Equinox

3 hours into it, reflecting on the past quarter.

Morning

Wonder what you reach out for?
And what you sit and wait for?

Makerial and Space

Buzz

Who needs sleep.
So much to do. And get done.

Perspective

When the machines are unplugged, when the noise stops, I do the slow work that needs to get done. It is likely that no one will know it has been done, but it would be noticeable to many if the work is not done. It seems to take so long. But when I look at the clock after doing the task, less time has elapsed than I imagined. This is time used well.

What did you do?
...not much...some people would call it "work" of some sort.

What did you get from it?
A new skirt - I added features that will enable me to wear and use it well: lining and pockets. Don't think that these don't make a difference. They make a huge difference. Hand sewing in key areas also makes a big difference with drape and fit.

In the quiet slowness of time, a few stories also came to me.

Pioneer Spring

Niiice. Bring it on.

Not Athena

Learning a new thing has given me the opportunity to rediscover the process that I need to make something.  Each step is required and is laden with opportunities to improve the piece.

A thought arises.  Why?  Would anyone else be interested?  2-3 reasons or points are noted with key words.  Maybe there's an ending sentence to the thought, or maybe the thought is an ending to another thought that will precede it.  What perspective or point of view would be most compelling?  There are usually several points of view with their own compelling perspectives.

*Compose a few lines of thought.  Compose series of lines of a particular thought.  Look and re-read, re-arrange and edit for spelling, grammar, sentence and compositional structure, then recopy.**

Repeat * to ** at least twice, deleting and adding more content as required.  Each iteration reveals areas to improve spelling, sentence structure, and reinforce ideas.  Sometimes the initial thesis gives rise to another thesis and the original thought moves to the background or offstage.

Handwriting leaves the physical writing and most of the notes on paper, rather than the frequent disappearing act that often occurs on a word processor.  A messy draft is liberating because the paper holds scripted ideas that I can choose to pick up later - or not.  Whereas if I obliterated them with a word processor, even with changes "tracked", my tendency would be to try to remember those initial thoughts, and trying to retain information, for me, hinders my ability to develop new thoughts.  Seeing physical overwrites also allows me to be direct (some might say "brutal") with corrections - if something is not correct or does not work, strikeouts and re-arrangements are scripted without removing the initial thought.

Yes it all looks clean and organized on a word processor as thoughts are recorded, however the handwritten process works for me despite the apparent chaos of diagrams, strikeouts and skewed lines of text.  Furthermore the tactile nature of putting pencil (HB) or pen (fountain) to paper engages a part of me that stimulates thoughts to flow.  It seems that the time needed to hand-write is what I need to allow my thoughts to develop.  The tempo of my thoughts and hands are connected and complementary.

In the end, the finished piece has arisen from of the initial drafts and diagrams that appear chaotic but are essential in the refinement needed to complete the piece.

Month 1: May-king

From the end of the month to the beginning, des images avec les mots suffisant:

Les batons de lavande.  Pour le coeur doucement.

An 8H loom is set up after a sample is produced, and aperitifs are decanted.

Spring is memorialized and knitted with intention, using Pioneer from the California Wool Project.

Salad Days are completed and gifted.

Some coastal action and adornment where the earth meets the sea.

A few performances are taken in classical venues. It's been a long time. Live performances are the best.

...and it began with germination.

Ethos

Tonight I heard Meejin Yoon speak at UC Berkeley about early and recent work. It was refreshing to see architecture steeped in the ethos of "making".

The question is WHY is this so refreshing - when in fact it should never have been ignored or deleted from the architects' skill-set?

Those in the audience who regard "making" as a novel idea are likely out of touch with the way things get done in the real world.

Blue Moon

Plans for the moment:
_finish dresses, insert labels
_writing goal: a page a week of personal content, a page a week of professional content
_warp with multiple colors and widths for color studies
_devolve old clothes: make quilt material or get rid of them
_try another new venture

...for those who DO

"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”

― Andy Warhol

Book

Repository
Quality
Discerning
Ubiquitous iPod and iPhone
Film
Digital
Backlit electronic images
The smell of the printed page
Physical impressions of letterpress
The feel of the page as fingered
the weight of the page as it is
turned and
falls
Binding appropriate to the book
Proportions: length, width, thickness
Layout of images
Color balancing
A box slipcase for a bed

Esse

Photo by Bill Martin, Berkeley, April 12, 2012

How does something come to be?
It's precipitated through volition.

And a charge or flash coalesces the mass so that it can come forward with its own life.

If it's not delivered, not fed, not recognized, or if it's abandoned, then it dies.
Or maybe it mutates into something else - but the original form, for which it was intended, deforms.

And we're told to hawk this as a "design feature."

Photo by Phil McGrew, San Francisco, April 12, 2012

Warmth

Something about the color, I think.

Whether it's from mutant-kumquat-sour-orange citrus that gets made into marmalade.
(8C peels+juice+water + 2C water. Add equal volume of sugar, of which 20-25% is turbinado/demerara sugar. Total yield is 10C.)

...or it's AVFKW's Slick in Transnational Fury that flows through my hands...

...and gradually turns into Ysolda's Angostura.

Mad

There's a mad woman chopping things in the kitchen again with knives and a cleaver that she sharpened slowly until they rang with their sharp songs. She drove hundreds of miles from one place to another within the space of a day and left a swath of cars behind her. She walks taller, acts more deliberately, and has become more resolute in the past few weeks. And she's losing weight as she sheds things that are no longer relevant.

