Blue Vase

Many years ago, I committed what was to become a life-long mea culpa: I broke a blue glass Art Deco vase that belonged to my mother.  She handed the albatross to me and asked me if I could pull the plastic flowers out that were quite firmly wedged in place.  Of course, coming from Mother, this would not be an easy thing to do, but I had not yet lived long enough to understand this.

I still remember standing in the little laundry room at the back of the house, trying to understand why the (stupid) plastic flower on the (even more stupid) wire stem wouldn't come out of the (beautiful cobalt blue) vase's narrow opening, and I tugged at it, turned the flower, tugged again-- and the vase broke into pieces in my hands.  The break disclosed the truth:  the stem was a very long one, so Mother had simply folded it back on itself and stuffed it in the vase.  The end of the stem caught on one of the bulb-shapes of the vase and could not have been extracted without x-raying the vase, then having the Bomb Squad come in with intricate tools to work the wire out.

The drama that followed this little scene made an indelible impression on my younger self, and one day decades later, I began to embroider blue vases.  None of these stitched vases looked like The Blue Vase I so vividly remembered, but photo realism was not the point of applying needle and thread to linen.  I never put all the ensuing pieces in one place, never "collected" them on a wall.  They are scattered through my house, and occasionally I come across one in the studio stored in a box of old work.  I numbered them, at first, and there were more than thirty pieces before I stopped numbering.  Some I cannibalized for other projects, some were made into greeting cards (but not for my mother), so they are lost to me.  I will post pictures of these little pieces as I come across them, and maybe they will finally be together, if only in the world of the internet!

These pieces, however, I do have, and I begin my exhibit:  The piece at the top of the page, "Sansevieria" was first posted in 2010, but as it is part of the series, I include it here.

Below is the first.  I remember carrying it in the pocket of my jacket, along with a needle and a little clutch of DMC matte cotton that had been cut into 12 or 14 inch lengths.  I would work on it as I walked downtown at lunchtime, in traffic when I was stopped at a light for 45 minutes at a time . . .  in all the odd moments in a busy life of wife and mother with more than one job.

These two were done using more scraps from the same piece of very loose, rough linen as the first.  Once it came to filling the vases with flowers, the rayon bullions couldn't be stitched while walking in downtown Atlanta, and I needed good light and a quiet place to work.

Here the blue vase got a rug-like setting, with the felted triangular shaped appliqué in the border.  The tassels are made from DMC cotton floss.

This rather mis-shapen piece is a combination of Machine and hand embroidery with vintage cotton appliqué.  The rusted ground cloth was from a flurry of rusting fabrics I did in 2012.

The Blue Vase needed a break, so this one was called "Blue Vase on Holiday."  It is on hand-made felt with tassels, beads, stitch, and the vase itself was cut from another Blue Vase piece that hadn't worked very well, then applied to this one.  I always thought the vase had chosen a far and cold country for this trip-- there seems to be ice and pale sunlight in the felt, icicles dangling from a lower corner.

Next is one of my first machine embroidery experiments.  I did not know how to set up my old Viking for free-motion embroidery, and I don't know if there was even such a name as that for this work.  The metallic and rayon threads are stitched on a piece of commercial felt, and with the beads and the funky stitched framing, it is a glitzy little piece-- yet, it is not the size of the palm of my hand!

As the Knoxville Freestylers are beginning a study on drawing with a sewing machine, I did a quick machined piece for a demonstration.  This latest Blue Vase is on a piece of hand-made felt.

This, however, may be my favorite in the Blue Vase series, which I back-stitched and titled, "Blue Vase in Black and White."

I will come across more pieces, or at least I hope so, and when I do, I'll update this post with pictures of those pieces.  Meanwhile, enjoy!

Garden, early June 2015

Doug Green, a Canadian gardener whose blog I follow, recently wrote:  "I am more myself in a garden than anywhere else on earth."  Yes.  Gardens are magical places.  The peace of the early-morning garden and a cup of tea start my day. That might be my favorite time.  Or perhaps the end of the day, sitting in utter tranquility amid all that eager green dotted with little splatters of color as the night falls and the colors deepen for one brief moment before the last of the light is drained away . . .  I think you have something, Doug!

Winding Thread

A couple of months ago I had the Adorables busy winding thread onto long, narrow bobbins for weaving shuttles.  Ethan was (of course) managing the brass thread winder, and Bethy was guiding the thread.  When I asked if everyone was having a good time, she looked up and told me she was having a "Threadful Experience."

Hmmm . . .

Silk Thread

Silk threads are a different set of dyeing techniques than cotton.  And linen, rayon, ramie and tencel all have their own rules.  I am navigating the silk maze now, still finger-painting, still in love with the colors that emerge by accident or design.  And there are a lot of interesting textures in silk, either 100% silk or silk blended with other fibers.

I did these boxes of silks in two dyeing days, though it took me several days to get the thread wound and tied into little hanks for dyeing.

The new bump in the road is finding a place to dry so many skeins.  They can't hang outside, even if there was sun every day.  They would collect pollens and airborne allergens that would keep me from using them.  And the space inside this house is all pretty well spoken for.

But all I need is a temporary drying rack-- no more new equipment!  And while dozens and dozens of skeins of thread soaked and waited to be rinsed and dried, I prowled around the downstairs looking for solutions.  The answer was folded up in a corner, behind a door:  my walker.

Think about it:  Light weight.  Folds away.  On wheels that can be raised so I don't have to bend down so far to claim the dry skeins.  And side bars for support.  The side bars can also be used to support dowels stretched the width of the walker-- dowels filled with skeins of wet yarn.  And because we have bookcases downstairs, we already have a de-humidifier in that room-- Bingo!  Here is a glimpse of the way I now utilize my walker:

Pretty expressive, isn't it, I mean, can you see how much I loathe the idea of ever again needing to use a walker for ambulatory assistance?

Several days have passed since that first attempt at drying silk thread there-- and I have made a number of improvements.  I also have an idea of using the Adorable's Legos to make a support for a second row of dowels to hang above the ones shown.  I always have an idea.  Making it work is sometimes the challenge.

The best part, however, is how neatly it all comes apart and can be stored out of the way when not being used.

Three cheers for Grandma!  Next is to figure out how the skeins can hop down on their own, climb into a basket or large wooden bowl and somehow make it up the stairs under their own steam . . .