Colors of the Soul: A Tree

This little piece began from a scrap of fabric I over-painted in the studio, and a bag full of incredible yarn and silk thread I bought at the French Knot, in Savannah.  It is a tree, and the thought behind the embroidery is that all the colors of a lifetime might still be in the tree, buried inside like a pallet of watercolors waiting for the water that brings them to life.

O.K.  I just lost anyone stumbling over this blog, I'm sure.  But think of it-- the leaves, the seasons, the mosses, the rains and snows and brilliant sunshine that all go into the life of a tree are lovely colors.  And I could not give the idea up, once I saw the scrap of fabric laid against a rectangle of brown linen.

Most of the stitches are some form of a Chain Stitch, a Bullion Knot, or Straight Stitch.  The different weights of thread give its dimensional quality.

Some close-ups of the tree.  Enjoy!

 I left the ravelling threads in place, as they seemed a part of the wabi-sabi nature of the piece.

As the stitches are layered in places, the texture is really stand-out.

Artist Trading Cards

ATCs are little artistic gems, the size of baseball trading cards. It is always amazing to me to see what can be done with 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" of surface.

The Freestylers are having a Valentine's Day ATC exchange at our February meeting, and I've been working on my card.  And there are others to be given ATCs as well, so the ideas have been popping up right and left as I ply my needle at my embroidery table.

I assembled five of the hearts for an exhibit in Knoxville this weekend for the Heart Association:

Peggy was kind enough to pick them up as she and Bob passed through Atlanta on their way home from Florida.

These are some older ATCs I've made and kept simply because I like them.  The first was cut up from a large piece of black fabric I found in the 1980s and used as a place to play with needle and thread:

Fabric suitable for free-style embroidery (i.e., non-evenweave fabric) was much more difficult to come by then than now.  The next two are a pair, a sort of winter-summer look at a stem and its foliage.  Leaves springing from a curling stem will always make my heart light.  They seem so ready for something, anything at all, to come their way.

  

I will continue to dig and find the others I've set aside for myself.  The idea that this tiny format can hold beautiful ideas is fascinating, isn't it?  But then, I suppose the collectors of baseball cards feel a bit like that, too, don't they?

Beautiful Savannah

In the dead of winter, having left home in the rain yesterday, we have come to Savannah and all the glory of January on the coast.  Savannah is such a graceful lady!  Besides being so architecturally interesting, there is a great deal of interesting shopping here.  Little, unique places.  My friend from childhood lives near here in Bluffton, and she scoped out three great places for me.

Fabrika is a small fabric and etcs. shop with big impact.  It is on Abercorn, in an interesting area one block from one of the famous squares, and just around the corner from a delightful cafe Charles and I used to frequent.  I was in danger of going off the deep end with the fabrics (are you gasping with surprise or rolling your eyes?), decided on two children's prints and some linen, bamboo, and cotton for experimentation in the next few weeks.  http://www.fabrikafinefabrics.com/

The French Knot, on Whitaker, is a shop for embroiderers.  OMG, but it is organized so well!  Found some thread I didn't know about, so I had to have a bit to play with.  Tentakulum, a German thread company, makes a line called "Painter's Threads."  I have used a number of threads from Tetakulum, so when I saw the "Painter's Shimmer Ribbon," I couldn't walk away from them!  And stranded silk in lovely families of colors.  I was thinking about how nice it would be to combine the thread(s) with some of my Fabrika treasures.  http://www.french-knot.com/

Wild Fibre.  This was the hard one to find.  It is upstairs, across from the DeSoto Hilton on Liberty Street.  But it was quite worth the trip up the stairs (I still have great difficulty with stairs, unfortunately).  The shop is small, but the selection was obviously hand-picked for knitters, crocheters, felters, spinners, and weavers.  It was such a pleasure to see the different types of roving, the hand-spun yarns, and even cone threads.  http://www.wildfibreyarns.com/

When we go back to Savannah in March, I'll have to re-visit these places.  No, I said that wrong.  I meant to say, I'll HAVE to re-visit these places.

