nemo ignorat

A Pennant for The Gathering of Dreams

I am not a well organized person. Especially not when it comes to art or craft. I usually get the feeling, I want to make something and then let this feeling and the accompanying thoughts mature until all is penned up like in a pressure cooker. And shortly before the valve bursts open or the cooker explodes, I begin with a project and then just make it. It feels just right at this stage. 
Which is fine by me but when it comes to documenting my projects I really suck.
When Mo asked me if I wanted to participate in her "I Dream of a World Where Love is the Answer"-Gathering I spontaneously accepted. Got the silk and then froze. I was confronted with a specific topic. And as much as I think that only Love can be the answer, I usually am a way too realistic and pessimistic person to actually think, something some artists make can change anything. But I accepted the challenge and worked with it. 

I am a linguist. I do not work in the field anymore but that's what I learned and breathed and lived for quite some time. That is what I am. A scientist. Of Words. And a philosophy minor. So thinking about the word 'Love' and what it means was my natural way to work on this challenge. (You see, my work is either completely worked out by my subconscious processes or my well-organized brain works very methodically on a problem. Contrary to my assessment above.) 

So, what is Love? When you think about it, love is a concept. And a rather broad one at that. Love can be so many things. Love for the country, love for the world, love for a specific person or even an object. But this still does not narrow it down. So my thoughts went to what the concept Love my encompass. 

To me "Love" is a like an embrace. The concept "Love" embraces so many other concepts: generosity, humility, selflessness, caring, compassion, kindness, altruism, care and comfort and trust. Love is the opposite of Fear. If you love someone or something, you want to let it run loose, set it free (thanks Sting) and you will trust in it. 

Since I am German, I wanted to make it in German. German might be a rather unwieldy language but it is great when it comes to concepts. Especially philosophical concepts. Using a word does not simplify this word or reduce it to just one meaning. Meaning is something rather complex and even if we use words like 'table' we envision different things in our minds when we hear it. It might mean more than just the furniture. Along with a special image of a special furniture, a person might connect it to a certain feeling, connected to other people or situations. Now, if a word like table can contain so many different things for a person, imagine what a word like 'Love' may contain. And now imagine what all the other concepts, a word like 'Love' may contain. 

Somehow, I ended up with 'Selbstlosigkeit' (selflessness), 'Mitgefühl' (sompassion) und 'Geborgenheit' (care and comfort, safety and protection). When you love someone or something, you feel compassion, act selfless and this love may give you comfort and protection. 

I added some onion dyed cotton, used different silk thread dyed in indigo, madder and logwood. There is a lot of madder, because madder is of the Earth. And I just love the earthy part of its colour. 

Let's all protect this broken world. Feel compassionate for her well-being and for the beings living on her and be selfless about it. Step outside of the Dream and just Love. 

hand working

I know, for most of you this is old news. You all had your own thoughts about this topic many times over. But some things take a while to mature.

Yesterday, I was talking with a friend about crafts, DIY in general and sewing in special, and we were musing about working by hand in contrast to working with a machine. Although I actually own several sewing machines, I rarely ever use them.  (1 treadle, 1 hand cranked, 1 simple electric from India with only straight stiches and 1 40 year old Husqvarna, more like a tractor under the sewing machines, most of them with very personal stories behind them.) I learned sewing on machines when I was in school (around 10 or so) and later my mother insisted I take a sewing class when I was around 14. Mother and I had very different approaches to teaching, learning and crafting in general.

But I think, it is good that I learned sewing properly it helped me later when I started making my own clothes. My father taught me how to repair things. He was the one who taught me how to sew on a button. And I think it is good that I learned that too. 

Later on, mother's machine approach to crafting lost me. She had a knitting machine, the treadle machine was hers and she had an electric as soon as she could afford it. (My parents loved machines. They had an electric bread cutter, one of those fancy kneading/mixer/etc. kitchen appliances, automatic bread maker, they even had an egg cooker and electric knives and can openers and juicer and what not. The amount of kitchen machinery alone was mind boggling. Add to this the whole DIY shebang my father had and you can imagine, they needed a rather large house.) For a time, making her work easier with machines even made sense. After the war, she earned money by sewing shirts and dresses for other people. So she needed a productive method to work. (That was were the treadle machine came in. Electricity was rare in the late 40s, early 50s and she got it on food stamps she collected from the whole family.) She had two children (my brother, I came way later.) a husband and her parents to look after, cloth and feed. So everything that helped her getting things done faster was good. 

But later, when there were only my parents and me left (my grand parents were dead and my brothers moved out), she still favoured machines over everything else. She even had a rotary iron. (Our cat just loved to sleep on the still warm, freshly pressed bed sheets.) 

