Got an hour to kill? Knit yourself a jumper with the open-source digital loom called OpenKnit.

OpenKnit is the open-source digital fabrication tool that will knit you a jumper in under an hour.

The brainchild of Gerard Rubio, a designer based in Barcelona, OpenKnit uses Knitic software designed by Mar Canet and Varvara Guljajeva. OpenKnit pulls the designs from the software and then after measurements are entered and weights placed to stabilize the fabrics, the machine gets knitting.

“[I]ts novelty lies in the fact it is not only relatively affordable to build from the instructions posted on Github [around $700] but there is already something of an ecosystem around the venture,” reports Wired. “Collaborators Mar Canet and Varvara Guljajeva have designed the Knitic software that lets you input parameters for the machine to adhere to, to tailor the garment; and Takahiro Yamaguchi has launched DoknitYourself, a place to share all the digitally designed knitted clothes already made using it.”

But what’s the big deal? Why should we care about a modern knitting machine? Well, fast fashion for one. Anything we can do for ourselves is one less garment made in a sweatshop. “The point of the project, of course, is to upend and question all forms of traditional mass production — no biggie, then,” Wired explains.

“Presently, production outsourcing has become the norm: mass fabrication of goods at low costs improves corporate profit margins but pushes precarious labour conditions due to a race to the bottom in competing developing markets,” Rubio wrote on his blog. “Production entails long and precise processes before those goods reach our hands, many of which are pervasive in our daily life, and frequently in intimate contact with us, such as textiles. In such a context the market price we pay for goods has not absorbed the externalities created, thus we end up paying far less for them than the real impact they have in society and the environment.” He adds: “It’s always great to have fun and learn while working on something you enjoy doing but it’s also important to do things for a reason once in a while, and that’s the combination of ingredients that created the OpenKnit project.”

The best part of all of this so far is Rubio’s brazen attitude. He’s taken his knitted clothes and after disrobing mannequins at H&M and Benetton locations, he re-clothed them with his own creations.  He explained it  that he just wanted to “put some company names on the table, companies that perpetuate the status quo of the fashion industry and its model of production and consumption”.

Made In the Neighbourhood (ft. a clothing printer, OpenKnit) from Gerard Rubio on Vimeo.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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Can digital platforms open up the booming farmers market category for easier access to local foods and goods?

Using online services to live a more local lifestyle is a concept that seems like a paradox – it’s the worldwide web after all – but in the food realm, the digital world is helping to bring more local producers and consumers together.

Much like some grocery stores have implemented online shopping capabilities for their customers, farmers markets are the next frontier. In fact, when it comes to supporting a more local economy, the digital space can be an excellent platform for facilitating exchanges between producers and customers.

Many farmers markets are implementing online platforms which allow their customers to shop from home; this is an ideal set up for smaller scale co-ops that allow members to peruse the selection online, make an order and then collect it at the designated pick up. Even in my small hometown in Western Washington my parents shop local goods online thanks to the platform that their co-op Fresh Food Revolution uses, Local Food Marketplace, which hosts online farmers markets, CSAs, wholesalers, and buying clubs across the US. Local farmers use it to update what they have available, co-op members make their orders, and pick up day is Wednesday afternoon, and you better be sure to put it on your calendar.

It goes without saying that we live busy lives, and the ability to have a bit more flexibility when it comes to grocery shopping is a good thing. Farmigo is tapping into that exact idea. One of the key missions of the online platform is to “bring better quality food to everyone across the nation by giving them access to local, sustainable food directly from farmer.” Working with over 300 farms in 25 states, Farmigo accomplishes this by providing an online marketplace where farmers can better manage their CSA programs, and in turn have allowed farmers to directly interact with large companies like Google and Twitter.

