Words    Words    Words

• 1 TexAnne // Oct 20, 2008 at 4:27 pm

  I WANT TO MAKE A SCARF LIKE THAT!!

  Uh. Also, I’m not Chaz’ girlfriend. Alas. I was supposed to take him out for barbecue, but he got in an accident instead.

• 2 kit // Oct 20, 2008 at 4:33 pm

  We have some wonderful crafters working with us. It’s a shame we didn’t have a good photo of the plate by Debs/Melded Earth, which (much as I love the bowls) is even more impressive and otherworldly than the bowl prototype.

• 3 Freya PaxTwist // Oct 20, 2008 at 4:58 pm

  TexAnne: I’m in the process of writing up a pattern that I think will work for Tellus knitters. Perhaps once its ready, you would be willing to do a test knit for me? I’m not sure our symbols here translate well to yours.

  Freya PaxTwist
  Under the Spindle

• 4 TexAnne // Oct 20, 2008 at 5:36 pm

  Freya, I would *love* to be a test-knitter! Ooh, knitting and translation, my two great loves.

  Your username makes me think you’re a spinner. What kind of fibers do Mother’s knitters commonly use?

• 5 skzb // Oct 20, 2008 at 6:40 pm

  Woah! Do I have people on my blog using the M2I link???? That rocks!!!

  Welcome, Freya! Excuse me while I crumble into a pile geek-ash.

• 6 Freya PaxTwist // Oct 20, 2008 at 11:17 pm

  TexAnne: I am indeed a spinner, as well as a knitter, crocher, dyer and overall fiber obsessive. Its a family tradition and one I enjoy very much.

  I have a fondness for bamboo and tencel fibers, but livec wool is also very popular. I also use Tellus silk, since our silk is very very hard to come by. Under the Spindle sells these fibers in dyed roving form, as well as yarns, and has some knitted clothing available off the rack, although I personally prefer creating custom items for my clients.

  skzb: Be careful or a stray Gale breeze may blow you away. CLabs has kindly set up a test portal in the shop, and I got to play with it first. I assume eventually others will be joining in on the testing though.

• 7 Catherine // Oct 21, 2008 at 3:28 am

  I knew I should’ve brought my camera… Oh well, there must be someone with pics. If you email Didi, he’ll probably have some.

  That really is a gorgeous scarf. I’d want the hair thing too, if I weren’t sure that it wouldn’t get tangled in my hair and need to be chopped out with machetes. ^__^

  @Freya: What spinning technique do you use? Spinning wheel? Drop spindle?

• 8 TexAnne // Oct 21, 2008 at 5:36 am

  Freya–I’ve seen references to livec (livex?) on the Port Outreach mediators’ blog. What Tellurian animal are they most like, wool-wise?

  Does Mother have a quilting tradition? We take big pieces of fabric, cut them into little pieces of fabric, turn them back into big pieces of fabric, and then sleep under them when it’s cold.

• 9 Ella // Oct 21, 2008 at 5:50 am

  Further regrets at not bringing my own camera! Lots of people took pictures independently, though, especially at signings and such. There was even one guy who filmed all the lectures.

  I’m sure a quick browse through the Israeli equivalents of Flickr will yield some results–let me get on that. I can contact the congoers to ask for sharing permission, if you’d like, and act as a mediator (ha!) to overcome the language barrier.

• 10 Boojie // Oct 21, 2008 at 6:58 am

  There’s a huge number of con albums on facebook (including mine own, ahemm.) Anybody got facebook, I can link you to about a gazillion or two of them. I’m collecting them.

  Vered (blue-haired, loud-mouthed Israeli SF writer and translator, probably easy to identify this way)

• 11 kit // Oct 21, 2008 at 7:50 am

  Maybe what I should do is just link to some people’s facebook albums. Send me links to yours?

• 12 Freya PaxTwist // Oct 21, 2008 at 8:23 am

  Catherine: I grew up using a spindle as its so extremely portable. Takes up far less space in the wahj and used properly can be quite entertaining for others to watch. I can’t imagine dropping it though! Much too pretty. My childhood favorite had a beautiful painted green stone whorl. My daughter now uses it when she’s spinning.

