Textiles and Tea, Kim Winter

 I was ready today. Fresh baked bread, (oat, ap and wholewheat), Irish butter, lemon curd, English breakfast tea. All set.

Ready for a terrific session with Kim Winter. She's based in London, came to fiberarts late,  after a long career in medical/scientific journalism. Laid off, made the change to felting and natural dyeing and now into art basketry.  Good moves. She acknowledged that having a fulltime employed partner takes a lot of pressure off her need to earn, though she does sell her award winning work. Her materials, naturally foraged or from the thriftie, are not a major expense though!

She's wearing an indigo shibori-dyed linen dress from the thriftie. It was plain white until she transformed it.

Coiled basket art

 

Indigo dyed fabric, shibori method

Paving stones dyed with natural leaf tannin

 Intricate coiled work

This is about bindweed (wild morning glory) pulled out of the backyard as a weed, which she wove into balls,  suspended individually by fishing line from a cane spiral. Very difficult installation, which succeeded brilliantly.

This piece is entitled Death. It's about  fungi working on dead material to decay and reuse it.  In a way it's also about resurrection. Sheet and needle felting, natural dyeing.

And here's where she's going now, with art basket sculptures. She likes form and the spaces between shapes. Not so interested in making solid objects. So her art choices reflect her preferences.

I really resonated with her, having done a lot of these capers over the years, and agree with her outlook that once she's learned and succeeded in an approach, it's time to move on to something new. 

She was a lot of fun to watch. And joking that now she has an international media addition for her resume, since hga is located in the US. She must have been up late, this happening live at 4pm Eastern time. 

She's in the process of qualifying for a certificate in fiberarts from some program like the City and Guilds, which I didn't catch. It's similar in requirements to Master weaver or embroiderer credentials in the US. A separate institution, not college based, but professionally taught and assessed and a serious credential.

She's modest and good humored and wildly talented. Nice accompaniment to English breakfast tea tea. Not surprisingly, her preferred tea is Chinese green tea, with a mandarin name. Which I didn't catch!

Today we are in the teens

Happy blogiversary to us! Field and Fen is thirteen years old today.

Many changes in those years of writing and taking pictures and getting support from faithful blogistas through some hard times as well as joyful ones.

Thank you all, particularly the early adopters who are, amazingly, still checking in and adding your opinions and voices to what is really our, rather than my, blog.

You're more dear to me than you can know. This blog has been a kind of running commentary on the ragbag of my mind and doings. My frequent appeals to you for advice and co-conspiracy have never gone unheard. 

Anyone who thinks this sort of communication isn't real friendship should stick around and read what my readers have to say.

I wonder if this link will work to send you back to those olden days. Android phones and tablets are link challenged. As are their owners.

First blog post

I hope so, because you'll see the baby mourning doves which hatched on my front porch , much to  the entertainment of local kids. I expect the ones we're seeing now are their descendants, the birds, not the kids.

We'll see. If not, and that post does exist, no matter what blogger might say, November 22 2008.

Meanwhile cheers, cake!!

Misfits and some humble stitching

Misfits delivered yesterday, before noon, in great shape, nothing missing. I think Friday deliveries really work.

Plenty of apples, gala and Pinova. The Pinova are particularly good, not often available. Bartlett pears. Lovely Vermont maple syrup.

Some dried apricots to make jam. The apricot season is only a couple of weeks long here, and if you blink you miss it, so I'm going for dried. 

I'm taking a chance because they're treated with sulfur, the reason I avoid dried fruit, since it can trigger asthma. But I'm hoping the soaking I plan will help.

And a new one for me -- pea shoots. I added them in to last night's salad, interesting addition. You can also cook them, but I think I'll eat them raw.

You can tell the season's changed -- no freezer packs in the box, no need.

Then, after reading of Mary Moon's wabi-sabi mending adventures, I happened on a YouTube video about sewing your own underwear. 

The two worked on me and I realized I could pretty easily handsew undies. The kind I like isn't made as well as they used to be, also the styles I like aren't very available. Soooooo, since I also have underwear with plenty of life in it but looking shabby, I thought aha, I can renovate, too.

So I found that lovely soft jersey sheet, the one I made the top from, plenty of fabric still available, 

and in less than half an hour had my first reno done.

Just replaced the gusset and vyeolia! Like new again.

I can easily do this for other pairs, just cut out the shabby bit, use it as a template for the new one, cut double, stitch it around, insert and stitch.

And there's a built in elasticized hem in the sheet fabric, which can work for new pairs, either waist or leg openings.

If I decide to make new, maybe I can also make cute ones, from the skirt leftovers. 

With a boy leg cut, since it's not a stretch fabric. Maybe some of the silk sari fabric, with a knit jersey gusset, will work, too. No end of possibilities. 

So this happened while I was learning to hibernate..

