California and other stories

So what I was doing three weeks ago before things in my life got sidelined, derailed and permanently altered was trying to relax. Ironically enough. I was on vacation in California, seeing what there was to be seen and visiting my brother. Although I’ve been to 42 out of the 50 US states now, I’d mostly missed CA except for one trip to San Diego, but I was too young to really remember it. It turns out that California has a fair amount of spectacular in it, kinda like this:

If that’s not your cup of tea, perhaps you’ll like the quiet coastal lighthouse wreathed in fog just down the road.

I mean really, who wouldn’t like this sort of coastline? Even though I grew up near Texas beaches, there’s no comparison with this. The truth is that many Texas beaches are rather smelly, sad and dirty affairs due to all the offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. They don’t look like this. Or smell like this. Have I mentioned the gigantic and pungent eucalyptus trees near the coast? And the pine trees? It seemed like no matter where we went, it smelled like awesome.

Anyway, we went all over the place from San Francisco to Felton to Santa Cruz to Monterey to Big Sur and back up to Nevada City and Truckee and Lake Tahoe. We encountered quite a bit of wildfire in our travels, first the Lockheed Fire and then the Yuba Fire. I spent half the week with ash falling on me and smoke in the air. This, for example, was what I saw north of Big Sur near Carmel-by-the-Sea (cough cough hack hack).

Big Sur is beautiful and dramatic and slightly nerve-wracking, but overall much of that stretch of Highway 1 is quite peaceful, and there’s more farmland along the coast than I expected. A lot of beautiful vegetables that really made me want to cook quite desperately. When we got to Jeremy’s cabin in the Sierra Nevada, I cooked quite a bit, just to relax, because by that time we knew Audrey was really sick and we were upset at being so far away. In the end, I left my brother food for a week I cooked so much. The news also made me quite weepy about all animals, like this snoring/barking sea lion. They are really more like watery dog-like beings.

So did I mention Lake Tahoe is spectacular? My brother sat out and contemplated it one afternoon.

We did also spend time in San Francisco proper wandering all over the place from the Mission District up through the Castro then up Market to downtown, and up to the wharf and stuff. We treated ourself to Greens restaurant one night for some fine vegetarian cooking, which was quite easily the best meal I’ve ever had in my entire life. When down in the Castro, after having some extraordinary coffee at Philz we sort of stumbled upon ImagiKnit, whereupon I purchased six skeins of Pima Fresca yarn (bulky pima cotton) from Queensland Collection in chambray. I wasn’t planning on that, but it was sooo pretty, and on sale … and as you can see, by that point I was weak. You see, ImagiKnit separates plant and animal fibers, and also labels stuff very clearly instead of just stuffing it all in. Usually I end up with itchy, red hands from picking things up to see what they are, and it was so enjoyable to go to a yarn shop without having an allergic reaction from handling wool.

It was great to see my brother, who I’m very close to, and neat to see his job. He does utility pole inspections in various guises, part of making sure the electric infrastructure in parts of California is operational, that they’ve cleared stuff out to avoid more fires, that nothing’s going to fall down and kill people or leave them without power. It’s neat. If sometimes dangerous for the enormous ants, unruly ranch animals, cantakerous rural folks, occasional cliff hiking and of course, the Very Large Splinters. Like this one.

I also got to see my nearly-three-year-old cousin, and her mom my first cousin, and her husband, and they are all very lovely and exuberant people who live in a lovely seaside community that most of us would give our left arms to live in. We just haven’t figured out places like this exist, and that you can really live there. They fed us, and sheltered us, and I’m afraid we were very upset and poor guests one night, so we’ll have to make up for that later.

So that, in a nutshell, was my vacation, which went awry halfway through, but was still quite memorable for both Jeff and I.  I’m sure it will pop up in future art/craft projects. And now I leave you with one last classically-Californian-sunset-but-seriously-it-can’t-really-be-that-pretty picture. Because really, it is that pretty.

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

Quilting inspiration

I have this dream, where I sit down at the computer and get to write a post without having 40 things to do … yeah, well, lately I’ve been working on this post about quilting inspiration.  I picked five quilting-related places to talk about. As you know, I’ve been into doing arty-quilted things lately, and part of that is seeing projects that broaden my ideas about what fabric and stitchery can be.  I’ve been to big quilt festivals, sure, but the thing about the art quilters I see online is that I see the process, and the quilters sitting with their needles and machines, and their motivations, and their particular way of looking at the world. I may not have their skill, but I think I have enough love for it

IKEA: I guess I thought about doing this quilting inspiration after I saw the Project Patchwork textile challenge put on by IKEA Twin Cities and the Minnesota Textile Center (they handed out packets of fabric to see what people could do with ‘em).  So there was this raven quilt (right) that I saw on Whip-Up where they featured the raven quilt’s maker, Becka Rahn (etsy shop) and had an interview with her. This is not traditional, and the motivation was to make something out of unknown supplies, just what you’re given, and challenge your creativity that way.  This quilt was made with one piece of fabric. It made me think how amazed I am with what people can come up with and do with fabric and thread.  I like to see modern or free-form or non-traditional quilting like, whether simple or complicated, because I think fabric and thread is an incredibly versatile medium and I like how people express themselves with it.