Farmigo also recently launched its community-based initiative, tapping into the power of individuals who want to bring more local food to their own communities. The website allows for coordinating an online farmers market specifically for the community in question, and then a community center becomes the delivery site for local farms to deliver food that has traveled fewer than 100 miles. Shoppers order online and pick up their food within 48 hours of its harvest. Currently Farmigo has community initiatives going in California and New York.

Based in the Bay Area in California, GoodEggs is born out of a similar concept: create a hub to bring people and food closer together. Customers shop on the online marketplace, which features not only local produce, but harder to find products like locally baked gluten free muffins, granola and homemade soups. Think of it as the best of an underground market except with the ease of clicking and then picking up your entire purchase at one pick up location. What may have once been a hole-in-the-wall operation that people would only know about via word of mouth, these are the kind of digital tools that help farmers and food makers sell directly, in turn reaching a wider market.

But these digital applications aren’t just serving the individual consumer. If you want to change the food industry you have to attack it from all levels. FoodHub is doing just that by connecting professional food buyers, wholesale producers, distributors and industry suppliers in one community. Which means when the restaurateur wants a locally grown bunch of kale for the month’s salad special, he or she has a website that will tell them exactly where to get it.

Selling in an online space is also good for the farmers, not only because it expands their market, but because it lets them know how much they are going to sell, eliminating waste. Pitch a tent at farmers market over the weekend and you have to do some serious calculating for how many heads of cabbage and rutabagas to bring. An online system streamlines that process, which means farmers know exactly how much they are selling and where it’s going.

All these tools do however beg the question: while online platforms give us better access, are they discouraging us from engaging. The “Bowling Alone” social phenomenon is much discussed in political science circles, the idea that with the rise of internet and technology we spend more time alone than in community settings and in turn political involvement. The point of a farmers market after all isn’t just to get access to local food, it’s to engage in a discussion, and in a world where we already separate ourselves from society because of online channels, it’s important to keep in mind that even if we can make our purchases online, it shouldn’t stop us from interacting with the people that are producing what we’re buying. Conversation is just as much part of buying local as the actual products are – that’s something you simply don’t get when you shop at big box stores.

Ultimately, we can hope that platforms like these will not only provide greater access to good and local food, but also inspire us to engage more, talking about what we eat with those around us and seeking out new producers within our communities, all of which is part of the process of creating a more sustainable food system.

Images: Anna Brones

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ColumnIn our modern, technology filled world, we’re busy, and so we cut corners, but food shouldn’t be one of them.

Checking your iPhone during dinner is rude (well, unless you’re food porning it up… and even then, there are limits). But what’s worse? Making your iPhone your dinner partner.

That’s right food lovers, you can now buy a bowl for ramen that magically connects your iPhone so that you can surf and text and check your updates while you’re slurping down a bowl of hot noodle broth. Great! Why enjoy your meal when you could be reading your email?

In the midst of articles about farmers markets, CSAs and urban gardens, it’s discoveries like this that give me cause for concern, particularly about our future as a society. Not because hip food cities may soon be filled with ramen/iPhone bars (isn’t there an app that turns your phone into a set of chopsticks??), but because it’s an indicator of a larger cultural dilemma.

We live in a fast-paced world, where work is longer and meals are shorter. We trade the conference room for the dinner table, and soon eating is just another task in the day; something to be checked off of a to-do list.

We’re busy and so we cut corners, but food shouldn’t be one of them. Seeking out devices to replace the fact that we aren’t sitting around a table with family or friends is not only depressing, it’s a sign of the times: we live in a world where eating is an afterthought–something that we know we must do, just like we must wash the dishes and we must go to work.

But if we take the pleasure and ceremony out of eating, what are we left with? A world where good food isn’t honored and fast food is the norm. There’s a causal relationship between our high octane modern world and our path towards a public health epidemic: we don’t take time to eat, much less honor the process, gather with friends, celebrate the food in front of us and the company around us. Put an emphasis back on living life, and maybe food politics falls in place right behind.

