Author / Sixer

by Sixer

For the Win

They say a pictures’s worth a thousand words, but I rarely find that to be true. Oh sure, there’s Eduard Charlemont’s Harem Guard,but really, for a reader, can any image could be worth a thousand words? And if I feel that way from merely reading them – a passive stranger wandering around another’s carefully constructed world – how much more do I feel it 29 days later, after having written 50,000 of them?

Of course, a picture is a done and complete thing which I am not ashamed to share with you, and neither of these things can be said about the sorry mess of writing that has now earned the endearment of “my book.” Totaling over 100,000 poorly spelled and hastily chosen words, it is more like Frankenstein’s monster, half formed on the table, than anything else. The point of view shifts like the colors of the monster’s skin, from scene to scene and back again. And, more pressing from a critical standpoint, the plot drops in and out of sight like the float on a fishing line once the pike has gotten a hold of the hook. It’s rather embarrassing how pleased I am with it. Thank you everyone, for your encouragement to continue writing, and for giving me a place to gloat about it. Maybe in a year or two I’ll be able to present it whole and worth a thousand pictures.

by Sixer

Fall into Observation

Here’s another Camera 360 shot. It contains basically everything I hate in a FO (Finished Object) photo. That is, my posture is akward, the colors and lighting have been played with mercilessly, and look! On purpose blurring! What is this, a cover for Vogue?

Leaning Into the Fog

The picture was taken by the Geekette’s sister, who is awesome enough that she deserves her own name (the mad editing is my own). We three had a crazy-fun, impromptu photo-shoot with her iPhone a week or so ago. A hasty request last night, a short text, and suddenly I have photos of the belt in action. Yes, the belt is the thing on display here, reader. Here it is in a more utilitarian shot:

IMG_0321

I’m rather pleased with it. The pattern was discovered simply by searching for “obi,” and you can get it here. I modified it in that I cut out double of everything, sewing all the pieces right sides together and then turning them out to hide the seams. The pattern was easy, but I still managed a couple of beginner mistakes. The most obvious is that I didn’t change my thread from pink to green. Who’s going to see it? I thought. So now I have delicate pink stitches peeping out from the edges of my deep green belt.

I eventually gave in and rethreaded the machine, but not the bobbin

Luckily they seem to be pretty invisible from a distance. I’m also having an on-going issue with puckering seams. I assume this is some kind of tension/feeding problem, but none of my knobs are fixing it. I have a sinking feeling my sewing machine needs its under half cleaned and oiled. My other trouble was with matching sides. I still have no idea what actually happened, but at one point I seemed to have four tie pieces, all with the right side exactly the same (instead of having two of them flipped). I think I spent twenty minutes trying to figure out how this was possible, and ended up just pinning up two pairs and cutting new tips.

IMG_0325

The other change I made was lining the stomach with an awesome light-but-stiff purple fabric, which I think of as acrylic organza. I was gifted a whole bolt of it. It’s quite special to me, as it was used as the back drop for a wedding between two very dear long time friends. I like thinking that little bits of their commitment are being used here and there around my house, as if by such constant incorporation their bound is being strengthened. Poetics aside, my intention was to stiffen the belt so that it wouldn’t scrunch or wrinkle as easily. Though the organza helped a bit, next time I make this belt I will definitely use a heavier fabric. I would also shorten the stomach by an inch. My notable areas are quite brief, and the belt spreads beyond the borders of my waist, giving it another excuse to fold up at the edges as I move throughout my day.

 

Random Vegetable Stew: Pool of olive oil, one onion, three cloves of garlic, a medium bit of potato, four stalks of celery, a handful of turnip and kale greens from the farm, two mild peppers from the farm, three pepperoncini, a dollop of remaining frozen spinach, bonito stock powder, miso, fish sauce, random seasining from an instant curry kit now stored in a glass jar.

No, this is not a belt

 

 

 

 

by Sixer

Boldly As It Is

I’m having such fun playing with my new camera. I’m testing out the free apps available for the iPhone so I can edit pictures on the go (one less excuse not to blog!). Hilariously, my computer is so old that I can’t use iCloud to wirelessly share photos between it and my phone. Talk about a generation gap. 

Anyway, here’s Camera360 in action:

IMG_0119 IMG_0120

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the greek circle in our wonderful “towne” center{{1}} [[1]]the ‘e’ has no sound but lots of weight[[1]]. I love it. It’s filled with kitschy little boutiques and high-class, once-in-a-while restaurants. The very bricks seem to smile when I walk over there, and as it is an easy walking distance from work I often do a little window shopping during my lunch break. It’s a great place to practice photography, but I have to get over being camera shy first. I swiped the photo above in a hasty second before shoving the phone back in my purse and checking to see if anyone saw me. Not that the people there care, but annoyingly I do.

 

Anyway, this is actually a productivity post. Yes, I’m info-dumping on you and not even trying to hide it. Shameless. My current projects include a simple Pink Blouse, New Look 6628, in a slightly stretchy cotton. My grandmother helped me place the pattern and cut out the pieces (in *cough* August *cough*). I’ve completed the front and back and just need to tackle the collar and button band before putting the whole thing together.

 

Then there’s the Floral dress:

IMG_0121

Look at that french seam! I’m aiming for a wearable muslin for this. Honestly I think the fabric is better suited for pajamas than day wear; however, I’m hoping that with the right accessory I can make it outside-appropriate, because this dress is going to be stunning. At least on the inside. Using Project Runaway 2848, the garment has those long, uninterrupted vertical seams which I love, and kangaroo pockets, which I’m conflicted about. Pockets are always good, and these are just the right size, but do I really want a pouch right on my stomach?

