Saturday, January 25, 2025

Walls have eyes and plarn, technical notes

This morning just for a couple of minutes, this eye image appeared on the fireplace wall.  

Above the middle there. It looked astonishingly like an eye. And it may be my overheated imagination.

I've resumed drinking one cup of coffee in the morning, now that I seem to be able to. I make a pourover, Melitta style cone sitting on the cup, strong enough to write its own blogpost.  It's a huge boost for my glum usual start to the day, and definitely gets me up. 

That first sip, steaming hot, powerful, so glad I can handle caffeine, is a daily wonderful event.  It may contribute to seeing images on the wall, too, come to think of it.

I was interested in the various plarn contributions yesterday, thank you. What I observed with the bread wrappers is that plastic has changed. 

A few years ago, they were more brittle and I crocheted and knitted fairly easily with them. It's not easy on your hands, but it was more doable than with today's bags. 

They're far more elastic and tough and rubbery and staticky, and quickly jam together in a way that earlier bags didn't. 

So that was an interesting finding. I don't have any plastic shopping bags, banned in this state years ago. There aren't even any caught in the trees in windy days!

But with a different warp thread, as suggested by  Leigh, I will cut up and weave the bread wrappers  as they come. I certainly like using them instead of feeling like a bad environmentalist when they arrive. And now I'm thinking of using other bits of plastic wrappers likewise, making useful things out of them. 

I think I'll warp up a big piece of cardboard, favorite loom material, with some of my cotton warp thread, and just add in weft as it arrives in the Misfits boxes. I fact I will go through my single stream recycle container before I take it out and see if I can reuse any of that, too. Potatoes and apples arrive in plastic and mesh bags.

Taking care of the earth is a form of close to home resistance. Anyway, that's my story.

Happy day everyone, resistance can be fun if you look at it that way. 




 

27 comments:

  1. Coffee sits beside me as I type. I have to have my morning jolt and, until recently, another in the afternoon. Trying to do without the afternoon one in order to see if it helps me with the sleeping issues. Worth a try (but I'm secretly rather hoping that it doesn't make a difference and I can still have my afternoon cuppa).
    I suspect weaving might be easier to do with the plastic you get. The only type that we get now is really flimsy that is used to contain fruit and veg's. I suspect it would react similarly to what you were using.

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    1. Jolt is the right word! Yes weaving is at least possible with the food wrap plastic.

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  2. I somehow missed yesterday's post. I was able to figure out what is is about. I don't see an eye, I see a cloud formation. I see faces on the stone on my fireplace. I have a particular dog face I am found of! Plastic shopping bags are not banned her, sadly.

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    1. That's funny about the dog in the fireplace! I'm surprised you still have plastic bags. I thought they'd pretty much gone away.

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  3. You saw the eye, and the you wrote, "I've resumed drinking." Yes, you did.

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  4. COFFEE GETS ME GOING IN THE MORNING TOO. DON'T KNOW WHAT I'D DO WITHOUT IT!

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  5. You are so ingenious! It's a dog face if you ask me.

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    1. Above that dark area, slightly to the right, clearly an eye. To me.

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  6. I'm not making much of the image at all. Keep in mind, I desperately need new glasses.
    Michael Pollan, in one of his books, writes about caffeine and how it is one of the hardest substances to give up. I never intend to try.

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    1. It's just one tiny section of the image. Why give up caffeine, unless maybe it's killing you or something!

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  7. I too love to express resistance through reuse and recycling.

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    1. Yes, it's a (tiny) blow against the mfg juggernaut.

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  8. I think plastics are being made to be biodegradable. That might be the reason they’re feeling different
    I’ve gone off coffee lately for some unknown reason. I’m on the tea these days.
    It’s funny how you change.

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    1. I think you have a point there about newer plastics, yes.
      I drank coffee for years and years, only got into afternoon tea drinking a few years ago, then couldn't digest coffee. Now, wheee, I can do both.

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  9. Recycling is so underrated. Islanders have been recycling for more than 20 years.

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    1. Around here it started with bottle recycling in the 80s, then gradually the other classes were included. A lot of scepticism at first, then suddenly it was the norm.

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  10. We used to weave plastic bags and wrappers into rugs, and gave them away.

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  11. I rather envy those who can enjoy a cup of coffee and get a boost from it. All my family drink coffee, but I hate it.

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    1. One of my nieces used to love the smell of coffee and couldn't bear the taste. I didn't realize they were so different.

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  12. I usually drink decaf. My hotel only has hi-test in the lobby with breakfast. That’s what I’m having right now, but I still don’t see the eye on the wall.

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    1. Maybe I'm the only person who can see it! With or without caffeine..

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  13. Need more context for the eye. Why did it disappear? I once took a pencil to a textured wall in my apartment. All the little blobs and splats and spaces were little creatures and animals and eyes and plants and flowers. Etc. Always wished I'd taken some photos before we painted over it.

    I teach 'my' kids weaving. We also use cardboard looms. I pre-string them. They love it, it keeps their hands busy.

    No plastic shopping bags in Oregon, either. I found a stash of them in a closet in the laundry room a few months ago. It's been a few years since they were phased out, so it was odd to see them.

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    1. It was a shadow from the morning sun, very fleeting.

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