Fine Craft

Regret is an emotion I try not to nurture, but I almost named this post ‘regret’ — I’m fighting the urge to give into it.  I got the shocking news last night that one of my local area weaving friends died…. unexpectedly to me.  I did not even know she was sick.

Some of you know that I am a relative newcomer to this area, so I haven’t known the local weavers here for very long.  Some of them have been so generous in including me in local events and welcoming me into their magical circle of friendship.  Kathi has been that kind of friend to me.  In the small amount of time I have lived here, only four short partial years, Kathi has been a good friend, and I have seen first hand what a marvelous weaver she was.

In this photo she is wearing one of her handwoven scarves, which reminds me how she loved jewel tone colors like what she is wearing here.

When Convergence was in Rhode Island, in 2014, she was in charge of setting up an exhibit that would greet visitors who entered one of the sites off the conference grounds.  It was the entrance to a building downtown Providence that, I believe, is part of URI.  The exhibit on display within the building was ATA’s small format tapestries, and all the windows at the entrance to this building were filled with various kinds of weaving done by Rhode Island guild members.  It was a visual feast and it let you know immediately that you had arrived at the right location.  It was a grassroots effort to get more weaving in public spaces, and it was beautiful.

One day last fall Kathi invited me to meet her in Rhode Island, where she lived.  We met for lunch and then she took me on tour of URI’s textile department at the Kingstown campus.  First she showed me the exhibit on display in the gallery, called “These are a Few of My Favorite Things,” which was a lavish collection of pieces chosen by the staff and the curator, Margaret Ordonez.

I hope Kathi realized how much I loved this entire experience.  The exhibit included so many amazing textiles from the past several centuries that included handwork from many cultures.  We met Norma Smayda there who was visiting with a few of her students.  When Kathi introduced to me Ms. Ordonez, we were treated to a tour of some of the textiles currently being restored by students and also took a look at some of the classrooms.  Boy, if I could do it again, I’d be a textile student at URI!

Kathi did a lot of work for the Connecticut state guild, and this is something I can barely record since she was involved long before I ever moved here.  While I have lived here she was the head of a committee to grant scholarships for weavers to attend various conferences around the country.

Last fall our local group had a long weekend workshop with Sarah Fortin.  We all brought handwoven yardage that we then assembled into jackets based on patterns that Sarah had developed over the years.  Kathi’s jacket was one of the most interesting.  She had woven a variety of twills on one warp using neutral creams, greys and blues.  Because she had changed her treadling throughout the yardage, she had quite an interesting mix of pieces to go into her jacket.  I kept hoping I’d see her wear it one day.  I never saw it finished.

My local weaving group remembers Kathi for her easy going attitude and terrific sense of humor toward trying new techniques.  I was lucky to take two workshops led by Kathi where we made what she termed “Surprise Scaves.”  For these workshops Kathi brought a rainbow of ProChem MX dyes in little squirt bottles, a large pot black acid dye, and a pot of dye discharge.

The process she taught was folding silk chameuse scarves (dry!) in shibori style manner, and binding the folds with rubber bands.  We then used the squirt bottles to apply color to our folded scarves. We set the color on our dry scarves with vinegar from another squirt bottle  After that we put our folded scarves in the hot black acid pot.  Then we took off the rubber bands and readjusted them in a random way and dunked our scarves in the exhaust bath.  After removing and cooling a bit we undid our little bundles and everyone had a stunning scarf!  It was completely unpredictable and yet also magical!  I participated twice in this workshop, but but the time I joined this group this was already a popular workshop, so the group does it almost every summer.  In fact, we plan to do one in the near future in remembrance of Kathi.

This is not a great representation of her ‘Surprise Scarf’ technique.  I was looking for a photo of all of us happily squirting dye while scarves were drying on the racks, ruffling in the breeze….alas.  Maybe someone from the group will send me a photo.  Meanwhile:

I know that Kathi was very active in both guilds in Rhode Island and Connecticut, so many of those members have far more memories of her than I do.  I regret that I will not get to know Kathi  longer.  She was one of my favorite friends, however new our friendship was, and she was also one of the most creative and experienced weavers I have known.  I am trying to focus on how lucky I am to have gotten to know her, however briefly.  Her funeral is Friday, and I intend to wear a surprise scarf to the service.

