Wonderings & Wanderings

Raheli Harper is on the internet!

  • Home
  • About Raheli
  • Blog
  • Portfolio
  • Mixtapes
  • Contact

In Praise of Taking Things Apart

29 Jan

When my husband was a boy, he took apart his mother’s camera. He assumed he could get it back together before anyone noticed what he was doing. Of course, it was hard to remember how all the parts went together. He got in trouble and was forbidden from wielding tiny screw drivers or opening up appliances.

Flash forward 35 years and my husband gathers old electronics and machines like a squirrel gathers nuts. We have a whole box full of them in our basement. Our son is granted permission to take apart any of them. An old digital projector gave us an amazing array of lenses, filters and prisms. Tape decks offer up a wealth of springs and gears, and my son has been harvesting copper and colored wires from almost everything electronic. He uses the wires for “inventing” and jewelry making.

There are a shocking number of “take apart toys” for sale, but you can probably get all the tools you need for about the same price — tiny screwdrivers and pliers with a wire cutters is all you need. The best news is, there is no need to take apart your functioning electronics and machines; there is an overabundance of broken stuff on its way to the dump, or sitting in your in-laws’ basement. Old point-and-shoot cameras, music players, and clocks are fantastic for first-time tinkerers.

If you are still nervous about handing over the screw driver, sit down together. It might bring waves of nostalgia, and it will definitely fascinate you. Did you know that speakers make sound with two magnets, then it’s amplified by a paper cone? Do a little research for information about safety online — including precautions like cutting all electrical cords, removing batteries, and avoiding anything with cathode ray tubes (TVs and computer screens). You’ll have to supply your own dose of common sense, of course.

Need a little more help? Join us at the Kid’s Take-Apart Table hosted by the Repair Cafe on January 20th or March 17th 2018 at the Warwick Senior Center, 132 Kings Highway, Warwick, NY. We provide tools and broken machines or electronics.

Originally published in Dirt Magazine, Jan/Feb 2018

Categories:
Dirt Magazine, Family
Tags:
repaircafe, takeapart

« All Together in the Kitchen
Artists on the Move »

Recent Posts

  • Time to make the doughnuts!
  • Map No. 1 – The Swamp
  • Begin again
  • Autumn in the woods
  • Finding Flow

Tags

adventures afterschool bird busyhands creativefamily creativeprocess current dirt drawing eatlocal family farmtotable food fruit garden growingfood handstitching harvest ideas iwonder kids knitting locavore lost lunch map meals mending naturalforces nature picnic preserving recipe repaircafe seasonalkitchen slowstitching snacks storycloth summer sun takeapart travel trees veggies watercolors

Categories

  • Dirt Magazine
  • Family
  • Free Projects
  • Homestead
  • Inspiration
  • Kitchen
  • Mending
  • Plants
  • Stitching
  • Uncategorized

Who is this Raheli lady?

Raheli is a creative problem solver and fiber-lover in the Hudson Valley. She sews, knits, mends, spins, homesteads and writes, all while trying to get outside a little more often. (She/her) Read More…

Don’t you want to know?

Subscribe to hear about events, classes, and shop updates.

Popular Posts

Time to make the doughnuts!

This is my favorite doughnut recipe - but surprise! It’s actually a no-knead brioche recipe! This ... View Post

Map No. 1 – The Swamp

I have been captivated by Helen Cann’s book Hand Drawn Maps. My kids and I each take it in turns - I ... View Post

Meanwhile, on Instagram…

raheliharper

Class is over and socks are (mostly) darned. Thank Class is over and socks are (mostly) darned. Thank you to @fallkillcreativeworks for hosting me! @rachelharrietteb posted a few more photos.

The evolution of a sock darn - #mendmarch  Flux and Extra (days 5 and 6). I taught some darn good students today (😉😬) and now there will be some *extra* mending in the world, and something about how they fluxed into menders?? Uh, maybe a stretch @visiblemend but I am sticking with it.
#mendmarch day 4: FIX Oh look, I fixed my dress. A #mendmarch day 4: FIX
Oh look, I fixed my dress. After wearing it for a year or two with the hem unraveling in the back. It wasn’t unraveling quickly and I didn’t want to lose it to my mending pile... so I figured I would fix it someday... and I did. Yay! 

