Note of the Living Deb

I finally made a face mask (I'd been using a bandana tied like a bandit, then a fancily folded bandana). I used Craft Passion's pattern after seeing it on the face of my internet friend Patrick.

While working on this project, I realized a bunch of people may be doing some hand sewing for the first time in a long time. So I decided to make a long-winded list of hints for y'all. I am not an expert on hand sewing, though I think I'm kind of an expert on embroidery. But maybe that will help me remember a bunch of things that experts just take for granted and would forget to tell you.

In sum, this may all be common sense to you. Or some of it may be terrible old wives' tales. I will update it as commenters point out the stupid bits. (Thanks ahead of time, commenters!)

Fabric selection

Face masks are small and most of them have seams up the middle or pleating, so it's not easy to keep the continuity of the design ("pattern match"). So it's best to use solids or very small prints. Or use big patterns and go for a bold, modernistic look.

Fabric made for quilting would be pretty good for this project. I also have some old shirts I love that don't fit right and that have small plaids. I may try a bigger plaid, too.

On fabric type, from my sister: "Fabric should feel good and be washable. This is not the time to make something out of itchy mohair. If you are using old fabric, like from worn shirts or bed linens, consider adding an extra layer."

Pre-wash

A blogger I (sort of) know has named her dog Pre-wash. Love it.

But I'm not talking about dishes. Unfortunately, before you start your project, you should wash your fabric. This way if it shrinks, that will happen before you sew it.

I recommend doing at least a starter wash in the sink, especially if it's cheapo fabric, because some of the dye might wash out. If the water is running clear, feel free to throw it in with your laundry.

Warning: The edges will unravel a little, with a lot of long strings clinging to the edges, and it won't look ironed anymore. Don't get too sad, it's okay.

If you're using old clothes, then you've probably already done this step, but you probably have to take the clothes apart to get better access to the fabric. You can try cutting the thread at the seams. Or you can just cut the fabric at the seams, but this gives you a little less fabric to work with.

Work space selection

You generally want a large, flat, hard surface to work on, like a cleaned-off dining room table. Some people have a big enough desk or coffee table or piano bench. Or you may use a wooden or vinyl floor (carpeting is not ideal, but can also work). For a face mask, you won't need as much space as for some projects, so that's good. This is mostly for cutting out the pieces. Once you are sewing, you may be able to just sit in front of the TV.

Pattern placement

You can place pattern pieces willy-nilly however they fit, but standard procedure is to a) make sure they align properly with the grain of the fabric and b) make sure things will be right-side up when you're done.

Notice that woven fabric does not stretch from side to side or from top to bottom but does stretch diagonally, so the fit might be weird if you mess with the alignment.

Cutting the fabric

This is the most important step because you can't undo it. So, like they say in carpentry, measure twice and cut once. Don't be that guy that has two right sleeves or whose item is partly inside-out, no matter how you wear it.

Sometimes a pattern piece should have its edge on a folded edge of fabric. Generally the fabric is folded, and the pattern is cut out of the double layer, so you end up with two pieces, but not always.

So read the directions and, thanks to my sister for this rule, if you're sleepy, put this off until the next day. Especially if your fabric is expensive or one of a kind or there's a pandemic so you can't get more. (I know, how likely is that?)

Or maybe you don't need a pattern. Some people are talented like that or are so practiced that they don't need that. You go.

If you use a store-bought pattern, you usually pin it to the cloth and then cut out the pattern and the cloth together, and the pattern is made of tissue paper and hard to re-use. Also, it seems like it would be easy, but things shift, and it's not as easy as just cutting paper.

I printed my pattern on typing paper, which is hard to pin, so I cut it out first and then traced around it with a pencil. For (small) patterns I want to re-use, I glue them to a thick, cuttable paper (by which I mean a file folder) and then cut it out, so it's much easier to trace accurately without destroying the pattern. (My mom uses some kind of other semi-see-through fabric to save her patterns in some way that I don't understand and therefore can't explain.)

Finally, whenever you're cutting something, pay attention to what's underneath so you're not cutting more than you intend to be cutting. Especially if it feels harder to cut than you expected. Don't be that guy ruining your other fabric or cutting what you're wearing or, if you're on your bed, cutting your sheets.

Thread color

Ideally you have thread that perfectly matches your fabric--check it in good light. If your fabric has multiple colors, usually choose the main one.

In real life, you don't normally get that lucky. So, look for a near match. I've read that when in doubt choose a color that's too dark over a color that's too light. That seems to work. Even if you have only black, white, and grey, you've probably got a good enough color. If not, well they all work. Just pick a pretty one you don't mind working with.

Order of operations

Patterns come with instructions that tell you an order to do things in to make it as easy as possible. So before starting a new step, you might want to double check that you really did the previous step.

Working with fabrics backwards

Often (usually) you will be told to sew things with the right sides facing together. That means the part you are looking at is the faded-looking back side. This feels so wrong! And that is how you know that it is a valuable insider strategy! This is how you easily sew things together so that the leftover ugly edges are cleverly hidden on the inside.

