Moving a bit, please follow along

As you probably know, if you read both my current blogs, https://fieldfen.blogspot.com and this one you're reading now, I run two simultaneous blogs, and you can follow either or both as the mood takes you.  However, I know I have readers in here who are not aware of the other, Field and Fen, blog, and I would like you to note the blog address above, because I'm planning to collapse both blogs into one.

I've been thinking about this for a while, since my art life has changed a lot.  I have moved on from exhibiting, after the pandemic pretty much blew away all the opportunities I used to have, and my work shows best in person, not in online images for exhibit purposes.  I left on a high note, with a purchase award to a public collection, so that's nice to think about.

However, it's probably better if I combine both blogs.  I will leave this one open, so anyone can read, scroll back, comments, etc., as usual, but all my posts will be seen in Field and Fen.  There will be a lot of art postings, as there have been in here, that's not changing, but, all musings will be in one place.  You won't miss anything if you start reading Field and Fen. But you'l see a lot of other stuff in addition to art.

My third blog, https://princetonega.blogspot.com continues to be open, though it is several years since I posted there, after I finished my officer status with the Guild.

The thing is that Blogger doesn't let me put blogs in alphabetical order, so when people click on my name elsewhere and are brought to my blog area, they get Art the Beautiful Metaphor,and probably assume the others are closed.  Often that's true with bloggers who go on to make a new blog in a new vein.

So that's where we are, and I fervently hope I don't lose any of you who read exclusively in here.  There will be plenty to keep up with at https://fieldfen.blogspot.com starting right now!  At least as soon as I get over there and post the updates on the spun, plied, knitted and woven jacket, which is currently a vest.

And thank you all very much for your support and interest in here.  Please follow across...

Color, clothes, and other casual musings

I've been thinking about color, and clothes.  And colors I like together and some I really really don't.  Not in nature, since all the colors work, nor in art, since color carries meaning and structure.  In clothes.

Yesterday I was wearing a lovely bright green knitted jacket, a sort of mixed green yarn, but very cheerful, with a white turtleneck (of course, it's winter).  And I got thinking about what I like to wear and see together in clothes.

I love yellow and white outfits.  I know some people say ew, fried eggs, but anyway.  And I can't bear blue and yellow together, sets my teeth on edge.  And purple makes bile come up in my throat.  In fact just now as I was thinking about a purple jacket I have, it was cashmere, it was cheap, so I have it, I literally started to cough because bile came up in my throat.  This is all about synaesthesia, I guess.

I love various shades of pink, don't like red at all.  And I really really don't like pink and purple together.  I love blue and tan, and white and tan.  And black and tan with white.

And I don't at all like blue and red together.  They set up an optical dazzle I find upsetting. And red white and blue, oh well, it's important to allow for it sometimes, but it's not my favorite combo.

Neon colors are not for me at all, in anything, even in "nature" where it's hybridized flowers created to have dazzling colors.  Noooooo, thank you.  Especially not when it's zinnias and marigolds.

Some dark yellows give me a bitter taste, but the buttery ones taste sweet.  Literally.

The funny part about colors I don't like is that people have more than a few times noticed an absence of say, red or purple, in my wardrobe and thought, oh, a good chance for a present.  And given me red jackets, and purple scarves and other such things.  Not realizing there's a reason I don't have them!  but it's kind, and thoughtful.  I did have a red skirt suit, very posh, at one office period of my life, which was chosen to make sure I kept the attention of the meetings I was at.  It wasn't because I liked it much.  But it definitely served its purpose.

And moving briefly to art, here's a large piece I created many years ago, painted on silk. 

 

 To me it's hot and anxious and a bit disturbing, but it was something I needed to say at the time.  To my amazement when it was exhibited, more than one person said, oh, how calm and peaceful that is.  I'd like to sink into that scene.  Huh? 

I think they were reading the composition, long horizontal lines, which do denote a peaceful atmosphere, and I was reading the colors, so there you are.  You learn stuff all the time.

Jacket components, some of them

 This is where we are. Jacket bits. Top left, woven lapel. Not yet steamed. Top right, loom warped up ready to weave second lapel. Bottom left and right, jacket lower fronts.

You see on the left there the section that juts out? That will go under the arm to meet the back. 

