needled

From now until the end of December there will be no pictures of things in process or completion. I just don’t trust the recipients not to peek. Instead I shall divert myself with discussion of other Things.

I have been reading — and enjoying immensely — Joshua Glenn and Carol Hayes’ Taking Things Seriously: 75 Objects with Unexpected Significance. This superb little collection celebrates the sheer stuffness of stuff. On the face of it, the book might just seem like a random, albeit pleasurable, assortment of inane ephemera, but really is so much more. It constitutes a serious meditation on the relationships that objects contain and define — the human work, as it were, that things do. The objects under discussion here have meanings that completely surpass the usual associations of kitsch and personal memorabilia. There are things randomly found, carelessly stolen, or purposefully appropriated. There are objects that commemorate pointless relationships, that subsequently become imbued with tremendously poignant significance. There are broken things which, when combined with each other, make a new, meaningful, whole object. There are things fascinating and disgusting (Amy Kube’s nail clippings) or lovely and absurd (Beth Daniels’ pencil sharpener). I would recommend this book to anyone who appreciates the beauty of the quotidian and the material and attaches value to everyday objects in ways that surpass the pecuniary. As a thing in itself, this book would certainly make a great gift.

I could wax lyrical about the suggestive and wonderful things in this book all day, but here are my two favourites: Joel Holland’s bear lamp-shade (”the bear’s blank expression and passive posture called to me”) and Mimi Lipson’s collection of cupcakes (”although I did notice them sweating on the muggiest days of summer, they always returned to their petrified state”). I felt a particular connection to this last, as my dad has a chocolate parrot that he has kept since 1981, and, to me, an orange undergoing the process of decay — puckering, imploding, surrendering to mould — is a thing of real beauty. Mr B does not share this perspective and often becomes exasperated at the way I extend my failure to throw anything away to food-items.

My work space is a veritable clutter of things. After thinking about just how many of them there were, I began to reflect on how very different all these objects were from each other and how they all spoke to me in various ways. I thought I’d share a few of them with you.

Here is thing number 1.

I have had this thing since 1996 or 7 but it is about 50 years old. It is a bar of puritan soap, now discoloured and odourless, and was a gift from a friend long-since out of touch. She found it, I believe, at Dave Dees junk shop — a treasure-trove of gew-gaws that we often liked to rumage through. She gave it to me because of my interest in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literature, but somehow, this was never at the front of my mind when I looked at it. I enjoy the colour of it (I imagine that things were only that particular shade of green in the 1950s); I like its slightly waxy (now slightly dusty) hue, as well as its satisfying three-dimensional solidity. There is also something pleasing, as well as rather naively straightforward, in the way it tells you just what it is about — the way it wears its advertising on its sleeve. I like the implication that in using it one would achieve moral, as well as physical cleanliness. Though I have never cleaned my hands — or, indeed, my soul — with it, on my desk, it does fulfil a function weirdly moral. I find it acts as a sort of prompt to clarity. Even though it is a piece of clutter itself, it is suggestive to me of a clean and uncluttered mind. It is a material injunction to WORK — it says to me — “just get on with it”. And mostly I do.

Today was very bright — just the day for a walk — so we went to Melrose and ascended the Eildons. Each of the hills has a very different character. I don’t know about King Arthur sleeping under the Eildons but there were certainly lots of rabbits beneath the most westerly one — the ground was riddled with warrens. All around us, the Borders were laid out like patchwork, and despite the freezing wind, the light was very beautiful:

The landscape has suddenly become very wintry indeed — the heather burnt from the hills and the bracken all brown and cripsy. Most of the trees we saw today were bare like this one:

But below us in the valley we saw one still covered in yellow leaves:

Shining stoically in the thin afternoon light, this tree seemed the last gold thing of the year.

. . . but there was actually one more golden thing . . .and we certainly needed it after walking up and down three hilltops:

A tasty fat rascal I bought in Bettys yesterday while visiting the Knitting and Stitching Show. In fact, I even managed to fit some textiles into today’s proceedings: following Helen’s recommendation, we visited Hinnigans in Selkirk on the way home . . . more of all this later . . .

