New copy stand

First: this is post #2000 in my blog!  I can’t believe I’ve written that many, but then, I’ve been blogging for nearly ten years now, so I’ve had plenty of time to do it.  The scary thing (to me, anyway) is that some people have actually read all 2000 of them.  That’s a lot of reading!

Anyway – I have been meaning to scan my Complex Weavers Journals for some time.  They are chock-full of useful information, but because I don’t have a searchable version, I’ve not been able to take full advantage of them.  So I want to scan them the same way I scanned all my Weaver’s magazines.

However, the old copy stand went with the move.  It was huge and bulky, and we just couldn’t justify giving it that much precious space in the garage.  So what next?

Well, I bought a Pedco Ultraclamp Assembly, which is designed to clamp a camera onto handlebars, car windows, etc.  According to the description and reviews, it’s very stable even when clamped onto a motorcycle on bumpy dirt roads, and it really does clamp anywhere.  I then mounted it to a bookshelf, like so:

It’s unfortunately not the best of photos, but if you click for the big version, you can see that something is clamped to the bookshelf (my warp beam crank, because it was the only thing I could lay my hands on that looked like it might suit), the Pedco clamp is attached to the protruding wooden piece, and the camera is attached to the clamp.  (I tried clamping the camera directly to the bookshelf, but it needed to be further away from the bookshelf to take proper photos.)  The magazine is directly underneath the camera, held down by a sheet of glass, and the two lights are aimed indirectly at the magazine (to light it up without glare).

And presto!  I have an instant copy stand, that breaks down and stores in a very compact space, unlike the monstrosity I was using before.

This worked very well – I scanned the June 2012 issue (#99) of Complex Weavers Journal yesterday, did the text recognition today, and have saved a PDF of the table of contents and a PDF of the full journal to Evernote.  I didn’t have to run it through my own text recognition software, as Evernote does text recognition on .jpg files, but it’s easier for me to page through the magazine this way.

Enough diversions.  What am I working on now, creatively speaking?

Well, outside of various moving-related stuff, there are three things on my plate.  The first is to develop the concept for my workshop on the creative process, since it looks like I’ll be giving it at one of my guilds in October.  The signup sheet will be distributed at the next guild meeting, which means I need to finish the description in the next week.  It would also behoove me to really think through the curriculum and topics – I have some great ideas but need to work out the logistics of it first.

Which gets me to the second item, the book.  Since it is basically about the creative process, I’m going back to work on it while I develop the workshop ideas.  They dovetail nicely.

Finally, I’m toying with whether to work more on Phoenix Rising or whether to finish off the long-delayed cashmere coat.  Both of those would involve studying fashion draping, to develop the patterns.  Phoenix Rising would also require weaving a bunch of samples in fine threads, which also means dyeing and unwinding those fine threads.  This could easily become all-consuming, and since we are still cleaning up the moving-related details, I am tempted to work on the cashmere coat instead.  But I will have to think it over.

Meanwhile, in the new world order, our zucchini invaders are busy churning out more invaders.  However, we are engaged in a desperate battle to save the planet.  Here is our first attempt:

I took Pat Foster’s advice (thanks, Pat!) and tried stuffing them.  I scooped out the insides with a melon baller, sauteed some peppers, onions, and the zucchini innards, along with fresh basil and thyme (from our garden!), and put it back in the zucchini shells.  It tasted delicious, even though I had to “cheat” by microwaving the zucchini shells – there wasn’t time to bake them since the rest of dinner was almost ready.

Anyway, we ate the baby zucchini (along with some Muscovy duck breasts in a mix of soy sauce and Meyer lemon marmalade), and the world is safe for now.  But for how much longer?  There is already one more eating -size zucchini on the vine, and I see others coming along in a day or two.  I can see we have our work cut out for us.

(A friend, when I mentioned the zucchini, said, “One year we actually resorted to leaving a box full of zucchini on the passenger seat of someone’s unlocked car.”  Egad!  I hope we aren’t reduced to such extremis.)

Off to work on the garden!  There is some weeding and zucchini harvesting to do, before we go off to the appliance store to buy a washer and dryer.  Life continues apace, and I must go with it.