eine Saite

Ode to Khadi

2012-01-16T01:29:00.000-08:00

When Gandhi was promoting swaraj, or self-rule (ie, independence from the British) in India, he urged Indians to discard their milled cloth from England, learn to spin and weave cotton themselves, and wear only cloth that was produced by hand in India. This was his concrete and powerful manifestation of self-rule. Gandhi set the example by spinning on a charka for long hours, even during meetings and interviews, and wearing a simple dhoti made of homespun cotton, sometimes with a homespun wrap or shawl.

Therefore, the bust of Gandhi at Mani Bhavan, the house he occupied while in Bombay which has been converted into a small museum, is not garlanded with flowers but with handspun cotton yarn.

The homespun cotton is called khadi, and it became a lasting political symbol in India. From the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to today’s members of the Congress Party, politicians wear khadi garments as expressions (however hypocritical or sincere) of solidarity with Gandhi’s original vision.
Khadi fabric is produced all over the country as a government-initiated cottage industry. Every town of any size has its own khadi emporium, and the products vary according to the traditional dress and garment needs of the region. The cotton (and silk, and wool) is spun and woven by trained artisans in their own homes. I believe that nowadays, the term khadi is applied to fabric that has a handspun weft, while the warp may be milled yarn.

Even humble handtowels and bath towels have elegance and intrigue when made from khadi.

For me as a quilter, khadi was an extremely interesting fabric to come across. Given its relatively loose, handwoven quality, it’s not great for precision quilting, but a blanket made of large khadi squares in different colors is a beautiful sight.

King-size khadi wedding quilt I made with a hand-cranked Puja sewing machine in India, circa 1999:

I have never been to any production sites for the weaving or spinning of khadi, but I avidly shop for the yardage whenever I’m in India. The shops run a gamut from the sleek, chrome-and-steel, multi-storied department store atmosphere of the Khadi Gramodyog Bhavan in Connaught Circle, New Delhi, to the dusty, poorly lit, unrenovated-in-60-years look of the Khadi Bhavan on D.N. Road in Fort, Mumbai. (no photos allowed inside - bummer!)
When we were living near Dharamsala in north India, I made regular trips to the khadi shop there, a small cubby with floor-to-ceiling shelves of promising yardage. The stock seemed to turn over quickly, and there would always be something new and different. Bulky weight, lightweight, streaks of purple and green or just blue on white, or a new solid color I’d never seen before, in mint green or the honey yellow of a monk’s robe. The shopkeeper got used to my strange habits of admiring the cloth and buying a meter here, a meter there, sending him to remote shelves to extract an interesting looking wedge of color and texture.

It always amazes me to think that this shopkeeper was working for the government of India, as are all the employees of the khadi shops and all the craftspeople that make the fabric throughout the country. I’ve had the experience of telling someone in India I practice handicrafts and being asked, “Government job?” Wouldn’t that just be great.
I like to make myself clothes and shawls from khadi, because it soothes me to look at the weave. I can literally get mesmerized by the details of the cloth as it drapes my body, and the handcrafted warp and weft give a strong sense of grounding calm.

The khadi shops also offer "ahimsa silk," which is silk produced without killing any worms, in accordance with Gandhi's principle of non-violence (ahimsa in Hindi or Sanskrit.) I have a khadi ahimsa silk shawl that has gotten progressively softer and more excellent with washing and wearing. It's one of the very nicest fabrics I own.

So while I can't talk about details of current production methods, I wanted to at least share the love and let others see the wonder of this rich and symbolic cloth. Any additional information is most welcome.

This extremely beautiful video gives a poetic picture of khadi. If you're a spinner, it will make you want a charka. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5PJrzLdAbk)

Taking note

2011-12-31T12:10:00.000-08:00

I was just told by someone whom I admire and respect to take note of how far my weaving has progressed this year, and to be proud. So I decided to take a look, and overcome my hesitancy to show off by inviting you to look with me. The image above was a year ago, minus one week. I had already woven a few plainweave pieces on the backstrap, but I was just beginning the Andean pebble weave journey, guided by Laverne and the community of backstrap weavers in Ravelry.

From this basic first pattern I struggled my way uphill. Instructive and mind-blowing information from Abby Franquemont, Ed Franquemont and Christine Franquemont added to my determination to learn the patterns and technique. I remember this next one was a challenge, with many mistakes made and corrected. It is still waiting to be finished as a little bag.

Meanwhile, I began experimenting with more textured handspun, combining handspun yarns with other materials for scarves, using handspun as warp to highlight its features.

My warping set-up was outdoors at this point, stakes driven into the ground. (I have since acquired warping pegs and c-clamps, so I can warp in my kitchen more easily.)

I like looking at this one because I don't own it anymore - it was bought by a friend!

While weaving the above, I was simultaneously working on a longer pebble weave piece, in jakaku sisan pattern. This became a new backstrap when finished.

In addition to the Andean and handspun art yarn themes, I also made a study of Bedouin styles and techniques, with the help of Joy Totah Hilden's book and a weaver I met here in Doha.

Shajarah above, and al'ouerjan below, two typical Bedouin design elements.

More art, a scarf made with thorhammer's handspun (to whom I owe thanks for a Versatile Blogger Award nomination - thank you Kat!), with kimono silk fabric weft.

Attempting to use handspun for pebble weave was another big challenge, which was unsuccessful at first, but worked out better after going away for the summer and focusing my mind and energies.

I may be most proud of this piece, since it's all handspun yarn I spun on traditional spindles from Peru and Bolivia, mostly during the Tour de Fleece in July. I learned volumes about how to spin for weaving from the good and bad aspects of this weaving.

And more art, this time putting fine crochet cotton through a rigid heddle to get more of a regular-loom effect.

And a lagging pebble weave strip in mayo q'enko, that took me forever to finish.

More experiments with textured handspun, in scarf form.

And the initial ikat attempt, which turned out like this.

Finally, a wide Bedouin-inspired piece, which pleases me to no end. It felt like quite an accomplishment, wrangling 368 ends and having it work!

This led to the ouerjan warping weekend, which resulted in three simultaneous warps going on.

The large piece has been sewn together with the narrow strip below to make a bag, my final finished piece of 2011. I have taken note of this incredible path of weaving, and I am proud. And very, very grateful, as I've mentioned before. Happy New Year to all, and thank you.

Book review - Dreaming in Hindi

2011-12-14T02:20:00.000-08:00

I first heard about Katherine Russell Rich on NPR’s This American Life, for which she was interviewed not because of this book, but due to her claim to fame of surviving stage 4 cancer for 17 years. I found the interview disappointing, in that the writers failed to ask her interesting questions or really get beyond the “wow, that’s so far out that you’re still alive” thing. Her trip to India and the book about learning Hindi was only mentioned in passing at the end of the show, and I thought, well why didn’t they get her to talk about that? I immediately looked up the book and ordered a copy.

The author doesn’t need me to give her publicity – Oprah has already done that, putting Dreaming in Hindi: Coming Awake in Another Language on her top-ten list. But I read it and liked it so much I wanted to talk about it in detail, and then I remembered I have a blog.

As a seasoned visitor & part-time resident of India, a student of several languages including Hindi, and an amateur linguist with an abiding interest in how we use and learn language, it would be difficult to find anyone more primed to appreciate this book than me. The author chronicles her sudden compulsion to learn Hindi and go to India to do so, and the simultaneous obsession with studying what second language acquisiton does to the mind.

She writes as a journalist, and the memoir reads in some ways like a very long New Yorker article, skillfully alternating between her personal experience of Hindi in India and linguistic analysis, the science of the brain and language which she researched upon her return. They are equally tricky subjects.

A New York resident, Rich arrived in India five days prior to September 11, 2001. Her stay in Rajasthan continued through the horrendous sectarian violence in Gujarat in early 2002. These events add a particular intensity to her story, and deeply affect her experience of the language. She notes that words such as “terrorism,” “fanaticism,” and “war” were burned irrevocably into her memory, so often were they heard and used.

I was in India during the same time period, but in much different parts of the country, less exposed to the furor of Hindu-Muslim conflict, and less affected by the “day the whole world changed” in general. It is educative to see how this time played out differently in various Indian states.

Lest one assume that this makes for dreary reading – linguistic theory and the post-9/11 atmosphere – Rich has a sense of humor that, in addition to being an essential prerequisite to learning Hindi in India, provides a delightful momentum to the book. It’s possible that the funny bits are funnier if one knows India, or maybe they’re just funny on a subtler level. At any rate, I felt a constant sense of knowing exactly what she was talking about, from discussions of “geezers” (the kind that provide hot water, not the old men) to the language of the head wobble, as in “’Haan’, I said, and gave a half head wobble, the one that means This is life.”

The observations on immersion in a new language also struck home to me: “To learn a second language, you have to be willing to give your self up, the self encoded in your first one. You are no longer a person who speaks with facility and authority.”

Submitting to this state, this apparent idiocy, may be one of the hardest things about learning through immersion. I have often felt the frustration of people treating me like I’m dull-minded because of my rudimentary use of their language, or of feeling that these people can never really know me because they could not understand me if I spoke my native tongue, which is my native “me.” There’s a surrender involved, as Rich observes and lives, and the lure and fulfillment of the second language self has to be worth the temporary sacrifice of the native language self.

There are endless arguments surrounding the extent to which language influences thought, and these are well addressed in the book, if only to illustrate the intractability of the question. But it would be hard to deny the interweaving of language and culture, and Rich chronicles the transformation of her habits and body language, and even her face. It’s literally impossible to be a brisk New Yorker in Hindi, and adopting the language necessitates adopting a certain air, a new approach to time, hierarchy, decorum. This is also quite familiar to me, as I’ve slipped in and out of several different cultures, chameleon-like in the adaptation of outward behaviour and presumptions. This is the best part of the adventure for me, and for Rich as well, it seems. By immersing in not only language but culture, one can become someone else, learning the ways of India by living them, as a method actor fully inhabits her character.

