Archive for May, 2010

Dye kit (and a day’s adventures)

Sunday, May 16th, 2010

This weekend i pulled out my kit to see what was needed (trays for tray dying) and what i had misplaced. I don’t think i’ve technically misplaced my respirator, but it’s not in the dye kit. I expect it’s in the closet.

Over the past few weeks i’ve tied my shiburi/tie-die patterns in the rayon dresses and have been winding up skeins of crochet yarn on my experimental swift.

I hesitated this weekend to mix the dyes: it’s a very demanding week coming up and i don’t quite think i can be sure i can dye next Saturday as well. I need to make some decisions about dye intensities, quantities, and recipes, and i think i’m about ready to go.


IMG_0560Nightgown Tie patternNightgown Tie pattern
Old jeans dyebath layoutNightgown Tie pattern die lay-outNightgown Tie pattern die lay-out
Ad Hoc Yarn SwiftAd Hoc Yarn SwiftAd Hoc Yarn Swift

I did get a pleasant bit of cooking in. I’m glad i hadn’t yet cooked the baby artichokes i received in my organic box on Wednesday, because it wasn’t until yesterday morning that this recipe for a artichoke and orange salad with mint and saffron showed up in my reading list. I didn’t want to wait until i had slivered almonds and the right olives, so i made it anyway. I was in the mood for a warm dish, and couldn’t bear the thought of just draining off the saffron infused water the artichokes had been cooked in, so i added a bit of corn starch to thicken it and poured the warm dish over rice. Delicious.

IMG_0509Artichokes with Saffron and Oranges

After the cut, the dye kit inventory.
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Posted in To Dye For, Today's Log, Tools and techniques | 1 Comment »

A souvenir Deckbill from a lovely evening -or- adventures in producing a chapbook

Saturday, May 15th, 2010

One morning a few weeks ago i wrote about the previous evening in the form of a whimsical play. Christine was entertained, and, from the following conversation, this whimsical Land Mail Art Object project was born.

First run production

One of the interesting challenges was in the layout of the booklet or chapbook. I did not find basic templates available on the web. I spent some time figuring out how to formulate the final pagination of the booklet given a total number of sheets of paper used, N, for a particular sheet of paper, m.

  Left half Right half
Odd side 2N+2(N-m)+2 2m-1
Even side 2m P 2N+2(N-m)+1

I would have done my layout in Word, because text boxes can be connected so that the text will flow from one to the next. Unfortunately, i also wanted text running at right angles to the dominant flow, and i best know how to do that in the NeoOffice (OpenOffice) Draw program. I don’t know how useful this would be to others, but here’s a template that you may use freely and adapt as needed: ChapbookLayout.odg

I looked into the prices of having this produced at FedEx Kinkos and have concluded that even with the cost of a long arm stapler, good cover paper, and another color ink cartridge, i’d be better off printing and binding them myself.

The first ten are bound and ready to post, and i’ll be producing more as i post them in the mail. My plan is to produce no more than forty. [I will update this as i complete the production.]

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Posted in LMAO submissions | 1 Comment »