nemo ignorat

sampling white

Over at Jude's we're talking white right now. Although I am always amazed and in awe by Karen Ruane's white on white embroidery, white usually is just a base for me. For dyeing, stitching some other colours on it etc. Right now, I'm sampling in white and see where it will carry me.

I found a beautiful pillow case in my stash with wonderful embroidery. Just the thing to cut up and rearrange ;o)

snow in march

After a short bout of spring last week

curious chives

it began snowing again. Well, it is not unexpected, it is still March after all and Elizabeth Zimmermann's Almanach entry for March will always remind me that the spring weather in this month is a delicate thing and can loose to another snow front at any moment. Still, you get a bit unenthusiastic about it. Not so the dogs. Even Old Grumpy is having fun in the snow. And Ramses is completely hyperactive.

 

this was taken at 8am, now later in the afternoon you can't see the pots for snow

I'm feeling restless. Even though the situation with my mother is beginning to settle in. Maybe I still need some more time to get used to everything. No real quiet to stitch.

But I did at least one little thing.

One thing I wanted to do for a long time. I'm beginning to sew curtains from my dyed strips. I wonder how they will stand up to the sun. I'll see. As soon as the sun decides to come out again ;O)

orange and green

When it comes to natural dyeing, it is always an experiment for me. You might say, natural dyeing is my field of constantly what iffing. So it happened quite naturally when I read a paragraph in an old book about Navajo weavers:

The author describes how he observed the spinners as they dyed one colour by using

“the large, fleshy root of a plant which, as I have never yet seen it in fruit or flower, I am unable to determine. The fresh root is crushed to a soft paste on the metate, and, for a mordant, the amolgen [naturally in a plant occuring alum] is added while the grinding is going on. The cold paste is then rubbed between the hand into the wool. If the wool does not seem to take the color readily a little water is dashed on the mixture of wool and paste, and the whole is very slightly warmed. The entire process does not occupy over an hour and the result is a color much like that now known as “old gold”.”

(Dr. Washington Matthews. Navajo Weavers. Smithonian Institution. Washington. 1884; available through Project Gutenberg p.4)

When I dyed my hair with henna a few days ago, I had some henna paste left. So I took some small handspun skeins (I keep around for dye experiments) and knead the henna paste into the skeins. The paste had the consistency of wasabi and was still warm. And there were some tea leaves in the paste as well to act as mordant on the hair. I left the skeins in a plastic bag for about 2 hours and when I showered to get the henna out of my hair, I washed the skeins under the shower as well.

Next time, I will try it with some fabric.And some more henna. It was only about 2 table spoons paste left.

The dye seems as fast as it can be. From what I know about Navajo and their surroundings, water is a rare commodity. So the technique itself was no great surprise to me. But it is the first time I've read about it somewhere. I have another book about Navajo weaving and some dyeing is described there as well but not this technique.

Over the last 2 weeks our internet and landline connection was more than unreliable. Our mayor is very fond of prestige projectsand so he was able to make us into a huge beta testing zone for fibre glass connection. Volunteering households (and yes, we volunteered, getting faster internet without extra cost was tempting enough) were connected to the new fibre glass backbone over the past year and 2 weeks ago the technicians came and connected our house. But as beta testing goes, what can go wrong goes wrong and so first the new router burned through and since we are the first in Germany to get the new connection new routers are only available through a central distributer and this took some time and then we lost our landline for a few days. In short, after the first 2 days without internet I was so fed up of not being able to get to my emails that I went and got myself a tablet. (To be honest, I was looking for a reason to get one a long time ago, so all this internet trouble just gave me what I was looking for anyways *g*)

Such a table is nice but it needs a cover and a cover is nothing you go out and buy when you can sew one yourself ;o)

a hole to see the night sky through

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.

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getting a real nice green from natural dyes is still a hit and miss with me. But those two are really nice.

As always, it is not completely finished yet, more like a work in progress but functional already and that's what counts. The tablet is a Samsung Galaxy so I thought a 'Hole to see the Night Sky through' (with a nod to the great Yoko Ono) was appropriate. And - as always - I still ponder about the closure. It will come to me, I know that.

l'indigo

Back from Strasbourg. We had a glorious time dyeing in blue. Maison Mimir, the place where the textile event took place (or better still takes place, unfortunately I had to cut short my visit there) is a living collective in a formerly squat now made legal by the municipality.

the public café bar-a-kaw-a as exhibition space. wonderfully decorated by Francine and Salomé

