Crafternoon, July.

Every afternoon this last week has been a crafternoon, and it has been fabulous.

After finishing a major work, I was having trouble starting anything else. That was fear of commitment, and a fear of the ol' blank canvas. How about some low-key, minimal risk pieces to increase my confidence, and re-focus?

Back to some kind of drawing board...

Here are a pile of my favourite books, depending on the subject...today's search was 'cross stitch', so we have Beeton's Book of Needlework (1870), Goldenhands no. 3 (1972), Best of Handmade by both Woman's Day and Woman's Weekly (1974 & 1991), and a book on calligraphy. I want to do some things with words.

Can you read this? So far, it says 'Pubic hair' 

So far in cross-stitching, I have discovered about myself one new thing; stitching the words adds weight to the statement. As a reader, and a wishful member of the intelligentsia, I can use words liberally to express meaning, and verbosity can be an issue. If you are going to spend 5 minutes picking out each letter in tiny stitches, what is said needs to mean something, at least to yourself.

For my first stitchery, I chose the phrase 'Pubic hair is normal'... There were other contenders, but when looking through one of the Best of Handmades I found a 'delightful monthly floral calendar' to stitch, and one of the flowers was the Thysanotus, commonly known as the 'Fringed Lilly'. Double entendre, anyone?

Left to right: the plan, the work, and the book I sourced the plan from.

Close-up

The studio space, i.e. the floor directly in front of the couch.

Nearly there....

Done! Now I just have to finish it off...

Altogether, this took a couple of hours an afternoon, for four afternoons in a row. I think this was a good way to end this visual version of writers' block. I have a bunch of new ideas, and a new way of making.

Perversions/Adaptations

I have recently been thinking about playing on words, visual puns, and just being clever in general through skillful appropriation. This is in relation to textile works, and my creation of them. I am tentatively working towards something, but let's see where this goes.

A mighty woman with a hooked needle, whose thread
Is imprisoned patience, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her left hand
Glows world-wide skills; her blue eyes command
The air-bridged walls that her living room frames.
"Keep mass-produced articles, your storied consumerism!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your fibres, your threads,
Your huddled linens yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming closet.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my scissors beside the golden door!"

Adapted from 'The New Colussus' 1883, by Emma Lazarus

No artist is an island, entire of itself; every one is a piece of The Scene, a part of the main, if a part be washed away by the sea, it is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a house of thy friends or thy own were; any artist's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Making; and therefore never send to know for whom is about to make it big; they make it big for thee.

Adapted from John Donne, Meditation XVII
English clergyman & poet (1572 - 1631)

The path of the craftsmanwoman is beset on all sides by the size inequities of secondhand fabrics and the tyranny of Lindcraft. Blessed is she, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the rags through the valley of darkness, for she is truly her house's keeper and the finder of lost opportunities.
And I will strike down upon thee with great veloutine* and furious angora those who would attempt to pervert and disrupt their artworks. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my velour upon thee.

*velvety corded wool

adapted from the 'Ezekial 25:17' spiel by Samuel L Jackson, Pulp Fiction 1994.