Category Archives: working with WHITE

Simple pleasure / simple need

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coffee steaming by dee at clothcompany

Today I offer a quote by Wendell Berry from his 1987 book, “Home Economics” —

“Once we grant the possibility of a proper human scale, we see that we have made a radical change of assumptions and values. We realize that we are less interested in technological ‘breakthroughs’ than in technological elegance. Of a new tool or method we will no longer ask: Is it fast? Is it powerful? … We will ask instead: Can we (and our children) afford it? Is it fitting to our real needs? Is it becoming to us?”

Even though in this post-internet age, speed and innovation seem to matter to us more than ever, these strike me as worthwhile questions.

coffee pot cloth backlit

And yes, I am still working with white, though this morning I pressed a mound of brilliant green and indigo blue squares. I nearly swooned after so much tan, beige, linen, oyster and ecru.

progress in white

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Slowly getting the hang of our updates. There definitely are improvements in the offing.  For now, I am just moments shy of a good, long walk in the spring air, then it will be time to walk to the periodontist for the insertion of an implant (yes, sympathy is welcome!)

In other words, this post will be quick. A report in pictures. WH = “White House”, the very original name for this piece.

WH - scraps laid out

WH – scraps laid out

WH-full-orig

WH – seamed, with some embroidery

WH-right-corner-orig

WH – pre-whitening close up

WH-rt-stitched

WH – same area, both whitened and layered (the silk had color and pattern)

WH-upLT-pinned

WH – sheers pinned over whitening white running stitch (grey splotchy roof does not stay)

WH-upRT-pinned

WH – sheers pinned on the other side of the roof

WH-top-stitched

WH – more whitening with the addition of white running stitches (grey roof is gone)

sheering-sky-4

WH – celebrating the shredding orange silk by tacking it down; one sheer had embroidered loops on it, seen here

v-fading

WH – getting there

WH - hanging

WH – hanging

chipped white; frayed ecru

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hemI had to laugh at myself yesterday.  For a few days, I have been traveling up and down our staircase with a yogurt-container filled with Oyster Bisque paint, happily covering over chipped paint, smears, and — horror of horrors – even dirt that could have been removed with a little elbow grease.

Then it hit me.  I’m whitening the stairs.

After months, and more months, of wanting to do this, planning to do this, hoping to do this, and NOT doing this, the exploration of white* just let it happen.  One stair at a time.

As for the shrunken and distressed muslin curtains, which I made when we first moved in here, I no longer feel compelled to replace them (with curtains made with PRE-WASHED fabric). I am loving that gap. Look how it allows the light to glow through! I am loving the darkened rim of the hem. And I am especially loving the holes where daily life and sun have worn the fabric through.

I am not even trying to understand why I love the worn curtains and am not loving the chipped off paint on treads and balusters. I don’t have to be consistent in these matters, do I?

*in the ‘What-If’ online class over at Spirit Cloth

P.S. This is my 500th post.  Am I supposed to celebrate?!  500th post, and second EVER, from my laptop.