This entry is not "against" the CPSIA, however, I am worried about how that very necessary piece of legislation has been, and continues to be, mishandled by the vary people who should be making it work. As it stands, it's not doing any good, and won't be able to do any good, until the blame stops being passed back and forth between the CPSC and the Committee for Energy and Commerce.
Like many, many other parents, I was delighted that there were now steps being taken to test imported, lead-contaminated toys. I still am. I am delighted that the toys and clothes and feeding items available to me will be safer in the future. However, there is something gravely wrong with this necessary, well-intentioned law.
What is wrong? The CPSIA is both too narrow and too broadly defined, requiring items known to not contain lead to be tested, specifically disqualifying component testing or testing by materials suppliers, and thus effectively making it impossible for small and micro businesses to comply at all. Some will survive by making only two or three items in batches of sufficient size to send one for testing, but their prices will go up. Some small companies are being turned away by the certified testing labs, because their business isn't lucrative enough. It's even worse if you make one of a kind, unique items - things that might be possible to make from a selection of pre-tested and certified materials must now be made in batches of two, so that one can be destroyed by the testing lab in digestive lead testing.
This would not be a problem if the parts of the law that need defining, clarification, redefining, etc could be dealt with, but the CPSC and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce are dragging their feet, and passing the buck back and forth. Nothing is getting done, even though there seems to be a lot of talking and blamethrowing. That means that all these thousands of small companies, small stores, even libraries and schools, that want to comply with testing, or that already do by only using/buying domestically made materials, are left out in the cold, unable to do comply, because no questions are going to really be answered in time for the deadline(s).
I call it irresponsible, especially given the desperate economic climate our country is in. The fact is that the testing is often unnecessary, and where it might be necessary, it is mandated to be done in the most onerous, burdensome way. Furthermore, the lack of sufficient labs coupled with the short time frame for testing has made it impossible to even get the requisite tests performed, were the tests even easily affordable. Costs have been driven up to amazing levels by the sudden overwhelming demand.
What does this mean to me? I was working on a home business, getting all may ducks in a row, getting ready to sell a few items for kids on etsy. That's not going to happen now.
As I've said elsewhere, my embryonic business is being forced to change focus completely. At least I only had a few items made up to try out sales for the holidays when the impossibility of continuing due to the CPSIA caused me to stop and put everything aside until I could work out what I was going to do.
I even set aside all the standard startup paperwork (thank goodness I put a hold on my plans before I filed for my fictitious business name! I'd have to refile, because it was obviously child oriented!) as soon as the impact of this law became apparent, while I was researching use testing requirements last fall. I had hoped to have everything in place to start small in early December, but my etsy shop instead sat empty, and will remain so until I finish my non-kids designs, and figure out exactly what I'll be doing.
I've looked back at the time I've spent preparing and it turns out it is over 2 years of work down the drain. I am looking to refocus entirely on hand spun yarn, historical costumes, and collector art dolls (NOT for kids, small parts, display only). Time will tell if there is even anyone who wants those things. I'm sad. My kids loved the prototypes of my playthings, wore my cloth diapers and cloth training pants, I wanted to share what I'd made for them with other kids.
As bad as I feel about not being able to share my kid-oriented work with others, I feel worse that I won't be able to buy handcrafted items for my own children, or I'll have very few, and MUCH more expensive, options available to buy. According to this law, I can't even swap my craft work for someone else's craft work, unless both items have been third-party tested according to the law's requirements. Even if all parts are domestically sourced and confirmed lead free and nontoxic by the materials manufacturers, that person-to-person craft swap is illegal, an exchange of contraband for contraband.
I may - may - be able to get samples of the fabrics and notions I use XRF tested so I could list and sell the few items I have ready between now and August, when even that screening process will become insufficient. However, that depends on demand, and I have to work out if the profit I will make on a few all-textile toys, cloth diapers and dressup hats will cover the fees for that, even given how reasonably priced as a small-volume XRF scan consultation can be.
That's where I am. It's not a pleasant place to be. It's like looking at the burnt-out shell of a home you once loved. What's worse is that I'm not alone. It's like a huge city has been obliterated, and we all have to start over.
This has been long-winded, but people in despair want to talk about it. It usually helps to do so. So far, my letters, calls and emails have been ignored. So far, it looks bleak.
