Raven and Sparrow

Foxglove in indigo

I use Typepad as a platform for my blog and have been experiencing the same problems I have seen on other Typepad blogs lately....no way for people to comment. I hate computer stuff and actively avoid fiddling with the nuts and bolts of this activity, but I cherish the comments I receive and am worried that people are shut out. The only fix I have found is to change browsers. I have been using Chrome for quite a while, but can't get through to any Typepad bloggers without switching to Microsoft Edge, so that is what I recommend in the short term. I will be watching to see what happens to other people and may be changing my blog platform. For now, my email address is: [email protected] so you can let me know if you are having trouble reading or commenting on my blog. Thanks! I really appreciate your presence here.

 

 

I finally got set up to dip my foxglove tablecloth in indigo. I thought it would be pretty quick to do the dipping, but the size of the cloth meant I had to get out my big kettle, scrub the earwigs out of it, revive the outside propane stove and gather all the indigo accoutrements. It took a while to get those ducks in a row, but at last I was ready. You may remember that my favorite test cloth only took about forty seconds in the indigo to get a color I liked and hoped to replicate. Ha ha. Changing volumes of liquid always throws those calculations out the window. The actual tablecloth also started out a darker gold than the test cloth because the myrobalan formula I painted it with also changed with the larger volume needed. Anyway, there I was dipping my big cloth briefly and absolutely hating the color. Pea green! No! More blue. I stood there all afternoon, dipping and waiting and dipping and waiting, trying to get the green to go more blue. (You have to wait about twenty minutes between dips to allow the indigo to fasten itself to the cloth.) At last I got it blue enough, but then it was much darker than I had first envisioned. Oh well. The best laid plans and all that.....

After a couple days of curing I took out the wax....another trying chore.....and now feel okay with how it turned out. The many indigo dips corroded the wax enough to result in a batik-y effect even on the painted leaves and the fabric paint integrated much better with the dye than it might have done. I went back in lightly with white paint to emphasize the lips of the flowers since the indigo muted them too much, but mostly this is what I got. The next thing is to embroider the dragonflies. I am thinking of adding a checkered border to keep it light and summery.

Fox wax

Lisa's summer foxglove table cloth has been waxed and is now ready for mordant. It took a long time to wax over the previously painted bits. It might not be necessary because the paint will shed the dyes that are coming next, but after much thought I decided I liked the way waxing over paint helped integrate it with the colors to come on the trial piece I made. Other trials that got painted after the wax had been removed seemed more garish. The paint looked uncomfortable amid the dyes.

The waxing went pretty well, but there were a couple random drops that I couldn't integrate into the design. That is totally normal and usually I just ignore them and go on, but this time I wondered if more dots would help. I ended up adding semi-random dotlets around the flower stalks, just for fun.

Painted foxglove

The paint is on Lisa's summer tablecloth at last. I started with the green leaves in the first week of July, and now all of the flower painting is done, pressed and set as well. I practiced quite a bit on the smaller square samplers, but still found myself winging it in some places on the full size cloth. Even with the addition of an acrylic medium it was hard to apply the paint smoothly to the untreated linen, and the medium definitely added stiffness to the hand, but it is done. Yay. Hanging it up and stepping back gives me the best vantage yet for evaluating the design and I see some minor things I would now change about the pattern, but overall it is okay.

The next step is waxing, then mordanting, painting with dye, and dipping in indigo. There is still a ways to go.

Lavender bits

We are back from a week away caring for our granddaughter while her parents sequestered themselves in the guest room/study and worked from home. Ordinarily her other grandmother has this role, but she needed a break and we needed to reconnect with our baby, so we got ourselves tested (negative) and quarantined so that fears were allayed and we could take over. It was delightful and exhausting. Sophie is down to one nap a day, otherwise she is going full tilt so we were hopping all week long. We needed the daily nap as much as she did. She is growing and learning so much right now. 

I didn't touch my computer or do any needlework all week, but since coming home I have attached some lavender wisps back onto my patchwork runner.  I thought I would segue into darker purple wisps at the ends, but this seems to be all that wants to be included for now. I am experimenting with other overlays and wondering if the ends need more something, but here I am at the moment.

