Done (well, almost)

All the stitching is done on the birch/aspen quilt now. And I have judged it finished. Except for the binding, of course, which I need to address soon. It’s really hard to show what this thing actually looks like in pictures. It never looks like it does in real life.

So in the final analysis, the way I made it is supposed to divide the piece’s aspects in two.  The applique and piecing depicts the objects within the scene (hills, the patches of flowers, sky, lake, 2 kinds of trees) and the embroidery depicts the movement of the scene – the breeze, the leaves twirling down, the motion of waves on the shore.

The problem with the last part, the binding, is that I don’t know what fabric to use. The front and back pieces were sample pieces, I don’t have any more. I’m pretty sure that using fabric from the trees is a bad idea, and even the other solid cottons probably won’t work well because the backing fabric is a looser and thicker weave than the cotton. I think it would come out all wrong.  This is one of those times where I wonder where my forethought was, but that’s kind of the problem with this work.  It’s intended to be spontaneous, to foster that sort of creativity, and indeed if it weren’t I wouldn’t bother.  But then I run into a problem like this binding thing.

That’s the sky embroidery, it’s supposed to be a lazy breeze.

Anyway, if any of you have ideas about what will look appropriate, tell me!  I’m up for all sorts of suggestions.  I will make some sort of decision within the week. All that’s left really is to iron it, and bind it off, and add a hanging strip. And that will be that!  Seems funny the end is so near, after working on it off an on over these last months.

The final look of the waves on the shore of the lake. You did know that was a lake below the hill of trees?

I have two more quilting projects in the works when this is done. One is a jacket and the other one is based on a fairy tale.  The former is pretty planned out, the second is in its initial sketch details.  Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with a couple of photos of the crochet jewelry piece I’m experimenting on. It’s made of three colors of thread and the base is sport-weight yarn. It makes nifty shapes. It also takes forever to do this and is fairly hard on the fingers.  But no matter.  It’s definitely interesting.

The crafting skills, they are not new

So in Austin, if you are not familiar with our fine (hot) city, we have many unique phenomena – the Alamo Drafthouse, various Kerbey Lanes, BookPeople (the only bookstore whose religion section I don’t laugh at), the Town Lake Trail (we like our walking parks here) and the largest Whole Foods anywhere (80,000 sq ft), among other things. One other thing we have is called Half Price Books (also a chain). It’s book recycling – you buy cheap books and you sell them back. The prices you get for selling them back are pretty poor, but it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.  But it’s the prices for buying that get it done – I walk in intending to fetch one book and walk out with a metric ton most of the time. They shamelessly feed my book addiction.

On a recent trip I wandered through my usual sections and came to rest (literally, on the floor) in the craft section. And I found this antique book on needlework:

I have been paging through this book quite a bit lately. It was not the only elderly crafting book that was there, but I liked it the best.  This is a printing that quite succinctly describes the rise and fall of crafting over a century:  originally printed in 1882 when needlework was quite common, and reprinted in 1972, 90 years later in the midst of another surge in interest for handmade items.  Both times? Clearly marketed to women.  Being me, I LOVE seeing how people once thought of these things, and how they think of them now. Now, craft is often about the rather energetic reinvention and occasionally factually deficient musings of the young, when you consider

• the zeitgeist-intensive feel of Faythe Levine’s Handmade Nation, or
• the young hipsterish (it is! it totally is) coolness of Craftzine and Etsy or
• the in-your-face third-wave feminist (but craft-heavy) feel of Bust magazine (home of Debbie Stoller of Stitch and B*tch) or
• the tidal surge of youthful Japanese-and-Scandinavian-influenced design or
• the “craftivism” of eco-consciousness – reusing everything, redefining materials, considering the source, consciousness-raising and occasionally ever-so-slighly preachiness of this whole “green” thing or
• the “new domestic,” statement-making, tech-heavy leanings of author and craft icon Jean Railla.

I like them all, and think it’s an interesting movement, and one which certainly has personal meaning, given I’m still young-ish myself and started crafting at 19. In the end, though, reading things like this, I am afraid I’d have to opine that many modern craft skills don’t approach what they did 100 years ago.

I have half a mind to try out some of the crazy stuff in here. China ribbon embroidery?  Alencon lace? Surely it wouldn’t take too much longer than what I already do? I take that back, it would. Some of the examples I’ve seen with my own eyes are some pretty crazy complex stuff. Consider those examples of antique crochet I found and posted (which I’m now framing).  I know from just looking some of those would take so much time for such small decorative items. They are things I would barely have time for now, not being so much a lady of leisure as a lady of oh-my-goodness-how-am-I-going-to-get-it-all-done.  I persist, but … WOW.

There are a lot of things referred to in this book that are names and things I have never heard of before.  For example, a crochet tricot referred to as “fool’s crochet” (above.  Any of you ever heard of forfars?  I know gingham and linsey-woolsey, even, and various other sorts of cloth, but many names of cloth and other fabrics have certainly not stuck around.  Sometimes it’s the fabric itself which has not stuck around, and for really good reason – I found a reference to penguin cloth – which is, yes, penguin skin used for making ladies’ outerwear.  Lovely.  There are a lot of references which are NOT very, um, feminist.  Ladies are referred to as requiring delicate, dainty items at all times, and to being dainty and delicate themselves. So, how many of you are delicate and dainty and require handmade lace on your undergarments?  Not many? That’s what I figured.