Cutting the thread

The rule of thumb is to use pieces of thread that are about three feet long. If it's too long, it will always be getting caught on things and will tie itself in knots more often. But the shorter it is, the more often you have to tie knots and start over, which is time consuming.

Threading the needle

Most people stick the end of the thread into the eye of the needle. If one end is frayed, use the other. If both are frayed, cut off the frayed part. Maybe lick it to keep it all together. Reading glasses or a bright light may help.

What helps me most, though, is to fold the thread to make a loop. Put the needle inside the loop and pull against it so that you're holding two sides of the thread in one hand and the loop with the needle. Then move your fingers near the needle so you can slip the needle out out and still have a tiny loop. Now push that whole loop through the eye of the needle. It sounds harder, but the thread is stiffer that way and it won't unravel itself on the way in.

Single or double?

To use a single thread, just tie a knot in one end after the needle is threaded. This is what I recommend unless you're sewing a button back on. It just seems much easier to work with. To use a double thread, bring both ends together and tie a knot in both of them at once.

Tying a starter knot

Tie an overhand knot near the end of your thread. Then it will probably be too small and go right through your fabric, so then tie another knot in the same space. If the second knot insists on being next to--instead of on top of--the first knot, just keep tying more knots until they merge into a single knot.

I suck at this and do not have any good hints. I've seen people who can just rub the end of the thread around between their fingers and it's magically knotted. Do that instead if you can.

I find the ending knots easier--more on that later.

Pins

Generally you will pin two pieces of fabric together before you start sewing them together to help you keep them properly aligned. It's easier to focus on the big picture while pinning. You can pin both ends. Then add one to the middle between them. Then keep adding more between those until the fabric looks like you will do what you want. (While you are sewing, you are focused on only one point, and things can get more and more out of whack as you go along.)

If you don't have sewing pins, you can use safety pins. Otherwise, be careful. You'll probably stab yourself lightly multiple times, but it doesn't have to be like that!

Generally you will put the pin through where you want the seam, but perpendicular to it so that as you're sewing, it won't get in your way as much. You may be able to sew right over it, but once you're done, remove the pin and put it somewhere safe.

Pin and needle storage

You should prepare a place for your pins so they won't roll around. If you don't have a pin cushion or the container they came in, you could pin them all to a piece of fabric like a hanky (push each one in one side and then back out the front). Or you could use a bowl or a jar or something, but these are very easy to accidentally spill, so I recommend some kind of lid at least.

Whenever you take a break, push your needle into the fabric near the seam you are working on. Usually I just start the next stitch and leave it there. If you are between pieces of thread, you could instead put it with your pins. You might want to thread it first to keep it easy to find. Please do not just set it on a surface. Not even just for a second--it's a bad habit. Needles roll. And they stab. And they are tiny and hard to see. But easy to feel, when they stab you with their evil tininess.

Thread management

So once you start sewing, one end of your thread will be attached to the fabric and the other end will be hanging out the other side of the eye of the needle. The longer you keep that tail, the easier it will be to manage your thread and keep it from getting caught in things and tying itself in knots. But you need to keep shortening it as you go or it will disappear into the fabric. If this happens, pull on both threads, and one might come out. If not, oh well, just sew with a double thread until the end.

Due to the physics of sewing, your thread will get wound up will which make it tend to kink and not quite do what you want. So you may need to occasionally let the thread hang from the fabric and unwind or pull it through the needle until the needle is next to the fabric, then pull the needle back out, letting the thread straighten as you do so.

You can also aim your thread a little. After each stitch, I like to hang the thread down, away from the seam, pins, etc. And by "hang" I mean place it where I want it, because gravity doesn't work too great with tiny things like threads.

If your fabric is super thick (um, I don't recommend a leather face mask) you will have to push hard to get the needle through, and this can hurt. The professionals have protective armor for their fingertip ("thimbles") but if you don't, look for something else you can use, ideally something not slippery, between you and the needle. There is such a thing as leather thimbles, for example (though modern ones are generally made of metal), but even just a piece of fabric folded over a few times can make things much more comfortable.

Where are my scissors?

Stand up and look where you were sitting. They've probably fallen between the cushions.

Seam allowance

So how far from the edge do you sew? Usually, 5/8 of an inch, sometimes 1/4 of an inch. The longer distance from the edge (or "seam allowance"), the less you have to worry about the fabric fraying (unraveling) into the seam, thus making the item fall apart. A shorter distance makes it easier to deal with tight curves and other difficulties.

Sewing machines make it easy to automatically keep the same distance from the edge at all times. By hand, it's different. I actually measure in from the edge and make a mark with my pencil in several places. You could try to draw a whole line. If your sewing is not consistently following the edge of the fabric, it will affect the look and fit of the garment.

My sister says, "even experienced sewists like to mark things like seam allowances when sewing. Crayola washable markers are a great choice. Some quilting chalk markers don't wash out. A sliver of soap works great on darker colored fabrics." Hmm, good thing I don't use just liquid soap anymore.

