|
FUZZY GALORE |
Speaking of wardrobes, there is another esthetic matter which needed attention.
We've been cutting each other's hair for a good while now, with
varying results. In our defense, this isn't a skill that's very
easy to acquire, in great part because you only get to practice
every couple months. Whatever you did last time is a dim
memory by the time you try again... But it can be argued that
the fundamental unity between wool and hair would
make human haircutting something that a knitter and spinner ought
to be able to pickup...
We found 2 books that were very helpful, and improved both of our appearances a lot:
On the other hand I can't say that I'd truly recommend either one of these for dealing with truly nappy hair. As usual. Sigh.
The wardrobe is in sad need of attention. The last few seasons I've
been all too happy to let things slide, make a few repairs and call it
a day, deluding myself that the frayed hem wouldn't be noticed.
Alas, I'm now the shameful owner of a bunch of incredibly ratty
pants. It's possible to cheat and buy the odd t-shirts that fits
more or less decently, or which are so shocking that people won't
notice anything beyond the message. But well-fitting pants are a marketplace
impossibility. So it was time to get cracking on the topic,
the weather having recently veered dangerously away from
the thick corduroys that are still presentable.
Before we started off on The Month Of Workshops, we'd gone for a quick visit to Paula's. While admiring her own sewing, she doesn't have anything to blush about in her closet, I'd undertaken cutting a few pairs of pants. My knees had been particularly unhappy, so the idea of spending hours down on them cutting, even padded on a rug, was very unappealing. Being able to use her luxuriously lengthy kitchen counter was an incredible help, and made me think again about those foldable cutting tables that I keep not buying for some unfathomable reason.
So anyway, I had a new pattern, Burda 2614, which seemed like a good candidate for an update of the old default. The main criterion of course is - bland :-). Pants should be worn and not necessarily seen, in my opinion, they're just something warm to sit on. Or at least one needs a fair number of the generic model to be able to get dressed in the morning with as little thought as possible, a standard which I realize might not apply to everyone. This pattern though had potential for being a bit of an improvement on my old standard, having somewhat closer fit and wider legs, while providing the elastic waist which I just can't live without.
In the quest for perfect blandness, when one is down to the dredges, what is the perfect color? Grey of course. I try not to pay any attention to the nagging feeling that this conclusion might be related to the uniform of the boarding school in which I was incarcerated as a teenager. Instead, I merely would like to point out that black is utterly perfect, especially if you spend a lot of time in NY and Paris, especially next year, but that I therefore already have a few. And grey is the best complement, being wearable with all the same things as black, only being a bit lighter in case you want to look more summery. So I of course had the perfect piece already lined up: some Tencel I got on sale somewhere. I've decided that Tencel is really excellent pant fabrics, if not the best. I got sick of rayon after it was so hot in the 80s, having concluded that it wears way too fast, no amount of care can make anything last more than 2 years, and pants are usually one-year wonders. It continues to shrink forever, so eventually you'll look like you're wearing capris whether you like them or not. And it wrinkles like the devil, definitely a drawback anywhere outside of California. Tencel, a slightly more ecological version of rayon (from sawdust rather than wood, with less chemical processing), has none of these inconvenients, while still draping nicely and remaining as breathable. It also tends to come in heavier versions which are perfect for pants, and in many interesting textures, which is difficult to find in modern fabric stores.
My next choice was a nice wooly small houndstooth which was extremely cheap at FabriX. I have a residual fondness for houndstooth from the 50s, my mother liked it a lot, and I used to have a pair of pants in it that I adored and wore a lot. Unfortunately, I was wearing them when I was hit by a car, which gave me an irrational distaste for wearing them for a while. By the time I overcame this stupid aversion, they'd unaccountably shrunk in the closet and just weren't wearable any more. So here was my chance to replace them at last.
