Bed at last

[altivo]

Made it through the busy weekend, whew!

Did the opening reception at the gallery this afternoon. Gary played dulcimer, I did spinning demonstrations for about three hours. We both managed to avoid the food. (I ate one cookie.)

It's amazing how many people simply have no idea of where life's necessities come from. They watch you spinning and want to know why you would do that. You explain that it's the traditional, long established way of making yarn and thread that can be turned into clothing. The whole process simply befuddles them. They don't know where wool comes from, or cotton, or for that matter, I'm sure, polyester. They've never thought about how it gets turned into fabric and fabric into clothing. I'm not talking about little kids here, I'm talking about adults. In fact, some of them definitely old enough to remember when it was common for women to sew clothing at home. Nearly everyone did it just 50 years ago. These ladies were much older than I am, yet they simply had never thought about it at all. They just took the whole thing for granted.

No wonder the world is such a mess. People just have no conception of the consequences of their actions and decisions. Grrr.

Anyway, I filled two bobbins with fine wool thread that I will now ply into yarn. But not tonight. I'm going to bed before I pass out here and wake up with POIUYTREWQ imprinted on my face.

Comments

[atomicat.livejournal.com]

Unquestioning, un-inquisitive minds scare the shit out of me. They can be filled with all sorts of contradictions, lies, and weird belief systems.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, they were inquisitive enough once they started to think about it at all. But it was obvious that they never really had thought or wondered about it before now. That in turn tells me how much our educational process has deteriorated. I learned all this in about third grade, actually.

[akirashima.livejournal.com]

I was alerted to this post by Atomicat and so i read it.

first on the Comments of the education system at least here in america (not sure how bod it is in other countries
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/hp/frames.htm

as far as spinning and other such things I too was taught a lot of these things though for me it was more agricutlure and herbal medicine and such. I was lucky and has Post Hippie parents and lots fo Older neighbors who had victory gardens and such and were more than happy to share all of that with me. Also i am in the SCA and well just this last august i got to learn how to pound flax for fibres.

But yeah it is so sad that people are not inquisitive enough to seek these answers before they are confronted by it. I am oft amazed at the lack of knowledge but more importantly the lack of drive to learn. I am glad when i am doing something like herb picking or such and get a chance to educate people and encourage them to learn more. This past weekend i was at the PPG aquairum in Pittsburgh in the Pittsburgh Zoo and educating people on some of the things in the aqurium like the Sea Dragon exhibit and the Giant Octopus exhibit.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Interesting essay, thanks. Gatto has some excellent points, though I'm not sure the "conspiracy" is as intentional as he seems to believe.

Unfortunately, views such as his are often used as an argument for abolishing public education and educational standards, and I disagree with that. It's going too far. I do agree that the so-called "discipline" of the public schools can be as destructive as it might be useful.

However, I found no lack of subject matter when I was in school. I was rarely bored. Teachers offered me additional material and insights. I was given Aristotle to read while others plowed through "See Dick run," because the teacher thought I seemed up to it. Later I got Don Quixote when most were reading The Call of the Wild (I'd already read that a couple of years earlier.

Many of the failings of the current school system are not really the fault of any higher up conspiracy, but rather the fault of parents who take little interest in their children's progress and education, and expect the school to do it all. They don't read anything themselves, and don't encourage their children to explore ideas. When the schools try to encourage the exceptional, these parents complain, either that the work being asked of their darlings is "too difficult" or that some students are being given more than others. Never mind that those students are being challenged because they've already progressed ahead of your own children, just make sure that no one gets more than yours.

And then there are the religious looneys who mostly want to censor the curriculum to keep out concepts like evolution, scientific method, sex education, and the history and advances of non-Christian cultures. Those people do their best to destroy the curriculum even farther, and if they don't succeed, they yank their kids from the school not to give them a better education at home, but rather to make sure they stay suitably ignorant by censoring every word they read or are exposed to.

