Moving back to Blogger

Recently, friends and family have begun asking me about the adverts on my WordPress blog, and I was surprised to hear that the “occasional” adverts are not at all occasional.  They are always, and distracting.

It seems that the on-line world is becoming less user-friendly, with everyone using everyone else to sell advertising space, or driving people to a fee-based use of services.  The most notorious example is Facebook, of course.

In the meantime, Blogger has expanded its user space, and I can continue there, advert free.  If you’d like to follow me there, the link is listed below.  I am still not a very regular blogger because I keep experimenting and making notes and trying different things rather than sitting down and writing about it all, but despite the “shiny object” distraction of connecting the dots, I’d be glad to have you drop in when you have a moment.

https://www.blogger.com/

Mystery of the Cloth #1

Layers of meaning, giblets felted into a layer of roving and scrim and almost obscured, then stitching over and beside those marks, more felting, more stitching– the cloth becomes a palimpsest of present and former marks.

 

Winter Tree

We recently had a very rough winter here.  There are some who live further north who would shake their head and say, “If you think YOU had a rough winter . . .”  But, it’s all relative.  I sat stitching this as the brown and grey of winter gradually gave way to tints of white from the the blast of snow and ice.  The wind rattling up the hill made me reach for another lap rug.

The fabric ground is a simple sandwich of scrim and wool, over which I have used only the humble straight stitch.  Threads were cottons, mostly flosses, but for the tree I used a three-strand, slightly nubby silk from my friend, Jill, and together the silk and I followed the tree’s plight through the wind and weather.  It made a gentle fabric with a draping hand.

The finished size is about 7 1/2 x 11 inches.

Conversation by Brook

My favorite ground for stitching is made of layers of soft fabric.  To this end I save scraps of every fabric that comes into the studio, no matter the color or fiber content.  The pieces can be painted or tinted, frayed or re-woven, and silk or organza act as slight masking agents to push too-forward colors back a notch.  I don’t remember ever meeting a natural-fiber fabric I couldn’t warm up to.

So when I began building the layers of fabric that eventually became this piece, I was looking for texture and shape more than color.  I used fabric paints and dyes to get the colors I needed.  After hand basting the small pieces and machine stitching the edges, the surface stitching was done in silks of floss and perle.

The conversation is an interrupted one, just as the work was not accomplished in a straight line.  Here, Art Imitates Life.

 

Red Trees

 

At the outset I must confess:  I do not like orange.

This landscape is built on a piece of nuno felt that has been stitched, unstitched, had portions of needle felted velvet unceremoniously ripped away, cut into two pieces and re-felted . . . All in an effort to make friends with the color orange. The green was a diversion, a way of using, by way of yellow, the complimentary blue of orange and the green of red to soften and tame the orange, with stitches in soft, chubby matte cottons and variegated silk flosses.  The two green trees stand by in wonder, gossiping about the entire process. They refuse to acknowledge their own painted silk cocoon origins.

To be further confessional:  Orange and I may no longer be enemies, but we are not exactly sitting down to tea and biscuits together.  Yet.

The final size is approximately 7” x 8”, and the framing is a bit of a puzzle.  I will keep this pinned to a board in the studio until lightning strikes with a grand idea.  Or, maybe I’ll ask Jordan to choose the framing for me!

 

Blue Meadow

 

The cottage commands a sweeping view of hand-tinted vintage lace, bead and button flowers, and a curious blue and yellow-green river flowing beneath all. A blue orchard bearing vintage silver Japanese seed beads shares the horizon with the red-roof cottage I have always imagined to be the home of my Irish great-grandfather. This little story and its bright colors are set in a 6 1/2” rusticated wooden tray.  I don’t know how I could manage the stresses of life without my drawers of vintage laces and trims, so using them in this little piece was therapeutic.

March 28 2014

I can either follow my creative interests in a happy, messy sort of way, or I can rein myself in and write about it.  I don’t seem to do both very well or even happily.  My son FB’d today that I should keep my blog up to date.  O.K., Jordan, this start is for you!

Love, Mom

P.S. Happy Birthday!

Back Again

What a spring and summer I’ve had. Everything came to a halt with hip replacement surgery, rehab, and a desperate effort to avoid knee replacement. The walking progression has been from walker to crow-foot cane to normal-everyday cane, and an occasional short distance walk without the cane,something I rue almost immediately.

However, the distance to the studio, which is my measure of success, is down from thirty-two steps to twenty-eight, on a good day. Once there, I can work a bit.

While not exactly back in the saddle, I am getting there. I’ve examined my body to see how many more joint replacement possibilities exist. Too many, by last count!

“People who need people. . .”

The Studio has been turned around, and I love the new, less segmented look to my space. Of course, I still reach for something that is in a new place, but eventually I should be reaching in the proper direction and finding the thread or fabric I need.

Lately (since November, actually) I have been umbilically tied to my sketchbook.  I feel as though so many ideas, both good and bad, simply disappear if I don’t scribble a little jotting about them, so I’ve started making notes, a quick sketch, a title of a book to check out— anything that will keep that idea from zipping over the hill and into the black hole where uncharted waters are thick with misplaced thoughts.  Some are good.  Some not so good.  But the simple act of shaping the letters on a page makes remembering easier, a bit like writing , “I will be a good girl and mind my mother” a hundred times . . .

I digress.

In all the moving things about, I have misplaced a sampler I need for a point of reference. This has brought everything to a halt as I start my search.  While I normally enjoy the solitude of the studio, I really would like to have “people.”  You know the way the business world says, “I’ll have my people call your people and pencil in lunch on Wednesday.”  I wish I could say to my “people,” “I need the Straight Stitch sampler worked in reds and hot pinks on white linen,” then go make a cup of tea while these imaginary “people” seek and find.  Or, a well-trained hound might do, if pooch only had opposable thumbs and wouldn’t slobber on the linen when he picked it up . . .