I'm very pleased with the results (ignore the weird photo effects, these are not Andy Warhol's). This pattern will definitely be used again, it works very well. I diddled with the pocket of course, making it deeper, as well as wide enough to have the weight supported in the waistband. I also cut off an inch and a half, after the fact for the first ones - Burda claims to be designing for people exactly my height, but they don't mean for my leg length. The pants are comfy, they look good, they'll be workhorses for a good while. Yeah!
There was however a small postpartum hitch. I knew that the houndstooth was nowhere near 100% wool, it was obvious, that's why it was cheap. But did I preshrink it, as I otherwise always do? Not on your life! So I was washing some fleece in the bathtub and negligently dropped the new pants on the handiest spot, Rose's dirty clothes hamper, putting them in the queue for the next round in the bathtub. Unfortunately, I neglected to inform Rose of this, so when she attacked her laundry and kindly included my stuff, well... I had to re-hem, going all the way to the edge of the serging, trying to regain the inch and a half that I had thoughtfully hacked off before. Sigh. This could easily have been prevented on so many levels that it boggles the mind, but hey at least I can probably get away in the future with throwing them in the machine if not the dryer. And I think they're long enough...
Our minds have been reeling with rug possibilities of course.
Turns out we're both thinking about a rug on the cover of Handwoven 3/81.
It's a nice big one in traditional krokbragd (great word, eh?
sound positively Viking!). Of course, this being designed by
Sharon Alderman, it comes with much sensible advice and a very
thorough plan, we feel a bit better about embarking on
such a big project with her at our backs. In any case,
a simple 3-harness pattern seemed like a good way to go
for a first large project.
We decided to be un-Scandinavian on one level and
to use a Navajo plied-wool warp with singles weft instead.
This mostly because we both like
a bit of drapiness in a rug, and we don't particularly want
this in a heavy-wear area. Not to mention we had a lot
of plied wool warp left :-). Rose took stock of our churro stash,
and quickly spun up a whole bunch of light brown, lots of dark brown,
quite a bit of very dark brown, and some white.
This will be a multi-continental
traditional sort of rug (multi-tradi?).
Then we wanted a bit of real color
to perk up all that natural brown-ness, lovely but slightly boring,
and of course thought of orange. I figured since we were being
so groovy I should go for natural dyes. Unfortunately, I couldn't
remember whether the regular cochenille or the Chilean one
was supposed to give a purple rather than a red.
Luck didn't pan out, I can now confirm that the Chilean definitely
gives a deep purple which can hardly qualify as red. Sigh.
We hemmed and hawed and tried to convince each other and ourselves
that we didn't mind. It wasn't a bad color, it could be perfect
in some circumstances, but it was just not what we wanted.
Finally, I just threw it back in the pot with a bit
of gold acid dye, figuring I'd be more likely to get
what I wanted. And sure enough, we now have 2 lovely oranges,
one bright without being violent and one deep and mellow.
I'd dyed both some light brown and a small amount of the white,
in an effort to get 2 matching colors for the price of one,
that part at least worked. We now have a perfectly satisfactory
set of colors, in what we think are about the right quantities.
Meanwhile Rose was wrestling with our loom Brunhilde, trying to get warped. Our last project had gotten sadly derailed by uneven warp tension, worsening with time, so this time we were careful to yank this and that way, not letting a single turn of the beam go by without equalizing things as best we could. We did a much better job, which of course is easier when you're only putting on 3 yards. Rose had to make a raddle for the occasion, because we were spending entirely too much time putting every section in the proper slot on the beam, how nice to have someone handy... Threading was uneventful, mercifully. But when she started weaving it became quickly apparent that the sett was wrong. Loose is one thing, but this rug stub was positively sleazy. Sigh. We re-sleyed at 6epi. It was still a bit thin. Rose tried just doubling the singles, which seems to work well enough but of course would leave us with half the yarn we need, even if we'd spun enough to beging with. We're contemplating the next step...
Of course the drawback with all this weekend-workshopping is that it's impossible to do anything of your own while it's going on. You're working your fingers to the bone trying to keep up with the job in the intervals, never mind the laundry, and can't even manage to knit anything on the idiot level. Sigh. It's taking a while to get back to normal life...