I think, I have to explain a bit about house squatters in Europe. This is a political movement (at least in France and Germany) which began sometime around the political movement of '68. People moved into empty buildings partially to protest against incredibly high rent combined with purposfully empty buildings (for real estate speculation) and partially to re-invent new forms of living together. They called themselves "Kommune" or "Kollektiv". In some cities, squats outlasted till today, made legal like in Strasbourg, some places where emptied forcefully and after much legal arguments by the police and some just changed into gentrification like in Berlin or Hamburg.

one of the many kittens living at Maison Mimir who kept me company at my usual unholy wake-up time ;o)

Later when I began living on my own in the 1980s, I lived in several "Wohngemeinschaften". A "Wohngemeinschaft" can be anywhere on a scale from 'just sharing a flat for the rent' to 'actually living together, celebrating the togetherness in shared meals, lives and sometimes love'. Mine were usually somewhere in between. ;o)

our improvised dye studio in the collective's kitchen

When I was little, I was a bit torn between the bourgeois lives of my parents and the rather bohéme life style of my elder brother (he is 16 years older than I am) living in diverse collectives and Wohngemeinschaften. I took after my brother, moved out with 15 and into several Wohngemeinschaften. I finished grammar school while working at the same time to pay rent and bread, so it wasn't a lost time. I continued to live in Wohngemeinschaften for many years during university, with my first living partner and even after I was married later to my now-husband. Sharing living space with other people was not always fun, I moved a lot in my life but I wouldn't want to have missed it in any case.

Being in Strasbourg in the Maison Mimir collective was a huge trip down memory lane. I've been there so many years ago. I had the collective meetings with all the discussions about house rules, cultural events being a social being in an unsocial world and whatnot, being Political. And I know that it is right and good and well what all the young people there are doing and how they are living it. But at the same time I had the strong feeling, this was something I've left behind. Been there done that bought the t-shirt kind of style. I still understand and support what they do but I moved my political being into the smaller surroundings of my personal life. I don't want to change the world anymore in one go but person by person starting with me. Maybe that is part of becoming older.

a well behaving vat

As I said, the dyeing was fun. The vat behaved like it should and they were so happy to dip in everything they got their hands on. A wonderful day to dye blue.

shirts, fabric, t-shirts whatever fell into their hands. the black one was dark brown commercially dyed before it landed in the vat

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And I finished my first trousers in years. I've sewn trousers for myself in the past but not lately. But it's like riding a bike ;o) They fit, they are comfortable, I just overestimated the linen fabric. It felt thicker when I chose it. So I will have to sew another one, a bit more fitting for the morning chill :o)

 

mompei and me in full with dog

 

large pockets at the front

 

and back

The pattern is a generic mompe(i) pattern based on Jenni Dobson's Making Kimono and Japanese Clothes in combination  with John Marshall's wonderful book Make your own Japanese clothes and some ideas from Kaz Madigan's Curiousweaver May 96 issue. Basically it's a simple trouser pattern but with a refined crutch. Pockets are a must and I will add some loops for my keys as well.

The fabric is linen bed sheet, sewn first, dyed in indigo, with added patchwork pockets. All hand-sewn with lapped-fell seams for extra strength.

made something useful

While watching several dye pots over the last days, I was making stuff. The first new and really cool and useful finished object is: A Tool Roll.

 

closed it looks like this

And then you unroll it and there is so much place for all the usefull little tools I like to carry around.

and my most favourite tool: The Third Hand

and a small book of needles

in the cigar boxes are knitting needles, crochet needles and some wooden needles for nalbinding and other small stuff

and some stitching

I used rather pale shibori/indigo dyed fabrics, the purple binding is logwood dyed cotton and some walnut dyed cotton for the little pockets. Unrolled it is 63 cm long and 27 cm wide (24" x 10"). In case of emergency, you can use it as a slightly bumpy neck roll as well ;o)

Next on the list are: a pair of trousers (already in the first stages, I need to turn the felled seams now, add the waistband and dye it), a long arm shirt (this one has a bit of a history already and might take another while), two sleeveless shirts. All the while the dye pots simmer and I guard them.

and another shirt

Right now, I'm teaching a Sustainability workshop in the Online Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers (OLG). We are now celebrating our 10th anniversary and I am a member now for about 5 years. I'm teaching workshops in the OLG almost from the beginning. Its a sharing thing. Knowledgeable members share what they know and can. I like it very much, even if it blocks  a month almost every year. I'm memer in the Worksshop coordination team as well and so it happens that we have one month left and I come up with a workshop idea. This is my second this year. It's calles "Sustainability in Textile Crafts" and threefolded. 1. I provide participants with information on our fibres. Where they come from and how they fit into an ecological and social fairness thought. 2. together with the other members we come up with things we can do better. Ideas with what to do with scraps like thrums for example (for non-weavers: thrums are the waste inches or yards from warps on floor looms). And 3. we all make a project from our stash. And only from our stash. No buying something to complete it (though swapping is "allowed"), only stash. Very cool, I can tell you. And so, as a kind of by-product of the workshop, I am working on another shirt:

one of my typical men's shirts. Great fabric, nice size and ugly cuffs and collar. Not to mention the breast pocket. Anyway. Collar, cuffs and plastic buttons removed. Buttonholes strengthened with Jude's nice buttonhole idea from Cloth to Boro 2 and now I'm beginning to patch over ugly spots.

