Life as a Luddite

I decided I probably should update my blog, so I signed in and got a page I'd never seen before with all sorts of stuff in which I have absolutely no interest whatsoever.  How I got here I'll never know...I kept mousing and clicking and eventually landed on a page I recognized.  Over the past few weeks, I've been dealing with this phenomenon way more than I care to.   I'm mostly up and running now, except for Adobe Crash (as I call it).  Just yesterday morning it crashed three times before noon.  And each time it craps out, I have to reboot my system, which takes approximately forever.  (Guess what operating system I have.  Hint: it's not Apple.)

I'm going to have to call someone to diagnose and fix the problem, which is, of course, going to cost me a bundle.  And once it's fixed, something else will break.  Thus, technology.  My second ex-husband used to say that I'm a Luddite -- and whatever else he got wrong about me, he was right about this.  I'm a Luddite, and proud of it.  Not because I fear technology, nor because I don't understand it, but because, let's face it -- we're not exactly Star Trek.  And even they had problems, but they had those amazing engineers, like Scotty and O'Brien, who could fix anything in less than an hour.  Even the non-engineers were always able to reconfigure anything to do what needed to be done to bring the current episode to a satisfactory conclusion.

Me, if I want to watch Bryn Terfel on YouTube I'm risking a Complete Computer Meltdown And Reboot.  With no Jimmy Doohan or Colm Meany in sight.

Here in Southeast Michigan we've been through a lot over the last few weeks.  There was the heat wave -- just in time for the Ann Arbor Art Fairs (it wouldn't be the same without bad weather of some sort, and heat is pretty much de rigueur, along with rain at some point), along with highway closings and detours that were themselves also under construction.  I had to deal with one of the detours a couple weeks ago, when I was trying to get from my house to our local Best Buy for a TV to replace my old analog set that had finally bit the dust.  Took me an hour to make a 10-minute drive.  I did eventually manage to get the TV, and I'm impressed with the quality of HDTV.

And speaking of TV, through the auspices of a spinning friend I've discovered the joy of the BBC's Midsomer Murders.  I'm a mystery buff, and a dedicated fan of British television, so what's not to like here?  Turns out there are twenty-some seasons, which are all available from my local library, so I've been wallowing in the English country village ambiance for the past several weeks -- with a great excuse: it gives me something to watch while I spin. 

Which I'm off to do now.

So why am I doing this?

Mainly, I suppose, because it seems an awful lot of people have said I should.  As the title suggests,  this blog will mainly be about dogs -- and that will include my passion for the fiber arts: spinning, knitting, crocheting, and to a lesser extent weaving and felting, primarily using dog hair.  I've been doing custom spinning for over a decade, making yarn and keepsake objects for people from their dogs' hair.  The idea isn't new: the Victorians practiced something similar, with braided keepsakes from the hair of deceased loved ones.  I know how the Victorians felt: I have a lock of my father's hair, clipped from his head when he was a year old in 1912, and it's the only physical connection to him that I have.

I learned to spin for that reason: so I could have a tangible, physical connection to my shelties when they "went to the Bridge" as dog people say.  I've been knitting for almost 60 years, and crocheting for almost as long, and I thought why not learn to spin so I can make things from my own dogs' hair?  Anyone who's lived with even one sheltie knows they shed like mad, and it's all downy soft undercoat, which most people bag up and toss in the trash.  Spinners call dog hair "chiengora" because it's almost as soft as the bunny version (angora).  The best breeds are the double coated ones, the herding dogs and the BWDs ("Big White Dogs") like Great Pyrs, the northern breeds (Samoyeds, Malamutes, Siberians and so on) but there are plenty of other breeds -- and a lot of mixed breeds as well -- that spin up beautifully.

Eventually I'll take the time to post some pictures of some of the beautiful yarn I've gotten from shelties across America (it helps to belong to an e-mail list!) and some of the items I've made from it.  But for now, just getting the blog up and running will have to suffice.