But first I need to weave the second lapel. I'm slowed down a bit by needing to rest between spinning. So supplying the yarn to weave is slow. 

Weaving is easier, once I get the yarn spun, because I can do it with either hand, so it's not a constant demand on one arm or the other. Then I'll attach the lapels to the lower section on each side.

We'll get there! Watch this space.

Woven yoke progress

Still working on one side of the yoke, as you see.  The stripes are working nicely.  The reason you haven't seen spinning and plying posts in here, and not much weaving, either, is that I have a little shoulder problem which has knocked me out of spinning.  It gets okay, I start to spin, and it's gone off again.  I will get there eventually.  And this is as far as the first yoke has got, largely because I'm running out of yarn to weave.  Weaving takes quite a bit of yarn, especially when you're making it to suit.

But we'll get there.  Meanwhile, I have a cunning plan.  I'll get both yokes finished and attached, then join the side seams, and I will then have a vest.  I've already stitched the two backs together, and they work nicely.  So I can wear it as a vest while I get on with spinning enough to make the sleeves.  No need for it all to just lie around in heaps until every last little bit is done.

And it may be necessary to crochet some joining on bits to make sure the yoke and the shoulder fit together well. We'll see once there's enough put together.  Meanwhile, the back is looking good.

At this rate, this jacket will have incorporated almost all the fiber arts I know.  Up to now: spinning, plying, knitting, weaving, sewing.

Simple mobiles for everyone

This is a good time, ahead of Valentine's Day, which I hold this truth to be self evident, that it's a day for friendship, to hell with the Hallmark card assumptions about romantic relationships, you can enjoy it and so can your friends, all of them, single and otherwise.

And one thing you can make is your own decorations, at home, using what's there.

Sooooo, here's a nice thing to make, easy, and kids like doing this too, always a good point for grandparents wanting to occupy the little guys.  These are all mobiles which hang in a two dimensional plane.  Meaning, no balancing required as for "real" three dimensional ones which require a lot of skill and time to get the balance right.

 

 

They're all in my downstairs bathroom, hence the masses of other small artworks all round, mostly by me, some by artist friends who wanted to get in on the act.

The mobiles are simple: chopsticks or other long thin wood sticks, string, white glue, paper of any kind.  You cut shapes, two of each shape, however you like, and however you want to decorate them, or cut from origami paper or anything that can be glued easily.  

Then you create a hanging loop for the main stick, and tie strings of different lengths to hang down pleasingly in a design.  Then glue so that the string is captured within the two sides of each paper shape.  That's it.  And very pleasing they can be.  You can hang on a wall or suspend from a ceiling or shelf or anything you like, really.

And they are a bit addictive, I must admit.  I gave away some, at that time.  As you see, I used origami cranes, birds cut from a picture book, bits of my own prints leftover,  Arp- like shapes.  Whatever seemed like fun at the time.  Busted up unreadable old picture books can yield nice trees, houses, flowers, that sort of thing. And wrapping paper likewise. Colored newspaper sections about fruit and veggies. Watercolors that didn't make it.  Just look around.

And enjoy a bit of escapist fun.

Woven yoke under way

 

Here's the start of the yoke, and you can see what I meant about vertical stripes. The cardboard loom is a simple idea, and works fine. 

This is either the right or left front yoke, depending on how well it works when it's off the loom and in place. It's two sided, so it's about colors working together rather than the finish. There won't be a "wrong" side.

And here's the cotton yarn I used to warp the loom

It's not supposed to show through the weft, but it will blend in pretty well if any shows. With an irregular yarn like a homespun, you allow for it.

Very glad I settled on four wpi. It's working fine.

Meanwhile, busy spinning the yarn for the weft. 

Sharing a textile artist I hadn't known before, Amy Meissner

Just a quickie here to let you know of a textile artist you may know, but I didn't: Amy Meissner, a worker in textiles who emphasizes upcycling and honoring women's stitching work, into wallhanging quilts with all kinds of interest and ideas in them.  Did you know there was a repair culture? I didn't until I noticed her credentials.

Anyway, K. sent me the link, she never fails to come through with interesting ideas for me, and here it is:

Amy Meissner textile artist 

Weaving the yokes

So here are the two fronts, at least the bottom part, finished, needing to be steamed and blocked, which is why they look a bit irregular. They'll match once steamed. One needs ends woven in, too.  But after that, and after I join together the two backispieces, I will be finishing the front yokes.

