Katie McGown

Monday March 16th, 2009 : 4898, 1

Steps

(step 2334)

4898 steps

3.33 kilometers walked

For most of the day I had my pedometer in my pocket, for most of the day I thought about you.

Stitches

(tangled in frustration)

one row knit

Over the weekend I coaxed half of a ball of yarn onto my needles and into my patterns. Today I knit three rows and they were all wrong. I started over and over again until I managed one serviceable row.

Wednesday March 5th, 2009 : 6850, 288

Steps

(step 5463)

6850 steps

4.65 kilometers walked

A snow shower in the sunshine. Got off the train a station early and walked outside into a space newly revealed after construction. We still don't know how to walk through this space, how to use this extra room. Our steps start out unsteady and we look around, figuring out this new place.

Stitches

(a good chunk of the bad ones)

288 stitches stitched

I stitched for an hour or two and almost every one of them was wrong. 

Tuesday March 3rd, 2009: 12343, 123

Steps

(step 9597)

12343 steps

8.39 kilometers walked

Walked home from work to try and find these. Although they are everywhere on the street, they're somewhat more elusive in the shops.

Stitches

(stitches 99-123)

123 stitches stitched

I used my tiny oblong embroidery hoop for the first time. I brought it back from one of the cavernous secondhand shops of Winnipeg, a city that seems to collect and not release the things that roll through its borders. Piling them up, setting them out in the sun. There wasn't a price tag so the woman just charged me a nickel. 

Monday March 2nd, 2009 : 8450, 91.12

Steps

(step 3374)

8450 steps

5.74 kilometers

The same branches, two weeks later.

Stitches

(after the 91st meter)

91.12 meters of thread stitches

It's just a compulsion, a tick, a desire for greater exaggeration. A yearning for the repetitive turns through the machine, the building up of thread.

Sunday March 1, 2009 : 10956, 26.8

Steps

(step 8644)

10956 steps

7.45 kilometers

Stayed in the house for as long as I could stand it, working away. Broke out to walk aimlessly for a few hours before settling back down to talk to you.

Stitches

(new thread)

26.8 meters of thread stitched

I had trouble starting something. I couldn't stop.

Wednesday February 25th, 2009: 3466, 0

Steps

(step 3276)

3466 steps

2.35 kilometers walked

Sometimes my pedometer measures every rotation I make while cycling, sometimes it acts as though I am just walking in long, looping strides. And sometimes it refuses to acknowledge any of that movement. It suggests I traveled three miles in the same number of steps that it takes to get to the end of my block.

Stitches

I searched "length of thread" and learned about methods of accurately predicting thread consumption in finished garments. And about bolts. And about a painting.

I plotted a strategy for future accuracy in future endeavours. I thought about graphs and charts.

Tuesday February 24th, 2009: 7536, 10

Steps

 

(step 3117)

7536 steps

5.12 kilometers walked

Biked home through extremely aggressive traffic, nearly died at least a few times. 

Figured I need something really fucking good to happen every 2-3 months. Four to six times a year. Probably enough to make me happy but not enough to make me an egotistical disaster. Would probably still be able to mix socially amongst my peers.

Stitches

(colourful, misguided stitches)

10 meters of thread stitched

I'm only guessing. I have no idea. I'm doing something called learning, some process of skill acquisition. It's unbelievably irritating. 

One Meter of Fabric, One Kilometer of Thread

On Sunday I walked to the studio and photographed the square of fabric.

It was hardly a square anymore. Only the interior perimeter of the kilometer of sewn thread roughly conformed to 90 degree angles. Everything else bunched, and wrinkled and twisted and circled. There was a large sail of fabric in the middle of the square.  A pouch that could be pushed and manipulated.

Barely any of it wanted to touch of the wall.

All of these forms and shapes the extrapolations of the tiny motions first caused by the thread in the first days of the work.

Saturday February 21st, 2009 : 9736, 120

Steps

(Step 63)

9736 steps

6.62 kilometers walked

I walked to the optometrist, I walked to a screening, we walked to the shops, we walked back home. I couldn't stop looking at the smallest leaves and tiniest buds. 

Stitches

(one kilometer sewn into the fabric)

120 meters of thread stitched

Without meaning to, I suddenly finished. My calculations of how much thread I had been stitching every was, apparently, wrong. I hadn't accounted for over 100 meters over the past three weeks. Nevertheless, it's done now.

Friday February 20th, 2009: 10776, 42

Steps

(step 4741)

10776 steps

7.32 kilometers walked

We walked through George Square in the evening, quickly, on our way to see our friends. We pass a group of men who yell at me. "Green is not sexy!" I zip up my coat, hiding my offending dress.

Stitches

(clearly this can't go on for much longer)

42 meters of thread stitched

I feel that this is close to the end.