Sketchbooks/Studio Journals

For weeks, months really, life has been driving itself and I've been half-dozing in the passenger seat.  Late last week, as I finished up some pieces in the studio, I realized that creative thought was giving way to fatigue.  I began wandering between stacks of fabric, bowls of thread, and boxes of wool, hoping for some tactile inspiration. I found lace insertion I'd set aside to color (last summer) and began to wind it onto a creel— all 50 tangled yards of it.  Still nothing.

Eventually I got to the bookcase and paused at the sketchbooks.  They were like magnets, and I took one from its shelf, then another.  It was a moment of re-visiting ideas, like a chat with old friends.  I carried one to the drafting table, opened a new sketch book and reached for a pencil.  It was obvious, after only a few minutes, that all these weeks of not drawing or making notes had taken a toll.  Once I started doodling and drawing, however, I couldn't stop the ideas from spilling out!  Blessed old journals— just handling them reminds me of how much energy they hold.

I settled into pen and ink, filling a page with black ink doodles in a Zen manner of concentrating.  I slowed down and drew circles that more nearly resembled circles than my usual quick sketch, really watched where the curved line bent, and I filled in the open spaces carefully, staying right within the lines (just like I was supposed to do in first grade and never did).  Every mark had purpose and connection.  Even my heart rate slowed, and I could feel my own breathing.  I was "in the zone."

Next I sketched one of my favorite veggies from notes I'd made for a pastel drawing class I took with my sister winter before last.

I went to the sewing machine and did a free-machine embroidery based on my pencil sketch (two bulbs of garlic is always better than one).

Glancing around the embroidery table, I realized that the Little House theme has been exhausted, but the idea of windows interests me, windows as seen from the outside of a house, and very abstract.  The best source of ideas is to walk or drive through old neighborhoods, where the architecture is apt to be more interesting.  Coincidentally, we are making a short trip to Savannah this week, where interesting architecture is the only game in town, so I should have ideas by the dozens when I'm back in the studio.

If you want inspiration to get back into working in a studio journal from more than a dozen contributing artists, go to this new website:  http://sketchbookchallenge.blogspot.com/ 

Friday I made a trip to Blick for a few pencils and the experience was so good I went back on Saturday!  Gradually, I am getting myself together again, and even driving short distances.  I had forgotten how exciting a trip to an art supply store could be— and how much more exciting to unwrap everything and try out the new toys.

New Blog

Check out the new Blog our fiber art group has launched!  If you like things that are just a little bit different, you might enjoy what this group does.

http://freethestitches.blogspot.com

Itty-Bitty Houses

When Charles brought a box to the studio and said he'd just found it, I had no idea it would be filled with some very interesting pieces of fabric.  It has been downstairs for over a year, marked as something else entirely.  One of the fabrics is a piece of Swiss cotton gauze, delicate and very, very sheer.  This became the idea for the Itty Bitty Houses.

The houses are constructed in layers, again, but not embroidered so heavily as their larger siblings.  The topmost layer is the Swiss gauze, but beneath are pale linens, silks, tea-dyed napkin scraps and/or vintage lace, and each of the doors is a finger snipped from an old glove.  The edges are raveled in keeping with my thoughts about the necessity (or lack of it) of hiding beautiful raw edges.

House 1:  A house for lovers

House 2:  A house for dreamers

House 3:  A house for growing old together

And Another Party House

Making the blue Tea Party House was too much fun, and before I even finished it, I had a second of these lively little houses in the works.  Imagine having these two bright houses in your neighborhood!  Or, maybe you do have two such places in your neighborhood, and one is next door and you spend a lot of time there, sipping tea and reaching for the hot scones and marmalade?

The contrasting colors, blue and orange, set up a tension of complements.  I used the warm colors to keep the heat turned up, with a little bright blue stitched in for contrast.  The roof is blue cotton velveteen, and the house proper is a piece of hand-dyed wool fabric.  The white door is kid leather, a scrap from an old, brittle glove.  The red roundels are held in place by a stack of three seed beads.

The edging is a combination of scraps of scrim, yarn, perle cotton, novelty yarn— whatever I could find that looked loose and interesting.  I have the notion that the folks who live in this little house are less concerned about things being nicely organized than whether or not the kettle is on to boil.

