Studio Notes: "TOO MUCH" Defined

"TOO MUCH" of a good thing is too much.  I never thought I'd say that.  But the studio is in need of a good organizing, so I have started sorting (again).  As I cannot do much because of the constant cough and the sleepiness from the meds, it is a slow go.  But, four large—no, five large bags have gone out of the studio, and this is only a start.

Getting rid of things is only a beginning, however.  I need a new way of seeing.  My fabric cabinet has, for years, been a beautifully organized collection of shelves (the cabinet used to be a medicine cabinet in a hospital, built of oak, with narrow upper shelves and a base of deep proportions with a zinc mixing shelf).  It has been so beautifully organized, in fact, that I scarcely see it any more—it doesn't excite my imagination the way the rows of folded fabrics did in the beginning.  So all the fabrics came down for a good look-through.  I found fabrics there that I had used in the 70s and 80s when I first began quilting.  Dated?  Some are probably worth big bucks, now (*smile*)!  Especially the scraps from the clothes Mother made for us and herself when we were children.  Some really screaming "Mod" prints.

And there are the country flowers and hearts.  Small prints, the sort of thing to make doll's clothes from.  Might come in handy later on . . . but if I said this the first time, I would open the door to the merest shuffling things around, getting rid of nothing.

I meant for all of this to go to Good Will, but Jill said that Good Will did not really need our scraps, nor did they treasure little pieces of fabulous fabric the way we did.  Obviously, Jill is not the person to encourage me to continue with my clean-out.

But I know of someone who is giving her little daughter a sewing machine for Christmas, and having a couple of bags of fabric to practice cutting out and sewing and trying out all the stitches— that could be a really fun thing for a child!

Meanwhile, I kept two small boxes of bits and pieces, as I never use very large pieces of anything.  Only two boxes!  In a pile on the floor are things for projects— curtains for the studio, covers for the ironing boards and presser, some old clothes for Bethy to play dress-up in (REALLY old, some of these) . . .

My embroidery thread needed to be out where I could see it better.  So, I dragged drawers of it into the light and spilled it into a huge  wooden bowl.  Now I don't have to stop and open drawers and work with my color-organized bobbins to find a thread.  I can engage in the most soothing of occupations:  just fingering the bowl of beautiful threads and stitching.  No point to this stitching, no design, simply the in and out of the needle in the fabric, watching the line of stitch develop across the linen.  It can be good stitching, or it can be bad.  There is no standard here.  I stitch for the sheer love of the stitches.  When I'm done, I feel better, I can toss the stitching away or I can keep it (mostly it is tossed), and I move on to the next thing on my list.  I liken this to visiting a Day Spa for a short pick-me-up, but without having to dress and leave the house.

Then on to the fabrics or the "Surprise!" bags that have been hiding in corners, some for very, very long times.  An examination of the contents, some soulful delineation of the useful and the never-to-be-used-again, and, voiles!  A teeny-weeny bit more space!

Doing this not-so-difficult job makes me feel better.  If I was in the house sleeping on the sofa or whining in my chair by the fireplace, I would not accomplish anything but I would continue to think about all the things I was not getting done.  It is that horrible Puritan Work Ethic that spoils everything—even a nice opportunity for a lie-in on a rainy day.

The Pink Scarf

Color can set my fingers to flying and my mind to reeling!  Fingers and mind were both fully engaged this morning as I worked in a delirium of excitement to make this scarf for Bethy (Christmas).

It is so hard to explain how color affects me.  I realized, when I was in my 20s, that I hear music in colors (or see colors when I hear music), and decades later found the word for it:  Synesthete.  When I am working in the studio with music playing, I sometimes turn it off so I can lay out my colors for a project.  In the silence, I can "hear" the colors better.  Once I'm satisfied with the lay-out, I can go back to whatever music I was listening to.  Hard to explain.

I got up at four a.m. this morning and thought about the colors I would use for this project, then went into the studio (the short walk in the wet dark was a quick wake-up!) and got started on it.  I listened to the news (NPR) while I worked— occasionally the musical interludes would interfere, but the "mute" button solved that problem.  By half-past eleven I had finished the scarf, and was giddy with the results.  Beads, two dozen differently textured and colored yarns, and the simple single crochet stitch— what a great way to start the morning!

Why isn't it possible to make a living with baizillions of tints and hues of thread and a hook?   Oh, right— the economic bottom line. . .

Small piece: Sleet

The soft greys of these scraps were too appealing to pass over in my box of Little Bits And Pieces (not to be confused with the box of Medium-Sized Big Bits or the baskets of Bigger Bits).  The day was grey, and except for the fact that the temperature was in the 60sF, the sky could have been a sleety one.  The Atlanta area has not seen a serious cold snap yet, so I have imagined it.

