Work In Progress Wednesday - 4/13/2011

Well, for a couple weeks life was so busy that I didn't have time to make anything, so there was no WIP worth reporting! But things have calmed down a little, and now I can once again share how things are!

Gokk
Gokk - my self-designed imagined alien based on a single passing quote from Babylon 5 - hasn't progressed since I last shared him two weeks ago, but I hope to have him finished soon (certainly by next Wednesday!) so I figured I might as well share another in-progress shot. :)


Mystery Amigurumi Project
Another Nerd Wars inspired project, I'm actually almost done with this (I started it yesterday, but it's working up very fast, which is good cause I'm still really busy) but it's part of a secret plan by my team, and since I think one or two Nerd Wars folks might actually read my blog, I don't want to show anything that will spoil it, so I took the most obscure, non-understandable picture of this I could manage:

It should be done by Friday, but I won't be sharing it as a FO until after the 20th (so...next Friday's FO, I guess).

Handspun Romney Progress
A while ago I shared some homespun I was working on. I had one night earlier this week that I was so tired that spinning was about all I had the brain power for, and I made some progress!

I think I'm getting better! And I haven't even gone in to the pound of fiber I bought - and Maryland Sheep and Wool is in less than a month - so there will be more spinning in my future!

Crochet Zouave Jacket
This is the project that I'm really excited about. Last fall, I visited the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and spotted a little display case they had with a small selection of books from their library. It was clear that what was in the case was rotated pretty frequently, and I really lucked out: when I was there, it was a display of fashion from the American Civil War. (I'm a big Civil War buff; I wrote a long post about it yesterday because yesterday was the anniversary of the first shots of the war being fired). Anyway, in that case I saw this image:



From the moment I saw it, I knew I HAD to make it. It's from an issue of Godey's Lady's Magazine from October of 1862. That was August. Flash to a couple weeks ago when the new Nerd Wars challenges were announced. One of them was "Reading Rainbow" - make an object inspired by a book you have read or are reading. Well, I certainly read enough about the Civil War (I later found out that I had to do it based off of a fiction book, so ostensibly I was inspired by Mike Shaara's "The Killer Angels" - the book the movie Gettysburg is based on - which is historical fiction). The first step was to hunt down the pattern. This proved both easy and difficult, and took a couple of days, but I was able to find a full text.

However, the next step was actually making it! The pattern called for "Berlin wool." I did some research and found out that Berlin wool is basically tapestry embroidery thread, which is the equivalent of fingering weight. And all Berlin wool was 100% merino. I went out and spent the most money I've ever spent on yarn to get some absolutely gorgeous fingering weight merino. I get it home...and I realize I shouldn't have trusted my memory. The pattern called for double Berlin wool. I felt like an idiot. However, undaunted, I simply decided to use two lengths of my gorgeous wool simultaneously (even though that means I now don't have enough...so I'll be buying more today. $80 bucks worth of yarn. Dear god. I just remind myself that buying a FO like this would cost much, much more).

So, the directions are semi-incomprehensible. It's not just changes in how patterns are written, it's that they are actually badly written. For example, early in the pattern they "establish" that one "rib" is composed of two rows of dc. However, at other points throughout the pattern they use rib and row interchangeably, which makes it impossible to tell at any given point which one they are talking about - and it can make a big difference! Then, there's no way in the pattern to figure out how the piece you start with actually relates to your body (is it the middle of the under arm? Is it the back of the under arm?). Furthermore, they frequently talk about the "parts" of the shoulder, as in the top of the shoulder (okay, I can tell where that is) and the middle of the shoulder. Where the heck is the middle of my shoulder? So all in all, the first couple of days were pretty frustrating. Finally, when I'd read it about two dozen times, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what they intended regardless of what nonsense they had actually written, and since I made the decision to just improvise around what I think they meant, things have gone much better. All in all, though, I'm exceptionally thankful that I'm an experienced sewer and have made bodices before, and therefore know basically how they go together and what the different sections need to look like, or else I'd be totally screwed. Anyway, in the past week I've made a little over half the bodice.


On the left is one half of the body, with the front forward. The back isn't quite fitting right, so I'm going to have to put in a third panel or else it's never going around my stomach, but that's okay, I already know how I'm going to do it. The right is the underarm for the second side.


This is definitely an instance where the fit won't really be right until it's all put together and the buttons are on, but here's a preliminary shot of how it looks.

And of course, after I do the bodice, I have to figure out the arms. Joy of joy. :) (actually, the arm directions look significantly clearer because there is no fit involved in quite the same way). But I'm still both nervous and excited - this is the first real item of clothing I've ever crocheted (ie, not a scarf or a hat).

So! That's my adventure. I'm sure I'll write more about it. :)


You know you want to take a look at what every one else is working on to this fine WIP Wednesday! Just head over to Tami's Amis!

What the Heck is a Sesquicentennial?

Today is the sesquicentennial of the opening salvos at Fort Sumter. Or, in plain English, today is the 150th anniversary of the first shots being fired in the American Civil War. One of the things I don't talk about much - because it's not really pertinent to this crafting blog - is that I'm a huge Civil War buff. As such, I've been eagerly anticipating this anniversary (and am very disappointed that I wasn't able to find the time to go down to Charleston for it) and have been a bit sad that I couldn't figure out some way to babble about the Civil War in my blog a bit. And then I realized I did have a way to babble about it without entirely changing my focus! See, I've been to a lot of sites related to the War, so consider this a photo blog - some of my photography, and a lot of attempting to wax eloquent on the start of the Civil War. Feel free to ignore the prosey parts and enjoy the photographs. ;)

I've always been really interested in US History, and especially the Civil War. I think it's an inevitable side effect of having a father who is a buff (though my brother never developed any interest, so I guess it's not inevitable ;) ). I firmly believe that there's no way to understand where we are without understanding something about where we've been. I'm not talking about learning about unusual people and memorizing dates - neither individuals nor dates mean anything unless the context is known. There are a few defining moments in American history, but I would argue that the Civil War is either the most or the second most significant (I might be prepared to cede the #1 spot to the events surrounding the Revolution). The Civil War is so defining that the entire period before it is called the Antebellum Period (antebellum, as in, before the war). Shelby Foote, one of the great historians of the war, talks about how before the war, people talked about the United States as a plural, as in "The United States are..." But after the war, they talked about the US as a singular: "The United States is..." It forged us from a set of states with individual identity in to a nation that saw itself as unified, even as the divisions that caused the war lingered.

Collar for a slave (National Museum of the Civil War, Harrisburg PA):


A lot of things happened before the Civil War began that led to it's happening, and the war wasn't inevitable. However, fundamentally, the war was about slavery. It was about state rights only to the extent that the southern states denied the right of the Federal Government to interfere with slavery and slave property that was protected in the states. The state rights fallacy is easily dispelled: if the war was about states rights, the south would not have insisted on a fugitive slave law, because they would have had to acknowledge that it was in the rights of the northern states to pass whatever laws they wanted about slavery. But instead, the southern states insisted that the government provided positive, explicit protection for slavery, even as they denied the right of the government to legislate about slavery at all! Contradictory? Perhaps - but it's worth remember that there was never any such thing as a South - just like nowadays, views are nuanced and no one area all felt the same way about things. Leading up to 1860, a series of political and social battles paved the way to the war - battles that had they gone differently, had the combatants made different choices, could have resulted in history going very differently and might not have led to a Civil War. If the Compromise of 1850 doesn't overturn the Missouri Compromise, perhaps there is no war. If John C. Calhoun doesn't change his position on the constitutionality of federal interference with slavery, perhaps their is no war. However, we'll never know. The specific events don't matter so much as the common thread: all of the events involved slavery. But it's more than that: repeatedly during the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s, the actions taken by the South began to make it clear that in order to preserve the servitude of African Americans, they would need to infringe on the rights of whites. And thus it came to be that hundreds of thousands of people in the north who didn't care on bit whether the African Americans were slave or free came to care passionately about the importance of protecting their own freedoms, without interference from what they saw as an elitist slaveocracy. On the other side, the Southerners felt increasingly that they were being manipulated and controlled by a mob of Northern wage slaves and immigrants. Not a recipe for friendship!

