Scarves, scarves, scarves…

I am working away making bloody awesome, if I say so myself, scarves for the December 2010 Fine Arts Trunk Show at LaLa Gallery .   Scarves aren’t  <deep voice here> Great Art, but they can be decorative ArtWear and making them is a wonderful way to simply play with colour and texture.

These scarves are awesome, not only because I am making them but also because I am working with such fabulous material — vintage saris, Chinese silk brocade, incredible Italian wools, hand-woven vintage Thai silk with 1950’s printed motifs.  I’d guess that 85-90% of the materials I use in these scarves is repurposed, vintage, or both.

just run your eyes and hands over this...

 

Finally, again…

Apparently it’s against the universe’s rules to focus on one thing at a time.  Instead of being able to just roll onward and an upward with studio organisation, I’ve also had to do other things, some of which involved working in the studio.

For instance, some pesky chairs.  I have three patio chairs that are several years old.  They’re pretty comfortable, and structurally sound, but the fabric is shot:

The old chair...

detail of wear

Now these chairs aren’t worth spending much time or money on, but I thought I could do a down-and-dirty easy-on-easy-off slipcover that would extend their lives another couple of years and encourage people to sit in them without thinking, “hmmm, grungy….”

I found the perfect fabric — for $140 per yard.  Um, No.  I found some acceptable fabric that worked out to $20 per chair.

So after an afternoon of sewing we have “new” chairs.

Just a quickie...

 

Working on My “Figure” — Part 4

It’s hard to say “fleshing out” about a ghost, but I have given her a swirl  around her skeleton and ghostly innards that is part arms, part wings, part very ragged cloak.  There are shreds of burnt, worn, “leather” cloak hanging from the hollow bones.

you can barely see her in daylight

if you can catch her against a wall...

After all, when I’d gotten this far I stood her in the kitchen next to the fridge, in front of the open shelving.  The Gentleman Caller got home after work and set something on the shelves, went over and opened the fridge…  I said, “Whaddya think?”.  He turned and said, “What?”.  He had been moving around and reaching for things within 2 or 3 inches of her and neither seen nor collided with her.  She is a real ghost.

Now all she needs is blood — she is alive, is she not?  And carries some long-ago pain, I think, through time and space.  Now she is hanging out at the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette http://artlafayette.org/index.shtml as part of Go Figure: Creatively Transforming our Environment.

I am fascinated to learn that “valr”=the slain [and I think, must be connected in some fashion, perhaps cognate-wise,  to “valour”].  “kyrie”=”kur”/”kuz” cognate with “chosen”.  In Greek, “kyrie” means “lord” which is ideally related to chosen or at least deserving, and is best known from the Christian cry, “Kyrie eleison” — “Lord have mercy”.  I suspect one could write a paper about the Valkyrie — choosers of the slain — and angels, and asking for mercy, and “Kyrie eleison”.

I’m looking forward to discussions of the linguistics here.

view 2...

view 1 of Wearied Valkyrie Ghost

 

Working on My “Figure” — Part 2

She’s taking shape from the bottom up.  She now has her skeleton and her ghostly innards.  Before I start in on her head I’m posting some pix of what she looks like now.  The stretchy black/silver netting (boughten, not made) is attached at the top and bottom with knotless netting that no one can see, and anchored at each “rib” with, essentially, lashing, wrap and tie and knot.  I wish I’d payed way more attention to Knot Tying and Lashing back in the Girl Scout day.  http://www.girlscouts.org/ Why yes, dear reader, I was a Girl Scout from Brownies through 12 grade.

An atmospheric view of feet and body.

a better lit view; you get an idea of the "ribs" anchoring her ghostly innards.

a straight-on closer view

a closer view from a different angle.

I’m growing rather fond of her, and am much less worried about being embarrassed by her in public.

 

Working on My “Figure”

And no, I don’t mean I’m doing sit-ups.  After more than one false start it’s coming together.  I started a type of looping with wire for her ghostly innards.  Not do-able with my arm still in recovery.  Spent way too much time looking for those steel mesh sink/dish-scrubbers to substitute and guess what?  They’re scarce.  Remember these?   I went to a half-dozen emporia and found a version by “Dawn”, of dish soap fame, in one place.  Scarce? Eh.  Didn’t matter.  Because it was clear it wasn’t going to work.  But….  Wait.  Um.  It can still be hair!  And it can be, on the feet, a sort of skin that will show through the holes in her boots.

Ah… Boots.  She now has feet, sore, weary feet shod in deliberately distressed and burnt moccasin boots made from funky faux suede with silver dots…

yeah, she's either a little pigeon-toed, or maybe just shy

close-up

more shy and overwhelmed, I think

Once again…  I don’t know why the pix overlapped.  I think she is weary, shy, not sure if she’s arrived or not, and not actually pigeon-toed.

 

How Do I Sort My Fabric? Apparently In The Middle of Everything Else

Frustration — Instead of working on my studio re-org unencumbered, I now have two projects that need doing Right Now, right in the middle of the re-org.  Right in the middle of stuff being all over the work-tables while the shelves are being sorted.  Right in the middle of Chaos.

