Focus

Yes, focus, I could really do with more!

I have been absent from here for some time, just being busy really. I have several projects on the go - never giving quite enough time to any of them, but hoping to get more than one thing finished by giving each at least some time. So there is the Mona Lisa project with my Embroiderers' Guild group. We have chopped her up into 25 rectangles and have each taken one to work on with whichever technique we feel suitable. I have her forehead. Just about to start cutting out organza shapes to get the colour of her skin before stitching that and finishing her hair.

Then there is my Mesopotamia project at Studio 11 - very slow stitch, but I am thinking about it all the time; how to express what catches my interest about the subject, how to be creative with ideas as well as images in stitch and cloth. The two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates are gradually flowing down the hanging I'm working on at the moment.

and towns are popping up along the way - in this case, Dur Sharrukin, Nineveh and Nimrud

Also, there is my patchwork - that monthly class which a little group of us are attending where we are learning all the basic skills in a nine patch quilt with borders. Just the borders and quilting to do now!! Only a little bit behind!!!

And recently I acquired,  or perhaps took over responsibility for the most wonderful piece of English Paper Piecing, a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt, part finished, left to a friend by her godmother. The friend feels she can't finish it so it has been sitting on the top of her wardrobe making her "feel guilty" for the past 13 years.  It is double bed size, and I have fallen in love with it.

There are odd edges that need finishing before I can get to grips with how to proceed. There are also lots more hexies to be cut and stitched round the templates, template papers to be removed from the completed bits of piecing, flowers to be pieced and decisions to be made.

Such inventive fussy cutting.

I have no idea how long finishing will take, but it's a daily bit of quiet stitching that does my soul good.

On top of all that, I am now part way through a ten week course on the history of Mesopotamia - part way through and falling behind! Falling behind because we have been away for three long weekends in the past seven weeks, doing very enjoyable family things with my dear heart's family. This last weekend we were in Kassel for a very joyful wedding. The weather was toasty, the sun shone, the corn poppies were blooming

and the church roof threw back the light to the sky

Then this post popped into my side bar of places I enjoy.

How to have more focused hours in your day

Wonderful advice, but will I take it?

Life is full.

Seven down

We had our monthly patchwork meeting today, and I'm glad to say I was all caught up with myself. We have completed seven of our nine blocks now, so are romping towards the finish line. I am really happy with where I am with these blocks. I have enjoyed each one - all different in terms of techniques, all challenging in their own way, but terrific fun nonetheless.

Here they are all laid out on the sewing room floor - the wonderful stripes in the middle are the handstitched rug that sits in there, created by a 90 year old lady who knew Cecil "in the dim distant past" to use one of her favourite sayings. 

The blocks seems to be balancing well in terms of colour and design (the design all being Naomi's of course, as she is the one teaching us) and I'm hoping the final two blocks will fit in, once they are made.

The bottom line includes the most recent block, my version of the drunkard's path block.

So what was on offer today? Well the usual delightful teaching by Naomi - who is always so good at explaining how we should construct the current block, and who always brings both interesting books,  relevant to the technique and delicious home baked biscuits for us to nibble with our mid morning coffee. And the block we are to do this month? Snail Trail, a block which seems to have several differing construction techniques. We will be foundation piecing, which means using a base fabric and stitching each scrap down onto this. Each bit of fabric overlaps the previous one, and is placed right sides together across it and stitched before being folded flat so that the seam you have stitched covers up the raw edge of the previous piece. I am looking forward to using up some scraps and probably creating more!

If only all learning was this much fun!

The impromptu design wall

I have mentioned Mesopotamia a couple of times - my Studio 11 focus for this year, to understand what it is to follow a theme and explore its possibilities. It is a project that is taking shape slowly and is often in the back of my mind, rumbling about while I'm reading or doing ether stuff.

When I am at home I have no access to a design wall as we do at Studio 11, so I improvise with shelves full of books. I have many of those and a random title pulled forward makes an excellent support for a hanger, and this type of hanger makes an excellent support for a piece of cloth. Wide pieces, like the ones on the right can be clipped to bit of suitable sized card, but Mesopotamia fits.

Below it is clipped together with a piece of soft blue design cloth which I am using to try out techniques, You might recognise the buff and turquoise fabric - in an earlier incarnation it too was a trial piece for "her ladyships trousers" I used it to develop the dyeing technique for the bottom of the legs.

It is a vintage linen - previously sheets (see the trousers story), and very soft and fine. I'm sure it was lovely to sleep on when used for it's former purpose, but now it stands in for Mesopotamia; layers of linen and layers of time blending together.

There is a moon peering up out of the darkness, and sandy soil rippling ripe for cultivation.

There is the outline of two rivers - the Tigris and Euphrates of course, tacked onto the cloth ready to be couched

The colour ripples in the fabric have an estuarine feel to them, suitable for an environment where water and ground were intermingled. I have stitched across the entire piece with running stitch to hold things all together and create one cloth out of two, backed, of course with a fine muslin.

and at the very bottom, the deep dark water that is "Abzu", home of Enki, and source of the sweet water which is the basis of all life.