Nominees for the Republican Presidency (Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC):


These contradictions, and everything that they represented, tore apart the only national party that had survived through to 1860, leading to a contested election with four nominees - a northern Democrat (Stephen Douglas), a southern Democrat (John Breckinridge), a Unionist (...er...something Bell) and a Republican (Abraham Lincoln). Can you even find Lincoln in the image just above? A few months before, he was hardly known at all. It's amazing what little events can shape history! The selection of a compromise candidate led to the election of a Republican even though there were states in the south that didn't cast a single vote for him. Had the Democratic party hadn't split, Stephen Douglas would have been elected, and the Civil War wouldn't have broken out. So why did it happen? After all, Lincoln vowed over and over again that though he personally felt that slavery was a moral wrong and that slaves should be manumitted and sent to Africa. The South didn't believe him, but how could that alone have driven them to secede?

The answer is, it couldn't. However, in the 19th century, elections were about more than just the office in question. Whoever won the election had it within his power to appoint his supporters to political (but not elected) offices. This spoils system was used to reward those who helped get you elected. So, if Joe the butcher, an influential Republican I've just made up, helped get Abraham Lincoln elected by encouraging his township to vote for Lincoln, Joe might be rewarded by being named the postmaster of his town. This is all well and nice when Joe lives in Illinois, but in the South, they knew that the Republican party was the anti-slavery party, and they knew that once Lincoln started appointing Republican's to offices in the South, it would be impossible to prevent the development of a local anti-slavery group. After all, not everyone in the South was pro-slavery, many were just conforming (for any number of reasons not worth going in to). Rather than let this happen, South Carolina worked up the nerve to secede, and was followed soon after by Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, and Texas. But that wasn't war, yet.

War Banner (Gettysburg National Military Park Museum):


Both sides started to mobilize. Southern states seized formerly national arms depots to arm their revolutionary militias. Forts held by soldiers loyal to the Federal government were ordered to surrender. Some did surrender. Some left. Some decided to join the rebellion. And some held out. A small contingent of troops under a Major Anderson, positioned at a fort called Sumter located at the mouth of Charleston Harbor, decided to stay, and soon became a key to the whole situation. The South Carolinian's insisted that they withdraw. Lincoln told them to stay. The fort was the property of the national government, after all. Militia under P.G.T Beauregard surrounded the fort, and rebellion - now called the Confederate - ships prevented goods from reaching the troops. Anderson considered surrendering. They were running out of food. Lincoln was walking a fine line with his policy. War was looking increasingly inevitable, but if the north were goaded in to firing the first shots it would change the entire international perception of the war. Relations between the two sides broke down rapidly, and finally the Confederates delivered an ultimatum: surrender Sumter by tomorrow or else! And Anderson wrote back and said, well, gimme a couple days, and if we don't get any food or reinforcements, we're going to have to leave! And the Southerners decided that wasn't good enough, so instead of letting Anderson evacuate on April 15th, which he surely would have, they opened fire on April 12th just at first light. The bombardment lasted 36 hours before the Anderson's men surrendered. The only casualty was a horse. As soon as the men of the North - the Union - fired upon the South, North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee joined the Confederacy, and the course of events was set (at least to the extent that there would certainly be a war). Four years later, 650,000 men north and south would be dead.

So, those first shorts matter! Until that moment, there was still the chance that something else might happen. What if Beauregard's South Carolinians had let Anderson have his couple of days? What if Anderson hadn't bothered to hold Sumter at all? What if Lincoln had ordered the fort evacuated, or ordered it held at all hazards? Part of what makes history so fascinating is that at the moment that the men, women, and children involved made their decisions, they faced numerous options, and made choices for a whole range of reasons, and they didn't know what would happen. We look back, and we say, "that was inevitable," or "that was the critical moment," or "that didn't matter at all," but at the time, the parties involved didn't know which events mattered, they just did the best they could with what they knew and what was at end.

When Abraham Lincoln stood up to take the oath of office in March of 1861, he made an impassioned plea in his inaugural address: "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." We face a time now with a lot of sectional conflict, and every day I find myself hoping that we too will be guided by the better angels of our nature!

Okay, I'm done babbling history. Here's the plan! I've been setting aside the dates over the next few years when the 150th anniversaries of the major battles will take place. I'll do a full photograph post related to each one, and babble some more about history (sorry, everyone, but it's my blog, ha!). The first big anniversary is Bull Run, on July 21st of this year, but I've never been there before, so no pictures to share (but I'm going for the whole week around the battle). Here are some previews of what else is to come! :)

Shiloh (TN. Anniversary will be April 6th and 7th of next year):


Antietam (MD. Anniversary will be September 17th of next year):




Fredericksburg (VA. Anniversary will be December 11th and 12th of next year):


Gettysburg (PA. Anniversary will be on July 1st - 3rd of 2013):






Chickamauga (GA. Anniversary will be September 19th - 20th of 2013):


...and there will be others! (including some I've not been to! And others that I don't seem to have any good photographs of! :) )

Anyway, I've let this go on long enough, but I can't resist signing off with a shot of my personal hero.

I just can't say I think William T. Sherman is awesome anywhere south of the Mason Dixon line, or I'll face the consequences. :)

2,000,000 Hits - My Latest Flickr Milestone

Almost two months ago, in this post with some photos I took of Venice, I mentioned my anticipation that I was approaching 2 million hits for my Flickr account. Well, as I write this I actually only have 1,995,114, but that's close enough that one big day, or two just above average days, will push it over, and as I have very busy days both today and tomorrow, I thought I should go ahead and write this post (but I will have 2 million before I actually hit the post button - in fact, I have 2,000,036 - it took two additional days from when I first wrote this...).

This is my third milestone post. The first two were at 500,000 hits, on May 4th, 2009, and 1 million hits, on January 3rd, 2010. It's been a long time! I took me from May, 2007 - when I started my account - until May, 2009 to get my first half million hits (2 years); then it took only another 8 months to get my second half-million, and now it's taken 15 months to get my second million - so things haven't actually sped up much since the first million, though I've noticed that the last couple months I've been getting more hits per day. I took a hit in the fall, when I switched the entire collection from a Creative Commons license to an All Rights Reserved license.