  These days I use a wheel. Few things make me happier than sitting around with the friends that seem to always be coming in and out of the shop, while I sit and spin. Its my favorite part of the day.

  TexAnne: Having not had a lot of contact with a large variety of different wools from Tellus, I have a hard time answering this question. I’ve been told by some it compares to llama and others say merino, but I’ve not yet been able to experience either. So I’m not sure. I guess if you come visit you’ll need to stop by the shop and give me your opinion on the matter.

  There are quilters (that looks like an odd word translated) on Mother, but since it doesn’t tend to get extremely cold here, its not as popular as knitting or crochet is. I actually see more quilts hanging from walls than draped on beds.

  Now if you’ll pardon me, it appears that last evenings revelry wandered my way and left its mark in the wake. Need to clean that up so no one trips coming inside. Silly ‘riders.

  Freya PaxTwist of Camp Peaceful Dreams
  Under the Spindle

• 13 Catherine // Oct 21, 2008 at 10:39 am

  Freya: One doesn’t quite drop a drop spindle; it’s suspended by the thread and spun in the air. It’s a lot faster than twisting the spindle by hand – momentum does all the work. Is that how your hand spindles work?

  Steve: Postcards! *dies laughing*

• 14 skzb // Oct 21, 2008 at 11:17 am

  Catherine @ 13: What? *innocent look*

  Hee hee

• 15 Gaelsha // Oct 21, 2008 at 4:39 pm

  @Catherine: Freya told me to come over and use her test portal to answer this one–as long as you can pull your hair into a single strand to put it through the center of the hair spiral, tangling should not be a problem. You use it by pulling your hair back into a single bundle, passing the bundle through the center of the piece, then twisting into a knot and placing a hairstick through it to secure. So the hair isn’t tangled in the spiral. I’ll be happy to make you one, of course. Just let me know whether you prefer stones, glass, shells or pearls. Then all we have to do is figure out how to get it to you!

  -Gaelsha
  Dreaming Copper-Harborside

• 16 TexAnne // Oct 21, 2008 at 5:30 pm

  Gaelsha–Whee, mental whiplash! I thought for a second you were talking about preparing fiber for spinning. (Animal fibers = hair, see? Heh.) I might be interested in trading for one of those hair spirals myself, actually. Are they heavy?

• 17 AntonGarou // Oct 22, 2008 at 10:27 am

  *waves to Boojie*Any chance of you linking to your own gallery?or is it closed to non-facebook people(I know the one Talash set up isn’t)?

  Also, add my voice to the people wishing they brought cameras.For Steve’s hat if nothing else: it is seriously cool.

• 18 Catherine // Oct 23, 2008 at 6:32 pm

  @Gaelsha: Thanks! I’m afraid I’m pretty much out of cash at the moment so I probably won”t be able to afford one any time soon… about how much would it cost? (And would it work for people with way too much hair?)

• 19 Gaelsha // Oct 24, 2008 at 9:46 am

  @TexAnne: Sorry about that, guess I should have specified what I was replying to! They aren’t heavy, the copper tube is hollow, which cuts down on the weight (as opposed to using a copper rod).

  @Catherine: I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for people with “way too much hair”. How much hair is too much hair I wonder? I could craft it for you with a larger spiral, if you are concerned about it. That should solve the issue, whether you mean hair thickness or length or both.

  I still don’t understand the Tellurian exchange rate. Do you craft something we can trade? Barter I understand. I’ll check with Splash in the meantime and see if I can come to an understanding of how your trade system functions. I am guessing “cash” is your equivalant of work credits?

  -Gaelsha

• 20 AntonGarou // Oct 24, 2008 at 11:13 am

  @Gaelsha:I don’t know what work credits are, but “cash” is a way to get around some of the problems large barter economies tend to have, to give a simplistic example:
  say that I want one of your hair spirals, and I have a livex wool scarf I can exchange it for- but you don’t need it, you want an amount of raw copper instead, and the metal trader won’t accept it either- he wants some apple turnovers, to my relief the baker finally takes it as payment.This means that I need to dicker three times and make 3-4 side trips for the one hair spiral.Cash is an agreed upon, universal payment method- instead of specifying what you want for the spiral at each purchase you say “each spiral costs such-and-such in cash”, which you can spend on variety of other things later, and I can find someone who’ll give me this amount(or more) for my scarf, or maybe I have enough I got left from some transaction before.It’s got its problems, but it simplifies things.