Did you know that a posh lady's maid in times past was expected to make her boss's underwear? As well as keep her clothes clean and pressed and mended, she handsewed underwear. Often from silk. They were pretty skilled.

So, a bit more experience in this department and I can apply for a job as a lady's maid in a posh house in the past. Maybe I can play one on TV.

I'm not addressing the current bad, and good, news in the world at large. But my own good local news is that for once in a long time, Handsome Son is not working Thanksgiving, so we can celebrate on the actual day. Yay! 

Wintering and soup

Every year when the weather gets colder, I'm dealing with two forces. One is an urge to have a winter project, to look forward to, long and engrossing. The other is a need to hibernate. These are not compatible aims.

So I'm reading Wintering to see what she has to say about the notion of hibernation, and why rest is good , not an admission of defeat. 

We get so much encouragement when we're busy, even worn out, not when we're taking our time. She gets into rituals, guilt over illness, need to pace ourselves before we drop, and is definitely worth reading.

Old age is no protection. Not when we read about people in their nineties running marathons and doing the Appalachian trail and knitting lifesize palaces.  Good for them, but it tends to translate into: why aren't you doing that, then?

Meanwhile, back at the stove, winter or not, food needs to happen. Roast vegetables and a soup that is so filling it's a meal in itself.

Here's the finished product, cream of tomato, quinoa, red lentils, and cashews

The yellow napkins are in action now.

And to prove I have no plans to grow up any time soon, I'm wondering about laying in a stock of stick-on googly eyes.

And I fancy a supply of oval, official looking, large stickers saying Voice Activated. To put on various office doors, paper towel machines, appliances, think of the possibilities..

Textiles and Tea and stamping and such

 Yesterday's Textiles and Tea featured Alanna Wilcox, one of the highest energy people yet. Full of ideas, energy, rapid speech, the hour was over in no time.

Here she is, glam shot, with her book. She's a dyer and textile worker, spinning and knitting, who has developed a system for exactly matching colors in dyeing. She uses commercial dyes and has calculated the exact ratios to copy colors at will, for yarn dyeing.

She's a generous teacher, offered to be in touch with anyone sending her questions.

Here's an example of her spun and knitted color and design, matched to a painting.

She designed, spun and knitted the mittens as a requirement for advanced study in dyeing and fiberarts.

And here's her motto

She also daringly got into a discussion of art and craft, usually a tricky thing because of passion around the whole issue, and a lot of conflict. Me, I'd rather just get on with working and not get embroiled, but she went there, interestingly. In brief, here's her Venn diagram of the intersection. 

 

And here's how she thinks!

She likes to spin yarn with a concept in mind, as in this Wizard of Oz shawl, each character depicted in the color and texture of a yarn.  She's a master spinner, as well as dyer.

So here was yet another generous, happy textile artist. 

I still would have liked to know why an artist wants an exact match. Both she and her interviewer seemed to take it for granted, but to me it's a question. 

It's about the ability to replicate,  I suppose, but I haven't found a reason why an individual dyer/spinner not making yarn as a business, would need to do that. Serious question, and if you have any input, please input it. 

Perhaps because I'm more interested in natural dyeing, where replication isn't an issue, nature having little interest in it, that I'm puzzled. Or maybe it's the other way around -- only if you have little interest in replicating would you venture into natural dyeing.

Anyway it was a rapid hour, and her skills are amazing.

Speaking of natural dyes and other such thingummies, I finished the stamp fest yesterday, and here's the curtain back in place. 

With a detail of the design. 

Lighting in the bathroom leaves a bit to be desired, but you get the gist. I like how the gold catches the light as the curtain moves.

The sepia stamping is archival, waterproof, ink. 

All in all, a happy little detour. 

MicroSeason 13

First hard frost last night. My happy eyes knew before I checked the temperature, that the pollen is over for the year, yay, I can spin again. 

We're at MicroSeason 13, birds finally at the feeder, Carolina wrens and juncoes. So their wild food supplies are low enough, after the frost, to send them to my patio.

Here's an indoor planting update:

Rose of Sharon seedlings

Moringa seedlings. Every part is edible, I have to look up cooking uses.

My ginger, continuing to grow indoors after a summer outside. A while yet before I can harvest any.

And here's an enchanting way of seeing

I've had a few requests for the recipe I used for the ANZAC biscuits. There are others, but this is the one I used, well, adapted.

Oven temp 325°f, about 9-11 minutes, longer is crisper, shorter is chewier. I baked a couple of extra minutes more because mine were a bit bigger than instructed. 

Golden syrup not available here, I used a combo of molasses and honey. No ap flour, used whole-wheat. No brown sugar, but the molasses I used would work on the white sugar I used. I don't like coconut, so used a cup of oatmeal, 2 total, instead of one cup each oatmeal and coconut. 

It still worked, despite all my hacking.

And I can't resist showing you my favorite graphic on a commerical product, the Riddle of Samson on the golden syrup can.