So! Ultimately, these dedication posts are about how much I like statistics and how numbers make me feel good, and this one will be no different. It's numbers time!! Note that all comparisons are to the January, 2010 benchmarks unless otherwise specified. :)

I've currently got 43,393 photographs up on Flickr (up from 34,386). Of these, 10,990 are unlabeled (25.3%). While that's way more unlabeled that I'd like to see, it's actually not bad as a trend over time - when I last updated, 30.8% were unlabeled - and I've been really trying to get stuff labeled over the past few months, by not uploading anything without labeling it almost immediately (though I've slipped the last couple weeks - I'll be "caught up" again soon.) That means that, strangely, most of the photos that are unlabeled are actually the same photos that were unlabeled in Jan, 2010 - shots from the trips I took in 2009, especially, when I was down and unmotivated and just didn't keep on top of the labeling well. A further perk of eventually getting this done is that many of the unlabeled photographs are shots of the labels of other unlabeled photographs, and the labels I'll get to delete; I'd estimate I actually have somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 photos to label (still a daunting load!)

In terms of what I photograph, I'd say there hasn't been any significant shift. The only real addition to my repertoire has been a growing tendency to take long walks during interesting weather conditions for the express purpose of taking photos. This has resulted in some of my best work (in my opinion), such as shots I took of the blizzard we had on 12/26/2010, and my attempt to capture fall colors at the New York Botanical Gardens on 10/23/2010. However, other than that it's still a random mix of things I've done (like the Macy's parade or baseball games), places I've gone (Italy and Paris since the last update), and lots and lots of museums and cultural institutions. The Metropolitan Museum of Art remains the solid leader in terms of "most photographs I've taken at one place." The Metropolitan Museum of Art tag is one of my single most used, and 3,671 of my shots have it (which is less than the actual number of pics from there, as some old sets still don't have the tag.) This is 700 pics more taken there than at the last update! It's bizarre that I still find things there to take pictures of. (though they do rotate what's on display, and I have re-taken some shots...)

My three largest sets are all unlabeled museum sets - which means they're probably not actually my largest sets, because once I've finished putting the labels in and deleted the photos of the museum labels, the sets will be smaller. All three are sets from Paris, two from the same trip! Indeed, it was entirely an arbitrary decision to make this set and this set, both taken at the Louvre only four days apart, in to separate sets. If they were combined, they'd be not only my largest set unlabeled, but my largest set even when they were labeled! Combined, they have 1942 pictures. The third set was at least from a different trip, 801 shots at the Musee de l'Armee. My largest labeled set, on the other hand, is one that I touted as my largest unlabeled set when I last wrote - the Art Institute of Chicago, with 762 pictures. I'd been to the Institute twice before, but both times events had conspired to result in my not having any photographs of the trip (for example, the second time was part of a larger trip that lasted about two weeks, on the last day of which my camera was stolen without my having downloaded a single shot from the whole two weeks - I was more disappointed to lose my pics of my mother's birthday than those from the museum, though). Second biggest labeled set is from the Met, and the third is from my first visit to the National Museum of Natural History (the trip before I squee-ed and acted like a moron upon the discovery that there were fossils from the Burgess Shale there). Yeah, I'm a huge geek. :)

So...what photos do people actually look at? Well, probably unsurprisingly, virtually all of my most viewed images are actually scans/photos of items in my anime and manga collection, especially the doujinshi (short fan-drawn fan fic manga that I collect). For example, this cute shot from a Card Captor Sakura doujin called "Febrilement" has the most hits in my entire collection. The runner up shows Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy kissing. :) However, ignoring the scans/photo hits, here are my shots with the most hits! The below also gives their "actual rank" (what place their in if I didn't omit the manga/anime) and the rank they had last time (most of these shots were in the old top ten, too).

1. Cosplayers doing Nami and Sanji from "One Piece"

I guess it makes sense that my number one images after the manga stuff is...basically also manga stuff. :) I saw these two cosplayers in Japan outside of Senso-ji. They really look just like the characters. Actual rank: 4; Old Top Ten Rank: 1

2. Ms. Marvel, Daredevil and Spiderman

And also unsurprising that my second is three of the best American cosplayers I've ever seen, at Gencon a few years ago (they were actually on Marvel's payroll). Actual rank: 5; Old Top Ten Rank: 2

3. Bed Bug Bites

That's my arm. So, when I got these bites, I tried to find good pictures of bed bug bites on the web, but I couldn't - every shot I found was of an extreme case, not a regular case, which made self-diagnosis impossible. I ended up dropping $300 at a crappy neighborhood clinic. Boo. So I took this shot, and since then lots of sites about bed bugs have linked to it. Go fig! Actual rank: 6; Old Top Ten Rank: n/a

4. Reticulated Python

One of the largest python skeletons ever preserved, I gather. Actual rank: 20; Old Top Ten Rank: 3

5. House of Mirrors

Actual Rank: 24; Old Top Ten Rank: 5

6. Armor of Henry II of France

This shot got linked to from some Japanese blog, and has gotten lots of hits ever since.
Actual Rank: 40; Old Top Ten Rank: 9

7. Mystique Costume. Only my contacts can see this shot of the original costume Mystique wore in the X-Men movies. I took it at an exhibit where photography wasn't permitted, and about two years ago I developed some morals and decided to no longer publicly share shots I took under such conditions. However, before I locked it off, it got a lot of hits, and those hits have kept it in the top 10 of all three of my posts! But it's slowly slipping in rank. Actual Rank: 45; Old Top Ten Rank: 4

8. Armor or a Man and a Horse

No idea why this shot is getting so many hits. Probably that Japanese blog post I mentioned links to it. Actual Rank: 54; Old Top Ten Rank: n/a

9. Native American Tools

Actual Rank: 61; Old Top Ten Rank: 7

10. An Old Bachelor (Singing Lesson)

Actual Rank: 62; Old Top Ten Rank: n/a

So there are a few new pics in there, but mostly it's the same old. For reference, the Nami and Sanji pic has 5,073 hits; the Old Bachelor has 1,251, and my actual number 1 has 8,786 hits, so that gives you the range. It's not that my shots that are the best get the most hits. Instead, it's mostly getting discovered that does it. For example, someone popular who I've never heard of wrote a blog post that linked to the Old Bachelor, and it got like 600 hits in two days. That kind of event is what pulls up photos, not their quality. Overall, 1,731,153 of my views have been to individual photos (as opposed to sets, which have gotten 101,526 views; collections, which have gotten 5,681 views, and my "home page," which has gotten 161,676 views), an average of 40 views per shot, but 6,538 of my shots have NEVER been viewed. On the other hand, 104 of my shots have more than 1000 views. The whole collection usually gets between 2000 and 2500 hits a day, though some days get as low as about a thousand, and other days I break 4,000 (though not that often).

