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 . . .

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.

"TOO MUCH" Reconsidered

All those bags of fabric going out of the studio have given me the shakes.  I asked Charles not to carry them off just yet, and his look spoke volumes about his assessment of my mental condition.

In fairness to me, I have just received a new book, How to make your own freeform quilts, and our author makes the point that fabrics that are old or ugly are excellent for this technique!  Old and Ugly would describe those five bags very well.  Jill was right to discourage me from casting these pearls out.

I love quilts that look as if they were sewn together between chores and cooking meals and burping babies, with no thought to color or design, and particularly if there are long, wavy strips involved.  This book is all about uneven strips of fabric.  I sat reading that first night, and when I turned the bedside light off, visions of my rotary cutter, sharpened and at the ready, with piles of fabric lined up for chopping, "danced through my head. . ."

Despite all the things I should have been doing, there was to be no peace until I had at least tried this idea.  My inner child was whining, and ever the undisciplined mother, I gave in.  I made, by reaching for the nearest thing at hand, these four coasters/mug mats.  You will notice that these are not really ugly fabrics.  I was not deep into the five bags of give-aways at the time I started this.

I can hear your groaning over the satin stitches at the edge.  I will confess that I have made a zillion coasters over the years, and the part that is always ugly to me is the strip of seam binding to finish off the edges.  The nicely put-together coasters suddenly go from usefully flat to un-usefully lumpy edged, the sort of thing that isn't safe for sitting narrow-base glasses on for even a moment.  I have voile, but voile doesn't really hide too much, does it?

There is always the possibility of reconstruction, however, because these are 5" squares, leaving open the door to finding that perfect binding and chopping off the satin stitches.

Basically, I think I need a larger project to make wavy-lined stripes.  "Larger Project" is not really a part of my vocabulary, so I am thinking about this.  Thinking hard.

Meanwhile, I am studying another quilt I pieced together before the holidays, trying to think of a way to bind this more formal piece.  Black and White and Red always look so modern, don't they?  I'll take it with me to Freestyle in January.  Two of the very best quilters in the state will be there, Tone and Sheila, and I shall ask their advice!

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.

Independence Day 2010

We are being quiet here. Charles has made a Vanilla Pudding (of which he is a little too proud), and I am in the studio (duuuuuh, did I really need to say that?). I've been going through boxes again. Today, I have two large empty boxes to be removed. Some of the contents were in the wrong place and needed to be put with others of a like nature. Some were destined for the landfill. But a nice little collection is going to a friend who is interested in niblets and nibs. She uses them in spinning wonderfully lumpy yarns for her knitting and felting projects. When I go to a knitting yarn store, I always wonder what people see in plain yarn. It is like plain yogurt to me-- in need of sprucing up.

Anyway, whether I have Rules Of The Studio or not, I am two boxes closer to being sorted out.

It may be that sorting is not a one-time thing. When a person moves a studio, they move their perspective and, often, their support group. Re-thinking past projects, how they were carried out, and wondering if those techniques are still interesting is well-spent time. I thought and re-thought the dyeing process until I knew I would not like to do that messy sort of thing again without a dedicated kitchen for the sole purpose of mixing chemicals and creating dye pots. Each time I open a cupboard (and there are a number of cupboards lined up against the walls) I come across another package of materials I collected to experiment with a process. Eventually, I'll be sure enough to either use them again or find a home for them.

And that is a sort of Independence Day isn't it?