Last week Jez tweeted

I've quite enjoyed reading "Designing Your Day" by @nokiaatwork slideshare.net/NokiaAtWork/smarter-everyday-ebookdesignyourday

- Jez Nicholson (@jnicho02) May 10, 2013

Over the last couple of days I've read it as a pdf (it took me a while to work out how to get it in that format) and it was quite nicely put together. I've read, and blogged about, various time management/productivity books/methodolgies before and as a consequence there wasn't much new material in there, although, there was yet another reference to Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow which is about the 5th I've come across in various articles, recommendations etc - looks like I'll just have to read it!

What I really liked though was that the whole idea of productivity was tackled in a more creative manner, using a more design led process and terminology, rather than it being very business language. It also introduced me to this lovely quote from Tim Brown

Think of today as a prototype. What would you change?

which I really like. Well worth the reading time.

In a lovely bit of observational selection bias I read this

one of the company’s main expenses was postage: each programmer would write their code on carbon paper (backup copies were needed in case the original was lost or damaged) and send it through the mail to their client’s punchgirls. The code would be transcribed, the program run and any errors would get posted back to the programmer for correction

in the, well worth a read, article A Woman’s Place about a group of freelance women programmer's in the 1960s/70s/80s yesterday, and then this morning saw this Inside the UK's last carbon paper factory, a lovely video showing the machinery and people working at York Haven, the last one-time carbon manufacturer in the UK.

It had never occurred to me that carbon paper would have been used as a backup for coding, but why not, it was an available "technology", and programs in the 60s were hand written before being made into punched cards.

My new loom arrived in a massive box. Inside it, along with a second heddle, were shuttles, cardboard strips, instructions etc. I'd put all of these things onto a shelf in my craft cupboard (this isn't what it started off being for, but it now, most definitely, is a craft cupboard) but I was a bit concerned about losing some vital part - like the threading hook for instance. As I was also looking for useful projects to make with my sewing machine, a bag to put all the weaving odds and ends in seemed like a good idea. And as it was going to need to be a long bag, it seemed like a good "Get to know your sewing machine" project.

A few years ago someone bought me a sarong. I'd never used it and so had put it into the pile of things to go to the charity shop during a recent sort out. However, when discussing my plans with Richard, he suggested that this might make a good fabric for a drawstring bag. He was right. The bag needed to be long enough to hold a 25" heddle, and wide enough to store an exercise book (where I make my notes). I aimed for 30" x 11" and cut out the two patterned areas from the sarong comfortably, and used my new A3 cutting board, metal ruler and rotary cutter to get some lovely, smooth edged pieces of fabric to work with. I also then cut two 30" x 2" strips for the ties. There is still some of the fabric left as well and it's now in my fabric bag waiting for another project to come along.

I followed this tutorial for the majority of the bag (I didn't really have enough nice fabric to line it), switching to this one for instructions on how to make the fabric ties. Both were really clear and detailed.

I double stitched the edges - first using a zig zag stitch, and then a normal running stitch. Partially to give it extra strength, partially for the extra practice. This all went pretty smoothly. The biggest struggle was wrestling 30 inches of bag to try and sort out the gusset. One side is pretty straight:

but the other is well off centre:

Overall, though, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The ties could be top-stitched a little more evenly, and the lines around the top of the fabric at the bottom of the drawstring pocket could have been straighter but all in all, not a bad effort. And a great use of fabric that was about to be thrown away too.

It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago, and I got some new toys. Richard bought me an Ashford Rigid Heddle loom (on which more in a later blog post when I've made something on it - but in the meantime you can admire the freshly oiled table surface in the photos - as I had to oil the loom before assembling it I figured I'd sand and oil the table too!). And my Mum bought me a sewing machine (or at least I bought it on her behalf).