 

Right now I can barely believe that less than a month ago I was still in Cuba.  All those hot colors, the tropical sun, the friendly people.  It was an experience I’ll never forget.  Now it’s also hard to believe that I’ve been home for almost a month.

Catching up at home means there has been very little time for putting down my thoughts.  It’s a beautiful spring in Connecticut.  Friends told me that for a full month before I got home it was cold and dreary. I guess I returned at exactly the right moment.

On one of my first outings with friends they told me was the first warm day of the spring.  The outing was a day trip to the Cloisters Museum in New York, part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for those of you who are not familiar with it. It houses an impressive array of medieval art and is composed of architectural pieces of various medieval cloisters from all over Europe. Some of my oldest friends, and almost all of my ‘sheep group’ treated me to this amazing day in honor of my 60th birthday back in January.  They arranged for a docent to take us through the museum, followed by lunch at New Leaf in the park.

Judy and Julie put some of their photos together to make this video, which can be seen here on facebook.  Since I cannot figure out how to post it here, I’ll just put a few photos from the day. The following photos are from Jody, Judy and Julie, my “J” friends!

A stunning spring day at the entrance to the Cloisters.

The main reason for our trip!–  A chance for me to see the “Hunt for the Unicorn” series again after moving away four years ago.  I used to visit the Cloisters numerous times a year since I lived only about 1/2 hour from the museum–now it’s been 4 years since I’ve had the opportunity to just pop by and see what’s in bloom and visit the tapestries I love so much.

No visit to the Cloisters is complete without enjoying the wonderful cloistered gardens.  Because of the protection from the elements of a cold New York winter, these gardens bloom earlier and stay in bloom later than the surrounding area.  This garden, the kitchen and dye garden, has been heavily rearranged since I was last here.

After our tour we walked through the gardens of Fort Tryon Park to the New Leaf restaurant.  It’s a gem, with a slate terrace for dining outside amongst the azaleas and dogwoods on an early May afternoon.  For my special day there were beautiful flower arrangements on the table and a 3-course lunch.  I felt like royalty….where was my tiara??

Everyone arriving at the restaurant and taking a seat.  Look at those flowers!

A gathering of such dear friends, including two of my new weaving friends from Connecticut who joined me.

And lunch was amazing!  Jody photographed my lunch salad.  There were two choices for each course, but now I only remember what I chose….which, of course, was amazing! Now you know I’ve totally lost it when I post photos of food, but really, a meal here is such an experience!

Dessert was a mango panna cotta.

I am still on such a high.  I’ll never forget it, and I won’t ever get over the thrill of it!

While I was enjoying one of the best events of my life Bob was sailing home through some very challenging weather off the Eastern Seaboard.  One of the rewards for enduring those spring gales was a day of complete calm after the storm, with visits from both dolphins and a humpback whale.  I know you’ll want to see the video that Dave (one of Bob’s crew members for the trip home) got of the dolphins and the humpback whale they encountered during the trip!

The following weekend was the annual lace retreat for the New England Lace Guild, and I attended for the second year.  I managed to spend the whole weekend working on my project from last year’s Idrija lace class, until I finally gave up on it and started a new and simpler project in that lace.  I did not take any photos while there….I was too busy working! Everyone helped me, but especially Linda and Mary.  Thank you.  Here is a look at my simpler project.  It looks a bit like a sea creature.  I hope to find something useful to do with it…

Just after Bob returned home, we took a trip down to Baltimore to visit our older son and his wife.  They surprised us two-fold: first by flying our younger son out from San Francisco to join us, and then announcing the wonderful news that our first grandchild will arrive in December.  So much happiness and such a wonderful few days together.  They announced the news by giving me this for Mother’s Day:

When being home includes such wonderful time with family and friends, it’s very hard to ever think of going away again.