By weaving a piece of weft faced fabric, i.e. tapestry, to create the shape. I had thought of knitting it, but then couldn't be bothered with the calculations needed to get the decreases right, twice, once left, once right.  So I thought, since I've been wanting to make a cardboard loom to shape for ages, here's the chance.

It did involve a bit of counting and figuring, but here's the basic loom shape, in matboard, a piece of which I found left from an old artwork, it pays to save stuff.

On the right, reading right to left,  you see the diagram I'm working from, which I made along the lines of a jacket that I have that I like the fit of, then the little diagram of the yoke itself, and the actual cut out yoke shaped loom.

 And the reason I marked it right and left is not that it matters to the loom, but that it matters to me to remember to have the right sides opposite each other.  Usually my finishing is good enough that both sides work fine, but you never know. I don't want to have two lefts or two rights.

I'm going to warp it with cotton twine I've used before with my rigid  heddle loom, and will need to notch it for the warp threads at regular intervals with the xacto knife you saw up there with the diagrams.  

I had thought of 8 wpi, warp threads per inch, marked as you see for study, which would work for the warp, but then decided my yarn is bulky enough that it might work better with 4 wpi, half the number of warp threads, so that the spun yarn doesn't bind up and stick out and generally not want to weave very well. And since tapestry involves completely covering the warp threads, hence the term weft faced, meaning everything you see is weft, it's better if the wpi helps you do that.  I can always change this if it starts not working.

I've cut the loom exactly to size and shape, and will have a good bit of weaving-in of warp ends to do once this is complete, but that's fine.  It's complicated enough figuring out how to weave it, without getting into four-selvedge calculations as well.  And getting it to fit on the lower sections happily.

I'll be weaving up and down the actual garment direction, which will be interesting, stripes going in a different direction from the diagonals of the rest of it. Also a traditional way of weaving tapestry, where you want sharp edges to your stripes.

I realize that this sounds a bit less comprehensible than certain politicians at the moment, but just let it flow over you. All will be well. You can enjoy the spectator sport of watching me wrestling with problems of my own making, so many of them are, after all.

But before any of this can happen, I have to spin the yarn!  Chop wood, carry water.

Storm prep. Spinning to supply the yarn

 

Left to right, the two back pieces, two pockets, front piece complete except for top shaping, next frontispiece in progress.

This has almost exhausted my supply of yarn.  In fact the last two stripes on the rightmost piece I spun yesterday and immediately knitted up.  So I need to spin seriously. This is good because we are about to have a nor'easter and snow, up to 18" of same and high winds.  This means I'll be home.  I did get my new supply of roving, so all's well there.  And there's food in the house.

Friday was an online knitting group meeting, which was very nice, except for one member whom I've met a number of times in person back in the days when our groups met that way.  She suddenly asked if I would accept spinning commissions!  As if.  I politely said, no, I really don't, which is britspeak for "in your dreams, Bunty!"  and she persisted, well, then will you teach me to spin?  And I continued with noooooo, wondering where she was brought up.  And how much she imagined it would cost to pay a person to spindle spin enough for a garment, she clearly not grasping the number of hours it entails.

But I did direct her to a couple of wonderful teachers on YouTube, Abby Franquemont and Spinning Sarah.  She made no notes about it.  But said maybe she could get her friend who spins to come and do a spinning retreat with her.  To which I said, that sounds lovely, feeling very sorry for the friend who is about to be imposed on. And seeing that here again is a person who thinks it's too hard to actually learn stuff, would rather someone inserted it into her abilities.

Why was this so ill-timed, you ask, puzzled.  Well, for one thing, a knitting group where people come to work and chat, is not a business opportunity.  For another, it's rude to even ask about commissions in that context, much less about teaching. That's not why I'm there.  And considering my age, even less appropriate, given that I am at the stage in life where my remaining energy and creative juices are better used in my own work. 

I've never accepted commissions. Not that kind of artist.  I used to explain that I didn't get into art in order to take orders from other people.  I work on what I need to until I don't need to any more, then I move to the next art form I need to work in.  It's inner directed, about making a life not a living.  No disrespect, in fact, great respect, to people who do make a living by making, but it's not my path. And a lot of people have bought my work, nice, but not essential.