Me on the other hand always favoured doing things by hand. Yes, I learned how to use the machines and for a while I've sewn on the treadle, and I even used the Husqvarna for another while. (I got the Husqvarna in trade for a sofa from my flat mate's  mother who was a craft teacher in school.) I do have a washing machine and thank all Gods of Invention that someone came up with that thing. Hubby has a tendency to machines as well. So for a while we shared our kitchen space with one of those coffee makers (where you fill in whole beans and water and push a button to make real espresso). Over time I got rid of some of the machines again (except the washing machine). I have one of those espresso makers (the ones you put on the oven), a hand cranked bread cutter (hubby insisted on some kind of help, he is hopeless with a bread knife) and when push comes to shove, I choose to do tasks by hand. 

I always thought this was because I don't like the noise those machines make. They are all so incredibly loud. But - and here I resume my tale from the beginning of the entry - when I talked with my friend about sewing by hand and kntting by hand and favouring the spindle over the spinning wheel, I realised it was not the noise.

Yes, the noise is one factor but my main reason not to use machines is because I feel I am only handling a machine not sewing or knitting or spinning. When I sew by hand, my main goal is sewing. I sit whereever I like and I have a needle and thread and the stuff I want to sew. When I have a long straight seam, I like the help of a third hand but lacking a piece of furniture where I can attach it, I can use my feet to keep the seam straight and tight. I can even pin a piece of fabric to my trousers and tighten the seam this way. In short, I don't need anything else but the bare necessities. But when I sew on the machine, I am glued to one place which needs to be ideal. It needs an electric outlet, more space, should not be too high or too low and so on and basically I am just the machinist. Yes, this is oversimplifying the task of sewing on a machine but still, it is more about the machine than the sewing. 

But nevertheless, since I do have all those machines (the sewing machines, the spinning wheels, even my mother's knitting machine) I always think I should use them. Be more productive. I could do so much more than by hand. 

This talk yesterday made me realise that all this huffing and hemming about the machine assortement in my house is unnecessary. I now had over 40 years time to get not only aquainted with them but befriend them, make use of them, in short, be the machinist. And I didn't. When I think about sewing or knitting or spinning, I take my needles or my spindle and begin. Just like that. So maybe it is time to part from some of the machines. Find them a new home where they will be used.

I am a hand crafter. I will always prefer manual tools over machines. I am not running aroung naked, even hubby has enough clothes to wear and we are not freezing in bed because the next quilt takes a whole longer. I am a hand crafter, I can take my time and do things the way I feel best. 

black on cotton

A client has a kakishibu dyed fabric. Said fabric is nicely beige-brown but rather unimpressive. So he wants it different. Grey or black, maybe. But it should still retain its water repellent properties. The fabric is densely woven cotton/linen. The cotton thread is either natural grown brown or already treated with kakishibu. It is dense enough that it repells water. 

Over the course of the past several days, I am now experimenting with different dye possibilities. Iron oxide, soot, earth pigments, indigo as paint. There is no way, I will be able to dye it in an immersion, I tried. Pigments are a nice way to paint such a fabric but they are slow to develop. Nothing for the dyer in a hurry. 

sample with different pigments, protein binder and an extra kakishibu coating. you can see the part where it is left w/o the kakishibu to see the difference better. 

kakishibu and iron sulfate

The advantage of such experimentations is that I have enough dye prepared so that I can experiment for myself.

kakishibu and iron sulfate on old bedsheet

some more abstracts with kakishibu and iron sulfate

I'm still pondering whether I will keep them as they are or if they should get an indigo dip. In any case, I'd like them as curtains in my new flat. Usually kakishibu and iron sulfate is rather light fast. 

indigo on kakishibu dyed linen the red spot is iron oxide and the yellow ochre

 

the backside of the fabric. You can see that the dye does not penetrate but is like a painting.

 

front side

Kakishibu, pigments and protein binder make fabrics rather stiff. This is uncommon for Western fabrics but rather typical for a lot of fabrics from Japan or China. The circle fabric is an old, relatively thick linen, in German it is called "Bauernleinen", rough linen for grain sacks or work clothes woven on small looms with handspun linen thread. They are usually about 100 - 150 years old.  

Indigo on a rough linen

This is my favourite. It will be the backside of a linen waistcoat. It's painted inidgo with a protein binder. 

you can see the structure of the rough weave and how the dye just lies on top of the fibre.