What comes next? Well, when I wrote the 1 million hit post, I really wanted to start selling cards on Etsy, and I had the idea that if I could sell 300 cards, I could buy a new camera. I started selling cards later that same month, and I still haven't sold 300, but I've made a (very) modest profit. I ended up having to buy the new camera anyway, when the lens on my old camera jammed on opening day last year - I paid for the new one by trading in all the change I had saved for the previous two years, which ended up covering half the purchase price. I love my current camera, though it took some getting used to. Re-organizing my Flickr account is something I've really wanted to do, and just haven't found the time. It'll be a huge job, and it's hard to motivate for it before everything is labeled. I'd love to get it organized thematically instead of (or perhaps as well as) chronologically, so that someone who wanted to see all of the 17th century Dutch art I've photographed wouldn't have to navigate my tag system to do it. But I haven't quite figured out how to organize this yet, so it continues to linger as a side project I'd like to complete. But for now, I'd be happy just to catch up on the labeling. :)

As for what I'll photograph next, there are three particular photography opportunities I'm looking forward to in my future.
1. Baseball season! We have really good seats this year (and paid a bunch for them!) and we've got tickets to 18 games (though I already can't go to one or two) so there will be lots of baseball photographs this year! Home opener is on Friday, I can't wait!
2. Bali! A friend is getting married in Bali in mid-May, and I'll be there from May 12th - May 19th or so. Oh, there will be so many pictures of this trip. :)
3. Bull Run Sesquicentennial! July 21st is the 150th anniversary of the battle of Bull Run, the first large battle of the American Civil War. I'm a huge Civil War buff, and over that weekend (July 23rd - 24th) there will be a re-enactment of the battle featuring about 15,000 men. I think that's super awesome, and I'm definitely going, and looking forward to pics.
But in the end, it's the trips I don't expect that often produce my best shots. There's the NYBG Orchid Show to visit, and Maryland Sheep and Wool, and there's always the Metropolitan Museum of Art.... :)

The 1000 Amigurumi Crane Project Update!

I've been promising an update on the project, and now the time has come!

New to this blog or to the project? You can learn loads more in my initial post, here, or see all the posts about the project by going to the 1000 Amigurumi Cranes tag.

So! The 1000 Amigurumi Crane project is my effort at a fund raiser for Japan. I designed a pattern to make an amigurumi crane, started a group on Ravelry, and then began to advertise. I really didn't have any idea what to expect. At first, I was kind of disappointed - when I'd first put the pattern up for testing, I got very little feedback, and was feeling very discouraged. But the project has been exceeding all my expectations (except the really ridiculous ones, lol) and I'm really thrilled. It's been rough, because since I started the project I've been as busy with work as I've been in my whole life, and have had very little time to implement some of the things I want to do. However, even with these limited efforts, we've really grown, and fast!

The project has three goals, and I thought I'd just take a moment to discuss how we've been proceeding as regards each one! I say we because at this point, if it weren't for the efforts of others who have thought the project was a good idea, I wouldn't be anywhere at all! It's a group effort, and ya'll who've been helping me out are super awesome!

1. Sell copies of my Charity Crane Amigurumi pattern and donate all proceeds (between 90 % - 100% of the total selling price) to charity.

The amigurumi crocheted crane pattern is available from Ravelry, and you can buy it directly even if you are not a Ravelry member by using this link. Alternatively, I have just listed the pattern on sale from Etsy. Whichever way you choose, the money ends up in my Paypal account, and all proceeds (minus the paypal, Etsy and Ravelry fees) go to the American Red Cross. Alternatively, if you send me proof of donation, I will send you the pattern. THe selling price for the crocheted version is $5.

But now there's even more! The awesome Ravelry member Garilynn thought my project was nifty, and so she has developed two knit versions of the crane, and she's working on more different versions. Both are available from Ravelry, and are $1 each - we each chose how much to charge for our own - and her proceeds also go to the American Red Cross. The original knit version is available here, and a fun and spirited stackable version is available here.

So how have we been doing? As of this morning, I've sold 19 copies of the crocheted version, for a total proceeds of $86.45. On the 30th, I had sold fewer, but I did my first withdrawal and donation! I sent $68.25 to the American Red Cross, from 15 sales!


Garilynn, meanwhile, has sold 100 cranes as of March 29th! She made her first donation of $63 that same day.

So, the goal was to sell 1000 crane patterns, and so far we've sold more than 119! WOW!! She's still working on more variations, too, and I'm hoping to do the same!

2. Sell/coordinate the selling of the cranes made as part of the project to raise additional money for charity.

This part hasn't made it as far, but it's slowly getting off the ground. Now that I'm even a little bit less busy, I can do more to spear head it. I've sold one crane for $5 through an auction on LJ, and have two more finished that I will be listing. Furthermore, several members of the Ravelry group have taken it upon themselves to sell their cranes. One has gotten permission to sell them at the dojo where she works, and Amiamour has listed this one on Etsy! So if you want a crane, there's one up! I'll be listing my two tomorrow. At the moment, the intention is to list all cranes listed on Etsy with the tag "1000 Cranes, so if you want to join in to the selling of the finished Cranes, please use that tag!

And by the way, consider this statement by me to be carte blanche that you all have permission to sell FO made from my version of this pattern. While granted, I couldn't have stopped you anyway, I have been asked for permission, and it's granted. (and of course, please donate the proceeds to a charity of your choice that is supporting relief efforts for Japan! Feel free to post info in the fiscal transparency thread in the Ravelry group if you do so!)

In short, this part of the project is the least far along, but slowly getting up and running. :)

3. Develop a community of caring Ravelry members and other crafters who want to work together to figure out what each of us has to contribute to helping that devastated country.

So, every one...wow. Seeing how much you all care has really been keeping me going. There's been a lot of community response to my project. Here are pretty much all of the things I know about...

Ravelry Group - I started the Ravelry group right off as part of the project. As of this morning, it's already up to 63 members! 9 folks have chosen to share their cranes with the group, all of which are awesome, and we're still growing every day!

Blog posts: Some of my awesome fellow crafters have been helping bring attention to the project by writing about it in their blogs. Note that the following kudos are in no particular order. ;)

Garilynn, who designed the knit patterns, has written about it twice, here and here - the first is about the original pattern, and the second about the stackable cranes. :)

SmoochPanda, who is herself Japanese and a wonderful ami maker, interviewed me, and she translated it into Japanese for her Japanese-language ami blog, too. I was so thrilled that she helped me out, and reading the translation was so much fun - my Japanese isn't nearly up to snuff to have translated it myself, but is more or less adequate to understand most of something like this, and it was so cool to see how she translated it!

AmiAmour found me only a couple of days ago (That's what I get for not advertising in Amigurumi Army!) but she purchased the pattern and almost immediately wrote a blog post about constructing her own crane, and talking about the pattern. I love that she's posted hers for sale on Etsy, too (I posted the link above).

I've also been mentioned in Tamis Ami and Other Crochet Blog (no longer just Tamis Ami Blog!). Those are all the posts that I know of, but if you've mentioned it, and I haven't listed you, please let me know and I'll add you to this post! :)

I'm also super thrilled to be one of the featured ways to help Japan in the Nerd Wars Giving Geeks challenge for this month. :)

I've been contacted by one woman who is a JET in Shizuoka, and she told me about Cranes for Taylor, Cranes for JETs, which is a crane-making project to honor the JETs who died in the tsunami, including Taylor Anderson, who was teaching in Miyagi and was the first confirmed American casualty from this tragedy. I was very sad to hear that this had happened (I had wondered if any JETs had been impacted, and really hoping that they were all okay...) and wanted to spread the word of this effort to commemorate and remember the young American teachers who've died, as well as every one else.

Edit! I knew I forgot something! Garilynn is running a CAL/KAL for the amigurumi crane that includes fabulous prizes! If you are a Ravelry member, you can read more here. If you're not, hmm...if you're not, you can submit a photograph by posting the link as a comment on one of these blog posts, and we'll add you to the lottery! The prizes are shown here and here. :)

So, to wrap up (though I'm sure I'm forgetting something, maybe multiple things)...thanks everyone!! Keep spreading the word, and keep letting me know how you're helping, and I'll keep organizing from my end. ;) I can't express how much I appreciate the help, and how glad and proud I am that together, we've raised $150 for Japan relief!

