What a Difference a Week Makes

To start, I hope this week goes much more smoothly than last week! There was a medical situation here, for one of the smaller members of the household, that thankfully ended with smiles and purrs.

So, last Tuesday Jakey, of the black and white floofy fur, started crying quite plaintively. This was not his normal "Hey! Look at me! Pet me!" kind of meowing, this was "I'm in serious pain, help me" crying. After conferring with my roommate aka Jakey's Mom, I phoned our local vet clinic and we brought him in despite that it was after 5 when we got there.

After a fairly quick examination, the vet told us that Jakey had a blockage in his urinary tract and he was having trouble getting a catheter past it. Thankfully he was able to draw fluid right from Jakey's bladder and there was only a tinge of pink; there wasn't substantial damage and if he could get past the blockage, Jakey would be fine. We left Jakey overnight in hopes that once Jakey relaxed a bit it would be easier to get past the blockage. Jakey despises the outdoors, car rides, and generally anything that involves him leaving the house. He is terrified of wind, birds, shadows of leaves waving in the wind... He could've been named Scooby Purr for the way he over reacts to everything. So we completely understood hoe the little guy was most likely stressed with being brought to the vets.

Wednesday morning, we returned to the vet office to see how Jakey was faring. Unfortunately, the vet was still unable to get a catheter past the blockage. And the blockage was quite extensive, moreso than originally thought. Jakey's only hope was a surgery called an urethrostomy; basically it would create a new place for him to pee from. Fully fearing her floofy boy wouldn't survive, Jakey's Mom agreed to them doing the surgery.

Thankfully, Jakey came through just fine and we were able to bring him home on Friday, with catheter, cone, and stitches in place. The weekend wasn't overly fun for Jakey or me as I got to supervise him and keep him from biting/tugging at the catheter, biting/licking his stitches, and just generally being a major meanie to my darling furry nephew.

We brought Jakey back to the vet  Monday morning and the catheter was removed and they observed him to make sure he was peeing without any pain or straining. When we returned for him in the afternoon, he was all purrs and we were told to keep the cone on to keep him from aggravating his backside, but other than that he was fine. And happily he's pretty much back to his usual happy go purry self.

Now of course, there's a large vet bill for Jakey's excellent care. Jakey's Mom started a Facebook fundraiser, and many people have generously contributed. 

Jakey is very special to me; my late ghirlie Maureen mothered him when he came to us as a scared 10 week old kitten. She washed him, scolded him, and cuddled him. She really taught him to cat. He does so many things that remind me of her. And he's been a constant companion to me since she passed in April of 2018; a bit over a month before her 20th birthday. That floofy, silly boy has been a real lifeline for me. How could I help with his care? A pattern sale, that's how.

All of my patterns are on sale for 25% off using the coupon code: Jakey. Everything outside of the platform and Paypal fees will be transferred to the vet office to help pay down the bill. The sale will stay in place until the bill is completely paid off. I've shared this with my twitter, Instagram, and Facebook page followers, and now with my blog audience. If you've been eyeing a Knit Dance Repeat Designs pattern, here's a chance to save a bit and help out my furry nephew at the same time. The Pattern tab is at the top of your screen. If you're not looking for a pattern but know a friend who might be, pass the sale info along. If you're on Twitter you can retweet my pinned tweet (link in the sidebar); on Instagram, you can share my post with Jakey snoozing under my tan fleece blanket (again, link in the sidebar). I really appreciate all the shares and patterns bought so far. And so does this guy 

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I logged out of Ravelry earlier this evening. I've been one of those crafters that Rav has always been an open browser tab on my smart phone. Until now. I'm taking part in not using Ravelry as "Classic Rav" disappears tomorrow. I believe the dates to avoid are today (March 31st) through April 3rd. Next week I'll only go into my notebook as I continue the work of transferring my photos and notes to my secondary blog, Síle's Notebook (link in the sidebar; it's an interesting crafting journey, and any links only go to off-Rav spaces except for one that I've very clearly marked until I get the linked to page moved over as well).