I would hate to think that I have given up figurative embroidery, but these little quilts are so much fun— all small size, so the challenge is to design with clear shapes and to-the-point stitches so that the piece doesn't get too cluttered and turn into a muddle of thread and cloth in need of a good sorting.

This work joins others in my small basket of experimental pieces from the past six or eight months.  The pieces are a group of friends, each of which has its own story to tell.  It is the story of a person or an object that can be as interesting as the person or object itself, don't you think?  And the longer you know someone/something, the more interesting the story becomes.

A Return to Alphabets: G as in . . .

Back to the embroidered alphabet, after a long interlude of silence.  I couldn't find my "G" from my stack of alphas, and I let it bring the Alphabet Project to a halt.  So, just imagine it is here.  I'll post it one day.  Or make a new one.  Life is never a straight line . . . except in Grids, maybe . . .

Grids.  Dividing a space into sections (not necessarily equal-sized) can organize a space with remarkable ease and add a great deal of clarity to the grouping.  Precisely measured divisions can still be fun, though.  Grids are satisfying ways to present ideas.  Some examples I've pulled from studio storage boxes are:

Blue Grid.  How many different ways can you fill a square (or, a roughly square shape)?  Inspired by the Beaney and Littlejohn Stitch Magic, I used color to tie together an assortment of fillings for squares in a roughly 1 1/4" format:

Green Grid.  The grid is machine embellished wool, and the fillings are all whimsical.  This was part of a Freestyle Challenge from Cynthia on developing grids:

This grid is a response to a Freestyle challenge by Beth, and is a study in stitch and color set in this tight form:

Below is my blue "quilt."  It is a true mixed-media piece of gridwork, and was a delight to put together.  Many of the squares have hand-made paper as a background:

These last grids are photographs from a trip to Savannah.  Old cities have some of the most interesting photo ops.  The first is a sidewalk in front of one of the SCAD buildings, and the second is a collection of mirrors arranged on the walls of a little shop on a side street in the historic district:

Grasshoppers.  Really silly grasshoppers.  In fact, they only resemble grasshoppers if you squint a little bit and forget anything you may have learned in a biology class about insects.  I was playing with ideas while doodling one day.

Of other "G" words that come to mind, "gardens" pops up first.  Gardens and Flowers are (traditionally) the embroiderer's most cherished subject-- but my "F" post probably hammered that point home, so I'll give it a rest.

What I have learned about French Knots

Today, when I was squeezing yet one more long-stemmed French Knot into a smallish corner of a palm-sized piece, it occurred to me that I ought to write about knots before I forget everything I've learned!  This concern for my memory of both the important and the unimportant came about when it took me an entire day to remember the name of the very common Feather Stitch!  Celebrating birthdays is suddenly not such a celebratory moment.

I have learned that knots are tricky and unforgiving.  I get one chance at them, and if I garble the line of thread at any point, I don't have the opportunity to back out of the mess and start over.  My options are:  (a) cut it out c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y and start over; (b) sew another stitch (a bigger knot, or a satin stitch shape) on top of it in a fatter thread until the unfortunate knotted mess is completely covered up; or (c) come up with a creative appliqué.  Usually I opt for (a), though I can point out several cover-ups that actually changed the direction of the piece entirely!  I think my Muse is often impatient with me and resorts to tangling the threads I am using until I am forced to stop and listen to her.

Yes, another digression.

French Knots have no more personality than a dial tone when they stand by themselves, but in a cluster, or stretched across a space, they can have presence and even textural importance.  I love texture, so I am prone to wrap the needle many times, giving me a large, sometimes shaggy knot.  Jacqueline Enthoven, however, says a French Knot should be wrapped only one time around the needle.  If I want a larger knot, she continues, I should simply double the thread.  Or treble, it would follow.  So, the next thing I learned about French Knots is that when I double the thread and wrap the needle only once, the shape of the knot is tidy and it does not fall over to one side.  It is possible that the multiple-wraps leave the stitch exhausted under the weight of all those loops and they fall gasping to one side the way Victorian ladies took to their fainting couches.

French Knots have a habit of disappearing when I do not move my needle over just slightly as I enter the fabric from the right side to carry the thread to the back.  In fact, they simply pop right through the little hole they sit above and I'm left looking at the place where the knot was and wondering where my stitch has gone!

