pastpresentfuture

this year I was invited to participate in an exhibition being held for the Latvian Cultural Festival that has been held around Australia between Christmas and New Year since 1951 

the exhibition title "past present future" prompted me to create this autobiographical piece.

loosely based on traditional Latvian costume it includes an apron, a striped wool skirt, a wool blanket, a found antique linen blouse and rather a lot of bones. 

the stitched text translates poetically as "I'm walking and wondering why I leave no footprints"  and is borrowed from a poem by Janis Elsbergs 

(the literal translation is somewhat more specific)

dyed with eucalyptus, local colour infusing into something from elsewhere, from the ground up. 

the apron was reconstructed from a linen shirt and other items sourced during a trip to Latvia in August this year. 

thank you Lufthansa for the nice cotton napkin you left in my lap, which somehow became attached as well and which serendipitously made sense, as my background is Latvian and German.

the pockets full of whitewashed bones represent the cell memories we each carry within us and which I am convinced are handed down from one generation to the next.

I was born in the late 50s, and raised as a "European in exile", a child of two displaced persons from two different cultures.  

but the Australian landscape got under my skin.

I installed the work yesterday.

it was the last piece to go in, the rest of the exhibition had already been  hung.

frankly my work looks rather 'out of place' compared to the rest...everything else is precisely formed/woven/wrought/cut/stitched/shaped...I think it sticks out like the proverbial bull terrier's testicles.
but
I guess that's the truth as well.
and if it isn't true, it isn't worth doing.

a strong contender for new favourite skirt

after my students all packed their bags and headed back into the whirled
I spread out my bits and pieces and began work on a few garments, pieced together
from bits of other garments

this evening I unbundled my new skirt...realising too late that I hadn't made any "pre-dye" pictures.
dang.

the dyestuffs are all locally gathered.
predominantly eucalyptus with a little casuarina and the odd acacia pod tossed in to spice the mix

the skirt is made from two pairs of mens trousers. the labels on both stated they were a silk/wool blend.
the dyepot says otherwise.

still, I'm fond of silver greys and taupes so I'm not losing any sleep over it

the skirt was stitched by hand using merino+silk thread. it's picked up the colour rather nicely

there are eleven pockets on the skirt, so it will be an excellent wandering garment
room for leaves and drawings and poems and a clean hankie or two
along with a small notebook, a pencil and the camera that thinks it is a telephone

the picture above shows the lining. it's a silk+linen mix I had from Beautiful Silks

something in the chemical history of the cleaning of the pants that make up this skirt has pushed the usual red tones of the Eriococcus coccineus infesting the twigs of one of the eucalypts to yellow

two patches of silk stitched on to the skirt show that the fabric of the original trousers was either not what it stated on the label OR had been drycleaned so often that it responded oddly in the dyebath

this bright bit WAS wool. it's part of a jacket I was cutting up, now a nice detail on the hem of the dress

part of the waistband of one of the trousers became pockets

and unfortunately I didn't have a real body to hand so this shot of the skirt on the dummy will have to do for now.
I'm planning to wear it on the New Mexico adventure, just in case it snows. but not with that top (which is really an apron in gestation)

for the record : no plastic or ferrous sulphate used, but there were bits of iron in the dyepot - which is all you need, really.

wrap up (some more) for winter

 

we had a glorious day at Poet's Ode last Sunday

wrapping and dyeing beautifully soft pure wool shawls

in a cauldron heated over a lovely twig-fired heater

made especially for me by my blacksmith son

the sky was blue, the lunch delicious

we drank tea, told stories

played and worked in the back garden

(an oasis of quiet hidden from the hubbub of Hahndorf)

laying our shawls out on the grass

and happily strewing leaves 

we composed a little spontaneous poetry

while waiting for the bundles to cool

it was such a lovely time that we're offering a repeat

(i'm not in South Australia much after all)

the weather might not be so kind on June 6

but we can cosy up in our lovely workroom

make a fire in that lovely hearth

and wrap up in our wool shawls

because wool is warm even when wet

Sam and Yoda won't be getting off the home sofa though

they're much too comfortable

sockbundles

tis a fine thing
when the infants take an interest in the construction of things
especially when those things are warm and comfy
and are given to me

my Wild Rose [aka the Eldest of the Three] who has a B.Sc Hons and was recently awarded her wool classer's stencil
is not content with being able to do clever things with statistics and fling fleeces on tables
and [thanks to instruction by great-grandmother] churn out exquisite tatted lace at machine speed
has now turned her hand to knitting
and discovered a passion for socks.
- unlike me she can actually make two objects that are exactly alike.
 
