Category Archives: Fine Craft

Unbelievably wondrous knitting and weaving things have occurred since my last post.  Now that I’m sitting here at my computer I don’t know where to start!  I guess I’ll just take a deep breath and tackle things one at a time…maybe this will end up being more than one post.

So, why don’t I start with today.  It’s fashion week in New York, and that is a guaranteed siren call for me to read the NYTimes.  Today was my lucky, lucky day because there was even an article about knitting:  “Grandma Never Knit Like This” is an article about Josh Bennett, who has a line of knitwear for men. He has designed knitwear for Tommy Hilfiger and Michael Bastion, and he has a pattern book of his designs published by Rowan and using their yarns.  In his Rowan designs, he designed sweaters that evoked the flavor of various New York neighborhoods.  This one is Hell’s Kitchen.

The article referenced SamuraiKnitter’s online brouhaha with Josh, so of course I had to check that out.  But really, who cares about that, when there is a world of fun on this site! What cave have I been living in??  Ms Samurai Knitter is the perfect anitidote to dearly missed You Knit What?  I could barely tear myself away, and had a good half hour of gut busting laughter reading the author’s insightful reviews of various issues of “Vogue Knitting.”  There’s nothing like  laughter to start a day!

And speaking of publications (as I think blogs are firmly in that category), earlier this summer I got to catch up on all the periodicals I missed while we were off sailing.  In this year’s issue #1 of “Vav Magazinet,” which was entirely devoted to the color white, I read quite a moving article by Birgitta Nortstrom.  Ms. Nordstrom is Senior Lecturer in Textile Art at University of Gothenburg, Sweden, where she received a grant to design baby blankets, with an outside layer  that would be a visually pleasing weave structure and the inside layer would be fulled to create the softest fabric to touch a newborn’s skin.

This alone would be such a beautiful idea for a project, but her idea went further.  Hang on to your hat…..  these blankets would be available at hospitals to be given to mothers whose newborns did not survive birth.  These blankets would actually be shrouds.

The moment I finished reading the article I wrote an email to Ms. Nordstrom, telling her how moving I found her project and that this project that should be done everywhere.  I asked if she might consider writing a book about the blankets.  It was late July before I heard back from her (she was away in the remote north for a holiday), and it turns out she did write a booklet as part of the process.  She asked for my address so she could send me one.

So now I feel quite driven to do something with this marvellous idea.  Anyone want to join me? Stay tuned….

Here is Birgitta’s description of her project:

Is it possible, by making shrouds for the smallest, to ask questions of grief, touch, and the wrapping of bodies?

Weaving, inch by inch, has been practiced for thousands of years.  Out of both need and desire.  It is a patient process, repetitive and deceptively simple.  In the end the weaver’s patience is rewarded, producing fabrics far greater than their humble beginnings.

We have aimed to weave a series of blankets that are soft, shimmering, unique, and quite simply the most beautiful blankets we could imagine.  In the process we have asked ourselves and others about the need for ritual and meaning.

Can a small, exquisite blanket be a language of touch?  Can it say something where words fail amidst the grief of the loss of a child?

Humianity has often understood both life and death through metaphors and references to textiles.  Through history and myths they have helped us understand and navigate these moments.  They anchor us, as threads, to both joyous and difficult times.  We have chosen to follow these threads.

I think I’ll stop here, except to include a bit of our lovely Connecticut River scenery.  I know this post has been a bit weird, going from snarky knitting reviews that had me rolling, to the subject of grief and loss…. well, maybe I’m thinking of summer turning to autumn….There are only 10 days left in summer, but since school has started, and since it’s past Labor Day, most people think it is already fall.

Yesterday evening, Bob and I took a dinghy ride up one of the estuaries near where we live on the Conneticut River.  It’s a narrow and winding stream with water hyacinth and tall grasses on both sides.  The grasses were full of red winged blackbirds that all took flight as we passed.  This swan family opted not to fly away….maybe the younger ones aren’t good flyers yet.  So their tensions were mounting as we all headed up this little estuary.  In the end the mother and cygnets turned a corner too shallow for our dinghy, but not before the father tried some diversionary tactics to lure us away from his family.

