Fancy feathers

A few months ago, I learned of a couple of young, local girls who loved fashion but didn’t have the money to open a storefront. They started collecting merchandise and hosting “fashion socials” at their friends homes. Roaming Runway was born.

One of the jewelry lines offered by Roaming Runway is Huluwuwu. Danielle Lauren Bolton creates fun, fresh feathered accessories in Volcano on the Big Island. Here’s a short Q&A with Lauren. Find the full story about Roaming Runway here.

Photo from huluwuwu.etsy.com
What inspires you?
I am inspired by my beautiful tribe of women friends who love to express themselves wildly.

What kind of feathers do you use in your jewelry?
I use locally found feathers from Hawaii first, then I purchase from farmers who collect naturally molted feathers from their birds, and last I buy commercial feathers. I love rooster, peacock, pheasant, flamingo, cockatoo, macaw….everything really.

How did you find out about Etsy?
Found out about Etsy from a friend a few years ago…..I was madly crafting late at night and she walked into my room and said, “there is a perfect place online for you to actually sell your beautiful work” ….I was hooked instantly!

What advice do you have for other folks who may be contemplating starting a crafting business?
My advice is to express yourself in your work. I try to only make things that I would be proud of and excited to wear. Most important pay attention to the detail of your work. Quality over quantity!

Pound ‘em

Hello! Here’s the latest article I wrote. It’s a collaboration between myself and Baron Sekiya, editor of Hawaii 24/7. I’m visiting family on the Big Island so I got in touch with Baron and he invited me to join him at Donkey Mill Art Center in Kona to watch some mochi pounding:

Mochi, that sweet, sticky rice treat sought by cultists of Two Ladies Kitchen in Hilo, and available in the freezer section of your grocery store via the Mikawaya Mochi Ice Cream company, has a more humble history as a traditional New Year’s food.
Traditional mochi is made from an especially glutinous short-grained rice that is first soaked in water for 24 hours then steamed over an open fire for an additional hour. From there, it makes its way to a wooden usu (large Japanese mortar, usually made of wood or stone) where it is pounded by someone weilding a kine (large wooden mallet that serves as pestle to the usu). The grains of rice are mashed to a sticky-smooth doughlike consistency, then transferred to a long wooden table where small chunks are pinched off and molded into round, palm-sized, flat-bottomed rice cakes.

Read the full article here.

Mad style

I know I’m not alone in my Mad Men addiction. I downloaded Season 1 and Season 2 on iTunes a few weeks ago and watched it while packing up my apartment. The storyline is great, the styling is impeccable. One outfit in particular caught my eye:

In the Season 2 episode “Jet Set,” actress Laura Ramsey (who plays Joy) sits at a poolside table wearing a pink dress with a twisty neckline.

The reason I keyed in on this particular dress is because it’s very similar to a tunic I sewed a few months ago using a Cynthia Rowley for Simplicity pattern. Here’s my version:

This was a coincidence, by the way. I hadn’t started watching Mad Men when I sewed this. The pattern is already popular among DIY-ers, as a quick Flickr search shows.

I hope to resume regular posting soon. Please bear with me as I continue preparing for my move back to Hawaii!

Covering the Big Island 24/7

Baron Sekiya is the editor/founder of Hawaii247.org, an online newspaper that covers the Big Island of Hawaii. Baron and I worked together for about two and a half years at West Hawaii Today, the daily newspaper in Kailua-Kona. I was a new reporter and he was a staff photographer. After he was laid off by West Hawaii Today, Baron launched Hawaii247.org. Here he answers some questions about his latest venture. (Full disclosure: I copy edit Hawaii247.org on a volunteer basis, time permitting).

Baron Sekiya, editor/founder of Hawaii 24/7

Karen: When did you leave West Hawaii Today? How long had you been the staff photographer?

Baron: I was laid off from West Hawaii Today, a Stephens Media Group newspaper, on Nov. 7, 2008. They said the decision was due to the poor economy, so I became the first employee to be laid off during the Great Depression of 2008-? from the newspaper. I’ve heard that others have been laid-off since from other departments. I’ve often been a pioneer at the paper.

