Fine Craft

Isn’t August the month when almost everyone goes on vacation? …when almost everyone takes some time off to relax and recharge?  I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed this month, like I’m hanging on to a frayed cord that is snapping in a gale.

But most of what is happening these days is good news.  If I weren’t so slow at accomplishing the things I am driven to do, I’d be thrilled at what’s coming down the pike.

Here is the postcard for the upcoming exhibition of fiber art at the Eclipse Mill Gallery in North Adams, Massachusetts.  I had no idea that my tapestry would be included on the card.  What a happy surprise!

I joined this group when it was formed by Betty Vera this spring, but I have not yet met the other members.  This weekend I am going to one of the monthly meetings and am looking forward to getting to know the other artists.  I think Betty Vera and I are the only weavers in this group (not entirely certain about that), so I am interested in learning more of what the other artists do.

A few weeks back I was catching up on reading the various journals and magazines I miss when I am away for the winter.  In an issue of  “The Journal for Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers” (from the UK guild), I saw an advertisement for an iphone case made of Harris Tweed.  I became single minded about obtaining one of these.  A google search led me to Amazon.  Yeah, Amazon.  There are more, if you’re tempted too.  I just love it!

My two small tapestries are now mounted.  It feels so good to finish things.  I wish it happened more often.  I think I’ll call this one “Primary Source.”   I hope some of you get my signature.

And here is the other, “Blown Off Course.”

I think it needs a braid, and with that in mind, I am sampling.  My first attempt is too thick, but I like the design.  I will try it again as soon as I finish this one.  Next time I’ll put fewer strands on each tama. And next time I’ll take a better photo! Now you know what a mess I work in when I’m on a role.

My generous friend Clare is still letting me use her taka dai.  Really!  After this I think I’d better let her play with it again, since it’s her toy.  This time I am trying a 2/2 twill.  With these experiences under my belt I hope to work up to double weave braids in my class with Rodrick in the fall.

And here is a close up so you can see the colors better.  I like it!

So, why am I doing all of this?  I haven’t touched kumihimo in about 15 years.  Well….. I only recently learned that an American kumihimo society has been formed.  It piqued my interest to get back to this.  I’d like to use the flat braids from the taka dai as embellishments on clothing and handbags.  As of yet, no fabric with which to implement these ideas!  Isn’t that always the way? —  at least for me! —  to put the carriage before the horse.  It’s thrilling to be enthusiastic though!  Clare and Julia and I are investigating other silks for these braids…that is, other than the pre-cut fine silks you buy in packages.  We want to find the same fineness on cones so we can choose our warp lengths.  Hopefully we’ll have a source soon.

And I’ve been thinking of adding other braids to my tapestries.  In fact, for my ‘real’ Portuguese Man of War tapestry, that currently only exists in my dreams, I plant to use a number of braids, along with other handwork techniques for embellishment.  In my mind this piece is a tour do force.  No cartoon yet …..because I actually don’t know if I can capture something so wonderfully ephemeral down on real materials, like paper or warp and weft.

So August marches on like a house on fire.  I hope I can keep up….

 

Imagine my excitement when I saw a recent post on facebook that some large scale lace I admired from images on the internet is coming to the US! — Not only to the US, but within driving distance for me!

These were the images that piqued my interest in large scale lace installations in the environment.

This is a large crocheted piece based on a traditional Dutch head bonnet.  Delicate lace made on a huge scale to interact in the environment.  Hanging over a canal, in Amsterdam, it reflects on the water beneath, whether ruffled by wind or calm and still.  It casts shadows day and night on its surroundings.  When I saw this online I dearly wished I could see it in situ.  There is an excellent description of how this piece was made and assembled.

It has two sister pieces called the Urchins, and these will be part of the exhibition at the Hunterdon Museum in Clinton, NJ, that opens in late September.  These two urchins will hang over the Toshiko Takaezu Terrace at the museum, which overlooks the waterfall on the South Branch of the Raritan River.  It will be their first trip to the US.  They will only be on view during the first two weeks of this exhibition.  Inside the museum will be many other pieces of lace, including bobbin lace and needle lace, done on large scale.  I can’t wait to see them!

So, the big decision is….. do I go for the opening?  The pluses of that would be getting to hear two lectures on the lace exhibit — one by the curator Devon Thein, and another by the creators of the Urchins, Jin Choi and Thomas Shine.  Afterward, at dusk, the Urchins will be lit.  Those are big pluses.  The downside?  Well, I never fully enjoy the artwork at an opening.  It’s crowded, I can’t fully see the pieces on display, it’s noisy….it’s a party.  The likelihood of me getting to this exhibit twice is pretty slim.  I have to choose.  What would you do?

