Tablet Weaving Links

Here are some links:

• Durham Weaver--Susan Foulkes makes all the bands--tablet weaving, Sami bands, Baltic and Scandinavian pattern bands, Middle Eastern designs, tape weaving....kumihimo, and she weaves cloth, too. If you want to see amazing small looms, check out her blog and her books.
• Tablet Weaving in Theory and Practice: Catherine Weaver's active blog features tablet patterns she's currently working on, as well as a library of her pattern drafts. You can find links to her self-published books, and learn about Tablet Weaving Draft Designer,  browser-based pattern drafting software that is currently kept up and improved upon.
• TWIST--Tablet Weavers International Studies and Techniques--doesn't  look too interesting, unless you join in for $10 a year membership, but with membership you get journal archives back to 1996, current journal downloads, loads of articles from archaeology to tips and tricks, and a chance to contribute words or samples if you wish.
• Reddit Tablet Weaving and Ravelry Tablet Weaving Group--Active groups, with advice and encouragement for beginners, things for sale, "in search of" notices, and show & tell opportunities.

Advice for beginners--handouts from enthusiastic tablet weaving instructors

• Silk&Quill handouts and videos
  
• Shelagh Lewins' help for beginners
  
• Figured Double-faced Weave
• Elewys of Fingingefel

Here are some videos on youtube:

• Tablet Weaving for the Absolute Beginner--SCA  stalwart Elewys can get you started
  
• Warp Weighted Weaving Scandinavia--collection of videos of Sami weavers using a band-based warp-weighted loom to make traditional very warm blankets.
  
• 5 Ways of weaving narrow bands--Susan Foulkes demonstrates five different loom possibilities.
  
• Living room tablet warping--circular warp strung between two doorknobs, no muss, no fuss, done in just a few minutes.
• Backstrap weaving with tablets--not in the same room as above, but done with the same ease.
  
• Backstrap tablets in Sulawesi island, Indonesia--3 minute video with a quick look at backstrap patterned cloth as well as traditional tablet weaving at home.

Anybody out there?

 Still  here  on the ridge....

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How the Camera Got Knocked Down

We went to the first annual Highland County Old Time Fiddlers' Convention last weekend, and left our cherry trees unattended. When we got home, we found the trail camera dangling upside down from its tree. Fortunately, we were able to reconstruct what happened. Bear sees camera....

Bear investigates camera....

Camera gets a tree bark closeup.

This bear visited earlier, but caught wind of the ripe cherries instead of the digital camera.

Bigfoot Enigma Solved

I think this is the solution to our Bigfoot game camera puzzle. Our cherries are ripe, and along with foxes, scarlet tanagers, raccoons, ravens, possums, cedar waxwings, and orchard orioles, bears are dropping by for chow time. This year, we have a sow with a very small, very cute cub. (No photos...yet.)

Check the bad hair day on this fellow's hindquarters, as he bolts past the salt lick.

The deer show no interest in cherries, but this gal seems ready for her close-up.

Latest Bigfoot Sighting on Droop Mountain (Or Is It the Mothman?)

Our game camera pictures have been plentiful, and much alike. These deer visit regularly. However, Monday morning, the camera caught this:

Seconds later, whatever it was, it was gone.

Was it a bear having a bad hair day? Was it the the Mothman? (If so, he's a long way from Point Pleasant.) We decided it was probably Bigfoot. After all, the BFRO's 2006 sighting on the Greenbrier River Trail was so convincing that they mounted a return expedition in 2008. Of course, we can't rule out the possibility that it was the Yayho, as described by Burl Hammons.

Removing a Broken Package in Debian Sid

Recently, my Debian "sid" boxen developed a problem during a routine update/upgrade process. There was some incompatibility among the various programs I'd installed for a local LAMP test kitchen. I'm not using it, so I tried to remove the whole mess, but I kept getting a message like this at the end of every aptitude command, regardless of what programs were involved.

root@britomartis:/home/rebecca# aptitude remove php5-mysqlnd
The following packages will be REMOVED:  
  php5-mysqlnd 
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 495 kB will be freed.
(Reading database ... 123342 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing php5-mysqlnd ...
/var/lib/dpkg/info/php5-mysqlnd.prerm: 9: /var/lib/dpkg/info/php5-mysqlnd.prerm: php5dismod: not found
dpkg: error processing php5-mysqlnd (--remove):
 subprocess installed pre-removal script returned error exit status 127
Errors were encountered while processing:
 php5-mysqlnd
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
A package failed to install.  Trying to recover:

After a couple of weeks' Googling and reading, I happened on Force Uninstall a package in Debian/Ubuntu:

The solution is to head over to /var/lib/dpkg/info and find the package in question. There should be a file with .prerm at the end of it. In the case of xulrunner-1.9 the file is called xulrunner-1.9.prerm. Edit the file and change it's contents so it just says:

#!/bin/sh
set -e

After that the standard command will work:

I did that--I edited /var/lib/dpkg/info/php5-mysqlnd, so that it had just those two lines, and was rewarded with this:

root@britomartis:~# aptitude remove php5-mysqlnd
The following packages will be REMOVED:  
  php5-mysqlnd 
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 495 kB will be freed.
(Reading database ... 123342 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing php5-mysqlnd ...
                                         
Current status: 0 broken [-1], 0 updates [-1].