I've been enjoying very much the turquoises that have been coming
out this spring, and which remind me happily of my childhood and
my earliest efforts at fiber, of my first dress to be more specific.
I scored a solid t-shirt of the perfect shade,
in preparation for the turquoise summer pants that I have some cotton
stashed away for, in a funny shoe print. The pants of course are nowhere.
But I was very much in the mood for a scarf,
only it'd have to be a very light scarf because this turquoise is extremely
summery.
After thinking things over I got a ball of scuba dive Squiggle, and 2 balls of striped blue Deco-Ribbon (117), which pushed the scuba a bit more to the blue side. An excellent combo! The Deco is light and crisp, the Squiggle gives the hairiness I like while letting the texture of the Deco show through, including the incomparable stitch definition accentuated by the subtle stripe. Aaaah. I like the size, I love the color, the feel is great. It's light enough not to be suffocating, while providing enough warm for those foggy evenings if wrapped up - looks summery while working for our climate, which takes some doing :-). This can function as the equivalent to the British white cardigan, only more fun to look at. How nice to have an outright success, without too many initial gyrations...
Third weekend workshop in a row! Judith Mc Kenzie, who'd come over for CNCH, was staying in town for a series of short workshops organized by Carolina Homespun, and I couldn't resist going, if only for the only day that I didn't have conflicting obligations on. I was a bit disappointed, because I naturally assumed that the 'plying' day's topic sandwiched between 'dyeing' and 'spinning for color' would have to be colorful, but we only plied different fibers in shades of white and white! Ah well, it's not like you don't always learn something from Judith no matter what the topic, so I gamely set to producing a yummy skein of 3plies: one cashemere, one merino, one silk. That skein seems to be the main thing I got done in the entire day :-), which was fine as I jumped up and stayed in Judith's vicinity instead, listening to everything.
This led to one of those big forehead-slapping insights. Judith talked again about the importance of using opposite twists in warp and weft for fabrics like upholstery and rugs, to allow for better, closer packing. She tossed out something off-hand about how you need to spin your own reverse-twist yarn these days, or you can always use a singles, "poor man's reverse". Ha ha!! We'd dutifully used plied wool warp with our Navajo singles at first. We'd then had a miserable rug failure with the same warp and a plied weft (Rose was trying to make it thicker). But we had seen basically the same plied wool weft used with good results in last week's Scandinavian workshop, without getting the point. Obviously the secret to that was using the plied weft with a singles linen warp! Voila! Suddenly we can translate from one tradition to the other without tripping over ourselves. Just one of those things that you have to hear several times and muck up yourself before it penetrates your dim little brain...
Another weekend, another fiber workshop. Another rug workshop even,
are we looking too obsessed :-)? This one was taken at
CNCH, in Asilomar this year,
and was with Michael Rohde.
Very nice guy, very good workshop, very well organized.
See the size of the pile of samples he brought along?
He not only graciously stood on a broken ankle for days on end
while teaching us, but schlepped more than his weight in rugs,
going back decades no doubt, to enlighten us further - definitely
beyond the call of duty.
Michael does a more Scandinavian style of rug, with linen warp and thinner plied wool weft, which he mostly dyes himself. The texture of his rugs is very different from the Turkish ones, they're thicker and a lot stiffer, which I think is due mostly to the linen. I'm still debating whether I like that - I was very taken with the drapeability of the first handmade Turkish rugs that I handled at Return to Tradition. On the other hand, we keep producing things that are a little.. thin. So perhaps we should experiment with linen and see whether we like the results better with our handspun weft?
Michael had us come with looms already warped for one of several
sets of samplers. Table looms in our case, which is kind of a joke
seeing how we have a big steel bar to add to the regular beater on
Brunhilde, our enormous high-tension home loom.
There were several cases of
bruised chests and flying looms till we all got the hang of 2-handed beating.
