Tag Archives: “woven strips”

catch up

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woven exercise from Jude Hill class made into ornament

wool, cotton, and silk fabrics for this one

cupcakes and tea pots lining the windowsill

I had fun stitching the snowflakes

this one hails from Montreal

tabs have since been finished

turtle rolled and ready to ship

niece’s choral group – Handel & Haydn Society from yesterday

I’ve been on a tear making cloth trees. Next up? A few aprons. I am looking forward to a Cookie Swap this Friday, to C. coming home next week, Christmas, a couple more festive gatherings, and, at the end of the month (oh I can’t wait) – my second cortisone shot for right thumb. Hard to do some of the basics lately. Fortunately, can still sew.

Tomorrow is a doctor run with my sister.

don’t think too much

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‘Don’t think too much’ is a pretty good philosophy.

Just finished “The Art of Fielding” where the story follows an incredibly gifted athlete who learns the hard way about how thinking too much can intercept and poison talent. Thought can interfere with one’s craft as well. Studying, plodding along, reworking, while essential components of completing work, are often not enough to resolve a project in a satisfactory way.

Which is why I pin works-in-progress to quilts that are already on the wall — so that I can look at them while doing the dishes, or talking on the phone, or while exiting the house in a mad dash. You get different ideas and solutions at those times, and they seem to come without trying.

This woven cloth is going to become an apron. Why? Because last night, after pausing in my stitching, I laid it in my lap. K. and I were watching a VERY long movie (“Henry Fool”), waiting for it to end, honestly, and I noticed that I really liked having the cloth there. In my lap. It seemed to belong there.

So, even though I never would have set out to turn this rectangle of linen into an apron HAD I THOUGHT ABOUT IT, I think it’ll be a really nice one. And a keeper.

Have you made any surprise decisions with a work-in-progress lately?

P.S. “Don’t think too much” happens to be a good mantra for the days following dropping a first born at college! In service of not thinking too much, my house is probably going to get pretty clean this week. A tiny compensation for C’s absence.

Damp Stretching

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Well, OK, I haven’t exactly been the ‘best’ student in Karen Ruane‘s class. It’s not that her stuff isn’t completely and wildly inspiring or that she doesn’t share well. Not at all.

But, I was busy with CB2 over at Spirit Cloth and I struggle to create all-white or even monochrome pieces, and I am still mildly obsessed (can one be ‘mildly obsessed’?!!) with cloth weaving,

and there were summer activities, and I got my first indigo vat going… and… and… In any case, nobody is yelling at me, and I WILL get to the Chinese knots (can’t wait) and the cut outs and the nontraditional use of hexagons… and my supply of antique lace and linens. It’ll be fun. (Did I mention that I’m looking for a job?!)

But for now, I am very happy to have just watched the lesson on damp stretching. The first photo and the one below are the Noah’s Ark piece…

Pressing a finished quilt that will hang on the wall is not as perilous as trying to apply heat to a two-sided piece, like Karen’s. And, I don’t, here, have to worry about scorching antique, white, irreplaceable linens, the way she does.

Nevertheless, pressing a finished wall quilt squashes the batting, ruins the irregularities so lovingly applied with hand-stitching, and can be a bitch to do uniformly, even if willing to make those sacrifices.

So I have pinned the unbound quilt to a piece of foam core board and spritzed it with water. It is out on our huge yew, to dry in the sun. I can see already that this will even things out nicely.

In the meantime, Son No. 1 is now home (though not at this moment) and we are, for a few short weeks, a family again! Messes converge – backpack on sewing supplies, dirty clothes everywhere, shoes piled up near the back door, wet towels accruing at a hotel-pace. Their having been gone makes me feel uncharacteristically tender toward their strewn things, and anyway, my preferred strategy, even when annoyed, is to deal with MY mess (which is generally sizable). Today my paper mess is demanding some attention. I’ve laid everything out, and left it there. Not even a handsome face makes me want to touch the stuff. But, I will. I will.

