Raven and Sparrow

Pillow tests

My efforts to dye my embroidery floss looked great at first, and even now, out in the sunlight they look good, but held up to the Lisa's autumn runner they look wrong...steely blue instead of grayish grape. I have put them back into mordant and plan to add a tiny bit of cochineal to the skeins to see if I can get closer to the color I want. If I don't, I'll just go with what I have, but I feel a little stubborn about trying for the color I imagine. We'll see. My stubbornness will evaporate if it gets too hard.

While I stitch away on Lisa's Autumn, I am also trying to figure out what to do with Summer. I'm not sure how to translate my giant photos of foxglove and dragonflies into patterns on cloth (paint, wax, silk screen?). I need to get some gray into the design because of the color of the dishes, but I don't want too much because gray doesn't seem summery. After checking in with Grace's blog (windthread.typepad.com) it occurred to me that I could just draw the pattern on with permanent marker in the color I want, like Grace draws in what she wants on her cloth. Unfortunately I'm daunted by the effort to draw on the size of cloth I am contemplating. There are too many things I don't know about how it will work. I need to do some tests, but testing for me has always been frustrating. I have spent many hours in the past testing for color or pattern, and then when I go to the full cloth, it looks entirely different. I might as well have not bothered to test at all. Also, I have trouble taking tests seriously. Still, there is too much unknown here to just leap onto my large white linen square. I fuss and fiddle, and then remember the Pillow Project. You recall the Pillow Project, right? .....my idea to use tests to produce some replacements for my tatty couch pillows? Yeah, me neither, until just now. By making something with a purpose I can short-circuit my tendency to half-ass my tests and work through whatever problems present themselves, as each pillow will be a mini-project unto itself. I may find that my ideas will work, or maybe come up with a new possibility, and if I fail completely I at least won't have wasted too much time or fabric.

Anyway, I have made three linen blanks a little bigger than 18 inches square and today drew a fragment of my pattern onto one, using a Faber-Castell Pitt pen in Warm Gray III. (I wanted to stay with the full-sized pattern, not shrinking it down because I am using a smaller cloth.) It was hard. The linen is absorbent and the pen bled more than I thought it would. I was hoping I could get a calligraphic feel to my strokes, but I'm not sure I succeeded with that. Still, the pattern is coherent, so I will go on. I plan to make another one by drawing and then try one using wax, my usual method.

Progress report

I've been working on several fronts as I prepare seasonal table linens for my sister Lisa. The quilted undercloth for spring is back from the quilter and I am fairly pleased with how it turned out. I like the swirly pattern and the texture it creates, and it is clear that ironing it and keeping it wrinkle free will be much easier than the single weight of fabric. I was worried that it would be too stiff, so I used lightweight muslin for the backing and flannel for the batting and it has maintained a pleasant drape. The bands I had to add to bring the square to 61" pretty much disappear under the quilting. They don't intrude into the visual effect at all. The back is pretty too.

The downside is the cost, as long-arm quilting for this cloth added $100 to its total and that is a lot...too much for one piece in an array of things needed for each season. However, doing it this once confirmed that quilting can be a good idea, so I will have to see how hard it will be to quilt things this size on my own sewing machine.

The cloth for summer will be another square and I am wondering if I should make it larger too (61" instead of 54"), and maybe another quilt. I have really struggled to come up with a pattern for summer. I knew it had to have dragonflies, because they are meaningful for my sister's family, and they are on the dishes. I started with a photo of a dragonfly that I got on the internet and traced over it to see if I could translate it into a line drawing.

Then I scanned it into my computer and played around with other elements to see what looked good. I finally settled on foxglove, which grow in abundance in my yard in early summer. I roughly selected several from my photographs and set them along one side of the square with dragonflies interspersed among them. This seems like an outline of a pattern, but I don't know how to translate them into marks on my cloth. I decided to print them out at full size so I can experiment without the necessity of blowing them up later, which can really change how they look. 

I am pretty happy that my local printshop could do these giant photos very cheaply, so I can play without worry.