Tea Party Cottage

Ah, the perfect little cottage— maybe on the beach?  Down the street?  Or, perhaps in a space of the imagination.  The place you visit and smile as you turn into the yard because you know there's a cup of tea waiting for you, maybe a cucumber sandwich, and ironed linen napkins . . .  Stitched samplers on the wall with "Home Sweet Home" themes, and flowers and frilly doilies, too.

The base is layers of felted and embellished wool with couched threads, seed beads, sequins and turquoise roundels creating the surface design. The roof is crowned with an antique decorative piece (gift from Anne!), and the cotton velveteen upstairs window is encircled by seed beads of vivid color.

The roof was inspired by photographs of ancient Italian roof-tiles.  There is almost a carousel look to it— appropriate to a house where there is much laughter, good food and friends.

A lovely, beckoning place where fresh scones are in the oven, one of the Brandenburg Concertos is playing in the background, and the tea canisters are lined up on the scrubbed pine sideboard, just waiting for you to choose your favorite brew.   Everyone needs a place like this.

Studio Time

Finally, some studio time!  Times get busy, but when the Busy Times go on too long and I can't get to the right brain playground, I have all the symptoms of withdrawal.  This roughly 4" square has become my "new" working size, one that fits neatly in my hand.  Working in small scale has the advantage over large projects (to me) in that the small pieces draw you into the work.  Have you ever noticed people at a gallery leaning in to examine the details of a small piece?  They are seeing the story unfold in the tiny stitched (drawn/painted/etched) lines and bits of color.  With large works the viewer instinctively takes a step backward to gain space to see the larger view.  Even as I work, the small, intimate piece pulls me inside and I have an ongoing conversation with the coming-into-being piece as I work.  For me, this back-and-forth is more difficult with a larger work.

And I have a great fondness for rows of straight stitches and couched lines . . .

Periodically I "rediscover" beads, and these past couple of weeks have been a beading frenzy!  On November 15th I posted some "Zentangle" embroideries.  These I did while resting in the house, away from the studio, trying to keep my hands busy shortly after surgery.  When I was more able to move between house and studio, the beads took hold, and I went back into the pieces and re-worked them, even added another little piece to the collection.  They make nice inspirations for other work, a sort of catalog of texture and line possibilities that I keep on the work table near the beads.

Can you see the beads tucked into the little places here, on top of the stitched lines and on the buttons?

The fun here was working around the piece of hemp scrim to the right of center. This piece feels very good in the hand, as it is built on layers of heavy felted wool.

Details:

This is a study in layering, ways of keeping the natural edge without having too much raveling.  The stitches are truly quilting stitches here.

With the beads added, the already highly-textured surface just got better!

One more:  This one has layers of cottons over the wool, and after the beading was done, it is too sturdy for words.  So much nicer than a limp piece of cotton or linen!

Now, if I can find a way to plow through the snow to the studio (yes, that is an exaggeration; 6" is not a call for a snow plow) I have some little houses to photograph.  If I could persuade Charles to don snow shoes, and use my hair dryer and a large shaker of salt . . .

White Christmas

My family gathered at our house for Christmas Brunch, and we had the pleasure of watching three little children go into uber-excited mode as the snow began falling.  The snow was even more fun than their gifts— for a moment, anyway.

There has been no snowfall on Christmas Day since 1896, according to stats from the Oak Ridge laboratory monitoring air quality, so we Southerners are quite excited over the event.  People moving here from more northerly points don't have our sense of awe over snow falling.  We also aren't acquainted with "snirt," which a North Dakotan explained to me several years ago was a combination of snow and dirt (our snow doesn't linger long enough to mingle with dirt!).

Some photos of the snow-bound yard:

I thought our three inches of snow was unparalleled excitement, but my New England friend Mary Kate has a photo of her outside table and chairs that eclipses  this paltry snow— the table is completely hidden, and only the tops of the four chairs peek above the pile of snow on the deck!

And the front yard from the entryway.  Not a day to make a jaunt to the mailbox!