Stitch type

I think a lot of people sew with a running stitch. That's where you aim the needle in the direction you're sewing and just go down and up through both layers of fabric over and over. It's quick, but it tends to act like a drawstring and not let your sewing lie flat. So if you do this, make sure you pull the fabric flat as you go.

I have an embroidery background, so I do an outline stitch. (This is where you face the needle the other way and just go down through the fabric and back up once. Then you move the needle in the direction you want to go and take another stitch, kind of moon-walking your way across the fabric.)

I don't know what you're supposed to use. My best guess is the backstitch. Here's a good Youtube tutorial. (I think it's the same as the outline stitch, just worked from the other side.)

My sister recommends this video that shows three stitches. The intended audience is women recreating historical items, but it's still good for the likes of us. Just don't get intimidated by the amazingness of her stitches. As my sister explains, "This video shows teeny stitches, and she comments about how it was the Victorians that were that ridiculous. Stitches that are about 1/8" long are fine and durable. Thicker fabric will be impossible to get teeny stitches in, it will "inform" the length that is possible. Don't stress it. Also, these seams on a mask are not under a great deal of stress. Being precise is lovely, but not absolutely necessary in this case."

Stitch size

In all the old-time books, the girls are always being taught to make their stitches small. No, smaller. No, tiny. I used to just assume that my stitches were all too big because I didn't want to make them as tiny as possible. But really, you need to make sure to catch at least two threads each time you make a stitch.

If your stitches are too big, there will be gaps in the seams. Then things might get caught in those gaps and rip them open further. Embarrassing.

Ending knots

It's much easier to tie a knot at the end if you can keep the needle in while you work. Tie the thread as close to the fabric as you can. Again, tie two or three overhand knots. Then move a half-inch out and do it again if you have enough thread leftover to start the next seam. Then cut between the two knots.

You will now have a thread hanging out. That's okay. And normal. Don't make it too short (leave a quarter of an inch or so), otherwise the knot might untie itself. Then the thread might unsew itself. That would be sad.

Cutting at curves

When there is a tight curve you might get instructions to cut into the fabric in the seam allowance at right angles to your seam. Doesn't this make the fabric unravel faster? It seems like it, yes. But it also helps the seam lie flat like it's supposed to. It's all part of the magic of to make flat, two-dimensional pieces of fabric into curvy, three-dimensional shapes. Just don't cut all the way to the seam.

Finger pressing

Ironing can do two things: it can get the wrinkles out, making it smooth. Or it can make a crease very sharp. For the second purpose, especially on small projects like face masks, you can actually just smoosh it with your fingers. Often you will pull the fabric apart so that you can just see your stitches, then fold it so the two sides are together and finger press it so it stays like that. Otherwise it might naturally open into a less open position.

Re-dos

You can check for bugs in sewing just like in computer programming. You can wait until you're all done and hope it's magically perfect. Or you can check things after each step to see how you're doing so far.

My home-ec teacher taught us to try to be as perfect as we can. If we mess up, just undo it and try again and keep doing it until you get it right. This is the key to making clothes you will actually wear as opposed to just clothes that you have finished.

So here is the place where I assure you that it's okay to undo your work, even more than once in the same place, and it doesn't mean you suck. It means you are a human being. If things start to feel ridiculous it may also mean you are tired and should take a break. If it is an ice cream break, wash your hands before you start up again; you don't want your project to get grimy before you're even done!

Last weekend we went out of town to help one of Robin's friends celebrate his 50th birthday. One of the activities was a cross between whiffle ball and bumper cars. You steer with one hand while holding a spatula-like scoop with the other hand, and there are eight of you against eight of them with the goal of flinging a plastic ball at something resembling a basketball backboard.

The first game I'm not sure I touched the ball at all, but I did get better at controlling my vehicle and enjoyed driving it all over the court like a maniac. I was also happy to find out that when I totally slammed into something or vice versa, it was fun and not painful. One day I will be too old or brittle for that, but not yet.

The second game I did actually get a hold of the ball several times and I completed two passes. Fun times!

There weren't enough cars for everyone, so I sat out every other game, and during one of these times I noticed that people tended to err in the direction of the ball going over the target board rather than under.

The third time I got an opportunity to make a shot myself and indeed I did not make that common mistake--instead it went under the board. Dang.

I often got into the action and sometimes roamed around the other end hoping the ball would come flying my way (like I always used to do in soccer class so my shins wouldn't get kicked all the time).

I'm pretty sure I was one of the worst people there, but I still had fun.

Then we played laser tag. I'd never done this and I never did figure out all the rules. For the first third of the game, I enjoyed hiding and getting people as they ran through. At first I noticed I got shot in the back twice (from invisible people above), so I had to move. Then sometimes people would surprise me and sometimes I would surprise them. But then a huge crowd of the other team came through and it was no fun anymore so I moved to another area.