 

Pigment painting

Today, a student and I had fun with kakishibu and iron oxide pigments on old table cloth and coarse linen. My student leaned more towards middle African inspired motives (the two in the middle) whereas I tended more towards circles and dots. The colours are not finished yet. Kakishibu and the pigments take several weeks or months to develop and I am looking forward to how they will change. 

spinning

Spinning is a craft I tend to when I really need to slow down. Stitching and sewing is slow as well but more purposeful than spinning. (And I tend to fall into a kind of addicted trance with sewing and stiching which is stressful in itself.) With spinning I just make yarn. And when I begin at the beginning and wash and card and comb the fibre as well, things begin to really slow down. So this is what I mostly do these days. OK, I also had some students here for indigo dyeing, I build several high raised beds and planted some tomatoes and salad and such, but craft wise it was mostly washing fleece, picking, and so on.

I  showed you the combed and carded Bentheimer Landschaf  a while ago. Well, I decided to stick with combing but combing is made easier when you just card it beforehand, so I use my picker, fluff the fibre, card them on the hand cards and then comb them on my small handheld combs. After two spindles worth of thicker yarn, I thought really thin yarn might be nicer and now I stick to the thin yarn. Once plied, I hope it will still be strong enough for weaving. I'm thinking of some tablet woven bands. But I'll see.

We have really nice weather, so I just use the picker in my backyard. 

And as a contrast fibre, when I feel like something different, I spin cashmere on my supported spindle. Different fibre, different technique.  The cashmere is still from a bag full of Scottish cashmere I bought many years ago. Until about a decade ago, cashmere goats where raised in Scottland as well. They had a huge cottage industry build around it but when import restrictions on Chinese cashmere fell they couldn't compete with the cheap competition. (Which in turn lead to a higher demand for even cheaper cashmere in China, which lead to impoverished farmers, destroyed environment and more and more low quality cashmere flooding the market. But that's another story.)

Bentheimer Landschaf taking for a spin

All over Germany (and in some other countries as well) there are so called Nutztier-Archen (livestock arcs; farms with endangered farming animals, old livestock races that are deemed non-profitable for industrialised farmingand are in danger of dying out which would be catastrophic for biodiversity). From one of them I got some fleece last year. Mostly Bentheimer Landschaf and some mixed fleece. 

While sorting through my mum's stuff, I used her kitchen to sort and clean the fleece. And yesterday, I felt like taking some of it for a spin. This is the nicest thing about my new situation. I can just sit all day (or mostly all day there are still DH and Dog) and do just one thing. No jumping from one taks to another while taking care of mum, pushing some of my work inside of that insane schedule. This freedom takes some time to getting used to but when I just let go and allow myself this freedom, it is rather nice and relaxing. 

So I spun some of the white Bentheimer fleece from the fleece, I carded some and then I got out the mini combs and combed it. 

 

from the fleece, carded and combed (from l to r)

Combing is the best preparation. The visible difference is hardly to detect but you feel the difference. The combed skein is very soft compared to the others. Mind you, The old Bentheimer landrace is an almost dual coated fleece with 37 micron. This is not Australian Merino but a more robust, durable wool. You can knit durable socks from it or maybe some outdoor sweater. 

 

I then went on to the mixed fleece with much more guardhair but an even softer undercoat. 

 

my mini combs with the picked guardhair on top and the softer undercoat below

 

Waste not want not, so I spun the guardhair as well.

 

the skein below is from the undercoat only with the above skein only from the guardhair. This is about 10 - 15% guardhair to undercoat.

  

 

the undercoat skein

 Even with the very soft undercoat we're still not talking Merino ;o)

and in comparison the guardhair

All yarns from (almost) dual coated landraces are rather hairy and nothing for acrylic or super soft Merino spoiled skin. I like them because they are durable, have character and they are unpretentious. 

Fibre preparation with the mini combs takes time. But I'm not running around naked so I have the time to prepare and spin the fibre. When there is enough yarn finished, I will decide what to do with it. Hopefully, it will be enough for a vest or waistcoat. 

and the tools

Blues

Yesterday, the revitalised indigo vat had its big day, first time this spring. A friend visited and needed some bed sheets dyed as table cloths for her market stands. While we waited for the large cloths to oxidise, took the opportunity and dyed some of my prepared fabrics. Unfortunately it got cloudy when I took the pictures, so the colours look duller than they are.

shibori and katazome scarves

 

itajime shibori on silk and linen

 

this one looks especially nice I think. crepe de chine

my friends' bed table cloths. she told me they got even darker after resting

 

unbleached linen and indigo is a rather nice combo

 

katazome on sheer silk

Indigo vat refreshing

Since it is getting warm now, I began refreshing my outdoor indigo vat. It's a 230 L vat, so it would be quite a hassle to replace it completely. Which means, each spring I remove the mud and particles from the bottom. Usually I use a pond net but the netting didn't survive the winter and I wanted to fish out the sludge yesterday so I improvised with a kitchen sieve. 