At least our inspiration can't be outlawed. I can only hope that next year, some of us can emerge from the wreckage, like cicadas, and begin again.
Showing posts with label spinning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spinning. Show all posts
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Friday, September 14, 2007
Blogstalkers! The Navelgazing Post, or, it's all about me.
In honor of the reanimation of Knitty Coffeeshop Blogstalking, I've redecorated. However, I took the easy way out, and just used a template, so expect it to change again when I get around to it. Maybe I'll just spend some time trying on templates. I dunno.
Anyway - we're supposed to be self-centered this week. I'm awful at that (see! That's about me!). Personally, I think I'm boring, while the things I do, the places I've been, and the people around me, are interesting.
Here's an example of the boring, the normal, the unremarkable:
I'm 37. I have 2 kids. I'm averagely pudgy and averagely tall. I have averagely large feet. I have 3 sisters and 2 brothers, and three stepparents. I wear glasses. I drive an old, third-hand minivan. I had three years of college, and left to work without my degree.
The Interesting:
I grew up in California. I'm from Berkeley/North Oakland, with moves to Santa Cruz, Monterey, Mendocino, San Jose, San Diego, out of state to Texas, Oregon, and Illinois, and out of the country to Ireland (in early childhood). I've lived everywhere from very urban environments to very rural environments - places I had to carry mace, and places I had to feed horses and care for sheep. I like to tell people I was raised by a pack of wild intellectuals in the woods, which is close to the truth.
I've been doing fiber arts in some form since early childhood. So long, in fact, that I don't really know when I learned to spin.
I know it was after 1973, because Susan Druding says that's when she sold my mom her wheel. I know I've been weaving since I was six or so, as I used to have a tapestry I made hanging in my room. I also don't remember when I learned crochet, but I remember my first attempt to learn to knit. It was AWFUL - my mother decided we would learn together, and we didn't. The resulting scarf was very 1970's, acid green, big "deliberate" holes, gauge problems, etc. I hated it, I hated knitting, and I never wanted to do it again. My mother hated the scarf so much she gave it away, and I remember being angry that she gave it away, because it was so hard won I did not want to part with it. Well, at least Nadia liked it, which is more than the horrid thing deserved.
I sew, and I sew all kinds of things. This week I designed a bra pattern for 1-way stretch denim I had lying around, and it is so comfortable. I'm also making my dress for the Marine Corps ball (in November), and I recently had fun doing brainless sewing for my living room (see the previous entry). I can drape, flat-pattern, and estimate yardage in my head. All for a hobby.
Professionally, I've been a bookshop clerk, a warehouse worker (I was so slim and strong, if only it had paid better), an administrative assistant, a graphic designer, a security guard (really), an illustrator, a web designer, a theatrical costume designer, a telephone operator, and a bridal dressmaker's assistant. I've also worked in restaurants, from being an assistant dessert chef at a 4-star gourmet place to managing a pizza parlor near a university.
I have geeky hobbies - I'm in the SCA, and I have done historic reenactments, museum volunteering (costumed interpreter, collections processing, docent). I like to play computer games (though I hardly ever get to anymore - I used to be really good at Quake.), and tabletop RPGs. I read a lot - everything from mysteries (I prefer historical ones where the authors have done lots of research that only other people like me would care about, of course), to horror, to fantasy, to hard research materials. I've been known to read encyclopedias for fun. I recreate medieval wire jewelry, collect beads (and sometimes use them), and cook stuff. I used to (before kids) work as a convention volunteer staffer for as many as three conventions a year, mostly science fiction. It's like herding cats, and that's just dealing with the important people :)
Um, I also used to be cool (sort of). I had a mohawk, and I have a tattoo on my scalp, of a knotwork roundel from the Book of Lindesfarne. Once, when I was a phone bank volunteer for KTEH in San Jose, the actor who plays Lister on Red Dwarf scared the crap out of me by sneaking up to take a photo of it. I managed to get a picture with him for that :) He is, by far, one of my favorites of all the "famous" people I've ever met (and I've met a lot of them).
See? it's the things around me that are interesting (even my hair is more interesting than me), not me. But I guess I clean up okay :)
Anyway - we're supposed to be self-centered this week. I'm awful at that (see! That's about me!). Personally, I think I'm boring, while the things I do, the places I've been, and the people around me, are interesting.