I've always supported my art with a day job. I like to remind people that Borodin had a fulltime job in a chemistry lab.  Philip Glass was still installing appliances well after he was famous for his compositions. Leonard and Virginia Woolf had to run the Hogarth Press to support themselves. I'm not putting myself in their class, but in their frame of mind. 

I don't expect someone who only knows me slightly to grasp all this, but having been gently dissuaded and still persisting, that's a bit over and above.  So after I simmered down a bit, I decided it was a Father, forgive them, kind of moment. 

Pro tip: please don't assume other people are there to serve you, when they're in a group that's strictly about playing.  End of pro tip.

Back to spinning and getting this lovely jacket going again. It amuses me that, having spent years in my first serious art pursuits working in grayscale, largely black on white or white on black monotypes, which constituted a couple of my first exhibits, and all of my early invitations to gallery shows, with little interest in color, I'm in a different mode now.  I used to be much more interested in shapes and relationships, accepting that color has meaning but not wanting to pursue it. Now it appears to have invaded my life, too funny.  Ignore us, would you?  Take that, missy!

Spinning update

 I need more yarn, so spinning has been happening.

You'll notice the high end bobbins I use.

Next comes plying, and here are the high end tools for that process.

The idea is that one bobbin goes in each box, the end of the yarn fed out and attached to the plying spindle. 

This keeps the bobbins from dancing all over the room, and separates the two yarns until they're plied, otherwise they would get into all kinds of tangles.

There are posh versions of all this, but these work a treat.

More wonders of Peru, and Goats Magosh rules!

Another wonderful presentation by the Fowler Institute of UCLA.  About four selvedge weaving, which if you have followed this blog a while, you'll know I experimented with very happily a while back.  Won an award for a piece, too, always nice to note. 

What I didn't know was the Peruvian Indian weavers were doing this wayyyyy back in about 600 AD.  I learned the method from watching Sarah Swett, inspired artist, cartoonist, spinner, weaver and Nice Person.

Here's a simple example of it, done by a modern weaver just to show the technique

Four selvedges means all four edges finished, no cutting off the loom.

Two selvedges is what we are used to seeing in other cultures, where lengths of fabric are woven, then cut to purpose.  The Peruvian weaving was done to purpose, already the correct size and shape for the garment when it came off the loom.

Here are some beautiful examples of four selvedge netting, amazing works.This presentation will be available for you to watch on the Fowler Institute website, as soon as they load it, and I really recommend you take a look, if you are interested in the history and art of textiles.  It's only about half an hour long.

And near the beginning they reference Ed Franquemont.  I promptly asked if he was connected with Abby Franquemont, whose book Respect the Spindle,

I've talked about in here, just a brilliant account of spindle spinning and its history.  Turns out he was an anthropologist and was her dad!

My Covid brain, which already let me down in the context of pumpkin bread, for which see https://fieldfen.blogspot.com, let me down here again.  

I completely forgot that the Fowler Institute is based at UCLA, and when they said noon, I was all ready, ate lunch early so as not to have to wrangle food and laptop.  Checked in, and it said wait till they start, 3 p.m. est....aaaaahh. Noon pacific time.  Fine. Came back then, and it was wonderful.

Then in today's mail, reinforcements arrived on the roving front, to continue my work on the jacket.  Look at this array of color and texture!  all this came out of three little lunchbags, I think they must have a packing machine..such pleasure in my future.  Goats Magosh comes through for me again.

Happy spinner here!

Color and relationships

 One of the great side effects of a long project involving fiber in various different stages of its existence is the consideration of color and its relation to other colors.  This combed top is in a color I truly don't like at all.  It's flattered by the camera, but in real life it's a lot deader and gloomier than here.

However, as you know, color is not an absolute.  It creates quite different perception in the viewer according to what's next to it.  There's a music in colors, where they change one another.  That's why that paint sample in the store looks really different on your own wall at home, in relation to your other colors and furniture.

If you ever get the chance to see this book, here's a pic of the front cover of a cheap paperback version of Josef Albers classic Interaction of Color, you'll really get a lot out of it.  If you're a stitcher or a knitter or a spinner or a weaver or a painter, you'll get such depth of knowledge from studying it even briefly.  You might be able to find it cheaply second hand.

