Flibbertygibbet

Sleep-in Sunday

I kind of wish it was a sleep in day, but there's so much to do. Though it's a nasty, windy day so I'm most glad I food-shopped yesterday and don't have to go out today, even though I'd like to get a cinema trip in with Claire...

My Nano mojo sort of disappeared.  Back at work this week and was trying to settle back into it.  Also got out to see the girls on Wednesdays. On Thursday I was told that a job change/promotion that's been under discussion since June is now definitively on hold as there's a headcount freeze across the company. While I'm telling myself that I'm lucky to have a job and need to hold on to it, it irks me that they will also use this as a rationale to refuse a deserved payrise.  By now I expected as much but am still extremely disappointed and wish they'd never started discussing the promotion with me in the first place. However it has brought some clarity - I'm not saying it'll be work to rule but the beyond-the-call stuff is certainly out the window now.  Using my lunchbreak to write is a strong possibility too, so is actually taking a lunchbreak.   

Yesterday I picked up my machine (cotton caught underneath the hook race, all better) and got into the quilting ahead of next week.  I'm about halfway through the top now.  The section on the left is sewn, and the right side has been rearranged yet again since the photo was taken.  As you can tell it has been put together randomly and I think I've probably subconsciously placed the same fabrics beside each other in the strips. Would a plan have been better?  Probably.  Would that have been me?  Almost certainly not.  I'm reasonably pleased with it, as much as I ever am with something I'm making for myself. Of course the quilting, binding etc makes a big difference too.

 

There's been some knitting. 

Socks that have been on the needles for ever are just about done.  Just some Kitchener stitch required. I'd decided to give these to my grandmother for Christmas as she was thrilled with the last pair and she hasn't been very well of late. I've decided to send them on early because tiny granny feet are just as cold in early December as later on that month. 

There are other WIPs on the needles.

A:  Kusha Kusha scarf, and thanks to Thimbleanna for procuring the Habu Superfine Merino from Purl for me.

B:  Secret for the moment

C:  Those bloody bootees

This creation is still underway, I won't get it finished this term... more photos of the process when it's all done:

It's quite a small size and there's a lot of work yet to do but the process is fascinating. 

Now, I have a question for all of you.  When Thimbleanna and I met up, we were talking about the Fabric Swap, as that was how we 'met' (though I think it was Round 1) and she wondered if I was going to do it again.  So - is there anyone interested?  Details are in the link above but it would involve sending three fabric strips to two separate partners, often shipping internationally.  I'd envisage it taking place in January again, because of upcoming holidays and holiday post.  One additional rule - you have to have a blog that is regularly updated to participate.  I was burned by someone relatively well known on the last swap who turned out to be quite notorious and so I'd use my discretion this time.

Ok, almost 10:30.  Time to get typing. On nano. 

Craft is king and Craft is queen*

Two new books landed on my doorstep yesterday, well, via the sorting office and a spell in the local post office, and I've been itching to be done with the world's dullest freelancing job (yes, I am supposed to be on two weeks' holidays from the day job but this extra-curricular was still hanging about) and break them out.  Ok, calling the freelancing dull is unfair, especially as part of the frustration with it is simply with the fact that I have to do it at all.  In fact, the books were timely - part of the point of this time off is to get some writing done and these books both have a strong sense of inspiration and achievement, of seizing a spark or a moment and turning it into something tangible, creative, and purposeful.

Part of the reason that I have to freelance is for extra cash, because it's either have a second job or rent out my spare room.  My spare room is filled to the rafters with craft stuff and writing reference books and I like it that way.  Crafting means lots of different things to me - it's a creative outlet, it's relaxing and it's a springboard to other things. It's social and sociable and I've met great friends through knitting and sewing and through this blog - and it all came from a conversation with a designer friend one day, on the tube home from work.  She asked me if I'd heard of craft blogs (I hadn't) and a couple of years down the line, here we are. With one thing and another,  my life is really quite different to where I started back in July '06.

It seems like something similarly synchronous both brought about and solidified A Year of Mornings by Maria Alexandra Vettese and Stephanie Congdon Barnes [ISBN 978-1568987842] - I was really surprised to read that the authors had only actually met once when they embarked on the project. I admire their dedication in persevering in something which is ostensibly simple but demands commitment, taking a photo of their mornings each day and posting to their joint blog 3191 (the distance between their respective homes in Portland OR and Portland ME) which developed into this book.  I remember the genesis of this project though I didn't follow it during the year and now I wish I had. I will tune into A Year of Evenings and not repeat that mistake. The commentary from the authors is delightful - one of the comments that struck me that the book is about the 'art of noticing'. It makes me want to grab my camera and start diarising though I've always been more inclined to do that with words than pictures.  Princeton Architectural Press consistently impresses me with the quality of its publishing (there are a number of criteria in my incredibly idiosyncratic judgement system, including but not limited to cover, design, typography, setting, sizing, endpapers, titles) and one of my favourite things about this blook is the way they've used embossing so cleverly on the front cover.   A nice touch for a cyber object made real. As much as I am indebted to the web for opening windows to other worlds, in my mind there will always be a legacy and legitimacy attached to the physical asset that is a book and this is a particularly attractive one.