So I enjoyed the book because it was a good read, but also because of the way it made me think - the questions and ruminations that arose regarding this urge to dive into another place with one's whole mind, absorbing every aspect of the experience like a sponge, and becoming transformed by the process.

As if this book were not already more than appropriate for me, the author ends up sitting with a group of elderly Freedom Fighters and learning to spin cotton under a monument to Gandhi.

Which could very well lead into my next blog post, if I don't get distracted by something else.

Beginning Ikat

2011-11-06T02:31:00.000-08:00

"Not every piece is a Masterpiece. But a masterpiece will not just show up, full blown, the first, second or even third time you do something. It takes work. It takes a body of work, with incremental learning along the way. It takes a visceral and physical understanding of the materials and process in which you choose to work; it requires you to put in the time. The subtle body knowledge that comes from working on your craft has nothing to do with what’s in your head; it’s a muscle memory, and an unconscious knowing without thinking, an integral part of who you are."

- Sara Lamb, "The Cult of Perfection"

When I heard that a friend here in Doha was going to try out an indigo dye kit, I decided that was my chance to attempt ikat. Or I should say planned-out ikat, since I had dyed an ikat warp once before in Judith MacKenzie’s workshop. The warp in Judith’s class was tied and dyed multiple times, in a very haphazard fashion, since I was trying to fit it in between the preparation of another 230-end warp for woven shibori. It turned out very nicely, but I can’t say there was much design behind it.

This time, I wanted to tie deliberately, with some sense of order, and since it would only be blue and white, I could hope to get a simple pattern with a simple set of ties.

I made a warp with undyed cotton yarn I’d purchased in Syria last February, stretched it between two chairs in my kitchen where the light is good, and divided the warp threads into bundles of ten. Using strips of plastic from grocery bags, I wrapped tightly around alternate bundles across the warp, wrapping three times and tying a knot, covering about ¾” with each tie. Then a few inches along the warp, I’d tie the alternate groups of ten that were not tied before. This way my resist marks would be staggered – if they were up next to each other, they’d form a check pattern.

Sitting on the floor, wetting the warps with a spray bottle and tying was grueling due to the hunched posture required, and it took me chunks of two different days to complete the tying of my 247-end, 90-inch long warp. In the meantime, I watched a documentary film made by Virginia Davis and Hillary Steel about the master Mexican weaver Don Evaristo of the Teluca Valley, who weaves cotton ikat (or jaspe) rebozo with 100 ends per inch, dyeing intricate resisted patterns which are alternated with plain warp.

His work made me feel like a pre-schooler drawing with huge, oversized crayons, but one has to start somewhere.

Our indigo vat was rather weak, but I prioritized the warp yarn and kept dipping, and dipping, slowly increasing the depth of color to a shade that looked like faded denim. I also dyed an untied skein of cotton to use for weft. Both skeins ended up with a very irregular penetration of color, but this semi-solid effect adds a sort of texture. Just getting the color dark enough to contrast the resists well was my goal.

I’ve admired ikat weaving ever since I worked in an import store in Kansas City and got exposed to textiles from all over the world. The Indonesian ikat weavings completely baffled me when I contemplated the amount of precision and complexity of skills required to execute such a design.

Ever since I bought this sarong from Flores, back in 1990 or so, I’ve dreamed of backstrap weaving and ikat. The Flores designs are my favorite because they’re delicate, small-scaled and repetitive. I also like their palette of brown, ochre, russet and a touch of black.

Now that I’m a weaver and can examine this more knowledgeably, I see that it’s made of four panels, each with selvedges on both sides – probably two panels were woven, the one with the border design and the one without, and these were each cut in half to sew into the sarong shape (the vertical seam is a French seam, hiding the edges.) It’s a warp-faced weave, and the ikat design is in the warp only. It’s cotton, but I’m not sure if it’s 100% cotton because there’s a shine to the surface. My fiber-identifying skills need some work.

The other concrete inspiration I have with me is my kasuri robe, purchased by my husband in Japan in about 1998. This pure cotton, indigo-dyed double-ikat was the fabric of the peasantry in previous centuries, which always gives me pause: really?? This is what the poor people wore??

It’s “double-ikat” because both warp and weft are resist-dyed to create the pattern, and both need to be properly lined up during weaving for the pattern to manifest. Boggle your mind? It does mine. In some areas of this robe, you can see where the warp and weft got jogged apart, and the pattern disperses. As with the sarong, the kimono is woven in long strips and then assembled into a garment. The kasuri is balanced plainweave, though, not warp-faced, and was probably woven on a frame loom.

Double ikat also appears in India, where the craft has been developed and traditionally sustained by two communities, one in Gujarat and one in Orissa. I saw some stunning examples at an exhibit during the Textile Society Symposium (2010) in Lincoln, Nebraska. This technique, known as patola or bandha, usually appears on saris woven with silk or fine cotton.

Returning to my humble attempt, I was quite happy with the precision of the resist my ties created, but as you can see (bottom photo,) the resisted threads got staggered away from their bundle-mates in the process of setting up the warp for weaving. I could have adjusted them and tied them into position, but instead I just started weaving, interested to see what it would look like.

When I begin to weave something like this, I am overwhelmed by the fact of it – I can’t quite believe that I’m making fabric in the same way people the world over have made fabric, tying up to something stable and tensioning the warp with the body. It’s similar to the feeling of spinning with a spindle, back in the beginning when I was awed by the ancientness (awkward word, but spellcheck does not dispute it) of the act. I can’t describe it, but there’s a sense of space and time expanding below and above and all around, erasing the gaps between me and anyone else who has ever done this.

So I carry on, weaving my staggered ikat marks, which spell out a strange rhythm of hieroglyphs. I embrace their unhinged pattern the way I embrace the serendipitous designs of resist-dye on fabric, which often carry the imprints of water, the sublime irregularities of nature. Giving voice to the unpredictable is one of the joys of creation, and I save any urge to “correct” the design for another time. This is my first piece, my learning piece, and it will have its own language.

Washpool

2011-10-11T02:47:00.000-07:00

A little bit more Australia. Or more specifically, New South Wales. I was impressed with how many national parks we saw, and how well-maintained they all are. I think we visited six different public lands in as many days, and this was blissful, having come from the heat of the desert summer.

We only spent an hour walking through Washpool National Park, on the way from Armidale to Byron Bay. It was a brief stop and a ramble through the most accessible part of the park, but I honestly think it was my favorite part of the trip.

I am partial to water. Particularly running water in the midst of an old-growth forest.

The depth of peace and rightness that such a place instills in me is not easy to express.

I believe all forests are enchanted, and I wander awed and absorbed in the textures, colors and patterns.

Gratitude, or Generosity II

2011-10-04T10:41:00.000-07:00

We interrupt this account of mass generosity to note that the surface has barely been scratched.

I was brought up short by this realization while opening up the batt from Made by Pixies last night. I showed the general goodies I received, but that batt in particular was looking very demure when first photographed. Once opened, it is four ounces of wild celebration and excess, and I felt chagrined that I hadn’t fully acknowledged its enormity before. The official swap was for the grey fibers, the glorious grey Gotland, which was already more than I could ask for. I sent her some piddling amount of stuff, and I get not only the greys in abundance and those gorgeous shell buttons, but also this outrageous batt.

And the truth is, I could say that about any of these gifts. Each one is enormous in its way, and if I stopped to think about it I’d just have to sit down with my jaw hanging open.

Those three yarns? Left to right: Laura Mayotte, Janet Scanlon, Michelle Snowdon. On my wall, singing like a gospel choir. Each one could provoke a rapturous ode (and the one in the middle is in fact three.)

But all of those gifts actually pre-date the packages that prompted me to write on this topic, both of which greeted me very soon after my return from Australia. The package from Janet was in fact waiting for me, having just arrived the day before, which is impressive timing.

This contained a basket’s worth of sunshine, more cotton than I can spin in a very very long time, and spindles that increase my collection of Janet-made spindles to a number I won’t even disclose, for fear of attracting the evil eye through others’ envy. (Including the one in the first photo of the previous post, her latest manifestation of a pareh, or Qashqai-style spindle.)

The cotton is accumulating on these spindles daily. How lovely is that carved whorl design? And how did Janet know that I was, at that very time, enjoying the Ethiopian spindle so much, which is similar in weight and material? The spinning community is cosmic, I tell you.

The second parcel came by way of a personal courier, a dear knitting and spinning buddy here in Doha who was backpacking across South America while I was in Oz. Having persuaded her to visit Laverne Waddington, my remote backstrap weaving teacher, in Bolivia, I sent a handwoven Bedouin bag with her as a thank-you gift to Laverne for all her continuing guidance and generously shared brilliance in the realm of backstrap weaving. Once again, I got back way, way more than I sent, and nearly started crying as I opened her gifts one by one.

It is impossible to put them in any sort of order based on importance or the extent to which they blew me away, so I'll just dive in. Beautiful, knotted bags made from a hand-twisted plant fiber by the Ayoreo people of lowland Bolivia. A pure piece of traditional textile art, radiating authenticity and mastery. She included an older, smaller one because of its superior quality (the little one is less than 2" square!)

And tucked inside the tiny bag, something older than I can fathom:

Yes. Pre-Colombian spindle whorl.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking How generous! What great gifts! But these thoughts are premature, because we're nowhere near done yet.

Laverne sent me a sample of her own weaving, which has to be seen, touched and examined to be believed.

This cellphone pouch is woven with doubleweave - looks the opposite on the reverse side, using motifs from Bhutanese textiles. She claims the sewing up was rushed, but it's superior to any finishing I've ever done, or am likely to do! This hit me forcefully, this piece, because I knew that my teacher was good, I knew she's prolific and weaves like, all the time. But I did not know how good until I held this little bag in my hands. I'm honored to have it, beyond words.