Returning home does involve a lot of house chores to get things up and running again, and a good bit of gardening too, Bob and I have managed to take some time for sightseeing in our lovely part of the world.

We took a little river cruise on Pandora one evening in the middle of this week, to a spot I just love, where we can watch the Chester Ferry crossing to Hadlyme.  From this vantage point the sun sets behind us as we watch the last rays hit Gillette Castle.  It is a magical place, hard to tell what century we’re in as long as we don’t look at the cars on the ferry!

This is Memorial Day weekend, and yesterday we took a drive to visit Cato Corner Dairy Farm and Priam Winery on the eastern side of the river from where we live.

Look at the charming shop on the farm property!

And inside we were greeted by an even more charming sight–a farm girl ready to serve us tastings and sell us cheese!

We took our cheese selections with us to Priam Vineyards and tasted a few white wines before choosing the one we had with lunch!

Once at home I baked a batch of sour dough bread…. what a great welcome home!

Now it’s time to stop with all this wonderful nonsense and get to work on a loom!  Hopefully I’ll be talking about that in my next post!

Normally I would never do this, but I had to put up four posts all at once today.  I hope you will page back through them!  We have had no internet for 10 days now, but lots of wonderful experiences during that time.  So please, please take a look!

Before we started sailing long distances, someone (who shall not be named) gave me the book An Embarrassment of Mangos, in preparation for the tropical destinations Bob and I were planning to visit. It’s a well-known book among cruisers.

While we have found a lot of mangos here in Cuba, what I find even more in abundance is generosity. Starting with our driver Noel, in Santiago de Cuba, I began to notice that getting supplies is almost impossible in this country, and people have to rely on serendipity. They give generously of what they have and sometimes they get just what they need in return. Mostly though, they have to be exceedingly industrious to make or fabricate what they need out of the random things that come their way—like those fishermen we encountered in the inner-tube boat with rag bag sail. Still, they have a generosity of spirit that compels them to share what they have no matter what comes back to them. It’s quite astonishing.

So we had a very gentle sail to Cayo Levisa today, which might be our last stop before arriving in Havana. I don’t know how long we’ll be in Cayo Levisa because we chose this spot to wait out a cold front that should arrive at any moment. Cold fronts always have strong, northerly winds, and since we are on the north coast of Cuba that can mean some pretty rough conditions.   Where we are tucked in, we have reefs and some little cayos for protection, and we are a ways out from the mainland, which would be a dangerous lee shore in northerly winds. A ‘lee shore’ means that the winds are blowing you toward land, never a good thing in strong winds. After just hearing Bob’s conversation with our weather router, the venerable Chris Parker, it looks like we may here for a full week! Sheesh! Chris is calling this the never-ending winter because cold fronts, which should be done in March, are still making a weekly appearance. I wonder what is going on in the northern US, where most of these fronts originate.

About midday during our sail, I was startled to see a little brown bird fly right into our cockpit and right down the companionway into our cabin! Bob went down below to check on him and get him outside again. Bob opened a hatch and the little bird flew right out again. I think Bob has had a bird onboard during every long passage he has taken over the past few years….but we were not offshore today! We were only a mile or so from land! Little bird didn’t fly away but landed on our foredeck. He did not appear tired or injured; he did not appear the least bit frightened. He marched up and down the decks, looking, as all birds do, a bit like some kind of military officer. All he needed were some gold stars on his shoulders to complete the look. He perched on some of the lines, and as Bob was constantly tweaking at our sails, which meant some of the lines started moving, he would calmly just hop to a different line.

We don’t know what kind of bird he is. He was bigger than a sparrow, but smaller than a robin, with a black, finch-type beak. He had a dull golden/olive breast and was blotchy brown over the rest of his body, similar to a cowbird’s coloring. I think he was about 6” tall.