Maps & Details: One artist that just amazes me, and who I am frankly jealous of is Leah Evans. Her textile work is maps.  Hand stitched maps. Out of fabric and thread. To my mind, they are nothing short of amazing. If I could choose any idea in the world for a quilt project, I would have chosen to have this idea. I would dearly love to own one, but I am too poor. ::sigh::

I admit that I  adore and cherish maps of all sorts more than most people, and love them as much as I love quilting.  I was known for littering school papers with historical maps I found in obscure places and delighting in really great place names like Tauberbischofsheim (a professor joked I was trying to show off with that one, but it’s a real place I wrote about).  I confess to getting an iPhone because it has built-in GPS maps.

My favorite of Leah’s quilts is one with irrigation circles, but you’ve gotta admit the one with rivers there to the left is pretty darn amazing.  You should look at more of her quilts.  The work is extraordinary and the detail she adds to all of them is completely mind-boggling.  [via DesignBoom]

Color-Texture: For the past several months I’ve been watching the work of Victoria Gertenbach who blogs at the Silly BooDilly. There are several things about her quilts: texture and color being the two that bring me back to see what she’s been working on lately.  There are times when she achieves a certain mixture of texture and color that is really complex, but when you stand back it creates something that’s remarkably simple-seeming.  It’s neat, and it’s gotta be amazing to run your fingers over.  Somewhere along the way I also started cheering for her dog Molasses, who’s been having a lot of health problems lately.

So probably that ‘texture and color and simplicity and complexity’ thing didn’t make much sense, so here’s a detail of one of her functional art quilts from Flickr.  She says this one was “inspired by embroidered patchwork from India” which I definitely see. She also posted the full version of the quilt, but I think the up close detail is really extraordinary. The many multi-colored quilting lines actually simplifies and unifies her patterned fabrics into a more cohesive design concept. On their own, the fabrics and even the combination is not as interesting, and doesn’t convey the same idea.

She’s been featured lately on Etsy for her modern mid-century designs. She really knows how to explore fabric as a medium: I’ve seen embroidery, modern machine quilting and machine embroidery on her site and Flickr pages.

I have also been keeping track lately of two more textile artists who are inspiring in their dedication: hours and hours and hours and hours of hand stitches on large and complex pieces.  I aspire to that kind of dedication, but my stitchery is nowhere near as large and complex as their works. They give me IDEAS about sitting and stitching all day on really big textile pieces.

Complexity. I don’t have pictures from their sites but: one artist is Judy Martin of Judy’s Journal who is stitching a white blanket with white stem stitches, something that probably has a lot of incredible texture in person. My stitchery is certainly not as large or complex as hers, but I always aspire to that sort of thing. I find it interesting to see what she’s working on, as she has long been an artist, and her fingers have stitched and drawn what seems like a thousand things.  Of note is her other blog, One Hundred Quilts dating back to 1982. I am not done going through the list, but holy pete! It takes me a while to take in her pieces.  Imagine! The body of work she has is amazing.  That quantity of quality is also something to aspire to.

Otherworldly. The other artist is Jude Hill of Spirit Cloth, who is crafting something, a pieced and stitched cloth, that seems to change and shift every day in ways that make me think that her cloth is somehow less substantive and more ethereal than mine. I’m not sure it is the same thing every day that’s worked on, but I’m not sure it’s not the same.  It’s a bit fey.  The blog is composed of many close-ups of stitched cloth tied in with recollections and thoughts and musings … a story cloth.  It’s really fascinating on this one to watch the process unfold, which is not something that everyone does with their work.  I like to think I learn something from this about putting one’s thoughts and inspirations into a piece of work, and being less planned and more spontaneous with something.

Honestly? I never really thought I would like quilting and stitching and embroidery so much as I do. But I could sit for hours and hours and do nothing but stitch. And apparently spend hours and hours watching others stitch. I like it as much as I like reading, which if you know me, you know that’s a major statement.  At the moment, my stitchery involves finishing part of my Birches embroidery, which I have ready but can’t reveal until there is sufficient daylight for me to take a picture of it (one of the tribulations of the blog title, you see).

TTFN, Miriam