I ended up joining a large gang of my own team with one guy calling out locations of enemies such as "on the bridge!" This was kind of fun but I was definitely doing less. Then we dispersed again and for the last third of the game I was mostly running around and occasionally getting shot.

When the game ended, they announced the total score of the two teams, something like 19,000 for my team to 20,000; not embarrassing. When we got out, we got score cards. I was ranked 19 out of 19 (or was it 21 out of 21?). No worries, it was fun making a victory cheer about how I won last place. Then I noticed that my score was 350, and the next lowest score was well over 1000. So basically, I single-handedly lost the game for my team. Oops! That was a little embarrassing. But as with the last game, no one was serious, it was all just good fun.

Friday night we had a surprise visitor at craft night from someone who had moved several states away. She had just learned to make trees of life which are wire pendants consisting of a thick wire circle enclosing a gnarly tree shape made of thinner wire. She got lots of practice and got to where she could make one in only 20 minutes.

She brought a huge pile of them, each in a little linen bag she had stamped, and gave them to us. Then she told us we could trade the one we got if we liked another one better. I got one with "leaves" made of snowflake obsidian (a white and black stone, as you might have guessed). I didn't actually like any of the other ones better, so yea!

Then the real gift is she taught us how to make some ourselves. She had forgotten the stones to use for the leaves (they were packed, but not in the same place as all the other supplies), but she did have stones to use for full moons. Fun times.

Mine turned out to be the worst one. Sparce, boring, and the outer circle was no longer circular. (I really should re-learn a way to get pictures in this blog, but oh well. If I hold off on writing until I do that, it never works out.) But I had fun. And it still actually worked, even though I cut my tree wires too short.

And another friend took some notes and let me have them, then I added some more and let her have them. So it's quite possible that I will give myself more chances in the future if I think of just the right stones and wire colors. I'm so glad I decided not to sit out but instead to hog some of the teaching attention for myself.

(Plus I still got to finish the scarf I had brought for my craft project. I didn't finish it in time for local winter, but as I told R, "I'll probably finish this in time for August," the time when you least want a scarf. And indeed I did.)

In conclusion, being the worst at something doesn't necessarily mean you suck, and even if you do, that doesn't necessarily matter. I think a lot of times grown-ups don't want to do things that are new and that they are uncomfortable with and which they are sure will make them look like idiots. But that's sad.

Article of the Day - Huffington Post's 7 Reasons Dressing Your Age Is Overrated with pictures of a parent and grown child swapping clothes (or wearing different sizes of the same clothes so they fit). Of course the young folks all look good in the older folks' clothes, but the opposite is mostly true, too.

The lesson is supposed to be to wear whatever you like or at least that there may be a lot more things that are flattering for you than you realize.

But mostly it's fun to look at the pictures. The people also try to copy the stance of the other person in the "before" picture, which is quite fun.

It wasn't quite as fun to imagine switching clothes with my mom, mostly because I don't know what poses we would strike and then try to copy from each other.

I am pleased with my first knitting class which was yesterday.

Casting on

Already I learned something: the knit on cast-on method. (Casting on is how you get the first row of stitches onto your knitting needle.) I love this method better than the other method I learned because you do not have to guess how much yarn you will need. You just make the tail however long you want it and get started.

We have been warned that it's useful to know several methods for casting on because different methods have different strengths. This method "resembles the knit stitch and is stretchy." Sounds perfect to me.

Our little book of handouts also describes another method which "is firm and good for items that receive a lot of wear." I can't exactly tell how to do it, but I can tell that this method also does not make you guess how much yarn you will need. Woo hoo!

Cotton yarn

Sparkylibrarian warned that all-cotton yarns "don't have as much stretch-and-rebound as wool or other blends and they are HEAVY." My instructor explained why she had specified that we get cotton yarn:
* it forces you to be precise
* you can see your mistakes more easily
* it is what dishcloths are made of

She also recommended using circular needles for, really, any kind of knitting job, because they let you hold your knitting in your lap rather than having all the weight hanging from your wrists. So she at least addressed the heaviness issue.

Since I am not a beginning knitter, I don't care about lack of stretchiness. Especially with this new (to me) cast-on method which is so much looser and easier to work with the way I do it than my old method which is always quite tight the way I do it. And we certainly will be making a lot of dishcloths.

Dishcloths

Our first project, due next week, is Grandma's Favorite Dishcloth. In some ways, this is a great beginner pattern. It uses knit stitches but not perls, it's a small project, and it's interesting.

The not-so-ideal part is that no one finished the first half in class, so we didn't practice knitting two stitches together. I'm not a beginner, so it works for me.

Except that I am not into dishcloths. I don't even really get them. I use a sponge for dishes with a scrubby part on the back. Like dishcloths, sponges are washable.

The link above that I found says, "once you give one away and they find out that you can Scrub Glass with one, you will be knitting these things for the rest of your life." Once again, I just don't get it. I can scrub glass with my sponge and even with my SOS pad.