Treats arrived in today’s post! Helen very kindly sent me some lovely samples of the fabric she picked up at Hinnigans in Selkirk. There was a moment of serious rapture when I opened the packages.

What absolutely beautiful tweed. Thanks Helen! The sepulchral wintry light does not do justice to the quality of the wool or the colours in the fabrics. I am going to follow Helen to Hinnigans — I’m very excited to find some locally produced tweed of such superb quality. As well as picking up some pieces for patchwork bags and other small projects, perhaps I can treat myself to a couple of metres to make something I found in another recent postal arrival:

Cue further rapture! Thanks Titch! These delicious tomes are from two of the doyennes of Japanese home couture, Machiko Kayaki and Sato Watanabe. Like most Japanese sewing books, they come with paper patterns. I am in a tweedy sort of mood, as the first thing that stood out to me was this:

Which I intend to attempt without the, um, furry boa…The patterns come with pictorial instructions that are really fantastically clear, even for someone with no knowledge of Japanese. I got a reasonable sense of the stages of construction of this dress just from the diagrams in the book. But where diagrams are not enough, I’ve been helped out by the list of Japanese sewing terms and other information provided on Jennifer’s‘ fantastic blog. You’ll also find some great reviews of Japanese designers and lots of inspiring sewing and quilting on her site.

Some weeks ago I found a second-hand dress in a charity shop in Stockbridge. The dress had been made by Toast, was cut on the bias, and fashioned from a wonderful, autumnal greeny-brown lambswool. So what it was several sizes too big? So what it resembled (according to Mr B) a large hessian sack? At 3 quid it was clearly an unbelievable bargain.

Today I had an opportunity to transform the dress into something wearable. I hacked it to pieces, took about a foot off the bottom and sides, and re-made it into a pinafore, edging it with some vintage Liberty’s fabric in this familiar print:

The peacock fabric is a remnant - left over from the bottom of one of my favourite dresses that I shortened to fit me long ago. This other dress, with its alternating panels of pale green velvet and printed cotton, is a vintage 1970s maxi-thing. In it one runs the risk of resembling both the female characters on The Good Life simultaneously: it has Felicity Kendall’s hippy charm combined with Penelope Keith’s stately excess. Unsurprisingly, I hardly ever get an opportunity to wear it — but using a little of its left-over fabric on an edging or a button reminds me of just how much it appeals:

Then I made another patchwork scarf out of the woollen dress’s sleeves, the rest of the The Good-Life remnant, and a furnishing fabric sample in a burnt-orange colour:

Together, the scarf and the pinafore look great and quite, um, seasonal. Ironically, I can’t illustrate this convincingly because the light today has suffered from the seasonal weather — perpetual rain and darkened skies — and I do hate using the flash. Here is another ludicrous attempt:

Until I can post a decent pic, you’ll just have to take my word that I am foolishly pleased with the new life I’ve given to two old dresses.

It is the time of year for turning out wee gifts. Because the recpients of these do not read this blog, I can show you some I made at the weekend. Last summer I acquired several blank notebooks. I say ‘acquired’ — what I really mean is that in a moment of mild insanity I bought twelve of ‘em. Clearly the combination of the words ’stationery’ and ’sale’ has a rather odd effect on me….but these were notebooks of a pleasing size and excellent quality. They also possessed unpleasant vinyl covers, which was obviously why they weren’t selling. Anyway, I have been making lovely new fabric covers for them and can now show them to you in their much improved, vinyl-free incarnations. The covers are based on Tania Ho’s simple pattern in Anna Torborg’s Crafter’s Companion. I like that book for many reasons and particularly enjoyed it’s discussion and photography of different crafting workspaces.

Anyway, a book cover was the perfect use for this tasty scrap of fabric:

I just love those little birds. I also used up the last of my scraps of red and orange silk. These made a super-luxe cover, but then I got over-excited and attempted to embellish it with a fab print of some ladies in 1920s cloches and coats having what seems to be a delightful time:

Machine applique is not my strongest point…and boy did that silk want to pucker up. I have almost managed to convince myself that the quality of the fabric makes up for the deficiencies in execution….