He checked out the entire boat, coming back into the cockpit with us for a while, even flying down below again. Bob had to go down and open a hatch for him again. In spite of the fact that Bob was in close quarters with him down below as well as being the giant who originated all the noise of the electric winches moving lines and sails, the little bird was not the least bit intimidated by being close to Bob. Bob put out some crumbs of my somewhat stale homemade whole wheat/rye bread. He seemed to enjoy that! Bob also put out a small plate with a puddle of water on it, and although the bird perched on the plate a couple of times, he did not actually drink any water. He spent a lot of time preening, and I could only imagine that he didn’t like feeling salty anymore than we do! He spent about two hours with us, and he was very curious about us and about the whole boat. He spent some time in the dinghy investigating my window box full of herbs and the pink geranium. At one point he was perched right beside me looking at my legs quite intently. I really thought he was going to hop on my legs, and I was willing myself not to flinch or shriek if he should do it. He looked me in the eye for a moment and then hopped elsewhere. I swear he could tell I was fearful!

Most of the time when a bird takes refuge on our boat it is exhausted and more often than not these birds die onboard. It is very sad. We always think they have gotten lost from their migrating flock and become too exhausted to finish the trip. It was wonderful to have a curious, healthy bird on board. When he’d had enough of a visit he took off.

The other highlight of today is the focus of my thoughts –our encounter with the generous Cubans on Cayo Levisa. The Guarda Frontera does not have an office on this island, so when a cruising boat comes in, the dive boat captain goes to the mainland to pick up an officer of the Guarda Frontera. When they return you are expected to take your dinghy ashore to pick up the GF officer to bring him onboard your boat for the paperwork and inspection.

When we saw the dive boat arrive with the officer Bob headed to shore. As Bob picked up the officer, the dive boat captain handed Bob a big papaya! After doing the paper work with the officer, Bob returned him to shore with the daily dispatch of bars of soap, one for the officer and one to thank the captain for the papaya. Well! The dive boat captain had more gifts for us — an abundance of wonderful vegetables! Two small heads of bok choi, a large head of leafy lettuce, and some interesting long beans that look similar to green beans or pole beans! It was such a generous gift!

Like the woman in Marea del Portillo, who gave us all her eggs (13!) and 8 tomatoes and even all her coffee, this man gave freely of what he had that he thought we might want. It wasn’t exactly what we would have bought if we’d had access to a store. But this is a culture where there is not access to stores and he knew it was very likely we were in need of fresh green veggies not easily found.   Both these people gave freely of what they had without knowing if we could give them anything in return, much less anything that would be useful to them. The woman in Marea del Portillo asked for clothes and shoes, and I have a feeling she would have preferred childrens’ sizes of these items, while I could only give her adult clothing and shoes. Still, she had generously offered up what she had, hoping she’d get something useful in return.

That’s just what the captain did. After giving us the wealth of his fresh food, he asked Bob if we had an extra screwdriver. Bob said he’d check in his tool box. Mostly, we do not have extras of any tools, so we are disappointed that we do not have a screwdriver for him. Although it is our natural reaction to hand him our only screwdriver, it would be a potentially dangerous situation for Bob to make such a long passage home without a full tool box. Bob has found that he has an extra vice grip wrench (bought in Florida when he couldn’t find the one he already had), and we certainly hope that the captain will be happy to get one.

Dinner last night was memorable, but I’m not sure if was truly the taste or the immense gratitude of having fresh ingredients. I sautéed a little bacon and then used the bacon fat to sauté some small local onions that look like cipollini to me, green beans, a head of bok choi, and plenty of garlic right at the end. Then I added a health splash of balsamic vinegar and let it reduce to a syrup. I stirred in bow tie pasta with a little of the starchy cooking water. We grated lots of parmesan on top and it was very a memorable dinner. Thank you, Captain!

It’s still a bit mind boggling to me that you can’t just go to the nearest big town and find a hardware store or even a market. A major aspect of life here is giving what you can and seeing what comes back to you. In our experience, the Cubans do this very well.

Today I cast off the last stitches on the Finnish Sweater with the asymmetrical cables, and racing down the last sleeve, the bind off came as a shock to me. I had no idea I was that close to done. I must’ve been knitting with blinders on.