Okay, and inside this bag? What, you think she sent it empty? Have you learned nothing in these last two posts?? The bag contains cochineal. A packet of dried bug bits, with which I can magically make fibers turn red! I'm already mordanting my fibers in anticipation. I've never ever had the chance to work with cochineal before.

Now, in spite of how amazing all that is, the next piece is what moved me the most: a genuine handspun, handwoven jakima from Chinchero, Peru.

It's just a wee little narrow thing, and it's not a long piece, just about ten inches' worth, but you'd have to know what this means to me. This pattern, the place it came from, the way I've been learning weaving and my motivation for doing so are all deeply intertwined, and Laverne knows this. I won't go into the whole story here or you'd grow old reading the post. Suffice to say, here's the very first backstrap-woven thing I've tried to weave (still unfinished, to my shame,) warped for me by Abby Franquemont at Golden Gate Fiber Institute, 2010:

Mine is silk thread, which I considered very fine, smaller than anything I tend to spin - but look how close the Chinchero one is in size. So I have something to aspire to, supplemented by the samples of handspun wool and alpaca Laverne sent on a card - extremely thin, fine, even, frighteningly skilled handspun yarn. I keep it on my desk to give me perspective, and to urge me on. The affirmation that there are people out there to whom my textile adventures mean enough that they will shower me with gifts like this - that is what fills me with gratitude, and with the urge to keep on improving, learning and sharing as much as possible.

Muchas gracias.........Shukran leki...........Ma mangpo julley!

Generosity I

2011-09-23T23:43:00.000-07:00

This has always been one of the most striking aspects of the online handspinning community, especially the art-inclined, spindle-happy, walk-on-the-wild-side crowd with whom I've kept company for the past several years. Every time I engage in a "swap," I end up receiving way more than I offered, at least to my point of view, and it's staggering to watch the way people knock themselves out to offer More and More Interesting and More Luxurious in the general swaps on Ravelry. There's a lively atmosphere of giving which is both refreshing and nourishing, and I literally owe the existence of most of my creative handspun yarns to the generosity of my various fiber friends.
The image above is a random view of my fiber shelves, and almost everything pictured came to me as a gift. A sampling taken from anywhere else in my fiber storage facility (aka, our apartment) would yield the same ratio of overabundant given things. Sorting through all my fibers in a mass re-organization, I sat and contemplated all those who had given me these bits of fiber, and the feeling of gratitude swelled once again.

I almost hesitate to write about this, because a characteristic of real generosity is that people don't tend to like being called out about it. However, I have been so inundated with gifts since returning from Australia (not to mention in Australia, as you will see), it had to be documented somewhere.

(gratuitous Australia photo, since I mentioned it)

So, before I left town, we already had an ongoing swap in full swing in the Novelty and Art Yarn Spinners group on Ravelry, which had brought the following into my life:

Beautiful grey fibers, a carded batt and killer buttons
from Made by Pixies.

A glorious, endless batt from Funhouse Miki, and one of popsicletote's magical handmade spindles.

A veritable lifetime supply of dyed mohair locks (photo shows only a fraction) from Kat in Perth, who mailed them to my friends in Oz, where they were awaiting my admiration.

Then, on my last day of freedom in the Blue Mountains of NSW, I went to the home and studio of Michelle Snowdon, aka wooldancer. This was an immersion in fiber wonderland, with handspun yarn by Michelle, her brilliant daughter, and also Lexi Boeger on display around the house, in addition to textiles and handmade toys, beanies, works-in-progress everywhere I looked. We went out the the studio, where Michelle handed me bag after bag of fiber, including one pre-composed grab bag and one collection of items she had picked out for me.

My personal take-home stash, including a sparkly batt (lower left) carded on the spot by Miss Spinstar.

The luscious grab bag contents, and an undyed skein spun by Spinstar for dyeing experiments.

All the contents of the grab bag are now on this spindle, as of yesterday:

I spun the whole lot, then plied the singles back onto itself, which I may do once more (this is Michelle's influence, she is into prolific plying lately, and it's catching.) I managed to pay for some very small amount of what I took away from Michelle's house - fiber is her business, after all, and I had come there intending to actually purchase some fiber. But on my way out the door, she lobbed the gift of all gifts at me, and remembering this moment still makes me lose my hold on words (this sentence took a long time to type.)

Handspun yarn by Michelle Snowdon, genius.

I wore it around my neck, and photographed it against the backdrop of the Blue Mountains, whose landscape reflects the colors in the yarn, as I was to observe over the next few weeks of silence.

And you know what? I thought this was going to be one post, including all the bounty that met me upon my return, but I'm going to stop here and save the rest for its own entry, since this post has gotten so big. How apt that the topic of generosity overflows into more than one entry.

Tour

2011-07-13T05:14:00.000-07:00

I did the Tour de Fleece for the fist time this year. For those who don't know, it's a spinning event concurrent with the Tour de France. Handspinners challenge themselves to spin every day that the Tour rides, and we join various teams and set our own goals and it's just fun.

I kept thinking I'd blog about it, but as the days went by, it was all I could do to keep up with the Tour and my goals. I spun each day while watching the live stream of the Tour on a laptop. We're close enough to the French time zone to watch it live, which added to the excitement and motivation.

Watching the cyclists go all out certainly helped me push myself, when I got tired of the difficulties of unfamiliar spindles. My goal was to spin up and ply some yarn for weaving on traditional Bolivian and Peruvian low-whorl spindles. I also did some wheel spinning, finishing up a motley sock yarn, and even had a couple of art yarn bursts - wild sprints that broke up the monotony of the plain yarns.

Since I'm leaving town like, now, I've just uploaded a bunch of my Tour photos and put myself at the mercy of Blogger. No messing with order or size or anything, just adding some text.

It's nice to have some finished yarn out of this deal.

Oh, and yesterday I plied some cotton. From now on, my Tour spinning is going mobile, and will be mostly cotton, silk, and some fiber I've ordered in Oz.

And here are the guys when they were in Doha back in February. There's a Tour of Qatar every year, and some of the big teams and riders show up. No crowds and flat terrain - it must be a very different experience for them.

Is that Cavendish?? I didn't even know them before this month - I've learned a lot about the Tour de France, and about spinning and my own abilities.

Now, off to Australia, and I don't know if I'll post again until September.

Ouerjan!

2011-06-23T22:20:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite weaving pattern in Bedouin textiles, the one that always catches my attention and makes me smile in recognition. Simple and subtle, it’s a prototypical Bedu pattern, and this may be why I like it so much. I’m drawn to the basic, foundational marks that identify the origins of a piece.

The graphic element is also compelling: scintillating patterns of dots, elusive in their simplicity.

In fact, this pattern is trickier than it looks, requiring a specific warp arrangement.

I know that now, because I’ve woven it! I’ve been admiring it for a while, and feeling confused by it, thinking it mustn’t be that hard, but still failing to understand how it worked. Finally convinced myself to just try it, to confront it in person. This is the only way for me to really learn anything about weaving – if I haven’t tried it, I have no hope of understanding.

I did not expect to warp correctly the first time. Warping is my weak point, and I knew the first one might be an experiment in how to do it wrong. But with the help of Joy Totah Hilden’s drafting chart in her Bedouin Weaving book, and the close examination of actual woven pieces, I made a warp, and it worked! Even as I began to weave, I still didn’t understand how the pattern was going to form, but then it showed itself, and I recognized it.

I first learned the term for this pattern in Hilden's book, where it is written al'ouerjan (pronounced like "all wear jahn".) Then I went to the souq, and sure enough, the weaver there pointed out these sections of the weavings, saying "ouerjan, ouerjan." She also showed me a two-color version, in a striking salmon and green combination, which she calls ouerjan med-khar.

Now that I've tried it, I feel even more affinity for this expressive pattern, and it jumps out at me from every corner of the rug souq.

Out of context

2011-06-18T04:42:00.000-07:00

I took a rather neglected spindle-in-progress to the fitness club, to spin a little before spinning class (I like to bring together the two types of spinning, just for fun.) It was in the pocket of my jacket, and since the room was cold and I started cycling in my jacket, I took out the spindle and put it on the floor beneath my handlebars.

Aspire Dome, the fitness club (shown in winter - now the sky is white)

I had a good view of it during the class, and from that angle, under the bright fluorescent lights, it looked extremely beautiful. As I pumped my legs and sweat dripped off my chin, I felt a longing for the spindle and the elegant blended fiber. The feeling was so powerful that it carried over after class, after going home, and I’ve picked up this spindle again and devoted fresh energy to this particular yarn, for the first time in weeks.

Mixed in with all my spindles, fibers, yarns, WIP’s, and textiles, this spindle and fiber had become just another one. It was in a queue, waiting its turn along with a half dozen spindles-in-progress. I had to see it completely out of context, all alone in the big, cold world of shiny gym machines and loud, driving music, to realize its power and beauty again.

I’ll remember this next time a project drags, or feels old and dull. Take it out somewhere, look at it alone, where it’s the most beautiful thing in sight, and remember how lucky I am to have so many of these things going on.

Abby's Batt, Nine Wine Whine, on Bosworth Mini

Friday morning in February

2011-05-28T05:31:00.001-07:00

syria a video by thnomad on Flickr.

I haven't gone back to Syria, probably couldn't right now, but my mind keeps going there, hoping for peace.

This is from behind the Ummayed Mosque in Damascus, on a rainy Friday before things changed.

String

2011-05-08T06:45:00.000-07:00

I've been visiting Souq Waqif here in Doha regularly, particularly the small arcade where Qatari women sell rugs and other woven textiles. There is so much to see that I'm overwhelmed each time.

I've been focused on the women's spinning and weaving, obvious uses of string that are most interesting to me, and I've been gratified to see both in action.

However, I keep noticing how often they are making different types of string for different uses, and how easily a strong bit of rope is simply accomplished from the bits at hand.