Most fortunately, French Knots play well with other stitches.  Stitches that make long, winding lines across the linen and leave open pockets in the process cry out for companionable French Knots to join them.   Look at the Herringbone stitch.  In other embroiderers' worlds, they are nicely even and controlled little children.  In my world, they run, leap, curl and change shapes as they cavort across the linen:

This rather chubby Cretan Stitch benefits from a French Knot in its house-shaped center:

Buttonhole stitches, particularly uneven ones, provide interesting "cubby holes" for the knots, and they almost look like cells as seen under a microscope when multiple rows are combined.  Square (or Open) Chain stitches read the same way:

Small, tightly-made knots may be cradled in the curve of Feather or Fly Stitch, or decorate the ends, like some of the more delicate weeds in my garden:

Here the knot has been used as a substitution for the terminating straight stitch normally found at one end of a Detached Chain stitch:

These slightly open Detached Chain stitches also use the knot as a tacking stitch:

Two lines of Buttonhole stitches have been "dotted" with French Knots in contrast colors:

In a pinch, French Knots can appliqué a shape to a ground fabric with delightful results,

and their high-texture makes for interesting filling stitches--tree foliage is well-represented in variegated thread here:

It is even possible to stitch small knots into larger ones.  These below are pale blue perle cotton #8 sewn into the darker perle cotton #3:

By adding a stem to the knot, the lowly French Knot becomes a tiny flower:

With the help of metallic thread, the knot can have loops added to it, as well (it is tension that makes this work, tension and the patience of Job):

The long-stemmed version can be turned into an edging or border by alternating the direction of the stem and knot, as in the pale blue row that slopes to the right,

and when clustered tightly together can give the appearance of small colonies of fungi or field flowers:

There are so many more ways to use French Knots-- and this is the simplest of all the knots.

I have also learned how lovely the complicated knots can be, but I believe that will wait for another day and another pot of tea.  Right now, I have a huge box of samplers spread across a table in the studio, and rather than putting them away, I want to go and sit with them and enjoy remembering the times I made them.  Stitched samplers can be ever so entertaining!

Little Piece

I seem to have moved right through Autumn and Winter and slipped quietly into spring, as testified by the soft colors and balmy breezes in play here.  I wonder if a season is more beautiful in the imagination than the real thing . . . a sort of grass is greener theory?

*Sigh*

Now, the big question:  is my mind gone to spring coming, or spring past?  From a quick glance at the basket of hand-dyed and painted linens, I would say that I am prepared for an eternal spring.  Perhaps it is the beauty of bright, cheerful spring colors that is cheering on rainy days?

I will have a cup of tea and think through this . . .

Fashion In The Studio!

These are my feet in my Studio Slippers.  The slippers were a gift from my very thoughtful daughter-in-law, Julie, from Christmas past.  The toes have the most wonderful felted flowers on them— they make me smile each time I step into them!  After the comfort and sheer fun of these felted slippers, it would make no sense at all to go into my fiber studio and wear common, every-day shoes!

Of course, the shoes are only part of the fun.  Another component of my high-fashion aesthetic is my Studio Apron.  This I wear for cover-up when I'm doing really messy things.  Painting fabric, most particularly.  I bought the plain canvas apron years ago, when I was still teaching at the Campbell Folk School, and every year I added some embroidery, painting, or beading to it.  The Studio Apron became a part of the entire Folk School experience for me.

You might abstract from these photos that my dress code is a little off-the-wall.  You would be absolutely correct.

Invaded!

I awakened early this morning and stumbled to the kitchen for tea.  It was not yet 5:00 a.m.  Planning on going out to the studio, I flipped on the patio lights— and almost had a stroke!  The patio looked as if it was filled with raccoons!  I opened the kitchen door and for a moment the beasties looked at me as if they thought this was going to be a conversational moment.  I grabbed the broom and set out after them, counting four that I could see and noticing things moving in the shadows that might have been more.  I was proud of myself.  Even my grandmother, a woman who wielded a broom with deadly grace and accuracy, could not have done a finer job of clearing the lower terrace than I.

I thought about the movie, "Over the Hedge," and a little voice that sounded remarkably like R.J. (the Troublemaking Raccoon) was saying, "We'll be back . . ."

Of course, I will now wake up at 4:30 every morning and come to the kitchen to check on the critters out back.  As there is no garbage can there, I can only surmise they are coming for my bulbs.  As the Phantom of the Opera declared, "Then, it shall be war between us!"

P.S. added Monday, 28th of November:  Last night I was up again in the wee hours, and the sound of the rain on the roof was interrupted by a brick being dragged across the patio.  I jumped up from the sunroom sofa and ran to the window, turned on outside lights, but I could not bring myself to take up the umbrella and go out into the weather to chase down this 2:00 a.m. noise.  I think, now that the sun is up, that it was the raccoons again.  One of the bricks holding down the tarp over the fountain outside the sunroom window has been disturbed.