Busting some moves

During the past two weeks, gears aligned and a dance to the groove of the times kicked in.

A gift of many large kumquats (could they be calomondins?) was received, thank you IL. They were home- grown and hand-picked about 100mi from the Bay Area. 3Q were washed, soaked, then cooked in a heavy syrup that included honey.

Yields and their composition will be filled in when I retrieve my notes (I hope I took notes). 6-1C + 3-1.5C+1.5&1C syrup. In 2-2L jars: 2.5#+1large meyer lemon+_pinot grigio+_gin+1/2C light rum+_sugar. Cranberry-kumquat sauce in 1L+1Cjar.

Experiments in bag-making were resurrected and came together, complete with labels. I decided to keep one for myself.

These hats were inspired by Wurm on Ravelry and Starmore’s patterns.

Limoncello and cherried brandy have been quietly working their magic for nearly six months, and they were decanted and bottled. The cherries were not going to be consumed in one day so I topped them off with more brandy, of course.

And on Christmas day, the board was presented for the table of 14. Butterflied, brined, and roasted turkey, with potatoes and onions instead of stuffing. Thanks to everyone for their contributions of cured salmon, honey-baked ham, green beans, and desserts.

Dessert did not sit still or last long enough to get photographed. Note that next year we will need more lime pies.

The next day, "boxing day," I looked for the small pretty boxes that enclosed gifts. I wondered what to do. Projects were completed yet others waited. I’d finished reading a book, too. The list I make for myself for reference during these unoccupied times suddenly seemed overwhelming.

Eventually I decided to start a small work, adapted from L. Upitis’s Latvian Mittens. I had to rack my memory for the demonstration of multicolored and braided knitting given by B.B.Reinsel several years ago during a Stitches West class. My memory failed me so I went back to basics, held yarn like a 7-year old and slogged through the 3-color portion of the cuff. I kept the floats on the outside and had to consciously remind myself to relax, which is not typically relaxing for me. Ok so it was an exercise. I decided to cut later for the thumb.

This was completed on the 29th and turned out ok, outside and inside. I’m accepting that this may be a unique (i.e. mate-less) mitten without a thumb; it has a lot of thoughts imbued in it, though, and that’s what this is all about for me anyway.

I still had a lot of giant kumquats. So I started chopping them up. In the scale of citrus, giant kumquats are still very small compared to small lemons – maybe 4 kumquats to a lemon, volume-wise. Even with my resolve, chopping these guys became tedious, and I marveled at the number of seeds they had. I had to focus so that I would not inadvertently cut myself.

Eventually I had 5C chopped but the backlog didn’t seem to diminish. So I juiced a lot of what remained. I boiled the peels for 10min and let them soften for a day. The pectin was significant so I added 1C of the squeezed juice and 1/2C water before measuring, adding an equal amount of sugar, cooking to jam state (approx. 20min) and putting up in jars.

Yields 7C with flavor so intense it could go into 4oz jars but not anything larger than 8oz jars.

Happy New Year! It’s time to think of some resolutions and commitments that I can live with.

Little things

I'm working on little things.

I'm making small jars of jelly, small batches of jam, small swatches of knitted stitches with thin needles and thinner yarn, and a small foray into a hat. As I read the hat pattern I think of two or three ways to make it. But the problem is that I'm so busy thinking that I'm not doing. So I take the leap and "just do it", knowing that no outcome is ever going to be realized unless it is started. I take notes as I move along. I've been misled and seen failure too. Those things are put to the side or get torn and ripped apart.

And occasionally I'll take the "hair of the dog"(1) with a wild belief that I'll be inoculated.

(1) hairs of the dog that bit you applied to the wound will prevent evil consequences

Binding

The start of something new.

The cover has a little niche for a title plate.

The book lies flat. The pages are heavyweight, with little sizing, and they are soft. Deckled edges alternate with cut edges. A ribbon tie was added.

The binding is exposed. There are six sections, each with four folded sheets.

The sections are sewn together with waxed linen thread using the Coptic stitch.

This is made to be used. I promise myself not to leave these pages blank.

Make

My fingers Emit sparks of fire with Expectation of my future labours.

--William Blake

Transformer: the Charkha

Spinnity's Book Charkha

Spinnity showed me a marvelous thing called a Charkha.

The charkha embodies the utility of industrial engineering design as a linchpin to global and local economics and social change.

During the turn of the century, India, which was under British colonial rule, produced cotton and exported it to Britian, who produced fabric and clothing and sold it back to India at a cost higher than India could afford. Gandhi saw that India could become more self-sufficient if they produced fabric from their own cotton.

Charkha: setting the spindle

In order to do so, spinning cotton fiber was essential. The charkha is a compact spinning device that rose in prominance when Gandhi promoted its use amongst the populace: anyone and everyone could spin fiber.

The charkha is a design marvel. It is compact, lightweight and very portable. Components are made of readily available, easily malleable and replaceable material. The drive-to-output ratio is extremely high, about 1:100; there is an efficient use of energy input to output.

Charkha: spinning

Charka: winding on



Charkha: poonis and setting the reel

Charkha: reel in motion



Spinnity's Book Charkha





The charkha contains a world in itself.