This is second nature for a nomadic people who have lived in tents and herded animals in the desert for centuries. Camel leads and hobbles, reins, straps and saddle belts have been handcrafted as part of daily existence, along with the walls of the tent, the ropes for securing them, and all kinds of bags and rugs.

As a result, there is a huge variety of techniques, with string that is braided, wrapped, woven, wound, twisted, and very often tasselled, depending on its intended use.

Here, she is about to put her palms together against that double strand of two-ply yarn, and twist it smoothly into a cabled length to use as a tie. Each tie takes only a few seconds of fluid motion.

I had been pleased to find evidence of handspun yarn in the souq, but it's clear that this is only one among many ways these women have of creating the things they have traditionally needed.

This arcade is filled with countless other examples of useful string, colorful and elegant, widening my appreciation for Bedouin craftswomen and their timeless knowledge.

Meanwhile, my own experiments with string continue.

Fiber, school, and kids

2011-04-28T23:18:00.000-07:00

For the last four days, I’ve gone to an elementary school as a substitute art teacher, and given spinning and weaving demonstrations to every single class of kindergarten through second grade, numbering close to 300 children. Had a couple pre-K classes in between, too. Thus, my mind is humming with the after-effects, dazed and worn out, but still rolling the experience over.

Mural showing student paintings of Qatar: downtown skyscrapers with cranes, Museum of Islamic Art, camel

My favorite thing about the school where I substitute is the vast variety of students. I noticed the first time I went that every class of 20 kids seemed to be an almost equal mix of Arab, European, Asian and African children, at least by appearance. I was glad to see children growing up in such a rich, varied community.
The truth is, it’s even more complex. How people look does not necessarily tell you where they’re from, and the question of where anyone is “from” when they live in Doha is another story. When we first moved here, we met the most interesting combinations of married couples, such as Korean-Afghani/Canadian, Mexican-Egyptian, and Scottish-Malawi. People who live here are often nomads, who have lived abroad before, and many have met their spouses away from their home country. Their children are in the school where I taught this week.

When I told a second-grade class that my Louët wheel is from Holland, a girl said, “That’s where I’m from!” Her classmates immediately started to argue with her, contradicting her Dutch origins, until she insisted, grumpily, that her father is from Holland. It sounds absurd, but I assumed that her family has lived anywhere but Holland, and her friends knew this, and so questioned her sudden claim to Holland.

Other conversations I had with or overheard among the students were similar:

“Have you been to Taiwan? That’s where my mother is from. Have you been to Germany? That’s where my father is from.”

“I thought you were Scottish.”

“Half-Scottish, half-English.”

“Oh, okay.”

“She was talking about being from Spain. How can she say she’s from Spain? Is her father from Spain?”

All the students interact in English, and even take on American accents, since it’s an American school, but when their parents come to pick them up, the halls are a chatter of Spanish, Dutch, Arabic, Japanese, Tagalog, Hindi, Czech, Norwegian, etc.

Given that the lingua franca is English, and their current home is Doha, the children are in an unusual situation concerning identity. Accents and looks give away a certain amount of information, but the rest of their story has to be narrated and explained, even to their closest friends. This explains why I heard so many snatches of conversation about different countries or nationalities – during kindergarten and first grade, they must be just sorting out how to present their identity to others, experimenting with what to say and how to characterize their families.

World Peace installation in the elementary school hall

Oh, and they enjoyed the fiber demonstrations, too. It was a great opportunity to tap into hidden skills or interests: if children have never tried to work with fiber, there’s no way to know whether they might take to it. One Arab boy, who worried me because he was completely hyper during my demonstration, sat down and proceeded to hand-pick and fluff up the nicest, largest mound of raw wool anyone made all week. Another boy insisted on trying to spin with the spindle, and held his hands below mine as I drafted, mimicking my motions and spinning the spindle when it stopped.

Since these kids were so small and so numerous, they only got to handle very small bits of fiber, which we tried to gently pull apart and add some twist, using fingers or rolling it along our leg. Then they got to use prepared pencil-and-potato spindles, spinning them to ply yarns together into bracelets they could keep. They plied the two yarns, then held the middle and let it fold in half and twist into a four-ply, unknowingly making cabled yarn. This was the best thing the other art teacher and I could come up with that let them use the spindle and take something away with them.

The second grade was already engaged in weaving on little frame looms, so they continued their work, with the option to explore fibers and ask me questions.

By exposing hundreds of children to fiber and spinning, I hope to simply plant the seed in those few who will come back to it and carry on the exploration later in life, when they get the chance again.

The price I had to pay was showing the dead worm inside the silk cocoon again, and again, and again, listening to the chorus of “Eeeeww!” and managing the mosh pit of cocoon-handling competition that naturally follows.

It was worth it.

Confortare

2011-04-19T01:56:00.000-07:00

Years ago, a friend took me through a mental exercise that began with things I’d take to a desert island, then words associated with those things. Through a process of elimination, one arrives at a single word, which is revealing about oneself.

My word was “comfort,” which initially bothered me, because it sounded like I was bent on living a pampered life. At the time, I’d been in India for several years, often camping in the foothills of the Himalayas, carrying everything in a backpack, and otherwise living in conditions most people back home would consider rustic to primitive. So the apparent prominence of “comfort” in my psyche came as a surprise.

(wedding quilt for K & D - scanned photo from 2000)

But the things I’d chosen to have with me reflected my predilection for fiber arts. At the time I was quilting, not yet knitting or spinning, and the materials of quiltmaking were the first items I listed. What is more associated with comfort than a quilt? I began to think that rather than seeking comfort, my emphasis was on creating it.

(Manic Mandala quilt for AK, scanned from 1998)

Finally, I looked up the etymology, and the root of comfort is fort, strength, fortitude. The verb to comfort is to “strengthen much.” To be comfortable is to be likely to give strength, as in moral support. All the implications of cushiness and well-padded protection from unpleasantness seem to have crept in later.

This makes me much happier to accept the word, and it’s quite obvious, looking around my home, that everything I do is aimed toward “giving strength” – to my husband, to myself, to other people in my life. Living far from friends, I have learned how to manifest remote comfort in the form of handmade gifts. The fiber skills I learn and the time devoted to them are methods of comforting myself, giving both strength and solace.

This occurred to me while I was knitting a tea cosy. For some reason, or probably for several reasons, I’ve derived a distinct sense of comfort from this little project, which sounds absurd in the face of the world’s problems: a tea cosy? But there it is. Comfort. And in order to help give strength to anyone else, I have to strengthen myself.

Very small things

2011-04-07T21:45:00.000-07:00

There's a world of trouble and pain, and meanwhile I'm just doing what I know how to do, and hoping to make a positive difference. I have work in progress for others, repositories of love and good wishes.

A sweater for my father. This is important.

And a mitered cross blanket, from the Mason Dixon benefit pattern, made from leftover yarns with a view toward Afghans for Afghans. Garter stitch soothes, when one is overwhelmed by world news.
Then I have work in progress for myself. I'm trying to learn to spin and weave.

(Abby's Batts. There is no substitute.)

Hard-won handspun complementary warp weaving on the backstrap. This is decidedly harder than it looks. Lessons in humility and patience. Feeling the need to spend more time with fiber and yarn. Challenging as they can be, sometimes they are the only things whose language I understand.

Oh, one more thing I'm doing is making care packages of Socks for Japan. Reading the updates on that site made it all very real, and I'm grateful to have a way to share something useful.

Follow up

2011-03-23T07:08:00.000-07:00

Meanwhile, I finished the weaving that you saw being warped a while ago.

This was also woven on the backstrap loom, and I'm partial to photos of it in progress.

Rusty

2011-03-12T08:10:00.000-08:00

I’m happy to announce that my article Yarn: the Art of Twist is in the Spring 2011 issue of Fiberarts Magazine, due out very soon. It is gratifying to have an outlet for writing about yarn as art, and I consider it a privilege to feature the work of handspinners I admire very much.

The word count was limiting, however, and too many things were grappling for inclusion, so I will write a bit more here, thoughts provoked by the finishing and photographing of my Rust yarn.

Each step is so distinct: the palette selection, the prep, the spin, the skeining… then, the shoot. It’s hard to overstate the value of the photography, when one’s work is primarily being shared online.

This is true for any artist, of course, but yarn is a unique animal in that its personality manifests differently depending on how it’s shown. On the bobbin or in the skein, hanging loose or piled onto itself, stretched taut, in strands, in extreme macro – all these glimpses tell a different story. As a sculptural piece, the yarn contains movement and energy, and these elements are manipulated along with the fiber, to different intended (or maybe unintended) effects.

For me, it is always a suspenseful moment when I photograph the yarn. Will the colors show true in the light? Will the yarn cooperate? Will it work with me, and say what I was hoping it would say?

It is not an exaggeration to say that the way the yarn photographs affects whether or not I consider it a successful piece. Several factors determine whether I think of a given yarn as an artwork, and how it behaves in front of the lens is a big one.

I guess this means the photos are a part of the work….. which would not surprise most of the art spinners I know, many of whom have been known to wish for wall-size enlargements of certain yarn images.

This yarn is based on the glories of rust. The rich colors, the corrosion, the unexpected beauty of something disintegrating over time.

In this case, I think the yarn and I are getting along well.

Syria - the textiles

2011-03-01T03:05:00.000-08:00

I have to divide the Damascus experience into categories, and textiles is a big one. I hadn't even thought about what a wealth of textiles, both locally produced and imported, would be there. But of course: the city has been around forever, it lies along trade routes between Europe and Central Asia and has hosted Mecca-bound pilgrims who sell off rugs and other wares to finance their journey, not to mention being the source of damask or dimasq fabric and silk brocade weaving (shown above.)

The most noticeable contemporary textiles are the shiny, glitzy clothing and accessories in the main market, Souq al Hammadiya. There seems to be no end to the glided embroidery available on caftans, tunics, tablecloths, and tissue box covers.
This love of the shiny is evident in the yarn shops, selling "silk" yarns in alluring colors. (It's really some kind of synthetic blend, but everyone in Syria insists that it's silk.)