"For me, sewing, playing music,making ark and films, and even writing this book are about having control over my life.  I am making my own destiny with what I create, whether it is with the materials I pick, the colors I choose, or the words I write... our community is just beginning to grow into our roles of knitter, book binder, shoemaker, painter, seamstress, potter, etc.  We appreciate the generations of makers who came before us and from whom we draw inspiration and support."  That's a quote from Faythe Levine, the author of Handmade Nation,  [ISBN 978-1568987873] and this book sits alongside her documentary of the same name, about the rise of crafting as part of a DIY ethos in the US.   Levine wanted to capture the movement before it became too mainstream - I wonder whether the film will be screened or distributed in the UK.  Some of the crafters she interviewed are familiar to me, like Heidi Kenny and Sarah Neuburger but there are tons that I hadn't discovered yet.  You've probably already heard of this book as it's been buzzing around blogland - it's got similarities with The Crafter's Companion though this is a 'why-to' not a 'how-to' with interspersed essays. The article on the Church of Craft totally intrigued me as for some unfathomable reason I have been pondering the notion of faith recently and being slightly envious of that ability to believe.  Don't we need one in London?

Add these to your wish lists.  They're perfect gift books and yes, it's getting to that time of year again.

* quote from Andrew Wagner's essay in HN

What was I thinking...

Actually, I was thinking that I've always wanted to do this and this is the first year in goodness knows how long I'm not working full time.

 

So in November I will be...

• finishing Lucy's gloves
• making Denise's crochet hook roll and my knitting needle holder
• continuing The Artist's Way
• freelancing - there's a job sitting on the table waiting for me right now
• finishing the commissioned quilt (90% quilted, needs to be bound) and making a couple of spares
• making stock for, and launching my website and market stall (I say that so glibly!)
• knitting that lace scarf for my mum's birthday
• considering knitting socks for my husband's birthday but kind of hoping that sanity prevails on that one

and writing a 50,000 word novel while also going about normal life.  So expect a lot of blogging about shredded nerves, ripped rows, stiff fingers and a Jupiter sized sense of achievement if I achieve even the half of it. There are many ways of thinking about how to go about writing 50k words in thirty days - and without the benefit of the Thanksgiving holiday, which of course applies to most of the US-based Nanoers.  Some participants snowflake their novels, others research historical periods or rely on the forums at Nano to provide help.  It turns out that my method is much like last year's - I have some random Post-its and the vaguest of concepts, the twist at the end and some vague ideas of historical period.  I have also given up the idea of getting this published - some might say that this a bit defeatist before starting but actually it's quite liberating.  For one, I know how difficult it is to get published and writing solely to get published is a highway to failure.  And it also makes it harder to follow one of Anne Lamott's best pieces of advice - write a shitty first draft.  My only goal is to finish, even if it's 50k of utter rubbish.  I will use any method to do so, which will include random time travel for the characters, monologues, characters reciting their shopping lists, and subplots about anything from fireworks to Pocahontas to EU directives on appropriate shapes for bananas.  Don't worry, I won't be asking anyone to read it!

At knitting group this morning I had a rather lovely phone call - it turns out that when I was at Origin,  I filled in a form - perhaps a questionnaire - and I've won a pair of tickets for the next major Craft Council exhibition, Collect in February.  Hurray!

It's noticably colder here today.  Or perhaps it's just because we haven't had the heating on at all yet.  Not that we can as the bodgy job that the plumber did on the new radiators upstairs in the bedroom came unstuck on Saturday in a DIY nightmare.  I suppose we should just be grateful that we hadn't decorated downstairs yet, and just live with the big stain that now resides on the sitting room ceiling (well, that's what we will be doing). So I'm sitting here like a little grandmother with a rug over my knees.  Oh well, I'm doing my bit for energy saving week. 

PS  can anyone tell me how I save the Nano participant icon on to my server so I can put it in my sidebar???

How-to, why-to

I've been supremely lucky to have not one, not two, but three fabulous books fall through the letterbox this week. 



