Little Quilt

Strip Weaving is an interesting way to create a surface for stitch.  This one came into being as a project to keep my hands busy in the evenings while we watched the British Mysteries.  Perhaps it should be called "The British Mystery Quilt"?

It is 7 1/2 by 8 1/2 inches, roughly.  Linen, mostly, with some cotton for a contrast in texture.  The stitches were limited to straight and cross stitch, with some couching and a section of tiny, tiny french knots.  The piece became such a part of my life that I was actually a little down when it was finished.  THere were evenings when some sections refused my stitches, while others yelled for attention.  The end result appears to be a map of a small, colorful town.  My granddaughter was the first to recognize the story here.  Kudos, Bethy!

Summer in the Deep South, Oddments

In early June I wondered if this would be the year of extended spring that went straight to autumn.  No such luck.  We have experienced bursts of rain interspersed with temperatures in the high 80s and low-mid 90s.  Gardening time is just after daylight, then again just before dusk.

Which means the best place to be is in the studio!

One thing Quarantine time has given me is a space to reflect and put things together.  Finishing the Almost-Dones has been a pleasure, too.  I have amassed a collection of little pieces, palm-size or a little larger, and when I came across them, I began to add to the collection.  These are concerned with color and texture, some are about shapes.  None are really finished pieces, but they are ideas.  The best thing to do when you aren't full of inspiration and the muse is off visiting friends and partying, is to simply show up and do something.  Lack of Inspiration and uncooperative Muse can be my excuses for not getting work done.

With that thought, I began to arrange some of the pieces into vignettes.  Once done, I thought of filling in the white spaces between them with little oddments collected since I was a child and curious about all small things that could pop into a pocket and be pulled out later for closer examination.  I found an old frame with a front-closing door and began to assemble these bits and pieces in some order.  I call the collection "Oddments," and, with great originality, they are numbered 1 to 4.  I have not kept any of them in the frame, but I photographed the individual vignettes.  The idea of leaving them flexible and mobile is appealing, particularly in this time of turmoil and change.  Nothing seems to stay the same anymore.

I offer you a guided tour of my day of play.

No. 1:  Here the center green circle is a tag from a dress by Gudrun Sjoden of which I am particularly fond, so I did a little stitching on it.  The other stitcheries are on linen, paper, even one in the lower line (on a yellow wedge ground) is unspun silk on a piece of paper towel with paint splattered onto it.  The slice of house at lower right is what I secretly fantasize about painting my (presently) blue house one day.  Painting the dots was an inspired moment, as the linen was from a very old shift I'd worn threadbare before I would take it out of my closet.

No. 2:  The arched line is an experimental wrapping of thread and fabric scraps, really small shreds of fabric that I dug out of my waste clippings.  The upper left leaf design is stitched on paper and cloth, with the leaf shape sponged onto paper from a wet cloth I'd just dyed.  Next to it is part of a (very) old wax-painted sample.  The wood in center is from a beautiful and large lavender bush that I brought with me when we moved back home from Knoxville in 2008, and after 12 years of bewilderment at its new location, the plant simply folded up shop.  I love the wood, as even the roots of lavender are a feast for the eyes.  The little boat at the bottom center is thumb-sized, to give you an idea of scale (or maybe of the size of my arthritic thumbs).

No. 3:  The center yellow piece was stitched on a scrap from a manilla mailing envelope.  Using Cas Holmes' instructions (The Found Object in Textile Art) for momigami paper, I wadded, folded, scrunched and crinkled until the paper softened to have a fabric-like hand.  I ironed it, and stitched with hand and machine.  It is a memory of travel to New Mexico with our son many years ago.  The thumb tacks next to it are ancient, I remember them in the back of a drawer from my childhood.  And the little ladder in the lower row is from some long-lost toy of my son's saving.  It is next to a stitching on paper (right) and little shape studies (left).  The red buttons were from my mother, and the piece directly above it came from studying Gwen Hedley's Drawn to Stitch.

No. 4:  Here I realized I had gone to setting things up in something like rigid exhibition order, and this page, though it has some of my favorite objects on it, is less animated than the other pages.  I have confessed to you, with the photograph, of my love of buttons that aren't always perfect and round.  Likewise, my feeling about trees and shrubs.  The little trees were wrapped from snips of embroidery and knitting thread so they look as if they can dance and actually enjoy themselves.  The black and white piece at top left ignited an interest in zentangle drawing and stitching that lasted almost a year, along with sketchbooking with white ink on black paper.

What a huge mess I made with this project, but it was a fun and productive mess.  At least that is what I kept telling myself . . .

More falling leaves!