I had been working at West Hawaii Today since 1990, so it was 18 years as a staff photographer. But I wore many hats since I did computer work, a little bit of graphics and writing and Web site development (I was their first webmaster). Eighteen years is quite a long time to work at one place, and although I had been made offers for jobs at other newspapers during the 18 years, I enjoy living on the Big Island.

Karen: When and why did you start Hawaii 24/7?

Baron: I built the site and started adding content on Nov. 14, 2008. I turned the site on and open to the public on Nov 21, 2008, as Hawaii247.com. I moved the site on Jan. 19, 2009, to Hawaii247.org.

It had always frustrated me that the newspaper had adapted at glacial speed to deliver news. With the proliferation of the Internet, it only magnifies how slow newspapers are, and the newspaper would embargo the news from its own Web site so it wouldn’t cut into newspaper sales. Because the [newspaper's] Web site is updated so late every day, their news content is two days old from when the events happened. You may be able to subscribe to a paid electronic version of the newspaper, which delivers the paper quicker and they do have a Web site so it isn’t like they can’t deliver news quickly.

When you see newspaper photographers and reporters rushing around on assignment they aren’t rushing around to deliver news to the readers, they’re rushing around to make a deadline so it can be printed in the next day’s newspaper if they’re lucky; if there isn’t enough room for the story it runs later than that.

That’s much of why I started the Web site, to cut-out all the wasted time, energy and resources delivering the news. To think that to create the newspaper they need to manufacture the paper (lots of trees, recycled paper and energy for that), ship tons of newsprint and ink to Hawaii, run the presses to print the paper, drive the newspaper out to homes or newsracks, then folks drive the old newspapers to a recycle center, then the old newspapers are shipped back to the mainland where it’s mixed with more dead trees and the cycle starts again. I wonder about how much oil is being burned in the process.

The newspaper would raise the cost for both consumers and advertisers when newsprint prices would go up. Last year the newspaper printed editions with less pages than normal because a shipment of newsprint was ‘lost’ and they were afraid they were going to run out of paper. The newsprint showed-up; the shipping company just lost track of where it was.

So that’s why I started Hawaii 24/7, to deliver news in a quick and efficient manner for both the public and the environment. Less time wasted, less resources wasted.

Karen: How would you describe the site?

Baron: It’s hard for some people to wrap their heads around what the site is when first describing it them, but if you say it’s like a newspaper on the Internet they pretty much get it.

Hawaii 24/7 is a news site covering the Big Island (Hawaii Island), delivering news as soon as we can get it onto the Internet. One of the first things I decided when I started was that we would not call any news ‘breaking news’ on the site. The ‘breaking news’ term came from the broadcast industry where they would ‘break into’ a program to bring you a current news item. Newspapers also use the term on their Web site when something missed the deadline to make it into their print edition. We don’t have a deadline to go to press, we don’t have a regularly scheduled newscast so to us it’s all just ‘news.’

We cover much of the same subjects as a newspapers, such as spot news, sports, politics, feature stories, education, health care and media releases concerning the Big Island. We also have news from outside of the Big Island if it may be of interest to our readers.

If a highway is blocked by a landslide, folks need to know right away so they can make a detour instead of being stuck on the highway or backtrack. It’s not going to help folks reading about it in the next day’s paper (unless they want to see their photo stuck in traffic). Often if we report something online the local radio stations will mention it and attribute it to us. We use the Web site, Twitter, Qik, YouTube, push RSS feeds out and a few more things are in the works to deliver content.

Karen: What do you do at Hawaii 24/7?

Baron: A little bit of everything and a lot of some things. I play editor, webmaster, visual journalist (a fancy term for a photojournalist who can shoot still images, video, records audio), writer, graphic artist and dog catcher.

Karen: How were you able to segue from a print environment to an online environment? Did you have help building the site?

Baron: The segue from a print to online environment from a news gathering perspective isn’t very different for journalists other than the additional features the web can offer such as video, audio and interactive graphics. People keep calling it ‘new media’ when I think of it more as ‘new medium.’ The news gathering is mostly done in the same way as a paper product but just doesn’t need to be delivered on the medium of dead trees. I mean, the Wall Street Journal has a successful Web site and it just doesn’t seem like the word ‘new media’ fits them.

