At Work Upstairs

Found in a nook

I’m cleaning out nooks and crannies in the craft closet and found this pattern.

I’m alternately amazed and appalled by the hair, the headband which I just this moment noticed, the gladiator sandals, and the blousy pants.

I must have bought this sometime in the eighties. The plan was to make the shorter version cause even then I had enough sense to know that a cabled mini-dress knit out of soft cotton would be unflattering on almost every woman and would be a baggy mess after one wearing.

Can’t decide which is more distracting: their hair or their feet?

Wait, it might be that one is in the girlie, crossed leg posture and the other one is in the sporty, wider stance.  Or is it the contrast between the belt-defined waist and the pleat-disguised belly.  Let’s just pass quickly by the buggy and steamboat in the title.

I’m torn: do I keep it as an example of eighties textile design or do I add it to the St. Vinnie’s pile.

Every once in a while you need to learn something new. Here’s what I made on a hand spindle on Saturday.

Kind teachers refer to this first effort as “novelty” yarn. It’s uneven and a bit lumpy but it holds together and is balanced with neither an s-curve or a z-curve.

I’ve made a second length that’s more even (but less balanced).  Using a drop spindle is oddly calming and not nearly as frustrating as I thought.

Heather

Canada Day weekend we idly wandered around a craft show and flea market. Due to work-weirdness-that-shall-not-be-named, I was pretty much a zombie and forgot to bring money.  I kept bumming cash from Douglas to pick up a couple thing that fell within the Mosow Rules for shopping.

I picked up a bit of needlework that’s in bad shape–water-stained, spotted, and faded–and the condition was reflected in the price.  This was cheap and I’m unlikely to see another one.

Although this was probably intended for a pillow cover, the wear suggest that it hung in a sunny spot for a while and then later lay flat and maybe folded when it was water damaged.  It’s stitched in two types of thread–silk for the flags and cotton for the centre piece–and probably by two hands.

The flags give away the dates–it would have been stitched in Canada between 1914 and early 1917.

Patriotic Pillow - Front

And since I’m always about to get into trouble in museums by trying to look at the underside of things, here’s the back view.

Patriotic Pillow - Back

Wonder if something like this is eBayable?

Seen here. Via plep‘s feed.

Heather

I saw this over at Knitnut and as someone who lives with a man who knits, it made me giggle. But there’s something off about the music. What, though, would count as knitting music?

It was a slow week for reading around here and several books went back to the library unfinished. From the portion I read, I’d say Mary Gaitskill’s Two Girls Fat and Thin covers similar ground as Veronica in its exploration of two unlikely friends. The reworking of similar characters was part of why I wanted to read it. I may borrow it again when I’m in the mood to put up with the Ayn Rand character that drives the early parts of the plot.

The most interesting thing I did finish was Gather Beneath the Banner, a catalogue from a 1999 Textile Museum. The catalog is strong on the images; high-level on the Women’s Christian Temperance Union; and oddly light on the details of the construction of the banners. Not a single photo of the back of a banner. (Why, yes, I have made security guards nervous by trying to peep around at the backings of tapestries. Looking very closely is not touching.)

While my great-grandmother belonged to a temperance society (somewhere around here I have her pledge card), it’s unlikely that I’d ever pass muster. Even so, I’m curious about the contradictions at the heart of the nineteenth-century WCTU: I’d like to better understand how its members sustained the contradiction between arguments for equality when it came to female suffrage and arguments of difference with when it came to race and eugenics.

(Note to self: some research possibilities identified here.)

(Another note to self: wonder if there’s a text out there somewhere that talks about the way politics and textiles intersect in public spaces (banners, expedition flags, badges). Must be. )

Every fall Christie’s holds an Exploration and Travel auction. The prices are always always out of reach but some years I buy the catalog so I can moon over glass slides, books, and impedimenta.  No catalog this year but some highlights.

Raft of Amundsen gear this year: suitcase, mug, bayonet, sunglasses, and a useful looking matchbox holder.  The matchbox holder would set me back about four months worth of groceries.  A less useful looking box or the property taxes? Hard to decide.

I see they’re also auctioning off Cherry-Gerrard’s blankie and several lots of his books, the Kiplings being the most tempting. Books or heat this winter?

This year I find myself longing for these blackwork maps–exploration rendered in domestic needlework by an anonymous woman who carefully read the exploration accounts. If only we could forgo food for three years.

By fluke of Dg’s work schedule, I have the weekend to myself and my long list of next actions. Instead of using the time to plough through things like “Get under bed storage boxes”, “Weed garden”, or “Clean grungy bathroom tiles”, I played hooky and hopped on the bus to the oddest wool shop yet.

I knew the shop was off one of the older commercial drags and on the second floor which made sense for a small, new business. I took the slow bus because I’ve become fond of its route (yes, yes, I know, bus geekery) through my gentrified neighbourhood, to the working class neighbourhood, to Chinatown and Little Italy, to the downtown core. I trekked over the gum-dotted sidewalks, past the cheap clothing stores, the art supplies store, the feminist sex toy shop, and houses marooned by parking lots and small office towers. The shop was indeed upstairs along with a beauty shop of some sort. Up I went, expecting to get to the the head of the stairs and have to choose Door A (Stash Augmentation) or Door B (Nail Augmentation).

Instead I found one, t-shaped room with interesting yarn, one woman knitting, another woman spinning, and another woman fiddling with an appointment book. And as I made my way to back, I found an aesthetician and a client coming out of the back room deep in discussion of pedicures and the next available time slot.

Not deterred by the odd situation and weird smell (wool and acetone), I found what I came for–Himalyan recycled silk–and something extra–cotton chenille. As I waited to pay for the yarn, I had a chat with the woman using a drop spindle and I think I’ll go back to learn how to use a drop spindle in a couple of weeks. No idea what the yarn purchase will turn into

A week ago or so I came across the idea of fabric postcards in Rebecca’s Pocket. Sharon at Inaminuteago provides a beautiful example and many useful links.

Years ago my brother and his best friend went through a phase of mailing each other unwrapped objects–the one that sticks in my mind was the leather glove that arrived intact and unabused by postal bureaucracy.

Although I doubt that I have the skill to produce anything as striking as these, I think I’ll give one of these a try–my sewing machine has been idle for a long time and oddly enough my stash of fabrics, threads, and doodads has continued to grow.