Category Archives: Inspiration

Unraveling – Peggy Orenstein

Unraveling – Peggy Orenstein

I do like a book about knitting, emotional stuff, not instructions (although I like those as well). I think I came across this while looking at what else people bought when they bought Knitting Pearls (by Ann Hood) on Amazon.

Here’s the blurb …

In this lively, funny memoir, Peggy Orenstein sets out to make a sweater from scratch–shearing, spinning, dyeing wool–and in the process discovers how we find our deepest selves through craft. Orenstein spins a yarn that will appeal to everyone.

The Covid pandemic propelled many people to change their lives in ways large and small. Some adopted puppies. Others stress-baked. Peggy Orenstein, a lifelong knitter, went just a little further. To keep herself engaged and cope with a series of seismic shifts in family life, she set out to make a garment from the ground up: learning to shear sheep, spin and dye yarn, then knitting herself a sweater.

Orenstein hoped the project would help her process not just wool but her grief over the recent death of her mother and the decline of her dad, the impending departure of her college-bound daughter, and other thorny issues of aging as a woman in a culture that by turns ignores and disdains them. What she didn’t expect was a journey into some of the major issues of our time: climate anxiety, racial justice, women’s rights, the impact of technology, sustainability, and, ultimately, the meaning of home.

With her wry voice, sharp intelligence, and exuberant honesty, Orenstein shares her year-long journey as daughter, wife, mother, writer, and maker–and teaches us all something about creativity and connection.

I really enjoyed reading this – some chapters more than others (I was not so keen on the shearing chapter). I have put in a multiple of post-it flags and now I want to reread Women’s Work: The First 20 000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times by Elizabeth Wayland Barber.

Learning to shear sheep during the pandemic seemed like a bit of a lark – a way to tap into the romance and resilience of an earlier age; to connect with something enduring when life had become so precarious […]

We are not a culture, to say the least, that venerates older women.

Lessons on food or thread weave us together across the warp of time, the weft of space.

I didn’t imagine how these ancient skills would deepen my awareness of women’s work or challenge my sense of place or home.

It makes sense to me that the designers of life would be female rather than male, as in the Judea-Christian tradition, and it seems especially appropriate that those goddesses would spin. Making something from nothing is the quintessential magic of women.

Craft can mean so many things depending on the context. It can be exploitative or liberatory, subsistence or luxury, rote or creative, an act of conformity or rebellion, of belonging or individuality.

After all, that proverbial ‘little old lady’ could well be an unrepentant cackler, a fearsome crone. Her innocuousness could be her superpower, allowing her to slip the bonds of feminine constraint.

This book is a memoir, a history and a feminist treatise. Even if you’re not a knitter, or into fibre arts, these is plenty to enjoy.

One thing though, I would have liked to have seen the jumper.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Book Review, Inspiration, Knitting

Third Term Stitching is Finished

I finished my third term stitching project – I might have got a bit carried away with the sequins.

The design is by Tania Cohen.

This was a lovely design to work, just the right amount of stitches to keep you interested, but not enough to feel that you were never going to finish this piece.

1 Comment

Filed under Embroidery, Inspiration

Bayeux Tapestry

I have started work on my Bayeux tapestry kit – I am just doing the stem stitch around the main mast. I have cobbled together two Q-snaps, but it seems to be working (there is a nice sound when you pull the thread through the fabric).

My stitching class re-starts this friday, so I am not sure how much progress I am going to make, but I am very keen to give the Bayeux stitch a go.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Embroidery, Inspiration

Slow Stitching

Progress on my slow stitching project

I am really enjoying this process. Trying out different stitches and techniques. I have never used beads or sequins before. I still have some bugle beads to try. Each new stitch becomes my favourite – although chain stitch, french knots and back stitch are probably my top three stitch choices.

I am mostly using perle cotton (size 8 and 5), and some silk left over from my coaster project.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Bedazzle, Embroidery, Inspiration

New Stitching Class Project

This term in my stitching class I am working on a slow stitch project.

I took a photo of some leaves in Kings Park and had it printed onto cotton by Spoonflower.

I have some linen fabric to which I am going to attach things. I have some beads, an organza flower, fabric I tea dyed, colour catchers that I dyed with green tea.

At this stage I am going to stick with straight stitches and beads, but it might evolve.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Applique, Bedazzle, Embroidery, Fabric Stash, Inspiration

Record, Map and Capture – Jordan Cunliffe

My embroidery teacher brought this book to class, and clearly, I had to find a copy. This is like the intersection of two of my great loves; stitching and maths. Not to mention story telling with stitching and maths.

