Oh Christmas! Aprons and Totes, oh my!

I’ve  been ridiculously busy the past few days, trying to get the last of the packages together. I’m starting to expand my gift-giving to people in England, Canada, Texas, and Montana. I’m not that gift-giving-ish; however, it occurs to me that most people take time to send packages to friends and family (and friends-of-family), and that i need to learn to be a bit more expansive in my discernment… what this has meant, however, is that i have a lot more work to do. On that end, i’m glad for the three months i’ve spent making things. In the meantime, we finished Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities and have started Work, Consume, Die by Frankie Boyle. I haven’t the faintest idea if i ‘m supposed to be smug, embarrassed, or gleeful for listening to it – oh, the joys of cross-Atlantic lack-of-disciplining as i’ve never so much as heard of this person. On that note – it’s been a great distraction while putting in these last stitches and packing boxes.

Here’s a sampling of what i’ve managed to get done in the past 48 hours…that being said, everything (and i do mean everything, is reversible. To see more, visit my flickr.com site.

Gift Bags, Totes, and Nietzsche

I spent my day catching up on gifts and things. I worked on another layer of the Ganesha Yantra painting for my not-quite-father-in-law and gift bags and totes for the holiday season. Each tote is fully lined and reversible – the inside layer is a solid color for those moments when a person might simply want a plainer tote. It took about 30 minutes to figure out how to make the pattern, and i was off. In nine hours, i’ve made five reversible totes and four gift bags (i really need to learn to get faster at these things). Over the hours, i have listened to audio recordings of parts of Karl Marx’s Capital, Volume 1, Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, Spinoza’s The Ethics, and the first few chapters of Dickens’ Bleak Houseall delightfully read by volunteers over at librivox.org. It occurs to me that it would be a great assignment for a 400-level class to do a recording – something of a public scholarship assignment. Especially as i was unable to find Adorno, Horkheimer, or Foucault in the catalog… Maybe i’m being selfish. What would that assignment be worth???

Anyway, suffice to say, this is one of only four days i have scheduled off for myself this holiday season that does not include writing as i have two papers to finish, two papers to start, another one to write start to finish, a Human Subjects application to complete, a memorandum of agreement to write, and four grant applications that need to be written – all before January 5.

Below are photos of the totes and gift bags i made today…there are more pictures on my Flickr account.

Making gift tags

I’ve been making gift tags for the Christmas presents. Each one is designed for the person – a new font each. The math of it all is soothing.

It’s another project for doing while watching TV – or when i just don’t have the energy to read but need to slow my mind down.

I’m using just a ruler and one drafting template for circles (they’re peeking out from under the letters, themselves).

Not the best pictures, but i’ll fix them later when i’ve finished all the letters. I have another dozen to go, at least…