New old treasures

As the world unfurls across my various screens, I find myself without anything to say. I am struck with horror at the death of George Floyd and further dismayed by the continuing deaths of black people at the hands of the police, even in the face of the massive protests around the world.  The problems of our country seem way too overwhelming for any blah blah commentary from me, at least for now. Unfortunately, chatting about my own projects also seems uninteresting amid the turmoil. I assume this detachment will pass....at least I hope so.

One gleam amidst the gloom....I received a package from Nancy full of old family linens and accessories for the table. The items themselves are very fun and inspiring, but Nancy's greatest gift was her enthusiasm about my table setting. I often wrestle with the validity and importance of my obsession so it just meant the world for her to take the trouble to pass these things to me because she was touched by my efforts. How very generous and kind....Thanks Nancy! What a mood lifter!

The box(es) were full of possibility:

Beautiful crocheted linens, probably made by Nancy's great grandmother, and a footed brass tray from India. 

Appliqued and embroidered hand towels, and a Mason jar full of thread on wood spools. How long has it been since spools were made of wood?

A printed linen tea towel and linen cocktail napkins with quotes and characters from Dickens novels. Dickens? How literary. I like the way the blues go together.

Silver and crystal hurricane lamps...wow.  These are very nice indeed. As I unwrapped the bases I thought the pattern looked familiar. When I compared them to the silver candlesticks my great aunt gave me for a wedding present forty eight years ago it was clear that they were all made by the same company. (The shorter candlestick in the foreground is mine and the taller lamps are from Nancy.)

Besides the obvious similarities in style, the stamp on the bottom is identical. They all come from the M. Fred Hirsch Company of Jersey City NJ, made between 1920 and 1945. I find myself wondering about the tables these pieces have graced in the seventy-five to one hundred years since they were manufactured. Old things impart the weight of time to any arrangement and draw the imagination back along the threads of experience. This grounding in the past reminds everyone at the table of all the people who have been gathering for meals through the years, sharing food human to human. Perhaps this is a good time to be reminded of connection and community. It makes me feel a little more hopeful. Again, Nancy, thank you.

 

Back to squares one

After setting my blue patch runner aside for a little while I decided to remove the lavender silk wisps and begin again. Hazel suggested I start with a smaller area and work from there, so I picked out a low contrast "moon" that I had dyed on very lightweight cotton and attached it with glue stitch. I went through the usual fret about turned or raw edges. The patch seemed to melt into the blue background better with frayed raw edges, so that is what I chose. I hope it will hold. Once sewed on and encircled by a corona (sorry) of running stitches, the moon asked for companions so more pale gray squares with faint circles on them will be added. I still want to put lavender wisps somewhere, but what size, what shape, and what kind of attachment has not so far been revealed. I am like the traveler that crossed the country driving only at night. All I can see is what is immediately within my headlights. I am not sure what my destination will look like.

My other project, Lisa's Summer, is making no demands on my tolerance for uncertainty, but does require patient, repetitive work. I am transferring the foxglove dragonfly drawing to my linen square with a Pitts pen (warm gray III). I find that the underlying drawing I made from my giant computer photographic collage still has some enigmatic areas that will trip me up when it comes time to add color, so I trace and modify as I go. I find that I can't do it for too long. I have more stamina for waxing (the next step), but there is something about the drawing/tracing that tires me out. Still, I am inching forward.

Discomfort

The patchwork base is attached to its backing and I am tacking some silk scraps to it. This cloudy lavender is meant to be the first layer of amorphous floaty shapes that break the strict grid behind them. It isn't very satisfying at this stage. I'm not sure it looks good (although it might just be too soon to judge), the silk is slippery and hard to handle and my stitches displease me. As I laboriously ply my needle my inner voices ask if other shapes would be better (easier), whether the colors are ugly, and how much effort is is being wasted. This is the quicksand of creativity. I'm out in the middle of the swamp, can't see very far ahead and the ground I am occupying doesn't want to hold me up. I don't know if I will continue or start again.

Evening blue

The patchwork base of my ad hoc table runner is now sewn together. I have pinned it to a piece of organdy and the next thing is to attach the two thoroughly enough to dispense with the pins (ouch). As I stitched my squares I was also dyeing some old silk scarves I had in my stash from my days working with Michele Wipplinger at Earthues. She used them in her dyeing classes because they made a finished product that students could take home with them. They have been languishing in my storage boxes for years and seemed perfect for collage, especially since I don't have too many patterned fabrics. I dyed them in log purple, log gray, cochineal and indigo and came up with various shades of purple, lavender and blue. My original guiding thought was to represent the warmth of home against the falling dusk, but as I have handled my fabrics and played with dyes my idea has softened to a more generic "Night Sky". It could still change.