How do you get rid of wild animals you DON'T want in your yard without hurting the ones you DO want?

Little Stitched Pieces—Are They Quilts?

How can something less than 2" x 3" be called a quilt?

But that is what these are: embroidered pictures worked in the three-piece quilt sandwich.  First, a journal page.

My last Journal Page was "Indian Summer 2011."  In contrast is "Frost Night," the November night when the flowers began to feel the call of the Great Beyond, bringing an end to Indian Summer.  The fabrics have been re-used from all sorts of sources:

This small rectangle is a combination of map and fantasy, a movement from waving cul-de-sacs to circles to grids:

Although I think of it as a guide that could be folded and put in the pocket and pulled out if you happened to be lost, I have no title for it, as yet.  It would stand to reason that if you made something to guide The Lost, The Lost might look for a title to help them . . . ?

Then I turned to the garden, where there is inspiration at all times of the year.  I was thinking of this past week and all the pansies I put into pots when I did these (and no, they are NOT snapshots of pansies, but I don't copy slavishly, do I?):

I am rather fond of the background, which gives the only motion to these still-life portraits.  I used my favorite silk for this, Silk with flame, by Stef Frances.  The variations in texture of the thread are perfect for this sort of background.

All these pieces have come about from a storm in the region of my brain, and I have been filling pages of two studio journals, just having a grand time with the ideas as they spill over.  Eventually this will stop and the ideas will dry up, but in full spate, inspiration in the form of a lot of questions and possible answers is heady stuff.  I like the "what if . . .?" questions.  The answers never end.  And it is criminal to have fabric that is not fulfilling its destiny by being made into something.  Lest I be tagged a felon, I exhibit evidence that I am chopping fabrics right and left in an effort to give the fabric (mostly re-cycled and often hand-painted) new life . . . .  and in the process, following my bliss!

I hope your bliss leads you onward, as well.

The Tickley Pink, Yellow and Melon Hat

Do you remember this yarn?

It is now officially made up.  This is the hat I made this weekend, and my little model was delightful:

She complained that the beads and he dangley thingeys were too "tickley."  She returned it to me and said she didn't think she wanted it.  Her manners were so nice; she added "thank you" to her refusal!

So, now I'm trying to find some more of the unembellished yarn to make this into a larger hat to fit me.  It will be a feat.

Destination: Western North Carolina

On a mission to find interesting yarn, Asheville seemed the most logical place to start.  I have looked through the shops near home until I am embarrassed to show my face there so often.  It is the thin, wispy angora-type yarns and bouclés on my radar this time, along with shades of blue, green, grey, and soft pastels for blending.  Of course, Asheville is the center of civilization in my narrow, artsy world, and any excuse to visit is a road trip in the making.  Add to that the SAFF, and the trip is a given!

It would be remiss of me not to mention how beautiful the leaves are this fall.  But in doing this, I also have to confess that I left my camera at home, so you must take my word for the ragged beauty we encountered and color my world in carmine, indian yellow and flame.  Over these three colors and their endless permutations add a sky of Payne's grey or indigo with the occasional shaft of light fighting its way through the grey crust.  And, inexplicably, green grass!

We spent Wednesday evening at the Big Lynn Lodge in Little Switzerland.  The weather was stormy the entire way, though not so bad we did not have so beautiful vistas of the mountainous countryside.  I had a bag of Noro cotton-blend yarn tucked in a cloth tote to keep me busy, and when the temperature dropped more than 25 degrees and the evening rain and wind were mixed with sleet, I set about making the bag of yarn into a long, squishy scarf.  The Thursday morning walk from our cabin to the Lodge for breakfast was much more comfortable with the hot-from-the-hook scarf.

We had visited the Penland School in the afternoon, a trip always filled with inspiration, visually satisfactory to a degree hard to explain.  And I was so pleased to find Margaret Couch Cogswell's 2012 wall calendar there.  It is tall and thin, the perfect size for the narrow space above the light switches in the studio.  Check out her blog here.

A visit to a gallery such as The Penland School always sets the creative wheels in motion.  This visit was no exception.  I have enjoyed making books for years, in an off-and-on sort of way.  There is no experience quite like that of making a hand-made book, of holding the covers carefully as you leaf through the marvelous feel of papers selected particularly for texture, color or the simple ability to hold paint or text well.  I made a small book for Cynthia in August, and it got my book fairy out of hibernation and into flight again.  I think I will have to divide my time between bookmaking, crochet, and planting bulbs in the next weeks.  There is no point in not doing something when it brings a great deal of happiness, is there?