I had my first sewing machine experience back in February when my friend nursed me through my fear and helped me make some lavender bags and a crochet hook case. It made me realise that maybe they weren't as scary as I'd thought, and I started considering buying one. I had a look around the internet, and came up with a few options. Then popped in to John Lewis after visiting the Wool House and saw the mini sewing machines. First impressions were that they were really light and transportable, meaning that they could be tucked away when not in use. And they weren't expensive, which mean that even if I didn't get on with it, and it ended up being tucked away in the loft for years, it wasn't a ridiculous amount of money wasted. I had a look online when I got home and found a few reviews that didn't write them off, so I decided to buy one.

Last weekend I plugged it in, and simply tried it out as a sampler, sewing lines of the different stitches. When I got to position J on the dial, a 2 tier zig zag, it didn't do quite what I expected, but I didn't think much more about it. On Wednesday I had a bit of spare time, and so figured I'd start making some lavender bags - these seemed like a good starter project, and I still had some squares left from the charm pack I'd bought as well as some odds and ends left over from other things. But, when I got the machine all set up and ready to go, I couldn't get the machine to sew a straight line. It seemed to be perpetually doing the scallop pattern of position I on the machine. It's like it wouldn't reset it's position. So I called up John Lewis's customer services line, who were helpful and immediately ordered a replacement for delivery. The replacement turned up yesterday, and so last night I made a start on the lavender bags.

In total I've made 9 of them. 6 were sewn last night, 3 today. All were stuffed and finished (by hand) today. I'm really pleased with some of them, moderately pleased with others - the ones I like the least are probably the green squirly ones, and that is more because of the fabric than the sewing. They are destined for my sock drawer. My favourites are the white and purple ones (the purple fabric was left over from lining of the Little Miss Two bag) just because the fabric works so nicely in this format. These are destined for my craft bag - one will go and sit with my finished blackwork items, the other was going to go into my crochet bag, but might go and join the lovely one my friend made me in my fabrics bag. The stripy greens ones are going to Richard (and are, like the last ones I made him, stuffed with rosemary and lavender to make them a bit more manly) and the pinks are going to go to Mum next time I see her. I even managed to get the lines to line up on this pink one which pleased me no end:

The machine behaved itself well. The manual is really good, and has simple step by step instructions (Richard also bought me this excellent book which I've been referring to on and off). I didn't sew myself to the table, or sew my sleeve up or anything similar. The speed of the machine via the foot pedal isn't ridiculously speedy - I'm sure it would be too slow for experienced sewers, but it isn't racing off without me, so I'm pretty comfortable with it.

I'm counting this as my first solo sewing machine success. Hopefully the first of many, but if not, at least I've managed it once and will be able to look back on this with a bit of satisfaction and hopefully encouragement.

I came across GeoGuessr yesterday and sent it around the office this morning as a bit of Friday fun - we have a room full of consultants and technologists who use maps and photographic representations of places as part of their day to day work and so it's interesting to observe how they've been detecting where the locations are when the mapping element is absent.

So far, comments I've heard have been:

"ooh, a sign for Victoria Bitter, must be in Australia" - It was

"Ah, the sea, and a sign in Portuguese - that could be Portugal, or it could be South America" - It was Brazil

"A tourist map on the wall of the hut, fantastic, that'll help. Now what country are we in?" - It was Nova Scotia

"They drive on the left, there is sunshine, must be Australia" - It was (though Australia is a really, really big place)

"Now is that kanji or Hangul" - it was kanji, it was somewhere in Japan

Without the mapping element, people have been looking at the imagery in much greater detail, "walking" around the area, looking for street signs, shop names, the people and the general environment. Like I say, really interesting to observe. Oh, and my best score so far is 12188.

I finished watching the final classes of the Surviving Disruptive Technologies coursera MOOC earlier this week, and I thought I'd jot down my thoughts on both the content, and the delivery mechanism.

This course was well organised, and the content flowed together really well, with video lessons referring to subjects covered in earlier lessons, all of which helped to provide continuity and reinforce the core messages.