My friend Clare is letting me use her taka dai once again, so I have put on a warp for a 2/2 twill design out of Rodrick Owen’s book.  I dressed the taka on Thursday and will spend some time at her house tomorrow weaving.  I almost live there now….not sure what her partner thinks of always finding me in their sunroom.  Here’s a look at the first braid in progress.  I’ll take photos tomorrow of my twill attempt.

With luck, my next  post will have photos of the finished mounting of the little Portuguese Man of War tapestry and maybe a new flat braid from the taka dai.  Oh yeah, and the last of those lace blankets I’ve knitted for my three tiny grandchildren.  Don’t you want to see them?  (the grandchildren, that is, not the blanket)

This is just pulls my heartstrings! Rhett is holding Emme’s hand in his sleep.  I wonder if he did this in utero as well.

And here is big sister Tori with little Rhett.  I just love being their YaYa.  I hope I get to see them in September.  They are growing up so quickly!

 

 

It must have been moments after my last post that summer’s heat arrived with a vengeance. Ouch!  We’ve had a full week now of temperatures close to 90 and even a little higher.  I’ve been hiding inside my climate controlled house.  I miss fresh air, but it’s hard to breathe 90* air with an equal amount of humidity.  Boy, have we had some impressive thunderstorms.

Hiding out from the heat is a great way to get things done.  I finished my first attempt at weaving on a taka dai, thanks to my friend Clare allowing me to use hers while I wait to for mine to arrive.  It’s an 18 month wait, so I won’t be holding my breath.

This is the standard first braid that almost everyone makes.  I used 60/2 silk from WEBs.  There are 12 strands on each tama, and a total of 25 tama make this pattern.  It is just plain weave, and therefore it’s relaxing to weave.  I twined the fringe that comes to a point at the end of the braid.

It’s been a good week for doing a little re-organizing.  Bob built some shelves for me in our den where we had a useless closet that had only one shelf and a horde of items we need on occasion.  I wish I had taken a before photo.  In a closet with 8 feet of height there was only one shelf at the halfway point.  Now it holds an array of things, neatly organized.

You must be thinking I’ve lost my mind to take a picture of a closet!  Well, that’s how excited I get when chaos is momentarily curbed by order.  Thank you, Bob!

This little activity sent me down to my studio to re-organize some of my cabinets and drawers there.  I won’t bore you with more photos.  My studio is still quite a mess at the moment, but it’s comforting to know that my cabinets look a lot better and are more useful.  Once I knuckle down on some projects I’m preparing I can straighten up the studio–just in time for fall.

The Big E is coming in about a month.  For those of you outside New England, this is a nickname for the Eastern Exposition, a mammoth country fair that includes all of New England.  There are all the traditional country fair events on a large scale–livestock judging, baked items and canned items judging, dairy judging, butter sculpting competition, handwork competitions in various categories, and of course there is a midway.  Members from my bobbin lace guild always submit an arry of entries in order to educate the public on what bobbin lace is and to demonstrate that there are people who still make lace by hand.  I’ll be demonstrating there on Sept. 19th, which is Connecticut Day this year.  I thought that was a good day to be on hand.  If you’re in the area, please stop by and say hello!  I’ll be in the building that has displays of handwork.

I’ll be submitting the christening dress I made for Tori last year.  It has about 2 1/2 yards of lace on it, and I made the dress to boot.  I’m no seamstress so making the dress was a bigger hurdle than making the lace.  Also, I’m far from the best lace maker in CT, much less in New England, but I’m submitting the dress anyway.  It’s not about getting an award; it’s just about showing that it’s still possible to make enough lace for a garment.  Even a clumsy newbie can do it!

I still haven’t mounted my little Portuguese Man of War tapestry, but I have got all the mounting materials gathered in one place now.  I just need to do it.  Perhaps today.

While escaping the heat I’ve been googling around.  Did you know that Jean Pierre Larochette and Yael Lurie have a daughter, Yadin, who weaves tapestry? She wrote a brief post about her family tradition of weaving related to the exhibition “Woven Gold: Tapestries of Louis XIV.”  You can scroll through photos of this exhibition on the Getty site.

I’ve watched this 10-minute video before, and may have posted it here in the past.  It’s worth a re-visit if you have a few minutes.  It makes my fingers itch to be weaving!

But first I need to mount that little Portuguese Man of War tapestry.  It’s certainly too hot to do anything but gaze out at the garden!

And speaking of heat, someone came to clean our cedar roof this week.  It was a hot, hot job.  I’m glad he had an umbrella!

 

Are you old enough to remember this lyric?  “July, she will fly”…  That’s what this month has been doing.  It’s been a month jam-packed with the fullness of a summer on steroids.  (By the way, that phrase is from “April, Come She Will“).  And ha!  It’s now August 3rd.

First, there are the gardens and the farmers’ market.  I’ve waited almost a year for cukes to be ready for making pickles again.  This year I’m starting pickle season with sweet pickles spiked with hot, dried piquin peppers from France.  It’s my version of hot pepper jelly in a pickle.