[akirashima.livejournal.com]

While i know the Conspiracy sounds far fetched and strange but sometimes i think i believe it due to the utter lack of intelligence and creativity and observation. I myself went to a mostly bad school where my Dyslexia was undiagnosed and i was once told i was to creative for my own good. Much of my education was not about thought and problem solving it was about regurgitating memorized pre approved factiods that many times were false anyway. I do think the educations sytem does need to be dismantled but it also needs to be rebuilt for better. Teachers should be choosen for skill and be taught to encourage kids like the few exceptional ones do. There were far to few Good teachers

I am not saying it is a conspiracy but it is a stagnant system now. made worse by inatentive parents (though some are simply not able to do anything about that. My own parents had to work 3pm to 11pm every day but the weekends so we never really saw them all week. and lest face it there are a lot of single parent families now and the income needed to get by is increasing while the income paid is not)

there is an old saying that it takes a village to raise a child and it does
to may people say it is this person or that person who is responsible. it is all of us. And the kids are the ones suffering from it and growing up without a clue and just doing minimal things to survive.
My best freind is a great artists and does not do anything with it becasue no one as he grew up cared about his art at all. Not the teachers or parents or others in his life. in fact they discouraged him in his school. that school system only cared about sports and passed the athlets without thinking. heck My freinds brother got on the football team not cause he liked it but becasue he wanted to pass. He hated football.


and well i know about the religious freaks who do the home schooling with no real education. I was a fundy when i was a kid and my parents who were not (a nieghbor took me to church all the time) refused to let them take away my education. as substandard as it was anyway compared to other peoples i hear about. Brahma is there some schools i would give anything to go back in time to go to! But yes there are a lot of people to blame on many fronts. I have never understood why people look for one cause to things it is never ever the case. it is always a combination of things.


but i am going to stop now for i am getting distracted by a lot of activity in my house :P

[doco.livejournal.com]

Wasn't that song called "The Bad Touch"?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

No idea. All I know is that it is awfully crude.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Hah some people don't even know how a dry sump system works.....uh...hello?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's necessary to know all the details. But having an awareness of the process overall is important. Otherwise you get the idea that a resource like water is an endless supply and there's no need to have concern about wasting it. Or that it doesn't matter what you put in the trash because it just "goes away" and doesn't bother you any more.

For years I have derided Americans for having no idea where their food comes from or what it is made of. I really hadn't realized that they are just as ignorant about clothing. And no doubt now, about shelter and just about every necessity. It just appears by magic and they aren't going to know what to do if it stops appearing.

[songdogmi.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the house-building process is a bit more well known though, because of all the TV shows related to houses, both construction and renovation. But the side effect is, I have the sense that some people say "Let's build a house!" or "I can fix that!" when they really shouldn't.

But about everything else.... yeah. I have a close personal friend who expressed surprise that things like shirts and pillowcases can be made instead of bought. I might have ended up thinking the same thing, except I watched my mom make clothes when I was a little kid. I don't think he had that opportunity; his mom was not exactly a domestic sort.

Then again, I also have friends who make clothes. But their clothes all come out looking between 150 and 500 years old. :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes. There's certainly a difference between knowing how to do it yourself, having the desire to do it yourself, and just understanding the basic process, with inputs and outputs. I say everyone should know the basic process, because it's part of responsible living. (And it was part of the elementary school curriculum when I was in school, but I guess today all they do is show them a computer and how to type keywords into Yahoo. At least, that's how it looks to me from here.)

Some of the adult women asking me strange questions were in their 60s or 70s. Some had obvious foreign accents, which might indicate a very different educational background than I expect here, but in most cases should put them closer to having been exposed to this stuff. Spinning and weaving are still commonplace sights throughout South America, for instance. For Europeans, especially Eastern Europe, exposure should have been no farther away than their mothers or grandmothers and inside their own lifetimes. The US was probably the first nation in the world to remove all this from the sight of ordinary people and reduce it to a commercial mystery, and here that only happened 120 to 150 years ago. England was close behind, but the practices of spinning, knitting, and weaving still held on in rural areas until quite recently.

Typical questions:

What is that stuff you are feeding to the spinning wheel? (Didn't recognize wool by sight or touch. When told what it was, didn't understand how you got it from the sheep, or even that it came from sheep.)

Why would you do this? (Didn't understand that yarn, string, and thread have to be manufactured. Figured you just bought them at a store. When asked where she thought the store got them, she didn't know, had never thought about it.)

What do you do with this "string" after you make it? (Turns out that the idea of weaving cloth was alien to this one, she couldn't get it at all. She knew what knitting was, but thought you could only make mittens, socks, or sweaters that way and couldn't imagine how anyone could be patient enough to actually do it anyway.)

Men take a different approach. They are equally vague about the process of producing textiles and clothing, but it doesn't interest them in any case. They want to know how the spinning wheel works. Most seem to grasp the mechanical concept quickly enough, but still have no interest in the process. I guess that's gender role training in action.

[songdogmi.livejournal.com]

The "Why would you do this?" question is really thought provoking. She wasn't speaking existentially, was she? As in "Why would you do this when you could do something else?"