Rose puzzled me by picking the twills sampler, even though she'd already done
a couple rugs in twills: she said she wanted to learn more about them.
Her sampler was good of course, she pretty much did everything
she was supposed to and it looked quite all the ways it was supposed to.
She even managed to get her selvages straight by the end :-).
I of course leapt fearlessly (and somewhat
inadvisedly) into the unknown, and picked the summer and winter series,
even though I'd never done any sort of blocks or double-weave before.
And just as much as usual, I scrambled to keep up and came up
with smaller misshapen efforts. But I did get to make reversed
motifs or one-sided ones, which was the point. I could imagine liking
a blocked rug. And we also learned how to make separate sections
with inlay, not just obviously regular loom patterns,
which could be an interesting point. I loathed the Theo Moorman
inlay project that I did at City College, in an otherwise very good
class with Janice Sullivan. I couldn't imagine doing it ever again.
But I have to admit that, done in extreme moderation, a bit of inlay
does liven up a rug considerably, so it's not so utterly... square.
We screwed up in a big way on one point: we didn't have rug yarn lying around that we could bear to use, having only good Navajo stuff that we brought back from the 4 corners, or hand-spun stuff that we couldn't bear to waste. So we used fat singles knitting yarn, which was of course totally unsuitable. Not only because it'd pill horribly if we tried to give it any real rug wear, but because it's much softer than rug yarn and at this sett with all this merciless beating (even on a puny table loom) it compacted like a doormat. A pilling doormat, that'd be a sight. We also didn't have that much of a range of colors to choose from, and we wanted different ones, so we ended up with one -ahem- highly contrasting and one teeth-grinding combination, Lacroix at his best Ab Fab level. Sigh. They're kind of a weird size too, too large for a coaster but too small for any real use, we decided they could be trivets, they're thick enough and the wool would be fire-resistant. Except for the colors, imagine what having to see that would do to your appetite...
Ah well. I was very interested to see how eerily similar Michael's color studies were to much of what quilters had been working on at comparable times. It makes a lot of sense when you consider how similar large flat surfaces can be at first glance, the possibilities would translate well. There's definitely something about a design collective unconscious.
There was another quite interesting point in seeing so much of his work in one spot - at some point, mabye 10 years ago, he decided that he needed a materials upgrade, and started using Norvegian spelsau exclusively. The luster of the wool comes through loud and clear, and gives a lot more depth to the colors. Mmmm... I also very much like the look of hanspun churro in Navajo tapestries, where you can see a nice halo of guard hair, I've been able to see it clearly since the time I've compared handspun and commercial rugs side by side.. Another demonstration of how worthwhile it is to use the best materials possible, especially if you're going to get into such a big project.
Another thing I really liked about Michael's work was how he weaves in the linen warp ends instead of having untidy fringes. I don't like generally fringe, they don't really look that good in wool even if you spend eons braiding them, but in linen they can easily get catastrophic. It turns out that Michael primarily uses Peter Collingwood's books, and found his ending methods in there. Yes, we knew they're there too, but we find Collingwood's books maddening to use - good for inspiration but very short of coherent explanations. So it was a big relief to have Michael sit us down and make us do several versions, with a much improved level of explanations and demonstration. Definitely a hair-pulling skill to figure out, but merely tedious in the doing, and the results are absolutely worthwhile.
Had a great time in Montara, just South of San Francisco, with a weekend with Judith McKenzie. This groups was originally formed when they went to Northern Spain with Judith and spent their time spinning, visiting museums and many fascinating textile sights, and in fact mostly eating from what we hear :-). Some attrition fortunately allowed us to grab a couple spots, and to go work on flat-weave Turkish rugs. Not such good attrition alas, since I'm sure we'd all have had a much more fun time if Min Moore had been able to join us... She'd have made mincemeat (in a nice way) of the staff which were appalled that Rose would dare smoke a cigarette (outside, in 40mph winds) while innocent children were present on the premises (and safely inside, 50 feet away) - sigh. But I'd met Paula several years ago at another of Judith's workshops, this one on knotted rugs, so it was a fun reunion and a good complement in technique.