Here's an example of the boring, the normal, the unremarkable:I'm 37. I have 2 kids. I'm averagely pudgy and averagely tall. I have averagely large feet. I have 3 sisters and 2 brothers, and three stepparents. I wear glasses. I drive an old, third-hand minivan. I had three years of college, and left to work without my degree.
The Interesting:
I grew up in California. I'm from Berkeley/North Oakland, with moves to Santa Cruz, Monterey, Mendocino, San Jose, San Diego, out of state to Texas, Oregon, and Illinois, and out of the country to Ireland (in early childhood). I've lived everywhere from very urban environments to very rural environments - places I had to carry mace, and places I had to feed horses and care for sheep. I like to tell people I was raised by a pack of wild intellectuals in the woods, which is close to the truth.
I've been doing fiber arts in some form since early childhood. So long, in fact, that I don't really know when I learned to spin.
I know it was after 1973, because Susan Druding says that's when she sold my mom her wheel. I know I've been weaving since I was six or so, as I used to have a tapestry I made hanging in my room. I also don't remember when I learned crochet, but I remember my first attempt to learn to knit. It was AWFUL - my mother decided we would learn together, and we didn't. The resulting scarf was very 1970's, acid green, big "deliberate" holes, gauge problems, etc. I hated it, I hated knitting, and I never wanted to do it again. My mother hated the scarf so much she gave it away, and I remember being angry that she gave it away, because it was so hard won I did not want to part with it. Well, at least Nadia liked it, which is more than the horrid thing deserved.I sew, and I sew all kinds of things. This week I designed a bra pattern for 1-way stretch denim I had lying around, and it is so comfortable. I'm also making my dress for the Marine Corps ball (in November), and I recently had fun doing brainless sewing for my living room (see the previous entry). I can drape, flat-pattern, and estimate yardage in my head. All for a hobby.
Professionally, I've been a bookshop clerk, a warehouse worker (I was so slim and strong, if only it had paid better), an administrative assistant, a graphic designer, a security guard (really), an illustrator, a web designer, a theatrical costume designer, a telephone operator, and a bridal dressmaker's assistant. I've also worked in restaurants, from being an assistant dessert chef at a 4-star gourmet place to managing a pizza parlor near a university.
I have geeky hobbies - I'm in the SCA, and I have done historic reenactments, museum volunteering (costumed interpreter, collections processing, docent). I like to play computer games (though I hardly ever get to anymore - I used to be really good at Quake.), and tabletop RPGs. I read a lot - everything from mysteries (I prefer historical ones where the authors have done lots of research that only other people like me would care about, of course), to horror, to fantasy, to hard research materials. I've been known to read encyclopedias for fun. I recreate medieval wire jewelry, collect beads (and sometimes use them), and cook stuff. I used to (before kids) work as a convention volunteer staffer for as many as three conventions a year, mostly science fiction. It's like herding cats, and that's just dealing with the important people :)
Um, I also used to be cool (sort of). I had a mohawk, and I have a tattoo on my scalp, of a knotwork roundel from the Book of Lindesfarne. Once, when I was a phone bank volunteer for KTEH in San Jose, the actor who plays Lister on Red Dwarf scared the crap out of me by sneaking up to take a photo of it. I managed to get a picture with him for that :) He is, by far, one of my favorites of all the "famous" people I've ever met (and I've met a lot of them).
See? it's the things around me that are interesting (even my hair is more interesting than me), not me. But I guess I clean up okay :)
Friday, August 24, 2007
Yarn and the Psychology of Avoidance
I need a swift. My avoidance has reached epic, ridiculous levels. Let us start at the beginning, shall we?
I found this neat resource last night, which is theoretically not knitting related, but has charted patterns of medieval and renaissance decorative motifs. (no, keep reading, we'll get to the bit about the swift) In any case, the simpler 2 and 3 color patterns would be great for simple texture patterning, how complicated the method depending on your degree of commitment or boredom. I'm inspired by this page especially.
I want to put that twining leaf pattern around the hem of a tunic sweater or put the others in a sampler-like series of stripes on a nice long winter scarf. Or maybe even work one or more as a lace motif in some lovely long stockings...
