!

Further to all the magazine page-flipping I’ve been doing lately, here’s some clarification of the copyright issues with a Canadian slant from The Girl From Auntie. It makes it all pretty simple to understand. I guess I’m not being exactly legal if I copy pages from magazines that I own and keep the copies for my own reference. However, I’m not ripping anyone off either so I’m going to continue to do it. It may or may not come under “fair use” depending on your definition. I consider them “working copies” and, although they suggest you should destroy your working copies after you’ve finished using them, I’m just not finished yet. I prefer to keep my working copies for further reference. I doubt my fairly innocent little transgressions will bother anyone at all. If it does, I've certainly blabbed it now! BTW, The Girl From Auntie aka Jenna Wilson is also the designer of such gems as the Shedir Cap and Lasagna Scarf as well as the famous Rogue sweater and the incredibly elegant Eris Cardigan.

I’ve also discovered another online knitting/fibre crafts magazine called the Black Purl Magazine edited by L’Tanya Durante. It seems to have been around for awhile but there is no access to back issues yet, though that is promised in future as the site is redeveloped. However the patterns are available, as are back issues of the newsletter Essentia, which is actually a big tease since the links to older articles don’t work. Hopefully this will be fixed eventually. The current Winter 2007 issue has a reprint of an interview with Carol Ventura, tapestry crochet artist, and a pattern for beaded wrist warmers by the familiar Donna Druchunas. In the pattern archives there’s a nice scarf called Plain Vanilla, among other goodies. Go look and hope that the revisions to the site get done soon. You don’t have to be a crafter of colour to enjoy this magazine. Now I’m off to read her blog.

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