the first pair went to her beloved.
i scored the second lot.

so of course
i bundled them up with some eucalyptus leaves

i love my socks

and was tempted to sling them in here as well

but i was firmly restrained.
they said enough was enough.
sigh.

guess i shall be wearing contrasting socks.

suitcase sewing

 firstly thank you to everyone who left kindly messages

and/or emailed me personally in response to the last post

your words were most comforting.

today i have been taking solace in work.

the thought of me carrying extra bits in suitcases may well provoke howls of outrage about excess baggage, but in my defence i only carry one at a time AND having something to sew in evenings spent in helltell rooms saves power as i don't use the laptop while i'm sewing.

whilst in residence at Big Cat Textiles in Newburgh i didn't need such entertainments  :  i worked early and late and all through the day on gathering and finding and stitching and dyeing

but as soon as i was on the road again [ie in Glasgow to tell stories in the exquisitely beautiful art school] i was back stitching on the 'wasteland' collection

and when i came home it seemed silly not to take advantage of having one of my house models in close proximity on a lovely warm spring day [which meant that changing out of one garment into the next could be achieved in the great outdoors without too much discomfort]

more pix of the 'wasteland' series here

and then some of a nice wool frock here

the weaver of grass

since coming to Newburgh i've hardly been able to tear myself away from the river

but i went to Perth for a day

to see an exhibition at the Perth Museum and Gallery

'the weaver of grass'

the work of Angus McPhee

whose sad history can be read here

the works speak for themselves

 

there was a "touchable" sample at the exhibition

made by Joanne B Kaar

whose own work is also fascinating

i'd also like to add a virtual bouquet for the kind gentleman on the desk at the museum who, when i tottered in and inquired about the exhibition practically took me by the hand to lead me thither. what a sweetie.

woolmarks

 it was a bit sad

bumping out 'muddy waters'

fortunately i had other work to do

eucalyptus magic

never fails to delight

day of rest? que?

it's been a rather hot Sunday here

fortunately not too much smoke in the air

i decided that the waterbag i am making for the 'muddy waters' exhibition

needed more embellishment

which [because i usually work in white] meant dyeing some thread

my little grandmother and my great-aunt Rose both stored odd lengths of thread

on paper spillikins

and so of course i did that too

but

my friend Roz is the clever bunny

who began slinging such thread-and-paper spillikins into the dyepot

[while i was still winding thread and leaves together around popsicle sticks or around the outside of dye-bundles]

they all four went into the same pot.

the two on the right are wool, clearly still wildly in love with eucalyptus

the far left is Japanese silk and the next one toward the middle is Chinese silk

all protein fibres but responding differently to the one brew

 to keep myself from pacing like a tiger while the dye was being absorbed

i decided it was time to start making a new cardigan

- i have a few woolly ones but need something cooler to

keep the mosquitos at bay and snuggle into on long flights

so i dug out some nice American-grown cotton knit fabric that my friend Claudia

had sent to me in a care parcel while i was enjoying my residency in New Orleans

i also ferreted out a pattern from the last century.

eighties, i think.

i wanted the cardigan to be loose and quite short, with three-quarter length sleeves

so i simply folded the papers a bit

and took a few corners wide

[and at speed]

naturally Martha decided to supervise proceedings

after all, her paws tone in so nicely with the general arrangement

 i stitched the pieces together by hand

making sure to "love" the thread [thank you Natalie Chanin]

and [perhaps unusually] using a quite thick pure silk floss [thank you Rachelle]

 it occurred to me that i could use a scrap of this cloth

to have a quick play with a stencil and some milk and that hot eucalyptus dyepot

 success.

but i am not going to stencil on to my cardigan

much as i love Natalie Chanin's exquisite work

my gut feeling is that it might be a little formal

for scruffy old me.

my friend who lives over the rainbow has shared some of her interpretations here

i think she is very brave.

for now i am adding a button or two [from a moth-compromised silk thrift-store blouse]

and what i fondly think of as an "Isobel" pocket

[in case someone needs to discreetly slip me a note while we are dancing cheek to cheek]

i shall be enjoying a few more weeks of stitching on this cuddly garment

making snailtrails with that lovely silk

before it goes anywhere near a dyepot

clearly though, this post has been far too long

so Martha has gone back to sleep.