Raven and Sparrow

The meditation of handwork

The last few weeks have been highly eventful for me. I took and quit a job, my husband has been in the hospital and my father-in-law has died. I feel like I've been tossed into a blender and whirred. I have a couple of tablecloths underway, but they are in their intitial stages, patterns being drawn and transferred, etc. When I spent two days sitting by my husband waiting for doctors and information I realized (especially since there will be more of this in the future) that I need some handwork....something portable that will cast at least the illusion of productivity over the hours of waiting still in store. Besides, I find the repetition of embroidery to be very calming and I need that right now. Stitch after stitch, as the needle dips into the fabric and comes up again, each one is a new beginning very much like the constant return to the breath that one employs in meditiation. Every time my thoughts are drawn at least momentarily from wherever they have been fretting back to the present moment where I sit with color and pattern and the feeling of silk. It helps.

So, what shall I embroider? A couple of weeks ago I was at our local farmers market and was delighted to find my friend Margot Myers there. Margot is a fabulous artist and printmaker whose work I covet, but she also has a business selling linens and fabric she has stamped with wax and dyed... a simple version of batik. She started out with old Indonesian metal stamps (called tjaps) but now has her own drawings made into tjaps, so some of her designs are her own original work. This time I was drawn to a new pattern that reminded me of flowing water or wood grain. I bought a narrow silk scarf in a burnt orange color thinking it would look good on the table, but when I got it home it was just too narrow and lightweight to work convincingly. I grabbed a mordanted runner that I had cut out of my linen silk blend ages ago and threw it into a dyebath of madder and fustic. The color came out just right and my plan is to embroider the scarf onto the larger runner until they are completely melded into one piece. At first I thought I would just leave the rolled hem of the scarf intact, but it was lumpy and uncooperative, so I picked out the hemstitching and discovered a charming gradation of colors on the edge of the scarf where the hem had protected the cloth from some of Margot's dyebath. It will take forever to embroider but that is okay.

Resisting color

 I have been having a hard time getting on with my painted designs lately. I only have two more to finish before the first set of twelve will be complete. Some are new designs, but several are variations of designs I have already made. This one is based on rue sprigs from my old garden and I have three tablecloths with this pattern. I have been using this method to catalog my designs. I transfer my drawings to the watercolor paper, paint the background off white, and let it dry. Then I lay a sheet of sticky frisket film over the drawing and cut out everything I want to be white. Small areas like the dots on this design often call for liquid frisket, which is like runny rubber cement. I lift away the excess film and the area to be painted is left open. I like this method because it mimics my dye process using wax as a resist instead of frisket. It is especially effective with these simple designs which have just one color, with the pattern in white. I often find the off-white background with frisket stage to be the most compelling. I may have to try to make a tablecloth with a gray design on an off-white ground some time.