My pattern says that instead of maxing out at 43 stitches, you can go to 50 stitches for a facecloth or even more stitches for a baby blanket. We prefer regular terry cloth washcloths over knitted facecloths. And baby blankets are not quite as exciting in this part of the country as in places that actually get chilly.

Another idea is to continue knitting the widest part for a long while to make a scarf with pointy ends. Cute. More ideas are shown here.

Continental method

I was hoping to re-learn knitting using the continental method, which is generally considered more difficult to learn but quicker to do than the English method I use. However, my instructor doesn't really like the continental method, so I won't be learning it from her.

My hands get cold at work so I've been fantasizing about fingerless gloves. These aren't so easy to find. However, I did find some regular gloves on clearance at Target for $0.74 for two pair (crazy!), so I got them and decided to try to make my own.

Here is a during shot:



You can see that one finger is finished, one has just been removed, and three are still intact. I decided to unravel some yarn from the glove to use for the stitching. I expected one strand, but there are three.



I thought the white one might be elastic, so I'm using only the two blue strands, but on closer inspection, it's just a white thread.

Wiggly thread is asking to become tangled and knotted, but so far, I'm able to make it work. I'm using a stitch that's basically a hem stitch, only I'm picking lots of stitches on the side that shows in case the side that doesn't show unravels. So I decided to sew one stitch for each knitted stitch in a row and make it so that the thread on the side that's showing is parallel to the knitting. With this method, each stitch also helps keep the frayed edge from unraveling.

Well, we'll so how well it lasts. For an investment of 37 cents plus tax, I won't be heartbroken if it doesn't work.

Doh! I owe my blog buddy a cookie. Totally forgot about posting yesterday.

Instead I watched two movies.

"Hard Target" is a thriller that is a modernization of a famous short story. It's also the movie that made Jean Claude Van Damme famous. I've heard he is a bad actor and have never even seen him before; at least I didn't recognize him. He is just fine in this movie, though. And I like the way his face is often weird-looking, as if the crazy stuff he's doing is actually hard and takes some of his concentration away from looking suave and chiseled. There's also an actress chosen for her ability to look surprised, as one certainly would in her position. And there's a guy playing Christopher Walken.

The movie is directed by John Woo. There were no scenes I thought were just beautiful like in some of his other movies, but there were definitely some awesome stunts, especially one involving a motorcycle versus another vehicle.

If you like action movies, I recommend it.

The other movie we watched was "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," based on someone's "unauthorized autobiography" with a screenplay by Charlie Kaufman. If it weren't based on a true story, it might be a cult favorite, with lots of funny scenes and interesting juxtapositions. Maybe it is anyway; it certainly attracted a lot of high-profile actors such as George Cloony, Drew Barrymore, and Julia Roberts. And it looks like it was a fun movie to make.

As nonfiction, though, I find it disturbing. Especially the part where the unauthorized biographer is still alive and happily consulting on this movie.

My favorite part was when the protagonist says that when you are young, you have the potential to be anything, but after a lot of time has passed, you have to face what you have actually become.

Before the movies we went to a party where we tie-dyed and un-dyed clothing. I tie-dyed some socks (don't know how they turned out yet, but they have lots of great colors on them).

And I tried tye-bleaching a shirt. I finally decided I should have washed it first to get rid of any chemical coating because the bleach was mostly just demonstrating its surface tension instead of getting absorbed, so I still have a mostly colored shirt. To bleach a shirt like this, you need a bleach-stop chemical so the bleach doesn't eat through your clothing (too much).

One thing I learned is that all clothing is pale orange underneath. Bleached burnt orange is peach, of course, but so is beached black, bleached maroon, and bleached navy. Weird.

Today we fought feeling housebound by going out for brunch. We met R's best friend J and J's friend W who we'd never met before. The mysterious W who we hear all about but who J has been assuring us is not imaginary.

Too much gentlemanly crap. We couldn't just go through doors in random order; I always had to go first. But the conversation was good.

We discussed several important issues such as whether it's better to have your college courses be short (like 5 weeks long in the summer) so you can concentrate on them, be motived to keep up with the work (because you always have something due the next day) and still remember things from the beginning during the final or whether it's better to have them long (like 16 weeks) so you have time to let all that information sink in and so that when your brain just won't accept any more of one subject, you can switch to another subject. I was the only one in the latter camp.

Then we went to the thrift shop near my house that's open on Sundays and learned that they now having dressing rooms. Only two, and they're not that great, but now I can actually get clothes there. Today I tried on lots of stuff, but only one thing fit well enough, so I got some pants for $4.

**

It's freezing outside, but it's still 65 degrees (18C) inside. That's good because that sealant doesn't look any drier than it did the day after the installation.

**

I didn't do any exercise today. Or yesterday--except for 15 minutes of strength training yesterday.

**

But I did start knitting. Some co-workers are knitting seven-inch-square, um, squares, to put together into a blanket to give away.