And didn’t it become obvious to me that we are all more similar than not.  The family made a phalanx as best they could to protect the cygnets, and when that failed the father tried to draw us away.

Along with the swans and the red winged blackbirds, we saw a great blue heron fly low and slow right above us to land at the edge of the marsh grasses.  It was a beautiful evening.  It’s almost time for our boat to head to warmer waters, so it will be another spring and summer before we see sights like these again.

In spite of the bad lighting at the Rhode Island Convention, and perhaps because of the smaller exhibitions of HGA events, I came back quite inspired to get down to work.  I had the much-awaited black 16/2 linen spool in hand to finish weaving the napkins on my lunch tote warp, and I got right down to it!

This was really a fun project!  Yes, there were comprises.  I needed to design a fabric that would be sturdy enough for the exterior of a tote bag, but also be soft enough for a napkin.  I thought I had struck a middle range by adding interfacing to the wrong side of the tote bag fabric for a little sturdiness.  Well, that worked out quite well…..but the napkin is a bit firmer than I’d like to use myself.  Hmmm…. they do say that linen softens over time with repeated washings, and the napkin will get washed a LOT more than the tote bag.  I guess that’s what I’ll mention to the recipient.  I am pretty certain she’ll like the tote, but maybe not so much the napkin!  I now have a set of four napkins myself, and I’m not sure what to do with them!

 Once again, here is the mug that this project was designed for:

I promised the 8-shaft group on Facebook that I’d share what the draft for this project was and how the bag was sewn.  Here goes!

Huck Fabric for Mug Lunch bag napkin 2

 At the moment, I am writing this while onboard Pandora in Narragansett Bay.  To say that there have been distractions does not begin to describe it!  First, we are having the mildest summer of my entire life!  Beautiful weather greets us everyday with cool breezes and deep blue  skies with giant cumulus clouds.  Then there are all the beautiful sights along this bay…. I plan to do a post in a few days that will have a smattering of the lovely sights we’ve seen.

I will try to post the actual wif file for the drawdown when I return home in another week, as well as some info on making a tote bag with a flat bottom.  Wordpress doesn’t like .wif files!

It’s a month later, and the summer has only gotten better!  I have been to Convergence in Providence, RI;  I have finished weaving and sewing the lunch tote and napkin for my guild project, and I have started a tapestry class for some of the members in my state guild.  All good!

Unfortunately, I have very few photos of Convergence.  Photos weren’t allowed at the HGA exhibits.  The photo I regret NOT getting most is me standing in front of my tapestry in the gallery exhibit.  In hindsight I’m certain the powers-that-be would have let someone take a photo of me in front of my own work, but I didn’t ask.  Sigh…

Here is my favorite piece from the gallery exhibit:  “She Can’t See the Forest for the Trees”  No, I did not take this photo since photos were not allowed.  But I can usually find images online, and this image is from Jenny Schu’s blog, where you can read about the processes she used to make this incredible wall hanging! (Wed. grouper’s first reaction being:  “after all these years of weaving on copper looms, why didn’t any of us think of hanging our tapestries from copper pipe???”)

Along with the HGA sponsored exhibits in the Rhode Island Convention Center, there were numerous outside exhibits to see throughout Providence.  The Complex Weavers’ exhibit at Brown University was quite a highlight for me.  And the best exhibit of the whole conference for me was the ATA sponsored “Small Format/Unjuried” show on the Feinstein Campus of URI.  Such wonderful small tapestries that covered the gamut of every subject imaginable!  Pure fun….there were small tapestries of bugs, small self portraits, small landscapes….if you can imagine it, it was probably there!