Here’s a bit of a book description …

This stylish and fascinating book from up-and-coming textile art star Jordan Cunliffe shows how raw data, maps and personal experience can be distilled into textile art, producing mesmerising works with deep meaning, whether obvious or hidden, and concentrating on the smaller, quieter moments that make up our lives.

Jordan explores the use of stitched data to tell stories, pinpoint special places on maps, convey secret messages, and record personal detail, for example daily walks or nightly sleep patterns. Her finished work is beautifully precise, including a long strip of fabric containing a stitch for every day of her life, a reimagination of a favourite childhood book in unreadable code, and pleasing beaded representations of secretly important documents.

Almost any aspect of your life can be represented in graph or map form, and here are many practical ways to achieve this, whether it’s recording the colours of flowers on a favourite path to create your own unique palette, or encoding your most private thoughts in beaded morse code. This visually stunning book explores a new way of working and will help you explore a fresh new angle in your embroidery and textile work.

Illustrated with a wealth of examples of the author’s own work as well as pieces from other data focused artists from around the world, Record, Map and Capture in Textile Art proves beyond all doubt that data can be beautiful, and can inspire stunning works of stitched art.

I have so many ideas for my memory/special things project. I can incorporate special pieces of fabric, use evenweave fabric (my preferred choice) maybe even put in a secret code.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Book Review, Canvas Work, Cross Stitch, Embroidery, Inspiration

Jacobean Crewel Work Embroidery Kit

RSN Embroidery Kit

After having been lost in the system for a while, my embroidery kit from the Royal School of Needlework arrived. It’s beautifully packaged – I have already started work on the pomegranate.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Embroidery, Inspiration

Stitch Dictionary

Samplers of Seduction – Dictionary of Stitches

I finished my Dictionary Stitches. I particularly like the back-stitched word Sampler.

Now I am going to try to finish my Gingerbread House and my Cinnamon Stars cross stitch before my kit from the Royal School of Needlecraft arrives.

1 Comment

Filed under Embroidery, Inspiration

The Fabric of Civilization – Virginia Postrel

Fabric of civilization – Virginia Postrel

I saw this at my local book shop and had to buy it.

Here’s the blurb…

From Paleolithic flax to 3D knitting, a global history of textiles and the world they made
The story of humanity is the story of textiles — as old as civilization itself. Since the first thread was spun, the need for textiles has driven technology, business, politics, and culture.
In The Fabric of Civilization, Virginia Postrel synthesizes groundbreaking research from archaeology, economics, and science to reveal a surprising history. From Minoans exporting wool colored with precious purple dye to Egypt, to Romans arrayed in costly Chinese silk, the cloth trade paved the crossroads of the ancient world. Textiles funded the Renaissance and the Mughal Empire; they gave us banks and bookkeeping, Michelangelo’s David and the Taj Mahal. The cloth business spread the alphabet and arithmetic, propelled chemical research, and taught people to think in binary code.
Assiduously researched and deftly narrated, The Fabric of Civilization tells the story of the world’s most influential commodity.

This book is fabulous – well written and researched. It made me think about string, banking and weaving in a whole new way. There are chapters on Fiber, Thread, Cloth, Dye, Traders, Consumers and Innovators. Each chapter is a deep-dive into its topic.

If you are at all interested in Textile History (or just History for that matter), then this is the book for you. Easy to read, but very informative.

You can also listen to Virginia Postrel on this Haptic and Hue podcast.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Book Review, Inspiration

Spoils of the Trip

Miss A and I had a weekend trip to Melbourne.

We went to the NGV to see the Making the Australian Quilt exhibition.  It is a fabulous exhibition with some amazing pieces – I can’t believe the amount of work involved in some of the quilts. Here’s a review –  https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/101-arts-update/3500-making-the-australian-quilt-1800-1950-ngv-australia – it is definitely worth seeing if you’re in Melbourne.

We also went to L’Ucello – no trip to Melbourne would be complete without a trip to L’Ucello! I also discovered the Kimono House – how could I not have known about that?

We purchased kits – this one

Japanese bag

Japanese bag

And this one as a gift for Miss P

kittykits

I decided to get started on mine straight away

The Loop Bag

The Loop Bag

I had been thinking about making one of these bags in an embroidered silk, so this was a fabulous chance to get a pattern and have a go.

 

1 Comment

Filed under Inspiration, Sewing