I was sure I did not need any of this kind of yarn, and just went in to pay respects (a friend has already brought parcels of Syrian silk to us in Doha, and it was fun to see her source.) However, the owner of the shop was clearly skilled with color, and when he laid out several skeins, my resistance crumbled.

I bought these, which you may recognize from the warp in the previous post. I had weaving on my mind in this shop, and suspected that these yarns would be nice elements, combined with handspun.

Then there was the rug shopping.

I was drawn into this space by a Bedouin floor-loom weaving that was hanging outside. It was calmer than most, with natural colors and none of the weft-twining I've come to associate with Bedouin pieces. The owner opened the door, said, "We have more...." and sucked us right in. You could not see how spacious and rug-filled this place was from the street. The storefront is through the hanging rugs at the far end of the picture, and it's a small space with a desk and some chairs, where the proprietors hang out between customers. It's a wonderful, warm and delicious place to be, in here with the rugs.

He did have more of the type I liked:

I loved the soft rhythm of the natural wool stripes, punctuated by the bright joining stitches and the occasional alternation of light and dark, which often looked accidental, as in this detail.

We bought a large, four-paneled rug of nearly 100% camel hair in natural shades. It has a bit of black and white, which are probably goat or sheep wool.

We also bought this Bedouin piece, which has the familiar weft twining in rich colors. Now I need to set up my own majlis-style cushions on the floor, so I can cover them with this rug.

Speaking of camel hair, the next textile investment concerned handspun, handwoven camel hair fabric from Najaf, in Iraq. A designer in Damascus imports the fabric in bolts, then creates garments embellished with cross-stitch embroidery. I am forever grateful that my husband and I agree that handcrafted textiles are a worthy thing to splurge on.

How to choose?

Again we went for the natural camel color, embroidered with "Syrian Jasmine" patterns

She explained how they do the cross-stitch against a canvas behind the cloth, then pull out all the canvas threads one by one. Otherwise the camel hair cloth is not stable enough to hold the cross-stitch. This red jacket also came home with me (it's posed on our camel-hair carpet, back in Doha.)

With all the stunning textile work around, I was especially glad for the cold weather which enabled us to rock some of my own handicraft. My husband wore a handspun, handwoven scarf, which was sincerely admired by the rug shop guys, and I finally got to wear my mind-altering gloves on a daily basis!

One of the high points for me was when a waiter, who had seen me knitting on a simple scarf, noticed the gloves as we were getting up to leave and asked if I made them. When I affirmed, he nodded and said, "Very good, very beautiful!"

Warpscape

2011-02-23T06:59:00.000-08:00

I will, I will, share more about Damascus soon - it hangs over me like an assignment, but meanwhile I'm catching up with the 800 other things I want to be doing, and had to show some details.

Damascus doors

2011-02-09T22:50:00.000-08:00

There was a time when I was enthralled with doors, and would photograph them wherever I went. This fascination had faded somewhat, but Damascus stoked up the door passion again. All those stone archways must have done it. Yes, had a short trip to Damascus, which was so full of sights I can't begin to organize a blog post, so I'm offering up a series of doors, windows, and façades in the meantime.

Pebbles

2011-01-17T02:58:00.000-08:00

It's all I can do to not use at least three exclamation points after the title of this post. I am inordinately excited about learning Andean pebble weave techniques, and I feel like showering them everywhere (exclamation points, that is - but I know better.)
Why so excited? I'm not even sure, but there's something deep and moving about taking up the simplest backstrap arrangement, and creating something complex, logical, and ancient in its applications.

Thanks to Laverne's book and blog, and her ever-helpful and instructive presence on Ravelry, I have indeed begun to learn pebble weave. Above is my first (actually, second) attempt, a double pebble with 8 warps instead of four because I tend to mis-count warps while measuring them out. The next one became a key fob, which my husband needed and appreciates.

After these, I set out on more complex 8-warp designs. These alternate the basic pebble with "design rows" which create a new pattern. That's the part I find ingenious - alternate the same pattern, and just vary what you do in between, and you can get this:

or this:

The red & green above thrills me because it's so common in traditional textiles from Peru (see the logo motif) and Bolivia, which I've admired since I first worked in an import shop 20 years ago. To have at least scratched the surface of understanding how they are made is so fulfilling. When I look at pages from the Museo de Arte Indigena calendar that a friend bought in Bolivia, I see the weaving in a completely new way now, because I can identify the technique, and in a very few cases I could reproduce it in rough form.

Now I'm eager to learn some of the complicated, curly ones, or possibly the beautiful design Laverne did in handspun llama. Then of course, I need to spin some natural-dyed wool to make it more authentic and beautiful..... This is the path my current reveries take.

I have progressed beyond the one-inch strap, and composed a little piece with two different designs - it's the first image in this post, and here's how it was set up.

It differs from the narrow strips in the use of a backstrap bar, with a needle lashed on to control that edge, and also in the use of string heddles for the plainweave segments:

The pebble designs on the sides do not show up here because I only used blue and white, but the backside shows them well.

Is that exciting or WHAT?

(I try to make sure the blog is not about the blog, but I have to say, the formatting on here makes me nutty, and that's why you usually see a column of centered photos with no variation of size or placement. I've also vowed not to spend too much time messing with the blog, so it will probably be this way for a while, until the system is improved or I get zapped with sudden tech knowledge. Maybe I should have said nothing, and let everyone think it's a design choice. Oh well.)

Broken Dishes

2011-01-04T03:10:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things about the American quilting tradition is the naming of patterns. I once slept under a beautiful deep blue & white quilt of scintillating triangles, and the pattern name was Delectable Mountain.
There is so much imagination and intention in the block names, and they pass down hints about the life truths of our quilting ancestors. Piecing a quilt block takes a lot of time and attention, and it would be impossible to make a whole quilt of a certain block without giving ample thought to the symbolism of the pattern. So I believe these names carry layers of depth in them, emotional meaning as well as literal, figurative references. For example, Storm at Sea not only reflects the dynamic interaction of sharp angles, like ocean waves and flapping sails, but would embody a woman's fears for the safety of family members out on the sea, and her hopes of their safe return. Many of the names carry a a connotation of danger, but the act of piecing the block exerts control over that fear: the regularity and persistence of the cutting and sewing emphasizes that things can be resolved, organized, peaceful, and calm.

I'm thinking about all this because I'm making a Broken Dishes quilt. This is one of my favorite patterns (and names,) and the design motif is universal, showing up in textiles from Africa to Asia, from barkcloth to patchwork to silk embroidery. It's very basic, the alternation of negative and positive in a criss-cross shape, and there's so much potential for strong design.

The name seemed rather pessimistic, though, since I'm making this for married friends. Making a quilt that shows a broken state did not seem right. However, the quilt block inherently contains its own reparation. In the perfect regularity of the shapes, the faithful repetition of a pattern, there is the conviction that what is broken can be repaired. These are not random fragments of destruction, but pieces that can be put back together, pieces that fit.

This is a feeling I often get while quilting: that I am putting something to right, fixing and repairing in a microcosmic, metaphysical way. My attention to the cutting and piecing brings a focus on the recipients of the quilt, and my mental energy is going toward protecting, supporting, and encouraging them. I do believe it works, and so I need to keep working on this one.

Lebanon weekend

2010-12-22T01:26:00.000-08:00

When you live in a flat desert, the main priority for foreign travel is to go up and be amongst trees. Therefore, I booked us a trip to the Shouf Cedar Reserve during our free day in Lebanon.

The landscape along the way was spectacular, full of vegetable farms, terraced hills, olive trees and juniper-lined roads.

The air was fresh and chilly at the Cedar Reserve, 2500 m. above sea level. We went for a nice long hike, up and down lots of hills. Our leg muscles seemed to remember how to do that.

The landscape was unlike any I'd ever walked: a combination of rugged rock and rich, muddy earth, rolling away toward the sea in a Biblical sweep.

And the trees.......

We've encountered holy cedar trees in vastly different parts of the world: Redwoods in California fog, Sugi on the island of Yakishima in Japan, Shukpa in the high altitidues of Ladakh, India - all ancient and evocative. Wherever the cedar grows, it is revered by the local people and recognized as a venerable presence. I've seen the tree in the middle of the Lebanese flag the whole time we've lived over here, but never before knew it was a cedar.

(some newer plantation)

Right in here, the air was full of cedar aroma.

The Lebanese cedars have a dramatic profile, holding out their branches like uplifted palms of hands.

Was this enough communing with nature?

Well, not quite, but we had to move on and head back to Beirut

We stopped in Deir-al-Qamar, an old, spring-fed mountain town with architecture from centuries past.

We were immediatly plied with delicacies from this man's trunk. He fed us enough almonds, figs, and nougat sweets to fill us completely in lieu of lunch, and we bought some to bring home.

The produce in Lebanon was almost painfully beautiful and fresh. In Doha, we get most of our produce from Lebanon, so I knew it was a bounteous place. Still, I was awestruck by the sight of streetside vegetable shops and their impressive wares.

Back in Beirut, I was taken to the "best falafel in town" (quotes included to acknowledge subjectivity of such a statement,) and my currently local friend Laurel and I walked the Corniche and watched monster waves breaking up and over the sea wall, on a monumentally stormy day.

Unplugged

2010-11-30T03:52:00.000-08:00

It was only for a day, but it was so good, for that little while, to have an unbroken view of the sea, and hear the shush-shush of tide flowing in.

And it has been entirely too long since our room for the night looked like this:

There was also knitting.

Then guess what happened next...

Then it was evening, and then morning.

So appropriate to have a scarf modeled after a sea creature to knit.

The making of a weaver

2010-11-16T02:08:00.000-08:00

This story has been in progress for a long time. I've always known I wanted to weave. But it took Golden Gate Fiber Insititute, Judith MacKenzie, and Laverne Waddington to make it all come together.

