VSP (Very Special Project)

February 1st, 2012

A Tree of Life is the perfect symbol for us.

This one’s for me.  Or rather, us.  This is our wedding rug.  Yes, I know.  We’ve been married for a bit of time, but it took a while for all the pieces to come together, both in my mind’s eye and in what would go into it.  I had always wanted to do something for us, as I’ve long been enamored with the notion of wedding quilts and the like.  Not being a quilter, that one never came to pass.  Rug hooking has been a whole new adventure for me, and one that I feel I am best able to express myself in.  Finally, it seems I have exactly the right medium in which to celebrate our marriage.

Things started turning over in my mind when I spied an antique piece of embroidery in a museum collection.  There was a tree motif that just sort of settled in my head.  I clung to it for ages, not quite figuring what I would do with it.  Then, you may recall, my Tipsy Quilt wended its way into our home.  Its complete ease with its own imperfections unstuck something in me.  And suddenly, one day, I whipped out a quick sketch of exactly what we needed.

Our rug includes wool from the wardrobe of a great aunt and yarn my husband brought home from a very special trip.

The Tree of Life is a universal symbol that both crosses and unites a multitude of theologies, scientific schools of thoughts, and cultures.  And for numerous personal reasons, it is also exactly the right image for us.  Hooking this piece has been a joy, and it allows me to bring so many pieces of our history into play.  Some of the wool was handed down to us from the wardrobe of a great aunt and uncle.  The leaves and bits of the sky are highlighted with yak yarns my husband brought home for me from a very special trip to Tibet with his father.  What may be even nicer, is that we sit together in the evenings while I hook, glass of wine and plate of fancy cheeses, fire blazing, talking about the rug together.  What kinds of textures, what other elements, where we will hang it.  It’s becoming a very special marriage contract of its own.

I love hooking this piece. Still some design decisions to be made...

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From Something Old Comes Something New

January 27th, 2012

Ingredients, Pink

It is humbling to sit with another artist’s uncompleted work and try to ascertain not only what you could add to it, but how you could do it justice.  These quilt squares from the late 1800s put me in exactly that position.  How could a new audience delight in this treasure?  Bits and pieces of my various finds and stashes started working their way on to my cutting table:  antique keyholes, vintage hand-crocheted laces, post-war trims.  I scavenged some scraps from the bottom of the sewing chest I inherited from my grandmother, still filled as it had been with her own stash.  Each new find inspired the next.  And then I knew these were going to be the most perfect ring pillows for a new generation.  They are heirlooms before they even begin.

Ingredients, Blue

Before I even started, I knew my sewing machine was not going to get to play with these pieces.  I needed to honor the seamstress who came before me, and to do that I needed to stitch these pillows entirely by hand.  And so I did.  And it was mesmerizing.  Who was this woman who had so carefully pieced these squares?  Was it by candlelight?  Was she surrounded by her children?  Or her grandchildren?  My mind tumbled through so many characters and variations of a story that started such a very long time ago, one that is now part of my story, and one that will become part of another couple’s story.  And that story and these heirlooms, I hope, will continue to handed down and retold for generations.

Something Old, Something New Something Borrowed, Something Blue

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Operation Cheesecake: aka Kitchen Applique

January 10th, 2012

Operation Cheesecake

One of the things I’ve learned in marrying in to an enormous family is that there is always a good excuse for a party.  While catering was never on my list of things to accomplish, I find my over-riding need to make pretty things overflows the studio and into the kitchen.  The party in question??  A Bon Voyage for a bros-in-law who’s headed off to med school.  Obviously, a medical theme was required.  Me being me, out came templates and exacto knives, tweezers and clippers.  While never having worked with fondant before, I was sure that if I approached this as I would a penny rug or quilt, I’d achieve a modicum of success.  Hubby and I tested and practiced, and scratched the Red Velvet cake when we discovered a dislike of chocolate in the honored guest.  A New Your style cheesecake (the first I’ve ever made!), became the unusual foundation for my stitch and bitch culinary session in the kitchen.

And it was fun.  And it was yum.

Puttin' the Fun in Yum.

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My Tipsy Quilt

January 5th, 2012

My Maine Tipsy Quilt. I've fallen in love with the imperfect.

I don’t know what’s been happening lately.  I tried quilting years ago, and just didn’t take to it.  A bit surprising, given my affinity for all things fiber.  Regardless, there it is.

However.

Return.  Return.

Lately, however, I have been picking up quilts, quilt pieces, already cut up cutter quilts, etc., right and left.  I just can’t help myself.  I still don’t want to quilt.  I just want to honor and adore these bits and pieces I’ve been accumulating lately.

To a one (just about) the entirety of them is hand-stitched.  From the piecing, to the quilting, to the binding—when applicable–hand done.  Period.

Nothing matches, and I love that.

I want to incorporate these bits of wonder into something new.  Something that I am doing.  Honestly, I am a wretch who wants to lean on the talents of a bygone era to make something that is cherished, that makes someone take pause, if not weep, to have this tenderness of talent applied to their tech moderated lives.

Can that be done in our day and age?

On one of our recent (and frequent) flea marketing outings, my husband and I picked up a quilt.  At least 60 yrs old.  Honestly, extremely poorly done.  But equally honestly, that requires a certain ability of technique in of itself.   One side of the border starts at about–what?–6 inches wide??.  Over the course of its run, it finishes at maybe 2 inches.  The squares–and not a one matches another–are tilted and skewed.  Drunken is really the best description.  And at the end of the day, it is a quirky, amusing, and even lovingly ridiculous squarish quilt that warmed some hardworked and (hopefully) well loved body.

