Letting go of quilts

It's easier to let go of your "old" quilts and quiltlets when you know they're going on to a new life, or are helping a good cause. I met Ruth in a textiles class at City Lit and over the years she has had several "tea and textiles" events in aid of various charities, Greenpeace among them.

This time she's fundraising for Medecins Sans Frontieres. I'm happy to contribute some of the quilts made for Contemporary Quilt's challenges, and also some journal quilts (those will be mounted on board to fit into a standard frame, or glued to deep-edged commercial canvases), as well as embroidery that dates back before The Quilting Years.

Here's the selection so far -

Celtic Connections

Verge Blur

"The Rose in Winter" was in the "Figure it Out" suitcase collection

"And Flowers Almost Poems" incorporates old
silks from a friend's mother's stash

"It was her favourite tipple and it done her in" was made
in 1999, before I knew anything about dyeing fabric, and
many of the squares were appliqued on car journeys.
The long thing shape rather reminded me of a coffin cover
(hardly cosy!), hence the title

The theme for the fabric-printing challenge on the Quiltart list
in about 2001 was "Ten" - I hadn't learnt how to photo edit then, in fact
hadn't moved to digital camera, so it had to be text...

Columns were constructed by randomly pulling strips from
one or another bag of fabric, then sewn together. These fabrics were
mostly samples made in a textile printing class in the late 90s
and finallyput to some use. They look rather geological.

Same construction method; the fabrics are mostly silk,
but don't seem to have been affected by hanging in a
bathroom for a few years!

Made in Calgary or Halifax, Canada, late 70s. Hand quilted.

Sunshine and Shadows; made in Halifax, 1979. It hung in a
staff exhibition at the university and I was surprised to see how
small it looked on the wall!

More pink - the largest of the three, and made in the late 90s.
Enlivened by confetti and some rather "electric" machine quilting.

If you'd like to come along to have tea and cake, and be tempted not so much by my textiles but by the prints and ceramics, photography and smaller items that are being contributed by others, get in touch and I'll send you details. Ruth's home is in Camden (north London) and we'll be there on the last weekend in March and the first two weekends in April.  All proceeds go to MSF.

Out of the closet - or rather, the wardrobe

Since my art school days, round about 2010, I've been wearing jeans, black jeans, on a rotational basis - one pair on the body, the other in the wash. It's been a liberation to be freed of "the tyranny of the closet", never being able to find the "right" thing to wear. So much easier to put on the jeans, add a teeshirt and other layer, and it's all done, you're set for the day.

And, in theory, it reduces the number of garments in one's wardrobe.

But recently I bought a dress, and then another, "just for a change". In the past few years, dresses have been flooding onto the market. Goodness, I even made one last winter.

Also recently, I became aware that the dresses, and much else, are simply languishing in the closet, probably picking up that unwelcome whiff of oldness that starts to inhabit clothes that rarely see the light of day.

As a result of these actions and thoughts, I came up with a personal project: 

Jeans-Free July

Can a jeans addict wear other garments for an entire month? Are YOU a jeans addict - would you like to try??

Excited by the idea, I had a little rummage in the closet and put a few outfits together in readiness. (Only 10 days to go!)

Dresses -

Latest acquisition - I felt the need of some COLOUR

"Just a long loose teeshirt" - but the golden colour
is so wonderful!

The smocky dress is bit short, needs leggings...

Without the teeshirt, this is perfect in the heat

Oldies but goodies - in fabulous fabrics. I whipped up
the jacket back in the 80s from a remnant, as one did
in those good old days

 Skirts -

That's probably enough* to be starting with, whatever the weather -

Just in case the weather turns chilly, as it can and has done, a number of LBJs (little black jackets) are ready for action. I do love an LBJ...

Leggings, if I dare, "at my age" - and why not! -

With other teeshirts, other shoes....

Love those long loose linen shirts!