At GGFI in August, I took Judith's Color on Cloth class and dyed a warp, progressively tying resists and immersing in color.

Yes, that really was the first color.

Other lovely warps drying:

Compared to these, mine ended up looking rather dull, but I have to admit I was not giving it much focus. I was concentrating on trying to finish the woven shibori piece that we had to warp, weave, and dye in record time. (Also trying to turn part of my hair indigo - thus the plastic-wrapped knob.)

When I got the warp home on its own, I decided it's not dull, per se, but subtle.

The woven shibori turned out okay, too.

I was actually very proud of myself for getting this done, to a decent scarf length. It was an immersion in the deep end for a new weaver like me, but that was a great way to learn, and I deeply appreciated Judith's method and message of trust in simply getting me started and letting me do it.

Once home, I had to rig up a way to weave my warp.

I have no loom, and a longstanding interest in backstrap weaving, so the way was clear.

With the aid of Laverne's tutorials, I began to weave with a backstrap, practicing on a narrow cotton strip, then moving on to handspun wool.

Once I had this taste of backstrap weaving, I could not wait to start on my dyed warp. It took some wrangling, since the warp yarns had gotten sticky with the dyeing, but I enjoyed this part, too.

This is the grey base yarn. I also dyed 1/3 as many warp yarns over white, and when I prepared the warp for weaving, I integrated them as two stripes.

It was very slow-going at first. With such a long warp, three times as wide as my previous one (this is about 12" wide,) I had a steep learning curve. The cotton I'd used for a string heddle was sticking to the wool like crazy, so I eventually abandoned it for a new one made of plastic tape. (The rejected heddle string will make an interesting addition to a yarn someday: pale blue cotton with felted rust-orange nubs every several inches!) Here is the plastic heddle, and some actual woven cloth, which was a thrill to see:

Making this cloth, and watching the colors interact as the weft joins it, has been a deeply satisfying trip.

This piece will be significant on so many levels, and I cherish every aspect of its formation, not least the people who have guided the way.

I think I'm more than halfway finished, adding a few inches each day.

Cross Country

2010-11-13T04:56:00.000-08:00

This will be a quickie, since I'm falling behind with stuff I want to post....
We took a "driving ramble" trip with the Qatar Natural History Group last weekend. Going directly across the country, from one side of the peninsula to the other, only takes about an hour on the highway. Then we took off into the desert, in a big caravan - vrooom....

It was fun to get some experience driving on the sand: hard tack, soft sand, troughs and ruts and all. I was a passenger (and photographer) for the first half, then drove the second stretch.

Camels photgraphed while driving - do not try this at home.

They're relatively free-range, with herders gathering them together by night.

One woman spotted a camel skeleton, and we collected the various bleached bones. That's the fun thing about the QNHG - everyone has their own specialty. For some it's bones, for others it's fossils, or shells, or birds....

I thought this pelvic bone looked like a Star Wars helmet. Or maybe the rabbit from Donnie Darko...?

The drive ended with a relaxing lunch at the beach. If you were able to see the land across the way (which we could, just barely,) you'd be looking at Saudi Arabia.

Bye till next time, camels...

Textile Society Symposium in Lincoln, Nebraska

2010-10-17T00:49:00.000-07:00

(Warning: this post is full of intriguing links - you could get sucked into a textile abyss for hours on end.)

Quilt made by Nika Feldman and women from a beggars' encampment outside Kathmandu, Nepal

Two quilts made by the women in Nepal, and purchased by me - decorating my hotel room in Lincoln.

***

There was entirely too much going on in the space of three short days,

all of it highly stimulating and full of beauty.

I'm so glad I was accepted to present at this symposium, and thus stayed in the US to attend.

(My presentation was Spin Artists, and How the Internet Fuels the Art Yarn Movement, and it was very well-received. So happy to have represented these artists to the greater textile-studying community.)

The image above is a stunning contemporary sari woven in Orissa - a combination of raw silk and blue-gray fine silk, with a metallic gold double-ikat pallav. This was the best photo I could get in low light.

The ikat saris and the work below were in various gallery shows pertaining to the textile theme.

Jacquard-woven shibori by Catherine Ellis.

Detail from Pauline Verbeek-Cowart's Jacquard-woven Silk Vortex.

Anna Von Mertens - Bachhus, after Caravaggio - hand-dyed, hand-quilted, quilt painting

(I knew Anna back when, before she was famous! We used to talk about quilting, when she was just getting into it. It's so great to see her work now, and hear people gushing over it.

She is brilliant with color.)

***

During the day, we had concurrent sessions, which were very hard to choose from, including presentations by artists such as Kyoung Ae Cho and Rowland Ricketts, in addition to ethnographic studies of aspects of Muslim dress, felt-making in Kyrgyzstan, and Central Asian patchwork (mentioning all the ones I enjoyed the most, plucking them from among dozens.)

***

The brain was too full for words after a while, and this was a good time to go watch the Navajo women spin and weave. This was a great opportunity to observe Navajo spindle technique in action, particularly the double-drafting method I've only seen in videos.

Grandmother spins.

Granddaughter weaves, her own striking design.

Continuing the Native American theme, we were treated to a dance performance by the Many Moccasins dance troupe, which was rich in textiles, impressive and educational. I enjoyed taking blurry photos of the dancers and their regalia in motion.

Finally, I attended a felt-making workshop taught by Janice Arnold, in which we learned basic press-felting, as practiced for ages in Kyrgyzstan, in addition to hybrid felting, which combines wool and a base fabric such as organza.

This was a fun and physically intense way to end the symposium.

(we were working hard - 4 x 100 rolls, just to start!)

I finished the felting after returning to Doha,
and now it's drying in the hot sun.

Fall thrill

2010-10-03T13:05:00.000-07:00

I'm enjoying the beginning of fall more than I can express, having spent the last couple Octobers in Doha, where it's still over 100 degrees (38 C).

Wearing a sweater, breathing cool air and seeing pumpkins

- all minor thrills.

Fall decorations look particularly charming when they're outside a tidy Mennonite farm along the open Missouri highway.

And I like the light quality for knitting, too.

Down time

2010-09-23T06:53:00.000-07:00

Many thanks for all the comments on the Museum post -

it's gratifying to find that my enthusiasm is contagious.

Yesterday, feeling the need to take it easy, I enjoyed the simplicity of finishing a sock,

and the way it matched my mug and placemat.

This is Three Fates Knitting yarn, in the lovely Boston Harbor colorway.

While traveling across the Midwest, the colors harmonized with late summer cornfields and cloudy skies.

MIA

2010-08-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

Yes, it describes me for the last month or so, but it’s also the acronym for the Museum of Islamic Art, one of the most appealing spots in Doha.

The museum has been completed and opened since we’ve lived in Doha, and so I feel a special affinity for it – and with free admission, there’s even more of a sense of “my” museum. I’ve gone there many times in the last two years, and had begun to lose the awe of the first encounter, simply through growing familiarity. However, on a recent visit to buy gifts before our trip home, I sat on a bench I hadn’t used before, looked up and saw this:

and was freshly agog with wonder. How can anyone even DO that, making all those lines and movements and textures happen in space together??

The outside is all clean, calm geometry and shifting planes of light.

Even before it opened, I was delighted by the many moods of the museum as it reflected in the water and communed with the Arabian sun.

Entering the main atrium, one walks into a vast sculpture, a three-dimensional poetry rife with the genius of I.M. Pei. The shapes and surfaces are intricately graceful, poised and stately in spite of the stunning complexity of the whole. The exquisite tension between detail and structure, straight and curved, activity and stasis creates a permeating mood of stimulated wonder.

I go there to look at art, of course, and there are plenty of wonderful pieces from various moments in Islamic history. But more often I go there to dwell in art, moving through the space and watching the light transform patterns around me.

I.M. Pei said this museum is one of the few places he has designed that he likes to see with people as well as empty. The clean lines and neutral shades are particularly suited to Arab dress, and one feels as if one should wear long robes in black or white to complement the surroundings.

Hope you enjoyed the tour of one of my favorite man-made places in the world.

Putting cloth on people

2010-06-22T00:05:00.000-07:00

This is becoming a thing with me, costuming people for historical reconstructions of old Qatar. I got my second gig with a documentary film crew. This time was much hotter, but more mellow people and therefore more fun. We were attempting to evoke the Iron Age, the town of Murwab (9th century), and 19th century Al Zubara, based on archaeological findings here in Qatar.

The Iron Age guys, models from an agency, were a hoot. Got them all wrapped in less than an hour.

Shades and shoes would be shed for the shoot, of course.
(yikes, did I set off the alliteration alarm?)

I was also happy with this outfit, for the Al Zubara scene:

We kept colors and costumes simple, for the sake of avoiding any misrepresentation.

I got pretty good at turbans by day three of filming.

The set background here is a mock village constructed for the purpose of filming, in the style of historical Qatar, complete with functioning tiny mosque and nice doorways and interiors.

and then....

2010-05-26T01:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, where was I?

The indigo:

became two-ply light worsted yarn, and is being stranded into my Stilwell sweater with KnitPicks City Tweed in sage green.

It's much further along than that, but I like this photo and wanted the excuse to post it.

The pretty little singles from my spindle became the ply in this yarn, called Sinfonia:

Which reminds me, I don't think I've posted this anywhere else yet....I'm so behind!

This was a pleasure spin, all on spindles - some of my favorite fibers are in there: lime green mohair, purply almost-black merino, white silk, lilac merino/viscose....

The Yarnwench natural-dyed batt from heaven became a pile of fun yarn,

a rugged singles with fabric add-ins. This was at least as fun as Sinfonia - I hated for the batt to end.

And then there's the Noise:

still in progress, and showing the spindle on which most of these yarns were spun: Bosworth Maxi, possibly my favorite - certainly my favorite for moderate-sized art yarns.