The gardens are flourishing in the mild summer.  We seem to have stolen all the best qualities of summer from England and left them parched and dry as our Arizona desert.

I’m picking bouquets of daisies and globe thistle now, instead of roses.  And tiny bouquets of Legion of Honor poppies.

Yet no summer is complete without its downside.  Last year it was voles.  This year the deer are getting a bit too comfortable coming right up to the house, eating my window boxes!

Two are unharmed and looking great!

While the other two have been a great treat for deer.  Grrr….

A few weeks back, I celebrated finishing two tapestries that have been languishing in my stash for a couple of years–one actually longer than that.  Well now they are ‘finished.’  If you’re a weaver you know the adage, “it ain’t finished ’til it’s (wet) finished.”  In tapestry, there is no wet finishing, but there is a tedious process that needs to happen before the piece is truly finished.  Here are a few photos of my process.

First you have to tack all those lose warp threads to the back.  This is my least favorite task.

Then the piece can be mounted.  I plan to write up a little tutorial on this shortly.  Full credit to Susan Martin Maffei who taught this to the Wednesday Group.

Saving the best for last!  The height of July brought the birth of our twin grandchildren on Tuesday last week. A tiny girl named Emmeline, and a tinier boy named Rhett, have joined the family.  They are preemies, and there were some hurdles, but all is going quite well for both of them. Here are a couple of close ups and then a family shot with their big sister, who is only 18 months.  Three under two.  Whoa. Our son now writes his last name O5born.

Emmeline Audrey

Rhett James

Rhett and Emme

And here they are with the big sister, who now looks SO big to me!

And so goes the summer.  I have splurged on some new equipment in my studio! I have a new loom.  It’s a Baby Wolf with what must be all the bells and whistles.  It has a second back beam with sectional warping capability.  It has a compu-dobby.  It can be returned to its traditional weaving function with treadles.  It can do anything!  I have a deflected double weave warp waiting to go on, but at this point I can’t envision when that will happen. And my 8S Baby Wolf has gone to live with a member of my current guild.  I hope she will enjoy using for years.

I have a Jensen 30″ Norwegian style wheel on order. I might have it by early fall.  In anticipation of getting that gem, I have been spinning through some stash and dreaming about weaving with these random bits I’ve collected over the years.  Surely there is a project waiting to be born amongst some of these yarns.

And there are evenings in the garden.  Summer is often too long, but not when the weather  has been this mild.  Keep it coming!

 

Whenever I visit a gallery of paintings, the works that depict textiles grab most of my attention.  Bob and I visited the New Britain Museum of American Art last week.  It was our anniversary, and I could picture us wandering the galleries together and talking about what we liked.  In reality, we were hardly in a room together.  He lingered over the landscapes, while I was drawn to portraits and landscapes studded with people captured in the daily work of living.

This is the prize winner.  I had to go back twice and look again.  It is a stunning landscape with the fog and the sheep in the background, and the spent flowers in the foreground. But these two girls are show stoppers!  I can feel the chill in the air, the blush on their cheeks from hard work, the roughness of their clothing.  And look!  One girl is knitting! Daniel Ridgway Knight, The Meeting.  1888.

I know you want a closer look, as I did.

And here, Thomas Eakins has captured an elderly woman doing handwork. He called this painting Old Lady Sewing. Perhaps she was younger than I am now when he painted her, although I’d at least like to think I look younger than she does.  At any rate, even 10 years ago, I could not do fine work by such light.

Closer, you ask?  My phone brightened the colors too much.

Whenever I visited the Metropolitan or the Frick, when I lived nearby, I would get pulled into the paintings that depicted lacework.  New Britain had a few examples. This is John Singer Sargent’s Miss Cara Burch, 1888.  While everyone else admires this young girl’s porcelain complexion, I am studying crispness of her silk dress and the frill at the edge of her ruffled neckline and bodice.

This painting was a pleasure with its riot of textiles.  Woman before a Mirror, 1918.
Louis Ritman

I recently saw this image connected to an Augusten Burroughs quote. Some things are so awkwardly true.

Earlier this week, my English friend Lesley sent me this photo.  She was staying at an inn in Belgium, where the innkeeper teaches lace techniques during the day and runs the inn in the evenings.  That would be a terrific get away for a few people I know!

This afternoon, as I write this, I have a pot of finely chopped carrot tops simmering on the stove.  I’m waiting for them to give up their color, which could take another hour or so.  When they do, I’ll add some alum mordanted, white wool yarn from Weavers’ Bazaar.  I believe it is mostly Leicester Long Wool, spun for tapestry.  Fingers crossed that I’ll get the lovely spring green that Jenny Dean got in one of her books. If there’s time, I’ll continue doing the finishing work on my little Portuguese Man of War tapestry.

And June is calling…. I want to get outside for a bit!