Documentation. A tool to allow others to examine the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the thing you’re making.
I got a little caught up in documentation today. Both as in catching up from being behind and as in lost in the moment, losing track of time.
I’m not quite sure why I opened the document. It may have started with trying to figure out how to sprinkle tanka in to the research. It ended with something approaching a cohesive format and a really good effort at a narrative. I just got inspired, and I know better than to turn down inspiration. I’m using time as a framework for the story, relaying how long it takes to complete each piece in as much detail as I think is appropriate without getting bogged down. And now I know things like I spent 27 days on the hat. The time commitment on this project sinks in every now and again, but I still feel like I don’t have enough time to do it justice.
I’ve a number of tanka now spread throughout the documentation, but noticed I didn’t have any poems for the hat, neither the curtains nor the weaving of the decorative cords as all that work was done in October, before the Tanka Challenge of November, so that’s what today’s poem is for.
Meditative art / A repetition in silk / Facing the mirror / Hands move in rhythmic patterns / Decorative cords produced.
I used poems written to express a certain moment in the project or a specific part of the project. When updating the hitoe section of the documentation, I included the poem I wrote in frustration after miscutting the sleeves as well as the one about the dyepot. It was pleasant to reframe the poems that way, though the tanka that are right for inclusion in the documentation are not necessarily the best I’ve written. Incentive to work a little harder on them…
At the very end of this project I’m going to create a new page on this site with the full documentation, pictures of the completed ensemble, and an embedded link to whatever video I make for entry to A&S Champs.
Oh, and physical progress on the project is also happening! Roll hemming the collar continues. Slowly but surely…
