Ladies and gentlemen! Our e-stenciler works!!! [paroxysm of joy] Once we’ve sobered up from our celebratory drinking, we’re going to start planning a test run of the mimeo/duplicator.
Rex Rotary 2202 (e-stenciler)
* Today success smells like burning because the stylus actually sparks and burns as it’s making the stencil.
Cipher #2 is inching closer to finished. I’m still hoping to be assembling copies this weekend, altho’ i do still have to do the page numbers/table of contents plus add 1 last detail page. Those things are fairly straightforward (tho’ certainly tedious, in the case of the page numbering), so i’m hoping to get them done tonight so that i can start running copies of the contents tomorrow.
Things with the cover are still somewhat up in the air because i’ve been hoping to do them on my awesome mimeograph/duplicator, but last night when we tried out the e-stenciller (which will make the stencil version of the cover which i will then use on the duplicator to run off copies) we couldn’t get the mechanism to engage properly. I’m hoping that Andy will be able to attack that in the next few days.
The prototype that you see in the picture is at least twice as thick than the finished zine will be — the prototype is full of double pages and layout tape and so forth. But Cipher #2 will be a bit longer than Cipher #1 was. And on the one hand that makes me happy, because i love a zine that i feel i can sink my teeth into. But on the other hand, wow, did i get tired of doing all that layout.
I have a love/hate relationship with layout. I enjoy doing it. I love the challenge of making the text and the visual elements work together. I love balancing everything against the negative space. I even love the challenge of doing layout cut-and-paste style instead of with a computer program (whether it be a simple form for work using Microsoft Word or whether it’s a literary journal using InDesign). It’s something i really enjoy. Up to a point, and then i hate it with a passion that burns like a thousand fiery suns. Especially when i’m working with cut-and-paste layout, the process quickly crosses the line from being art and feeling fun to being factory piece-work and feeling like a drudge. And since this issue of Cipher was so bloody long, by the end i began to entertain notions of not doing fancy layout for the next issue — just doing a very simple printout of everything from inside my word processing program.
One thing i did change with this issue of Cipher was the font size. And i feel bad about it, because i know it’s making the zine longer by a small handful of pages, which could impact how much i charge for the thing (tho’, as always, i try to only charge what i need to in order to cover copying/mailing costs). But when i was doing a proofreading pass using the font i’d selected, i realized it was hard for me to read. Maybe i need new glasses, but i’m also not going to ask people to read my zines with a magnifier. I still used the smallest font size i could. I suspect the biggest difference is that i used a different typeface than i did for Cipher #1. Perhaps i’ll have to do a little comparison between serif fonts for the next zine, see how each one looks at various sizes and see which one gives me best readability at the smallest, most efficient size.
Now that the typesetting geekery has scared away everyone but Jess, i’ll muse aloud a bit about a few potential giveaways when this zine is finally ready. Just before i put it up for sale at Crabby Media, i think i’ll have a few quick questions for people to answer to try to win a free (free shipping, too!) copy of Cipher #2. I have 2 questions in mind that will be for people who already have a copy of Cipher #1, and 1 question for people who just like making random guesses about numbers of things.
Stay tuned!
About a month ago i pulled apart a skirt i’d made back in 1999. I think it was only the 3rd thing i made when i returned to sewing as an adult. I could just imagine my grandmother rolling her eyes as i tediously pulled out every single seam, but i really wanted to save the skirt.
Tonight, finally, i had the time to sit down and sew it back to together. I’d cut out the pattern pieces last month, too, but i’d just never gotten the hours-at-a-stretch block of time i needed to get the sewing done.
Simplicity #9569 -- made uncounted times
The pattern i used was this one: Simplicity #9569 (do not be deceived that the envelope says it’s a 2-hour pattern — the sewing alone took me FOUR). I’ve made this pattern … lots. I’ve made it in 4 of the 6 styles, too. I haven’t made either the straight- or A-line mini-skirt, because i don’t like wearing skirts that short anymore. But i like the straight-line knee-length as a sophisticated skirt for work and i like the A-line knee-length for pretty much everything, but especially with t-shirts. I’ve made the long straight-line skirt with swishy fabric (faux satin & faux velvet). I did try a long straight-line skirt in a heavy fabric, thinking it would make a nice pencil skirt, but it didn’t — turned out to be hard to walk in even with side slits. I’m going to chop it off to make a knee-length skirt.