Anyway, I found the perfect yarn in my stash for starting a nice scarf (not enough to make a sweater, and I want to spend some time charting for the lace stockings, really), but there's this catch. It's attractively skeined. I don't have a swift. I do have a very athletic and curious 14 month old. He's also tall, as in he's in the 98th percentile for height for his age.
He is irresistibly attracted to me when I am apparently tied up in yarn, and now he's so big, I can't hide from him on the couch anymore. It makes knitting hard, even when I'm dealing with neatly wound center-pull balls hidden inside a bag, set on the inaccessible table behind the couch. I've figured out how to knit with my arms over my head, but it seems to be leading to some kind of tendinitis ... and a lot of errors.
Okay, back to why I need a swift.
Before now, I've faked it using chairs or my knees or my husband. A swift seemed like a luxury item, an unnecessary but highly desirable convenience. Now - I find myself actively avoiding using perfectly lovely yarn simply because it's in a skein and I'd have to fight Giant Baby every step of the way to get it wound.
That's what I caught myself doing last night. I picked out a completely inappropriate yarn for my swatch because it was already wound into a ball. I even cast on for it, knit a few rows and started the pattern before I realized that I had made this avoidance so habitual that I didn't see my error before I wasted lots of precious knitting time.
Time to at least attempt to make a swift. I'm crafty, I have power tools, and I can certainly cut up a few sicks and dowels to make a decent homebuilt swift. I even have the DIY yardstick swift how-to from the Fall 2000 Spin-Off.
Of course, now I just have to find someone to watch Mr Giant Baby while I work on it.
I found this neat resource last night, which is theoretically not knitting related, but has charted patterns of medieval and renaissance decorative motifs. (no, keep reading, we'll get to the bit about the swift) In any case, the simpler 2 and 3 color patterns would be great for simple texture patterning, how complicated the method depending on your degree of commitment or boredom. I'm inspired by this page especially.
I want to put that twining leaf pattern around the hem of a tunic sweater or put the others in a sampler-like series of stripes on a nice long winter scarf. Or maybe even work one or more as a lace motif in some lovely long stockings...
Anyway, I found the perfect yarn in my stash for starting a nice scarf (not enough to make a sweater, and I want to spend some time charting for the lace stockings, really), but there's this catch. It's attractively skeined. I don't have a swift. I do have a very athletic and curious 14 month old. He's also tall, as in he's in the 98th percentile for height for his age. He is irresistibly attracted to me when I am apparently tied up in yarn, and now he's so big, I can't hide from him on the couch anymore. It makes knitting hard, even when I'm dealing with neatly wound center-pull balls hidden inside a bag, set on the inaccessible table behind the couch. I've figured out how to knit with my arms over my head, but it seems to be leading to some kind of tendinitis ... and a lot of errors.
Okay, back to why I need a swift.
Before now, I've faked it using chairs or my knees or my husband. A swift seemed like a luxury item, an unnecessary but highly desirable convenience. Now - I find myself actively avoiding using perfectly lovely yarn simply because it's in a skein and I'd have to fight Giant Baby every step of the way to get it wound.
That's what I caught myself doing last night. I picked out a completely inappropriate yarn for my swatch because it was already wound into a ball. I even cast on for it, knit a few rows and started the pattern before I realized that I had made this avoidance so habitual that I didn't see my error before I wasted lots of precious knitting time.Time to at least attempt to make a swift. I'm crafty, I have power tools, and I can certainly cut up a few sicks and dowels to make a decent homebuilt swift. I even have the DIY yardstick swift how-to from the Fall 2000 Spin-Off.
Of course, now I just have to find someone to watch Mr Giant Baby while I work on it.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
I Can Has Ravelry!!!!
I got my invite ... yesterday? Perhaps it was Monday. It's all a blur.
OMGWTFBBQ. It's great, even with the bugs and incompleteness. I'm trying to figure out how to best help with the live beta development. It was so worth waiting 3 months for (I signed up in early May or late April, I'm not sure which.), and I love it. I have only entered a few stash yarns, a few of the most interesting WIPS and FO's, and spent most of my time just browsing around and using the features. Also, it complements my other fiber-focused online stuff, instead of replacing it.