As "homework" a lot of use was made of the discussion forums. We were asked to comment on subjects, or to provide more localised examples of services being disrupted etc. A lot of these discussions were very interesting, and attracted intelligent comment, debate and relevant links which have given different viewpoints. One topic that springs to mind particularly was about publishing - where we were fortunate enough to have a few fellow students who work in the UK publishing industry and who were willing to share their internal viewpoints which provided an interesting balance to the media led news articles perspective.

The example companies used were all, I think, American companies. This wasn't a problem and is expected from a university situated in Maryland, but it did mean that a couple of them were less well known internationally or that the scenarios faced were slightly different. The first few classes covered companies like Kodak, Blockbusters and Borders, comparing the latter two against Netflix and Amazon. When we compared Barnes & Noble against Amazon in the discussions, a lot of the international students had a bit of a problem as Barnes & Noble are very different outside the US.

Every week there was a "hangout", organised via Google hangouts but shared via YouTube. This enabled Hank, our professor, to have a conversation and discuss the key points for each week with students. I was invited to partake in a couple of them (as I'd been active on the forums), but couldn't for scheduling reasons. However, I did watch some of them. It seemed to be quite a good format allowing more interaction with the professor than via the forums alone. These, combined with the effective use of the discussion forums, meant that this was course seemed to have much more interaction and conversation than the Introduction to Philosophy one I did earlier this year.

I chose not to do the project side of this; I don't need a certificate for any purpose, so I watched the lectures, read the recommended articles, took part in the discussions in the forum but opted out of the essay element.

So, the core messages, the things to remember on how to survive those disruptive technologies. They were:
- Avoid denial - i.e. if you think there is something possible disruptive, don't pretend it doesn't exist. Instead evaluate it, make a strategy of the worst possible scenario, and plan for it
- Be bold - i.e. be prepared to change the business model and execute on it
- Change the organisation - i.e. be a leader, leaders make a big difference - Niccolo Machiavelli in The Prince was quoted here as saying

there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in it's success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things

All in all a good course, interesting material and well presented.

First of all an admission. This wasn't supposed to be circular. A while ago we were clearing out some of our garden space, and I found some sad looking cushions that had been protected from the worst of the winter weather but were looking decidedly sad. I removed the covers and found that the inners would be ok after a wash. So I decided I'd crochet covers for them. These were square cushion pads. I'd seen the squaring the big circle pattern and thought that I could adapt it to get it to the size I wanted, and so started.

Once I'd got to the end of round 6, when this pattern stopped, I realised that I had quite a lot more rounds to do. I attempted to adapt what had gone before, but soon realised that it wasn't working. So, I unravelled 4 or 5 rounds to get back to round 6 and had another look around the internet. I found this and this and consulted them both (they're pretty much the same) and used this as my pattern going forward. I got to round 17 and decided, with advice from Richard, to keep it circular. So that's what I've done. I ordered a lovely, feather-filled, 14" circular cushion pad from Design-a-Cushions which is pretty much the size that 17 rounds got me to, and started work on the back of the cover, following, round by round, the pattern of the front. I crocheted the two sides together using single crochet and have crocheted the pad into the cover.

The front of the cushion is miscellaneous DK blues, using up left overs, roughly ordered by quantity of yarn.

The reverse is all Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo DK in Skittle, and has, sadly, resulted in me having to buy another 2 balls, and of course there's over half a ball left. So much for using it up eh!

Overall, despite it not being what I originally envisaged it to be, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I just need to find somewhere for it to live.

I have changed my plans for the square cushion pads at least twice in the past few weeks. Once I've settled on one or two (I have 3 cushion pads to cover - 2 of which are the same size, one of which is larger) then I'll get started, but at the moment I can't even decide what craft to use - weaving, sewing or crocheting. Decisions, decisions!

Last weekend Richard and I headed off to the beautiful coastal town of Bosham, West Sussex for a few days. I wanted to take some craft with me, but didn't want a massive bag as I had a suspicion (later proved right) that I'd do more snoozing than crafting. So I decided to take an empty piece of canvas, some thread and a couple of patterns with me.