Two friends from the Wednesday Group came to stay with me during Convergence and we made the daily drive to Providence.  On the last day we drove to Brockton, MA, to the Fuller Craft Museum to see the two shows on display there.  First was “Game Changers:  Fiber Art Masters and Innovators.”  What an impressive list of well known fiber artists were on display.  It was a brilliant show!  And so was the other exhibit on display, “Small Expressions.”

Archie Brennan’s “The Lady and the Gypsy” greets you at the entrance to the “Game Changers” exhibit.

Susan Martin Maffei’s Silk Worm tapestry actually has golden silk cocoons woven into it and is embellished with crocheted caterpillars.  …so naturally, the weft is silk.

I have some great photos from “Small Expressions” as well, but I neglected to get the names of some of the artists!  So I will just share Barbara Heller’s recent work, which has a very interesting mix of techniques.

All in all, Covergence was quite an inspirational event.  There are always hitches to having a conference setting in a convention center, but I would still say the outcome of this year’s event was positive!

Well, there are lots of good things about weaving at any time….but in the summer here, when the middle of the day is a bit steamy, and the nights are cool and breezy, we often don’t turn on the air conditioning.  That’s not necessarily my choice, but for the sake of marital harmony I conceed that it’s only a few hours in the afternoon that are too hot, so we have yet to turn on the AC.  And besides, I can go hang out in my almost-too-cold studio.

My studio is in the basement, and unlike my last house, this is a nice basement.  The whole back of my studio is above ground and even has a terrace, which Bob made last summer, for sitting outside.  The light is wonderful through the windows and the glass door.  When it’s too hot to be tempted outside I can enjoy the views of my gardens and the nature preserve while getting some productive work done.  It’s a win-win situation!

During this first hot spell of summer, I am making good progress on the huck fabric for the lunch tote.  This photo was taken a few days ago, when I reached the end of the yard of fabric for the tote.  Now I’ve woven two of the five napkins that are also on this warp.

And I’ve finally had a space of time (without visitors!) when I could concentrate on my chopstick portrait.  This is a recent idea of Archie Brennan.  At our monthly Wednesday Group meetings we get Chinese take out after class on the first day.  Over the years this has added up to a lot of chopsticks.  He and Susan have washed and saved all the chopsticks, and Archie was wondering how they could be re-purposed.  He ended up making little chopstick looms for each member of our group, and he set an assignement to weave a portrait.

I decided to attempt a face from ancient Greek red figure pottery.  This particular face happens to be Artemis.  In the image of her on a 5th century BC, lekythos, she has drawn her bow and is focused on her target.

The main reason I chose this portrait was to have fun with the hair! So I put in Ghiordes knots every pass and a half which allowed for the knots to be on alternating warps.  Then I braided the long strands and played around putting her hair up in various ways.  I did not want to sew her hair in place, but that may become necessary.

This project was so much fun I want to make another…..another Greek subject in honor of Archie…. wait and see!

Yesterday I spent the day sewing a mock up of the lunch tote so I’ll be ready to sew when I finish this fabric….the fabric is on hiatus until after Convergence where I’ll pick up one more spool of 16/2 linen for weft from Lone Star Looms.  That’s a story not worth repeating….but suffice it to say that I have made three attempts from two different sources to get enough weft for this project!

Naturally, I could not find any fabric that was a spot-on equivalent to my handwoven linen.  I opted for a heavy cotton duck fabric.  It’s considerably more tightly woven than my huck fabric, but it should be pretty similar after I fuse interfacing to the back of my fabric.  Hope so, anyway!

This is the lining, with pockets…..turned right side out for a better view.

And here is the almost finished bag.  I’m still hunting for the purse snaps that are well hidden somewhere in my stash of notions, before I stitch the final top of bag together….

Now that I’ve worked out how the bag will be sewn (and hopefully made all my mistakes!) I am looking forward to making the ‘real’ tote out of these fabrics.

These days, when I’m not weaving (or sewing), I am working on the “Merle” sweater with Jared Flood’s “Brooklyn Tweed” yarn that I bought at Harrisville on our recent trip.  At this point it’s just miles of stockinette, so I haven’t taken a photo.  ….Or I am in the garden!