This means I'm having to deal with that whole issue of gauge. I've been avoiding that issue all this time by knitting and crocheting only things where you can just eyeball the size. But to knit a seven-inch square, I have to know how many stitches make seven inches. The wrapper on my skein of yarn explains that using that yarn, with #8 needles, you need 4.5 stitches per inch. So I cast 30 stitches onto my #8 needles and did a few rows. Too short. By just over an inch.

So I pulled the needle out and remeasured and it wasn't quite as much too short.

So I unraveled it all. I hate unraveling stuff, but it's not like I can knit anything very fast even if I only have to do the whole thing once, so that attitude doesn't make much sense. Then I cast on 35 inches. I've now done about ten rows, knitting through the entire movie "Office Space" (except when I was distracted). Now it looks like I did two stitches too many. I'm just going to go with it this time.

**

I also finally looked at my recording of the Blue Lapis performance I got. I was afraid the filmmaker would ruin it by focusing on the faces or being way too far away or something. The shots were sometimes a little too close in to see everyone when focusing on one person didn't help. And they were sometimes too far away and you couldn't see well at all. And sometimes the shots switched between three camera angles when really a single one of them would have been the right one throughout an entire section. On the other hand, well over half the time the best view was shown, and several times double-exposure was used to good effect. Overall, it was not ruined, and someone can watch this and see just how cool it was. In fact, watching this might be as good as seeing it in person, although watching this several times would not be as good as seeing it several times in person because you keep missing the same things!

So now I'm going to subject various people to it. Heh heh.

Not only that, unlike normal commercial DVDs, there's no crap. There's some titles, a performance, and credits, and then it plays again. I decided it's a perfect thing to have going on the TV during parties. ("Koyaanisquatsi" is another such movie that is more readily available.)

Site of the day - Mother Jones: This Guy Can Get 59 MPG in a Plain Old Accord from The Simple Dollar. I learned there are people called hypermilers who are really into getting the best gas mileage possible from their cars. They don't change their cars so much (inflating tires, removing luggage racks and junk from the trunk) as they change their behavior. Some of the things I'm not going to do like driving too closely behind a big truck or driving at very different speeds than the cars around me because I think they're dangerous and/or rude. In fact, I'm probably not going to change my driving at all. Still, it's amazing to know what's possible.

It was supposed to rain, so I decided to hit some factory tours.

Lake Champlain Chocolates

(Scroll down for hot chocolate recipe.)

The Story

Once upon a time, a restaurant owner used to give his employees boxes of chocolates for special occasions. After a while, one of his chefs explained to him that although he really appreciated the gesture, the chocolate was kind of terrible. A challenge was issued, and the chef could, indeed, make tastier chocolates.

They started selling these chocolates at the restaurant, and eventually it grew to become half the business. Finally, the restaurant was sold and the chocolate company was spun off into its own business.

The Process

This factory is all tier three. Tier one chocolate making is located in tropical areas. This is where the cocoa beans are grown. Cocoa beans grow on trees. The pods grow directly from the trunk and large branches and are about the size and shape of a football. They are removed with machetes.

Inside the pods are lots of white, wet, and gooey beans the size of olives. They start to turn purple when they hit the air.

So to make chocolate, the first thing you do is pile up the cocoa beans on some banana leaves and cover them with more banana leaves and let them ferment for several days to develop their color and flavor.

Then set them on wood racks and turn them continuously to let them dry (which may take up to two weeks). By this time they are smaller, the size of almonds, and dark brown and hard.

Tier two is where the cocoa beans are processed to turn them into chocolate. First the beans are roasted. Then the shell, which is a little thicker than a peanut skin, is removed, leaving the nib. The nibs are then pressurized to form cocoa liquor, which consists of cocoa butter and cocoa mass. The cocoa mass is then processed to turn it into cocoa powder. At the very least it is ground more finely. It may also be processed with alkali (Dutch process) or other things.

To cocoa powder and cocoa butter, add sugar to get dark chocolate. To get milk chocolate, also add milk powder. White chocolate includes cocoa butter, sugar, and milk solids. Because white chocolate has no cocoa powder, some people (and laws) say it’s not really chocolate, even though cocoa butter comes from cocoa beans. Additional ingredients such as vanilla, may also be added, but only natural ingredients are used by Lake Champlain Chocolates.

Milk chocolate tastes sweeter than dark chocolate not because it has more sugar but because it has proportionately less cocoa powder, which is bitter.

The tour guide explained that the cocoa powder is the part of chocolate that has been found to have antioxidants, and so that is why it is sometimes recommended to have one ounce of dark chocolate per day. One ounce is about one-third of a candy bar. She did not explain that the calcium in milk interferes with the antioxidant properties of the cocoa.

So then once the chocolate is created, it is shipped to the Lake Champlain Chocolate Factory, in the form of what looks like flat chocolate chips, for the tier three processing, which is to mix it with other flavors and form it into shapes.

A lot of care is taken with temperature so that the finished chocolate is glossy and snaps when you break a piece off. If vegetable oil is used as an ingredient, the chocolate will bend instead of snap. If the chocolate’s temperature or humidity changes too abruptly at any point, a white film may form.