As for the technical structure of the Web site, the aspects of servers, choosing WordPress to build it with, buying the theme for the layout and keeping it running, I did that myself. WordPress is a robust, easy-to-use system and although the general layout of the site was purchased, I spend a lot of time tweaking the code to get the site working the way I want it. I still have to wrestle with code and server issues all the time to fix things when they are broken and to make updates as necessary.

As for the content of the Web site, I have the tremendous asset of having Karin Stanton working with me as a contributing editor. Having someone who comes from a newspaper background, and the fact that she can write and shoot photos on a variety of subjects, is incredible. The days of journalists being only a writer or photographer at a local news organization is gone. She also makes many updates to the Web site content so computer skills are essential too.

We also have talented contributors to the Web site for photos and stories that have the same passion for community journalism that we have. It has been almost shocking sometimes, the generosity of people submitting content for the Web site.

Karen: What type of feedback have you gotten from the community?

Baron: For the regular readers of the site, they love not having to wait for information being delivered and having a second voice on the island for a publication since most of the other publications on the island are owned by one company. Most feedback has been positive, the only real negative feedback is that folks want more content–but that’s the same thing newspapers are hearing too.

Unlike a printed product, when we have errors or omissions in stories we can make corrections to the original story. As any journalist will tell you having an error that is forever on a printed page is haunting. Everyone hates errors, journalists lose sleep over errors that can’t be fixed. Sometimes we get feedback from the community on errors and we fix things, sometimes we get more information to add to the story after it has been posted and we add to the story.

Karen: What is your goal for the site? What’s next?

Baron: Well, the goal is monetization and survivability of the site, to grow staff and to grow coverage. One of our role models has been the Voice of San Diego (www.voiceofsandiego.org) where they run a non-profit news site. Can a non-profit model work in the news industry? Many consumers don’t realize that the Associated Press is a non-profit organization and they are a giant in the news industry.

Eventually I’d like the site to cover the whole state. I didn’t name the Web site Big Island 24/7, as the plan has always been to grow beyond Hawaii Island.

Karen: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Baron: There has been a lot of interest by journalists about the Web site. A lot of folks want to see if it will work and if they can do the same thing where they live. Journalists want to work, consumers want news content and businesses want effective ways to reach consumers. Hopefully we can satisfy all three.

Update: MachineMachine Apparel

Last year, The Honolulu Advertiser published my article about Oahu-based fashion designer Shannon Hiramoto (see Machine Made under the Published works tab). Since then, she’s also been featured in Pacific Edge and IFlyGo magazines. I recently touched bases with her to find out what’s new with MachineMachine Apparel.

Shannon Hiramoto of MachineMachine Apparel

Karen: What have you been up to?

Shannon: I remain the sole employee of MachineMachine Apparel, designing and sewing all garments in Honolulu. On a personal level, I’ve been learning to cook, trying to read for at least an hour a day, visiting Kaua’i often and practicing yoga in my spare time.

Karen: How have your designs evolved in the past year?

Shannon: I am constantly pushing myself to come up with new styles as well as continuing to work with the signature styles that originally popularized the company. My designs have become more streamlined and clean, I think, in the past year. Also, I am working on creating outfits that are relatively more conservative and mature than what people might be used to seeing from machinemachine; a bit more skin coverage and age appropriate for a wider demographic. There are also a few keiki (children) styles that I have been playing around with on a custom basis. And for the men (although women like these too), I have been busy with hand-stitched vintage paneled hats and applique tees.

Karen: How has the economy affected MachineMachine?

Shannon: Luckily, the economy has been kind to my company. I think customers have more and more been trying to shop locally and with machinemachine’s great price point, they always find something just right for them and their budget. I have picked up some new accounts in the past year and now customers can stop in to these shops as well as my own online shop.

Karen: What’s working for your business and what have you changed?

Shannon: The one-of-a-kind clothing concept has been a great asset for the company. I also believe the non-mass-produced process behind the clothing has secured customers and sales, so I blog often with insights into the process and my day to day workings: a-cottage-factory.tumblr.com.

I am more streamlined now than ever before and I am constantly looking for ways to be more efficient and productive. I am also more interested now than ever before in integrating my company with the larger community.