This one will get buttons from the start, since it is rather warm (very soft herringbone twill cotton) and planned for fall wear.

I think, I will become more active over here after this month's workshop. The indigo class is finished, most of the texts for the OLG workshop are written so now I can slowly and my dye shop is slowly falling into winter hibernation. So I think (hope) I will be able to sew more for myself now.

Like some strips, for example ;o)

another one is already in the making.

Oh, and then there was an annoucement:

If anyone from my German/French readers is living in the west of Germany and interested in a fibre/textile event in Strasbourg on the 2nd week of Octobre, I will be showing the 1-2-3-indigo-vat there. The detailed programme is not finished yet, but I will be there from Octobre 9th to 13th.

Strasbourg, Maison Mimir, Festival du texile - Les arts du Fil

more crows

the cloth takes on a mind on its own.

since yesterday, another crow arrived and everything got stitched down. I just take Dee's and Joe's advise and don't think, just let the cloth go where it wants to go.

We have a lot of crows here. There is a clan that's native to our parts and soon we will get winter guests from the east and north. Where I lived before I was in the attic flat of an old 5 storey building and had a good look over one of those seemingly endless building sites with huge, giant cranes. In the cold winter mornings literally hundreds of crows arrived to congregate on the cranes, have a good nice chat about their plans of the day, how night was and whatever crows are talking about and after an hour they spread over the town.

Our native crows where I live now, are mixed breeds between hooded crows and carrion crows. Usually hooded crows are not so common in my parts. They are native more to the east, around the border to Poland. But all our natives crows here have some parts of white on them. One branch of family has a white streak around the neck, another has white spots at the wings and then there are some who have nearly white bodies with black wings. They are easily distuingishable to our winter guests from scandinavia and russia. Those are just black.

Ravens, the true corvus corax,  are rare here. There has to be a pair somewhere around, because in February I sometimes see them on the meadow in the forest. And hear them. With their prrruk-prrrruk and clock-clock-calls.

You see, I am fascinated by crows and ravens. I even like the magpie that's living in the tree at my house. She is sometimes a nuissance but I still like her.

congregation of crows

yesterday morning, I heard a congregation of crows in the trees. I don't know if one was preaching or if they were just chattering after the sermon but the first words I thought when I heard them was congregation of crows. And they stuck in my mind. And wanted out in cloth.

shadow flowers

as mentioned the other day, Ali's detection of the shadows of the flowers on the original pic from Brittany, never left me. So I went through my stash in search of the right fabric for my shadwo flowers.  And I found it in a rather vintage indigo dyed fabric from Africa.

In a way they remind me of stars as well. Dark Stars, which reminded me of the oh so neglected Star Dust Cloth from this year's spring.

The Shadow Flowers are still asymmetrically distributed across the shirt and I think, I like it this way. I never could fit randomness like this on the other side. But it'll need some closures when fall comes. And maybe some more stitiching.  I have to test wear it first. See how it feels.

blue again

some ombre dyed indigo fabric, planned as curtains.

btw, in the background you can see the brand new ramp we build for my mum so that she can get easier into her flat. It took a bit more time and effort, than I expected but now it is finished and she can get into her part of the house on her own again. Independence is very important.

But back to the blues.

I especially love how you can see the damast flowers woven into the fabric much better with the indigo.

And I am really in love with the flow. Making use of the natural capillary effect. (middle fabric)

And since it was so hot and I could really do anything else, I just unpicked the seams from some old indigo dyed fabrics and rolled them so that they could be stashed more easily.

DH called it Indigo Sushi ;o)

The heat subsides slowly. And Nancy: I always thought Seattle was a bit colder than that. Poor woman, you have my sympathies.

And another aside:

when I showed my hemp shirt (from my vacation entry) in Jude's class forum, ali left a comment about the shadow of the flowers. I hadn't noticed it before she mentioned it but the picture didn't leave me afterwards. And after wearing the shirt almost all summer now, I finally began patching over the ugly stains. I just needed to find the right fabric for it. Pictures will follow later.