• 21 Gaelsha // Oct 24, 2008 at 11:46 am

  @AntonGarou Sounds a lot like work credits to me, but are you saying you don’t barter at all? Only credit?

  If I can barter directly, I do. If not then I pay with labor hours. From what Splash was telling me though, Tellurians use “coin” and “paper” versions of labor hours. We don’t use those, it’s all transacted electronically. I do wonder how you keep track of it, doesn’t it become harder to travel if you have to haul whatever amount you might need along, instead of just logging into the mesh from you Emkay?

  Anyway, the way it works here is if you want to sell me something at the shop, I offer credit or craft, and either barter for something I’ve made, or credit your labor hour account. If you want to buy something, either I know I can use what you can give me: your craft or your time or some information or connection you have, or I accept your credits.

  I can’t speak for everyone, but I prefer barter whenever I can arrange it. It’s just more fun!

  -Gaelsha

• 22 AntonGarou // Oct 24, 2008 at 12:08 pm

  @Gaelsha- Yes, work credits sound a lot like money, of which “cash” is the paper/coin subcategory.Paper/coin cash is partially a historical artefact here and now: most money is wholly electronic.

  Money gets transferred to paper/coin form for transactions where ‘net access is impossible or uncomfortable, also the straight use of electronic money usually costs a commission, which make the use of electronic money under a certain sum counterproductive.

  Usually we carry some money on our person for such instances while most of our money is electronic, although some people, either criminal or paranoid, who’re afraid that larger organizations, like governments, are following them, restrict themselves to “cash” since it is mostly untraceable, while electronic transactions very easily are.

• 23 Gaelsha // Oct 25, 2008 at 7:10 am

  @AntonGarou I have to admit that answer raised more questions than it bedded down. But I see that Splash has started a thread on Voices to answer this, so I’ll table it on this thread for now and head over there. Thanks for your responses, even if I didn’t wholly understand that last one!

  -Gaelsha

• 24 Catherine // Oct 27, 2008 at 9:14 am

  @Gaelsha: The art I do is mostly digital (these pictures, for instance). I don’t know exactly how I could barter them, but I guess you could have them printed up wherever you are if you’re interested… I have high-res copies of the first five. Though you paying to print them up would kind of defeat the purpose. ^__^

  If you like antiquities, I could get you some ancient coins (mostly the Hasmonean dynasty or Agrippa I) at a pretty good price. Roman glass shards too – lots of people here put it in jewelry because of its iridescent patina.

• 25 Gaelsha // Oct 27, 2008 at 1:35 pm

  @Catherine: ooh, the Roman glass shards sound interesting. (Did I mention I love the “Wikipedia” you all have come up with, so much information! I wonder if we could do something like that for Mother? Have to remember to ask the modpods.) We do a lot of glasswork here and having something “different” would be intriguing.

  Now all we have to figure out is how to manage shipping and how much is a reasonable barter.

  Tell me what sort of beading you would like on the hair piece (glass, stone, pearl, make something up and surprise you?) and I’ll figure out how many labor hours it would “cost” me to make. Then we can translate that into how much glass that equals in a similiar number of hours for you. Or something. Hm…trading between worlds could get interesting, if only for the complexities of barter! How fun!

  And while you are thinking about material (oh, and colors for the beading) you could get me some measurements that would be helpful. Let’s see, gather your hair into a single “strand” at the back, measure around the base. (Do you have access to a measuring device that will bend enough to allow you to do that?) and then twist it into a bun and measure the circumference of that as well. That will tell me how big to make the spiral for you. *smile*

  I do so love a challenge….

  -Gaelsha

• 26 bamboo rug // Jun 5, 2010 at 3:29 am

  yes, it is.

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