Christmas Week

The Adorables were with us yesterday.  When they entered the house the first thing they noticed was the hearth covered with wrapped presents.  Ethan's little face became a study in happy absorption as he asked, "Which one is for me?"  Bethy, though, didn't ask.  She went directly to the hearth and studied the labels, finally announcing, "That one is mine.  I see the 'B' on it."  I did not dispute this, as her tone was not a question, and she needed no reassurance.  A woman who knows how to get the job done!

We moved from the house to the studio, where Ethan climbed into my lap to make more Christmas ornaments at one of the work tables, and Bethy chose to look into every nook and cranny of the studio (there are many!).  They can recite the lines to "Santa Claus is coming to town."  We do it as a call-and-response:

Me:  "You better watch out. . ."
Adorables: "You better not cry. . ."
Me: "Better not pout. . ."
Adorables: "I'm telling you why. . ."
All Together: "Santa Claus is coming to town."

This through the entire song!  They both went to great lengths to assure me that they are on the "Nice" list, that they have both been much too good to be on the "Naughty" list.

I think Christmas Day will be the loveliest day we've spent in a long, long time!

Week Seven

I am now a little more than seven weeks past hip replacement surgery, and it could be that life is returning to normal (whatever that is!).  I walk unaided some of the day ("slow and deliberate; good," my doctor said on Tuesday), and I occasionally bend far enough to pick things up that have fallen to the floor.  This is still not easy, but it is coming.

I have been (most irregularly) to the studio, and I still find that to be my favorite haunt.  Yesterday the Adorables were with us after school, and I took them studio-ing with me.  It was a nice experience for all three of us— until Ethan had a Code Brown in his pull ups and we had to go inside to the changing table.  When I opened the door to the outside I saw (with horror) that it had been sleeting while we were tucked so cozily in the studio, and before I could call to him to be careful, Ethan had slipped on the ice and fallen.  I was slow-motion walking so I didn't fall, too, but Bethy, ever the agile and graceful sprite, was sliding along in her boots and enjoying herself immensely.  Granddad came out and rescued Ethan and warned me (quite unnecessarily) to be careful.  I was wishing he would throw me a rope and just pull me across the patio to the kitchen door. . .

The studio is the Adorables' favorite place to play.  Bethy wore a beautiful organdy apron trimmed in pink, a gift from Jill, and she called it her "princess skirt" (anything smacking of the royal life is grist for her mill).  There are so many interesting things in the studio that she had no problem keeping occupied; cork stoppers, empty wooden thread spools, tons of paper and pencils or crayons, her own little desk (which had been her dad's and mine as little children), beads, buttons— and when she is really really good, she can organize the pins in one of the pincushions (too many to count).  And Ethan has cars there and a small drawing board with an racing oval attached to it that he and I designed one day.  There are small lacing boards, too, that fascinate him almost as much as the shiny beads.  There are even blocks stored on their tea cart!  When all else fails, he curls into himself and rests his head on a stuffed animal.

Today they are with us the entire day, as school is cancelled in Cherokee County due to the icy conditions, and both parents are working.  They are napping now, giving my tired voice a rest from reading book after book.  When I was a child, the rare treat of having an adult read me a book was simply heavenly, and I love having them in my lap and helping to turn pages as I pass that treat on to them.  Charles laughs at the physicality of my reading(I am drawing swoops in the air, changing voices, and generally becoming one with the story), but Bethy and Ethan are rapt.  It's a good thing I'm not reading to him— how could I put any personality into a book on the American Revolution, or Jimmy Carter's White House Diary?

Collecting

"The" season is upon us, and being a list-maker, at the top of that page of "To-Dos" is to remove the gourds from the mantel to make room for the Dickens Village.  Once the Village is in place, I start to think like a real Christmas Person.

I am concerned with all the "stuff" in our lives.  I was looking at the pine cupboard in the dining room, thinking about removing pieces of the ironstone creamer collection to make room for Christmas decorating.  We received a lovely gift from Dennis and it would be perfect in a corner of a cupboard shelf.  And the replaced creamers?  Or the chocolate pots?  Boxed away, of course, in the company of so many other boxes.

