Rusting Fabrics

First efforts at rusting fabric were more than satisfactory.  I luuuuuuuve this!  There is a mysterious quality to a cloth with random marks on it that is not quite the same as a cloth that has been organized in a commercially printed manner.  The first experiment was to bundle, with no plan or organization for the shapes.  And using tea leaves, for grey and charcoal tones.  Next time I will start to organize the shapes on the fabric a bit more.

Above is a piece of China Silk, with single-strand cotton floss embroidery worked as an ATC.

Below is a lot of layering with stitches, vintage leather, buttons (the old, less-than-perfect ones match the rusting and scrappy-fabric quality of this piece), and a little twig, on right.

I am not a difficult woman to please, am I?  Rusted objects, scraps of fabric, odd threads, a handful of buttons . . .  My thanks to Tone and my sister for the old rusty objects.

Waving Line Sampler (s)

First is the Doodle Cloth, where the fun thinking and splashy experimenting was going on:

Then, the results moved to the canvas of what was the "real" sampler.  These next shots are of sections of that second, more thoughtful stitched sampler, up close and personal.

I included the funky edge because it is meant to be a fun, playful sampler.

The returning curve below, on right, is a Herringbone Stitch taken to extreme angles, but kept small.  It reminds me of prickly thorn vines.

The variegated Satin Stitch surprised me at how much fun it was to stitch.  Tedious, yes, but the precision it required was rewarding.  The coil is Double Knots in a tapestry-weight cotton.

And the needleweaving over the shisha mirror was right out of the 1960s and 70s.  Old doesn't mean "not good!"

Stitching lines that travel in other than straight paths was a good thinking exercise for me.  In the process, I began to make notes about ideas I had that came from all that twining and dancing-line stitchery, and I filled an entire sketchbook!  I carried the little book with me everywhere and wrote, drew, colored, and pasted frenetically, collecting possibilities that might morph into other stitched pieces along the way.  The experience was so fruitful that I'm not sure I ever want to stitch a straight line again!

Snapshot Embroidery

This is a snapshot of the white lamp in the corner of the living room at our home of many years ago.  Or, it is a cropped portion of that corner of the room I embroidered several times.  The walls were papered in grasscloth that had been painted.  What a nasty mess!  It couldn't come down without taking part of the wall with it, so I dreamt up this stitched wallpaper to replace it.  The real corner was not so inviting as this one.

I needed something for a small spot on a nearly-filled wall, so I gathered buttons and shells and made this autumn-colored wall hanging (yes, for the grasscloth-wallpapered room):

It is a memory of beach vacationing, soft sands and bits of washed-up shells.  The ground fabric is evenweave, and it took me forever to stitch this, because of my double stigmatism.  I remember wondering, for the umpteenth time, why people thought counted work was a fun thing to do . . .

Embroidered Garden Plans, #1

Once upon a time, when I had a very small house in a very small neighborhood with a very small place to garden, I spent a great deal of time embroidering garden plots, plans of the gardens I would like to plant.  I share some of these with you.

The first is row upon row of brightly blooming annuals that have all but squeezed out that offensive bit of green lawn.  Here is yet another example of my over-fondness for Bullions and Knots elbowing its way to the forefront.  And, by the way, I still think the green sward is a waste of time and energy and garden space.  My ideal front yard is a wildflower field.  Don't think the neighbors would quite "get" it, though.

And this is a schematic for the odd-shaped corner of a place of my imagination.  Well, the finished product was a place of the imagination.  The oddly shaped lot was the one our little cottage home was on many years ago.  As I was snipping the striped fabric for the mail area, I was thinking about how nice it would be to grow stitches, to plant seeds of Herringbone or Detached Chain, to see a blooming sun and perpetual spring trees . . .

They are both from the mid or late 1980s.  Once I was able to garden with some serious intent, the garden plans stopped.  What a shame-- the task of weeding was such a simple one, here!

There are more.  I will excavate another strata in the studio sometime in the next week or two.  I rather enjoy visiting with these old friends once more.