It led me to re-realize something I knew: We're very used to taking $30 (e.g.) to the store and buying a shirt. If we had to make that shirt, we might value that shirt at far more than $30, especially if we had to make the thread and weave the cloth for it in addition to cutting and sewing up the pieces. Makes me think that maybe we don't value the $30 as much as we assume we do. When you think that for $30 you not only get a shirt in the size and color you want, but you get a lot of time that you would've had to spend making the shirt... that's a real bargain. Unless you're really good and fast at making shirts, that is, or unless you really, really hate shopping or really like the shirt-making process.

That last bit is kind of a tangent, but it was inspired by the one woman's question of why you would make thread and yarn.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's an existentialist question in any case. We do have the option of buying clothing and never having to deal with making it. With children, the idea that you couldn't always do that is often a stumbling block, because all they've ever known was that KMart or whatever was just down the road. I've been disturbed before to encounter teenage girls who still had the same view. Either schools are not teaching them history, even as recent as a century ago, or it isn't sinking in at all. I am utterly astounded though when adults ask these questions. As far as I'm concerned, these are people who live an utterly sheltered and unthoughtful existence, like chickens in a cage. Basic needs pop out of a hole in the wall, waste goes out another, and we don't know what these round white things we keep producing are for, but they go away and don't bother us after a while. No wonder democracy is failing. How can anyone so uninformed and visionless cast a valid ballot?

You are entirely correct about the shirt. The reasons that we can buy it for $30 or less, when you start delving into them, are mostly not very nice. Chances are that the sewing was done in a factory setting outside the bounds of the US, where OSHA and unions have no say, conditions are unhealthy and unsafe, and workers are underpaid, work long hours, and have no benefits to speak of. The weaving was done in a similar environment, using large machines that really need many safety guards on them and are extremely noisy so that workers should even be protected from the sound. But that too probably now happens outside the US where OSHA has no influence, so injuries to workers are common and wages are low. I'm not sure where most commercial cotton or polyester fiber originates these days. Chances are, though, that the raw material didn't come from the US either. Added together, this explains how the retailer can make $14 on that $30 shirt, and the wholesaler can make another $8, and the owners of the various factories can each take a cut. The actual workers get a pittance, and if natural fibers were used, the producer of the fibers got very little.

However, Americans are so used to the prices they pay at big box type retailers that they pull back in horror from genuine pricing for handmade or even partially handmade clothing. The very wealthy don't care. They pay for designer names and such without ever considering the price (go, Condaleeza!) but the rest are looking only for what they can afford. This does lead, as you point out, to a lack of appreciation for what goes into the garments, and no concern at all for those who were exploited in the production and profiteering. I know from personal experience that people resist paying even half of what handmade items should be worth.

It also makes you understand why clothing was patched, repaired, and handed down in past years. It was a valuable resource and needed to be used and recycled in various ways until it was completely worn out.

The future is not what it used to be!

[animist.livejournal.com]

Thw worst thing is that people that clueless about where the artifacts of modern life come from, how they are made, and how they work feel smug and superior towards people from the third world, or people from past eras. It's like the intelligence that is weaved in to our modern world is somehow bestowing this same intelligence on modern people. Modern people are perhaps even less intelligent than those in the past, thanks to our post-literate pop culture. And don't even get me started on politics!

Re: The future is not what it used to be!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid one follows naturally on the other. Politics here and elsewhere has become a morass because we are losing the rest of our native sense and becoming, in essence, domestic cattle maintained by the powerful oligarchy.

[wolfgrowl.livejournal.com]

I'm always amazed how many people don't have hobbies! One of mine is the transformation of grapes into wine from crushing and destemming. I'm impressed by anyone that makes things form scratch. I had a friend and his wife that used to make their own soaps, jams, decorative containers, baked goods etc., and used to do their own gift baskets at Christmas. What a great gift.
Or you could fall asleep and have CSE, BAT, and Spac kcol on your face too!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, they have "hobbies" but the hobby usually consists of watching television, or going to movies, or putting in hours at the bingo parlor or casino. The more the population increases, the smaller the percentage who actually have any understanding of how anything works. It's quite frightening to contemplate.

I knew you made wine. But have you ever grown the grapes? :) One follows naturally upon the other. I started with sewing when I was quite young (less than ten years old.) An interest in the means by which the fabric itself was produced followed, and led the way into knitting, crochet, and other techniques. Real weaving was of great interest but requires an investment in equipment and space that I didn't achieve until my late 30s. It seems perfectly normal that from there one progresses to spinning (all that yarn comes from somewhere) first as an interest in the process and then as one realizes that unique materials can be achieved that no one else has and that simply can't be purchased. I've gone all the way to raising the sheep now, and am toying with the idea of growing flax and various dye plants. Will that be cheaper than just buying flax and dyestuffs produced overseas? No. But I'll learn more about the process, and will be exploiting underpaid workers a little less.