I have been a collector since I could remember.  My first love was small boxes, where I kept my childhood treasures.  Teapots followed— this was a direct influence of my grandmother, the Irish link of Mother's family.  My aunt Nancy Cile had Christmas dishes, and I wanted that special dining experience for my own family (which I managed, over a period of years of collecting).  And books?  My mother was the book worm who encouraged us from an early age to have our own personal libraries of favorites . . .

I wonder now if collecting is becoming a thing of the past, a relic from a time when homes were expected to graciously accommodate the various interests and collections of its inhabitants, when these habits could spill over without the need to be Better-Homes-and-Gardens neat at all times.  The perfectly-in-place house always makes me suspect that a very dull group of people live there, and when I am in these spic-and-span homes, I find myself looking for the collection that gives identity to an individual, some small clue to the interests of the family in the house.  Today's open floor plans don't lend themselves to corners where children's crayons and books are stored or wall space for displaying drawings, photographs or a shelf of rare antique books.  Where in the world would we put an old egg carton that cradled a little rock collection?

Which makes me think twice about the pine cupboard and the creamers.  This house is smaller than the one we left in Knoxville, less wall space, not enough book cases or closets.  There are boxes and boxes of pictures (many of my own making) that I have no place to hang, so I have not hung anything yet!  Is it possible that, at the end of things, a collector should not downsize, but UPsize?  And how do you take care of the UPsized home as you age?  A dear sister-in-law one time told me, wistfully, that her ideal home was a large concrete-floored room with a drain in the center of it . . .

What a list of questions without answers this is!  How do I solve this very knotty problem of re-forming the habits of a lifetime?  Is it even possible, at this stage, to aspire to change?  Maybe I should not go antiquing any more, not be lured by the gentle, classic shapes of creamers and white china.  *Sigh*  Glance away from beautiful tea pots.  *Double Sigh*  Never again ask to see the leather-bound books in the glass cases . . . Use the fragile chocolate pots until they are all broken and the problem of preserving them is solved by simple attrition—

Aaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!! (to quote Snoopy.)

Is there a support group "out there" for collectors wishing to go Cold Turkey?

Item two on today's list:  Bring the Dickens Village from the basement closet and become a Christmas Person.

Item three on today's list:  Think about everything else Tomorrow.  After all, tomorrow is . . . . (thank you, Scarlett).

Little Ornaments!

I was challenged by my son to find something creative to do with a bag of wine corks.  My initial thought was that they would make good trivets, laid on their side and glued to a piece of plywood, trimmed out on the sides with narrow wood.  They were not all one size, however, so they did not lie in a neat, level line that would be safe for resting hot pots or plates on the surface.  Fixing that problem meant actually dragging out a saw and miter box and doing serious work.  Serious grunge work.  I was looking for something with more gratification and less work.

Moving on, I thought about the challenge of the corks for months.  Last week I finally decided to just jump in and make a Christmas ornament with one.  It was awful.  I, however, had been challenged to make something creative, and I kept slugging away at those corks with whatever fabrics and threads I could find.  Eventually a lovely tree ornament emerged from the piles that had started forming on my worktable.  This morning I engaged C3's services to hold the cork still while I stapled a lining in place, then I began to decorate over that lining.

The result was a small box of eight wine-cork ornaments for the Adorables and their Christmas Tree.  Some of the efforts:

If I could have found my bag of foil candy wrappers, this would have been a cinch!  The ends of the corks are the hardest thing to decorate.  Sparkly paint might have worked, but cork always looks like cork, so I was trying to cover it.  Unfortunately, I could locate only one green wrapper!  Everything else was done with fabric and thread.  This is Mr. Fuzzy-Cork:

This is the Snow Queen:

These little felted guys came originally from The Container Store.  They were a little plain, so I added wings and put Ethan and Bethy's names on the tall hats . . .

And this is my interpretation of a tree that might have grown in Whoville:

Enjoy!  And Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving

Our family has two Thanksgivings.  On Thursday, Julie works at the hospital so she can be off at Christmas with the Adorables.  This gives everyone a chance to have Thanksgiving dinner with the other side of their various families.  This year my sister and her friend are coming for a non-Thanksgiving dinner of roast beef, fresh creamed corn, butternut squash soup, and asparagus.  Jordan may drop by with the children after he has visited his dad's family dinner (but I doubt they will sample the asparagus!).

