6 hours of canning later

Sometimes, one cannot post because one is literally up to one’s elbows in the actual craft, and cannot come to the computer.  Such was Sunday, when I spent three hours peeling peaches and feeling the sticky juice drip down my arms. But I will leave that story for later, because I just don’t have the energy to tell it yet.

Meanwhile, let me tell you about antique crochet.  I grant you the possibility that you may not love these as much as I do, but I hope you take a look at the exquisite detail and skill, and maybe appreciate them a bit.  I love them a lot - after all, I am both historian and crocheter, so I’m pretty much guaranteed to love these kinds  of things. Truly, though, my love of antique lace crochet goes farther than that.

Three doilies. The one on the left is unusual in that it is made of undyed linen.  The pattern of the square one is very “pleasing.  The skill of the bottom one takes my breath away.

I’m not sure if my mom’s possessions guided my passions or my passions guided my love of my mom’s possessions, but my very favorite pieces of art that my mother had while I was growing up were (1) 2 pieces of framed antique filet crochet, (2) a medieval grave rubbing and (3) a picture of a German castle.  I ask you, is it coincidence that I have two degrees in medieval history?  Is it coincidence I am a crocheter?  I do not know.

Two potholders and a granny square. The square is so incredibly regular in its tension it looks like it could have been crocheted in rows except for the center. If you have ever done knitting, crochet or needlework you probably know how hard it is to make your tension so impeccably even with an unforgiving light-colored medium like thread.  The potholders are both detailed and double-layered.

I will admit that I had crocheted doilies on my furniture while growing up. And I loved them, and in fact am still a fan of doilies.  I will now be drawn and quartered by all the modernists around here, but I cannot help it.  Those doilies were probably the only “girly” thing that I liked when I was a wee lass.  I disliked pink. I was a tomboy.  I disliked barbies.  I favored toy cars and building blocks.  But I loved my doilies.  Go figure.

The two doilies above both were part of a swap. Isn’t that interesting? In fact, these short messages were why I bought the whole lot - the proprietor of the antique store said the crochet all came from one woman, which means these two pieces date them all, and that date is 1948.  It’s fascinating that these came from women in such small towns in the midwest and ended up in a tiny little town in Texas, and were saved for all these 60 years.  They are hard to read, but as far as I can tell, here’s what they say.

The first one has two notes in different handwriting which tell me that they were a swap.  The top bit says “Mrs. John Puck, Guttenberg, Iowa” while the second says “Rec’d about June 10 - 48.  Sending aprons ( -unreadable) Feb 12.”

The second says “Mrs. Andrew Gangl, Salem, No. Dak.“  (that’s North Dakota, if you didn’t recognize the abbreviation. I didn’t, my mom clued me in.).

I took a picture of the detail of this doily because I was fascinated by the array of techniques used.  The center star and the webbing is (if you look closely) needlepoint woven ribbon. Yes, someone wove ribbon with cotton thread.  Endlessly.  I cannot even imagine the time this took.  The butterflies and some of the edging are filet crochet.  Other aspects are regular crochet.

I am in awe of the skill it took to make this, and am personally offended that it only cost me $3.50 to purchase it, while there were modern paintings in the same store that cost over $1000 and took much less time and effort.  I cannot help it if people don’t recognize art and labor when they see it, but the very least I can do is bring it home and make a blog post about it.  I hope one day the needle arts get more of the recognition they deserve for creating such exquisite, delicate things.

I <3 fabric

Good day for fabric! I’m generally excited about fabric and nothing is more interesting than new fabric techniques & types. I do love exploration of new stuff.

FIRST: in my wandering I discovered the wonder that is Ah! Kimono, which is a site that will sell you pieces of fabric from kimonos. I received my first package of fabrics (<– over there) with a lovely note this week. These are all green-hued, about 9″ x 9″ and I think (totally not sure!) they’re silk. Let me just tell you that my photo does not do these fragments justice. They’re beautiful, and have awesome texture and sheen. One is pebbly and rough and thin, another is thick and silky…

Having a weakness for fabric, I joined Ah! Kimono’s quarterly fabric club. I did that so that I wouldn’t be able to choose what colors or styles I get. I have a bad habit of picking the same things over and over, and I thought this would be a great chance to get something new and unexpected to play with. What will I do with it? I don’t know. I have an idea about a skirt, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten.