How's that for some yarn? The spinning over here has been fast and frenetic. There's even more where that came from, lest you think my wheel has been idle...

some spinning

2010-05-08T06:11:00.000-07:00

A few yarns in progress, in no particular order -

Indigo!

This beautiful stuff was dyed by Laura Mayotte (aka indigonightowl,) and I've now finished spinning and plying a two-ply light worsted weight yarn to strand with commercial sage green in my Stilwell sweater. Love every moment of proximity to indigo.

Came home to a gift (from myself) of more Yarnwench goodness - a mix of fibers, dyed with various natural dyes. Such a treat. Spinning it rough, adding in some fabric knots and bursts.

This has been going on for a little while. A nice singles of Studioloo merino/viscose, seen here in India. It is being plied, right now, with a bulkier, more expressive singles called Sinfonia.

And some mostly-neutral battlets. I'm going to spin Noise.

I'll gladly show you what happens to all these, but only if I get some comments - ha!

two moments

2010-05-01T07:28:00.000-07:00

I was barely out and about in India this time, but here are a couple moments, from Bombay

and Igatpuri

Leaves

2010-03-10T23:57:00.000-08:00

While in Sri Lanka, I started photographing fallen leaves.

Particularly the ubiquitous, symbolic bodhi leaves, but also just leaves.

When I got back home, I was spinning leaves - the Leaves of Grass colorway by Yarnwench

I'm spinning the second half on my Turkish spindle.

Apron à la Amy

2010-02-23T05:27:00.000-08:00

Just finished this fashion apron from the Amy Butler

Barcelona skirts pattern

(two separate links - the first one is pure candy.)

It's really just an excuse to see all these great fabrics close together.

From the top down: Anna Maria Horner (that will be the A-line skirt underneath the apron - yet to be sewn); Kaffe Fassett; Amy Butler (love this Japanese meisen-inspired stuff!); Kaffe Fasset; Amy Butler. A delicious fabric salad, that sat in my cupboard for way too long, until the other day I suddenly started cutting,

then sewing,

with growing excitement until the final topstitching.

It's a very clear and well-written pattern, easy yet thorough.

Here's the reverse side:

It was a bit windy when I was trying to model this on the roof, but it shows both sides at once.

Two reasons to be happy about knitting

2010-01-22T08:32:00.000-08:00

Reason 1, the selfish:

I knit a fitted set-in sleeve, without a pattern or even premeditation, which properly fits not only the armhole of the sweater, but my own body.

Some background: this particular sweater has been on the needles for nearly a year, and projects that linger tend to acquire weight - as in, unwelcome burden sort of weight. Something that seemed delightful and fun in the beginning becomes questionable: is this really going to work? Is it going to look as good or be as comfy as I thought? This sweater was in the throes of such doubt, purely as a result of too much time languishing in a basket and being passed up for fresher projects. So the success of this sleeve, the utter surprise of nailing it, redeems both this sweater and my confidence in my knitting.
Now I just have to do it again.

Reason 2, the global:
These children in Gaza.
A few of them are wearing hats I made.
(bring your tissues)

Stitching

2010-01-08T07:02:00.000-08:00

Now that there's a lively discussion going on*, and people may be peeking over here to see actual work of mine (she said hopefully), I'd better get some more recent photos up.

I've been stitching.

The act of "putting in stitches," as Willia Ette Graham used to say, has been calming and comforting.

The stitches form a language, recalling past rhythms and moments,

but also asserting the present,

keeping me quietly here.

Those little marks? Little dashes skipping and meandering through the uniform structure of the woven cloths? They make me so happy.

*If that link is no good, use this one instead.

A sky

2010-01-05T00:02:00.000-08:00

So I'm not doing the photo-a-day thing, nor have I made any resolutions or otherwise acknowledged that this is a new and different year, but I am trying to pay attention and notice things, and this sky had to be documented.

We don't often get interesting skies here in Doha. For most of the year, we're excited to see any clouds at all. But in winter, there's the chance for some actual weather, and it all manifests in the large, open sky. I noticed these lovely brushstrokes of cloud while driving home, and then immediately went to the roof. The torch tower for the Asian Games 2006 is on the left, and another unattractive tower is being blocked by the detail from our own rooftop.

Seriously. Around here, this is meteorological excitement, folks.

Look

2009-12-26T23:04:00.000-08:00

I got out my vintage art supplies recently. Sakura Cray-Pas oil pastels, given to me by either my grandmother or my great aunt Grace. There's no date on the package, but I know I've had them since childhood. They've clearly spent more time in storage than in use, but their colors and packaging are very familiar to me.

The colors of my knitting wanted to play along.

Malabar Coast

2009-12-10T03:07:00.000-08:00

How romantic does that sound - the Malabar Coast.

The Lakshadweep Sea.

I waded in it, and it was very warm.

Spent a week in Kerala, and saw so many beautiful sights, but first I want to indulge my penchant for beach pictures and talk about the Alleppy beach.

Totally wanted one of these kites, made of single sheets of mylar, with videocassette tape tails. It was a Sunday, and lots of people seemed to be headed to the beach in family groups. Heh - I actually thought it was a bit crowded when we arrived.

Further up the beach, though, it was more solitary. For some reason, I never get tired of the beach footprint photo. Evokes the whole thoughtful barefootness of being there.

We were not really alone, of course. Roving groups of young Indian men approached us and competed among themselves to act ridiculous. But then, while I was doing a little spinning,

a decently-behaved set of local youths came and started chatting with my husband in broken English. They asked him what I was doing, and I demonstrated how I was turning loose fibers into string, showing them they way twist enters the fiber. They were delighted, and one kid pulled out his phone to get a picture, then decided it really called for video. So I have actually been videotaped spinning on the beach in Alleppy, Kerala, South India. If anyone sees it on YouTube, you have to let me know.

(This is especially funny for those of us who devote ourselves to documenting indigenous textile techniques, and scour the Internet for footage of traditional spinning - complete role reversal.)

As we made our way back to the main family area, we were stunned by the sight:

It's hard to convey in one photo, but the beach entrance was teeming with families, and the sky was filled with variously sized dots of flying kites. This was clearly the place to be, of a balmy Sunday evening.

with gratitude

2009-11-18T07:58:00.000-08:00

People, images and events have been conspiring to remind me that I'm an artist, and coercing me to pull out half-made, neglected things.

And so with gratitude to all of them, I gather materials and visuals around me, set a chair near the window, and get back to work.

Coincidentally, I happen to be preoccupied by the same thoughts as when I started this piece a few years ago: boundaries, borders, language, miscommunication, violence, failure to understand, stalemate.

The good bits, part II

2009-10-28T01:00:00.000-07:00

Bedouins!
No, one doesn't just come across these people in the desert anymore. It's actually quite difficult to track down real bedouins, especially anyone living in the old way. Why would anyone choose such a difficult life when they have the paved roads and malls of Doha now?
But for the film, we got to re-create a bedouin scene. Five adults and two children were cast, and I got to help choose their wardrobe, after consulting fabulous old photos of bedouins which I can't post here because they're copyrighted. The book Bedouins of Qatar by Klaus Ferdinand was the "bible" of the art department for this shoot. It's full of great photo documentation from the 1930's, when nomadic bedouins were still living off their camels and goats, and following the seasonal shifts in water and foliage on foot.
This is how the scene looked from my point of view.

Now, this was my first experience with live action film at all, so I was intrigued by the way the cameraman on the end of the crane moved from lower left, across and up, with the grip guys manually balancing and turning the other end of the crane.

The tent is divided into male and female areas, and there were an additional two camels to the left. They got agitated when members of the crew came darting onto the set between shots - these camels also had no prior experience with film, it seems.

We're in the desert, so you can see they had to lay down plywood boards under the crane wheels. Many other concession had to be made for sand and sun. The director and anyone else on the computers or monitors had to huddle under tents of black cloth to see their work.

The women's area: mother and daughter, and a weaver!

I went shopping in the souq for their jewelry the night before - the headpiece on this woman looked particularly cool. The girl has a bracelet, and both women have necklaces, which don't show in my photos, but I noticed they got good shots of all the jewelry on film.
Obviously, meeting the weaver was the best part for me. She's a weaving teacher here in Doha, also knows how to spin, and brought all her own gear, including the nearly-100-year-old oryx horn tool from her grandmother.

This tool never left her side. It's used for separating the warp threads, and for tamping down the weft after each shot. All of her other loom bits are contemporary, so the art director covered most of them up.

The woven wool robe with gunky wool from my past post is there on the left, and pieces she wove on the other side. She also made the bag hanging behind her.

There's my raw wool and Qatari spindle as prop in front. I was spinning a bit more on set, to make the cop a little bigger, and all the local men were watching in fascination. One of them instructed me to spin finer, so I did, and got a thumbs up. He said something in Arabic, and one of the grip guys translated, "He says you're better than him!" I wish there had been more time for fiber-relating bonding with these people, but even with the weaver, I only got to speak to her for brief moments between "Cut!" and "Quiet on the set......" I have her business card, though, and plan to visit her when she's teaching.

Here's how she really looked, for an hour or more - director James on the left, cameraman John.
Bedu men on camera:

And taking a break:

In this setting, the men are more work for the make-up department because they all need shaggy beards. The women only need a bit of kohl around their eyes, since that's all you see.

We drove up to the top of a high dune for the final shot (the first image of this post,) and our set was almost invisible from this distance.

The men seemed to feel at home in the desert, even though they're all from the city.

The good bits, part I

2009-10-20T00:21:00.001-07:00

I was hired to assist with a small, documentary film production here in Doha, as someone who knows about textiles. There were to be historical reconstruction scenes, and I was meant to help the art department and wardrobe with authenticity of detail in traditional handicrafts and costumes.

