4MyEarth lunch bags.

Sick of buying lunch bags which are designed to attract your (and your child's) attention in the shop - but inevitably break down horribly not long after - I started thinking of options.  Even when they don't break down - their impractical shapes (like a kitty face built in to the front) are difficult to clean.

Most moms would have just junked these out and bought new ones each year - or each term, but not this one.  How many crappy lunchbags are thrown out by we wasteful moms, I thought?   There has to be a better way.  I could sew them myself - but they would look handmade, which would make my kids feel different - they want to fit in.

First idea:  I could ask Ginger Pye (two NZ sisters that make cool patterned lunch wraps in NZ) to custom make a rectangular lunch bag with a zipper but in the same resilient cotton and foodsafe plastic as their lunch wraps.  Then the lunch bags would last for years, be easy to clean, and look good.  As it turned out that would have required too much effort on their part in designing them, but they referred me to 4MyEarth (and another option: stainless steel lunch boxes, used often in India so carried in Indian shops).

I decided to get 4MyEarth's cool bags from abroad.   After a mishap using their first ones where fruit that spilled out of a container dissolved the glue of a decorative  metallic cloth on the insides - they replaced the bags with a new design which used neoprene on the inside (high tech breathable material).

The new design 4MyEarth is using is so awesome that I have to blog about them!  Worth exploring, and discovering - as a new option for others to use as well.  They cost about $29.95 - but they look like they will last for 10 years.  So you would buy them once (write in their names to help this happen).  They are very easy to keep clean with their sturdy neoprene interiors.

Available for NZers from the Australian 4MyEarth.

Direct link to these lunch bags here.

Wonderful technique for creating woodcut cross-hatching effect in Illustrator

I have a job creating designs for bids for a construction company.  We were bidding on a job to build a new bypass through a range of mountains - a major project.  For the covers on all the folders and titlepages I created a vector illustration which mimicked a woodcut effect, as people used to use in early printing.  As they were printing with only black ink, illustrators cut cross-hatched lines as shading.

When I googled techniques others had used, where they were selling a variety of plugins - I found one very useful part of their technique, and used my eye to do the rest.  So now I can post my technique - to add to the shared knowledge online.  





First, I created a brush in Illustrator which looked rough like a woodcut slash.  Using this brush which narrowed off as I used it, I could brush one stroke at a time.  Theoretically I could have brushed all the cross-hatching one stroke at a time "by hand" on the computer, but it would have been very difficult to do.   SO you brush at two ends of the row, along a line you have drawn that defines the slope.  (See top centre of screenshot below.)

Then you choose both strokes, and choose BLEND under OBJECT.  This will create a row of strokes that are perfectly spaced.  Make sure you change BLEND OPTIONS to SPECIFIED STEPS.  (You can also do this after.)  Experiment with the options and see which is the best number of steps, perhaps 6, 5..  to shade the slope.  (See top centre  in screenshot below for blended strokes.)

Then, as you want to be able to erase at the base (where parts of stroke overlap your line), you EXPAND APPEARANCE, then EXPAND.  Then you will have a vector shape which can be erased at will with the eraser.  (See screenshots below.)

Another set of lines created shown in screenshots below.  (And the first screenshot shows the set trimmed where it extended below line.)

Adjusting

At the end I definitely removed the Google Earth reference photo of the Tanui mountain range.

My fellow designer had the idea of using a gradient behind the mountain range as well - like a sunrise.

The Strong and Gentle Hammer

A few nights ago I had a dream which was strange and memorable.

I dreamed I was teaching a baby to swim, which was putting my attention and care to the test.  There seemed to be a class I was doing this with at a pool.  But sometimes my impulsiveness was revealed as a problem that I rushed to compensate for, as I allowed the baby to plummet but would have to focus on bringing him up in time.

The next part of my dream I was being flown over the landscape of my experience - the Canadian mountain hillsides.  Then I was brought higher and higher across the mountains until I was so high up it was absolutely terrifying as I was being held as if by a helicopter and flown across as though just held by my shoulders and could've dropped at any time.  I went far far to another country.

I remember being then in the past.  I was in a university library.      There was art and shelves of books.  Then I got a thrill as I saw the current publications - 1950s magazines sitting out on a small table - in a great reading room - were if the older age.  Of earlier printing methods but I was getting to see them at the time!


Around the 1950s - 60s.  Then I remember the people there bring very clever and experimenting.  They were also very wild.  Barefoot and making all kinds of art, doing what they liked.   I was looking and admiring them, but particularly this hammer.  The top was strong just like a hammer.  But the handle had been carved so ornately and beautifully.  It was now soft, bending like a fabric.  Soft and hard.

But just then some people asked them to be gathered to be recognised for their genius.  They gathered in the building in rows of seats.   But it was a trick by the people who thought they should be put in their place.  Gas started to come into the building.  It was to kill them all.

But some were clever and fought their way out of the situation by climbing up to glass windows in the ceiling and out.   Some escaped but some died.

The ones who lived continued on their ways but were more restrained and humbled by the experience.  I forgot to say that when the people came in to gas them they first shot at books on the edges of the library's book shelves.  And the cats also went to the sides of the book shelves.  Cats had had a special place there.

Then I was speaking to a person in my dream, telling them where I was from, how the weather was in Canada and how it was in NZ.  It was as though the dream person wanted to know various reasons for my choices but not to judge me but to download.   I said Calgary was fresh and cold.  But how'd special NZ was.  The person was telling me about where they were from.  I told them I realised I had such a North American centric view as I often didn't think of the rest of the works.