According to the books, you can grow enough flax on a ten foot square of land in one season to produce enough thread to weave enough fabric for one man's shirt. A single person doing all the work from planting the seeds to sewing the garment will need at least a full year to achieve it. (Even if you worked full time at it, you still have to deal with processes that require time: growing the flax, drying it, retting to release the linen fibers all are time based processes even though little physical labor is involved.) It may seem absurd, but I'd like to wear that shirt and be able to say I did it all, just that once, from beginning to finished product.

[wolfgrowl.livejournal.com]

That would be one incredible shirt.

I haven't grown the grapes but always wanted to get a bit of space in the Niagara to grow grapes and when I go home, if I get a house I will definitely put in vines. I have references on grape growing.

I have grown elderberries to use in wine making as that was all I could manage in the limited space I lived in when in Toronto. My aperitifs were made partly by using home grown herbs. I had one dry aperitif that was the highest placing dry aperitif in competition in Canada in one year and have won two medals in national competition for my aperitifs. However, my number one passion is making fine madeiras which take me over 5 years to make. Mostly I buy my grapes. I sourced many reds from California and whites mostly from Ontario, Canada.

I've had to put most my wine production on hold til I go back to Toronto due to storage problems (because of the size of my home) - a lot of equipment is in storage. (I may make a white from juice down here though and have flirted with the idea of making a sherry)

To occupy myself, I'm going to make some planters, with benches and storage in my backyard for my next endeavor, and I've started with some sewing projects related to fursuiting in the meantime.

*lol* Another thing I would really like to do when I retire is build a still. I have the plans! This would be very useful in fortifying my sherries.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It did dawn on me after I hit "post" that of course you know about things that are time-based and can't be speeded up. Winemaking has such processes too. Flax grows only so fast. Once grown and harvested, it must dry, and then be wet once more for "retting", the process that breaks down the bond between the bark and the phloem fibers. That takes as long as it takes, just like fermentation and aging wine does.

As a local dj put it.. The SHEEPLE!!

[bladehorse.livejournal.com]

I had coffie comin out my nose when I heard her say that.. Mainly cause its so tru! And in truth, the Gov. Wants everyone to be a Sheeple, for they can tell them what to do, and they will without question.. The Gov, and millitary Hates thoes that think for themselves. Even more those that can produce usable products. Mind you not so mutch on textiles. But having been questioned a # of times on my machines, and my friends also. One really begins to see the truth behind the curtain..

Re: As a local dj put it.. The SHEEPLE!!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, sheeple is a suitable word for it. Don't ask questions, and when they decide they want some lamb chops, just volunteer nicely. ;p

[soanos.livejournal.com]

Wow. This has been a very interesting and intense conversation to follow here.

I myself, being from Finland, I have also noticed that it is starting to happen here.
But fortunately it is not quite as serious. I guess I am one of the lucky ones raised in the countryside,
near an industrial city with two paper mills, energy plant and sewage processing plant and lived next to a farm,
and I have been rummaging trough the old barns and attics at my neighbours and relatives so I have a pretty good idea where things come from.
My parents have a loom, too, and I used to do some rugs with it a long time ago.

But things have changed now.

It hasn't been until late that I have started noticing how plastic everything is these days.
I cannot manage for 3 minutes without touching something that was made out of plastic. Eghhh...
I am living in an apartment block, surrounded with plastic and synthetic fibers,
everything that used to be made of wood is now coated by polymers and who knows what...

I don't want to live in a zip-lock bag!

I don't want to forget.

I agree with you here, the world is a mess. Even when I lived in UK for a while,
I couldn't help noticing how teenagers and adults just threw their rubbish on the ground,
even though there was a litter bin less than 10 meters away.

I would have been slapped for that when I was a child.

Action leads into a consequence.
Inaction leads into a consequence.
It is just the timing that makes the most difference.
But the more you act, the more you have chanced to do an action leading to a positive result.

'Tivo, I am glad you keep up with the tradition.
Keep it up :)

*hugs the big hossie*

Ow... My hooves hurt after all this typing... :(
But it is worth it all :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Mmmm. *hugs back* I like hugs.

Nice to hear from you. And from what you are saying, I think I'm more than eager to hear more. You just need to get one of these TreadMare(tm) keyboards like I have. Much easier on the hoofies.