Fashion-Incubator

The side view is a little blurry but you can see there's two stuck in there. Also, the original tool had the metal offset (as these needles are). The holes didn't align exactly. I wonder if that mattered or if that was a side affect of jury rigging a hand tool.

Here's the tool full size. The bone is 4" long if that helps. The original used a shorter bone but it wasn't as comfortable to handle -but then, I have large hands.

It'd probably help to know the kind of leather jackets they were making which would be "southwestern style". Here's a sample of the sort of thing they made:

[And in case you wonder, I didn't have a hand in the design of this jacket. My "V's" always match exactly; the one above is offset. That's because the pattern for the above jacket was a two per (how annoying). You can't do two-per on an overlapping "V" and expect the V to match.]

This company did a lot of bead work and hand attaching of hair pipe (those longish white things). Native Americans used hairpipe as breast plates for battle. By the way, I have close to 200 pounds of these, assuming you're in the market for some 4" long ones. The ones in the photo above are cheapies, maybe 1.5" long.

Any idea of how this tool was used? Any guesses? When I had the original, I went so far as to thread it and play around with tying off beads and hairpipe but I just couldn't figure it out. Knowing my luck, it was nothing. A worker got bored and wondered how many of those flat metal thingies they could stick in the end of a hairpipe, not knowing that later on it'd bug somebody like me forever.

You can safely disregard anything below this; it's a preamble of how I got on the topic of this phantom limb of mine.
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Recently, Danielle sent me a book about brain plasticity. I've only started reading it but I'm struck by the myriad learning deficits that people have. Normally I don't like books like this; considering my deficits, it makes me a bit defensive. I'm sure that anyone who calls me on the phone to place an order must think I'm a blithering idiot because I can't readily transcribe what they're telling me. They have to tell me everything three times, including the spelling of their name. Yeah, I'm a writer for sure. According to this book, I've learned it's because I can't see the letters to write them down. I need more processing time. First I have to hear it. Then I put the picture of what I hear (the letter) in my head. Having the letter visual to copy from, then I can write it down. The problem is when they're giving me letters two, three, four and five, they've gone onto their street name; those letters getting jumbled up with their names so I've transcribed like mad, derwhit mel678 (is that your street or your name? As it happens, three names and a partial phone number) and no, I'm not kidding. Sigh. I always feel so dumb. I felt particularly defective until the author wrote that language processing is inefficient; it takes longer than visual processing. Amen to that. Vindicated, I'm wondering if I can develop exercises, maybe Eric H can read letters while I transcribe them. Supposedly, using exercises to overcome shortfalls in one area, extends benefits to other processing problems one isn't even addressing.

Since according to the book, improving one type of deficit increases competence in other unexpected areas, I wonder if it'd help with piles? Apparently, some people are so visual they have to have the physical manifestation of pending work in front of them so they know what to work on next. I know I do that. Do you? I couldn't write some entries I'd planned to post because I couldn't find my black notebook. I finally found it (joy joy). Worrying about the loss of my notebook hijacked my entries All Last Week! Then, I have this other notebook that I found this weekend that had been lost since the last time I went to LA. I'd been fretting over that one too. There's a whole lot of goodies in that one. I don't know where to start with that although most of what's in there will go up on the subscription only blog I've been planning. Speaking of which, I lost the core content on which I'd planned to launch that site but I know it's on the back of a bright yellow sheet of paper that I'm still looking for. Do you manage by piles? Out of sight, out of mind? My old notes and notebooks haunt me like a phantom limb. That's the real reason I wish all of you would include your web address and phone number in your sig files.

Speaking of missing things, I've been looking everywhere for this really cool tool I had/have. I know I have the thing but I can't find it. The thing is, I have no idea what it's for. I planned to post a photo of it to see if anyone had ideas about what it was used for. It's a handmade tool and those are usually the best. [Return to top.]