Learning and moving on

In one of her October posts, entitled The nature of woven cloth, Jude wrote:

"The basic understanding of your materials is crucial in developing the character and individual style of your craft and the satisfaction that comes with that...."

For folks like myself, just beginning to translate into cloth, this is a fine piece of wisdom. Because, not everything works! And that kind of understanding only comes through experience, trial and error, [and in my case, some pretty steep learning curves!]

This morning I finished the embroidered pillow that I've been working on for the past few weeks. Hurrah!

It's far from perfect! But I did my best, learnt alot, and will be moving on shortly. Before I do that though, I'll share a couple of simple little things that I learnt - or was reminded of - along the way with this piece [although not illustrated by the greatest images!]


















The importance of trying to make even-lengthed stitches, particulary when filling in geometric patterns.


















Blanket stitch twists the thread as you stitch. The finer the thread, [in this case I used a regular black cotton thread to hand piece the central panel to the border] the more it twists. This makes for a lot of knotting when you try to pull the thread through to the back!

White embroidery transfer paper does NOT vanish when made damp, after a while!


















Kantha stitching, on some cloths, acts like elastic smocking. Instead of just adding a pleasing surface texture to the cloth, it gathers the cloth and pulls it out of shape. I started to do a running kantha over the borders of this piece, but ended up unpicking all of it because it just warped the cloth too much, even though it was stitched even and loosely.


















This is the finished center panel before being pressed. I was reminded that I least like the part of construction! Hence, the appeal of moving into scarf design!























And here is the finished item [momentarily stuffed with some kapok to give me some idea of how it will look when it finally gets a pillow inside it]. Wish I had some fancy piece of furniture to model it on, instead of the cream-colored plastic patio chairs that we have at the farm these days [the nicer wooden chairs are in the house in town].

Kellie, forgive me! ;)

I'm hoping that the next time this piece gets featured here, it will be sitting pretty on the sofa that it was intended for. That should be the week after next, as I have an upcoming business trip to Florida. YIPEE! A brief escape and a few hours of in-flight time to work on whatever I plan to do next!

Hope everyone's having a great weekend :)

Step #1: A sewing circle

I haven't been able to do very much these past few days, as I still have stomach type problems and envisage that I am probably going to have to leave to seek medical advice about this later in the week. In the meantime, I have continued to work slowly away at stitching this.















More kantha stiching.



















A close-up. Not bad, eh?















Softened again by the early morning light.

I'm very pleased with the waythis piece is coming along, and now that I have nearly completed the kantha stitching on all but one of the chocolate-colored panels - and isn't it lovely, the way that the cream-colored stitching has softened the contrast of the chocolate? - I'm putting this to one side as my evening cloth.

Apart from stitching, I have been thinking. Alot! I find that the two go rather well together, stitching and thinking. In the same way that walking and thinking go well together, or gardening and thinking. Anyway, I've been thinking more about my idea of setting up a textile "thing" with a group of women from the village. At the same time I have started to do some research online about similar projects, in different parts of the world. How are they managed, what do they make, etc, etc.

What's interesting, to me at least, is the fact that so many other cultures, where this kind of idea has been implimented, already have traditional artisan skills to draw upon, like weaving, dying, and embroidery. Here, where I live, the majority of the woman remain unskilled, many not even having completed their education. That's not to judge them, of course, it's simply to acknowledge the reality of what might be involved in developing my idea. Before we could begin making things, I am going to have to teach them certain basic techniques. Which is fine. But before I can do that, I am going to have to teach myself ;} I'm just trying to figure this thing out, out loud. And by sharing my ideas here, maybe something will ocurr to you, that i haven't thought of yet. So it could be very helpful.

Yesterday, I blogged a little about aspects of life in our village. The day before that, I blogged briefly about my idea to create a women's textiles co-operative. Both posts received some really lovely comments and encouraging thoughts from you. Thanks so much for your support!

Over the weekend, it dawned on me that helping a small group of women to help themselves, is infact an indirect way to help the school children. One of my concerns about donating money and supplies to the school is that it comes in, is used, and then we have to look for more. So, although I plan to continue with that at the moment, I see it as a short term solution. I need to be creative and dream up a middle to long term solution, which is what I think my idea might be. Ideally, one which provides women with access to a little income, which will help them with the cost of school supplies, medical care, clothing, and food. Nobody wants to be permenantly dependant on charity! And I happen to believe in the benifits of a family having a mixed portfolio, and teh power of micro-economies. With the world climate - environmental and economic - the way it is these days, you just can't afford to put all of your eggs in one basket!