It was the riddle he put to the Philistines as a wager. Various translations, and the one I knew went: 

Out of strength came forth sweetness

Out of death came forth life.

The answer: bees making honey in the carcase of a dead lion.

This is from the olden days of ad copy, which assumed a working knowledge of the Old Testament. They ignored the fact that golden syrup isn't honey, though!

Figures five and six, and the next fun thing.

So the figures have changed dramatically from the human type shapes where this started. I  went with what seemed called for, after trying many ideas.

This is a two sided piece, showing you here both sides. I need to make a stand for it. A bit more might happen after I've looked at it a day or two, but maybe not.

This definitely needs to be exhibited where you can see both sides behind glass. Which, if  my plans work out, it will be. I also need to name it.  I have several thoughts about this. They'll probably work out once it's set on its stand. And the name will make the meaning clearer. The plan! Reactions welcome as always.

Next, another project I remembered, in the course of finishing the latest figures.

This is a piece of, well, if you know fabrics, you know it's linen, lovely piece from Dharma trading. I dyed it years ago with turmeric and yellow onionskins. It's variegated, interesting, not the dull solid color of synthetic dyes, which are good sometimes, not here. In real life it's a deeper color than here. The white LED overhead light washed it out a bit.

It's a portiere from the upstairs bathroom where I took the doors off the base cabinet. Cat owners, or staff, need no explanation. I have another one in the downstairs bathroom, waiting to be dyed. That will empty out a section of the freezer where my containers of natural dyes live.

Finally I'm going to do the stamping on this one that I've been meaning to do for nemmind how long.

And here's the doings. 

 I carved these stamps from plastic erasers and other materials. The great thing about carving erasers, aside from their being just the right texture, is that you  can draw your design and carve on both sides. 

I do seem to have a thing about two sided items. At about eleven o'clock there, you can see part of an eraser drawn but not yet carved 

I've used all kinds of sources for design ideas, a cross section of the inside of a deer's nose being a favorite, and a satellite picture of the tributaries of the Mississippi River another. Sometimes I draw then carve, sometimes I carve freehand. Whatever floats my boat at the time.

A pencil and a small Xacto blade, size 3"×2" plastic eraser,  is all you need. Try it, it's really fun. Much more interesting designs than laser cut rubber stamps which to my mind, are too full of anxious details. But that's me. 

The white plastic erasers are what you need. The pink ones don't carve -- the blade bounces off and buries itself in the thumb holding the eraser, ask me how I know this.

And after humming happily and rummaging through the collection, I selected some for decorating the linen piece.  

Also some metallic acrylic paint. Totally washable, in fact if you get acrylic paint in the wrong place, you'll never shift it. 

And it doesn't matter that it won't be as soft as fabric paint would be, for this purpose. You can see I've used it quite a bit with these stamps. You need to wash it promptly after stamping so you get the paint out of the grooves before it dries permanently in place.

I'll probably use only one or two stamps, repeat pattern, in practice.

It's enough fabric for a summer skirt which, who knows, it might eventually become.

So that's the current State of the Studio chez Boud.

Art in progress ginger and Gilliangladrag

It seems that Figure Six has pushed in so insistently that it will be part of Figure Five.

Here's the confusing state of affairs as of now.

This old piece, from my black gesso and copper wire adventures, has had its time on exhibit, was in fact bought and eventually left to me.

The molded paper face needs a new context.

And the back of this piece is going to be one side of the two sided  next figure. As you see, moving away from literal figures now.

This is what's happening here. Painting and drawing happening before the stitched head is set on this background with more molded paper parts. 

This is a happy find. In the course of searching for appropriate parts for this piece, I came across this nonskid green stuff. I've been needing it for sheet felting and couldn't think where I'd last used it. Playing music, it seems, since it was in the drawer of recorder parts.

Felting may be involved in this piece, so it's not an irrelevant find.

Speaking of what's not irrelevant, here's a cheerful, excellent teacher of felting and a lot of other art  and craft skills, I found on YouTube. Of course. 

Gillian Harris, doing business as, DBA, Gillian Gladrag. She's been a graphic artist for years, knows her stuff, and applies srt and color principles to feltmaking, without seeming to push. She's also funny. Her husband does the camera work and crosstalk, and they're quite a duo.

Definitely recommend for info with comedic value. She does a lot of selling in the tutorials, in context.

Back in the world of growing food, my neighbor a while back gave me a couple of bare root ginger plants a bit more advanced than mine.

I potted them, grew them on until the foliage wilted, then harvested them. As you see

One root I replanted to grow on, and the rest I peeled and diced for future food.

I noticed how easy it was to peel and dice than the bought kind, which has probably dried a bit before we get it. The flavor is very good, more interesting than the other.

So I'm hoping I can grow my own indefinitely. The one I started, still growing nicely, will be ready to harvest as the newly planted one gets under way 

At least, as always in art and food and life, that's the plan!