I’m trying to think of the projects as being Fun, rather than Frustration.

Project One is to create a figure from recycled materials.  For delivery Monday a week.  And I have to include something textile.  And it will be seen in public and I’m having the big I’m-going-to-be-so-embarassed clutching feeling, unlike the confidence I felt about my NICHES show pieces, the Death Mask for an Owl and Burning Bush in Walnut Wood because this is more outside my expertise.

Materials so far:  from Goodwill — a standing CD rack, tire cables, napkin holder.  From my garage/basement — part of a wine cooler, styrofoam blocks, spray paint.  From my studio — fabric, ribbon, and just a touch of panic.

 

Does Mending Count as Textile Art?

Waste not, want not

I grew up in a household where one of my mother’s mantras (she grew up with the Great Depression and WWII shortages) was “Use it up; wear it out; make it do or go without.”  So by the time I reached my early teens I had learned not only how to make clothes, but mend them, or change a hemline, or buttons. There’s mending,  then there’s mending. Sewing buttons back on,  invisibly patching jeans from the inside, or letting toddlers’ overalls up and down is boring but necessary.

What’s more fun is fixing with a twist. One of the earliest times I did that was in high school.  I grew too tall for my beloved navy blue, double-breasted princess-seamed wool maxi coat.  So I bought some faux fur fabric in a soft grey, and new buttons.  I lengthened the sleeves and over-all length by adding, oh, about three inches of the fur at the cuffs and hem.  I used the fur to face the collar, and changed the buttons.  It looked like a Russian countess’s coat out of Dr.Zhivago.  I was studying Russian at the time and thought it was just perfect.  Four years or so later I realised I had simply anticipated  Yves St. Laurent’s “Russian Look”!

My most recent “fix with a twist” was a red lambswool cardigan whose neck binding had ripped partially off.  I stitched it down, and then to hide the mend I covered it with a ruched charcoal-grey organdy ribbon which continued down  the front edge.  As I was working on it I noticed that, darn it, there were a couple of little moth holes also.  So I used the rest of the ribbon to make rosettes to cover the mended moth holes.   When I wore it to a couple of different holiday parties  several people asked me where I had gotten it…

Revamped cardigan, neck detail

Revamped cardigan, rosette detail

 

The Latest Flotsam and Jetsam

which has been on hold over the holidays…

Here is a picture of the vintage driving glove and the piece of scrap metal that have been presented to me to make something with.  Or should that be “make something of”?

scrap metal and vintage driving glove -- newest Flotsam and Jetsam

So…. We’ll see…

 

The Indiana University Blanket Project

This blanket is 62 years old and damaged, but

I know a family in which some members of each generation have attended IU.  The first IU alums were a couple who met there, and married.  In the second generation one of their sons and one of their daughters each graduated from the University.  In the next generation of recent grads the daughter of the son and one of his nieces  are IU grads.

The first alums are dead, lo these many years.  The son has kept the iconic IU stadium blanket they had.  It is a dark winey red with a white border, white IU logo, and their names and graduation year embroidered across one corner.  After more than sixty years the blanket itself is no longer usable — it has holes and worn places and apparently the moth has gotten to the logo.  It’s not even worth hanging on a wall, really.

I was approached to see if a way could be found to salvage any of it to make a pillow or small hanging as a piece of family memorabilia.  Except theres only one blanket and four possible claimants.  After significant, but civil, discussions with the group and with individuals I am now expecting to:

1) Mend the damage to the logo and create a wall hanging incorporating it and the name/date embroidery for the IU daughter of the couple.

2) Make smaller wall hangings for each of the third generation girl cousins using the white border to make a small IU logo on blanket sections, and mabey, replicate the name/date embroidery on a smaller scale.

3) The IU son of the couple says he doesn’t care, and I have the impression he means it, but his sister has asked me to try to save enough of the blanket to make him a small pillow.

So I’ll keep all you sports fans and sentimental over family heirlooms types posted on this.

Here are pix of the raw material:

Close-up of logo; you can see the moth damage

Name/date in machine chain-stitch

 

Slipcoverage — and breaking rules

I started with some left-over stiff upholstery fabric with the weird, rubbery, and really, not terribly pleasant, olefin-y backside for the deck of the sofa because that anchors the whole slipcover and putting the rubbery side down minimises the slippage of the slipcover.  And it’s hidden, so who cares what it *looks* like.

The decking and the first "fitting..."

Making the “sleeves” is the irksome bit, and thank goodness some of the flab (I told you I was committing plastic surgery) can be tucked into the crevices.

After much crawling back and forth, pinning and unpinning,  going back and forth between the sewing room and fitting room (aka living room, home of said sofa) I got to this point:

The basic slipcover!

I’ve mentioned before about breaking rules.  Well……  Here I’m breaking slipcover fabric rules. The “fashion” fabric is a faux suede cloth that’s actually meant for garment making.  But the colour is perfect.  And I was seduced.  I may wind up putting a lining layer under strategic sections.  I went out today to buy Velcro for  the seat cushions, and hope to start on them tomorrow after I get back after a couple of workshops in the first part of the day.  I have a plan that includes a complementary fabric…