I couldn't let it go at simple leaf shapes-- the table decoration project simply took a different turn when it ended, and the leaves assumed a life of their own.  The leaves were like stepping stones, each leading to the next.

These are some of the last ones.  The fabrics are recycled clothing pieces and a few old fabrics that have been around since my son was living at home (!).  The main vein of the last leaf is a hand-wrapped cord.  I make these loosely-wrapped and colorful cords while watching the British Mysteries.  In two nights of mysteries, it's amazing what can be achieved!

ENJOY THE AUTUMN!!!

Winter and Spring

Two pieces finished, the "Spring" only this afternoon, "Winter" last spring.  For some reason, stitching seasonal pieces in their proper season is not easy for me.

The spring trees are treated playfully, each almost circular foliate set on even more improbable trunks.  Layered, both appliqué and the stitches.

Winter, the older piece, is a more thoughtful treatment of the bare trunks, in somber shades of grey, white and grey-brown.

Once lost, but found

I had computer woes this morning, and while frantically going through files I came across this-- once lost, but now found.  A card for Jordan.  Our computers are amazing little creatures, seemingly possessing para-normal abilities to sense when they should let us find something nice in the early hours of the morning.  Despite all the scrambling and angst about the lost Keynote presentation, thank you, dear Mac, for this gift.  And for opening the window to the "new" storage for Keynote files.

December in the studio

Daylight has been in short supply lately, and in the abbreviated light, I have contracted my thinking to small scale as a doorway into some larger ideas to explore in 2017.  My favorite way of doing this is with a bowl of scraps, a smaller one of threads, and an overflowing pincushion.  Through the movement of fabrics from the bowl to the flat workspace, there never seems to be a reduction in little scraps.  All magic, I'm sure.

This project was originally meant to be a line and shape study, not really to draw in color elements, but the pull of color is very strong, even when working in palm size.  Last month, in anticipation of this project, I made a book to corral these ideas in one place rather than falling back on my usual practice of stuffing things into plastic bags and relying on the Good Fairy Of The Studio to retrieve them for me.  Rather than pages of paper however, it is a book of pockets made with Lutradur.  I've found that Pellon medium-weight interfacings also make good pockets.

This colorful character uses hand and machine stitch.  I like the precision of machine stitches in combination with the looser hand stitch.  Additionally, there is something so mysterious about vintage fabrics captured under a translucent fabric, something that calls up old times and faces.  Here we can almost see a vehicle for transport to those times, one with many windows, many doors . . .

These verticals are my personal view of winter, grim and textural.  Not that grim is always negative, of course.  This piece is a return to that style of using the blocks of fabric as a foundation for stitch:

Because I am drawn to neutrals with textural interest, these two appeal to me for their simplicity and single, uncomplicated imagery:

Two summer strolls

In a little park, strolling, and thinking about . . .

Turquoise beads and a scrap of fringed green fabric.

The threads and I considered how many different ways we could color kid glove leather, the threads were of the opinion that the leather could NEVER be as nuanced and subtle as they.   Because it was growing late, I did not answer.  But the next day I spent a lot of time working on putting color on smooth, thin, kid leather.

Number Game(s)

Layering, appliqué, hand and machine stitch, hand-dyed fabrics . . 

Below, tiny scraps of hand-dyed linen are cobbled together by some system known only to the numbers.

Spring Musings

An examination of spring colors, spring fragility-- these two pieces have surfaces of silk over layers of hand-dyed silks and linens.  

The first is on a firm ground of so many layers I lost count as it was being assembled.  The silk chiffon over the top of all was dyed, spottily so.  But it was the spottiness that gave the center pink area more interest.  The green danglies are there because it reminded me of the texture of the spring as it just comes into being.

Here is a different look at the spring.  The small piece is worked in hand on a very thin ground of (mostly) transparent silks and little snips of linen and a dyed lace.  The tree was made separately was slipped under the chiffon before being stitched in place.  A bit of hand-dyed linen defines the ground and left of the landscape, but the tree itself still dominates the scene because of the full bushiness of its branches and foliage, even covered.  The beads are trying to tame everything, but you know how difficult it can be to tame a spring day.  Held up to the light, it changes character, in that mysterious way light has of transforming colors. 

Marks on Fabric: Blocks 1 and 2, et al.

One of a series of blocks where I experimented with leather to make marks rather than using stitches or dyes.

The second block uses antique silk, tucks, thread marks, and vintage wrapped circles from Battenburg Lace.

The third block is what I think of as a conglomerate, done several years ago when I was studying Gwen Hedley's work.  The base is layered scraps, making the most of the translucence of the silks as overlays, tying all together with a single color of the most simple stitches.