This sounds very promising and somewhat glamourous. However, a bit of a gap developed between what I was hired to do, and what I ended up doing. A rather large gap, in fact. Since no one comes here to listen to me complain, I'm going to gloss over all that. Suffice to say that I have learned that I am not personally interested in working with film production in the future.

Skipping directly to the good bits, ie, the textiles I got to see, learn about, and in some cases, wrangle:

These first images are from the Sheikh Faisal al Thani Museum, an extensive (make that "stunningly massive") private collection viewed by appointment, which includes not only textiles but cars, boats, and weaponry. I only saw these pieces behind glass.
I absolutely love this display. A child's tunic and vest from India, and fabulous glass beads from... somewhere. The whole room of costumery was a demonstration of the intermingling of people in the Gulf. The clothing displayed, all of which could have been worn in Qatar at some time, was from Turkey, Afghanistan, the Levant, India, China, and all points in between. The hand-sewn, metal-beaded jacket below, from Central Saudi Arabia, struck me because of its resemblance to Akha clothing in southern China and Thailand.
There were many dresses and jelebiya decorated with dense chain-stitch embroidery, which was identified as typically Yemeni (and yes, is very similar to embroidery from Kutch, Gujarat.)
Among the costumes I got to handle were some more embellished Yemeni dresses, with an intricate couching of braided white cord, and silver-wrapped smocking. (These were not used in the film, because they are not actually from Qatar.)
Even the most basic of textiles had surprising and intriguing details. For example, this handspun, handwoven, weft-faced, heavy men's robe was made with such gunky wool! All the stuff I try to pick out while I'm spinning is still in there - look at all that gunk!
A second woolen robe, of finer, cleaner wool, is stitched with handspun camel hair:
This sweet embroidered child's cap also has camel hair wound around the tassels. This again in the Yemeni style - a wonderfully dense embroidery using a variety of stitches.
Finally, the pieces that made me nearly pass out. A thobe al nashal, a woman's decorated robe, from the collection of the National Museum of Qatar. At least 50 years old, this piece is covered with gold embroidery of impeccable craftsmanship. It's a large, voluminous robe, but I could only get detail shots because I was merely transporting it, and terrified of inflicting any damage.
And this bukhnaq, a head covering, also from the National Museum. The scarf is sheer, but the embroidered part is heavy, as if there is actual metal content in the threads. Looking closely, you can see two tones, gold and silver. This and the above piece were both bade in Qatar, and this type of gold, chain-stitch embroidery was continued up until quite recently, albeit in a much less exquisite form.
The last image is a detail from a contemporary piece, a thobe al nashal made from gold-embroidered silk from India (from a private collection.) This robe is worn during the henna night, when a bride's hands and feet are decorated with henna prior to her wedding.

So yes, I definitely got some good textile exposure out of the deal.

More to come - costumes on actual people! (Had to get all these detail shots out of my system, before moving on to the larger picture.)

rains

2009-09-30T00:28:00.000-07:00

The monsoon season was such a welcome change from Doha's May and June heat. Can't even express how much I enjoyed basking in a landscape like this, and watching people plow with oxen.
Look how wet! See the waterfalls?

So very wet, and raining enough that everyone is wearing raingear to work the fields. In this part of Maharashtra, village rain gear means a large plastic bag, slit open along one side, so that the peak forms a hood and one's back is covered. They're really for sale in the market, just like that. Rows of brightly colored plastic-coated people plucked and re-planted these fields with remarkable efficiency, working all day long in the squelching mud.
Sometimes a small herd of buffalo sauntered through the oversaturated green, like the very definition of languid. (I did not get a picture of the buffalo - just imagine them, black and shiny, slow and calm, snouts lifted in lazy inquiry.)
It seemed to rain particularly hard on our days of travel, and I discovered a new genre: through-the-wet-window photos . Way fun.

A measure of equanimity

2009-09-08T23:22:00.000-07:00

I had been thinking, quite a bit, about how much of "my life" seemed contained in my laptop, and how that didn't feel right. Wanting to clean up, clear out, slow down, reduce. Making plans and resolutions.

Then I came home and after one day of use, my hard drive crashed. All gone.
So I've been doing other things.

Spending time with the phang and soft grey Romney, which I may not have taken the time to appreciate otherwise.

Two Months Off

2009-07-01T07:09:00.000-07:00

Lest anyone think I'm a slacker (as opposed to merely sporadic,) I'm here to say I'll be gone from Internet Land until September. The "Dhamma" link in the sidebar gives a hint at what I'll be up to.
Enjoy your July & August, and thanks for reading my bloglette.

Debate

2009-06-18T05:42:00.000-07:00

I was never interested in debate in school. We learned the format and engaged in one debate, the pet project of our junior year history teacher. But I always thought it was fruitless to cultivate the art of arguing both sides of an issue, and would lead to simply being good at arguing rather than having firm convictions. In college, I encountered my share of confidently argumentative students who merely reinforced my prejudice.

As far as I know, my husband was never into debate, either, but here in Qatar it has become his main extracurricular program with the university students. He trained as a judge with a visiting group from Oxford, acts as advisor to the Qatar University debate club, and gives presentations on the value of debate in English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching. This activity has made him increasingly busy, due to the enthusiasm of the students who learn to compete in debates – they’re even whisking him off to Turkey later this month for a training event.

The popularity of debate in Qatar comes partly from the monthly BBC World program Doha Debates, hosted by Tim Sebastian. Each month, a selected panel takes on a touchy topic relevant to the Muslim world, and the panelists debate each other and parry Sebastian’s sharp, devil’s-advocate jabs. The live audience, mostly of local students and young adults, participates in the discussion, and a vote is taken at the end to pass or fail the motion. (If you link, you’ll see that this motion passed.)

I was teaching knitting at the recreation center of the Qatar Foundation, the organizational sponsor of the debates, and encountered the above poster in the lobby. It made me think hard about what a significant freedom it is that such a poster can exist, prominently displayed in universities throughout Doha. Despite its message, it remains undefiled, and no one has gone around ripping them down. This is my answer to people who ask if living in a Muslim country is scary, or if Qatar is full of Islamic fundamentalists.

It also counteracts my old prejudice about debate. In this country, freedom of speech is valued, but there is still a tangible limit. Protests are not tolerated, and criticism of government is rarely heard, so local residents do not engage in activism. However, when given the opportunity to debate, they are allowed to express and articulate views that may not be otherwise considered acceptable. In the context of the debate, no one is politically blamed for what they say, and so these students can try on opinions for size and palatability, without threatening consequences.

Students also learn to examine all sides of an issue, and to see the point of view that might not naturally be their own. I had never realized how much “training” my own education gave me in this way of thinking, until I encountered cultures in which it’s less inherent. So I no longer think debate is dumb. I can see why my husband is actively promoting it, and I hope debate in Qatar will continue to grow and thrive, engendering important discussion and expanding minds.

In which I threaten to ruin my sewing machine with an excess of locks

2009-05-29T11:30:00.000-07:00

It’s all Pluckyfluff’s fault.
I made a yarn about a year ago, inspired by a photo of the Fox Fur nebula.

Carded up some little batts on hand-carders, and spun the whole thing as a singles. Lots of locks in it – one of my first really lock-full yarns. It was way fun to spin.
When I finished, I particularly liked the twisty, convoluted energy of it, and wanted to maintain that. I knew it shouldn’t be knit.

Then recently, I saw that brilliant sewing idea of Lexi’s, and it lodged in my head.
Does this look like a good idea? I think if the sewing machine could talk, it would say NO.

But it started to look cool, after a bit of wrangling. I like to see the progression of the yarn as it was spun, with each inch of each strand equally visible.
Here’s the set-up. A swift is off to the left, controlling the skein. Wrapping around the book makes the width (roughly) uniform.
At this point, I am VERY happy with it.

Technically, it could be improved. There are weaknesses in the sewing. And I have to make it up to my machine, somehow. Before I start another one, heh.

Desert Rhythms

2009-05-15T01:47:00.000-07:00

There’s a sameness to color here in Doha. Buildings are made in the colors of dust, and then become covered in dust. The sandy landscape dictates and overrules aesthetic choices.

But within this limited palette, rhythmic repetition of shapes creates a pulse.

The sparse lines and muted color evoke calm, as on my rooftop after a rainstorm.

Handquilting

2009-05-03T02:28:00.000-07:00

Handquilting is quite a privilege. I could not do it if my fingers weren’t nimble, my eyes strong, and my time relatively flexible. Or if I had not met quilting mentors who showed me how to rock the needle, how to keep the fabric slightly loose in the frame, how to make the shell pattern.

So it’s a celebration of knowledge and skill, and I aim to keep it alive in me.

People say strange things sometimes, about how much I “must really love” whomever the quilt is for. They don’t realize that it’s ultimately for me. Even though I do love my quilts’ recipients, I am handquilting for love of the work, and for the sake of retaining this.

The stitches meander like thoughts across the fabric patches, and my mind and hands are brought together, focused on the message and story of this quilt.

Railways

2009-04-17T01:48:00.000-07:00

The trains in and around Bombay are so great.
Before the terrorist attacks in CST (aka VT) and Slumdog Millionaire brought these scenes to global attention, I was enthralled with trains and train stations. I've ridden Indian trains a lot, and lately keep wishing I had my video camera.

The movement, the blur of the outside world passing, the claq-kuk, claq-kuk of metal wheels on steel rails....

The various chaiwallas and paniwallas and food vendors' voices, like birdcalls - mungphalimungphalimungphaleeeeeah.....
The bluster of open windows and strenuous fans on hot days, and the persistent smell of engine grease, mingled with bodies and hair oil....
It's a moving world that is always changing, always similar, and never fails to fascinate me, though I arrive hot, windblown, covered with a layer of grime.

(click on photos to see them larger)

2009-04-12T23:40:00.000-07:00

India is full of such pedestrian beauty.

These images are from Bombay and Igatpuri.

making string

2008-01-13T13:51:00.001-08:00