I have also traced out the full size pattern for Lisa's summer tablecloth. Making a line drawing from my giant photos clarifies the flower stalks and helps me see where to put what color.  I have decided to draw them in with gray Pitts markers on white linen, wax them, dye them and then paint the leaves and flowers last. I am waiting for Dick Blick to send me more markers. The cloth sucks up the ink pretty quickly and they run out of color.

I have been trying to spend most of my time outside now that good weather has arrived, but I am making progress on my textiles.

Summer tests

Lockdown days are busy, but somewhat blurred and similar, and I have come to feel a little blurry and indistinct myself. I don't have much to say to anyone.  Krista Tippett in her On Being podcast did a little riff this week on the energy we absorb physically from each other and the effect the separation is having on our vitality, and I feel like that provides a key to the slow and low tenor of my days. I'd be interested to know if others have noticed this too.

I have been working on my patchwork base, so cutting lots of blue squares and sewing them into nine-patches has taken some time. I am almost ready to join them into a long table runner about 15 inches wide and...how long? I'll lay them out and see what works best.

Bringing up an indigo pot was the next thing for Lisa's summer cloth tests, but when I went to make the base stock I found that my chemicals had spoiled (or, in the case of lye, hardened into an intractable ball) and so I had to send away for fresh ones. For a moment I considered trying a more natural method, but decided that my heart isn't really into the process so much as the outcome and I know how to bring up a chemical pot quite reliably, therefore why change? One Dharma delivery later my pot was on and I was able to dip my myrobalan-painted test pieces in blue. 

The results are interesting. The three examples are the same pattern drawn in wax only, drawn with gray fabric marker and waxed, and drawn and then painted and waxed, with wax finally taken off them all. I am pleased with the way the painted example came through the processes of indigo and wax removal. A little freshness was lost, but the paint is well integrated into the cloth. I like the delicacy of the gray outlines, but they may not be enough to bring the gray plates into active conversation with the design. I meant to keep the background green as light as possible so the first two trials were in the indigo for the shortest possible time. On the last one I doubled the submersion time and got the darker background. At first I thought it was too dark, but it is growing on me. I like the teal quality of the color. Of course, this is all just approximate....when I stuff a full size cloth into an indigo bath it could turn out quite differently, but at least I know what ballpark I'm playing in. The next step is to paint the two without color and refine my skills and color choices before going on to the big cloth.

Picking up pieces

Back before Christmas I mordanted three test pieces for Lisa's summer cloth. One has a fragment of the proposed pattern drawn on with marker and then painted with fabric paint and waxed, one
has the drawing without the paint, and then waxed, and the third is just the pattern drawn on with wax. They have been waiting in the fridge for me to clear a space to work on them, and finally I have. Today I took them out and painted over them all with the same concentration of myrobalan, which gives a buttery yellow. When it has had a chance to soak in (three days or so), I'll dip them in indigo and then remove the wax and see what survivies.

In the evenings I have been sewing my blue and black squares into nine-patches as a way to ease myself into the project prompted by Jude's blog. Since she has put her tutorials back onto her blog I have been watching two or three posts a day and marveling at the ease with which she amalgamates her vast scrap collection into compelling "stories", using the fabric like paint. (Hazel is also a master combiner....check out the pink ground on her latest.) Watching Jude and then actually taking up fabric scraps in my hands with the intention of making them into a picture reminds me of how literal I am. When I think back over what I have made I see that I always want to make my point clear. My method of working usually requires a fairly detailed plan and pre-made pattern (see Lisa' summer).  My stuff definitely evolves as it forms, but always the idea comes first and I judge my success by how well that idea comes through. I think being a designer drilled into me the necessity of clear communication, but I see Jude communicating clearly but much more organically and I admire that. I will not be able to replicate her delicacy because I am not her and I am working with much heavier, stodgier material, but I am trying to imitate her more open way of working, always wishing for the depth of feeling she is so good at expressing. Whether I will be able to maintain my enthusiasm in the face of the discomfort of this new path remains to be seen.