June has flown by in a series of glorious days filled with gardening, weaving, and even a little jaunt to Harrisville, New Hampshire where I did get to touch the wool and see the colors of Jared Flood’s Brooklyn Tweed yarn.  (I bought the color “Button Jar” and have started the sweater design called “Merle.”)

I’m not sure I have ever had such a wonderfully long spring.  It is the last day of the month, a full 10 days since the solstice and the start of summer, but the weather is still very spring-like.  Since spring is my favorite season, and this year it has lasted its full three months, I am about as happy as can be!

The roses along my stone wall are certainly happy this year.  You cannot see how many yellow roses are in the border; for some reason these bright pink landscape knock outs are stealing the show with the camera!  There is a pale pink  miniature rose just below the camera lens…

The garden and the lovely weather has been quite distracting to working in my studio!  And so was our trip to Brattleboro and Harrisville.

June has brought a lot of visitors to our house, so that I feel like I’ve been running a B&B most of the month.  In fact my oldest friend calls my house “B&B’s B&B.”  It was certainly true this month, and the guests continue until the end of the July 4th celebratory weekend.  After that I intend to be very selfish with my time.

So, I haven’t gotten much work done on either the colorful huck weave fabric or my large tapestry of the Flax Spinner.  But on the tapestry front, two issues of VAV arrived in the mail today (issue 1 and 2 that were forwarded elsewhere while I was away).  Both issues were wonderful, and, better late than never, I have learned about this book!

I don’t know how I missed hearing about it when it came out a year ago, but I’m very glad to know about it now!  Hopefully it will arrive in time to share with my newly formed tapestry study group which will meet at the end of July.

Convergence in two weeks!  Lots to celebrate this summer!

The crazy, colorful huck lace fabric is almost ready for weaving!  All I have to do is tie on the warp threads to the front beam.

In fact, it would have been done already, if I could just remember how to get the cloth bar back on the loom!  Actually I can’t even remember which way the bolts go in to secure the breast beam.  It’s been too long since I’ve used this loom (since before I left New Jersey, two years ago).  A quick search for the gigantic manual that comes with AVLs didn’t work.  (Yes, I know the manual is online, but it’s so cumbersome to use.)  I think I’ll wait ’til Handyman Bob returns home in a few hours.

There is plenty to do down here until that time.  The place is more disorganized than it’s ever been, considering I have only lived here for two years!

Meanwhile, I can’t get my mind off the new pattern book from Jared Flood, Wool People 7.  There are some gorgeous designs in this book!  ….very classic, very chic.  I might have escaped knowing about it, except that my knitting sister Lesley, who has such exquisite taste, couldn’t resist the urge to tell me she had seen it and is know knitting “Pente.”

I am in love with Merle…

….and with Arabella.

Wow!  Right?  I bought both patterns which are downloads so I had instant gratification.  Then I began looking at the beautiful colors of Brooklyn Tweed “Loft” which is the yarn used for each of the Wool People 7 designs.

I am always looking for a soft wool yarn that I can wear right next to my skin.  I have yet to find one.  Models are always shown wearing sweaters right against their skin, and I wonder how they do it.  Are these sweaters photographed in colder climates (like north of the Arctic Circle) where where everyone is so cold they can’t feel how itchy the sweaters are? I don’t know….but I’m hoping I find a good candidate for softness in “Loft.”  I’m planning a trip to Harrisville in a couple of weeks so I  look forward to seeing and handling “Loft” in person.

Meanwhile I might cheat and use a Phildar yarn that is 50% lambswool and 50% acrylic. Hopefully in just this color.

Which brings me to another question:  Why is it so hard to find Phildar in the US these days?  I used to see it all the time in the 80s and 90s.  I date myself… Are Americans too in love with natural fibers these days?  I know I am, but sometimes I also need just the right yarn to make a beautiful sweater that doesn’t require a turtleneck to protect me from the itchy wool.

