Meet our book & web designer: Roman Jaster

Roman Jaster is the gifted designer who designed both Making It and this very website for us. He recently gave a Visiting Designer talk about his work at his alma mater, CalArts and made that lecture public on YouTube. In it, he talks about his childhood in East Germany, the decisions he made early-on which determined his career, his working methods (which are really interesting, combining coding with design) and talks about the concepts behind s...

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Weeds into Fertilizer

...things that plants need for healthy growth. This makes nettles useful for making your own fertilizer. They can accumulate nutrients and minerals in their biomass. When they break down in a compost pile, or in this case in the water, they release the nutrients. Many of these elements can be difficult for other plants to access in the soil. Nettles just happen to be very good at taking up nutrients from relatively poor soil. The point here is let y...

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Saturday Linkages: An Egg Shaped Houseboat, Bamboo Joints and the Origins of Umami

...was-coined-by-the-inventor-of-msg-to-describe-i-693953580 … Why lettuce is making us sick: http://modernfarmer.com/2013/07/why-lettuce-keeps-making-us-sick/ … Devolution In Oregon, The GMO Wheat Mystery Deepens http://n.pr/15CRyHO Study: Wealthier Motorists More Likely to Drive Like Reckless Jerks http://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/07/16/study-wealthier-motorists-more-likely-to-drive-like-reckless-jerks/ … Gardena PD Ticket, Harass United Riders of So...

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Tips on growing great garlic

...f they appear. The flowers pull energy from the plant that is better spent making big cloves. The flowers are also edible: some farmers are actually making more money selling the flowers as culinary exotics. Growing garlic in hot climates I’ve had mixed success growing garlic in Los Angeles. It turns out I was growing the wrong varieties. Most garlics appreciate cold weather, including some time spent under a blanket of snow. For hot climates you...

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Shoemaking Advice?

...ave any of you made your own shoes? I’m looking for good resources on shoe making: books, videos, etc. I’d also love to hear stories of successes or failures or lessons learned. I’d like to make leather, soft-soled shoes as first project perhaps moccasins, perhaps something more structured. I have two books right now. One is Shoes for Free People, by David & Inger Runk, published in 1976 in Santa Cruz. As you might expect, it is highly groovy. And...

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