We complain that dinner takes time and energy to prepare; but aren’t we lucky enough to be taking a moment to work with our hands and produce something that sustains us? Somewhere our relationship to food went askew – instead of flavor and sustenance we chose efficiency and in turn have created a system where taste is in fact the last criteria that is used in most food that is grown. Genetically modified tomatoes that grow into squares so that they pack better? Why not?

Food is one of the few moments in the day where we can disconnect. Remove ourselves from our digital lives and appreciate something physical and tangible. An all-senses affair. If we want to change the world of food, maybe we need to start thinking about our own interactions with it first. Are we present? Are making something or merely hitting the “warm up” button? Do we make time for food or is it an afterthought?

A good friend emailed me in reference to last week’s column where I said that cooking is our thirty minutes a day to disconnect from everything else and merely commit to the creation of a single thing:

“My face fell at the idea of spending a mere 30 minutes cooking each day. Try as I might I spend far more than 30 minutes preparing food each day. I’d better start working towards more efficiency in the kitchen. All those hours add up in a hurry. And what did you do with your life, Mrs. Bryan?”

I responded simply by saying  “If all you did in your life, Mrs. Bryan, was spend time in the kitchen making amazing things and being aware of your surroundings, I would say that that is a life well lived.”

Good food doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does have to be conscious. If not, we risk a world in which real food disappears, and that is a world that is certainly not conducive to living well.

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Photo Credit: MisoSoupDesign

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A number of new startups bring convenience to the second hand fashion world.

When it comes down to it, the best thing you can do for the environment is not buy new clothes. A satisfying second best for those not quite ready for minimalist fashion – and I don’t mean the monochromatic simplicity seen at the recent pre-fall collections – is buying second hand clothing.

A growing number of new startups such as Poshmark, Threadflip, The RealReal, Copius, Tradesy and Twice are targeting online shoppers to buy and sell used clothing from their own closets. P2P. Buying green fashion that fits your style has never been more fun or easy.

According to Lorraine Sanders founder of Digital Style Digest, a blog devoted to the intersection of fashion and technology, the trend marks the second coming of the used goods marketplace. “Ebay and Craigslist certainly are its predecessors. But they haven’t done anything innovative in a decade, and Ebay is now moving away from auction-style buying experiences and towards fixed-price sales.”

This sudden growth and focus on the used clothing space is fueled by a confluence of factors: the cultural phenomenon of sharing your personal style through fashion blogs and the increased popularity of fashion bloggers; the mainstream adoption of transparent social media identities, like Twitter handles and Facebook pages, creating a certain amount of visibility and trust between buyers and sellers in the market; and the widespread ability to take quality photographs with mobile phones. As Sanders notes, “It was only a matter of time before someone figured how to make money out of it.”

With its tradition of innovating around sustainability, it’s not surprising that many of the new companies are based in the San Francisco Bay area. But the eco play of moving multitudes of unused items from the average woman’s closet is not their main message. Instead, it’s the technology behind the creation of these peer-to-peer (p2p) marketplaces and the potential for more collaborative economies and business models that’s getting investors to sit up and take notice.

In contrast to the traditional consignment store’s impersonal image, the real-time social experience features squarely in the center of the new site’s product offering, with each handling the theme of making selling more social in slightly different ways. Threadflip spotlights one-of-a-kind items from the personal collections of its Style Stars, allowing you access to your favorite tastemaker. Poshmark has made its mark throwing Posh Parties thrown around specific themes such as “Back to Basics” and “Jet Set Glamour.” Sanders says, “Users are not just there just to buy, they comment on pieces, each others’ outfits, tweeting – having fun in that social way.”

For many women looking for an easier alternative to sustainable second hand shopping, the sticking point may be the prices. This is not the same as shopping thrift; you won’t see the dollar deals that you’d find at your local Goodwill. Twice – The Clothes You Love, Prices You Can Afford – a company that was originally launched as an online version of Crossroads and Buffalo Exchange quickly implemented the standard brand list limiting viable sales to well known brand names.

