Raven and Sparrow

Rubber band plan

I squeezed twelve 43" squares out of my Christmas muslin...all hemmed and ready to dye. The next step was to marshal my "quickie" shibori elements....pebbles, clamps, wooden shapes and rubber bands. I have used these things in several classes but always on smaller pieces of experimental cloth, so what I thought was plenty of working bits ran out more quickly than I hoped. I do have nine squares set up for the indigo pot, delayed only slightly by a trip to the store for fresh rubber bands. (Hint: don't expect eight month old rubber bands to work in this application.) It was good practice for me. I was pushed to think of variation in my folding and to work more carefully than I usually do when I am urging people to play in indigo. Still, speed and ease were the watchwords, so we'll see what we get.

Another wedding project

Now that the runners for the wedding have been completed and the chuppah is moving along, I am free to consider the next level of wedding festivity...the rehearsal dinner. This is usually a sit down dinner for the members of the wedding party, hosted by the groom's family. In our case though, everyone in the wedding party and many others, will be out in the San Juan Islands, staying at the same resort the night before the wedding. The closed nature of the setting means that all family and friends that have come the day before will be aware of the party and, in any case, we would want anyone who has made the effort to be there to be included. That makes our party quite a lot larger than it might otherwise have been. We decided to make it a dessert party and invite everyone attending our wedding who has arrived on Wednesday. That will be about eighty people. It will be down at the beach and will feature lots of sweets, lawn games and campfires...very casual. I have, of course, known about this since the beginning, but it has only been possible to get specific quite recently. One of the things that didn't quite compute was the need for table decorations. I have been thinking a lot about the wedding tables, but forgot that there would be tables at my party too. My task is to make about ten round tables look pretty and cohesive, without competing with the wedding the next day. 

The tables will be covered with standard white tablecloths. I decided that we needed something with color, but after making all the runners for the wedding I was hesitant to launch into another big linen purchase and sewing project. I thought about the napkins I have, wondering if they would work as a small focus for a centerpiece, but I don't have enough of the right color, and they are sort of small. (Those standard eight person round tables so beloved of these venues are very expansive.) So, what could I make quickly, simply and cheaply?

One resource I have (besides lots of dyes and the place to use them) is about 16 yards of unbleached muslin. In our old house (and our new house too) I never had drapes or window coverings except those strictly necessary for privacy. At Christmas time though, I thought we could use a softening element and one year shortly after we moved in I found a sale on muslin....only $1 a yard. Unbleached muslin exactly matched the color of the painted wood trim around doors and windows so I bought enough to make floor to floor swags around the two wide openings into the living room. Every year thereafter I hung those long fabric lengths and decorated them with ribbon, beads and holly. They were part of our Christmas decorations for sixteen years. When we moved here in 2004, there was no place to use them any more, so they have been sitting in a plastic bin since then.

Now, I have this fabric....not fine, not interesting in itself, but free. I also have a jug of indigo, which is simpler in some ways than other dyes...no scouring or mordants needed. I would like to introduce some pattern but since the name of this game is quick and easy I don't want to do any stitching. It takes too long and all my stitching strength is still being directed towards the chuppah. There are some clamp and fold techniques and rubber band shibori that I could do though, and as it happens I may be teaching a class in this later in June. This would be great practice for that, and may have the added benefit of producing samples for the class. So the first step is to cut the long lengths into 43" squares. Forty three inches is the shrunk width of the fabric. By using the selvedge as two of the edges I only have to hem the two other edges instead of four. No mitering. In two days I have them cut, pinned and half sewn. Tomorrow I will plan the patterning.

As I have worked I have regretted the low quality of the fabric, hoping that the indigo would elevate it into something pretty, However, it occurs to me now that cheapness has always been the main attraction of this particular stuff. Because it was cheap I was able to be generous with it for my Christmas decorations. Because I have it in hand now I can afford to play with it for the wedding. It has been part of our family celebrations for many years and it seems right that it will shape shift into this new use. I'll show you how it goes.   

Chuppah progress report

I've been embroidering the chuppah every day and have finished the white outlines of the basic pattern. This helps bring life back into its post-wax blandness, but it isn't enough. The original idea was to keep the chuppah quiet, even monochromatic in color, but from the first (almost) it has been hinting to me that it needs more. Specifically, I have envisioned spring green. Accordingly I have just begun to outline the background fronds (silk screened in tannin and kind of yellowish) with two strands of chartreuse floss as a lower profile variation from the whites, which are #3 and #5 perle cotton. It is very subtle but it introduces a greenish haze without competing with the main pattern, I hope. 

As I hold this cloth in my lap, stitching and stitching, I keep thinking it needs more green and more darks. I have thought of running words in a darker green up the fiddlehead shapes and adding contrast, but when I hold it up to the light more contrast doesn't seem so critical. The white shapes jump out and the pattern is clear.

 

The wedding will be outside (please, please, no rain!) so I think this is how it will be seen on that day. I makes me hesitate to add green, or any stitching that will block the white parts, but the piece needs to work with the light and without it.  I will continue to outline the yellow fronds and listen for suggestions from the cloth. At some point, time alone will shut me down.