So, first things first... How to begin?

Having thought quite carefully about this idea over the weekend, I think the best way would be to start a small sewing circle at my home. Invite a few of the women to a coffee/sewing morning type of thing, and offer them some fabric and threads, and provide a refreshment and a snack, and the chance to for them to explore and maybe learn something new. That way, I am not raising anyones hopes with the mention of making money, and at the same time, I get to see who is genuinely interested and has some potential. I have to be realistic with myself about this. It's no good thinking that I can help everyone, and not everyone is going to enjoy or be any good at this kind of thing. So, we have to start out with baby steps, while I'm busy working on the bigger picture.

I have been saving my money - that I earn from having guests - to put towards building an open workshop, in the lower garden area. That's going to take a while, but will be somewhere where, eventually, the women could work, at dying and printing and stitching cloth.

So, my immediate considerations are these:

* Making sure I have some supplies for a small group to work with over the course of a few weeks. Probably when I next leave the Peninsula, I will rummage through the thrift stores for nice fabrics. Threads, I am probably going to have to buy, along with needles, and pins and tape measures, and I would love to get my hands on some of those very cool washable markers, but they don't seem to exist in Costa Rica! Say! If anyone is interested in this idea, you could donate by mail a light-weight start-up pack. Yes... that's a brilliant idea!!! :) Doesn't have to be big stuff,'coz the idea is to recycle fabrics and use scraps to complete small projects that can be given a within-reach retail price,($25-30) but which also sell in higher numbers than a higher priced piece might... if you see what I mean? I'm thinking, small coin purses, cushion covers, notebook covers, etc. Anyone got any other suggestions for cool, viable, contemporary, small projects?

* Resources. I guess I can download quite a few resources online. I am also thinking to get my mother-in-law down here from San Jose, because she is deft at needlework. Infact, I've been meaning to show you these for a while now.















Silk pansies. Detail from a cushion slip by Mecedes Fernandez Zuniga.















Wild berries. Detail from a cushion slip by Mecedes Fernandez Zuniga.















Birds and berries. Cushion slip by Mecedes Fernandez Zuniga.

These examples were the results of a commercially-bought kit. But not everyone could produce something as lovely as these!



















This, on the other hand, is a simple, traditional, design, that a crafts teacher sketched out, and Mercedes chose to work on on a black cotton. I LOVE this piece! To me, it has something very gypsy about it. I really want her to do more work in this style, to incorporate in my designs.

I am also thinking I might start a seperate blog to document the journey into my women's group idea.















Finally, I found this in my drawer over the weekend. A simple tapestry(?) piece of a rose bloom that I began(!) a few years ago. I threw it into a pan of beetroot juice, along with some other scraps. We'll see what happens!!!















If Life gives you Russian salad... dye cloth! ;}

Soft(er) and pale(r) cloth

I want to begin this post by sharing this with you, brought to you by the very talented Sandi Manning. Isn't it fabulous? Just look how harmonious that is. WOW! More great Aussie art... I love it!

Remember those little "leaf" doodles I showed you in the other day's post Calmly at it like crazy? Well, yesterday morning, I decided to try and make a little stamp out of air drying modelling clay that I bought for that purpose on the Museum trip to San Jose. It was hellish hard to shape the thing! To answer my own question, no, not great for stamp making! But that's what I have here to use, so... onwards! Only a bad workman blames his tools!



















This measures a full 2 cm. One advantage is that it's so hot here that this stuff dries in no time!

I took my soft pale cloth, of no current name, slathered the stamp with a white fabric paint - which, i have to say smelt just like Rennie indigestion tablets, and, actually, if crushed and mixed with water, they might have been more effective! But, nevermind - Here's how it looked when I finished my spur-of-the-moment hand printing jamboree.















Well... the leaf pattern is not everso well defined is it. But in a funny kind of way, I don't mind that.















This is how it looks up close. I've ironed over the back of it, but am going to hold off rinsing until I've finished stitching.















I decided that I no longer wanted that bit to be directly attached to the bit (still) with the Wheatear stitching. So I ripped it off. And that's just the kind of gal I am ;}















There... much better!















