Off the wall!

 I thought you'd like to see some of the work that's coming off the walls and windows and flying onto the art robe.

This 4"x3" petit point is worked on 38 sts to the inch silk gauze, using a picture as a reference. It's part of one of the Cluny tapestries, the ones that live in Paris.

Here are my initials in gold work  on cotton lawn, which I later dyed and beaded. It was the first exercise I did learning goldwork. At least the exercise was to do a straight line and a circle, so I went from there. I've used this as a signature piece for solo textile artwork exhibits

And here are those silk stars made from samples of silks, back when I was learning English paper piecing, and now ready for a new home.

Now that I've started I'll probably find enough candidates to furnish more robes!

Lint collection

 Stitching today was mainly stitching down what you've already seen pinned, not exciting for the viewer, though very satisfying to the stitcher.

However, getting ready for papermaking, here's my collection of lovely clean lint from Joanne's loom.

 The latest gift arrived today. It's so cool to receive a soft envelope, very mysterious, every now and then.

The colors will be familiar to readers of her blog Cup on the Bus. 

I'm going to include this material in upcoming paper. I'm stitching  the moment partly because my outdoor papermaking plans are on hold. The allergies struck back yet again and I can't spend more than a few minutes outside at the moment. Mold spores from recent storms probably. But I will get there.

And when I do I'm making paper, so there.

Pockets, aka, artworks

 I created the patch pockets and lined them with silk. Pinned in place now.

This is satisfying stitching to do. Choosing the thread, cutting, pinning. The added touch of folding the outer fabric over the lining at the pocket top for a good finish. I'm  thinking  of adding arrowhead reinforcements to the pocket  top corners. After they're installed, that is.

I'm planning on adding panels to the front, for an overlap. 

Next up after stitching on the pockets and appliques on the back. Installing some embroidery.

This is a freestanding piece I plan to applique somewhere on the front. It's stitched on green linen. 

I think there will be appliqued stars on the back of the jacket, overlapping the edges of the bigger pieces.

The funny part about this work is that I keep ripping things down from the wall, out of their frames, to include them. 

Ca commence! Channeling Chanel.

 Very beginnings. Nothing stitched, just some cutting and pinning.  This is where you separate out the artists from the group. I fearlessly slashed into the Constellation piece to free up two finished sections to applique to the back of the jacket.

 No worrying about parting with it or spoiling it, or whatever worried my students who couldn't bear to cut into their work. It's like gardening. Or cooking. Leap, and the net will appear!

The reason for this choice, and putting it on the back is: you can lean back on cotton and silk applique without hurting you or it. Embroidery's not meant for pressure. Especially gold work.Bit of a japanese influence going here. There's going to be more happening here.

The artist frowning thoughtfully at the start of a long work.

Two future patch pockets.One dyed linen with hammered natural materials, the other dyed and printed linen with gold work.

I also fancy inside pockets, so there may be more. 

Meanwhile I'll leave it hanging for now and look tomorrow before stitching. And I have one of my favorite things, small pieces to work in my hand. I love modular art, and this is where it's best.

Foofling about with thoughts

 I've been thinking on and off, for years, about a long running, vague, plan of hand stitching a robe from various interesting fabrics. 

And I suddenly realized that the silk patchwork I'd started,

and the Constellation piece likewise,

 plus various other embroidered and dyed pieces, and the sari silks, weren't supposed to be hung anywhere on walls or windows.

They really are parts of one bigger thing. Which I can wear.  Now that I drafted and made the jacket with Joanne's woven fabric, I've got the block set up. Add sleeves and lengthen, simple style, because all the interest is in the fabrics. 

This explains how I got stuck and tired. I was looking at it from the wrong direction. 

It's really going to be a big artwork rather than a sensible sort of garment. To date almost everything is silk or linen, with  a lot of my embroidery and hand dyeing and I'm getting quite excited about it. 

I have quite a few textile works which have been exhibited and some sold, but some are here, and might find a home in, or on,  (pockets),  this possible robe thing.

This might bring together a few ideas and halfworked pieces. And when I'm not wearing it, it can be hung on the wall.

I have a long rayon jacket, much blacker than it looks here,  made in Indonesia, fair trade price through Dharma Trading. That might make a lining/ base to strengthen the silks.