I have so many unfinished sweaters, I’d be horrified if I counted them, so I know I am a fool to be dreaming about making Merle and Arabella right now.  Still, I am the type of person who dreams about knitting while I’m weaving, and then dreams about weaving while I’m knitting.  Go figure.

Well, you knew (didn’t you?) that I’d have to find those two Connecticut houses that are older than the house at Bushnell Farm….

The oldest house (and it’s magnificent!) is the Henry Whitfield House in Guilford.  That’s just down the road a bit so I am looking forward to a visit! According to Wikipedia, it is not only the oldest house in Connecticut, built in 1639 right near the town green in what would shortly become Guildford, it is also the oldest stone house in New England.  This house was opened to the public as a museum in 1899.

Maybe my dear friend, who loves old houses and lives in a 1795 house on the river about an hour north of here, will join me for the visit.  Well, I’ve done a bit more ‘googling’ to find the 2nd oldest house, and instead of getting an answer I’ve just become confused.  If this sort of thing interests you, take a look at this.  So, who knows…. there are several houses on that list even older than the Henry Whitfield house, and more than two that are older than the Bushnell house.

Back to weaving!  Here are a couple of photos of my linen warp in progress. This is one section of warp (2″ width) wound on my AVL warping wheel.  I had no idea how much this section would look like the Bahamian flag!

Ask me if I’m a bit nervous about these bright colors!  (yes!)  But…. I forge ahead.  Hopefully the black linen weft will tone it down a bit. Here, I’m winding on section 4 out of 9 sections that will make up my 18″ wide fabric.

Right now my studio is about as messy as it’s ever been, so I was careful to exclude as much of the mess as possible when I took these.  Normally I make a huge mess when I start a project…..all kinds of materials are out for consideration, lots of things get tossed about.  But by the time I get down to work I need everything back in its place so I can work in visual peace.  Whew, boy!  Not this time!  I’m feeling such time pressure to get going on this that I’m just trying to wear virtual blinders while I’m here.  I’ll get to straigtening things up as soon as I can!

The sections are all different since the number of threads per inch does not match the number of threads for a repeat of the huck pattern.  I had to be more careful than usual with my counting to make sure that each stripe has 45 threads in it no matter how it fits into the 2″ warp sections.  Now I’m ready to start threading!

Isn’t that an odd saying?  If you do bobbin lace perhaps you’ve heard it before.  Although I have heard it before, I did not heed it.  I did not even remember it!

I had finally gotten to the point in my current lace project where I believed I had made all the mistakes possible to make.  Ha!  I had gone backwards and forwards, and backwards again so many times, and had solved problems in all the segments of this pattern:  from being short a pair of bobbins in my half trails which then gave me problems in my braided edge,  to then ending up with too many pairs of bobbins for my sewing edge.  It was an embarrassingly long process which could have been shortened if only I’d had access to some experienced lace maker…..but impatience and stubborness always drove me on!

Finally, just when I thought that forward was the only direction for me now, one of my threads broke right at the edge of the weaving so there was no tail to use to tie the bobbin back on.  Ugh!  The break definitely happened because of all the weaving and unweaving I’ve been doing.  Twisting and untwisting caused this fine linen thread too much stress.

Along came my wonderful lace mentor and dear friend Micheline, who heard of my dilemma and called to ask me if I remembered the phrase “milking the faerie cows.”  Well, yes I did…..but I had no memory of what it meant. Micheline credits Christine Springett with this bit of sage advice, which is:  when you are making a braid you must tension it as if you are milking faerie cows; i.e, very, very gently.

Bingo!  (On top of everything else!) That is exactly what I was doing wrong.  I was really giving my edge bobbins a good strong pull to get my braid threads to tension evenly.  And on top of all that forward and backward weaving….well, that fine linen just could not take any more.  It doesn’t solve the dilemma I’m in now, but it sure will help me not to do it again.

