code / feelings / diy
The strange capitalization puts a lot of emphasis on that capital letter A, and the A is backwards. It’s across a parking lot from a really nice, gigantic, properly-oriented capital A, so you’d think whoever put up that sign would know better. I’m open to the possibility that this was an intentional, very subtle message about the nature of coffee Art, but that makes me even less inclined to go inside.
I walk by this as often as possible, at St. Andrew’s Elementary School. Jauntiest little letter in town.
There are a lot of handpainted apartment doors in my neighbourhood. I should take better pictures of them.
Two Rs that almost match, two 4s that almost match. Repetition with variation might be the Christopher Alexander design thought that I remember most often. I’ve always been into collections of similar objects, and think the slight variations are the root of my fascination. Add them all together and you can see the spectral range of a Rockridge R, or of 1044’s 4s. They put each other in context. I’ve never thought of handwriting as a collection of similar-but-not-quite-the-same objects, but indeed it is.
I’m with Mark Frauenfelder— a live ukelele weirdo beats the pants off any radio. Who watches that ad and wants to hang out with Mr. Grouchypants?
This reminds me of the Most Wanted/Unwanted Songs project, where researchers attempted to create the most agreeable and disagreeable songs in the history of the world. The disagreeable one was a 25-minute, bagpipe-Opera-rap with clip-clop noises and a chorus of children, and it was awesome. I’ll take that over a bland, romantic, R’n‘B duet any day. Marketing focus groups don’t see things that way, I guess.
I can’t stop watching the ukelele ad. The little white socks!
Pam sent me a link to this article about hipster parents who are convinced they have tapped into eternal youth. They’ve got the same fashion and music as kids who are 18 or 20, so they figure they’ll be permanently in touch with Kids These Days, including their own.
When you read that article, can you see the veil waiting to be lifted? Vanity is tangible. (Shiver— do I know where mine is right now?)
I have a morbid fascination with hipsters that I’m trying to figure out, obviously. I don’t exactly fit the definition, but I can pass (at this moment I’m wearing sassy glasses and listening to The Fiery Furnaces while making websites and living with an indie musician, for example). I suspect my hipster fascination means there’s some part of me I’m not quite comfortable with.
It might be about identifying with a subculture I don’t entirely support, about not being analytical or conscious enough about my lifestyle. I’m on a real radical-awakenings kick this month, which I know has been simmering unnamed for a long time. A big part of my cringing about hipsters might be that I find the consumerism, nostalgia and vanity really disappointing, but I don’t really know what to do about it or how to be Out and Loud about that stuff, which I suspect is an important thing to do.
Oh, settling into my identity! Forgetting to do it for awhile and then catching up! (That’s a song.)
I propose psychotherapy as the official gift for Mother’s Day and other family holidays. So fitting! So amusing!
As explained last week, I have moved from an obsession with dressing like a jellyfish to action!
I made this comfy dress to remind me of puffy bodies, ruffles and streamers. I was pretty sure it was possible to make jellyfish shapes into flattering clothes, but it’s good to confirm that kind of thing. This is the dress that prooves my concept (to myself). The age of cnidarian wardrobe staples has begun!
The best part! This dress ate the following out of my stash:
The only thing I bought was extra thread. (I hope the scope of my stash is becoming clear to you, along with the motivations for my stash manifesto. Ripped bedsheets? Seven years? My collection is ripe, and must be harvested.)
I used the same strategy I like for web design: make the smallest thing that could work, and add things as necessary. I don’t know much about sewing, so I just tried on pieces in the mirror a lot, to see how they might fit together.
The final cuts looked like this, but I worked it out a little at a time by making the biggest parts first and trying to conserve fabric.
The puffy skirt was the clearest part of my jellyfish vision, so I started by sewing a tube using the full length of the sheet, and the width between the hole and the notches.
I gathered each end with elastic to make the tube easy to get on and off and to make sure I could still walk in the cinched skirt. In the mirror, it looked like it needed a ruffle on the bottom, so I added a ruffle on the bottom.
As soon as I tried on the ruffled prototype, I could see how this dress would be both jellyfishy and pretty cute, and there was much excited prancing around in a retro floral potato sack. Galen and Marc get bonus points for being supportive and inquisitive, even though I interrupted the business meeting they were having in the kitchen, and, as they later admitted, neither of them had any idea where I was going with this “it’s a bag/it’s a dress/it’s a man-o-war” design.
The remaining fabric had notched corners where I had cut the elastic out of the fitted sheet. I held one notched end up to my chest as a potential bodice, just trying to be thrifty by starting at the end instead of the middle.
The notch happened to make a decent armhole, and the narrow part wrapped around to the middle of my back. That seemed like an easy solution, so after some draping and measuring in the mirror, I cut a matching notch for my other arm.
Rather than mess with facings, I cut a second identical piece and sewed the two together. I.e., I made a something that felt like a pillowcase.
I only attached the bodice along the front of the skirt, to leave room for the elastic to stretch over my hips when I stepped into the dress. To accomodate, I hand-sewed little hooks and eyes under the back of the bodice to keep the skirt up.
This turns out to be a ridiculous fastening strategy, and there is no way I can get it on or off by myself. (The armholes are too snug to wiggle into or out of with the buttons done up, so I can’t twist it around backwards.)
The bodice looked cool from the front, and buttoned together at center back, but the shoulders weren’t attached to anything. Adding straps seemed like the easiest solution.
I thought stubby, straight straps would look like an apron or a work dress rather than glamorously submarine, so I made the straps extra long and let them hang down from the shoulder seams.
When I looked in the mirror, it needed a sash. So I added a sash. I need to learn to tie it in a pretty bow.
Any seamstress could look at these photos and deduce that I have no idea how to sew. Parts of the dress ride up, buckle, wrinkle, tug, sag, etc. I think I learned a lot for next time, especially about bodices (so that’s why side seams are sloped…), and I got a jellyfish dress that fits securely and comfortably out of the experience. Verdict: success! Sewing and I might just become friends.
My dragonfruit plants should be turning about 4 years old soon. I grew them from seeds I scooped out of a fruit from Chinatown. Supposedly, they are climbing jungle cacti, and will bear dragonfruits, so I cut them a lot of slack about being tiny and idiotic. (Check out that guy in the back. That is a four year old plant that is smaller than the seed of a garden pea!)
Puny-ness notwithstanding, my cacti friends are cool to look at. I’m sure if I put them in a more proportional pot I wouldn’t have to defend them against the teasing of houseguests, but they are so fragile that I’m afraid to exhale too forcefully when I’m near them, nevermind dig them up and move them around. (It has taken four years to get one of them to peek over the edge of the pot. If I kill any now, I don’t think I’ll have the stamina to try again.)
Ever since the seeds sprouted, my dragonfruit have exhibited permanent puberty. Every new growing phase looks like some kind of embarrassing crotch development. (Oh, what you must think of me.) Those spiny branches first emerged as a hairy patch between their first pair of leaves, for example. Now, the two largest specimens are producing little erections. Cute, huh?