I have to say that I love having what amounts to a customized newsfeed of my favorite bloggers and online fiber-freinds, the forums are fantastic (only what you actually scroll past gets marked read, wow!), and the patterns, and the yarn, and the...
(cut for interlude of unintelligible enthusiastic blithering)
Okay, if you have not yet signed up, go ahead and do it. It's great, and I can't wait to see it in a non-beta version.
Did I mention it's GREAT? Yeah, like the cereal. I could eat it up.
OMGWTFBBQ. It's great, even with the bugs and incompleteness. I'm trying to figure out how to best help with the live beta development. It was so worth waiting 3 months for (I signed up in early May or late April, I'm not sure which.), and I love it. I have only entered a few stash yarns, a few of the most interesting WIPS and FO's, and spent most of my time just browsing around and using the features. Also, it complements my other fiber-focused online stuff, instead of replacing it.
I have to say that I love having what amounts to a customized newsfeed of my favorite bloggers and online fiber-freinds, the forums are fantastic (only what you actually scroll past gets marked read, wow!), and the patterns, and the yarn, and the...
(cut for interlude of unintelligible enthusiastic blithering)
Okay, if you have not yet signed up, go ahead and do it. It's great, and I can't wait to see it in a non-beta version.
Did I mention it's GREAT? Yeah, like the cereal. I could eat it up.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Making stuff and making myself do stuff
Well, I was carping about low traffic on one of my blogs (the art blog) over on Knittyboard, and I got some positive feedback and advice that had not occurred to me before, and I realized that I post things about crft elsewhere without updating here. SO I'm updating here. I'll try to keep to an "every Wednesday or more often" schedule.
Now to the making stuff part - actually unmaking stuff. I have these two sweaters that I got from the "unsellable to due to defects" box at our church rummage, and I've been frogging them. I have several balls of lovely laceweight soft tan yarn (hmm, a lace shawl for me?) and several balls of a rich, warm coffee brown almost sock weight.
Last night I skeined up two balls of the tan laceweight, and washed it in HOTHOT water (the damage was moth holes), and it's relaxed into a lovely smooth yarn with a little bit of spring in it. Once it dries, I'm balling it up to get started on that shawl for me.
No idea what I'll make with the coffee-color yarn, but the wee bit I test washed already has a nice soft hand.
What got me started on finally frogging and recycling the sweaters (I've had them for over a year now) was sucking it up and rescuing the formerly lovely skein of cobweb weight chocolate brown romney handspun singles (mine, too, which makes what follows so much worse) that my dog ate. I untangled it, wound it into three small balls (she CHEWED the skein, how could she? Well, she's a DOG, and I should have locked my stash in a safe), and took another small skein of cobweb weight singles (this was a lovely purple, which I'd dyed myself ages ago), balled it up, and plied them up together into a nice sock weight 3-ply.
Not enough for a sock, of course, because they were sample skeins I'd done, but enough for an earband or something like that. Maybe I can pair it with the coffee-colored recycled yarn for something bigger...
Now to the making stuff part - actually unmaking stuff. I have these two sweaters that I got from the "unsellable to due to defects" box at our church rummage, and I've been frogging them. I have several balls of lovely laceweight soft tan yarn (hmm, a lace shawl for me?) and several balls of a rich, warm coffee brown almost sock weight.
Last night I skeined up two balls of the tan laceweight, and washed it in HOTHOT water (the damage was moth holes), and it's relaxed into a lovely smooth yarn with a little bit of spring in it. Once it dries, I'm balling it up to get started on that shawl for me.
No idea what I'll make with the coffee-color yarn, but the wee bit I test washed already has a nice soft hand.
What got me started on finally frogging and recycling the sweaters (I've had them for over a year now) was sucking it up and rescuing the formerly lovely skein of cobweb weight chocolate brown romney handspun singles (mine, too, which makes what follows so much worse) that my dog ate. I untangled it, wound it into three small balls (she CHEWED the skein, how could she? Well, she's a DOG, and I should have locked my stash in a safe), and took another small skein of cobweb weight singles (this was a lovely purple, which I'd dyed myself ages ago), balled it up, and plied them up together into a nice sock weight 3-ply.
Not enough for a sock, of course, because they were sample skeins I'd done, but enough for an earband or something like that. Maybe I can pair it with the coffee-colored recycled yarn for something bigger...
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