FO Friday, 3/25/2011

I had hoped to have a few things to show today, but this week has been MUCH busier than expected, and my job just exploded all over my entire travel day (as in, working on the plane) and my whole weekend, so I'm just going to leave you with:

Flower Pot Cozy!


Have a great weekend everyone! :)

Check out other people's Finished Objects at Tami's Ami Blog, and their fiber arts awesomeness on Wishdom Begins in Wonder.

Work in Progress...er...Thursday, 3/24/2011

Oh dear, I'm a day late. I even made sure I had pics of everything up and ready to go before I left for my trip, but I was ultimately foiled by a lack of internet and a lack of time yesterday, so today will have to do. As such, I'll keep this brief. :)

Poppop's Birthday Present

For my grandfather's birthday, I'm making a wheel chair seat cushion cover out of yarn that belonged to my grandmother before she died. It's ending up way too big (like, 2 - 3 inches longer than it needs to be), but otherwise I'm satisfied. The only serious problem is that I'm working with 1 strand of blue and two of tweed, and I did this on the understanding that I had about 11 1 oz. balls of tweed and 6 of blue. Unfortunately, it turns out that all but two of those blues were actually about half used up, and I didn't realize until I was already a good chunk of the way in. I'm almost definitely going to run out of blue before I finish, so I'll just have to manage with the last inches being only tweed. It's about half-way done right now.

Gokk
I'd attempt to make this amigurumi a surprise, but since no one will have any idea what I'm talking about anyway, I'll go ahead and tell you that I'm making a gokk. This is part of Nerd Wars, and a gokk is an animal in Babylon 5 that is never actually shown, so I'm making it up based on a particular set of criteria that would have influenced the evolution of this creature. Since I made it on the plane to San Francisco, I took the Gokk around with me my first day.

Here we are at Fisherman's Wharf. I'll be posting a more complete post about my adventures with Gokk, and explaining the process that led to his development, when I finish him (probably on the plane on the way home tomorrow).

And, er, that's pretty much it! I finished another object, and have a few other things in the works, but they can wait.

1000 Amigurumi Crane Project
I promised an update on the 1000 amigurumi crane project, but I'm not going to be able to do it justice just now. The super short version is that things are going well! We've raised about $50 for charity by selling the crochet version of the crane amigurumi, and another member of the project has developed a knit version as well, which she is selling for only $1 to raise money for charity! (her pattern is not as extensive as mine, as it doesn't include resizing instructions, hence the lower price - also, it was ultimately up to her what to ask for her own work!). If you want to learn more, you can read about the 1000 Amigurumi Crane Project (a fund raising drive for Japan) in this blog post, join us on Ravelry at the 1000 Amigurumi Crane Project, where I also talk more about the project, mention other fundraising efforts, and am maintaining fiscal transparency efforts, and you can download the crochet pattern for $5 here, or the knit version for $1 here.

Want to see the awesome WIP being done by my fellow crafters? Head over to Tami's Ami Blog!

My Growing Art Collection: New Pieces by Omar Rayyan and Stephanie Pui-Mun Law

I save money all year so that I can pay my taxes. One of the perks of this strategy is that I always end up with a little bit of money left over, and I usually take a percentage of that remaining money and buy myself something nice and expensive that I've wanted for a while. Okay, not always - last year, I spent every remaining penny to clear my credit card debt, but really, that was such a load off my mind that it might as well have been a gift to myself. ;) This year, I didn't have nearly as much left as I hoped, so I once again used it to clear "debt," but it was very specific - and special - debt. I had two expensive paintings that I'd been buying in monthly installments sent to the artist, but no longer - I've now paid them both down in full. I've already written about both before, but this time I've actually got, like, permission from the artists and stuff to share the images. ;)

Every year in August I go to Gencon, a gaming convention held in Indianapolis. I pretty much go for two reasons, and neither is gaming. One is to see all my dear friends who I see no other time of the year - Gencon, I often say semi-seriously, is my family reunion. The other reason, I go is to buy art. I've spoken before about my art collection a couple of times (here and here, specifically). I LOVE art, and I love owning original art, and since I can't afford Rembrandt, I content myself to collect the gorgeous fantasy art that I encounter as part of my hobby. I started small - my first original was $20, and my second was $5 - but I've gotten bigger over time. In 2008, I spent $900 on one piece and $600 on a second while at Gencon. But the real test came in August, 2009. That year, Omar Rayyan was the artist guest of honor, and as I was working my way towards his booth, I glanced over and saw a painting, and it was love at first sight. I couldn't take my eyes off it. It was a large oil, and I knew enough about the business to be able to make a ball park guess on how much money it would be, and I was terrified to ask him how much, because I knew how much I wanted it, and I knew that my credit limit was high enough that the temptation might be irresistible, but the timing was terrible to say the least. I was in the midst of trying to secure a mortgage before closing on my apartment, and about to leave for a three week vacation to boot, and anyway, when really is a good time to spend thousands of dollars on a frivolity - even a frivolity that one loves? But I couldn't not know. So I asked. And was told that it was $5,000. I actually debated buying it for 24 hours, but it was not an amount I could afford at that time. But it wasn't so out of reach that I didn't ask, before leaving, a few critical questions. What was the smallest down payment that he would accept? How could I get in touch later if I still wanted it? He told me $1000, that e-mail was fine, and he warned me that he'd be showing it again in November and if I really wanted it I might want to make a move.

As October came, I was still thinking about the painting. My situation hadn't changed. My closing date was coming up - it was 10/27 - and I needed every penny on hand to pay all the fees and such. I had promised myself I'd try to scrape together the $1000 down payment, but I just hadn't been able to. But I knew I wanted that painting, and so I contacted Omar, and I asked if he'd accept less with the understanding that in December I'd be able to hit the $1000. He said that would be acceptable, and in mid-October, 2009, I sent my first installment. I've been paying him every month ever since. And I'm glad I made my move, because he subsequently told me that when he attended the thing in November, one of his long-time customers had approached him and said they'd finally made up their mind, and wanted to buy the painting. If I hadn't made the move when I did, I wouldn't be the owner now, and that just breaks my heart, because I love it so very much. Every time I look at it, I grin like an idiot, ear to ear. ;)





I just love it. It's so Rembrandt (my favorite artist). I took down my poster of Sirius Black and hung the Man in it's place, and it's right next to my front door, so every time I leave the apartment, and every time I get home, and every time I walk in to the kitchen, I see him, and grin like an idiot again. My biggest challenge now will be not turning around and buying another. He's got at least two other paintings I would be interested in (one is the pendant to this one), and both are the same price. But while I really, really like them both, I don't love either the way I love "Man with Gold Earring."