I’m less indecisive about the yards of yummy fabric now safely stashed in my closet. My grandmother gave me A LOT of fabric when I was down there last. I don’t have plans for all of it yet, rather I’m focusing on growing my skills and techniques. My sewing goals right now are simply to learn how and to get a better grasp on all the spatial awareness/3D stuff which I’m constantly blanking on. I do want to get into the habit of matching fabrics and patterns. My first real knitting project, I attempted to make delicate, finger-weight wristlets out of the bulkiest yearn in the store. I still struggle with this tendency to ignore the potential of my materials in pursuit of a imaginary final result. Which brings me to slowing down. As a product-crafter I’m always trying to rush through a project and cut corners. This might possibly work for experienced seamstresses, and moms, but can only mean complete disaster for this spatial-lightwieght. So meticulous attention to detail and a journey-over-destination mentality are major priorities.

Of course, the real joy is the finished object . . . . . .

by Sixer

Still Life

Deep down inside I should have known, Reader, that my next post would be one of wordy soliloquy, meandering slowly down the page, heavy and heady and yet monotonous. You’ll have noticed by now that I have not redone the colors of my blog. The font size, also, still needs to be fixed. However, through no effort of my own, I do have one visual improvement to share with you.

Bunny-eared Bento

It always strikes me as funny when someone one says “Excuse me for the phone photo.” I think most phones these days take better pictures than the last three cameras I had. And since it means I can let my idea of sketching photos and scanning them in slip silently away, stillborn, I find no need to apologize. This camera is enough for my needs – I’m looking forward to learning how to use it better. First thing to get used to will be the annoying lack of fiddly buttons. Is it a by product of being a rather wordy person that makes me think one stingy little button is not enough? Or is it just because I like the feeling of a manual zoom?

Angles are tasty

These bentos illustrate one of my on-going battles with photography, one I’ve had with every camera I’ve ever used. Proper color -– why is it so hard to achieve? And what’s up with these filter options? Three options for black and white, and three dedicated to different “vintage” “feels.” That leaves normal, saturated (called chrome), and faded. These choices confuse me a little, especially since the phone is obviously capable of, say, inverting the color (you can do it through the accessibility menu, but it applies the filter to the whole phone. Bummer). For these I’ve used iPhoto to add a little blue, which seems to bring the color closer to reality.

Oh, but the bento. These were for lunch and dinner on Tuesday. The top, lunch one, contains rice with red pepper and carrot confetti, all-season pickles, tamagoyaki, and sausage. And a lone umeboshi from the container I bought ages ago. Do these things ever go bad? I hope not, ’cause I’m not sure I’ll be able to tell the difference. The shredded veggies are really good refrigerator pickles, except I inevitably bought lettuce instead of cabbage. It doesn’t matter how old I am, for some reason my brain refuses to distinguish between these two, and I’m forever  buying one when I mean to buy the other. Can we chalk it up to poor facial recognition?

Pale yellow and black - photographer's nightmare.
As for the dinner bento, it is a study in subtlety, a sophisticated sort of bland. Rice, layered with polenta on one side and black olives on the other. I tried spicing things up, visually and otherwise, by adding more of the confetti as a heart. And, surprisingly, the mild flavors were pretty good warmed up. I’m starting to accept this polenta, though initially I thought it tasted vile. The recipe called for a cup of parmesan, and in my white bread world parmesan is the dry flakes you get from a plastic shaker.

Nothing is supposed to taste like a cup of spaghetti topping.

However, I do like the idea of polenta as a bento staple. Next time I’ll just leave the parmesan out. I’d also like to try it with grittier corn meal. All the recipes I looked at (all two of them) called for “medium grade” cornmeal, but my grocery store only had fine and not-fine. Nothing labeled medium. I think this fine is fine, but I’m betting the not-fine is what everyone else is recommending. Color me curious, I’m definitely planning on trying it out.

So that’s it. What?  You want to know how I’m taking photos on my phone? Sorry button-users, I’ve beens schooled. I know, I said with much tech came much sorrow, but my grandfather upgraded and I’m the oldest grandchild without a smart phone, so . . . . Well, who can say no to a camera with an incredible Japanese dictionary practically built right in? If it makes you feel better I’ve had it since Friday and still cannot receive texts or calls outside of Apple’s messaging App (so if you’ve tried to text me in the last few days, sorry!).

 

Sometimes it’s better to just work.

by Sixer

Play it Again

So, I got an email from someone yesterday in which they mentioned they were planning on starting a blog. “Oh,” I gushed back, “blogs are great places of inspiration and community!”

Ah,  irony.

If you can believe it, it wasn’t until I pressed send that I realized how silly that sounded coming from the girl whose blog has been nothing but a white page for the past six months. So I decided to knuckle down and tackle the beast. Only there was no beast. Whatever problem I had with WordPress, Startlogic, and the Universe in General has apparently been resolved while I wasn’t looking,  because everything came together as smoothly as oil and basil. I don’t even get any geek points this time around. {{1}} [[1]]Except, I changed my admin password through My SQL instead of the “forgot your password?” link – we have to keep our skills up somehow.[[1]]

You’ll notice that the theme has changed. Yes, this is 2014. I have given up Decollate for the moment, and will instead be making heavy changes to this theme.{{2}} [[2]] First to go: the horrid, witch-green accent color [[2]] Decollate never really worked, and the image I had for it has faded so much due to time and frustration that there are only shards of it left. Jumping into things is probably the only method that’s going to work for me, but I’ve spent enough time in the pool of theme creation to realize there is no water in it. Better to focus on the small cosmetic aberrations and leave the rest of my energy for actually writing posts. Novel concept, I know.

So, what can you expect from this blog’s future? Probably rambles and musings. I’m still without a camera, which leaves me with nothing but prose to offer. I have some updates for those interested in my Japanese studies and forays into gardening, so stayed tuned! I’m coming back (right after these messages).