In my scrap box I found the edge of some cut-out circles and laid that over the printed section. it has a lovely light and delicate feel to it... at the moment that is. I hope I don't go on to spoil those qualities, which are so unlike me.



















And this is how it looks currently. A darker, browner, linen square, with a beige Wheatear motif is being kantha-ed down in the upper section, and the whole thing is going to be mended together with some light colored surgical stitching, onto a piece of heather-colored, discharged cotton.

I'm pretty happy with it so far :)

Calmly at it like crazy

I was planning to post this last night, but then the power went out, which meant that I had to shut down my computer and get back to the house. My workspace (i.e. the dining room) is seperate from the house. Too complicated to explain that! Anyway, luckily, a draft had been saved and I just needed to add a couple of the final images. So here it is!

I'm later than usual today. Probably nobody will see this until tomorrow. I've been happy (and hot!) all day, whizzing around on the internet, studying all kinds of truly amazing things, and my head is nearly popping off. I always get tonnes of ideas like that.

I want to share this with you. I have to say I was very impressed. I can't remember the last time I visited a gallery and liked so many of their artists. I looked at every piece (not all to my taste it's true) and was inspired by many. And I think you will be too! Especially all of you who work in cloth. Enjoy!

Before all of that, last night I did abit more on the frame of my soft pale cloth (which has no name yet). And here's what I did (see the upper line!)















This is the back-to-back buttonhole stitch, single woven.















Just weaving in and out of the buttonhole stitches as shown in the above image, with 2 strands of DCM silk thread #436 (Ha! I saved the number band this time), which is a lovely golden yellow color (Susan, that kind of came from your comment, so thank you for that!)















Here it is again, but this time double woven. Now you can see the complimentary color better. This is what's known as a composite stitch as it is made up of more than one type. It has a name... it's just that I can't remember it!


You probably haven't noticed, but I am slowly deconstructing this piece ;} Little by little, I'm taking out the stitches on the wheat. Maybe they will disappear altogether?... Or, maybe they will appear soon with a darker outline?... I haven't decided yet!















I've also now added this little rectangle of also solar dyed (with bark) cloth. It's a shade or so darker. And I did abit of mini kantha stitching over it.



















Up close it looks like this. I like it! I love the way the texture of the cloth changes when you do this. The stitching gives the cloth a very lovely weight, a kind of gentle rigidness.

When that was done. I went surfing... the net, that is! I started out by Googling for images of Ancient Cloth. Well, that was fun! I found this and looking at it at first, I couldn't be sure if it was cloth, or if it was stone carving. I went to the site's homepage, and here I found quite a selection of images of Ancient Iran: Sasanian dynasty. More stone sculptures?... or are those really cloth too, do you think?

That all got the old grey stuff quivering. Thinking about stone... and cloth. Cloth... and stone, (probably you know the game, when I played it as a child, it was hammer, rock, cloth/paper.) Then I started thinking about how one might go about working from images of stone carvings, converting them to cloth. And that made me think of Deb Lacativa and her amazing work and her technique of brushing on acrylic medium. I bet she would do a great job on the stone-carvings-to-cloth idea! I might even have a go at it myself!

My bloke ;} arrived home from San Jose at lunchtime this morning. He's been away since Friday. Nice to have him back of course, but the best news is that he's bought me a Dongle! Don't worry ladies... and possibly gents I suppose... nothing saucey about it. For those of you who don't already know, it's a device that fits into the USB slot of a computer and works like a phone to connect to the internet from wherever you are... WOW. (3rd generation technology in Costa Rica?... I must be dreaming!). This means that, for just 17,000 colones/month I can stay online all month if I want to. YEAH! To give you some idea, we have been paying around 50,000 colones/month for my connection (that's $100/per month folks!). So, Dongle - think I'll call him Dougal the Dongle - arrives in the nick of time, as we don't have jobs right now.















I'm A Very Happy Camper! :)

Also, remember the [s]lime green cloth from the other day?... well, the story has a happy ending. Don't ask me how, but once rinsed in the machine and hung out to dry...




















... there was hardly very much green on it. Overall, it's a pretty nice rosey biege.... again (seems that's the color all of my stuff turns out!) I've also tried to show how it's changed (in the image below). It's abit subtle, but I'm comparing it to a piece of cloth that is the same color my dyed cloth when it started out (the piece with my crazy new stitching attempts on it).















And here are some things I was doodling today without realizing. Think I can use those somewhere.