So….alas….yet another bit of unweaving.  Micheline says I need at least 1/2″ of unwoven thread to make the mend in this thread.  I believe the mend is called a ‘lace knot.’  It’s the knot you make to connect two bobbins of thread together.  It involves making a slip knot in one thread, then putting the other thread through the loop of the slip knot (in this case my tiny 1/2″ bit of somewhat shredded linen) and closing the slip knot while pulling on the thread in the loop so that the slip knot transfers onto the thread in the loop and so that slip knot no longer slips.  It’s the very thing you do not want to happen when you are tatting.

Instruction from my beginner’s lace notebook by Lynda Barber

 Since I’m dealing with such a short bit of linen where the break occurred, I plan to enlist Bob’s help (I can hear him returning home just now!) to hold the little bitter end of broken thread with a tweezer while I attach the longer thread from the bobbin with this technique.  Wish me luck!

….no luck on having the third hand for help.  I released Bob from bondage and managed to do the knot by myself on the first try.  Even at this magnification, I cannot see the mend….I hope you can’t either! Forward again!

It is spring in the Connecticut River Valley, and the lush greeness of everything is such a startling contrast to the desert islands of the Exuma chain in the Bahamas.  I love all this green!….not to mention daffodils, tulips, hellebore, and bleeding hearts.  In just the five days I’ve been home the trees have leafed out so much that the canopy of leaves must be at least three times greener.  I love it!

Like last year, I made it home in time for the Essex Village May Market, an event that the local garden club hosts.  If you arrive early enough, and I did (!), you can buy some of the garden club members’ choice plants from their personal gardens.  I got a bleeding heart, some English bluebells, a forget me not, a pink fall anemone, and a helianthus.  The plants from the members’ own gardens are HUGE, and cost far less than smaller plants at the local nuseries.  It’s the biggest attraction of the event, and I did well to arrive as early as I did! I was not too far from the front of the line.

It was also Mother’s Day weekend, and our younger son came out to visit from New York.  He also invited a group of his undergraduate friends and a couple of their significant others to visit.  It was a very festive Mother’s Day, even if only one of these young people was actually related to me!  They made a lovely dinner for all of us, and they did all the shopping, the prep, and cleaning up!  Wish I’d thought to take a photo of them!

I am about to go down to my studio and begin a rather involved stash search for a project I need to get started on soon.  My local area guild is doing an exchange where each of us makes fabric for a drawstring lunchbag and napkin that will coordinate with a coffee mug that belongs to another guild member.  We all got a photo of someone else’s mug and began designing a fabric to go with it.  Here’s the mug I got, a lovely handmade ceramic design by the owner’s daugher!

Hopefully in the next day or so I will have my yarn picked for the fabric.  While I was away this winter I used my Fiberworks program to design a huck structure to mimic the flowers on this mug:   

Hmmm…unless you are familiar with looking at huck weave drafts you probably cannot see the flower motif.  Huck ‘blossoms’ when it is cut from the loom because the warp and weft floats can relax into curves.  Wet finishing gives show this fabric off even further!

Here is a photo of linen napkins I wove in basically the same structure, although the huck pattern is just along the edge in my napkins and the linen is far finer than the current fabric will be. The fabric I’m designing now will have the huck ‘flower’ all across the width and in stripes of varying colors with a small black stripe between the color changes and woven with a black weft.

Also, I have had some quiet moments to sort through my bobbin lace project.  It involved more going backward than I expected!  Backward….forward …. further backward….a number of times.  In the end I went all the back to the corner, but luckily no further!  And now I am happily going forward.  It is very calming and therapeutic to do bobbin lace, especially going forward!

Bob is almost home….so close, and yet so far!  He is only about 50 miles away, which is only about a 7 or 8 hour sail from here.  BUT, the winds have turned against him so that even motoring would be difficult.  The winds are a bit strong and right on the nose.  I hope he will have his big homecoming tomorrow evening.