And unfortunately, it doesn’t solve the problem of what most people across America have in their wardrobes, which is clothing from Target, H&M and Forever 21. If you want to get a sense of the prices you can charge, Twice has a calculator that will calculate what you can realistically expect to buy and sell for. On the other end of the scale, The RealReal currently has a Hermès Lizard Birkin Bag on sale for $18,500. Clearly, saving money is not the value proposition here. The allure is owning something you can’t find in stores, something fundamentally untrendy.

Moving away from trends has ironically been the most significant fashion trend happening over the last decade. “People have more freedom to set themselves apart and dress in ways you wouldn’t find hanging in a store,” says Sanders. And while that concept might seem very normal to us now, “if you look back 10 years you can see how different it is and how major a shift has actually taken place in fashion.”

Image: thirdwavefashion.com

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In the mid 1400s Johannes Gutenberg invented the first printing press, a technology which allowed information to spread far more rapidly thanks to what is now a simple concept: movable type.

Nearly 550 years later, the advent of the internet had much the same effect, but you’ll have a hard time getting people to agree over which invention had a greater impact.

Graphic designers James Cuddy and Roma Levin along with digital maker Danilo Di Cuia comprise a London-based design collective that is tackling that question head-on. Their ongoing project, Out of Print, is an interactive exploration of the interplay between technology and the tangible.

With an installation that featured as part of autumn’s London Design Festival, an app, and a website in development, Out of Print is a multimedia endeavor that stemmed in part from the collective’s desire to reconcile two very different parts of their lives.

“We’ve all done printing and things that take a while—they’re quite tactile and they’re quite considered. But we also work in advertising where it’s very disposable and ‘now,’” Levin said. “We wanted to use letterpress not as a way to paint quaint, cute posters but as a way to show the contrast between the two technologies and the fact that they can work together at the same time.”

Step one was creating software that would generate headlines at random by aggregating words from trending headlines across selected news sources. The app uses the simple headline structure of subject, action, object—modeled after the loathed and loved British tabloid the Daily Mail—as the base of a simple algorithm.

When attendees of the exhibition entered the space, they chose what should be printed from a stream of fabricated headlines on a computer. The trio then used the most basic printing technology possible to create posters which filled the wall space. Think of it as a physical manifestation of Twitter, just much slower.

“There’s the idea that when you send a Tweet you forget about it after a couple of hours,” Levin said. “Whereas we wanted to play with what would happen if the Tweet turns into what looks like a work of art.”

Even though the assembly of the headlines was generated randomly by the created app, Cuddy said something resembling the hashtag phenomenon was evident as the exhibition progressed.

“You’d roughly see the things in the news change over the days. One day it’d be all about Kate Middleton and the next day something else,” Cuddy said. “So we want to take that idea and build the website around building up an archive of 2013 news.”

While the project did create aesthetically pleasing posters and generate some sales, the trio says that for them, using a printing press is not just a simple exercise in nostalgia destined to end up on Pinterest. Levin, who works in advertising, says he is increasingly put off by the fact that digital media is predominately used in a commercial capacity.

“For me, the project came about as a kind of reaction against the fact that digital is used heavily to just sell more things,” Levin said “So that was one of reasons why we wanted to reverse it and look at it from more of a perspective of how tech can serve other purposes.”

Cuddy added that despite the heavy use of technology throughout their design work, the collective’s ethos is all about putting a focus on the intrinsic value of a tangible object, and how that can coexist with technology.

“I do still value physical objects and I think things have almost come full circle in that the internet is now increasingly controlling physical objects,” Cuddy said “A lot of these new technologies are so young and are constantly being shaped, so I think it’s useful to step sideways a little and just sort of let them—they are changing the way we communicate, but they also have the potential to enhance it.”

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ColumnNeed to look good on Facebook? Ask an editor.