Come to think of it I might apply the pieces, patchwork style, directly....the whirring, creaking noise is my right brain getting in gear. Not solid patchwork, room between pieces for sashiko stitching, too.

I think my seasonal work is emerging.

Doll Two almost here

 Here's the next Izzy doll in progress. Boots and suit done, tomorrow face and fancy hat. The sweater is my handspun merino. Very cosy.

It's always a surprise how this unpromising little array turns into a doll with personality, small but mighty.

Music returns

 I dropped off from playing  music recently, but now the recorder society chapter I was active in for many years, but also dropped off from, largely because night time, a bit far, coming home tired in the dark, is going online in September. So I'm going to rejoin.

Not entirely sure how this will work, but I think participants play duets with the conductor, don't hear nor see anyone else. Not sure who the conductor sees and hears. Maybe he can mute and unmute. 

Anyway the music email has arrived, half a dozen pieces, and I downloaded and printed and instantly learned two things.

One is that I am definitely ready to get back in. The other is that I definitely need a new black cartridge. Evidently the get out the vote push used this one up. Meanwhile, I'll squint. 

After I get back from picking up my Tiny Email Book Group selection Where the Crawdads Sing, from the library, I'm going to start in with my new music.

Morley, of La Girandole, meaning sunflower, is a big favorite. I don't know all the composers, and a couple are nearer baroque in period, not my preference, but what's a century between friends?

If you can read music, doesn't this make you want to play?  Or sing.

Good, I'm here, where's my friends, then?

 One new doll completed. Already agitating for friends because he might get lonely.

Okay, okay, I'm on it.

Artist tools: ballpeen hammer, heavy rolling pin.

 Remember those flowers neighbors were giving me and I was saving in the freezer?  They were in play this morning.

This episode was triggered this morning by a leaf suddenly falling off my staghorn fern, a rescue years ago from an owner who wasn't up to it.

So the gardener in me said too bad, and the artist said whoa, a candidate for hammering.

And proceeded to find a piece of fabric to hammer the color from the leaf and other petals and leaves into it .

I came up with a lovely piece of linen which I shibori dyed years ago with black walnut dye from nearby trees.

Set the leaf in place and proceeded. You can cover the leaves and petals with another cloth and hammer through the lot. In fact if you have some nice cotton lawn, you can get the color going on the base fabric and the top one at once.

I added local red rose petals, daffodil heads, lily petals and my favorite Japanese maple leaves. All the plant material is from a radius of about fifty yards of here. A local habitation as Will might have said, but in a different context.

The rolling pin helps secure the plants down by squashing out some liquid. Then the hammer transfers color and shapes. I love hammering, you can work off a lot of irritation that way.

The skills required are minimal if you can refrain from hitting the hammer on the thumb in your excitement. It's better for older kids for that reason, too.

And it's lovely. This piece needs to dry and be pressed before I decide what its function, if any, will be. The fastness of the dye depends on the flowers and leaves you use. So this is not really a washable item, more of an artwork. And the colors that emerge are sometimes surprisingly different from the visible color of the petals.

So, a casual glance at the upstairs plants, and I'm suddenly in a frenzy of searching and hammering. My neighbor is renovating his kitchen, unlikely to be disturbed.

I've made many artworks involving the ballpeen hammer, just the right weight for me, from flowers to metal beating ( peening, its original purpose) to handmade paper thumping.

The foliage I used has now given up most of its pigment, but is back in the freezer for future papermaking, since its fibers are intact.

And the board I was hammering on picked up some design and a few new dents

I had intended to get on knitting my new doll, after using yarn I'd spun and plied for the boots

 what can I say, I'm a hapless prawn of fate.

Diagonal scarf is now a Moebius item

 Just finished the diagonal scarf, and when I knitted the ends together, turned one over to create a Moebius shape. I like the interest of the Moebius shape.

 I did what would have been a three-needle bindoff if both ends had been live stitches. Since one was a cast-on edge I picked up live and cast-on stitches, one of each, knitted them together, then cast off one by one. 

It hasn't been steamed yet, too impatient to show you, but it will be.

Hm. What next, what next..

One thing done, another underway and a third one just an idea

 So the jacket is finished, and I really like it. Once the weather cools off, it's going to be my go to.

All the seams are clean finished in different ways depending on location.

And here's me solemnly posing

Then falling down laughing at the whole idea. The weird thing in my throat is nothing more sinister than a trick of reflection.