I haven’t been doing so well the past week. Every time we’ve sailed I’ve been seasick, violently and gently. Gently is better, but let me tell you it’s still NO fun. Days are so long and mind-numbingly boring when I am seasick. I cannot knit or read, and although this seems odd, it feels better to have my eyes closed rather than open and looking at a horizon. So, for almost a week I spent most of each day looking at the images on the inside of my eyeballs. Really, really boring.

The night before last we had to make an overnight passage to get the to the western tip of Cuba, Cabo de San Antonio. We arrived there in the mid-afternoon yesterday, to find the dock where the Guarda Fontera expects everyone to tie up for signing papers, to be too rough for our tired and bedraggled souls and too risky for Pandora’s nice paint job. The dock is a big cement pier jutting straight out into the unprotected waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and choppy waves were crashing against this dock. Anchoring is dicey in this area because it is all rock–bad holding. But anchor we did, and Bob took the dinghy ashore in the rough chop. He did not want the Guarda Frontera coming to us in their typical scruffy skiffs, possibly banging into Pandora in the chop. Of course, they wanted me to come in, and they wanted to come out and see the boat. In Bob’s firmest voice, and with what Vulcan-mind-probe abilities he could muster, he said that I had to stay onboard to make sure we didn’t drag in the bad anchorage (real reason being that I had been seasick for more hours than either of us could count and was in no shape to take a rough ride in the dinghy) and that he’d rather not have them visit in such choppy conditions. They acquiesced.

My mood has been deteriorating for about a week. Most likely due to not feeling well every time we pull up the anchor, and frankly, not even feeling all that well at anchor. Yesterday I decided to try to knit, and it wasn’t going well as I could feel myself getting queasier and queasier. Those of you who knit will understand that I was just trying to get to a good stopping place. I have been redesigning a few things about this sweater to suit me, and the sleeves have the most changes. I was in the cabled area of the first sleeve and just wanted to make it to a place where I’d be able to pick it up and easily know where I’d left off.

Suddenly I’d had enough. Not only was I not at my best, I was pretty clearly very near to being at my worst. I had a meltdown of epic proportions, and the almost sleepless night of our passage added to days and days of mal de mer really sent me off the deep end. I felt volcanic, cyclonic, tectonic. I flung the sweater away from me, and that didn’t feel nearly violent enough for my mood, so I flung it around a bit more. I flung it at every hard surface I could find. I knew I’d done a fair bit of damage to the knitting, including breaking one of the various circular needles in use. I had a mad moment when I wanted to chuck the whole thing overboard. Luckily, it was remembering that some of my favorite stitch holders were in that sweater that kept me from deep-sixing the thing.

And now, just 24 hours later the whole sweater is finished. I really don’t know how it happened. Yesterday, in my fit, I was thinking that the whole thing was a miserable experience and that it would never be finished. And yet, this morning, I made repairs to the damaged knitting that came apart during its beating, and Bob repaired the broken needle, and suddenly that first sleeve was done. We had not even raised anchor by that point.

The sailing today was as easy as it ever gets. Instead of being buffeted about, Pandora sliced through the small waves like she was on a track. She also didn’t wallow side to side. She just made a bee-line for our destination, about 5 hours of sailing. I knit the whole time, and voila! Second sleeve finished. This sweater has no sewing or assembly. When you cast off that second sleeve you are ready to wear it. I have to say I really like it, although that’s really no surprise since I’ve been trying it on through the whole process. Sadly, I will always think of my crazy outburst when I wear it. Hopefully that will become funnier with time.

Yesterday, at Cabo de San Antonio, the marina manager was disappointed to learn that Bob and I did not intend to tie up at the exposed dock. He was hoping for our business and looking forward to having us visit the attached restaurant. That’s the thing we keep finding here in Cuba. There are some facilities where a lot of thought and planning and care has been taken to make something that will attract cruisers, but the big thing, the fact that the harbor is not protected enough to actually stay there, is something beyond their ability to tackle. Everything is owned by the government, and there is no money for building a sea wall or even improving the dock. It is rather sad.