After melting, the chocolate gets piped to other areas.

For hollow chocolates, only one half of a mold is filled with chocolate, then the two halves are clamped together and the mold is clamped to a “magnetic tumbler.” This gives it the equivalent of a slow-motion amusement park ride. The mold is turned on a rod sticking out from a cylinder which is also revolving, all very slowly. (I had always thought of hollow chocolates as having less than half as much chocolate as solid would have had.)

One kind of chocolate may be hand painted onto part of the mold before the other chocolate is poured in to make a design.

Truffles have ganache centers. Ganache is made of cream, butter, and chocolate. Truffles are made with a pipe within a pipe. First chocolate is squirted through the exterior pipe. Then the ganache is squired through the interior pipe. Then more chocolate is squirted through the exterior pipe. This all happens very quickly.

Chocolate-covered solids with flat bottoms (such as turtles) first have the interiors created. Then these interiors are placed by hand on a conveyer belt. Part of the conveyer belt is dredged through chocolate at the bottom so that when it gets to the top, underneath the turtle, it coats the bottom of the turtle. At the other end of the conveyer belt is a short chocolate waterfall which covers the top of the turtles.

Chocolate-covered round things (such as nuts and malted balls) are put into a tumbler to get coated and to make the coating shiny.

My Experience

I arrived in time to take a tour with a busload of folks, but it was so crowded that I didn’t get to see some things as well as I wanted to. So I decided to go on another tour. It was free and I decided not to eat any samples the second time to be fair. I refrained from everything but the dark chocolate, fresh from the mold ten minutes previous to our getting it. I just wanted to see if I could taste the difference between fresh and regular chocolate (dark chocolate supposedly stays fresh the longest, at one year). No, I could not tell the difference.

Between tours I decided to buy something. I ended up choosing a hot chocolate, which was available at several levels of darkness. I chose the darkest one (75%), which turned out to be a little too dark for my tastes. I also paid attention to how it was made.

First the worker put in three tablespoons of the chocolate-chip things which were made of the 75% dark chocolate. Then she added one teaspoon of cocoa powder. Then 3/4 cup of milk. Then a candy thermometer. Then she heated the milk with a steaming wand, stopping to mix it occasionally, until the thermometer indicated the appropriate temperature (which I did not think to find out).

Between the tours I also got to see a film crew for a kids’ show interviewing some of the employees. If you’re watching a nonprofessional doing interviews, see if you can notice that one arm might be behind their back holding their list of questions.

Vermont Teddy Bear

I had a long wait for this tour. The best part of the wait was watching little kids get bears. There’s one kind of teddy bear you can get only at the factory.

While You Watch

First you choose the type of bear you want. There are also a couple of other options, like a dragon. You just pull an empty shell of an animal from a bin at the bottom of a long, wide pipe.

Then you stand in line to get your stuffing. The worker asks if you want your bear stuffed with happiness, friendship, giggles, or other choices. The youngest kids were most likely to choose giggles. Then the worker turned the dial to the appropriate section. Then you could step on a peddle to shoot out the stuffing while the worker held the bear over a pipe to fill the arms, legs, head, and then body.

The stuffing came out quite quickly, and the workers were amazing at dealing with the sudden stops and starts they got from the customers.

Then you get to hug your bear and decide if it is too firm, too floppy, or just right. Most people thought their bears were perfect right from the beginning, but one thought hers was too firm, so I got to see stuffing being pulled out and rearranged.

Then you get in another line where a worker sews up the back of your bear while you fill out its birth certificate. They used thick, white thread and the same stitch knitters use to connect pieces of garments, so just a little thread shows, and it’s buried in the thick fur.

I think I might have learned a new, quicker way to tie that first knot in thread. This new method involves wrapping the thread around the needle and pulling it through. I’ll have to try it out next time I replace button.

After the final knot is tied, the needle is pushed through the entire bear so it comes out the belly. Then you are directed to cut the umbilical cord. This leaves a long thread buried completely inside the bear. The time is declared, and you are directed to fill this time in on the birth certificate.

Then you are told to choose a bow tie (attached to a loop of elastic), which can be worn by the bear as a tie, a hair bow, or, by wrapping the elastic twice around an ear, like a barrette.

These jobs looked like pretty good factory jobs. All the kids were so cute and smily and just loved their bears the whole way through. They were so tickled with each part of the process, it was fun to watch. There was one eye-rolly grown-up just wanting to get through the process as quickly as possible; she didn’t even want a birth certificate. The employee operated the stuffing pedal for her.

The Tour

The tour started with a description of what makes Vermont Teddy Bears special.

For pictures and a different description, see the short online tour.

Several layers of fur fabric are cut at once. Then the pieces are sewn by hand. In films of sweatshop seamstresses, they always sewed things amazingly quickly. These guys were not doing that. They have to deal with tight curves and thick fabric. They carefully align things, then push a very short amount through the machine before aligning the next part.