The diagonal scarf, don't worry, I won't push yet another pic at you, is underway, and the next thing on the horizon is fabric dyeing and papermaking.

Half the chest freezer is for the raw materials, in fact the reason I bought it

Half is for food. Admittedly, to the untrained observer, it's hard to tell which is which. 

Seems like a fair distribution.  And I was reminded about my dyeing and papermaking plans by my neighbor's disaster recounted in Here

I need to do the papermaking before the weather gets cold, because it's outdoor work on account of the gallons of water involved.

Which reminds me, as I searched for the right word there, of a dear artist friend with whom I showed in a group, wonderful pastel painter.

 We hadn't had a group meeting for a while and she asked me if she'd missed anything. I said, no, I think we're in abeyance right now. Whereupon she said indignantly, "Nobody told me they were traveling!"

Audiobook needed

 I was reading Bel Canto in book form, knitting now and then. But my allergic eyes, blurry and puffy, it's August, gave out on reading and I found a well performed audiobook.  That's better.

I can knit more easily at the moment than read. So you can start to see the diagonal triangles appear. This is obsessive knitting!

Both book and scarf are progressing now.

Diagonal scarf part two

 See how it works?

This is easier to observe than my starting pic, which I just had to put up yesterday, happy with it, couldn't wait.

One day I'll be a grown-up. The Joy of Short Rowing.

New project, not a doll, not a jacket

 The jacket is finished, seams pressed a treat, don't have a good pic yet.

But I felt freed up to do something different.

This is all about short rowing. I've made this in different sizes and yarns, as presents, but this is for me. If you've knitted socks you're likely to have done short rowing. It's one of those patterns that you can't stop. Just one more row.. but my aching digits explained I'd better.

Tomorrow more short rowing. This makes an interesting scarf, very puzzling to nonknitters.  And in fact, like so much in knitting, easy when you know how. And it's sculptural. It's very useful if you're making knitted art wall hangings. Or just a scarf.

As you work, it becomes straight until the wedge is completed, then you shortrow in the opposite direction. You'll see. It's especially good to use a variegated yarn, too, shows the stitch pattern well.

Yarn for exciting dolls, and other yarns

 I just received a nice helping of yarn with my library book drive-by, from the knitting group stash. Quite a bit of it is my own handspun which I donated, and other yarn I'd passed on.

 Some of this stuff has its own frequent flyer miles. It's all great for Izzy dollmaking.

My stash. All spun by me or upcycled, hence the small amounts.

 On a different topic, my art exhibiting life may have ended, there being no opportunities in the foreseeable future, all the buildings closed, the organizations struggling to survive.

 So it may be that I move on. I do have some as yet unseen framed pieces to exhibit if the planets ever get in the right configuration again, but I'm reconciled to looking at my next phase.

 I had a wonderful run, plenty of rewards and awards, nothing to sigh about. And it's possible I've said all I need to in fine art, the framed work you see exhibited and juried, all that. I've taught hundreds of adults drawing and printmaking to open those doors for them.

My exhibiting life lasted nearly forty years, so I'm okay with it. I'll still make art, always have, but with different purposes in mind.

Not the first time I've reinvented my art life. This is separate from my professional life in which I did all sorts of interesting work, always did art anyway at the same time.

I wrote when Handsome Son was very young, sold loads of stories, serious nonfiction, verse, humor essays. Three, blessedly unpublished, novels wherein I learned the short form was my thing. 

After seven years, enough sales to pay son's medical bills,close to a million words, and many writing workshops taught to adults, a jointly written book on learning disabilities, my work used in graduate special teacher ed textbooks, I decided I had said everything I could in word form, and turned to seriously working in art. 

So now this may be another exciting crossroads.  Life's about forward movement. Also a banquet. And my plate's been heaped over and over. Now thinking about the next course. I don't do things just because I always have. So I'm open to enjoying whatever I can next. And to blogging about it.

 

Ready for our first video knitting group

 We met in person at the library for a long time, then moved to just posting on Ravelry and now we're all set for our first video meeting.

 Since it's being hosted through a county library system, no idea who's hosting or who we'll see. But the site is loaded, you might say loaded for bear, but not in front of Fred perhaps. 

And we'll see if my system refrains from freezing this time. It's like a tired toddler when a meeting goes on too long.