At least I removed the mirror from the dining room table – just in case it was helping the mess multiply (think: Feng Shui). Enough rambling for one morning, Bye!

hot as blazes

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Speaking of boats and water, these people have the right idea for a hot, hot day. This picture was taken from the Old North Bridge in Concord, Mass. last week, but it’s another hot, hot day today. I’m running a small fan of water from the sprinkler again today, moving it on the hour — mostly for the birds, who have been congregating wherever its moist coolness is being delivered. Usually we just let our lawn brown out late in the summer, but this year our shrubs and trees seem to be at risk and it’s only mid-July!

[Re: “this is what climate change looks like at the personal level,” check out Elizabeth Kolbert in this week’s New Yorker – Talk of the Town section].

Most of the basting on the Ark quilt is done. This little nursery print (above) was pulled out for auditioning, for obvious reasons. Maybe I will use a larger piece to cover the back when I am done. I’m not sure I want all the stitching to be there, on view, even though it will be against the wall.
The hideous 1970’s jacket that provided the bulk of the Ark is wonderful for the suggestion of wooden construction. I am weaving up some more rectangles for the sides, and decided to introduce more of that lavender.
On another front, my indigo arrived from Dharma Trading, along with some white powders. If I can stand the heat, my plan is to set up a dye station in the back yard today, under the leafy catalpa. I will string rope from deck to D.’s mini-ramp (think ‘small half pipe’) to hang fabric from, and cover a folding table with plastic so that it can stay out in all kinds of weather. A neighbor and former student (she is 16 and will be a junior this year) has agreed to be my intern for a few weeks this summer and she will be helping me – pretty great, right?!!

P.S. A garter snake traveled past me this morning while I was waiting for Jack to complete his business — remarkable enough – I haven’t seen a snake around here in a long time. But then! It slithered right between both sets of Jack’s legs, narrowly missing being plopped on. And, perhaps most remarkable of all? I don’t think Jack really noticed.

Noah’s Ark

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For my next commission — a wall quilt featuring Noah’s Ark — I purchased some stormy, raining fabric. It’s a beautiful silk chiffon, and I will double it to make the rain going in two directions, and to make the greys tend toward black.

I don’t often specifically buy fabric with a project in mind, but this time, I did.
I think it will take a needle nicely, even doubled, so I look forward to quilting this. I will use the technique taught by Jude to secure the layers first — what she calls an ‘invisible baste’. I have learned that securing the layers as an initial matter makes the difference between enjoying all subsequent hand stitching, and not. I have an old plastic place mat from when the boys were little to put under the piece while I baste — this prevents stitching the quilt to one’s skirt and helps steady the layers until they are secured with thread.
With hand-stitching in mind, I selected a high quality quilting cotton for the back. Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe it’s growing older (not wanting to stress already achy-thumbs). Maybe it’s a growing appreciation for the ENERGY of a thing. Whatever the reason, I find myself refusing to work with fabric that is icky in any way (I used to stockpile icky (free) fabric for the backs of quilts…). Almost anything that I have purchased at JoAnn’s is going into my give-away bin. The stuff they sell is crap.
What do you think of, visually, when you think of Noah’s Ark? I think we tend to see the boat up on stilts, being built, or to imagine the procession of animals, marching two-by-two into the boat. I decided to depict the middle of the storm – think: Day 20 or 22 of the forty days and nights of rain. No cute beasts marching up a plank. No hopeful dove with a sprig of greenery in her beak.
Initially, I wanted to surround the ocean/boat scene with animal prints, but no matter how I laid them out, they looked dopey. So I found a woven rectangle with watery colors, split it up and laid it out, and then wove another section to fill in the remaining areas. I am stitching this newly woven section this afternoon, and will cut it up later.
I like how the woven sections add depth and complexity – very comparable to how certain spices or oils create depth of flavor in a stew. These sections take a considerable amount of time, but they have a defined beginning, middle, and end, which keeps them from becoming oppressive. And since I am planning this quilt out, no woven section will be laid on top of a section that is already three or four layers thick. Again, my goal is for the hand stitching to be easeful.
I will lay some of the sheer silk chiffon on the ocean fabrics, to create a feeling of light or foam.

My hope is to ‘whip this up’ in such a way that I feel good about what I can charge for it. Price can never be the sole consideration, mind you, but it would be nice (for a change) if my aim to pursue an efficient design and construction actually panned out.

Pattern and Outrage : Dee Mallon

cloth, justice, writing, and food