The eyes are on rods pushed through the fabric and held on with plastic nuts screwed on and glued to the other side. The arms, legs, and head are similarly held on in a durable way. However, here the nut is not glued in place so that the limbs and head can turn all the way around.

The stuffing is polyester fiberfill because it fluffs back up after squishing and because it’s washable. The whole stuffing technology was originally developed to fill life jackets (aka personal flotation devices). The whole bear is washable, but you are not to put it through a dryer because the fur will matte up or, if it’s too hot, just melt away. This fire-resistant fur will melt before it flames.

Near the end of the tour we got to see the bear hospital where injured bears are nursed back to health. The tour guide emphasized that we should not try to fix a bear ourselves but send it back to trained professionals. She showed a head attached directly to an arm as an example of how things can go horribly wrong. And she talked about people who tried to sew their bears back together. Or glue them. Or her latest favorite--melt them. It’s easier to fix the bears without all the glue or the melting.

Today I spent a full hour working on reorganizing my dresser. This resulted in a big mess, so then I had to spend a couple more hours cleaning that up. For fun I would do dishes or laundry as a break. I also played some solitaire and a couple of games of sudoku.

What could take three hours?

My philosophy is that all the clothes I wear should fit in my dresser, my half of the bedroom closet, and my half of the hall closet. If I have too many clothes to fit, then surely I'm not wearing all of those clothes and they should be removed.

Some clothes were placed in a box labeled "too small" so I can store them in the garage in case I get back to my ideal weight.

Some were placed in a bag to be donated.

Some were thrown in the garbage.

And some are clothes that I love but that are so old and tattered they can't be fixed. These I placed in a bag labeled "fabric." I am so bad!

I also took four things that used to fit in my dresser onto hangers and put them in my closet.

And finally, several things that were covered in dust bunnies went into the laundry. So I'm not actually done because all my drawers are stuffed, and I still have to deal with those laundry items, and I'd really rather not have stuffed drawers.

I may also end up with a bag labeled "lint attractors" for me to pull out if I ever get a drier.

The most problematic item is a cardigan sweater I made. On the one hand, it's pilled and a weird shape and one of the buttons is missing and it's basically so ugly that it's not fit even to give away and I never wear it and I have plenty of other sweaters. On the other hand, it's a beautiful forest green that looks good on me and it took me that entire year that my sprained ankle was healing to knit the thing while, for example, I was watching but not participating in ballroom dance classes; it represents a big piece of my life!

I've decided to throw it away, but not until after I take a picture of me wearing it. The picture will remind me to never ever use acrylic yarn to knit things with. I used to think that knitting was a good way for me to get knitted items that fit for a good price. I was wrong. First, there's no telling if a thing will fit me after I knit it. Second, yarns that look good in the long term are expensive. So now I will think of knitting as a way to get something that is exactly the colors, materials (wool, cotton, or whatever), and style that I want. I can even make i-pod holders, wash rags, and scarves that are the proper size.

I was looking forward to a large spacious expanse on the top of my dresser when I finished, but I did not get this. I have so many knick-knacks that the surface is still basically covered in stuff. I'll have to decide what I want to do about this situation. Keep everything? Or move some things to other places? Or get rid of some things?

Meanwhile, I want to get out of the house tonight. Since I'm not working, I can make it to the 5:30 Body Flow class (a combination of tai chi, yoga, and pilates) that I like. Then I will negotiate additional activities with Robin.

Today the family went to the Meadows Museum on the SMU campus to see their exhibit of tapestries celebrating the story of Don Quixote.

I was very impressed with the tapestries. The degree of shadings accomplishable in weaving is just amazing. And some of this required weaving small odd-shaped pieces, sort of in the manner of paint-by-number design. Then they are sewn together in a way which at worst, looks like a patchwork quilt, and at best, appears virtually seamless.

We saw fourteen(?) tapestries, of various scenes from the book. One favorite was Sancho getting tossed in the air by several men holding a sheet--the look on his face is priceless. A tapestry depicting a dance was accompanied by an oil painting of the same scene, either both based on the same drawing or one based on the other. The facial expressions on the tapestry were surprisingly good. Bit it's easier to do with oil paint. With oil painting, a single person can do an entire piece, but with the tapestries it took many people working together. My sister showed us how to see widely varying abilities within a single piece.

Other birthday adventures included getting lost on the SMU campus, lots of delicious eating, playing the board game Life Stories, and having a large cake delivered by some friends of my mom. It's some sort of Russian cake they made themselves, involving several layers, chocolate, nuts and meringues. We were just about out the door when they dropped by, so I didn't get to taste it, but it was amazing just to look at.

Nanowrimo Update

I wrote 63 words in 19 minutes. That's a rate of 198 words per hour, I am still 15% complete, and at my current total speed for the month, I would finish on December 9.

I am just so sleepy. No excerpt today.

P.S. I had no access to the internet yesterday, so I uploaded yesterday's entry today.