Presenting yourself as the envy of everyone’s Facebook wall comes down to editing (that we’d want to do this is a foregone conclusion). As a colleague said recently, “Editing is the skill of the century.” Your digital life, unedited? So MySpace. This is Facebook, where the savvy Eye of social discernment is a requisite. You’ve got walls. Subscriptions. Integrated tweets. Photo albums. Friends tagging god-knows-what (probably your arm from the fat side). It’s a borg on there, and you’ll need to practice some serious curation of your life to be perceived like-ably. You want the highs to be high, the lows to be slightly less high, and the ex to know your arms are still skinny. As every good editor knows, the product is all in the packaging. Present your life from the most pleasing angle, and don’t forget the witty caption! Here’s how.

Lolcats

IRL: You’ve got guests in town. Your cat cannot handle the den of estrogen that your flat has become and meows – bleats, really – all night long, keeping both you and your guests in the other room miserably half-asleep well into sunrise. The cat settles in for slumber, of course, right at the time you all have to wake up for work on Monday morning. You find yourself wondering if your cat would even notice if you gave it away.

How to Facebook it: Cheezburger it up and put a caption on it. Lol all the way to the likes. Cats are hilarious, always! Suggested captions:

IM IN UR SLEEP, DISRUPTIN UR ZZZ

MEOWS-ON-REPEAT: EVEN MORE ANNOYING THAN DUBSTEP

HOSTESS KITTEH: TEH GUESTS HAZ OVERSTAYED TEH WELCOMEZ

Workaday Wonderful

IRL: You’re stuck in the worst-of-the-worst conference on earth, the kind for corporate types in need of the downlow, or lowdown, on how to do the Twitter. You sneak out of the “You Need a Social Media Strategy!” session with the Arial Powerpoint slides about engagement and channels delivered by the woman decked in menopausal jewelry wearing highwater gabardine trousers. You race to catch the de Kooning exhibit at MoMA for 30 life-giving minutes before heading back in for the rest of the sessions. At the break, you’re fed stale grocery store bagels slathered in Kraft cream cheese, and hi, you are allergic to gluten and also really prefer organic dairy. You’ll have to catch up on all your work that night where you’ll eat string cheese, also not organic, and alternate cans of Illy and Freixenet from the corner deli because you don’t have time to go to dinner. And, you did not bring enough pairs of underwear, because it’s suddenly your time of the month.

How to Facebook it: Snap and post a shot of the de Kooning sign in the lobby (angle: casually askew; interest point: allow single corner pop of color). Prepare for the “You have such a fabulous jet-setting life!” comments. You’ll need that validation to retain consciousness through “Is Your Website Sticky?”

Being Informed

IRL: Your teetering stack of unread New Yorkers threatens to knock a tooth out in your sleep any night now, you’re only halfway into the novel your best friend gave you for Christmas (and neither one of you even celebrates the holidays!), your bookmarks are so clogged you’re getting warning emails from Xmarks, and you still haven’t finished the latest Seth Godin bestseller.

How to Facebook it: Post the Portlandia “Did You Read?” clip below and caption as follows: “Funny because it’s so true!” You need to outsource your reading at this point. You just need to look like you read, except not so much that it looks like your career isn’t on fire.

Dining Out

IRL: The bread is a burnt offering, the hipster waiters do not approve of your lack of facial hair and you’re pretty sure there was just a shooting outside the vintage Ray Ban and ski sweater shop.

How to Facebook it: Just post a picture of the mussels and Cava, cropping out the bread and beards. Appropriate caption: “Just another night of foodie fun in the Mission!” #nofilter (#liar #andyouliveinPacificHeights #byachurch #notthecoolchurch #becausethatsintheMission)

Being Popular and Successful

IRL: No one shows up to your event except your staff and that one weird guy who always comes to your events. Your dad.