I'm upset that it has come to this. I really wanted to believe at the beginning that if we let them know that things weren't good, that we were being hurt by the site we loved, that they'd listen and work with us to fix it. I didn't expect the locked threads, the Main 6 bans, the gaslighting, the insistence that we were to blame somehow, that we were lying about what was happening to us. I never dreamed that I'd be exploring other pattern sales platforms last summer. Or that I'd be learning to integrate Payhip with this blog to form my own little hub. I never dreamed I wouldn't be selling on Ravelry, the platform that made it possible for me to start designing in the first place.

But here we are, nine months later and so many, too many, crafters have lost their communities, their safe spaces, their means of self expression. And tomorrow many more will. The past few days on Twitter I've seen an uptick in crafters saying they've deleted their Ravelry accounts. That they've gotten their libraries and project information, stashes and needles/hooks inventories, and said their goodbyes. 

Will it mean anything to TPTB? Sadly, I don't think it will. It's the only option for a lot of people, and I sadly don't believe it will even give them a pause. They've proven by their inaction that they don't care. Don't get me started on that glorified ad of an "article" published a few weeks ago. I've seen large fans for stage productions that blew less hot air than that puff piece of biased rah-rah-rah.

As I've stated before, I won't be closing my Ravelry account. But that's only to keep control of my pattern pages; there are too many editors that like to mess with off-Rav listings, and I'm much too small of a designer to risk having traffic misdirected. Once I complete the work of transferring my notebook, and library contents, I'll be on at most 10-15 minutes a week. A far cry from the literal hours a day I used to be there before last June, or even the 15-20 minutes most days since "Classic Rav" was brought back!

I'm making my peace with this. I don't like it, but I'm making my peace with it. It's not within my control to make the changes that are needed, much as I might wish I could. For my own mind, I have to walk away other than holding onto that bit of control of my pattern pages. My group was marked for deletion months ago, and I haven't posted there since. I've already withdrawn from groups I wasn't active in. When I go in next week, I'll withdraw from the remaining few as well. I didn't think of it when I logged out of Ravelry during the intermission of the hockey game.

I hope you've found a new crafting home on the internet if you've walked away from Ravelry at any point in the last nine months. I think most crafters are community people, but not all communities fit all crafters. I'm lucky in that I've always been a Twitter knitter (I joined Twitter almost 6 months to the day before I joined Ravelry; March 2009 on Twitter, September 2009 on Ravelry), and I've discovered a few Discord channels that I really need to jump back into. I'm not as active over on Instagram as I once was; it's hard to chat there, although it is the best spot for looking at photos of new patterns and yarns. And cats. I'm reading a lot more newsletters lately, which is quite a handy way to keep up with different designers and yarnies.

I think it's going to be very important for all of us fiber crafters to find new "homes" this next while. Something tells me this isn't going to be the last shake up in our little corner of the world; no, I don't have any insider knowledge, it's just a nasty feeling in my gut right now, an uneasiness that gingerale doesn't soothe.

Until next time, I remain yours in yarn and recovering Jakey snuggles,

Síle

The Countdown Is On

"Which countdown?" you may be asking.

The Countdown of all Countdowns in the Fiber World: The Countdown to Classic Rav being No-More. After March 31st, Classic Rav goes away and with it a number of people's ability to access the site even remotely safely.

Yes, yes, I know there a lot of crafters not effected by Nu Rav in any way and they'll for the most part merrily roll along as if nothing's changed. Plenty of people have been doing just that since last June; in five days ago it was nine months since the sneak attack... I mean, launch of Nu Rav.

Nine months without bringing in an accessibility consultant, even though there were qualified individuals who volunteered to help. Nine months of locked threads. Nine months of "Please contact us through email" that never gets answers. Nine months of lost revenues for designers unable to access their accounts. Nine months of crafters essentially locked-out of their libraries of pdf patterns that they spent time and money putting together. Nine months of being gaslit, of being told it's just an over reaction to the website update and people will get over it. Nine months since people had seizures, and/or the starts of migraines that have literally lasted over 200 days. Heck, nine months of migraines, eye strain, tension headaches, etc lasting on average a week in order for people to get their shops closed, or libraries downloaded, or projects and stash information transferred elsewhere.

So what has occurred in nine months? The animation that originally played on the login screen that prevented many from even getting onto the site after the Nu Rav launch, was first slowed and then stopped with an option to play it if the individual chooses. There has been tweaking of the original Nu Rav to have options to turn off the problematic drop shadows and there are now two options for viewing the site in Nu Rav, Herdwick and Merino modes. You can now add a Spotify link into your profile, great for podcasters! Of course it does nothing for those podcasters that can't even login, but you know, nothing important. (*Extremely heavy sarcasm*) It's my understanding a dark mode is currently in testing. 