Also! SECOND. I got this book in: Fabric Art Workshop by Susan Stein. Very nice. I’ve looked through it about 5 times today since I got it. Fabric painting is something I’ve done a little, but technique and materials was sketchy for me. This clears some questions up, while giving me new ideas about things to try for decorating fabric. Like dyeing fabric with rust, that’s a new one. Got plenty of materials around here for that idea.

I ordered the book because I was curious about some techniques I saw reading a recent issue of Cloth P aper Scissors that I picked up (not the current one, the one with the yellow birdhouse on the front). If you haven’t seen it, it’s a lovely mixed-media magazine from Quilting Arts, seems like a nice bridge between sewing and painting.

So clearly I’m not doing well on the “fewer things to do” classification of life, but hey, I don’t actually have any fabric paint right now, so at least I can’t hare off to do it right now. The kimono fabric, on the other hand…

A little reflection …

(Today’s photographs are courtesy one of Austin’s universities, Concordia, which has recently sold its long-time central Austin campus and moved up north somewhere. Although I hear it’s a nice new place, it’s sad when a landmark disappears, so I went over and recorded some of it for posterity one day.)

Hi again! Remember me?  I’m still here, and even a bit more awake today than I have been.

Last Tuesday I admitted defeat and gave myself permission to check out for a while. Normally I’m a pretty energetic driven person, and am really quite insane with the level of things that I try to accomplish with each of my days. I’m always coming up with new things to try out. Have I mentioned the Appalachian Trail?  No? I’ll get to that.

It’s unusual when everything gets to be too much, but it happens sometimes. As of last Thursday I was so mentally cashed out I wasn’t sure I was going to make it through my day. We won’t even talk about Friday.

My job takes a toll on me because information management is at the core of my job. I love information management, actually, I could be a one-woman CIA, but sometimes, when there are thousands of bits of disparate data to be wrangled in an appallingly short period of time, it can be exhausting. It doesn’t help that I’m a ferocious perfectionist.

I’m still not through recuperating. I made about a half-hour’s attempt to do something crafty yesterday.  A very large and very irritating and somewhat upsetting error made me realize I still really am not minded to do anything even remotely challenging with my brain yet. I stopped, put everything neatly away, and did not fix.  I knew the “fix” would work out just as well as the original attempt.

I did try to acknowledge how tired I was. On Saturday I played Zelda on the Wii for a shocking amount of time.  I love Zelda.  It’s a very pretty game with castles, lots of water and sunsets and sunrises (Japan does medieval Europe!) as well as odd creatures.  I love quests, too.  And the new Wii controllers let you swing your arms about and really get into that sword-fighting.  I just have to be careful not to accidentally bash my husband and dog in the head.

Then on Sunday I read an entire book (and not a serious one by any means) and finished up by having tea and crumpets. Before you laugh, I read a lot of British fiction and I never did know what crumpets were. I saw some in the bakery of the grocery tonight and just had to try them. It’s probably a pale substitute, but hey, I’m in Texas, I do what I can!  I bought lemon curd to eat with my tea too, does that count?  Has my accent changed yet?

Presumably I will feel back to normal one of these days. I do think, however, that I need to consider cutting back somewhere in my life before I burn out really badly.  I feel that coming on.  I mean, I know I like to be busy (manic, really) but I think I’m at that point where it’s time to be realistic.  I keep thinking of new things to add to my lists of stuff to do/accomplish, but I suspect that I’m going to need to schedule more brain rest in there somewhere.

I’m coming up on my first blogging anniversary, too, and beginning to reflect on what the past year has brought me.  I didn’t really expect it, but I’ve learned a lot from this year.  A lot.  I’ve learned quite a bit from the self-reflection of writing, and I’ve learned a lot from others’ blogs as well.  I’ve been inspired to alter not only the direction of my writing and my blog, but life as well.  I’ll be pondering all that when I get a minute.

Other People’s Blogs.  I’ve been inspired, frustrated and overwhelmed.  Some people just floor me.  What I’ve seen has made me joyful, sad and angry.  I don’t understand all the perspectives I read.  I agree with some, others are provoking, still others are just not really meant for me.  People are truly a mass of conflicting ideas and emotions and thoughts.  Blogs, when done right, are a really incredible method of exploration and expression.

Ah, well, that’s enough reflection for the day.  I’ll return tomorrow (or the next day) with more … I’m just going to go with the flow for now, as they say.  Just thinkin’ about the state of things, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll bake a cake.  Because if I’m going to have tea, I might as well have cake and crumpets, right?