There is not only beauty in that, but poetry.

I couldn't do the math to recreate this border.

I have spent the past two days piecing pillows together.  Pillows, that on the face of it, should have been relatively easy to assemble.  But given the patterns.  And the repeats.  And the lack of a — Square.  True.  Grain.  –   And everything else that annoys the cr$p out of me—it took days and knots in my back, and tons of caffeine.  And it suddenly occurred to me, looking at my acquired tipsy quilt, how hard it must have been to pull off a NOT PERFECT quilt.  That takes a plenitude more skill and technique. I think I know that now.

If I have to lie my life on the line to be able to make something square and true, how on earth do I make a respectable quilt that scoffs at longitude and latitude??

So, my crew introduced me to Gee’s Bend.  And I may just see the light.

And the cutting table beckons.

I aspire to being able to be this "not right" so beautifully.

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The Project Ended Before the Year Did!

December 31st, 2011

The Paisley Rug in its completed state.

I know you are all likely tired of seeing this piece, but finally—finally–it is complete!  Hooked, bound, pressed—woo hoo!!  It is never a complaint to be so busy with orders, that you can’t get to the other projects, but I am doing the creative happy dance at seeing this one in all its finished glory.  It is my largest hooking project to date.  All it took to reach the end zone was some holiday quiet, a playlist of Splendid Table podcasts, and a lot of coffee.  Voila!

Happy New Year to Everyone and may it be one both filled and fulfilling with new projects and inspiration.

Happy New Year

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Vintage Feed Sack Teddy Bear

November 30th, 2011

I imagined a story and then made this small bear.

On a recent trip to Maine I delighted in finding a trove of vintage feed sacks. Probably post WWII. And I had a vision of an old farmer in the corner of his barn painstakingly making a little gift for a little granddaughter. I don’t know where that came from, but I decided that I would try to capture the essence of that image by making this piece myself.

I cut and sewed all the pieces by hand, intent on a rustic primitve look. I allowed the wear of the Wirthmore feed sack to be included in its own charming way. He is carefully stuffed with organic fair trade cotton. This little guy is sewn in a permanent sitting position. His small eyes are black beans.

The eyes are made from dried black beans.

I spend a lot of time rooting through flea markets.  Pieces of other people’s live present themselves to me, and I create my own narrative.  I wonder if someday one of my pieces will be discovered in a dusty box in some vendor’s stall waiting for a new story to be told.

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Steeked in Catastrophe

November 14th, 2011

An Organic Fair Isle Cardigan for Your Toddler

Admittedly, I’m no adrenalin junkie.  I get my highs from rather low-key pursuits.  A perfectly baked loaf of bread.  A chapter successfully read before falling asleep at night.  Excitement around here is limited to keeping the dogs and my boy (the husband) out of trouble.  And most decidedly, knitting has always been meant to be a means of self-expression and an exploration of color and texture.  It never should have had me tied in knots of apprehension.  But it did.  And then it started un-didding. — That is a very technical knitting term, by the way.

So, my knitting in the round with the intention of cutting a steek to turn this baby into a cardigan was well intended, but the organic merino blend yarn had a bit too much silk for this steek’s liking.   Disaster was staring me down.  Of course, being a purist in these matters, I had done a crochet steek.  Sewing machine doesn’t computate with hand knitting in my book.

However.

Ah–hem.

I’ll start again.

However, faced with calamity, I asked Bernina for a helping hand.  She owed me. Besides, if sewn steeks are good enough for EZ (Elizabeth Zimmerman), they are (temporarily) good enough for me.

So.  Catastrophe ends in success.

Victory is mine.

And there is one darn (would you have  been offended if I swore here??) good sweater ready to warm some unbearably adorable child somewhere.

Grosgrain ribbon neatens everything up beautifully.

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Anatomy of a Disappearance

November 9th, 2011

Anatomy of a Disappearance, by Hisham Matar

A good book tells a great story.  A great book tells a part of your own story.  I think it is the search for that that determines my reading forays.  Escapism is all well and good. And  ”junk food” reads, as I call them, have their much needed time and place.  But the true journey is achieved in the insights you are given to your own tale, regardless of disparate locations, circumstances, and opportunities.

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The Good Ole Days

October 21st, 2011

Vintage Finds to Inspire

Not so very long ago, recycling was a way of life, not a trend.  A surprising, if not charming, reminder of this wended itself my way at an antique shop in Brunswick, ME.  A feed sack, of all things, was purposed for fiber art!  Utterly functional in getting supplies to the farm, this beautiful coral cotton sack was printed with inks that are easily removed expressly for the purpose of allowing the cloth to become a dress, a curtain, a pair of knickers.  It is a fabulous concept that I had never come across before.  I’m completely enamored.  As my husband and I continued our flea market hopping, as we are known to do, this fabulous thing that I had never been aware of before kept presenting itself.  And I lost all control.  I purchased every feed, salt, and growing ration sack from Woolwich to Bath.  And now, to the studio.  Must.  Sew.

So many options. My head is spinning with design ideas.

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Rainy Day Progress

October 14th, 2011

My first (successful) prototype for the Flopsy Baby Hat

Rainy days always make me want to either knit or bake.  Yesterday, I knit.  And a design I’ve been mulling over for some time made it in to some sort of dimensional reality.  I can already see it dolled up with bows for a little girl or little bands of blue ribbon around the ears for a little boy.  This is my first prototype for a newbie in this world, and I’m itching to get  one sized for an older baby next.

Today it is raining again.  Tonight I make cookies.  Death by Chocolate.  Perhaps a little knitting between batches, but only if I can keep my fingers out of the cookie dough.

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