Finally, I have got all the words on my autumn runner embroidered, but I think they are too low in contrast, and not quite the right color. This has turned out to be a problem. In our town we used to have a wonderful store that sold supplies for all kinds of hand work. It was owned by the wife of my fifth grade teacher, an expert knitter, crocheter, and needlepointer. She had a full wall in her shop dedicated to hand-dyed embroidery thread, mostly from Weeks and Gentle Arts, along with the full range of DMC floss, perle cotton and linen thread. It was my pleasure to take my projects into the shop and fuss for hours choosing just the right colors and weights from her selection. Alas, she retired and the next owner was not interested in embroidery thread. I still have a partial skein of floss from her in exactly the right color and value, but it isn't enough. I have attempted to order on-line from Weeks and Gentle Arts, but what they sent is not the same. I have come to the conclusion that I must dye some thread myself. Dang it. I hate dyeing thread and yarn and I don't like having to match colors. This shows that I am not an Expert Dyer. Oh well. I bought some white DMC floss and re-skeined it for dyeing with those deeply annoying figure eight ties

. It is in the mordant now. I'll let you know how it goes.

Lucky star

Making a set of green linen napkins should have been a straightforward sewing task, including the formation of mitered corners. When one corner on one napkin got clipped incorrectly I ended up with a slanted corner instead. My first feeling was one of dismay and disappointment....my napkin set was compromised. I didn't have enough fabric for another napkin; I didn't feel like seven constituted a proper set; there was nothing about the corner that made the napkin less useful, so leaving it out would just waste it....these were the thoughts that ran through my head, and that's what I posted about. One bad corner. The post before it was about seeing things from a different angle, but I did not see this mistake from a different angle. It was Mo (itscrowtime.wordpress.com) who pointed out that I could regard the napkin not as compromised, but special. Duh. Sometimes it feels like my brain is made of rust, although I also credit Mo in general with particularly nimble and creative thinking. In honor of her I decided to embellish my special napkin with a star because of the skyfull of stars she regularly produces. It turned out a little wonky, but now it says "lucky" instead of "mistake". Thanks Mo!

One bad corner

Although there hasn't been too much to show, I have continued to work on Lisa's table settings. The embroidery on her autumn runner is extensive, but getting close to being finished. In the meanwhile I have been making the quilted undercloth for her spring setting. Actually, I'm not quilting it myself....I made the top by adding bands to a square of linen to increase its size to 63 inches, organized a backing (muslin) and batting (flannel) and sent it to our local long-arm quilting lady. I'll get it back in a couple of weeks. This adds quite a bit of expense to the project, but I couldn't face the effort of teaching myself to machine quilt (hand quilting is out of the question with all the embroidery I have undertaken) without knowing if this experiment will work. I'll get the square back and will be able then to judge its drape and ease of care and see if it is worth it to quilt tablecloths. If it is suitable I will have to get serious about doing it myself.

Making the undercloth this way has used much less of the six yards of linen I always buy for large tablecloths, so I have turned the surplus into napkins. I was able to get eight  twenty-three inch square napkins (twenty inches finished) out of the scraps, which means thirty-two mitered corners. Practice has made me quite nonchalant about making mitered corners, so I was irritated to find that I had mis-sewn and then clipped one before realizing that there was a problem. Grrr.... way to keep myself humble. Now one of the set of eight will be the poor step-child, only used when numbers require it, and probably by Lisa herself if she follows my practice of reserving the stained or worn bits for me or Mike when setting our tables. Nothing is ever perfect, but the project soldiers on.

Nourishment

I was listening to Seth Godin's podcast Akimbo this morning and he was saying that the point of school should be to teach children to solve interesting problems. It got me thinking about what problems I am trying to solve with my efforts in tablesetting. I started with the superficial issues I wrestle with as I make my seasonal cloths, but kind of quickly got down to the question: "Why does it matter?" Am I doing it to satisfy and justify my own predilections.... I like setting tables, therefore it must be important and useful? Is my work actually as shallow and ego-driven as that? What is the real underlying problem I am addressing? The answer is lurking in the depths like the Loch Ness monster, large and mythical, but hard to see.