Various non-jean trousers emerged, along with some other beloved linen shirts -

Candidates for studio-wear

... and a drawerful of teeshirts -

Too many stripes? No! You can never have too many stripes!!

*A while back I purged my wardrobe, with the help of a friend, in a couple of days of "japanese tidying". This involves gathering everything and going through it piece by piece. In our so-rich western culture, when we gather everything together, it becomes plain that we (I use "we" loosely, there are exceptions...) have SO much and often too much in our fortunate lives ... but that's another story.

At the risk of becoming a little old lady who is still wearing the clothes she bought during her working life - clothes that are now looking a little tired, emitting a gentle whiff and hanging loosely on her gaunt frame - I probably need buy nothing more for the next two decades, just rotate what's already there.

But goodness, isn't it nice to have something new to wear!! 

Poetry Thursday - Mornings Like This by Annie Dillard

(via)

"Give me time enough in this place
And I will surely make a beautiful thing"
- this is something I say to myself quite often, as a way of paying attention to where I am and spending enough time and care to take in all that it contains.

The book "Mornings Like This", containing "found poems", was sent to me in the 1990s sometime by my much-missed friend Rita, kindred spirit and writer of prize-winning short stories ... and many cards and letters, which I have still.

"So brief - our best!
...
Give me time enough in this place
And I will surely make a beautiful thing."

- the same words, a different thought altogether... about where we are, and what is missing.

Progress in the studio

A worktop is ready for Wednesday's task - woodblock printing, carrying on from the class, which has finished for the term. 

Not perfect, but there's enough space to spread out a bit. And woodblock printing is meant to be a "compact" sort of production. 

Hidden in the far distance is a radio - it will be a morning of listening to whatever's on Radio4. When I was still working in the day job, it was my dream to spend the days in the studio with the radio on in the background. Now, I'd just as soon have silence ... though of course there's the temptation of podcasts ... which did not exist in the days of the day job.

I keep finding items that need to be documented before being passed on -

A collection of broken car mirrors, found in the street

From a Tate carrier bag - what a good idea to have ART, rather
than logos, on (paper) carrier bags

Menu from a Paris restaurant - 1994 - prices in francs

Can you believe it, a collection of Russian toilet paper -
from the plane and various hotels and bars, 1995
(these had been rediscovered in an earlier studio reorganisation)

An idea - unsuccessful - for the "Underfoot at the V&A" project

Years ago, the London region of the Quilters Guild had an annual
celebrity lecture - this may have been the last; I was involved in
the regional newsletter and flier production at that point

1999 - I was part of Fibre Art London, exhibiting at Leighton House,
London and also in Broadstairs, Kent

The Loomus cartoons in the Guardian are sadly missed

Creative memories from the early 2000s -
pergola at West Dean, on my first visit there;
felt stitched with a poem (Mornings Like This);
indigo dyeing from City Lit;
a fling with clothing as a subject;
 and the quilt that nearly cost me my relationship

"The view from my chair", June 1992, on an A5 envelope

4x6 cards from a larger series, each a textile collage made quickly before
going to work; they were how I kept the creative momentum going during
a time when life seemed to be just work and sleep, work and sleep

Sunsets, much the same round the world
Petworth, Chillon, London, Vancouver

Weekend workshop

It's CQ's Winter School, and in an attempt to learn to love my ipad I've signed up for the course on using it for Making Art - drawing apps and photography. Think digital collage, that sort of thing. And also, demystification of a hostile [in my mind at least] piece of technology - I am so NOT "Church of Apple" - ! Why, then, did I buy an ipad rather than a tablet? Sheer lack of forethought, that's all. It was 2012, I thought I might use it in my MA show (didn't) ... And I do love having a "personal tv" for catch-up programmes, and for catch-up radio too.

This gathering of quilters, aka fabric collectors, is also a good opportunity to move some of my superfluous fabric on to good homes - the contents of a (small) chest of drawers are in the trolley. There is room for my pjs and other essentials. And the workshop requirement is in the picture too, mustn't leave that behind! -

By Sunday afternoon I'm sure I'll know how to do lots of things other than check emails and watch tv.