So, how many of you would like to take on the task of open fibre in Honiton Lace (above)?  The instructions refer to bobby pins, a process that seems sorta like tatting but isn’t, and knotting of fine silk fiber.  A bit of netting work, obviously, and some tricot from what I can see. How long do you suppose this would take, for just a few inches of intricate lace?  I bet if you had to make this, suddenly you would (a) use this as a removable piece instead of something sewn in, (b) be very careful with it, (c) not have a lot of it, (d) treasure it like you would jewelry.

Aha! The recent invention of elastic!  What did we all do before our pants were made of elastic, allowing us that extra bite of dinner?  It doesn’t sound that common, or that durable, in 1882, and it seems all to be made of India rubber. Pretty rare stuff.  I do love the reference to “narrow frilled cotton” cords of elastic “employed for underlinen.”

Another example, this one of Tambour Work.  I should mention I don’t know what that is, but it seems to be sewn-on cording with embellishments. One last thing here – many of the drawings in this book are woodcuts. For me, that is amazing, because that takes SO MUCH TIME, and this is a THICK book, and there are A LOT of illustrations. Not to mention the book was probably typeset by hand, in a quite lovely and readable typeface. Some, like the Honiton Lace, appear to be a reproduced photograph, which given it was 1882, I haven’t any idea how they did that.  Not sure where exactly reproduction technology was at that time, but the whole project of illustrating this book, I can guarantee, was a feat. That tells you the popularity of needlework craft, that so much time and expense would be put in to producing this thick book. But what else could you do?  There was no (gasp!)… internet.

I hope you’ve enjoyed.  I’m still going through the book, I read bits of it at a time and try to figure out how stuff was made, or just sit there and chuckle, gasp and look oddly at the various entries, depending on what they are.  I learn a lot about what craft once was, as opposed to what it is today, and how it was viewed.  I find, in so many cases, that peope don’t know how women and their work was truly viewed, and assume the negative incorrectly, and that sometimes we are the ones responsible for downgrading and despising our forbears handiwork far more than they did.  I can see easily the value that was placed on this work from the expensive resources devoted to it in materials and time, and the research into new materials and techniques, and the effects of long-valued traditions, and other things. I know from other sources the high prices this handiwork commanded, and the elite circles to which it sold,and the profitability that it generated that kept many families afloat and attracted mechanized industry’s interest.

Okay!  End soapbox before I really get going on twentieth-century misogyny and how it colors our view of the past. Gee, I wonder what I used to write about in graduate school? I should go teach women’s studies classes just so’s I can get it out of my system sometimes.

Ta for now Miriam

Quilt Update, Other Stuff

My quilt is proceeding well.  I’m now quilting the water in semi-circles below the land, and when that’s done I’ll do a bit of sky – haven’t decided how exactly that’s going to look yet.  You can see a bit of the water in the picture below, and you can see the leaf stitch work I’ve been doing over the past few weeks.  Remember back whenever, when I said that the stitching I was planning would take just a week? I am completely full of nonsense about that.  Totally. I get maybe 2 hours a night at most to work on this, so getting things done fast is really unlikely.  I never estimate time correctly!

Stitching and a bit of cooking have been my salvation lately. This quilt is a sea of calm, a reminder of a place I once was that was beautiful and soothing, which I’ve needed.  So this “thing” – I’m normally pretty stoic and uncommunicative about things like “this,” but it’s not a state secret, and it’s affected my life quite a bit, like blogging less, and making my dream of backpacking pretty hard, and using so much sick time I can hardly take a vacation, that sort of thing. For the last several months I’ve been dealing with a medical issue that I flippantly refer to as “irritating” but when I’m feeling less flippant I refer to it as painful, scary, and gets in the way of life a whole heck of a lot. For months, since last summer, I was getting only small pieces of what was going on, and the problem continued while I saw doctors, and had uncomfortable and anxiety-provoking tests for things like seizure and stroke and blood pressure.

So I worry, but what can I do?  Well, I have finally gotten a clue – narrowed down the doctors to a headache neurologist, who  thinks basilar migraine is the culprit, a less common type with a peculiar, worrisome aura, one that that results from problems with reduced blood flow to the brain stem. It’s not fun. It lasts too long a lot of the time, and it has scared me half to death sometimes. I get dizzy and faint, my eyesight goes funny, I can’t speak well and get confused, and I get clumsy. And indeed, if untreated or treated wrong, those stroke-like symptoms can become stroke. Plus, it can’t use many of the typical treatments. And so there I was today, listening to this, and then getting an injection in my head, and I’m thinking, what in the world is going on with me?

This is treatable, it is. It’s not quick, but it’s possible. I’m feeling scared right now, as I start treatment that’s more specifically directed toward this, and I’m tired because naturally there will be more tests involving needles and claustrophobia.  Ironically, this is when I need my sewing needle and crochet hook and my cooking spoons more than usual, at least these are things I can create and have some control over, soothing things I can do when I need to think, or when I just want to watch TV and zone out, or just something else to concentrate on when my head doesn’t feel like it’s on straight.  Everyone has their own things that they do; this is mine. This is what I do when it feels bad, or I just need to unwind.

Thanks for bearing with me. It’s not my usual thing to share, but if I can’t talk about it here, where can I talk about it? I hope in the next few months I can find some peace from getting 2 or 3 or 4 headaches a week, some more permanent resolution, some sort of break from feeling like this, and get back to feeling more like typical energetic and overly creative self. It’s taken a fair piece of that away since last July.

I hope all of you in blog land have places to share what you’re going through. I’ve found a good bit of comfort in reading others’ struggles – not that they’re struggling, I wish they weren’t, but that I’m not the only one who goes through things that disrupt their life like this even though they have to keep getting up and doing what they do every day. I feel weird, having problems that don’t go away; most days it’s fine, but some days like today, it’s just a little harder to wrap myself around.

Ta for now, M