You may be asking, "Where's the accessibility consultant TPTB said they were looking into?" Can't answer that as there's been not one peep about it since Jessica, one of the co-founders, said they were looking into it in her blogpost of July 30, 2020. Not one peep has been heard on this in over 7 months. We've heard all about wonderful sales numbers. (May I just add that of course sales were up last June over the previous June when they had to close the site to protect users from the inundation of backlash due to the Turd ban. Kind of a no-brainer that sales in a normal month of almost complete calm are going to be better than that contentious month.) 

Perhaps it's because of the uproar of June 2019 that TPTB decided to play hardball with anyone bringing up the accessibility issues in the Big 6. Threads locked and archived almost as soon as they appeared questioning if anyone else noticed getting headaches, or worse. "We value your feedback! Please post only in the designated thread", a thread that was locked and unlocked daily, meaning if you were experiencing issues outside of North American Eastern time zone business hours, too bad for you. And then even those threads disappeared and questions about their absence resulted in more locked and archived threads. Keep the majority of users from hearing about the problem and eventually the problem will get tired and go away, appears to be the modus operandi here. It's another way of gaslighting those experiencing problems too. Because many people coming across discussions of the  issues on other social media are quick to defend Rav and the TPTB, not realizing just how long this has been ongoing. Just today I had someone say that they didn't know what the issue was so it's possible that TPTB aren't aware of it either, had anyone tried reaching out to them? I'm grateful someone was able to answer and point the questioner to the myriad of data compiled by the ever organized Kathleen over at WIP Insanity. 

Which is precisely where I'm suggesting you head for further information. She has a much better breakdown of what's happened, what hasn't happened, and links to what might actually explain what went so terribly wrong. I mean besides ignoring the problems reported by beta testers of Nu Rav in the first place, because that might've led to a much better outcome for a lot of people. For a complete overview of everything head over here to the blogpost of updated information. If you're looking for what has been done/fixed, you'll want this page.   

Here we are on the 21st of March with ten days left before the end of Classic Rav. I doubt any of us thought this would be the future. Heck a year ago we were just really starting to process what the pandemic might be leading to. Rav exploding and making me and many others sick (thankfully "only" a two day migraine with nausea; I do not have any history with migraines other than when living in an apartment with a mold problem that I didn't know about. Talk about being blindsided.), that in July I would close my Rav shop, which I long credited with helping me transition to being a "real designer", and embarked on a journey with this blog/site and Payhip to sell my patterns Off-Rav. Nope, didn't see any of that happening. And yet, here we sit on the 21st of March with a mere ten days remaining of Classic Rav.

10... 

You Can Take the Dancer Outta of the Dance...

But you can't take the dance outta the dancer!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! ☘️

Today is the day of the year I miss my dance fam the most. I miss the chaos of remembering where I was dancing, what time(s) I was dancing there, and (most importantly) which dances I was doing. Midweek wasn't nearly as bad as when Pat's fell on a weekend; I seem to recall a particular Saturday the 17th that entailed something like 9 different places around the city, 12 or 14 different times (a few places we danced more than once over the course of the day/evening), and 12 or 14 different lineups of dancers/dances. I got home about 3am on the 18th. This is why you'll see some people with pins or t-shirts that say "March the 17th. Sleep the 18th" lol. Here's a photo of me onstage from my last major performance:

Yes, that's me; June 2011 onstage at the Irish Pavilion during Regina's Mosaic Festival  

There aren't any dance outs going on here today. Well, even without Covid-19 there wouldn't be. I'm pretty certain I'm it for Irish dancers in this particular town, and I just spent 4.5 days with my back in fits. I've been semi-challenged by a dancer friend in St. John's to video myself dancing and post it. I've been thinking about it the last week or so without his prompting, so yes, you're in for a bit of a dance. It's without music from my basement taken with my phone so I apologize for both the quality of the video and my dancing; please be kind in your thoughts. I know my turnout sucks, and I most likely won't make any clicks I may attempt. I am, after all, injured and not in class or training right now. Fair warning! Off we go!