The second has a story as well. Stephanie Pui-Mun Law (Shadowscapes) is the artist whose work first made me want to collect art. I remember scrimping and saving so that I could buy my first of her drawings, and being horrified that I was spending (gasp) 75 whole dollars for a piece of art work. How frivolous! How insane, when I was broke! And since then - that was, er, 2002 - I have bought at least one of her originals each year. At first it was drawings, but the last few years it's been watercolors (as my budget has improved). In 2004, I believe, she started working on a tarot deck, and from the start there were images in the deck that I fell in love with. My absolute favorite was the Lovers, followed closely by the Page of Wands (which, now that my taste has shifted a little, is now my favorite). She showed the Lovers at Gencon one year and I asked how much it was, but she said it wasn't for sale (a good thing, since that was when I still didn't have much $ for such things). And I waited patiently for the Tarot deck to become available. It finally did last year, and not long after she indicated that she'd be putting the originals on sale. I was dreading it a little, because I know how much her paintings go for, and I wasn't at all sure how I would scrape the money together. Still, I looked through the whole deck, ranked which cards' originals I wanted most, and waited until she finally announced the price list and the release day. The news was mixed. The Lovers was one of the most expensive pieces on there ($1500), and the Page of Wands wasn't for sale at all. So I modified my ranking and waited. Well, when the day finally came, the Lovers sold before I got to it, which was a mixed blessing - I love it, but the money really was an issue. I looked closely at what was still available from my most wanted list, and I finally settled on the Ten of Swords. I just love the color scheme. I finished paying for it out of tax money too - it was $760 total.



All in all, I finished paying for the most and third most expensive pieces of artwork I've ever bought, and I couldn't be happier with either. Now, I can't start saving money for this year's Gencon. ;)

Note that both images are used with the consent of the artists.

The 1000 Amigurumi Crane Project

I've spoken in both of my blog posts this past week about my affection for Japan. In all my traveling, I've only ever found three places that I liked so well that I would want to live in them without any other temptation than just getting to be in them. These places are New York City (my home "town"), Tokyo and Venice. I've gotten to live in two of these cities - I was a resident in Tokyo for four months in 2007, and I feel in love. Even before that, I was a Japan-o-phile, studied Japanese for 6 years, and majored in East Asian Studies with a focus on Japan. There's no place like Tokyo in the world. I talk a lot about in this post (already linked in my WIP Wednesday, but I know I get some other folks for this post). Since last Friday, every day, I wake up feeling normal, and then at some point in my morning routine I remember that Japan is still in a state of crisis, and I look up the latest updates on the situation with the nuclear plant with a heavy heart, tears in my eyes, a little nausea, and the echoing thought that a place that I love is only 150 miles from such a potential disaster.

On Monday, I knew that I wanted to help. I went to the American Red Cross web page, and I donated as much money as I could afford. It felt totally empty. I kept thinking. I decided that if I can possibly manage it, I'm going to use my vacation in September to go and help with the rebuilding efforts that I'm sure will be well under way by then. It felt like too little, too late. I got dressed for the gym...and I had an idea. While I was at the gym, I let it percolate and develop. I ended up skipping out on work to implement that idea, and tonight it will be ready to go.

So, without more ado, let me introduce the 1000 Amigurumi Crane Project. The purpose of this project is simple: raise money for aid to Japan.

In Japanese culture, cranes are considered to be a sacred animal. There is an ancient myth that promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes, threaded together on a string, will be granted any one wish by a crane. The gift of a string of a thousand cranes is considered to bestow good luck, happiness and prosperity, and strings of cranes are frequently given as gifts to newly weds, newborns, and as part of coming of age activities.



I've designed a pattern for crocheting an amigurumi crane that looks like the origami version of a crane. The basic pattern can be done either in sport-weight (pictured) or worsted weight, and turns out roughly 3 inches high, and 6 x 6 inches width/length. The worsted weight is a little bigger. There are also instructions for resizing the pattern to any other size within reason.

The 1000 Amigurumi Crane Project has 4 components:

1. The pattern. The pattern is just finishing up testing today. The regular pattern is already confirmed good to go; I'm just awaiting feedback on the resizing instructions. I've made the pattern live on Ravelry while still waiting that final feedback, because I can easily re-send the updated version to purchasers through their system. The pattern is $5. See the end of this post for more details on how the money end of this will work.

2. The finished dolls. I encourage you all to sell your finished dolls to raise additional funds. The regular dolls work up in about an hour - less once you get the hang of it - and are quite cute. My testers were thrilled. :) I've already donated one of my finished dolls (the orange one, pictured above) to a charity auction being done on Live Journal (here, if you're interested). There are several ways to go about donating your doll, such as an auction like the one I'm in, or posting it to a store you've got and donating the proceeds, or requesting a receipt as demonstration of donation and sending it. OR, if you don't want to bother, you can either send your doll to me, and I'll take care of figuring out a way to sell it, or you can join the Ravelry group, and we can match those who have cranes with those who want cranes. I'm selling the small cranes for $10 each, and larger cranes (made with the resizing more) priced accordingly, at roughly $10 an hour as the rate.

3. The commissions. Can't crochet and want a doll? Contact me and I'll make you one - within reason. If I get swamped, there's only so much I can do. This is where the matching comes in. :)

4. The community. An effort like this can't work without your help. I'm only one amigurumi crafter, and I'm a small fish in a very big sea. If you think this is a good idea, if you think this is something that can succeed, then please help even just by spreading the word, and encouraging those that you know to spread the word. I'll be distributing information by whatever means I can. I've made a group on Ravelry at The 1000 Amigurumi Crane Project, and over the next few days I'll be sharing it on every forum and group that I can think of - but I'm only one person, with a full time job, leaving for a business trip on Sunday. Even if you can't give - even if you've already given in another form - I know I've heard lots of crafters say in the past seven days that they wish that there was some way we as a community could band together to help. This is my attempt at doing that. I'll also be organizing a crochet-a-long.

I'm raising money in two ways:

1. Buy from me, pay my pay pal account, and when I've built up chunks, I'll pull the money and donate it to the American Red Cross. I'll be keeping updates of the fiscal end of things, including screen caps, in the Ravelry group and the blog for accountability purposes. The downside of this option is that I am not able to cover the percent of your purchase price that gets deducted as fees by Ravelry and/or Paypal and/or Etsy. The upside is that you can then download it immediately from Ravelry, you don't have to worry about anything except sending the money, the rest is up to me. This option will result in approximately 90% of your money going to the American Red Cross. The pattern is now available from Ravelry, and I'm still deciding if I'll put it up on Etsy (etsy has a larger following, but more fees associated with it). You can go directly to buy it here, or you can check out the pattern here if you're a member.

However, in case ya'll don't trust me (and I wouldn't blame you, the internet is rough that way!) there's the second option...

2. Receipts. Show me a receipt (with all personal info blurred out) demonstrating that you have donated the requisite dollar amount to a charity of your choice working for Tsunami Relief, and I will send you the pattern or doll that you've requested. This can be a cell phone bill showing a $10 text donation, a confirmation screen cap from the charity, or whatever else shows that you did it. In this case, I'm trusting you - and I do. I highly recommend the American Red Cross, with the downside being that they require a minimum donation of $10. The Japan Society in New York is also doing a funding drive that appears to accept smaller donations - you can access that here. The downside with this option is you'll have to wait for me to send the pattern for you (I try to have a less than 24 hours turn around on sending out patterns). If you have already donated and want the pattern or a doll, send me proof that you have made a donation of the requisite amount and I will send you the pattern. You can send this information to me at unforth@yahoo.com.