The Crafter's Companion - Tips, tales and patterns from a community of creative minds
by Anna Torborg (Ed)
Snowbooks, Oct 2006, Paperback 9781905005178.  RRP £14.99

Many of you in the online world will have already heard about this, as it's a compendium of the work of seventeen of the most inspired and creative bloggers out there, from all over the world.  As well as patterns for selected projects, there's details of inspiration and thoughts on why these women create.  It does seems that most people came from crafty families and supportive environments:

I remember being four-years-old, waking up one morning to a toasted bagel and my father setting up a blank t-shirt and several bottles of fabric paint on the kitchen table for my sister and I.  He told me to do whatever I wanted to the shirt, to write my name on it, perhaps.  To decorate it.  I don't know why he chose that particular activity on that particular morning, but I remember thinking what a wonderful way to start the day
- Katey Nicosia

That made me wonder about my own childhood. I didn't exactly have art with breakfast but I was taught to sew, knit and patchwork in school.  My mum knits, my father made amazing wedding cakes in his career as a baker.  Neither would claim to be artists because they are too modest, though both are enormously supportive of my current crazy endeavours which is lovely. 

There are certainly a few projects in the Crafter's Companion that I'll be interpreting after a fashion - as Anna says

A skilled craftperson may be able to reproduce each of these projects exactly, but a creative one won't be able to resist adding her own twist.

and I think this is very true.  While basic patterns in the book will be useful to me, I've realised that it's been a while since I used one.  I like getting tips on construction etc but it's getting to the stage that for accessories and housewares I'm making my own patterns, like I used to when I was a kid. The value of The Crafter's Companion isn't so much a 'how-to' as a 'why-to' book and is very timely, tapping into the vast networks of creative encouragement that exists out there in cyberspace now, which I think most of us have benefitted from.  This book is a little glimpse into the studios, the imaginations and the works of some very talented crafters, related in a sympathetically designed and illustrated book, which is wonderfully colourful to boot.

Of course, it's kind of preaching to the converted, but that's ok.  I like the fact that seeing it as a book legitimises all our blogging efforts - mostly in domestic settings - because I'm one of those diehards who perseveres in believing that there's something powerful and somewhat magical about paper products, if you will  - this in no way diminshes my almost-shameful in its intensity admiration of the internet, of course. 

I'm sure you know someone who will delight in this - if you're reading this, I suspect you've almost certainly got your own copy on order already.

By Hand - The Use of Craft in Contemporary Art
by Shu Hung and Joseph Magliaro (Eds)
Princeton Architectural Press, November 2006, Hardcover 9781568986104.  RRP £20.00

And then this stunning book is about what happens when craft officially grows up, a sophisticated, elegant look at how successful artists incorporate traditional crafts into their very modern work.  It's not about art versus craft versus design (that old chestnut) but acknowledges knitting, sewing, lace-making, embroidery as equally valid techiques for creating. Interesting to know some of them have also encountered resistance:

I have been knitting on and off for most of my life - my mother taught me when I was a girl and I knitted on and off until my early twenties, when I started to really concentrate on it along with sewing and other needlework...secretly I was knitting and making embroideries that I considered art, but I didn't feel confident showing them to anyone.  The first time I did show a former professor, he laughed at me.  Then I saw an exhibition of works by Elaine Reichek at New York University's Grey Arts Gallery. It was a revelation!
- Robyn Love

Robyn Love uses handknitting in her exterior installations (though there aren't many pictures on her site, and not as gloriously shot as in the book) which are only put in place for a matter of hours - when you think how long they must take to complete, they have an extremely limited time in the sun.  I loved Kent Hendricksen's blackly comic embroideries and Dave Cole's Bullet Proof Sweater - knit from 3,540 linear feet of Kevlar thread.  Rachel Cole's Claws and Yeti Foot Wallpaper - you just have to see it.

In this technological age, using hand embroidery is extravagantly inefficient in terms of time and labour.  So I end up with an object whose only value is the work that's been put into it
- Karen Reimer

I believe there's resurgence in people believing that this sort of work has value.

Refreshingly, there's no sense of 'oh gosh, isn't it cutesy/kitschy to be knitting' or any sense of superiority or indeed inferiority in this well 'curated' selection, of both male and female artists.  The layout is spare and enticing, the photography is clear, effective.  In summary, I think you need both of these books on your shelf to compliment each other.

Blackstock's Collections - The Drawings of an Artistic Savant
by Gregory L. Blackstock
Princeton Architectural Press, September 2006, Paperback 9781568985794.  RRP £12.00

As I knew he would, my husband loved this - as I did.  Blackstock is an artistic savant who worked as a potwasher in a Seattle restaurant for twenty-five years, and during that time he learned twelve languages from his coworkers because he has a gift for languages which is as profound as his skill at drawing.  He has been called 'an anthropologist of the everyday' as his meticulously drawn lists range from art supplies to the Great American Wasps.  He draws from memory though he also researches his subjects extensively to ensure that they are comprehensive.  Also beautifully produced,  a very attractive book and, dare I say it, ideal as a 'Dad present' come December.

I meant to add that my photography skills aren't up to recreating the beautiful images, plus I was wondering if there would be copyright issues.  So go to this page on Amazon and you can search inside the book to see some of the pages.  I defy you not to click it straight through to your online cart.

P.S. I lost this post halfway through and had to recreate it - please let me know if anything isn't clear after it's been patched together and re-edited...