Blackwork, at least in the size I'm working at, is an excellent travel project. I don't mean for doing on the move, I don't fancy my chances of threading a needle, or getting the right point on the canvas - I tried that once when I was making this and won't be trying it again in a hurry. I mean that it packs into a small bag, and needs very few accompaniments - a pair of scissors, a needle, some thread. It's pretty compact.

The pattern I chose to work up was adapted from the bottom right hand corner of this picture simplified and scaled to work on it's own. I chose to do it in red cotton for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I was curious to see how a different, non black, colour would work. And secondly, because I had red thread left over from the screen part of the calculator iPhone case and using up leftovers feels good :-)

This was quite a simple design, and I really like how it looks. Once I've done a few more of these squares, I think I'm going to attempt to turn them into lavender bags.

When I visited the Power of making exhibition the other year, one of the items featured was this curious stuff sugru. I didn't think much about it really until last week. I have a fitbit. I have dropped my fitbit on a couple of occasions and the top of it's plastic covering - near the spring - had broken off. Originally only a small bit of the plastic had come away, but the other week yet more fell off.

So I decided to give sugru a try and ordered a mini-pack.

It arrived a few weeks ago, and so the other weekend I decided to make my fix. I cleaned the fitbit surface, opened up a sachet of sugru, got it all over my hands, and the table, and then moulded it onto the fitbit. It was a bit like working with a dense modelling clay but wasn't too difficult to work with. I managed to get it to be pretty smooth through lots of stroking with my thumb. It took ages to get off my hands though - I'd recommend having a nail brush handy.

The end result seems to have worked ok. I'm not sure how long it'll last, but it feels much more robust when there aren't bits of metal peeping out. The rest of the sugru is sitting in my fridge (to extend the life of it) until I find something else that needs repairing.

I've had a draft blog post sitting around for almost a year with this title, and yesterday's experience at the Hayward Gallery's excellent Light Show has triggered me to actually write it properly.

The original post started as:

I've been to a few exhibitions and galleries recently and in (almost) every one has been the "No photography" sign with absolutely no guidance applied as to what this applies to - is it the art work, the associated media, the layout of the exhibition, the interesting cornices in the architecture of the room? It is just a blanket ”No photography” sign. I fully appreciate the idea of copyright, and understand the restriction from that perspective, and I also understand that a blanket ban is easier to enforce but I can't help feeling that some guidance would be handy.

Personally, in the majority of cases, I want to take a quick snapshot of of the notes next to a piece in order to be able to look the artwork up later, to find more about it and maybe to write about my reaction to it. Nobody seems to object to me pulling out a notebook and pen and writing down the notes word for word, but I'm not allowed to photograph them.

As a result of my Light Show experience I have a further understanding of this, and whilst they did a reasonable job the attendants couldn't be everywhere at once. The concept and premise of the light show is that the exhibits all feature some form of illumination. They are designed to be focal points. The show "explores how we experience and psychologically respond to illumination and colour". They are not designed to compete with little white rectangles of mobile phone illumination. It didn't spoil my enjoyment of the exhibition, but it did make me think more about that "No photography" sign and situations where a blanket ban is not just easier to enforce, but also allows an exhibit to be experienced in the manner that the gallery/artist intended.

As we entered the exhibition we were handed a small booklet which has an image and description of the work being displayed. This isn't the first exhibition I've been to that does it, but I do think it is a really good thing - a combination of souvenir, and memory prompt all in one. This meant I didn't feel the need to either get a camera out to record the details of a piece I really liked (my favourite, incidentally, was Jim Campbell's Exploded View (Commuters)) in order to be able to link to it here later or to get my notebook and pen out and jot down details of other exhibits I enjoyed.

I rather like it when my perspective on things is challenged, and this did just that. Maybe not as the curators of the exhibiton intended, but it triggered further thoughts and a reaction.