The iteration i made tonight was the 1st long A-ling skirt. The skirt i unsewed was originally a long A-line, but back when i started sewing i wanted things simple, so it was an elastic waistband. Which was great for awhile, but these days i prefer clothes that fit my body a little better and the looseness of that skirt (and the other, oh, 7 i’d made to the same pattern) was starting to drive me nuts. Also, i’ve gotten wicked good at putting in zippers.
Four of the 8 skirts have been / will be cut down into the long straight-line pattern. Two have been cut down into A-line knee-length skirts. There were just 2 left, and i wanted those to be long A-lines. Now i have just 1 more to go.
finished skirt -- 1 down, 1 to go
Here’s the finished product — not looking so hot in part because i don’t have great lighting anywhere in the house for taking pictures of clothes, and also because my phone’s camera doesn’t have sharp colors. You can sort of see that the waist still has a wrinkly effect from having lived as an elastic waistband for 10 years. You can’t quite see that there is a slit on each side seam, to make it easier to walk. Also, the 1 modification i make to this pattern is to make it a bandless skirt. I like the smooth line of having no waistband.
The biggest reason this picture doesn’t look so hot, however, isn’t lighting or camera: it’s that the fabric is faded almost to nothing. (Which also made the fabric flimsy and difficult to work with as i cut out the pattern and did the sewing.) The skirt this cloth was originally made into was, as i said, 10 years old. And the cloth was 10 years old before i ever made it into the original skirt in the 1st place. I bought the cloth when i was still in high school because i absolutely fell in love with it.
And that’s why i wanted so badly to save the skirt and make it into something i’d want to continue to wear for awhile. Because even tho’ the cloth looks like this these days:
faded cloth
Once upon a time, the cloth looked like this:
cloth in its original glory -- such rich colors!
The dreaded rapini!
One of the veggies i have come to dread seeing in our farm share is rapini. It might even be time to tell our farmers that we just don’t care for it and can they please stop giving it to us (we’ve likewise rid ourselves of both cabbage and fennel). But i refuse to give up without a fight!
Sunday night Andy sauteed last week’s rapini, then tossed it on top of penne pasta. He’s also shouting from the sidelines here that he’s pretty sure we’ve tried it as just a straight-up sautee. Probably. We’ll sautee anything once.
What i dislike about rapini is that it tastes bitter, no matter how we prepare it or how long we cook it.
Suggestions for a last-ditch effort before we write it off?
Our goal this year with our weekly CSA farm share is to learn how to prepare everything we get. We do have many cookbooks, but sometimes we still wind up vaguely baffled by something from the box. This year i’m going to try to post about these inscrutable ingredients so as to solicit suggestions and recipes from you, Oh Internet.
greenish/purple-ish, ruffly kale
This week: kale.
At least, i’m pretty sure that’s kale. Russian kale, maybe? You tell me!
I recall that we’ve tried to work with kale in the past. Once we took another variety of kale and roasted it until it was crunchy, then ate it like the leaves were potato chips. It was alright. Andy swears he remembers trying a kale soup last year, but i think it might have been collards.
Mostly, i’m sorry to say, kale seems to sit in the bottom of the crisper drawer until we’ve realized it’s rotted and feed it to the worm bin.
So! What are your favorite kale recipes? Suggestions, recipes, links all welcome in the comments!
Andy -- up to any good whatsoever?
Out for dinner last night with Andy. NOT because it was Valentine’s Day (which is a holiday we don’t celebrate), but rather because our local sushi restaurant was having a special sake-pairing dinner and we’re both interested in learning more about sake. No, wait — i think Andy’s interested in drinking, but i am very much interested in sake in particular. I’ve not found much alcohol i really enjoy (wine, no thank you; beer, no thank you), but i love sake.
I also love taking pictures of Andy, especially while we’re sitting in restaurants (because it’s when he’s finally still enough to photograph). I have an entire series where Andy emotes across a range of “i’m bored”/glare, “i’m tired of walking”/glare, and “are you done taking pictures yet”/glare.
Here we have a fine, rare example of “i’ve been drinking and so am almost feeling like smiling”/glare.
Dialogue after i took this picture:
Chris: “And now comes the part where we’ve enjoyed our nice dinner out and you slide a gift box across the table to me, and upon opening it i discover a brand new gun with 2 clips, and you explain that i have to shoot that guy twice, run down the hall to the restroom, make my way to the last stall, crawl out the tiny window thru’ which i should just fit for i am small, and then make my escape down the alley.”
Andy: “Well, i’m glad that movie was good for something.”
Chris: “That’s probably the best way i can sum up my feelings about Besson — he makes lousy movies, but enduring imagery.”