Several people have actually finished the tied rugs they started on
way back when. Not me. The smartest and zippiest was Sarah Lamb, who
cleverly warped a narrow width and quickly made the first of
a series of beautiful bags. I haven't forgotten that, and
so warped a lot less than most people this time and hoped to start a bag
this weekend too... We did get to see Paula put the finishing
touches on her knotted camel, which is incredibly plush, and much more camel-like than
she thinks. We watched as she and Judith trimmed it to a flatter state,
using an impressive array of scissors from several continents for the purpose.
Very inspiring, although
I don't think I'm going to start another knotted rug any time soon,
not even a bedside-size one... I got hung up on an overly-elaborate border,
for this last one, maybe I should be thinking instead of how to use the small
bit that I finally de-loomed to make room for the new.
A knotted hairband? That'd be very hippy.
Judith had brought an amazing array of her hand-dyed yarns, and we got to choose every color we wanted. I tried hard to stick to a few :-). We practiced every soumak variation and then some. I started with an attack of incredible inability to do the simplest knot. I know that you should work on a sample and include the mistakes, you learn more from seeing them in retrospect, but I couldn't quite bear it and ripped with abandon. So I ended the first whole day with exactly 1/2" (1cm) of bag done. This the day after serving dinner to the crowd 2 hrs later than expected the first evening. I didn't feel so hot...
Rose did just fine, and incorporated every possible technique
into her red rug. I'd beat myself over it, but some people
are just more talented...
The next day, as I was trying to catch up, we got into more
advanced techniques. Judith tried to interest us all in
something which is often dismissed as 'embroidery' even by dealers
who should know better. In fact,
a decorative traveling stitch is worked in as the rug is woven,
cleverly taking advantage of a weft going under the warp while
the supplementary one makes a stitch. Very cool, and I actually
managed to get the hang of that one. I'll give you a hint: when
you want to change directions, it helps to beat in an idle
row so that you get less of a sharp turn.
I obviously did less than Rose, and skipped several things in the process.
But warping fewer ends did help, I caught up a lot more than
if I'd gone full-width as she did.
Judith of course talked of many things, and managed to educate us just as much accidentally as well as purposefully. One fascinating thing that came up for me was the topic of tea dyeing. I'd heard from many sources years ago that tea dyeing was 'bad for fiber', would eat your quilt in the long run. That it was much preferable to make a weak bath of real dye in ecru and spare yourself future heartache. Well!! That was half a thought, is the best I can summarize it. Judith pointed out that tea isn't good for cotton/ cellulose fibers because it's acidic (tannin is an acid, I remembered). But that's precisely what makes it good for wool and hairy fibers. So tea dyeing is actively good for.. most things I dye now. The advice to avoid it came from quilters, and applied only to their cottons. Aaah! Now I need to get some Lipton or something, I have several projects that could use a little toning down and I don't want to waste my best Lapsang-Souchang...
Finally finished my first/umpteenth Moebius scarf a la
Cat Borhdi
It was strange and exhilariting to do, I couldn't quite
envision how it'd work, but it did. It helped to actually do it
instead of just staring at the pattern, and I thought I'd be kind to
myself and do the easiest scarf first. I had to give the cast-on
a couple initial tries, but then I whipped it out
in a flash, using a single ball of a yummy new color of
Labrador (kelim).
Then I started thinking that it really could be a bit longer, since
it was a teeny bit strangulating when I wrapped it around twice,
and it really could be wider, since it rolled (duh! stockinette
of course). My usual problems with scarves knit lenghwise, in a word.
But I figured it'd be nothing to do it again, so I should try
again with two balls.
