Gails Yarns, Hooks & Needles

Librivox entertains me with its vast library of books in audio format from the public domain. Turns out they get their content from places like Project Gutenberg, where books in the public domain (copyright has expired) are turned into e-books (read them on your computer monitor). Project Gutenberg has an even more vast library of books you can download for free. (Learn more at their site.)

Project Gutenberg says this about Distributed Proofreaders on the PG website:

Originally conceived to assist Project Gutenberg (PG), Distributed Proofreaders (DP) is now the main source of PG e-books.

It so happens I enjoy proofreading, so I registered at DP, and have been proofing up a storm. When I have proofed enough pages and take a quiz, and have been around long enough, I can proofread at a higher level, AND I can try my hand at formatting books already proofed. In ten days, I met two out of the three requirements. (The only hard part is getting started proofing.) It’s like a game, with a purpose.

Every time I have a question, someone is ready with an answer in the forums – and they are friendly! I didn’t need anything special, and I work online at their site. I have been registered two weeks, and if I never do anything else for them, I will still know I made a contribution. That pleases me. My statistics are available onsite so I can watch my progress. I like that, too.

Check them out if this sounds at all interesting to you. So far I have found that the books don’t always appeal to me, but I can gain experience just by trying out one or two pages of proofreading. The easiest pages so far have been the ones with topics I know a lot about. That helped me make a lot of progress because I was familiar with the language specific to those topics. All they ask is one page a day. I average 20 pages a day.

Not all the books are in English – I worked on one page from a Spanish-English dictionary, but I could work in Norwegian, or Itaian, or something else entirely. I don’t know half what there is to learn there. Go and see for yourself. Links above.

July 4 is when I will remove the sale prices from the Kauni Effect Yarn. It won’t make  a huge difference.

A few other prices may fall a bit.

I really appreciate Patrick E. McLean’s blog. And even better than the blog is his collected works — when you run out of Christmas cheer, there’s The War with Santa. When you’re in the mood for cheesy vampire, there’s The Vampire in My Face. (And you thought the only use for THAT SONG was RickRolling. Not so.)

There was this one time he teamed up with another Patrick and made a four episode production that is pure brain candy. Ladies and gentlemen, guys and dolls, customers and everybody else, I give you Patrick E. McLean and P.G. Holyfield in Flinchy and the Mexican Show Truck. You have got to hear these voices together, it’s aural Sweet-Tarts.®

More Laurel Hill products will arrive next week to fill in the holes in store inventory. They tell me that square knitting needles and other new items will be available in a few months. I look forward to bringing them to you.

A little while ago I went through and made all the Laurel Hill knitting needles invisible unless I have some in stock. Most of them I do not have right now, so that’s something the store needs – an order from Laurel Hill.

Originally I understood that the store showed the photo of the item and a notice that it was out of stock, but it turns out it shows the item as usual and does not say “out of stock” unless you try to order. I hate it when that happens to me, so I am in the process of changing it across the store.