She told me they were from where Neanderthaals lived - by Greece.   I looked it up and Greece is by where Neanderthaals ranged - but I hadn't known that.

How to make truffula trees (using dyed carded wool)

...just like in 'The Lorax", by Dr. Seuss.

I made these with my daughter's class at school (she is 9).  It was a blast.  The next day, her friend came over to play, and I made Fimo creations with them.  We made a barbaloot bear, and a Lorax, and they had so much fun making all these foods out of Fimo for them.  Then, since I had a few trees home with me for finishing - they played with them in a truffula forest.  They even made a humming fish, and I cut out a circle out of blue cloth for a pond in the forest.  So much fun!

My tutorial is below:

Review: the poor design of BP's reusable cup

I just passed some feedback onto BP's Facebook page (as I find the marketing people who maintain the Facebook page of a company actually listen) about their horrible design of their reusable cup.  It looks cute and pretty, but fails functionally.

As in my letter to BP below:

"Hi there.  I bought one of your new reusable coffee cups - photo attached.  I just wanted to pass you some feedback about its functionality, since preserving the environment is really important to me - so having a good reusable cup is important for people to actually use it.

"First of all the lid is really really hard to get on.  The first time I used it the lid wasn't on all the way, and it spilled all over me when I drank from it on the way to work.  Once I learned that pushing it down all the way really really hard worked - I gave the cup another chance.  But it actually leaks, from the top, even when the lid is pushed firmly down.

"Sorry, but I think you guys can do better - KeepCup in Australia has a brilliant cup that people actually use.  And did you know there is a local producer in NZ that is making a barista style cup (it looks like the disposable cup but is reusable).  It is called IdealCup and sorry but it's far better than the one you're selling!  http://www.idealcup.co.nz/silverstripe/

"Also, softer reusable plastic can smell like petroleum, so it has to be made well out of the right material or it's really gross to drink from compared to a disposable cup - the design of both IdealCup and KeepCup succeed in that respect.  The lids on your reusable cup have not succeeded in that area either."
"
SAYS...ME.  Maybe they can support a local, but at least get a design of coffee cup
that works?

Blueberry Plum Feijoa Magic Jam

The best jam I've made so far I used 1.3 kilos pieces of plums from our tree, 1 kilo blueberries I bought, and the pulp of 16 feijoas I was given by a friend. And about 2 kilos sugar (yes my friends that's how much sugar there is in jam). And some lemon juice. The feijoias give it a spike of flavour which is really neat.

Recipe: Put all ingredients together (1.3 kilo cut up plums, no stones, 1 kilo blueberries, the pulp of 16 feijoas, 1 kilo sugar, and jam setting pectin). Also I believe I put in a cup of water.

Stir it up, and let it boil until it is really broken down and thick. Pour into sterilized jars (the dishwasher works, and I do keep pouring boiling water into them, and soak lids in boiling water).

Reusing jam jars from the shops is ok for jam! I save all good jars to use for jam.

Knitted flower - gift of love for Troy

After knitting a few flower things for nieces, I didn't want to leave Troy out, prioritizing others first, again, so I knitted her a special flower just for her after. She lucked out as I had had sufficient practice to knit it far better than the others - I also did my best for her out of my love for her.

 This one was knitted to look like a flower in a picture she chose and gave to me.

 Now that I have done a few, I do them in my own, slightly less perfect but simpler way than the way I learned from:

 1) I cast on four stitches for all of these petals, which are knit separately. (After they are all knit, you steam the backs with an iron to keep them from curling up, then sew them together with the remaining wools ends.) Then you increase at will to get the shape you want, two stitches every other row is the most extreme - purl with no increases in between every row where you increase. Then when you narrow again, just sew 2 stitches together at the start and end of each row, mirroring what you did before (purling on back with no decreases). Just make sure you remember to repeat exactly what you do for each petal!

 My only simplification was that I just sew two stitches together regardless of where the decrease is - I can't figure out the various methods of decreasing so it looks better - and to be honest, I don't really care. I use later shaping to sort it out if needed - sewing - and to be honest it looks fine. Not worth the trouble! Knit 2 stitches as 1, easy, done.

 2) I did do something interesting for the white petals to give them more structure. I took my wool needle, and drew one of the wool strings attached to the petal all through the edge of the petal - like a cord through the edge of a bag, then tied a knot when it felt right after getting back to the start. It also got rid of some of the remnant wool. I do also always pull and play with things to arrange them nicely, then sewing fastens them to stay that way.

 Because Troy likes to play with toys and hold them, not just have a hair decoration or something, all the leftover remnant wool I left hanging underneath, and some of them I laced through my wool needle and sewed round up and down with a blanket stitch to make a firmer stem. Then I added two pipecleaners, and wound green wool round the whole thing, securing it at the start of the process then the end. Another thing one could do was use thin thread to secure and hold it together while ornamenting overtop!

 The pollen stamens were of course just drawn up with a needle through the centre after the petals were sewn together.

 Sewing flower is really fun, as it's really fast and easy - when you are following your own patterns. Now I'd like to keep making them, for friends, for hair ornaments, or as part of knitted garments or hats. They are not works of art like paintings - but as gifts of love which effect real life, they are the highest form of art.