Ha! I added 6 stitches to the length, which turned out to be perfect, for a total of 86. But since the first rev had gone so well, I thought I should make an effort and put in a little pattern, and I liked both the look of the arrowhead and the concept - always go in one direction and get both in the end. I guess the lace scarf I finished last month had gone to my head, but in retrospect I don't think I'm significantly less lace-impaired for that one accomplishment. So I stopped and ripped and started another what 3, 4 times? I lost track. Sigh. When I finally got going it wasn't so bad, and I did finish in a week or so.
But of course I was a total ass - there's no way any pattern would show in such a nice thick-and-thin yarn, printed to boot. Maybe if I stretched it artfully over my shoulder, but it'll mostly look like holes. I don't care, I still like it :-). And I'm so happy it's over - I promise not to try any more lace, perhaps not ever but not for a couple years at least.
A very interesting time at the yearly anarchist book fair. Hard to find books of course, posters from our youth, but also some strange stuff going on with silk-screened patches for sale. Now I can see the point of patches, easily transfered and recycled, but buying them instead of making your own??? Where's the anarchy in that? All the same, there was a 'sisterhood is powerful' one which was perfect for the new Juliette zebra bag, and such strong nostalgic appeal that...
We noted with approval a strong trend toward the home-made. Interestingly, there was a lot more sewing than knitting, which isn't our perception of general skills. Maybe the good weather was a major factor, my own scarf stayed hidden in my bag the whole time. I did leer hard at a great hairdo, concentric rings of hair on a shaved base, with each ring dyed a different color - it very much reminded me of one of my old favorite Vogue hats :-).
I've been reading a truly great book: Kimono by Lisa Dalby. Fascinating history and sociology mix, much of it from women's point of view, with decent technical background. Textiles as an important part of life, both reflecting larger trends and influencing them, a mix of practical considerations and pure art. Lots on the entirety of pre-European Japanese clothing, including practical farmer garb, as opposed to the stiff formal stuff that survives today. Great details about seasonality, levels of formality, even the poetic color sets that one wonders about in the Tale of Genji... And well-written too, a rarity these days. Run to get this one!
Finally figured out the sewing machine thing. The bobbin tension had gotten messed up somehow, and the little metal tongue displaced. The needle had also gotten pulled subtly to the side. And most importantly, during the debugging the top thread had managed to lose its tension :-). Some nasty moments there, but I'm glad it's ending well. I wasn't feeling up to doing anything drastic about this, although I stumbled upon the local Pfaff dealer and figured out which model is the low-end one, with built-in dual feed and a simple all-mechanical approach. Mmm... No, no, no!!
While I was in bag sewing and remake mode, I finally got to a project
I'd had in the back of my mind for a year, the Juliette
Memorial bag. Juliette, some of you might remember,
departed for Kitty Heaven last year. A few years before
I'd made her a particularly good bed. I'd seen a leopard one
at one of the excruciatingly expensive pet stores that
have cropped up all over our neighborhood, and gagged at
spending $90 on a cat bed, no matter how beloved the cat.
So I went to our trusty
Far Out Fabrics,
and found some
fetching zebra which suited her perfectly. Complementary colors,
similar stripes, it was almost too perfect in that she almost
got stepped on by guests several times when she was on it. I folded up
a thick bonded quilt batting which stayed together well for the inside,
and voila, the perfect custom bed. The flat shape was necessary because
she had bad arthritis and couldn't step up more than a couple
inches, so the goal was to provide a padded warm platform that
she could get on by herself.
So this year, having finally sort of gotten to the point where
I can handle her things without sobbing, I got to work.
We have a bag made from a horrible weaving sampler a couple years
ago which we use constantly for knitting stuff because it's so convenient -
it holds several pounds of wool, is light and flexible, the handle is
good in the hand and over the shoulder etc.
So I used it as a template. Put the zebra on the outside,
lined with dark red marbled fabric, made pockets out of
leftovers from one of Rose's boxer shorts - Juliette I'm
sure would have totally approved of motorcycle girls. I put in
a tab so it could be buttoned sort-of-shut in a pinch, and
made the handles an inch longer because I had that much
fabric left. Vintage button from our mama's collection.