We motored a couple of miles to a safe anchorage, and shortly afterward we were approached by the skiff from a larger fishing boat, likely government owned and manned by numerous fisherman. Did you know that Cuba owns all the fish in the waters and that the fisherman must deliver all their catch to Mother Cuba in exchange for their salary? From what we’ve seen, I doubt there is any morehard-working group in Cuba than fisherman. That saying about ‘the workers pretend to work, and the government pretends to pay’ does not apply to fishermen. These guys deserve much, much more from Mother Cuba.

So, even though all the fish belong to the Cuban government, it’s very common for fishermen to approach sailors and offer to sell or trade something with us for lobster or fish. Yesterday evening, two of the fishermen rowed over to us, offering us four large lobster tails for $5CUC. That’s an amazing price…but that’s what they asked for. When Bob paid them, they began to ask for something else that he couldn’t quite understand. Then one of the fishermen pulled off his baseball cap and showed Bob a playing card, the Queen of Hearts. They wanted a deck of cards! No problem. I sent them our newest deck, still in it’s blue and white Hoyle box. I had used them a few times, and I knew that some of the cards had stuck together from humidity. At some point, when I pulled them apart, some of the cards got abrasions from being separated. But still, that was our best deck. When Bob handed over the box, both men clapped their hands and whooped! I was down below laughing at how happy they sounded to get this deck of cards.

Later the man with the Queen of Hearts in his cap came back with the deck and returned it. He could not explain why, but I’m certain it was because some of the cards were marked. I imagined how much he was looking forward to a game of cards with his cohorts, likely involving betting. Marked cards just would not do. So I gave him an older deck that didn’t even have a box, and were the small bridge size cards that I imagine Cuban men might find too ‘sissy.’ There were probably small marks on these cards too since they are not new…but I hope they found them usable!

These small interactions illustrate how enlightening it is for me to see how simply these people live, and to experience how friendly they are. When they approach our sailboat they are very cautious. They never let their rowboats touch Pandora. They seem happy to make contact with us, beyond just selling us fish, and they seem to enjoy our clumsy attempts at Spanish. We have stopped in some pretty remote places along this trip, and quite a few times we’ve been the only boat in the area. I don’t think meeting cruisers is a daily event for these fishermen.

Today when we anchored at the outskirts of a long maze of mangrove estuaries, another government fishing boat arrived and anchored nearby. Bob and I took off in the dinghy to explore the mangroves, which were delightfully full of herons, ibis and frigate birds. We chased a group of spoonbills, photographing them each time they landed and each time they took flight as we followed them down the winding maze of water and mangroves.

When we came out of the estuaries and were headed back to Pandora, one of the fishermen was waving madly to us from the bow of his boat and motioning for us to come to them. I thought it prudent that Bob go by himself, since—rightly or wrongly– I have a strong sense that I was not the proper company for a group of Cuban fishermen. It seemed like a ‘guy’ gathering. Bob went to visit and they were very excited to meet him. They invited him onboard and showed him around their very basic boat. Bob described it as looking like someone made a frame of bent rebar and then slapped on some cement by hand. One man showed Bob the shaved ice that the catch was layered in and a giant fish that they’d caught today. They did not try to sell Bob any of the fish, and they did not ask for anything. Their living conditions were very rough, but they seemed happy and were very friendly.

While I can’t imagine the life they must lead, I can also see that they probably have a good life that is rich in things I’m not even aware of. I wonder how much this will change, and how quickly when (if?) trade with the US starts up again. I keep referring to this because I cannot get it out of mind. On the one hand, it makes me sad how much the past two (at least) generations of Cubans have suffered and sacrificed. On the other hand, those who have lived well on so little might not be ready or willing for the culture shock that could be headed their way.

In Cheryl Barr’s guidebook, we read that the peninsula going out to Cabo de San Antonio does not even have paved roads. We read that we should keep a watch for a bi-plane that flies over about once a week to drop mail in a local field. There are no stores other than one shelf at the marina that mostly holds bottles of rum. Bob did buy one of those before leaving.