Word Wednesday - Maker/Make/Making

To make:  to bring into existence by shaping or changing material, combining parts, etc.: to make a dress; to make a chair; to make a work of art. 


Making is a growing trend, not just as something we do, but as something we aspire to be.  Makers.  Makers of pies, makers of technology, makers of useless doodads that make us laugh and makers of awesome stuff that is beautiful and functional.

Phil from Broken Airplane says:

A maker is a philosophy/worldview that is an alternative to a consumer. Many of us have one skill or trade that we make a living from and we need to purchase everything else that we need or want.

A Maker will examine their life and see what they could do the reduce the amount that they buy and what could instead be made. Everything is fair game, food, entertainment, clothing, electronics, etc. Some do it out of financial necessity, because fixing or making something yourself is often the cheaper way to go. Others do it out of the sheer rush and excitement one gets by creating. To have full control over how a project turns out is priceless.

If you want something that it doesn’t yet exist, there’s only one sure-fire way to get it: become a maker.

We aspire to learn.  We inspire others. We teach what we know. We make community.

How to solder, how to cure olives, how to make a table top letterpress, how to turn a VCR into a toaster, how to build a solar chicken coop door. 

There is something unbelievably wonderful about the creation of something out of something else.  Sometimes it is an utter failure.  I love utter failures (especially when I haven't spent too much money on them) because they often teach me far more than my successes. Also, the failures tend to make me laugh out loud.  The sprinkler system was a pretty large failure.

Having said that, a successful make is a thing to behold.  Whether it is a garden bed or a Hallowe'en prop; a success will make me giggle and sing the "Fucking Genius" song.  Someday I'll print the lyrics.  It's a song the Mr. and I sing when we've done something successfully that was particularly difficult. I also love saying, "I made that!"

Here are some of my favorite making resources. 

• CRAFT
• MAKE
• Instructables
• Maker Faire (so want to go to this!)
• IKEA hackers
• This to That (advice for gluing things together)

For Hallowe'en

• GhoulSkool
• Monster List
• Stolloween

In Los Angeles:

• Machine Project
• Any Extension program from city colleges for sewing, jewelry making, woodworking, etc.

If you know of others, add them in the comments section! 

Goals, objectives and other list making

As far as I'm concerned, the biggest deficit of this blog is the distinct lack of photos.  I'm terrible at taking them, I'm terrible at uploading them, I'm terrible at posting them.  My goal for July, however, is to post at least one photo with every post regardless of how bad or blurry it is.

I may not succeed 100% but I am going to do my best.

Goals are a theme with me lately. I'm a list person - I have a to do list, a bucket list, a goals list for 2011 and under the 2011 list is a list of little things I will do in the next couple of days to move toward those goals.  It helps keep me on track. Sometimes I still get off track. Wev.

With all those lists, as I was explaining to the Mr. this week, my plate is pretty full until October.  You know, it's only 121 days until Hallowe'en, (you didn't?) which is pretty much the high holiday of my year. In July, I am off to Utah for 4 days, home for a week and a half and then off to Napa for another 4 days. I'll be pretty busy in the interim working on getting my labels made for my jams and all that jazz. Tonight is the Pickle Pop Up in Atwater Village and I have some very cute homemade labels for tonight, but if I plan to be in stores, homemade labels aren't going to cut it.

August, September and October are all about prop making and prepping for the Hallowe'en party of the century. Then, in November, the farm work truly begins.

Here's another list: Sprinklers go in first, the chicken coop gets built and the back 40 gets finished out with raised beds and trees all in time for a gorgeous Southern California winter!

Word Wednesday - Heirloom Skills

Sustainability is defined as the capacity to endure. It sounds like such drudgery when you put it like that!

Graphic by NotMadeinChina

I am loving the concept of "heirloom skills" though.  It sounds like something valuable, something precious and useful. These skills used to be passed down, usually from father to son or mother to daughter. Crocheting, woodworking, how often to water plants, cleaning, baking bread, building barns. Today it's primarily passed vertically from those of our own generation to others.  Previous generations, on our moves out to the big cities put down many of these skills, thrilled to be able to buy conveniently pre-made goods.  I'm not against pre-made.  Sometimes, it's pretty damn handy to have someone else make what you need! But sometimes, what's made is not exactly what you need or it's made by people in horrible working conditions or it's shipped 10,000 miles across the planet using up an enormous amount of resources for us to have a $3 knitted hat.

I was pretty lucky in that I learned crochet from my grandmother starting at about 7 years old and cooking and baking were essential skills to learn in my house growing up. I was taught sewing but I didn't like it at the time and so I stopped until I was about 25. I must say, I regret that.

I wish I had learned other skills like canning, woodworking and planting, but I am slowly teaching myself, mostly through trial and error, though I have to admit that the intertubes are really helpful for learning.  For instance, I picked up about 6 pounds of figs from a friend yesterday who has a fig tree but has no idea what to do with them. I'm not particularly skilled in the fig department either so I went online to discover the type of fig (Desert King) and what one can do with them.  I'm going to try my hand at it this afternoon and we'll see what we get.

I'd never really built anything prior to building my raised beds. That was also mostly trial and error and the next beds I build which will be going in the back 40 are going to be a lot more stable than the first set, though I will give myself some credit; the first set is holding up its fourth planting season in a row!

I love to trade skills with people. You show me how to use a miter saw and I'll show you how to crochet or knit or can figs.

OK, so here's my heirloom skills wish list for right now, if you have a skill to trade or you have a list of your own, add it to the comments and we'll see what we can work out!

• Woodworking skills - Primarily using a miter saw or learning to turn wood
• Oxy-acetylene welding
• Photoshop/graphic design (ok, maybe this isn't heirloom but it's definitely going to be!)
• Weaving

 What's on your list?

So what's a bluestocking?

The term was first coined around 1790, in reference to the blue, worsted wool stockings that were considered "casual wear" as opposed to the more formal black silk stockings. It traces to a London literary salon founded circa 1750 and led by Elizabeth Montagu and was used as a derisive word for a woman considered too educated or with a scholarly, literary, or intellectual ability. 


I've loved this term since the first time I heard it and always identified with it. While it used to be somewhat akin to calling someone a "strident, harpy feminist", which I've certainly been called in its various forms, I'd always hoped to use the term in some way.  

Farming too, has been ridiculed and maligned. While we used to understand that we relied on farming for our very sustenance, most of us have become so far removed from the sources of our food as to believe that everything is picked clean and waxed from a sanitized patch of air. 

Making has always been something appealing to me. Whether it's farming, baking, sewing, crocheting or building.  There is something so wonderfully rewarding about planting a seed and being able to use the results. Starting from scratch and eventually having a finished product. Building beds, hauling straw, amending soil, harvesting vegetables and serving them to the people you love is so satisfying to me.  None of this takes me away from feminism, but closer to it. When reading, learning, studying, I am in my head.  A place I am infinitely comfortable. When planting, digging, making, I am in my body; a place I am lacking familiarity, but I learn with every shovelful.  

The best part about it, is it makes me giddy. I laugh when I accomplish something and you should see how hard I laugh when I screw something up. It's all a journey.