His point is that colors appear to change depending on their nearest neighbors.  See those two little squares, how different they look?  next to different colors. They're exactly the same colors if you observe them by coordinates, hue, luminosity, and so on, never mind the technicalities. But you see how they change to the eye? Even in this inaccurate medium with a mediocre camera and a mediocre paperback image, you can clearly see it.

You can take advantage of this fact by putting a color you don't like along with a different one and observing the resulting effect.  Here I plied the color I don't like with a warm dark reddish brown yarn single, and it made a lovely warm inviting tweedy effect, just by twining alongside a different color.

 

Transformed.  And ready to work nicely with other colors as we proceed.  Here's the left front up to now, and the two woven pockets ready to take their places eventually, wherever they work best.  See how that new yarnball is warming up the whole area around it?

 

One of the best art teachers I ever had used to set the task of choosing a color you don't like then incorporating it into a painting in such a way that you could enjoy seeing it.

Sometimes it's not about what the artist wants.  It's about what the artwork wants.  That's always a surprising statement when you make it to a young artist, as I have, when he said well I would always avoid colors I don't like anyway.  He agreed to think about it, anyway, after he got over his surprise at learning that the artist is only the conduit, not the boss, of the art!

And in winter we all experience the sight of snowflakes looking dark grey as they fall down against the sky, then suddenly white when they pass the dark colors of the buildings on the way to the ground.  Same phenomenon at work.

All that said, I expect you realize at this point just how much thinking and considering is going into this jacket I'm making.  Nothing is random, or guesswork.  Many, many decision points, all very satisfying and joyful. No hurry. What the work needs, it will get.

 

This is one reason we should fight to keep art in our schools as a regular offering.  It's about learning to see and decide and weigh options, and go for it. Always a good set of skills for anyone, at any age!  Now I'll get off my hobbyhorse and go back to knitting..

 

Jacket left front in progress

Here we are with the jacket, the left front. Or maybe the right, I'll decide soon before I start shaping.

The first section is my last couple of days of spinning and plying. It takes about four times as long to spin as to knit. 

The first section is better spun than the next, which is pretty chunky. Moving along.

The back progresses

Here's the back, two pieces, steamed, not yet joined together, until I'm sure I like the way they are together.  There are other options, but for now I'm liking this one.

 

And, since my stock of roving is running lower now, I've ordered three more little bags of it.  I get this direct from Goats Magosh Etsy shop, and it's fun to look there and see the familiar colors and kinds displayed.  I'm getting the ends of them, the only way this project will be in my budget.  And it's even more fun to have all the different types of roving to work on.

It occurs to me now that I can identify them from the Etsy shop, since they're labeled by type and name there. Must do that. 

And I have to get spinning now, since I've knitted up most of the yarn I've made up to now.  I did say this was a big project, didn't?

Pre ceramic textiles of Peru, 7000 BC and later

I just watched a wonderful Zoom presentation of the Hajji Baba Club, about early textiles using indigo, in ancient Peru.

I wondered what ceramics had to do with textiles, and eventually learned that, because there were no ceramics at that period, dyeing with ochers and indigo was most common, since without solid containers which could stand up to heat, to use as vats, it was not possible to do the natural dyeing which came in after the ceramic container was introduced.  Interestingly, it would have been much easier than indigo dyeing, which needed several processes, and for which the chemistry is more complex.

This is one plant source of indigo, which also happens to be an edible potato plant, an all purpose item of vegetation. I recognize the blossom shape from my own potato growing experiments in containers.

Because indigo dyed yarn or fabric changes color after it's lifted from the dye, seemingly magical as the colors change and end up blue, it was considered sacred, and was restricted in its use.

These experiments in using ocher dye were done by the presenter, and are remarkably similar to my own kitchen dyeing, except that I use natural plant material and flowers. He used potash as a mordant, as I do nowadays.

They also used milkweed bast for fiber production, and anyone who has watched Sarah Swett's adventures in milkweed where she's done exactly that, then spun and wove it, will be as riveted as I was by this historical confirmation.