I think that the most important thing to me is my own connections to the web of life. Being part of, taking part in, doing my part to contribute to the swirl of Being Alive. It is what I am here for. Like everyone else, I experience that connection through the people I know, the places I inhabit and the experiences those things bring to me. I am part of many interlocking systems (familial, social, political, and ecological) that range from extremely intimate to universal. Some of those systems are breaking down and that is a Big Problem. Religion is a glue that is losing its stick, government is mistrusted, bowling leagues are out of fashion. Our cultural insistence on the primacy of the individual has left us alone and lonely amid the sweep of events too large to control or even understand. (The move toward individual autonomy was a needed part of our evolution, but we have come as far as that road will take us and now what?) Our natural urge in times of trouble is to turn to those around us and join together to face the danger, but what if we no longer know where to turn? We are confronted with threats to our existence without the framework of support we need to address them.

I started out speaking about myself and then moved to a larger view, which illustrates the many levels on which we are affected by the world around us. I guess this is another way of saying that the personal is political. We are each enmeshed in our own lives, together with everyone else. We need to find some rocks to stand on as the river of change sweeps relentlessly onward. What actions can we take as individuals that will gather, re-form and strengthen our communities? There are tons of ways we can reach out to others, but joining our friends and families for meals seems archetypal in its simplicity, and symbolic power. Sitting down face to face with those we know, or would like to know better, sharing the nourishment of the earth that we all require, is bedrock human interaction in which everyone can participate on some level or other. Fancy tables are not necessary at all, but it is our instinct and offering to embellish that which we think is important and I think the small, ordinary act of eating together is of utmost importance. The interesting problem I seek to solve is how to encourage and increase our connections with each other and the world; tablecloths are my medium.

 

On re-reading my post, I realize that I have said this over and over here, through the years. I am moved to say it again. Since repeating oneself is a sign of age does this mean that I am getting old?

Capturing the sacred

Asked to describe the religious background of his childhood, Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie* told a story of helping his mother set the table every Friday for Shabbat. He would use her best dishes and scour the neighborhood for flowers to make it pretty. That he, the latest in a long line of famous rabbis, would choose to characterize his spiritual upbringing in this simple way testifies to the connection between our aesthetic sensibilities and our awareness of that-which-is-greater than our material, surface lives. The presence of the sacred is a will o' the wisp in everyday existence, easily missed, but always profound when noticed. Beauty is one of its markers, so we seek and make beauty to place ourselves into the larger, deeper flow of life coursing through and beyond our immediate moment. By cleaning, decorating and "making special" we point to and enhance the elusive spirit that animates our lives.

"Setting the table" is a metaphor for creating context. As he literally set his mother's table Rabbi Lau-Lavie made a place for his family to celebrate their religious beliefs through time-honored ritual. By taking care and exercising his creativity he upheld and burnished the importance of Shabbat, but it is the actual acts of care-taking and beautifying themselves that he remembers most clearly and connects to his spiritual heritage. This shows the power hiding in the mundane, daily maintenance of our world....the repetitive, lowly tasks of cleaning and creating the atmosphere in which we exist. Mending, dusting, polishing and arranging are the unappreciated activities that keep our surroundings linked to the beauty of the sacred and create the context that helps us see it.

 

* From an On Being interview with Krista Tippett, of course.

Return to french seams

It has taken a long time, but I have just finished a large undercloth for Lisa's table in natural linen. You may recall, though why would you, that Lisa's table is too wide to make fully covering tablecloths including a double thickness folded edge out of the six yard lengths i usually allocate. If I make the necessary added bands around the main cloth piece out of single, unfolded strips I get raw edges on the back side that will ravel and look ugly compared to the double wide strips that can be folded back to cover all the seam edges on the back. This cloth was an experiment in using french seams to enclose the raw edges and thus result in a neat, un-ravelly back side for my tablecloth. To make the french seams I put wrong sides together, stitched a half inch in, trimmed that seam to a quarter inch (stitching a quarter inch seam on such long lengths of linen would be too hard to control for me), turned the cloth so that right sides were together and stitched again, enclosing the first clipped edge entirely and resulting in a neat tab on the back side. I pulled threads to mark the first half inch seam, and then pulled another thread three eighths of an inch on either side to mark where I wanted to sew for both lines of this two part seam.

