*shown here in Verdana – blasphemy!

The other night we watched Helvetica, a documentary about that particular typeface, typography and graphic design, and their role in our culture. Graphic design was my major in college so I had fun watching famous designers talk about their intense typographic passions.

Like one of the designers in the movie, I was of the last generation to study graphic design pre-computers. Or at least that’s how I started; I witnessed the transition. Initially we had a full-time photo typesetter in the Visual Communications department. When we wanted to mock up a layout we would look at type books and either draw the letters by hand or else specify what we wanted her to generate for us. She printed the text on glossy photo paper and we used surgical scalpels to cut out the words and paste them in place. It was laborious.

When I started my degree there were two Apple Classics jammed in a corner of the animation studio. I used one once, during an afternoon computer introduction class. By the time I graduated half the print shop had been taken over by Macs running Quark, alongside a giant laser printer.

In my final year I was able to create a curve of text on-screen instead of by snipping the paper between each letter and then curving the tiny strip to shape, simultaneously trying not to get spray adhesive everywhere and my sleeve stuck to the page. A door opened too suddenly no longer meant half-an-hour on the floor, rounding up vital paper scraps.

Now obviously I love computers (or this blog wouldn’t be here) and designing layouts with current technology is dreamy in its ease. But watching the documentary took me back to the time I spent immersed in letterforms, and the physicality of building a layout with paper. Those techniques, while maddeningly slow, were in direct relationship with the materials, and that is how I work best. I like to build – with beads, with stitches, even with tiny strips of paper.

The cats have always exhibited a great disinterest in television, except for the one time when Annabelle went behind the set to see if she could catch the cheetah on the screen.

Winged Migration was on PBS last night, and this time Annabelle was watching. Pretty soon Wolfie came along. According to some highly unscientific polling favorites were the Dancing Cranes and King Penguins.

I’m listening to Dickens on tape. My favorite quote from Dombey and Son:

Paul sat as if he had taken life unfurnished
and the upholsterer were never coming.

Whenever I plant cuttings I think of The Plant Sitter. It’s a children’s book, about a little boy who takes care of his neighbors’ plants while they’re away on vacation.

One night he dreams that the plants grow out of control until they completely fill his house and knock down the walls. He goes to the library, reads gardening books, and prunes the plants, potting the cuttings and giving them to the neighbor children when they come home.

Repotting also makes me think of my favorite teacher in primary school who taught us how to care for green things; we had forty plants in our classroom. It pissed off the school administrator, who thought it was somehow damaging the building, and made us feel like we were on a mission, protecting the lives of the plants.

I’ve been tagged by Spirit Cloth for the “seven random facts/habits” meme, so here are mine:

1. I’m addicted to historical novels by Dorothy Dunnett. One outcome is that while reading on the subway, this

   
   
   has been visible to all, and I have been suffering the imagined indignity of being perceived as a romance reader.

2. …which leads me to my second thing. Whenever (rarely) I buy an issue of Martha Stuart Living, I feel as self-conscious as if I were buying porn. Perhaps these two really belong in a single “I get embarrassed while reading” category.
3. I keep and categorize beads which are faulty and unusable: a bowl of white pearls, one of stones, and one for colored pearls and glass.
4. Sometimes when I’m going to sleep I think, “Soon there will be coffee.”
5. As a child I had two guinea pigs called Gin and Tonic. I don’t know who named them. I like liquid G&Ts, but that came later.
6. I once shook hands with Lady Di.
7. I can write backwards.

I pass it on: the next stop will be, pink nest, miss frugality, the brown wall, and buddha is.

The Rules
Start with 7 random facts/habits about yourself.
People who are tagged have to write their 7 things on their blog, then choose another 7 people {or in my case as many as possible} to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment to tell them they have been tagged and to read your blog.

I’ve finally done what I set out to do when I enrolled in Wardrobe Refashion; I’ve made a pair of pants using the pattern in Wendy Mullin’s book Sew U.

This project had it’s trials, and some spur of the moment fitting solutions – such as narrowing the legs by restitching the side seams, and ripping out the topstitching in the rear in order to counteract some unattractive pooching – but I’m delighted with the finished, imperfect pants, with their slight jodhpur look. A friend said, “They look store-bought” and made my day.