Thursday morning:  At the Appalachian Handcraft Show in the Asheville Civic Center, I found some soft handspuns.  I had Ethan in mind when I found this yarn, as he loves "rainbow colors."  He describes himself as a "sunshine boy," so this might be the ticket for him:

And at Purl's on Wall Street, there was a basket (now greatly diminished) of Mango Moon yarn.  Well, I had never thought of crochet with pink beads and stones, and the purple I'd used once before was so rich . . .  and so I was rummaging happily in the funky yarn pile:

Aren't these tumbled stone beads just too yummy?

The folks at Purl's really "get" me.  I don't need 200 yards of a lot of different yarns, but a touch of color or texture here and there are perfect for the landscape-inspired crochet I most love.  For people like me, they have little mini skeins of wool, and I simply could not walk away from the possibilities there:

I think of them as brushstrokes of subtle color (except for the bright, cheery pink).

And an interesting book on geometric crochet,

Next, on to Friends and Fiberworks, where I found some of the blending fibers I was looking for.  In fact, I found so much I could have been overwhelmed, as I was on my first visit to this Yarn Eden.  But I am made of sterner stuff than that!  I gave myself a mental shake and began filling my lovely wicker shopping basket in the several sweeps I made around the shop.  Because I paid cash, I was given a 10% discount, which was no slouch amount.

While we were having lunch at Tupelo Honey, Charles looked up from the table to see Bill and Pat Martin in line, and what a happy reunion that was for the four of us!  I had last seen them in Asheville six or eight weeks ago after Pat had been given some scary medical news, but the new MRI set everything to rest, and life is smooth again.  There is nothing that can so quickly put a life on hold like a medical issue.

Friday morning:  A trip to the Ag Center and the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair.  I have been looking forward to this for what seems like forever, and poor, long-suffering Charles was my package bearer for the event.  I provided him with two large canvas totes so he could keep up with everything without the struggle that multiple plastic bags brings.  Every man should have so kind a wife as this.

I cannot detail what we saw at the Fiber Fair.  This must be akin to the experience of a child in a toy factory.  The two oversized totes were bulging when we left.  I was looking for things not available in shops, so I found yarn with curly locks dangling from the plies, another from Jazzturtle with a core of felted sweater wool.  All tumbled in a big wooden bowl, they are feastable wool yarn:

Worth another look:

Rack upon rack of open skeins of the most luscious colors and blends of wools, pre-felt bats, bins spilling over with roving, curly locks of the most amazing colors, and some incredibly knitted creations— all this every where I turned my eyes!  Unfortunately, I could not take it all in.  My leg and back let me down, and we left after only 2 1/2 hours.

We shared lunch with Anne and Steve, and I spread the yarns over the table, a few at a time.  Anne got the bug, and there was a message on my cell phone later that she had found some unusual yarns herself.  Anne's specialty is her felted (I want to say "painted," they are so detailed) pictures.  I cannot wait to see what she does with her curly locks.

On the way back to Atlanta, my brain was exploding with color and design possibilities.  My love of pure funk was satisfied these couple of days in Asheville and environs—and I have the most wonderful collection of oddball yarns to work with over the next months!

Charles, long-suffering, has to put up with the brain outbursts.  Surely he has earned a number of Stars For His Crown from this trip, alone.

Tiny Art Quilt: Indian Summer 2011

Small is my size, as I get older.  I used to wonder if it was Adult Onset Attention Deficit, but whatever the cause, I will never finish a large piece anymore.  As I have aged, the pieces grow smaller and smaller!

This little art quilt is my most recent piece, called "Indian Summer 2011."  It is a sort of Journal page, a glimpse into what has been swirling around Studio 508.

It is hand and machine stitched on layers of linen and cotton scraps beneath a piece of vintage cotton voile.  The little "flags" are vintage fabric scraps from that bag of flea-market quilted scraps I keep dipping into (the English Major in me wanted to write "into which I keep dipping" *sigh*):

These little flowerlets and the white curve below are of leather (Ethan sees these as mailboxes).  I am lucky the Viking is a sturdy sewing machine!  Notice the little French Knots spilling on the striped linen-- I had to bite my lip and slap my hands to keep from obsessing on them:

Here are some more fabrics, both hand-painted and salvaged:

Everything is laid onto a scrap of rescued linen, batting beneath.  I don't know how the embroiderer in me became addicted to thick work, but it has just evolved into little quilting exercises.  The thicker, the merrier!

Enjoy!

And thanks for stopping by.