Our second Thanksgiving is on Saturday, when we will all go to my sister's house and enjoy the larger family there.  There is a tractor show and auction nearby, and while the men are cavorting there, the women play catch-up at my sister's house and get the table ready for mid-day dining.  This year, Billy is not able to prepare the huge meal he normally slaves over, and we are all bringing a dish or two.  I look forward to seeing what shows up!

How nice it is to be twice reminded of the blessings of family and food.  Life is good.

Wednesday's Child Grows Older

Mondays child is fair of face,

Tuesdays child is full of grace,

Wednesdays child is full of woe,

Thursdays child has far to go,

Fridays child is loving and giving,

Saturdays child works hard for his living,

And the child that is born on the Sabbath day

Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

Yes, I did a bit of sleuthing and found out that I was born on Wednesday.  Up until now, I was never sure.  But with evidence in hand, I am blaming my Wednesday birth date for the computer failing, the heat going out in the studio, and a miscellany of little things that annoy me.

Alas!  Alack!  Woe is me!!!

Enough.

Demise of the I-mac

RIP faithful friend.  The I-mac is down.  Jordan will try to resuscitate it tomorrow evening, but Charles reported in such vivid detail the death throes that I have dim hopes of a recovery.  The new wrinkle is how to get things hooked into this little notebook, such as the camera download, so life can continue along.

I thought it would be enough to simply recover from surgery.  How silly— women are supposed to be the consummate multi-taskers, and "simple recovery" doesn't qualify in its present stand-alone form.

*Sigh*

Third Week Begins

What a day yesterday was— the jewel in the crown being a care package that arrived from Anne.  In it was a selection of dyed cottons, wool, cotton velveteen, a skein of thread, and some vintage French sequins.  They are all in my bright spring-like palette of blues, greens, and pinks.  After the past week of stitching with autumn colors, this is a breath of fresh air.

Thank you, Anne!  Even if the rain continues today, it will be brightly spring-ish here in my corner!

A Woman With A Plan

This might all be the result of something as simple as sleep, that I have slept well for three nights now, and I can think clearly—or, what passes for "clear" with me.  Or, maybe I'm not really very good at being sick and my crabby genes have gotten out of hand.  But for whatever reason, I got up this morning with a plan.  And a woman with a plan is hard to defeat.

First, in an effort to find the perfect place to sit peacefully and recover from surgery, I have sat on every chair in this house except one low one, and none are even vaguely comfortable after five minutes.  So there will be little sitting today. Yesterday my sister came and switched out the front legs of the walker for wheels, and of course you know how empowered anyone is with a set of wheels.

Re-establishing the kitchen is a slow bit of work because the glasses and dishes and cookware that were in the upper cabinets must all be pulled down and washed and the bits of sawdust cleaned from the shelves.  Charles has been kind enough to take that on.  Which leads to Part Two of the plan: Studio Time.

Of course, it is as cold as a Warlock's Wookie out there and my blood count is so low I wear two pairs of pajamas and wooly socks and a long robe and wrap in blankets and still shiver in what Charles thinks of as an overheated house . . . but once I make it across the courtyard and down the little bit of walkway, I should be at the studio door and hoping to negotiate that single step without mishap.  [Addendum to plan: wear heavy outdoor clothing, in case you need to call 911 for assistance.]

Third part is the studio itself— the creative spots, the boxes and drawers and stacks of materials on tables, the sketchbooks on their shelves . . . and those wonderful, energy-saving rolling chairs!  I will fill a tote with things to do that are not messy.  Well, maybe a little mess is allowed.  Instead of staying there and working, though, I will bring my work with me into the house.  Jill was right when she said that she can plan best when she's away from her studio.  I think there are too many interesting things in a studio that can distract from process and method . . .

Fourth part is the trip back, maybe with a tote-bearing husband in tow, and finally settling down somewhere in the house with hot tea and my playthings.  If I am absorbed in something interesting, these chairs might not be so uncomfortable.

Now, how's THAT for a plan?