I approach sewing in much the same way as I do cooking, with the attitude that every recipe is a sequence of simple tasks, and can’t possibly be too difficult. This may be inherited from my mother who can tailor a suit without blinking and shrugs off her skills as unimpressive, since despite my ambitious attitude I have never made more than the simplest of sewn garments.

For the most part I found Sew U to be a good guide. The book has a practical spiral binding, and the design is hip, with simple, informative illustrations. Wendy Mullin’s writing style is friendly and encouraging. She generously shares stories of her past sewing flops so that readers can avoid making the same mistakes. There are excellent descriptions of the steps involved in prepping and sewing a garment, and suggestions for how to personalize the three patterns included (for skirt, shirt and pants.)

However there were some real problems when it came to following the directions for sewing the pants. Several important steps are missing from the instructions, and I had to guess what the correct approach might be. Also I had to flip back and forth to earlier sections of the book, tracking down information on which areas to stay stitch, or figuring out the seam allowance, which is not printed on the pattern as promised.

I felt confused when prep that was heavily emphasized at the beginning of the book was skipped entirely in the directions. I had to guess whether this pattern was the exception, or whether the book assumed that I knew to do this. I resorted to writing in the steps as I figured them out, and sticking post-its on all relevant pages. Not ideal, but a working solution.

It’s possible that if I were a less experienced sewer, or a trifle less stubborn, I might have given up the project when figuring out the missing links became a challenge. That said, without this book I would not have had the courage to make any pants, and I am now a pant-sewing fiend.

I have the bug, and at the risk of turning into Celie from the Color Purple, I can’t wait to start my next pair. The only delay is which pair (dancing in my head) to make first. So, while Sew U may not be the best absolute beginner sewing book, it’s extremely encouraging, and contains enough general sewing advice to make it a worthwhile addition to any non-expert library.

I just watched Wings of Desire again. I saw the film shortly after it was made, and I remembered it as something I was supposed to like, rather than something I connected with. It’s good to let time pass.

This time I found the film incredibly moving. Angels walking among us listen to our thoughts and fears, and each person has a story which is vulnerable and unique. This reminded me of Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson; both are full of details so specific, and yet telling of universal experience. Descriptions of the sacred embodied.

I like that word. Swatch. Today I swatched. I shouldn’t have but I couldn’t help myself; once in a while this woman has to swatch.

The temperature has dropped to normal winter frostbite levels, and I find myself glove and mitten-less. I could buy a pair and be done but instead I’m lusting over the Endpaper Mitts from See Euny Knit!, which also look good over at Knitting Box. I could just knit them, but I can’t seem to leave a good pattern alone; I feel compelled to modify it. It’s not you, pattern, it’s me.

The flower and bird motifs are adapted from Knitting in the Nordic Tradition by Vibeke Lind. This book has a dull cover that looks out of date, but don’t pass it by if you’re a knitter, the content is juicy and inspiring.

Feel free to place bets on when my hands will be properly attired.

I felt a little under the weather yesterday so I spent the afternoon camped out in bed with herbal tea, a West Wing DVD, and a long-overdue sewing project.

Since July 2004 (long before I’d heard of any of the cool swaps that are happening in the craft/blog world - which isn’t really saying much since I’m invariably a late comer to these things) I’ve been exchanging small artworks with two friends, one in Maine, the other in upstate New York.

We call it Circle Play, the idea being that we explore (very loosely) the notion of “circle”, and the word “play” is a good reminder not to get too perfectionistic. We were inspired to start by a small book that S had found, and which P and I ran out and bought immediately.

It’s full of embroideries exchanged between two women in Denmark and the US - this little focussed project that went on for years. It seemed like such a great way to stay creatively connected to each other when we live so far apart. And to make experimental objects - things we might not make otherwise. We figured out what our parameters were and got started.

And it worked! After our first year we gathered for a weekend and laid our all our treasured experiments on a long dining table, covering it. I had forgotten so many of the pieces I’d made, and seeing them again was like coming back to a familiar place. With all the work together I could see the relationships between the months - unconscious similarities or repetitions of a theme, reuse of materials and colors.

Last year Circle Play slowed way down, all of us pulled in other directions. It’s been months since I received the last piece from P, and it’s been nagging at me, like a letter that needs answering. Yesterday I sat on my bed watching “good daddy president” Martin Sheen and started my reply. I’m not ready to show it yet so instead here’s my very first piece from 2004.