A productive Sunday

Well, I spent another extended, quality day in the home office.

I started the morning by working on an archive project for Knit Together. I've been taking 2 or 3 copies of each issue for the past six years and sorting them by page/subject. For example, I have all the covers in one section, all the editorials in another, all the Canadian Knitter and Canadian Designer and LYS features in three other sections and so on. I have a section for interest pieces, one for anything that mentions the Knitting Accreditation Program, and a section for any knitting technique pieces. Before today, I had only got as far as August, 2005. Today I got most of 'the majors' right up to date. I still have to file a few technical pieces and general interest bits. This project came about from a fear of running the same editorial twice.

What set me off on this little segue was an effort to find the last listing of successful Level 1 Knitting Accreditation participants. What I found shocked me, so now, I've started a new document to track the history of the Knitting Accreditation Program. I'm telling you, there's a lot to this guild thing! You have to have systems in place to make sure you catch everything, and at the same time, you have to have systems in place to make sure you don't repeat anything!

After lunch I began marking three of the four KAP packages I have in-house. As it happened, the fourth package is actually a Level 2 test knitting package back in already! Man, you guys are keen! But, I digress.

Since the last batch of KAP announcements were made in Knit Together in May, 200seven, ten more packages have been evaluated. Eight of these participants were successful; only two had to re-examine a few of the exercises. Trivia answer: it takes just over 2 hours, on average, to mark one level package.

I am honoured to see the calibre of work coming back in through the program, and wish everyone could be in my shoes when I crack open those boxes and packages. The boxes I marked today will be mailed out with Knit Together, hopefully later in the week. I have the final draft in my hands... we're down to the odd hyphen and apostrophe fix now, but the real holdup has been the new batch of covers... they take time to dry, and the artwork needs a final OK, too.

In the front 'yard' the mergansers have been all over the nesting box. 'Tis the season! We have one hooded who has been hanging out with a female merganser. There are buffleheads, too. The photo at the right is a couple male buffies. Darling has taken over 500 photos of ducks this year, but this pic is from last year.

Darling has taken to doing water colour paintings of his beloved birds. It gives him something to do while I'm writing and marking. Yesterday morning we did get some yard work done. Right now we have the teensy 'snow flies' as Darling calls them. They're not bad to deal with, but we've got a two week window to get as much done as we can before the blackflies come out. THEY're a problem.