Here it is: one step of the original hornpipe I learned. For some reason this part stuck with me (and I didn't want to be totally clichéd and post the comp length St. Patrick's Day set)

Until next time!

Yours in hardshoes and a"You don't scare me I was raised by an Irish mother" t-shirt,

Síle

Preparing to Leave

As many of you know, so-called Classic Rav ceases to exist at the end of this month. And I, like many others, am leaving as close to then as possible. It will still look like I'm there as I'll be keeping my account open in order to maintain control of my pattern listings. However that will be the only activity my account will see after March 31st.

Now that creates a whole bunch of headaches after being active on the site for so many years (I joined in September of 2009; before the site reached half a million members!) I've logged projects and stash, even projects I made before Rav existed! Some of the projects have photos that don't exist elsewhere! 

In order to keep all of my photos and notes from my older projects, plus my new ones, I've started a second blog. It will only have projects on it, no rambles off into dance or whatever else. Unless for some reason I noted it in the project notes. And believe me my notes can be quite interesting if not downright odd at times!

I've added a link in the sidebar of this blog to the new blog, which I've named Síle's Yarning Notebook🔗. I'm going oldest to newest, more or less, so there's some rarely seen projects of mine coming to light right now if you'd like to take a looksee. I have a feeling we may see a resurgence in yarn blogs (knitting, crocheting, weaving, spinning) in the coming months as crafters set up new online spaces to keep their projects organized.

So far, (8 projects in) everything has been from books, leaflets, or ball bands, which I've been noting with the pattern information but when I get to online patterns I will be including Off-Rav links for everyone's interest and safety where possible. If it's a pattern only on Rav, I'll be making that clear as well without a link.

So there you have my latest project!

Oh, speaking of things I've learned to do because of needing to set up my own spot here on the interwebs due to Those People Too Bullheaded (see what I did there? TPTB hee hee), if you look at my patterns tab, you'll see that instead of a big long line on one side my pattern photos are all in a nice grouping. I learned where to paste bits of code and how to add the right links in the right spots to make them do that yesterday. :) I'm quite pleased with myself over that. If anyone else is in need of an easy to follow guide for making a clickable gallery, you can find it here: xomisse.com 🔗

Silver (the elder of my furry nieces) is squawking at me in that near bird-like tone of hers that usually means she's done something to Jakey, so I better make sure he's alright lol

Yours in yarn and old project photos,

Síle

How My Worlds Connect

With the announcement last week by the CLRG* that World's in Dublin this July has been cancelled, and knowing that many knitting/fiber arts festivals are probably going to be at best online again this year, I've been thinking of some similarities between my two worlds once again. So I've made a short list!

1) Small accessories like to disappear:

Ask nearly any dancer, Irish or other discipline, what they can't find and odds are extremely high they'll answer bobby pins or hair elastics. Ask a knitter the same question and odds are extremely high they'll answer stitch markers or yarn needles. I've begun to suspect, in my house anyway, that all four items have run away together and are probably on some tropical beach somewhere. And any replacements I buy follow soon after coming into the house. 

2) Niche jokes are always in:

Whether it's a cartoon of a sheep knitting it's own wool into a sweater on a project bag, or a t-shirt mentioning "reel" dancers, knitters and Irish dancers love their in jokes. And usually the punnier the better. I'm not not saying I have an "I will knit in the rain. I will knit on a train. ..." mug on my Amazon wish-list, or an "Everything feisin'* hurts..." tank top (or t-shirt) bookmarked from Irish Dance T-shirt Company, but obviously there's a market for both of them ;)

3) It's fairly inexpensive to get started but it doesn't always stay that way:

In both worlds, we often start with the serviceable to test the waters and move on to better quality, and pricier, options when our budgets allow. Whether it be a particular hand dyer who's captured a podcast audience's imagination, or watching for photos on Insta from Gavin/Éire Creations or one of the larger feisanna* hoping for a glimpse of the new dresses, and/or vests, we all want at least a moment to ogle the priciest and prettiest on offer.

Hmmm, I thought I was on a roll with this post but I seem ti have run out of steam. If you think of something that I might be able to pair together with something from the other realm, drop me a line in the comments and I'll see what I can do!

Yours in yarn and ghillie laces, (They're both strings ;) )

Síle

All words that I've asterisked (*) can be found in my Irish dance glossary, which is here.