The part I never figured out was what to do where the french seams come together with the mitered seam that makes the corners. I ended up getting everything as close as possible and then hand overcasting anything that was left with a raw edge. Its not too bad, but it seems (ha ha) like there must be a more elegant solution. Does anyone know how to do this? I have yet to find a book or You Tube tutorial that addresses it.

I have another big undercloth to make for Lisa, but I am thinking of doing something different...a large quilted square. It would have to be larger than the squares I usually make (which would mean again adding borders) but I think squares are more dynamic on the table than fully covering rectangles. Still, they have to be big enough for all the plates to fit on because a plate half on and half off a tablecloth is uncomfortable. A quilted tablecloth will be more protective for the table than a single weight, but the most important attributes to me are the visual texture a quilted cloth would add and the ease of ironing. Taking care of these big tablecloths is a pain in the tail. I think a quilted cloth would be much simpler to care for and I would like that both for myself and the people to whom I give my cloths. I'm still rolling this over in my mind.

Birds of a feather

A much anticipated reunion of friends from our old neighborhood sent me to the closet to pick an appropriate tablecloth and kick start a summer setting. I pulled out quite a pile of cloth without feeling inspired when suddenly a filmy rayon scarf printed with little birds fell into my hands. I remembered the last time I went with these same friends to visit a local botanical garden (something we used to do very regularly) and in the gift shop found this simple summer scarf.  I liked the color combination and the calligraphic drawings of the little birds and so I bought it as my sole souvenir of our trip. I think it cost twenty dollars. It came home and disappeared into my pile, never to be seen until now. Holding it reminded me so strongly of good times past that I decided it would be the design dictator for the table. Orange, olive green, black and cream....the undercloth was obvious, and so were the cream colored napkins, although I have matching green ones as well. Ditto my favorite green glasses from the sixties and the motley green votive holders for the centerpiece. The terra cotta dishes are rarely used, but were by far the most compatible in my dish collection. Flowers were a puzzle. I actually have some osteospermum (African daisies) that come very close to the dullish yellow and red-brown colors in the scarf, but it turned out that the more vibrant true yellow and orange nasturtiums sparked much more life on the table. I am always drawn to the viney swoops and round foliage of nasturtium stems. They introduce an exuberant note that is perfect for a summer gathering of fairly exuberant friends. Our number was increased by the last minute appearance of my brother and his partner, who fit in perfectly and helped create a memorable evening. Viva la summer!

Lavender time

I was casting about for the right combination of tablecloth and flowers for an upcoming dinner when I looked at my garden and realized that the lavender has bloomed. Problem solved! One of the first tablecloths I made with natural dyes is still among my best and the only flower that looks good with it is lavender. (I'm sure I have shown it many times, but in the spiral of experience, here it comes again.) I made it with my usual combination of tannin-based dye (myrobalan), wax, and over-dye, with embroidery to set it off. The use of logwood gray and logwood purple make it akin to the runner I am currently working on for Lisa's autumn table. Logwood purple (from the South American tree) is a soft blue-purple color that is unfortunately fugitive. Adding iron turns it into a silvery gray that I love and increases its light-fastness. I often add log purple to a stronger log gray mixture to nudge it towards the blue. That's what happened in the center of this cloth, where there is a whisper of lavender compared to the grayer background color and edging. I found out by covering the bluish center square with a large centerpiece that a lot of life goes out of this cloth if you can't see the middle motif, so now I use something small and clear in the middle, if anything at all.

There were six around the table on a beautiful summer night in lavender time.

Half embroidered

I am plugging away on the embroidery for Lisa's autumn runner. Using chain stitch mostly I am filling in the shapes of the stylized wheat ears because the painted myrobalan used to dye them turned out too dark...a little like snot, if truth be told. Covering them completely makes me wonder why I went to all the trouble to paint them and wax them. I could have dyed the cloth and then marked the the wheat in with pencil or marker and saved myself a lot of work, but the goldish background means I can make the embroidery a little more open which increases the texture of the stitching, and I like that. I am thinking about how to handle the center, and wondering if I need to add a shadow line around the wheat. It is even lower contrast now so maybe a shadow would sharpen the images. Embroidery does lift the shapes into the light.