How to Facebook it: The bartender and most attractive bar patrons will never notice you’re taking pictures of them and claiming them as your own. Jen, right? She looks like a Jen.

Your Love Life

IRL: You’re being pestered by no less than six suitors you could care less about and the one you want (the cute one, of course) is totes noncommits. Or, you haven’t had sex in over a year and you’re 28 and even your mother who waited until marriage thinks there is something unhealthy about this. Or you’re using Facebook to stalk your ex. When he finally blocks you, you resort to pleading with your friends to let you comb his photos for signs of a new girlfriend via their accounts. So, you’re still stalking your ex. Any way you work it, the picture isn’t pretty. Or is it? No need for the cutting room floor: we can so save this content!

How to Facebook: Go out to dinner every night with a string of your 100%-just-friends male friends and check in to the restaurants anyway. “Lisa has checked into Gary Danko with Joe.” That’ll learn those pestering suitors, all right. To alleviate Mom’s concerns, post updates like “Yet another crazy night! Can’t wait to get some sleep tonight!” and let her find relief in her own conclusions. For everything else, post a humble brag about the neighbor spotting you naked through the kitchen window, tee-hee! Leave out the part about him being 99. Or gay. Or blind.

Family Fun

IRL: Your grandmother dies on Christmas Day, a cousin reveals the Alice-in-Wonderland extent of his mental illness to you over too many eggnogs, your aunt announces she is getting divorced because she’s actually lesbian and your uncle is also out – of work (again). You develop a raging yeast infection. On your face. Probably from all the bourbon you’re drinking to cope.

How to Facebook it: “Feeling so grateful despite life’s challenges this holiday season!” and bask in the approving likes.

Simply leave off the “to be alive…I guess” part.

Conclusion to Column

IRL: Love, loss, hipsters, hashtags. We’ve covered it all.

How I’ll Facebook it: As if I’d post this to Facebook!

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life.

Image: Francisco Vargas

The post The Insider’s Guide to Life: How to Be More ‘Likeable’ in Any Situation appeared first on EcoSalon.

In the ongoing effort to keep our minds on anything but the road, I give you yet another techno-distraction for our short attention spans. Joining the hallowed – and too often deadly – ranks of in-car DVD players, one-eyed and one-fingered texting, and your overly enjoyable GPS “movie screen,” the license plate in front of you (read: if you’re close enough to”¦) could soon turn into your latest source of news and information and god knows what else.

It’s amazing what folks will consider doing when they’re broke.

To wit, tech-giddy and cash-starved-to-the-tune-of-$19 billion California, where the state Legislature is considering a bill to authorize researching electronic digital license plates. These (essentially) rolling billboards, look like normal license plates when a vehicle is moving, but come to a stop for more than four seconds (in traffic?) and action! Feast your eyes on ads or other very important stuff that you need to know right away, from a viewpoint where you need it the most – in front of your face while you’re behind the wheel.

The bill’s sponsor, Senator Curren Price of Los Angeles, said California would turn to such a money-making technology if it passes DMV muster. That’s cool. We all know the DMV’s sensitive human heart puts people first, right? Oh, and, if the plates get the DMV go-ahead, advertisers would contract directly with – oh my! – the DMV, meaning more coin for the pretty-much-flat-broke state.

“We’re just trying to find creative ways of generating additional revenues,” Price told AP. “It’s an exciting marriage of technology with need, and an opportunity to keep California in the forefront.”

One San Francisco-based start-up called Smart Plate is developing such a device. The company’s chief executive, M. Conrad Jordan, says it’s not just about ad revenue, but that the plates could be used to display favorite sports teams or alma maters. Think bumper stickers go live.”The idea is not to turn a motorist’s vehicle into a mobile billboard,” he says, “but rather to create a platform for motorists to show their support for existing good working organizations.”

While we like the idea of fewer aluminum license plates mucking up the world, we reckon crushed steel might end up being a bigger problem here.

Image: Brett L

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