Karen: Any tips for budding designers and burgeoning entrepreneurs?

Shannon: Do it! Start small and allow yourself to make mistakes with a small business model rather than risking it all on a huge investment. Allow your business to grow by giving it time to develop into what one day might be a larger company. Most of all, if you are a designer, you must retain a passion for the creative process and for being open to all possibilities and opportunities.

Karen: Where are your clothes available now?

Shannon: In addition to my online shop:

O’ahu:
Shasa Emporium at Kahala Mall
Split Obsession at Koko Marina Shopping center
Split Obsession at Ala Moana Shopping Center
The Butik on Kapiolani Blvd
DPIV in Kaimuki
Roaming Runway, a mobile boutique

Kaua’i:
Puka Boutique and Gallery in Hanapepe
Oskar’s K-town Underground in Kilauea

Maui:
Wings Hawaii in Haiku

Karen: You mentioned that there are some exciting new things on the horizon. What’s next for MachineMachine?

Shannon: I am very interested in opening a workspace/showroom/mini-boutique where I can work and sell MachineMachine so that i can have daily meaningful interactions with my growing customer base. To purchase the clothing that is made right before your eyes would be a great addition to the Honolulu shopping experience. I think it’s the next logical progression for the company. Artistically, I am looking forward to hand-printing fabric for specific designs.

Car Talk

In April 2009, I returned home to Hawaii for two weeks to visit friends and family. While there, I spent as much time as I could with my grandfather, a Japanese-American World War II veteran who had a stroke in 2008.

When I went back home to Hilo, Hawaii, recently, one of the first things I did was visit my grandpa, who is currently in long-term care at the newly built Veterans Hospital. And one of the first things he told me was, “I still don’t have my glasses. If I had my glasses and I could see then my OT (occupational therapist) says I could get my driver’s license.”

This wasn’t strictly true. What the occupational therapist said (my mom made it a point to ask) was that he did not want my grandpa to drive, but he wasn’t the one in charge of who gets to drive in the county. My grandpa would have to take the county’s driver’s licensing test. To do that, my grandpa would need, at the very least, his glasses and someone willing to take him to the DMV. Assuming he got that far, the silver lining, the therapist implied, was that my grandpa would almost surely fail the test. (After the stroke, Grandpa had lost some movement in the left half of his body and regularly referred to his knees as “rubber”). However, the occupational therapist also noted that my grandpa was “impulsive,” so who knows what he might try to do.

My grandpa is 89 years old. But when he was in his late 60s and early 70s, he would drive me and my brother to school and pick us up. I have distinct memories of driving with my grandpa because it was almost always an embarrassing experience. Like the time he pulled into the grocery store parking lot and told my brother (who must’ve been 9 or 10 at the time) to go in and buy him some non-alcoholic beer because he knew he couldn’t drink real beer while driving but he wanted something that tasted like beer. My brother protested that no one in the store was going to let him buy beer, but my grandpa insisted they would if it was non-alcoholic.

Or the time he turned down the wrong street and drove through the open exit gates of a food-processing company called Kulana Foods. All of the workers on break swarmed toward the car, waving their hands frantically and shouting, “No! Wrong way! Wrong way!” My grandpa rolled down his window, honked and sped through the parking lot and out through the gates marked “Entrance.” I can still see the angry workers in the rearview mirror. I think my friend Ashley was also in the car, possibly slouching and covering her face.

Oh, and the time he almost caused a collision when he drove through the exit of the Life Care Center of Hilo (where he made almost daily visits to his mother’s bedside while she was still alive). The driver of the van he almost hit was pretty irate as I recall, but Grandpa just honked his horn and sped right by.

Then there were the cars my grandpa had. They could only be described as jalopies. The man never met a car he could give up. There was the old who-knows-what-year Mazda hatchback with holes in the floorboards. That car always smelled like mold and gas and the blankets covering the seats were dirtier than the seats themselves. Then there was his big boat of a Pontiac, the one with the leaky roof. And trust me, when you live in Hilo, Hawaii, where it rains more than Seattle, you want your car to have a functioning roof. By far the best car he ever owned was the Toyota Prius he bought on the spur of the moment. But by the time he got that car, he was barely driving. It had approximately 2,000 miles after two years. The battery started giving him problems because it he wasn’t using it enough. After repeated (read: daily) visits to the Toyota dealership yielded less-than stellar results, he simply disconnected the battery between drives. Now, to get the car going you have to pop the trunk and re-connect the wires. It’s not even really a trunk anymore, but a giant tool chest.