I really need another cup of tea, don’t I?

Stay warm today.  Good Stitching.

Uber Texture

Here is my sampler of Extreme Texture in Buttonhole Stitch.

There is a marvelous collection of non-traditional thread in my studio.  Much from weaving, crochet, and some just because they are wonderful to touch.   I set out to see what could be stitched with reasonable ease, and I found that almost anything can be used for high-textural interest.  The “ease” part is colored by how the world is treating me on the day of stitching.

I gathered an assortment of these non-traditional beauties and sampled them for textural possibilities.  The fibers included nettle yarn, linen, hand-spun silk (really rough and slubbed), reclaimed sari silk ribbon and sari silk yarn, hemp, banana fiber, some Habu chenille and a stiff, thin silk, silk paper thread, raw silk, finely drawn and flattened silk,  cottons fat and skinny . . .  . . . the list is a long and fun one.

I chose to use Buttonhole Stitch because it is an open loop that does not make multiple passes through a single hole in the fabric the way a traditional Chain Stitch does, and it can be enlarged or shrunk down, overlapped or stitched in a single line.  In all these variations, it retains its character.  Most importantly, it accommodates a large range of fibers.

I found a number of the yarns at Darn Good Yarn, a shop that is pure eye candy for unusual yarns.  Others I have picked up as Charles and I travelled, some are from like-minded friends.  In a small moleskin sketchbook I placed samples of the fibers and made notes on the stitching.  Between the sampler and the notebook I have as complete a reference as I could make from the stitching, and there is a small amount of space left at the bottom of the fabric so I can continue to scan the horizon for more candidate threads.

What fun this was!

Enter 2013

First of all, I must learn to use the “3” key when I type the date.  Next, I must get my studio in order so I can enjoy the space.  In May, I will have friends visiting, and if I start working now, this very instant, I have a chance of Studio 508 being an orderly place to visit.

The Adorables share the space.  Near the door, beside the drafting table, Bethy uses the small desk my son used as a child, which was the desk I and my sisters used when we were little girls.  She is so tall that, at six, she has to scrunch up to get her legs under it, so I am thinking about a change in the studio to accommodate this legginess.  Ethan, however, is not one to sit at a desk.  The floor is his realm, and I try to keep a space large enough for him to pull out long sheets of paper and devise race courses for his vehicles.  And for me?  Tables and bookcases and a wonderful drafting table by the window.

My only resolution for 2013 is to get in touch with my Inner Bohemian.  The first step in this project of discovery was a lovely session of curtain-making for Studio 508.  The five tall windows at front have half-curtains to keep out the winter sun, which can be fierce, as the orientation is to the south.  This, despite the trees.  Now, every window is covered differently.  I could not be happier!  I’ve re-claimed some vintage linens for three hangings, used some rather funky fabric for the others.  The two small windows overlooking the garden to the side are also covered now (the scrim I originally used was no match for the outpouring of western sunlight), though the door is still bare.  As it is metal, I need to use a magnetized rod, or set of rods.  This problem-solving is for another time.

I am in the process of completely re-arranging the tables, so my embroidery table will be on the opposite side of the room this year.  The occasional shake-up is good for the soul— it makes me see things differently, respond to the change in light, make less automatic motions and more deliberate choices.

The distance between the kitchen door and the studio is a (grey) twenty-six steps, now, but in a few months it will be a journey of thirty, forty, maybe more steps, because there will be so much to examine with the coming bulbs and perennials (and sun).  The walk between the two buildings was a dense pink line of begonias last year, but I am going to think seriously about a permanent planting this year, something so that my Head Gardener does not have to get down and dig anew for me every spring.  The constant recreating the wheel becomes more difficult as we age.

So many plans come to mind in those twenty six steps each day!

But for now, I am in grubbies and headed out to re-organize and re-shape the working spaces in my home away from home.  This will take a long, interesting time because I see something and suddenly sit down and read or add stitches or look for that small piece of fabric I remember putting somewhere last month.  And a package arrived yesterday from Fiber On A Whim yesterday that I will have to play with just a little little bit before I begin to move the thread boxes.  Charles looks at me sometimes and wonders why there is always a project brewing, but I believe it is the projects that keep me moving and glad to wake up each morning.

Good Stitching, friends!

Drawing with thread in a loose, painterly way

 

This small sample, only about 4 1/2″ square, is the result of wondering what threads would be best for drawing and sketching with a needle.  I wanted to be able to make quick, sometimes unruly lines rather than the smooth ones that are characteristic of most embroidery— a sort of drawing with pencil rather than painting with acrylics or oils.

I discovered that linen makes the best line drawings.  It stands away from the fabric, is a little stiff and sometimes unmanageable, but always interesting.  It looks a lot like the rough sketches I sometimes make when doodling or thinking quickly with pen and paper.  In the upper left corner is a little snippet of sari silk yarn, which reminds me not to take myself too seriously when I am “what-if-ing.”

Valley Farm

A visit to the farm in the valley.  A detail of one corner.  From a memory of childhood, a visit to the farm of my mother’s sister.  The terraced fields seemed so tall to little legs, but the trip to pick fruit was worth the hike.

A Little Night Music

It is the dark time; day or night, it is all the same to the linen and floss.

WordPress and Blogger

When my space for photos on my blogspot blog “filled up,” I began the search for a new blogging home, a place to write about my stitching world.  Well, about the stitching world with all the et ceteras that always follow me to the studio.

The original blog can be found here:   http://studio508.blogspot.com/.

I am moving here slowly.  Life is happening, and I am chasing it before it goes too far down the road and beyond me.

Thanks for following!

Nancy