If you want to follow this more closely, feel free to follow me on Twitter (@unforth), join my on FB (fanpage is Curiously Crafted Creations), join the Ravelry group (The 1000 Amigurumi Crane Project) or just keep an eye on this blog. Contact me at unforth@yahoo.com, or Private Message me on Ravelry (Username: unforth) or anything else you feel like (ie, comment on this post) to get in touch with me and ask me questions - or if you have ideas to help! I'll admit, I'm hoping that other people will have other ideas to contribute to raise money for the 1000 Amigurumi Crane Project - but for now, I'm getting us started. :)

If we can sell 1000 amigurumi crane patterns, we can raise more than $4,500 for relief to Japan. If we can sell 1000 amigurumi crane dolls, we could raise an additional $10,000 or more. When I think of all the people that we could help, it brings tears to my eyes. Together, we can do more than any of us could dream of doing alone, and we can help bring joy and happiness and prosperity back to the people in Japan who are suffering. Thanks for your time, everyone.

FO Friday on Tami's Ami Blog
Fiber Arts Friday with Wonder Why Gal.

Edit: There are now more posts about the project! Use the 1000 amigurumi cranes tag, and there's an update in this post.

Work in Progress Wednesday - 3/16/2011

I was thinking I had nothing to share this Wednesday until I actually looked at what I had in front of me, and realized I kind of have a lot. Which is good, cause I'm not even sure I'll be able to post next Wednesday, as I'll be in California for a business trip (conference!) - but the crocheting is never done, and I'll definitely have projects with me (I mean, all that time on the plane, what else am I going to do? :) ).

Soon to Be Not Super Secret Project:
This weeks super secret project is already finished, and I'll be sharing it along with more information on Friday. It pertains to helping Japan. I'm very, very upset about what has happened there. I feel like it hits me again every day, and I know that while that feeling fades it never goes away completely, because I know how I feel every time I crest Route 80 and get my first glimpse of the skyline of NYC and realize once again that the Towers are gone. Next to my home city (which is NYC) there's no place in the world I love so well as Tokyo - I lived there for four months in 2007. So I've developed a project to help out (in addition to my out of pocket donation and a charity auction that I joined on LJ) and I'll talk all about it on Friday when the pattern is out of testing. But for now, if you want to read more about my time in Japan, and see pics, it's in my previous post.

Anyway! Enough sad. On to the works in progress!

Flower Pot Cozy
I'm not done with the flower pot cozy that I talked about last week but I have at least made progress.


I've gotten to the point that I can do one round in about 10 - 12 minutes, which seems sluggish but is faster than I was was working. Unfortunately, I've reached the point on the flower pot that I have to start increasing the size of the rounds.


As you can see, I'm about half way up, and I'm pretty much at the point where it fits the pot snugly. That said, now that I've seen it on the pot, I'm MUCH happier with it than I was before, so that's a step in the right direction. :)

Yet Another Version of Jose Estrella
I'll be making at least one more version after this, but this is the most important version of Jose Estrella, the Starfish - the version in his baseball uniform! As I've said, Jose Estrella is the Short stop for my amigurumi undersea baseball team, the Oceans!



The Sugar 'n Cream in white and yellow didn't quite do what I'd hoped, but I'm just going with it. Anyway, he's completely done except for the embroidery on his uniform, which I've forgotten to do for the last two days. He'll be done by Friday. :)

Spinning!
Jenny (my spinning friend) gave me a bit more fiber - a bunch of merino, and a bunch of romney. I spun the merino first, and there are pics below, and now I'm working on the romney. The merino was definitely the easiest of the three types of fibers I've tried to draw. However, even though I'm not finding it easy to draw the romney while the spindle is going, I am finding it relatively easy to get the thickness I want and keep it consistent. No idea if that's the fiber or me. :)



I also spent 20 bucks (after shipping) to get a pound of roving in mixed shades of black and gray and white. I don't know what type of fiber it exactly is (except sheep) but I bought it from here on the recommendation of a friend on Nerd Wars who had used it before - not the kind of thing I'd chance without that - and I'll definitely report on how it goes!

I also did some work with my previous spinning. Namely, I removed it from the spindle, wrapped it around a wooden hanger (cause I don't have a knitty knoddy or whatever they're called), dunked it almost boiling water, let it dry for 24 hours, wound some of it, let it dry for another 24 hours, and now it's ready to go!



The top is the first fiber I did, and the bottom is the merino. I think it pretty clearly shows my improvement. :) Anyway, I don't yet know what to make with it, but I'm thinking a shawl with a nice loose gauge to make the unevenness a feature instead of mistake (I have a K crochet hook in the house, or maybe I'll use the size 13 knitting needles - yes, I might actually knit something! ;) ). For the shawl, I'd use the merino. Not sure yet what to do with the other. :)

Poppop's Birthday Present
My grandfather turns 93 on April 4th, and me, my brother and my mom will be going down to Texas to visit. Before I even knew that, though, I had concocted a plan to make him a present. One of the Nerd Wars challenges this month is "WIP Help," and the idea is that you help someone who can no longer finish projects on their own to complete something that they had started. While ostensibly, this was aimed at helping little old arthritic ladies finish their blankets, they've made allowances because so many of us don't know any old arthritic ladies. One of those exceptions is that we can use stash yarn that belonged to people who have died - provided that we make something that that person might have made with the yarn. That's the option I'm going with - so I'll be making my grandfather's birthday gift out of stash yarn that belong to my grandmother, who died in 1976 (six years before I was born). I wouldn't be sharing this yet, except that I anticipate being done or mostly done by next Wednesday. :)



This yarn is SO COOL. I've done some research on it. It's labeled as having been made by "Patons & Baldwins Ltd" - a corporation that merged with J.P. Coats in 1961, and became what we now know as Patons. It is in fact Scotch Fingering, 100% wool, imported, and it's been Patonised, which just sounds cool. I couldn't find much info on this yarn specifically, but based on images of the same yarn that I could date, I'd place this particular label as dating to the late 1940s or early 1950s. The skeins are 1 oz each, and I've got 10 skeins of the tweed and 6 of the blue, and also a decent size chunk of knitting that dates to a time in the unknown past when my mother thought to make something out of it and then got frustrated at how long it was taking. I'll definitely photograph that before I (with her blessing) frog it. For what I have in mind, I'm going to three ply the yarn - two lengths of tweed and one length of blue - and the goal is to make him two wheel chair cushion covers. Cause his wheel chair cushion is comfy and squishy but dead ugly. :)

Go see what everyone else is up to over on Tami's Ami Blog on this rainy WIP Wednesday!

Memories of Japan

I am an avowed Japan-o-phile. I started out by getting interested in anime in 1999, and started studying the language later that same year. In college, I earned one of my undergrad degrees in East Asian Studies with a focus on - surprise - Japan. I'm very interested in Japan, Japanese, their culture, art, history, and - though much less than in the past - I'm still interested in anime and manga. This all culminated in 2007 after I finished grad school, I moved to Tokyo for four months. It's pretty much my second favorite place in the world, after New York City, and I miss it lots.

Thus, it's not a surprise I've been hit pretty hard by the news of the earthquake, tsunami, nuclear power plant problems, and mounting casualty list. The more I read about it, the more I see the pictures of the damage, the more nauseous I feel whenever I think about it. Early today I realized that many people didn't have the personal experiences that I did, and that they were seeing the devastation and that might be the image of Japan that was lodging in their minds. So, to help me process my own feelings, I thought I'd put together a post with some of the best pictures I took while I was there, so that everyone less familiar with the country can get to see a glimpse of the Japan that I know and love. Though a long post, this is only a small selection of the shots I took there - though I was only just getting in to photography then, and I wasn't very good by my current standards. If you'd like to see more, the collection of the images I took on Flickr is here.


