I've been working on a Bibliography for my blog, for which you'll find a link in the sidebar.
This has entailed reading back through all my blog posts and running back and forth to the book shelves to check details. It's a task I was indirectly prompted to do by Leigh - who asked several months ago if I would think about joining up to the Library Thing. I had time this week to look at Leigh's books on the Library Thing (click on the tag on her blog page). She's listed 133 books - that's a lot of work, well done Leigh! I realised I already had lots of book details in my blog pages, and for some of them I've written reviews, or some information about why they interest me, so the "Bibliography" link seemed a sensible way way for me to organise information about my library.
I spent a few days trying to work out how to make nice page tags, as I've seen Leigh and several other bloggers using, but after three days of reading my book on html and css and other people's source code I'd had enough and took a short cut. The Bibliography is made in a blog post that I gave a posting date to that pre-dates my first blog entry, and then it was easy to link to this page and easy to find it for editing.
One of the interesting things I discovered in the process of this task was which books I have written about, and which I have omitted. Ahh! Now I am well set to write about the rest of the books on my shelf, so you can expect more reviews in 2009. There's only 62 books in my bibliography, far more than that on the shelf, and I ordered another 4 weaving books just yesterday (!)
Something else I did this week was to read back through all my posts for 2008. Not because I particularly like to dwell on history, but because I've had flu for two weeks and not felt much like doing anything else! I was interested to re-discover how much I have done, and learnt, in the past 12 months. This has to be another good reason for keeping a blog. Sometimes I feel very frustrated at my lack of progress, like many hobby weavers the day job(s) seem a great obstacle to my ambitions.
Good news for 2009 is I have (as of 20th December) cut the day jobs down to just one (a year ago I had three jobs, cut in July to two) and my going out to work week is down from six days to four. Hurray! Will this mean more weaving time? I hope so.
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7 comments:
I just noticed you run Linux. What weaving software do you use? I am an avid reader a seldom comment poster. I look forward to your blog posts for the reviews and educational material.
Thanks! and Happy New Year 2009
Hi Laritza, I must refer you to Leigh for her discussions of weaving software and Linux, she has tried out various packages using "WINE" which enables Linux users to run Windows software under Linux. Look in her blog index under "Weaving" for "Weaving Software".
I have a dual boot computer, which means that when I turn on I select either Linux or Windows. So far I have only used weaving software under Windows, and only freebies, although I may purchase something this year.
Happy weaving in 2009!
I'm so sorry to hear you've had the flu. Rotten time of year to be sick.
I like Library Thing okay, especially being able to put my own key words and search terms in for each book. I've used that on occasion already. But I really like your bibliography link. More comprehensive and more valuable information there than Library Thing enables.
Do you use classic blogger or a template? I use classic and just copied the source code from another classic blog for the tabs. If you use a template, you may find the code in blogger help group. Or google it!
Hi Dorothy,
Just like to say that I really like to read your blog. Sorry to hear that you have been ill over the last few weeks. Hopefully you are feeling a lot better by now. Enjoy your decision to cut out one of your jobs hopefully giving you lots of weaving time to play with.
Have a good weaving year ahead of you!
greetings Margreet
Hi Dorothy,
Sorry you have had the flu. This lot seems to have been quite nasty
Look forward to more posts now you have a four day week job !
Thank you for you the two lovely blogs on bibliography, such a good idea, and on colour theory. I really enjoyed both. I wonder whether colour theory started when synthetic dyes were first used. Most of the old books you mentioned seem to date from that period, ( 1840's onwards) However I don't know what they used for the gobelin tapestries then so that theory may not stand up. The reason I say about that is that I don't think that natural dyes can be combined well with colour theory. My experience is that natural dyes work together. For example if you have a range of colour from one dye and different mordants or two dyes that have been combined they work together and colour theory can be thrown out the window( well more or less -some is useful)
The best advice I ever came across came from Sylvia Cosh book on free form crochet. She said that every time you saw a colour combination that you liked stop for a moment and take time to look at and work out what it is you like. Often, I found, it is a tiny bit of colour in contrast that lifts the whole. her colour sense was I think quite outstanding so I was very happy to follow her advice.
I learnt a lot from her and also from an artist, the husband of a friend of mine who also had superb colour sense and several of whose picture I have so I so often look at how he puts colour together.
I love colour. :) When I see a combination that works for me I feel it emotionally as sense of excitement and satisfaction combined. I absolutely agree with you about the book neither of us will mention. If it is the one I think it is I think it is very overrated!
Many Thanks and hope you feel better soon- I have been in hospital with pneumonia and am only now recovering so I sympathise.
Wishing you and the cats a happy healthy new year.
Just wanted to say, I like reading your blog, especially your very thourough and informative book revies. I'm really glad you made that bibliographic page, now it's much easier to find books I know you wrote about.
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