Little Houses, continued

From my sister, on vacation, came this postcard:

Now you can see who got the art gene in the family.  Makes me want to drop everything and start stitching little houses and French-knotted trees . . .  Hmmm . . .

Thank you, Michelle.

Scattered

I came across this word today, which reminded me of my mother's voice saying, "If the shoe fits, wear it."  I'm wearing it, Mother.  Both feet, in fact.

This little bit of thinking out loud came about when I looked to see these projects laid out on my stitchery work table:

• a) Buttonhole stitches completely covering a scrim and wool batting sandwich with occasional breaks to machine felts portion of it;  
• b) pockets being stitched up from older work that never made it to the finish line for one reason or another ;  
• c) small stitch experiments on ATC-sized fabric sandwiches;  
• d) an ongoing search for a particular textured fabric from a drawer of small scraps (I was sooooo sure I put it here, somewhere);  and, 
• e) a pocket sketchbook and Micron pen to make notes on things that might be further explored at another time.

I move between the projects.  When I am tired of one, I pop on to the next.  It could also be Adult Onset Attention Deficit.  I wonder if Medicare covers treatment for such a diagnosis?

Scattered.  The shoes fit embarrassingly well.

Creative Activity = Mess = Progress

There is a colorful mess in the studio right now.  I am in the "Oh— I'll try that next" mode, which means that when I pick up something that has a possibility I would like to develop, it does not go back in its proper place, but stays on the stitchery table.  I have managed, by means neither helpful to me nor to the item I just left on the table, to scoop out a tiny place to work . . .

Once Upon A Time, when I was teaching at the Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC, Alice Berg was in my class.  Alice's specialty was Alice in Wonderland paper projects, and she was very good at this.  She said that no matter how much space she planned for herself, she always had only a small area on her table to work.  Having two tables didn't help for more than a few minutes.  This gave me hope for myself, and I began to believe that at the end of my time I would not be judged by my workspace but by what I produced in it.  After all, if neatness was the criteria for living, this would be a very clean and tidy planet with absolutely nothing of interest happening on it.

Bethy shares my space on the days she is with me.  Here are dress-up clothes (inspiration) and some really fantastic aprons donated by Jill (she will sometimes wear two, one to cover the back, one for the front).  And there is the tiny desk I had as a child, that her dad used as a child, and that she now uses.  The lid lifts, and (in theory) all her things can be stored inside.  The reality is that she has habits of impulse and untidiness so like my own, including the tendency to hold on to things that should be thrown away but that just maybe-could-be-possibly-one-day useful . . .  So, there is a bit of clutter that goes unchecked in an otherwise cluttered space— but we are both comfortable with it.  Creativity is not always tidy, is it?

That is a long, long, bit of hem-hawing and excusing oneself for not photographing the rest of the studio, isn't it?

Meanwhile, I found the most amazing pieces of linen in a bag that had been stored in my son's basement for years.  His clean-out was a big one, and when he brought this to me, I jumped at the chance to wash and dry it (heavy, rough linen meant for counted work) and to add some color to a piece of white linen that has such an appealing texture . . .  They're somewhere on the stitchery table, I believe . . .  Maybe if I have a cup of tea first . . .

C = M.
M = P.
Elementary, my dear Watson.

Zentangler, Margaret Bremner

I have just stumbled on the most awesome Zentangle from artist Margaret Bremner, in Canada.  Her blog, Enthusiastic Artist, is here.  On 21 June 2011 she posted photos of a stunning piece of commissioned art, ten houses, that is a show-stopper.

I love to zentangle, and when the tangling is raised to the level of art as this picture is, I get lost in all the details there.  I particularly enjoyed the photos of the step-by-step process in the making of the piece.

I hope you stop by and check this post.  It's worth the trip.

Now, as I've been inspired to tangle, I'll take my sketchbook with me for my trip to the allergist this morning.  The twenty-minute wait following the injections passes much faster if I have something interesting to do with my hands . . .