Although I tried several times to put this piece of "ecru voile" into the "moving on" bag, it insisted on staying with me for now - 

Bought from Nice Irma's, on Goodge Street, way back when ... must have been the 1990s. Nice Irma's Floating Carpet opened in 1972 as a hippy emporium, says this 1997 article on "the new Asian cool". Then - can't remember when - the shop shut, and a little lunch hour excursion fell out of my life. Nice Irma's is still trading online -- but without the shop it's just another company name.

What's all this then?

"Then" is when it was made - at least 20 years ago, as one of those exercises that help us get clarity on our life goals, or put things in perspective, or remind ourselves of what we'd like to get out of life.

How you do it is - take half a dozen magazines of various titles, and look through them for photos that appeal to you and tear out those pages. (You may want to discard the rest of the magazine immediately, lest it haunt your life as clutter.) Then glue "your" photos onto a big sheet of paper.

I found the exercise very ... clarifying. It brought what was important to me at the time, and what remains important to me now, though some small details have changed - the comfortable shoes now need to be somewhat stylish (and accommodate bunions - totally incompatible aims perhaps, but the search goes on), and that little black dress ... 20 years later and 20 lbs lighter, I'd rather wear little black jeans!

The minimal, hospitable rooms speak to an ongoing aspiration, but at the time had a deeper meaning - I was living in a shabby shared house and not happy with the situation, yet felt I was stuck there and could never afford my own place. But sometimes circumstances change; I don't remember exactly what happened, but being mugged outside my own gate certainly had something to do with it, and after a bit of hard negotiation I was out of there, moving 5 minutes down the road and into a very different life.

The dream-spaces are two dining rooms, or maybe three, at least one with a french door into the garden; a bathroom (with art on the wall!); and an airy library-gallery. Not to overlook the summerhouse/shed/studio in the garden.

Ah, garden ... flowering plants, and trees ... there are many in my dream-life. On the left is a paved courtyard garden with luscious clusters in great variety planted among the stones - a model for my own paved area out front, which is almost ready to plant (some dreams come true, but probably not quite as you imagined them).

Art supplies; birds; a fireplace. Keeping busy; observing nature; being warm.

Scenery - the sun breaking through clouds over gentle hills and long-cultivated valleys, how very English. The gloomier road beside the sea, and a snow scene elsewhere - these are about living in a place with seasons, and enjoying those seasons in their changeableness.

There's a painting of a family scene, but nothing about the importance of friends - that was an interesting omission but would definitely be there now. Maybe the fireworks - an explosion of joy - represent friendships and relationships?

To go with the many dining rooms, there are cakes. Cakes aren't quite so important to me now, but remain an important link with the past and my mother's effortless master-baker shining example, and her generous hospitality.

Last but not least - coffee, and an elegant coffee maker.

Sadly it is no more

The moths had a field day with this wee jumper that I knit for my son when he was two years old.

The sleeves say ZOO

The inspiration, and perhaps the animal patterns, came from a thin book called "Everyone's Knitting", which originated in Denmark or Sweden in the 1970s - I can't find it either on my shelves or on the internet. This pre-dated the fair isle craze of the early 1980s, and then the intarsia revival...

I remember the excitement of knitting "just one more round" to see the pattern developing, and the pleasure of seeing the child wearing it. And - using odd balls of wool, making it out of what was to hand (those were financially stringent times).

Deer, alligators, lions, elephants - and what are those birds, pterodactyls? quetzalcoatyl?

Thirty-some years later, the moths have had their way ... and into the bin it goes ... oh well, I can re-knit it if needed for another child (exchanging the geometric bands in the body). The measurements are 30cm across the chest, 31 cm neck to hem, 20 cm round the sleeve, and 20 cm length of sleeve. Essentially it's squares, within which you can do whatever you want. What fun it was!

And what fun this poppet was ... terrible two's, anyone?