This Prius, still sitting unused in the home my grandpa owns but no longer occupies, is the car he yearns to drive. I sometimes get the impression that he views the Veterans Hospital as an interesting diversion. He gets to socialize with the other residents, there is almost always entertainment (on the occasions I visited, I saw country-dancing demonstrations, a game of toss, a visit from a church group, an ukulele player, hula dancers and a discussion of that day’s newspaper) and he gets a regular meal. My grandpa gained nearly 15 pounds since going to the VA. This is not surprising because he is one of those old-school guys who barely knows how to operate his microwave and gets by on the kindness of friends and family who give him food.

So I think he was hoping he could stop by the hospital for all those “perks” and then drive home when he’d had enough. He was old, he had rubber knees, but he still desired his independence.

In fact, he believes he’d still have that independence if it hadn’t given up a car in the first place. The day he had a stroke and collapsed in his yard was the same day he finally got rid of that old Mazda hatchback. He told one of my cousins he should never have given that car up. It changed his luck, he said.

Reusable menstrual pads: "It's not as gross as it sounds"

This interview I conducted with Amanda Elizabeth Woodward was originally published Nov. 15, 2008, on another Web site that chronicled all things handmade.

Amanda Elizabeth Woodward of Modern Acorn.

Amanda Elizabeth Woodward, the creative force behind Modern Acorn, makes pretty, one-of-a-kind cloth menstrual pads. The 26-year-old artist from Eureka, Calif., uses fabric by contemporary designers such as Heather Ross and Joel Dewberry, and she cuts her pads to best showcase each fabric’s unique design elements. She even obsesses over picking just the right color of thread to sew with. The care she puts into her creations is evident in her finished products. Her pads are PUL-free and come in a variety of sizes/thicknesses.

It’s safe to say that few women look forward to “that time of the month.” Between cramps, break-outs and emotional breakdowns, it’s easy to understand why. I don’t suffer from debilitating cramps like some of my friends do. But I *do* experience a roller coaster of emotions. It took me a few years to realize what was going on, but once I did I found it to be oddly comforting: An uncomfortable, but ultimately dependable, rhythm to my life.

Now, cloth pads may seem counter-intuitive at first (“Eww, how am I supposed to clean this thing? It’s so much work”) but Amanda believes that they could cut down on the amount of waste in landfills and save you money to boot (how much do you think you spend on tampons and pads every month?).

Enough chit-chat. Let’s get to the interview!

What's inside a Modern Acorn pad? Bamboo and 100 percent organic cotton fleece.

A pretty pink cloth pad by Amanda of Modernacorn.com

Karen: Why did you begin making cloth pads?

Amanda: I began making cloth pads in August of 2007. I really loved using cloth, but was feeling kinda blah towards the fabric choices that were available at the time. I was buying locally from Eureka Natural Foods, North Coast Co-Op and off various online shops. I’ve always been a crafty person, so I started picking the brains of some fabric store owners, started tracing panties and disposable pads, just trying to get a feel for what would make a comfortable pad. My first few pads were terrible! I look at them now and I cringe. After making them for myself for a few months, I began openly talking about cloth to some classmates and it turned out other women were curious, so I started sewing them for friends, then I started selling them to their friends and through word of mouth, Modern Acorn was born and I opened a shop on Etsy. Mainly, I knew I wanted to use stunning fabrics and the best possible materials because in order for it to be fun, I have to be sewing stuff I genuinely love!

Karen: Reading the product descriptions at your shop, I get the impression that you view a woman’s menstrual cycle positively, and may even look forward your period. This seems contrary to the mainstream view. Have you always felt this way? How did you arrive at this point?