  

The fragments of  textiles have been recovered from a sacred site, about which I have some feelings, even if history is being served, and involved burials, also possible propitiatory offerings. There were some objects, probably funerary, which involved wrappings, and look startlingly like modern avant garde fiber craft work.

The twining and weaving in general was highly skilled, and mindblowingly complex, multiple warps, using a frame loom, handbuilt, the toba loom.  I'm looking to see if it's a backstrap affair.  I asked questions about this, and about what we know of the spinners, but lost my signal before they were into the q and a, so I'll have to pursue that myself. 

They were recording the presentation, which is this one, above,  Dr, Jeffrey C. Splitstoser, so it may be possible to find it again.  I think I'll give it a try.  They had viewers from all over the world, every continent, very exciting stuff.

If you are interested in history of textiles, natural dyeing, weaving, spinning (the presenter knew all about z and s spinning and pointed it out in the twine they used) you will really like this.  If I can find a link, I'll let you know about it.

I missed some bits, because friend next door was coming and going, doing work on my tire pressures and is also trying to improve his wifi signal which he shares with me, so there were interruptions which I had to attend to, he's doing me favors!  So maybe I can fill in the missing bits if I can find the recording on line and if it's available.

Second half of the back in progress

 And now you can see better what I'm doing.  This is the second part of the back.  Yet to come are two fronts and two sleeves and a load of spinning and plying before I can get to knitting

 

 Since I'm still waiting on news of the car, I've been busy at home trying not to think about it. A bit more knitting today. Here's how the two sides will make chevrons. I think I like the upward points rather than the other way up, more cheerful.  The way they seem to link evenly is a bonus, not planned, but a function of the size of yarn ball I've been making.

Anniversary of the Great Winnowing, suggestions for dog hair

 This is the full extent of my art materials now, since the Great Winnowing of January 2020, those innocent days before lockdown.

And here's the now empty and echoing art studio on the top floor.

I have not missed a single item from the Winnowing, which benefited a lot of artists and students and the recycle, and some neighbors.  Only one tiny bag needed to be tossed in the garbage.

And. different subject,  here's the pin I made last Spring from cashmere goat fiber given by Quinn.  I ended up spinning, crocheting and felting to make this nest with eggs.  At the time I asked for and got a lot of interesting ideas from blogistas, which went into my finally deciding to make this.

Today I was offered a bag of hair from a beloved Belgian Malinois who died in early 2020.  Probably different texture, and I think may be mixed with another fiber in order to spin.  I will get maybe a couple of yards of yarn from it.  What I'm asking for is ideas on what to create from it as a possible gift to the owner.  She might like a small memento of her much missed companion.  I can spin, weave, crochet, knit, felt, whatever works. 

So would you come through again?  If you also read Field and Fen, you'll see this in there.  But since some people read only one of my two blogs, I thought I'd for once repeat myself, unusual for me, in order to catch as much input as I can.  Thank you!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch..

 Back to the knitted and woven and spun and plied jacket.  I made a second pocket here

Using earlier yarn than I did for the other pocket. 

I like very much the way the changing colors create a design

And here's the second pocket

Remember I said that my spinning has improved, the yarn finer and more consistent, and it might show up a bit as I progress with producing yarn for the jacket?  Here's a case in point. The two pockets.  On the left earlier, chunkier, yarn, and on the right later, finer, more consistent yarn, the first pocket I made.  I may add a row of crochet to the right hand pocket if the difference in size bothers me enough. Right now it's just a useful observation.

This is all very well, you say, yes, pockets, but where's the jacket you're going to attach them to, huh, huh?  Well, here's one half of the back, completed, steamed and looking pretty happy.

Well, yes, half of the back, big deal.  Where's the rest of the jacket, then?

Well, some of it's here

And some of it's here

 And I may have to order more fiber.  Fortunately there's no deadline on this, unless you count wanting to wear it before the weather gets hot again.

This is like showing the window frames for the house that's still a heap of timber next to a hole in the ground, but that's fiiiiine.

I can't tell you how happy I am making this endless project.  When I get tired of rolagging, I spin, and when I get tired of spinning, I ply.  Then knit. By then I'm ready to make rolags again. I've learned so much about the yarn and the skills and myself in this process.

And there's always that stitched Robe waiting in the wings for her chance to work again.