I plan to embroider the cuneiform script for Abzu here. 

And this soft blue? Another piece of the same linen, where I am finding out what happens when you couch down a variety of threads, all bundled together. They can turn and twist around each other; separate and rejoin, and even flow off the main course completely and create space for a town or city.

The first city, according to myth, was Eridu, where the sweet water of the Abzu bubbled up out of the ground. I have bought some little chippings of lapis lazuli and carnelian to stitch where the main towns are cities are - and of course I can take the "water" away from the main course to create a surrounding liquidity and space for the soil to be brought together around the city, to build and to grow.

I think the ideas are beginning to coalesce, and I understand where I could go with this. There is much to explore, and perhaps several pieces of cloth to express several ideas and themes. I'm looking forward to the journey, and to the learning.

weaving inspiration

My weaving is really taking over my creative time at the moment. Not completely dominating it, but I have been weaving pretty much every day since my last post. This is the result, hanging on the line to dry after being washed - I didn't even know you were supposed to wash things when they come off the loom, but it helps the warp and weft to meld together into a fabric. This was an experiment in colour and a practice piece to improve my understanding of weaving evenly, getting those edges straight and not loopy and finding out what happens when you weave colours together. I'm really pleased with the outcome, and have learnt all sorts of things. In particular, I was hoping for a more thorough blend of colours in warp and weft, but I've used too wide a sett on the warp, which means that my weft colours are dominating, though you do get a hint of the warp stripes running through.

I did have two days of not weaving though, travelling up to the big city to see two exhibitions. The first was the Anni Albers show at Tate Modern. A friend Steph and I had been looking forward to this for some time, she also being a stitcher and part of our little breakaway tapestry weaving group. We almost ran out of time, as it closed last weekend, but a quick bit of planning meant that we were able to get there on Thursday. The works on show were incredibly inspiring for a new weaver; each piece repaying close observation. For me that means pulling my glasses half way down my nose and getting it as close as possible to what I'm looking at - always a bit unnerving as I keep expecting a solicitous museum attendant to leap up and banish me for getting too close!

Her combination of colour, texture and technique was a real lesson in how to create beauty on the loom and, even more inspiring, many of her experimental pieces were woven on small simple looms, rather than the beautiful piece of equipment that greeted visitors as we entered the gallery.

Here, in La Luz (The Light), she has used a combination of linen and metallic thread to create a shimmering plane of colour and light - the central cross moving in and out of view as you change your position in relation to the weaving

Anni Albers. La Luz. 1947

In the detail here you can see how she carries the metallic thread across the piece so that it appears to be couched on the surface, rather than woven. The subtle colours and the way she uses differing weights and shades of thread enhances the sense of layers of light moving in and out of view

Anni Albers. La Luz. 1947 (detail)

This detail of "Two", which is woven from Linen, cotton and rayon, encapsulates the complexity of her weaving - I kept finding myself thinking "how on earth has she done that?" and wanting to look at the back.

Anni Albers. Two. 1952. Detail

Pasture, felt joyous - the wonderful play of green and orange, with little sparkles of white in counterpoint to the black thread beckoned me to close my eyes and imagine walking through fields of summer flowers.

Anni Albers. Pasture. 1958

Six Prayers, below, was a commission from the Jewish Museum in New York for a memorial to the Jews who had died in the Holocaust. They were beautiful to sit in front of, luminous, meditative, those wandering lines evoking lost journeys but also perhaps, curling plumes of smoke rising into the receiving sky.

Anni Albers. Six Prayers. 1966-7

By the time we had reached these weavings we had both come to the end of our museum feet, so parted ways, Steph going back to the station to catch a train home, and me walking down to the tube station to get a tube to my next destination, Russell Square, where I had booked into a hotel for the night (how very grown up!). This got me close to the British Museum for my exhibition visit the following day, I Am Ashurbanipal. I won't go into detail here; suffice to say it was marvellous, and fed my interest in all things Mesopotamian. But I was, of course, in one of the great museums of the world, and had been looking at weaving, so felt an quick visit to see the Coptic weavings would be a lovely counterpoint to what I had seen the day before. And they were, little snippets of colour and imagery, so fine you could hardly imagine a human hand creating them; so fresh and vibrant and full of delightful detail.

Having marvelled at these, I wandered through to the Mesopotamian and Ancient Levant Galleries, for some sketching and browsing. They are full of marvellous objects, including these curious half human half something entirely other figurines dating from the Middle Bronze Age (2400-2000 BC)

Weary at last with my wanderings, it was time to come home, but not before visiting my favourite image in the downstairs display from Nineveh. This relief of a captive woman bending down to give her child water is such a tender moment amidst all the killing and pillaging. I pay her my respects every time I visit.

You can see more of Anni Albers' weaving here, on the website of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation

first "proper" weaving done

Se here are the three little mats I've just cut from the loom. They are all slightly different and by no means perfect, but I'm really happy with them. They all have a plain weave background with trees and snow in the "Branoe" or "Overshot" technique. The first, on the right just has a little row of white trees; the middle one uses a thicker, slightly crinkly yarn with a lovely sheen for the trees and snow, while the one on the left uses two strands of the same white that I used in the first one. All three have a dark blue warp; the first one uses a lighter blue for the weft, but the second two mix the lighter blue with the dark warp thread to try and suggest the darker sky. These two also have a border in a different technique using a pickup stick behind the heddle. 