Then as I was finishing the top seam something went
terribly wrong. I'm still not clear on what, but
I can't sew with my machine any more. I waited till daylight and picked out
bits of thread from the back of the bobbin case, which would indeed
have caused a problem. But there is still a hiccough when
I pull on the bobbin thread, and a visible wobble. This is
even when I use an unrelated bobbin. So I might have messed
up my bobbin case, and who knows what else. Sigh.
And now Mr B, who reigned at Geary and 20th ave for decades,
has retired, there's a rumor his replacement isn't nearly
so good, I have no idea where to go... Sob.
Made a matching bag for the Garment Remake jacket. It seemed silly
to have that much fabric left and not make something else with it.
I looked and looked for a Vogue pattern I had for a bag,
but couldn't find it. Then I found it and I didn't have
enough fabric. Sigh. Then I told myself that I've been
doing enough bags lately that I could just improvise, which
I did. And it worked great! (If I say so myself.)
Basically, I did a simple square bag with the brocade,
used some clear sparkly handles that were just perfect
for it, made a sleeve to attach both parts out of the coral
velvet which echoed the cuffs perfectly, and lined the
whole thing with a pink 60s fabric. Yeah!
Better yet, we went to the opening/show/exchange for the whole remake at the Queen's Nails Annex. Wow! I'm still totally inspired. I adored the dark turquoise dress with the copper brillo pad flowers. The boring red plaid flannel shirt into a pointy elf hat was pure genius, along with the down jacket sleeves into legwarmers. The embroidered shawl, originally remade into a skirt, remade into a shrug with detacheable fringe, was a work of art. The amazing embroidery with silk-yoyos and beading in the hem of the boring blue slip that was asked to remain the same was utterly beautiful. The jacket cut and turned into a fringed skirt with attached discharge-shibori top looked great, and even better on the recipient. The jeans that went into an apron appliqued with oilcloth flowers were perfect. Even the people who had a lot of restrictions did very well, the jeans who had to remain jeans and got a tie waistband and insets were much improved. I don't even know where to begin, but you're going to have to check the website for yourself.
Unfortunately, both the recipient of my own chef-d'oeuvre and
the author of my wonderful surfing-chicken t-shirt (yes,
it's a real working potholder!) couldn't attend. So I didn't
get to meet them, exchange views of the ultimate wearer in
the garments, and thank them properly. But there were lots
of fascinating people there. Somehow the atmosphere lent
itself to accosting perfect strangers and feeling up
their smashing outfits, something which otherwise could
get you slapped. I slobbered particularly over the wonderful
padded coat,
sky blue body with big orange collar and hanging pompom things,
and big-teeth brown zipper.
Interestingly, I got many compliments
on my/Allison's jacket, but nobody said a thing on my
personal pride and joy, the dyed, stitched and fulled shirt I was
wearing. Rose consoled me by saying she thinks it's too well made, it
looks like I bought it... Which I guess is a compliment too :-).
Finally, let me acknowledge the utter pleasure of going to a fiber show where you can paw the exhibits, and where there is light enough to see what's in front of you - I know museums mean well, but I'm thoroughly sick of the preservation above all school of thought. If it's going to be bad for the stuff to be out in daylight, then leave if out for a week instead of 3 months, but let us really see it. Often lighting is so dim you can't even see the colors much less the details, I feel like I should be smuggling in flashlights. And what's wrong with providing the staff with white gloves like the quilt shows do, so you can ask to see the linings and backs and such? Those things matter when you're into clothing design, which inherently should be 3-dimensional.
Back to current blog
Winter 05 <-- || --> Winter 06
Blog archives
Previous Next Random List |
Previous Next Random List |
Previous Next Random List |
Previous Next Random List |
Previous Next Random List |
Previous Next Random List |
All rights reserved. © Fuzzy Galore 2002-2006.
