Selvedge, sheep!

Oh, this was a nice 3 or 4 spread article showing all kinds of varieties of sheep for their wool.

Leah Buechley

Leah Buechley is someone I found in my research for my MA dissertation. At that time I saw a lot about her printed circuits and smart textile work. I recently found her talk about High-Low Tech craft and while I do think it's really interesting, it still doesn't quite touch on my interests. I love the concepts and the ideas behind it, I'm just not that into the actual materials and product output of this sort of craft. A quote:

This talk will discuss this "new craft", envisioning a future in which individuals integrate traditional craft, engineering, and web-honed communication skills to build and share information about "high-low tech" devices like temperature sensing scarves, algorithmically generated furniture, and radically customized cell phones.

Do you really want a temperature-sensing scarf? Maybe it's just me.....what do you think?

Mobile Darning

Agh!! The most lovely project!

The Free Mending Library in San Francisco. PSFK writes:

On his old ice cream cart-style, treadle-operated sewing machine, [Michael] Swaine sets about mending and altering people’s socks, jocks and frocks and it’s all for free. Michael is interested in engaging the community to rethink their relationship with clothing and the disposable nature of fashion.

See more here.

Learning

Over the last couple months PSFK has posted about various learning related items that I found really interesting....

Sophie Howarth was a speaker at one of their conferences and she runs a small shop called School of Life which runs classes about how we should live. Not only is the website just lovely (truly an aside), the classes sound amazing. Last fall, Alain de Botton ran one of the "Holiday" classes called Heathrow Airport with Alain de Botton that explored the idea of Heathrow airport as a destination instead of a point of transport. Another of my favorites are the Meals they put on. All strangers eat together....just check out the links and look around. You won't be disappointed.

This one might be defunct by now, but The Temporary School of Thought (definitely closed upon further investigation). PFSK describes the school as:

Classes take place in a beautiful townhouse and range from “infrastructure for anarchists” to book binding, laughter workshops, bicycle maintenance and gardening. Everything is free, the event is dedicated to the admirable ideals of mutual learning and skill sharing rather than making money.

This last one is less a class and written about as more of an enterprising approach to getting new work, but I think it's also an interesting concept in learning. John Morefield is an ot of work architect who has set up a booth at a local farmer's market in Seattle offering architectural advice for 5¢. Really, he's gathering contacts and referrals for new work, but what I think is interesting is the learning experience the shoppers at the farmer's market are getting. Think about how nice it would be to be able to pick the brain of someone in any profession...chatting with a plumber or train conductor or someone who works in a food processing plant. Think of how much interesting info you could absorb. It's sort of like having someone in the family who does a job like that. I love this idea!