I've learnt all sorts from these; how to carry more than one strand of yarn up the side (very untidily it must be said); that I needed to leave more warp between each mat to have a hope of creating a fringe (or grow mouse fingers); that I should have found out how to calculate the amount of warp you need before starting, rather than guestimating, hence there are only three rather than four; and what fun weaving is.

So now, instead of little fringes on each one I shall do my best to fold the fringe under and back each with some appropriate fabric, fused and then stitched on, which will be fun. Then on to my next learning project; the scarf of many colours. I'm really looking forward to seeing how these blend in the loom and to the more simple process of plain weave, but I may need to buy some more shuttles so that I have enough for each colour I'm using - I used bits of card for the shuttles on this as each used only a small amount of yarn. I'll also make sure to calculate the right amount of warp - which will involve maths; never my strong point!

So thank you to Kelly Casanova for her very fine tutorial, and for a very helpful post on good books to buy on her lovely blog. Did I need any more books in the house? Really? Of course I did, but I only bought two of her recommendations. I should confess, though, to a third book, very necessary as I and the good friend who sold me her loom are visiting London next week; first for this, and then, just for me as I'm staying in London overnight, this. So the catalogue on Ashurbanipal was a must, especially as I'm still musing and stitching on my Studio 11 theme of Mesopotamia. I will post on this when there's something worth seeing - honest! There's more musing than stitching happening at the moment.

"here's one I made earlier" - for Pen

A small needlepoint I made many years ago, designed to fit a little chair which came to me by chance and was restored by my ex, who still has a fine way with wood.

Weaving experiments

One of the things that I was really taken by in Bhutan was watching the weavers crafting their wonderful textiles. Their concentration, dexterity and sheer skill was mesmerising. You'll have seen some examples in my earlier post, and if you've been following for a while you'll have seen my experiments in tapestry weaving (really must post an update on this too!!), but this was weaving on a totally different level. A couple more pictures will give you an idea of the variety of the weaving in the various places we visited. You can find out more about Bhutanese weaving, for which they are rightly famed, here and I've embedded a video below.

On the loom - Bumthang weaving centre

These two are very similar in style, but totally different in their colours. I seem to recall that the one above uses solely plant dyed yarn, which may explain the more subtle colours, though we were assured everywhere we visited that only plant dyes are used.

On the loom, Yathra weaving centre

Horizontal looms - Bumthang weaving centre

tempting weaving wares - outside Kurje Lhakhang,

Thimphu - backstrap weaving at Gagyel Lhundrup weaving centre

Gagyel Lhundrup weaving centre - temptations

Lengths of cloth - Yathra weaving centre

What came across most forcibly when we were there was that all this lovely weaving was being done for a practical purpose. The cloth was being woven to wear and, in the case of the weaving centre in Thimphu, the fabric was of the finest quality, fit quite literally for a King or Queen. When we weave here in the UK, we are doing it for our own pleasure, leisure, artistry, but on the whole the result is more likely to be hung up on the wall, or be a transient item. We don't normally wear what we have woven. In Bhutan the national dress, Kira for women and Gho for men is based around the dimensions that can be produced by hand on a backstrap or horizonal loom, and this was very apparent in the more rural areas we visited.

Bhutanese weaving in action

So, where has all this led me?

Well, one of my good friends in our little tapestry weaving group bought herself a rigid heddle loom early on in our forays into weaving, but recently decided that she wasn't using it and would like the space in her study back, so offered it to me at a very generous price.  I leapt at the chance and have been practicing ever since. No, of course I've not produced anything remotely like the weaving I saw while in Bhutan, but I've been doing my research. I started by learning to warp up the loom using the very helpful videos on the Ashford Looms website and some orange and deep brown yarn, bought centuries ago and never used (it always comes in useful eventually, you know that). Then I just wove. I played about, experimented with alternating colours (more yarn stash busting) to see what patterns emerged; using a knitting needle to hold down some of the warp threads so that the weft went over more than one warp, making raised patterns on the surface; learning what the best way of keeping edges straight is. All tremendous fun and resulting in a four foot length of what vaguely resembles fabric - a sampler in fact to use a stitchy reference. The image below is from part way through my experiments.

Having taken this off the loom I felt it was time to be a bit more adventurous, so again trawled YouTube for instruction. I came across this delightful and very seasonal design by an Australian weaver called Kelly Casanova. So now I'm enjoying myself making little squares of blue with white Christmas trees on them, as per her very fine instructions. This is the second square - I'm hoping I have warped up enough yarn to do four of them, each one slightly different. You can see that my edges are a bit wonky, and I'm still very much a beginner, but at least this does vaguely look like something.

Once these are done, I have yet more yarn (no of course I didn't deliberately buy some) and will begin another larger project just working with several colours in both warp and weft to see where I get.

Watch this space :-)