I place the sludge on some paper and let it dry out. The sludge consists of oxidised indigo and decomposed hydrosulfite and calcium hydroxide. The latter both would not be good in my garden and it is better not to strain the sewage system with it. Another reason why removing the sludge and replenishing the vat is the more environmentally conscious choice than replacing it. 

Once dried, I can safely throw it in the trash. In Germany, we don't use landfills but energy from waste plants where the non-compostable and non-recyclable waste is incincerated to produce heat for district heating and electricity from steam. The slag is used to build streets. It's not a 100% but better than landfills at any rate. 

Today, I will try to fish out sediment that settled down since yesterday and then I will replenish the vat with some fresh water, indigo, calcium hydroxide and hydrosulfite. Since it takes about a day to reduce the oxygen in such a large vat, it will be ready to use by tomorrow. 

And here you can see our new dog Bolt inspecting the sludge. 

He moved in almost three weeks ago. He is from the shelter, about 4 - 5 years old, of unknown origin. We only know that he spent most of his life in two different shelters, has been adopted last year and brought back only a few weeks later. And he was exactly the person I was looking for. 

After mum and Ramses died in January, I fell into a very deep hole. For the past 14 years most of my life concentrated around taking care for my parents. After mum went to live in the nursing home, Ramses got sick and then all of a sudden both people were gone. And I was feeling very lost. Hubby and I spent a week in Paris, which was great. But I still missed a dog in my life, so as soon as we got back from France, I went to shelters to find one. And I came home with him. 

And I am beginning to feel complete again. Not entirely but we're working on it. 

My main goal this year will be the house. I didn't have the heart to sort through my mum's stuff while she was still living. Which is what I am doing right now. And which is very exhausting. Finding all the old letters and pictures, deciding what to keep and what to throw out. It takes a toll. And the whole bureaucratic stuff is still not finished. So I divide my days. I sort a bit through the flat, wash some wool on mum's stove and clean the garden a bit. This way, the whole way down memory lane is not getting too exhausting and overwhelming. And having a reason to get out in the woods again is helping as well. 

diversion

In the midst of inner turmoil and outer chaos, I needed to get creative. 

I made some lanterns from champagne coupes, I found in my mother's cupboard. I have no idea why my parents ever needed some of these but here they were and I love lanterns with tea light candles. So I painted them and although they don't look like much in daylight they are actually quite nice in darkness. 

The paper roses are for the funeral tomorrow. I could not bring myself to buy actual roses for the grave. I buy regional, local and seasonal and all flowers have to be imported from South America or some African country in this season. And I didn't want that. So I made some paper roses from crêpe paper, silk paper and wire. My mum was a kindergardener and she was always crafting something. So it should be ok for her as well. I asked the gardener/florist who will provide the wreath to use seasonal appropriate plants. We'll see how this will work out. 

it's been a while

And a lot happened. 

For the past year I was mostly a carer. For my mum and since October for my dog as well. And over the past months, both deteriorated more and more. Until last wednesday, I had to put my dog to sleep. Around 2, I cam home from the vet. Cried, mourned and felt only sad and empty. When a phone call from the nursing home came that my mum had a collaps and I should come. And so I accompanied her to her end a while later. 

Both were the centre of my activities and attention for the past months and now there is nothing. Which makes me feel a little lost. Lost in my way, lost in my focus. 

Right now, I'm organizing the funeral and all the other bureaucratic things one has to do when someone dies. And I began emptying my mother's flat. Yes, I could have done it already while she was in the nursing home. But somehow, it didn't seem right. I had asked my brothers to come and look if they wanted something. But the bulk of my mothers stuff is still here. And what amount of stuff. Not interesting and/or precious. Just stuff. Piles of magazines (yes, stacked neatly and collected in boxes but still piles). Already I moved boxes over boxes in nice clothes to a charity. Together with boxes full of cook books. Nothing against cook books, I like them as well, but my mother's taste was totally different from mine and in the end, she just bought them indiscriminately. Whatever book was new, she bought. Some were still wrapped in foil. She was not a messy. She always had someone to clear up and clean (mostly it was me) but she was a hoarder of stuff. And no, I was never allowed to throw anything out. And now, I am drowning in her stuff. 

And I miss my dog. I'm a dog person. I love to have a reason to walk. I miss our daily 10 - 15 km. I miss his (attentive) presence. And although I always said, I didn't like walking. I miss it. So much that I walk into town to get some execise. Though it is not about sports. It's about the movement per se. The walking or cycling, the not being still, the not being motion-less. I didn't live without a dog now for nearly 20 years. Or more precisely, I lived with dogs since I was 6 with only a few years break in between. And now there is none. 

On friday is my mother's funeral. I'm looking forward to getting a sense of closure.