Amanda: No way. I always viewed it as a burden! Once I started to use cloth, it became kinda fun each month because I was buying all different types of cloth pads from all different sources, so each month was like a game: “Hmm, will this fit? Will this be comfy? Is this fabric going to make me happy every month?” Then I started to become more and more in tune with my cycle, I started to notice certain things regarding bleeding patterns and diet, overall, it started to become a way to know myself better. Another thing that helped me was the book “Cunt” by Inga Muscio. She openly talks about periods, cycles, reusable menstrual products. After reading her book, I began to talk about more and more openly and gave a lecture in a gender class regarding cloth! Muscio is so blunt and accepting, it kinda lights off a bulb in your head like, “Wait! I can be this blunt and accepting of myself too!”

Karen: If you could tell your customers (or potential customers) one thing about cloth pads, what would it be?

Amanda: It’s not as gross as it sounds! I think on average I get 5-10 etsy convos DAILY asking if its gross and how is it hygienic!? It’s not at all gross and its totally hygienic! I sometimes give the example of, you’ve had a long day, your tampon has leaked onto your panties, do you throw them away? No! You wash them, they get clean, you move on! It’s the same thing with cloth, you can wash them and move on!

Karen: How old were you when you started your period? What was your reaction?

Amanda: I think I was 12-13. My mom is a fantastic, fantastic woman and had taken me to the Museum of Science in Boston. I remember feeling strange all day, going home, finding blood, explaining it terrified to my mom and it being awkward, but a neat experience!

Karen: What do you do when you’re not sewing pads?

Amanda: Sewing!!! I sew a lot, even when I’m not sewing pads, I’m sewing paper or building soft sculptures. I also paint, knit, draw…I think every waking moment I’m creating SOMETHING!

Karen: Is there anything else you want to add?

Amanda: Just that anyone with any questions can feel free to contact me at modernacorn@gmail.com! I know the idea of cloth is kinda creepy to some women and I want to show women that there are a lot of eco-friendly, body-friendly options out there!

Thank you, Amanda! (Psst: Amanda also sells cloth facial wipes, calenders and little all-purpose pouches, among other things at her online shop.)

*All photos provided by Amanda Elizabeth Woodward and published here with her permission.

American

In July 2009,  I spent a week in San Francisco, ostensibly to visit a cousin and meet up with past colleagues. In reality, I was underemployed and feeling less-than optimistic, and because I had some money saved, a short trip didn’t seem like a bad idea. While I was there I had a brief encounter with an author who would become an inspiration.

Hiroshi Kashiwagi. Photo courtesy of Will Kaku via Flickr.com

On my last day in San Francisco, I went with my cousin to the Buddhist Churches of America building. She was dropping of a blanket she’d knitted for the church’s annual craft fair. While we were there she briefly introduced me to Hiroshi Kashiwagi, an 87-year-old author of several books, including “Swimming in the American,” a collection of short stories about growing up in Japanese in California during the Great Depression and the internment during World War II.

My cousin introduced me as “a journalist who writes stories for the newspaper,” which is a stretch these days, but I believe she wanted to demonstrate that Mr. Kashiwagi and I were both writers and therefore had common ground to talk. I imagined Mr. Kashiwagi looked a little embarrassed, as if he thought I might start interviewing him then and there.

As it turns out, one of the booths at the craft fair was selling copies of “Swimming in the American” and I mentioned that I might pick up a copy. Mr. Kashiwagi said if I did, he would sign a copy for me. He said I could find him by the raffle booth. So I did. And he signed it (I caught him just as he was filling out his raffle ticket, so he already had a pen in hand). The book is quite good. Simple vignettes in an easy-to-read style. I just finished reading about his experience making tofu in his father’s fish shop. Tofu has become trendy lately, but I remember it the way Mr. Kashiwagi describes it: A white block soaking in water. My mother used to slice it into cubes and serve it with shoyu (soy sauce). It’s funny to think of it now being used to make veggie burgers and soy dogs.

It turns out Mr. Kashiwagi was one of the infamous No-No Boys who were interned at Tule Lake in Northern California. When the U.S. government sent out surveys asking Japanese-Americans to enlist in the military and declare their loyalty to the country, the No-No Boys refused. Mr. Kashiwagi said he would have been willing to do anything for his country, if only his country had treated him like the loyal citizen he was.

Mr. Kashiwagi is just a couple of years younger than my own grandfather. I often wonder what my grandparents would have had to say about their experiences if they ever took pen to paper.