>
Goodbye funk….
I regret that I am posting this so late in advent. It’s dangerous to look at too many of these at once because your laughing fit may cause accelerated heart rate, inability to breathe, and severe stomach ache. You’ve been warned!
This is as good as You Knit What? that I’ve sorely missed!
Thank you, Helen Killer!
>
Since July the Wednesday Group has had a heavy schedule of exhibitions. It’s been very exciting for us!
I missed all the opening receptions except our most recent one, last Saturday. But in late September we had a lovely reception at the Clifton Arts Center, and the exhibition closed on Halloween with a visit from art students at Skidmore College.
Here are a few photos from our Sept. 26 opening reception at the Clifton Arts Center in NJ.
>
My Sorrow, when she’s here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.
Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She’s glad the birds are gone away,
She’s glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.
The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.
Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.
Robert Frost
>
Yesterday I went to see the woven cloth made from spider silk at the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. Emails about this amazing cloth have been flying around the internet for about a month, and the descriptions at the museum website are quite intriguing, including a wonderful video which I will post here.
The cloth is under plexiglas in the grand gallery. When my friend Susan and I entered the gallery we had a hard time finding the exhibit! The plexiglas case is tucked against the wall at one side of the gallery, with very little signage to attract attention to it. There is one small display of photos and a brief description at the front of the case. Clearly, if you want to know as much as possible about the whole process– the spiders, collecting the silk, making the thread and weaving– you have to go to the website, which seems odd to me.
Yet there is no substitute for seeing this amazing woven cloth in person. In the late morning October light it glowed brilliantly, like a saffron dyed robe, and yet its glowing golden color is the natural color of the spider silk! Breath-taking!
My son visited during the last hour of the museum’s day, just after 5pm, and he said the piece is not well lighted. To him, it was a dull gold, not glowing the way I’d seen it.
This is not my first experience at learning a little about spider silk. During my younger son’s last year at the University of Rochester, he had a job working in the laser lab, and he arranged for me and his dad to get a tour. It happens to be the largest laser lab in the world, which must be the best kept secret! Professor Bigelow described to me that spider silk (purchased from spider nurseries) is used to hold a single atom in place in the chamber where it will be ‘shot’ with the laser. I don’t know anything about the spider nurseries, but I found it amazing that in Madagascar, the golden orb spiders were collected from the wild, ‘milked’ for their silk, and then returned to the wild. Amazing!
I can’t go to the Museum of Natural History without visiting all the wonderful textiles in the Central and South American exhibit! I can’t imagine a time when these textiles won’t thrill and inspire me!
After lunch, my friend and I went to Loop of the Loom, previously in Englewood, now on 87th and 3rd Ave. What a lovely spot this is! I wish I’d taken photos to share. It is a basement shop, yet so filled with light! The shop is dedicated to Saori weaving, which is not my style, but I’m always so intrigued with how personal the finished items are. I’m always drawn to the work people do on these simple looms. Actually, I have to say that I’m really quite moved by the strong evidence of the ‘maker’s hand,’ so prevalent in Saori weaving. I highly recommend stopping by if you are in Manhattan!
>
In the midst of chores today, I am making a safflower dyebath in which I hope to dye a knitted sock blank yellow and then a silk scarf blank coral! Both of these projects have further work after the safflower dye. I want to do some shibori on both. For the sock blank I will do some binding (haven’t decided what yet) and dip in indigo. For the silk scarf, I want to do a lot of stitching, which will probably take me some time, before overdyeing with madder.
I understand that safflower is not terrible fast, so in the case of the scarf, as the safflower fades the madder will remain the dominant color of the scarf. I am counting on some safflower color remaining. I just don’t care for the look of shibori when the bound areas are white.
The first safflower soak is taking place here. Great golden color, isn’t it? The safflower is wrapped in an old handkerchief. After I get all the yellow out of this soak I will use this bath for my sock blank and start a new bath for the pink/coral I want for the silk scarf blank. I’m following Jenny Dean’s recipe which recommends making the second bath alkaline with soda ash. I may also follow her further directions to bring the bath back to acid to get a pinker coral on silk. More photos will follow!
I just joined GoddessKnits’ upcoming fall mystery sock KAL (starts early Nov.) and have decided to spin my own yarn for it, based on techniques I learned from Judith McKenzie quite a few years ago at a workshop during the NY State Sheep and Wool Festival. I’m using three colors of merino top and creating my own color sequence. I plan to make a cabled 4-ply yarn for my sock project.
Bob is leaving today to sail our boat to Annapolis with a crew. I will pick up everyone (including Bob! …since he’s working in his Manhattan office and will take a train to CT, where the boat is waiting) at various train stations on my way to the boat with provisions later today.
I will then have four days on my own in which I hope to get a good amount of spinning done, spin and weave with a couple of friends, finish weaving a scarf that’s been on my AVL for a year, and make plans for my next tapestry. As long and slow as tapestry weaving is, I think deciding what to weave is the slowest part of the process!
