One iPod, Two Shoestrings, Three Brain Cells...

"Shoot! I forgot to pack the baby's bib!"
"No problem! Here, I have this plastic grocery bag,. Ummmmm, let's cut the handles and, look. See? The handles become ties, and ta-da! insta-bib"
"Could you make a zipline out of two paperclips and a shoe string?"
"Um, that might be stretching my talents a little bit."

I have a bit of a reputation in my family for adapting, adjusting, innovating, and creating something from nothing (including, but not limited to, emotional drama). Perhaps this isn't surprising considering I'm an artist.  However, I'm not talking about making art, perse. I'm talking about my MacGyver side: my ability to make-do with whatever I have on hand at the moment to get out of a crisis, or in this case, make working at my loom "more better," to borrow my child's phrase.

I don't know about most folks, but I need some kind of noise while I work. Whether it's music or a movie, I am more productive when I can fill a void of silence.  Normally, when I'm at my loom, I either listen to Pandora on my iPod, or I stick my laptop on a rolling computer cart and turn on Netflix watch instantly, and listen to a T.V. show I've seen a million times, or a movie that's familiar to me.  (I need to look at the screen less often, that way).  However, I've never been too thrilled at the way the desk can sometimes hinder my ability to get up and down from my loom bench, nor, how I had to be tethered by ear phones to the laptop.  Oh sure, I have additional speakers that can amplify the lap-tops puny ones, but that adds another problem of where to place the speakers so clumsy, klutzy me doesn't step on them, or knock them off the cart.  The cart has just enough space for the laptop and barely room to use my mouse.  I was forever dropping the speakers, so I started using the headphones.  Added bonus of the earphones? I can better shut out the world while I work.

"Necessity is the mother of invention," I believe I've heard it said.  The other night, I was working late in the loom room fighting against an impending deadline.  I went to set up the laptop, only to realize, I had left it at home, much to my dismay.  So I pulled out the iPod touch, and started to set up Pandora, when the lightbulb in my mind went off. IDEA!  I'd bet there's a netflix app for this puppy.  


I pulled up the app store, found that Netflix did, indeed, "have an app for that", downloaded it, and cued up the first TV show I wanted to listen to.  But, wait, not good enough. Sometimes I like looking up and just watching for a minute or two, even if I have already seen this show.  I don't really want to look down at my loom bench.  Hmmm.   So I pondered the problem for a minute or two, and then had a revelation.  My iPod is the size of an index card.  I'm forever attaching index cards to the castle of my loom to keep track of the pattern I'm weaving...hmm, yessss.... I bet this would fit on the castle, and hey, the cord to the headphones would reach better. Oh, yeah. This could work!

But I quickly discovered I had a problem: how to attach it to the castle.  I didn't want to use tape. That would ruin both the iPod and the wood of the loom.  I thought of a small bungee cord, but, no, that would have taken too much time to hunt one of those up. Who knows where I put those when I moved my studio to 526 Washington Street two years ago.   I looked around the loom room.  Well, duh. I'm sitting here surrounded by yarn. I'll just tie the iPod to the loom.

As I sat and contemplated the best way to tie the iPod to the castle of the loom, and what color yarn I wanted to use, I remembered these bright yellow shoestrings we've had in the family since 1984.  But that's another story involving a summer camp, name tags, a need for some kind of string to hang the name tags around our necks, and Floyd's purchase of five pounds of bargain banana yellow shoelaces that multiply in the dark. Which explains why we still have at least a pound of shoestrings left twenty-seven years later. I'll skip over the details, but needless to say, we've found a multitude of uses over the years for these things. Shoe strings keep their bow in place, for the most part, right? They're designed for tying right? That should work, I rationalized.

So I tied one lace onto my castle, and then the other.  I slipped one end of the iPod into the first shoelace, and then the other.  Finally, I had to brag about my achievement on Facebook via a mobile photo.

I think the shoelaces are a nice touch.

I keep debating about switching out the laces for some velcro tie-wraps.  But then again, there's just something cheerful about that yellow.  And the memories.  They take me back to another time and another place and another story.  I doubt I'll be replacing them any time soon.