Dress is thrifted, and backdrop was hand-dyed by @thematerialsdesignco
Darning while talking to myself about my opinions Darning while talking to myself about my opinions about darning (aka: prep for my darning class at @fallkillcreativeworks, aka: kinda weird).
#mendmarch day 3 : cross - in the sense that the warp and weft *cross* over and under each other). But let’s be serious- this is really a photo of those tiny balls of gorgeous yarn that I got from @jbellvavra last year when she was cleaning out her sock yarn scraps. They are so 😍😍😍
Mending Kit: This is a bald-faced lie of a photo. Mending Kit: This is a bald-faced lie of a photo. Yes, these are *some* of my mending supplies and tools... but this desk is inside a whole room of fabric, thread, books, and one very cozy chair with lots of pins stuck in the armrests. But it’s hard to capture all that while actually showing what I use for mending. I mostly used embroidery needles, embroidery thread, scraps of fabric. I occasionally get a specialized item (the darning loom, heavy duty thread, the ripstop adhesive tape) but mostly, mending is about having a cute bag or tin to store your essential items. I mean, it’s about keeping it simple (so my supplies can fit in a cute bag and I can therefore mend anywhere). And by anywhere, I mean, the cozy chair by the fire. Sometimes I assemble my toolbox and serve as a Repair Coach at our Repair Cafe, but sadly it has been a year since it was safe to host one.
#mendmarch day 2: mending kit. Join along this month to work away at your mending pile! And I am teaching a darning class on Saturday - it’s virtual and you can find more info @fallkillcreativeworks (link in their profile).

Bags are from @brooklynhaberdashery and @kzstevens, vintage tin, all my scissors went missing for a while (and which they always do) so they will probably appear later. I do use the pilot frixion pens a lot for erasable marks... and I am using a bag-magnet still in its package (which I didn’t even buy) as a pin cushion even though I have so many cuter pin cushions 🤷🏻‍♀️🤪
Hello #mendmarch! So delighted to see you again! M Hello #mendmarch! So delighted to see you again! My name is Raheli and I have been. mender for 20 years! I mend because even if clothes are sold for very little money, they still have a lot of value. Humans have touched our clothes at every step of their way, and I want to be a good steward of these garments that people made. 
And I love the way mending, for me, becomes a practice of breaking down the Perfection that is presented as our ideal. My clothes get worn and marked by wear, and that is Ok. They break and tear. And that is Ok. It is a constant reminder that I will do these same things - be marked by my years, be broken - and this is hard, but it’s ok, because I can also mend and heal.

I am wearing my mother’s vintage shirt (which needs a hem fix soon), a wool cardigan that was a gift from my husband (mended cuffs!),a hand-dyed scarf from @thematerialsdesignco and a necklace that belonged to my grandmother. I am also wearing a thrifted (and mended) black dress, leggings that came from @dina.andretta by way of @molahandle, and a second cardigan (it’s damp and chilly today) passed along to me by @spreadablefats 😘 

I love that mending (and slow fashion in general) moves from commodity to community.
Look at these beauties! My cousin, @thematerialsde Look at these beauties! My cousin, @thematerialsdesignco is such a talented dyer! Can I wear napkins? Because I am going to wear the speckled napkins (on the left) as bandanas. Except there is also a scarf (purple) so I supposed I will wear that too. Once I stop petting them and making pretty arrangements. 😍 (although if I am being honest, there is a part of me that also wants to cut them up and stitch them into snails.  Or compasses. Must resist! 🤣🤪)
Mid-day photo shoot to commemorate the 53rd snow d Mid-day photo shoot to commemorate the 53rd snow day of 2021. 😉😂
Oh look. It’s snowing again. Oh look. It’s snowing again.
Today’s snail. Number 5. And my favorite so far. Today’s snail. Number 5. And my favorite so far. The white backing fabric used to be one of my grandmother’s cleaning rags. Not sure what it was before that, but maybe a summer shirt?
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Archives

  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • July 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • November 2018
  • July 2018
  • January 2018
  • November 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
  • Home
  • About Raheli
  • Blog
  • Portfolio
  • Mixtapes
  • Contact

Don’t you want to know?

Subscribe to hear about events, classes, and shop updates.

Copyright © 2021 · Bloom theme by Restored 316

Copyright © 2021 · Bloom Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in