Tokyo is a city jammed with people and lit by lights. Unlike many cities (like New York), Tokyo doesn't have one center, it has several, and they're not all close together - many are miles and miles apart. All of these centers have names, and most are united by a loop train called the Yamanote line. This is a shot of Shibuya, where I only visited once.


My favorite of the city centers was Shinjuku. On the weekends, they close the streets to traffic, and people fill the streets. Buskers perform (next to a sign that says no buskers allowed!) and frequent all the high-end stores. I went to Shinjuku a lot, for various reasons, like to pay my rent, or to go to the Kinokuniya there which had a good selection of books in English, but I never left without indulging my love of mochicreams, indescribably delicious frozen treats - like mochi but so much better - which I could buy just outside the train station.


Ikebukuro was another of my favorites. It was home of the greatest used doujinshi store I've ever seen. Like a candy store for self-published manga fans. I ended up getting completely soaked this day (it wasn't raining when I got on the train, so I didn't have an umbrella ;) )


The closest city center to where I lived was Ueno. I took this photo my very first full day in Japan, with the station and Ueno Park on the right, and the shops on the left, and the road leading to Akihabara, which became a major haunt of mine. Any time I wanted to go anywhere, I would walk the mile from my apartment to the Ueno train station. I walked SO MUCH when I was in Tokyo; once, I walked all the way from my apartment to Shinjuku and back - 15 miles in total.


A mile in the other direction from my apartment was an area called Asakusa. Historically, Asakusa was the traditional "low town," where the poor and working classes lived in the 17th, 18th, and 19th century and served the court. At that point in time, as much as a half million people lived in that small area, but it was leveled flat by an earth quake in the late 19th century, then again by the great Kanto earthquake in 1923 which killed more than 100,000 people, and then a third time by the Allies fire-bombing during World War 2, and so it's much less populace now. There are a bunch of streets in Asakusa that are covered and filled with over priced stalls and shops that cater to the tourist trade.


Asakusa is a major tourist destination because of Senso-ji (ji means temple). I would wander that neighborhood a lot, I loved it around there. Like most historical buildings in Tokyo, the original Senso-ji - built in the 8th or 9th century if memory serves - has been destroyed and rebuilt repeatedly. There is only one tori gate on the whole complex that dates from the original construction. The current version, like most "historical" buildings in Tokyo, is a concrete reconstruction meant to stand up to whatever comes.


I lived in a neighborhood called Matsugaya. The streets were quiet, mostly two story one family buildings, some broken in to apartments, others with business in the ground floor.


I lived in this one. There was a carpenter across the street, and a man who started work early every morning who would walk down the street singing Japanese opera. Every few days a car came around making a loud announcement that I never quite deciphered, and people would come round in cars and shout that you could buy fresh yakitori or other food from them (but I never actually got any!) At the end of the street was a tori that, when I first arrived, was the only landmark that I was able to use to find my apartment in the maze of similar-looking streets. Tokyo is VERY hard to navigate, and the atlas I bought of the city is the single most useful travel book I've ever had, anywhere. I mean, even more invaluable than a London A - Z. :)


This is my entire apartment. It was around 150 sq. ft. I had to fold the futon up every morning and pull it out every night; sometimes I aired it out the windows, which slid open. The tatami mats smelled like heaven, and I dream even now of having a room in my home where I can just lie on the tatami and soak up the wonderful smell. I never would have thought I could be happy in so little space, but I was. Even in late fall, when my little heater couldn't get my room above 55 degrees at night, I was still happy (and I've had much better cold resistance ever since then ;) ). I was in this apartment when a typhoon hit, and I felt two different earthquakes while I was there (the first time it happened I thought it was my downstairs neighbors doing something best left implied, until I realized how ridiculous that was).


I spent a lot of time just wandering the city, and I grew to adore walking and exploring while I was there. On one of those days, I ended up walking 20 miles, including south down to the Rainbow Bridge. I was terrified of crossing the bridge (it's a phobia of mine), but I mustered my courage. It was worth it - it afforded some gorgeous views of Odaiba, a city center built on reclaimed land and home to an amusement park, a science museum, and loads of other neat stuff. For all that, it was kind of strange though.


The Odaiba ferris wheel is probably the most popular site there. The views when you are up in it are amazing. This is one of the first photographs I ever took with a deliberate eye towards trying to make in all artsy and interesting. :)


Food is one of the things I loved about Japan, and that I miss most. I loved to go was Tsukiji. Every morning at around 5 am, fresh fish are brought in to Tsukiji and served throughout the day to tourists who want to experience the freshest sushi in the world. It's not expensive, and it's absolutely delicious. I've never had sushi that compared. At one of the places I tried, they served me a bowl of Miso that I was shocked to discover these shrimp heads at the bottom.


Every two or three days, I would walk to Cafe Geeva to buy fresh bread (in the bag in the back left) and I'd sit and read, drink jasmine tea, and eat Melon Bread of Cream Bread. I've looked and looked but I can find only facsimiles of my favorite foods from Japan. I've found mediocre melon bread in New York, and I found a place with mediocre cream bread the last time I went to Paris, but it's just not the same. And I've never found anything like the regular sliced bread, either - though just Thursday, I was in Flushing and saw some bread that looks suspiciously similar; I can't wait to buy some and try it and find out. I miss the mochicreams so much that when my oldest friend went to Japan last year I told him that all I wanted was for him to some how find a way to bring me mochicreams home. God bless the man, he bought me a dozen mochicreams and a thing of dry ice and carried them home on the plane in an insulated bag. They were just as good as I remembered. The only thing I've found a reasonable version of locally is kitsune udon, which is a noodle soup. Yum...


Tokyo is a constant contrast between old and new. I took a lot of shots that highlighted that contrast, but I went with this one because this is a stereotypical shots - one of the most common tourist shots of the entire city, and it's why people visit this temple, just so they can take a picture of both the temple and Tokyo Tower.


In addition to the big temples, there are little shrines all over this city. Many shrines relate to children, and the dressing of child shrines is considered a duty. I don't know enough about the religion to explain more fully, though.


At some temples, there are even entire sections dedicated to the children shrines. These represent the souls of children who died, and every single outfit is hand made, and the flowers are always kept fresh. When the wind blows, all of the pinwheels go round and round.


But in the end, it's the people who make Japan. The people who can sit on the seat of an ancient shrine (that's Senso-ji in the back) dressed as Hiko and Kenshin from Rurouni Kenshin, without a qualm. The people who throng through Shibuya, the two million+ people who pass through Shinjuku station every day. It's a vibrant place filled with life.


Very little has survived the rounds of destruction that have hit the city. There are virtually no buildings that have, only a few small structures. But at Hama-Rikyu Garden - which used to be a hunting ground for the shoguns - there is a pine tree that has survived for 300 years. And as I think about what's happened there, I just hope that this tree has survived. Because in the end, as long as life has been preserved, there is hope, and a future. Tokyo, and Japan, has rebuilt before, and it will rebuild again.

I know this post got very long, but for anyone who has stuck with me, I hope that these images of Tokyo help to show you another side of this wonderful country, not just the destruction filling the news. Please, consider doing what you can to help. Even a dollar can help to feed or medicate someone who has lost everything. Me, I'll be donating money and food to charity. I wish I could go there to help, but I just can't miss work.