But my favourite cover is this one:

I’m such a sucker for Amy Butler.

Heres a shot of the silky interior. You can see what satisfyingly solid notebooks they are. Buying twelve wasn’t bonkers at all now. . . was it?

I was very affected by Floresita’s tribute to the lost women of Juarez. For those of you who do not know or have forgotten, over 500 women — most of them poor factory workers — have been horifically raped and killed in Ciudad Juarez over the past decade and a half. Because of Mexico’s fourteen year statute of limitations on murders, many of these crimes will now remain unsolved. This injustice adds yet another appalling burden to the families of these women, who, as well as grieving for loved ones who died in such terrible circumstances, have also had to deal with the insensitve investigations and official negligence of the Mexican police and judicial systems. After reading Florestia’s Dia de las Muertas post, I was moved, as she suggested, to follow her example.

It is a small thing, but I wanted to state my solidarity with Floresita, and opposition to all violence against women, in stitch. Please visit her blog to see her beautifully embroidered act of memory. You can learn more about the Juarez murders from Theresa Rodriguez’s book or Amnesty International.

needled reviews: Sabrina Gschwandtner, KnitKnit: Profiles and Projects from Knitting’s New Wave (STC, 2007).

In a recent Q & A, New-York artist and KnitKnit creator, Sabrina Gschwandtner, remarked on the weird gap between the world of contemporary craft practice and that of critical debate. Since at least 2002 and the appearance of the first issue of her now-famous zine, Gschwandtner has been inspired by knitting’s public, social and inherently critical dimension. “Knitting can be anything from a form of graffiti, gift, performance, and sculpture,” she says “it is an empowering tool that allows people to think of social space.” Yet while the response of the 100,000 + visitors to a recent MAD show in which she was involved was, in her words, “phenomenal”, a quick glance at the exhibition’s reviews reveal a mainstream critical response that seems rather more bewildered than engaged. For example, any review which begins with the words “long viewed as the domain of grandmothers….” as Martha Schwendner’s short-sighted piece in the New York Times does, clearly betrays it’s author’s lack of understanding of craft’s new aesthetics. My non-knitting friends repeatedly point me towards articles like Schwendner’s, or remark amusedly on the Shreddies advert, in which the ‘humorous’ association of knitting with old dears disrespects the craft as well as those over 70 by rendering both equally ludicrous. One wonders precisely when discussion about knitting in the general media might move beyond regarding it as something other than a bizarre curiosity. And, indeed, when will our debate about our own art and craft really expand outward from the realm of the domestic toward the public face of knitting—the communities, the practice, and the politics—with which we are all, whether we acknowledge it or not, involved?

Gschwandtner’s new book marks a significant step in the right direction. It is a sign of the happy shift of the creative politics of knitting from the unusual to the commonplace that the book is published under the Melanie Falick imprint. For Falick, a sort of one-woman craft-popularity thermometer since the appearance of her important first book in 1996, really is the public face of knitting publishing. And Gschwandtner’s collection of carefully selected profiles and patterns, illustrated with Kiriko Shirobayashi’s luminous photography, certainly benefit from the quality of production and editorial attention that distinguish all of Falick’s publications. A quick comparison of Falick’s Knitting in America with Gschwandtner’s KnitKnit shows just how vast the shift of the past decade has been. In Falick’s book one encounters only one ‘artist’, a few marginal men, and no non-white faces at all. There is also a terrifying homogeneity of taste, which thankfully does not exist in the diverse world of knitting practice and design represented by Gschwandtner. No-one welcomes more than I the move from those garish Fassett-inspired intarsias that dominate the projects in Knitting in America…but this is just an aside.

Knitting in America (1996), reissued as America Knits in 2005.

Gschwandtner’s book is transatlantic in scope rather than nationalist in focus, and there is a much more nuanced exploration of the social politics of knitting outside the realm of individuals and their families. The vast majority of the spinners and knitters featured in Falick’s book (with the exception of the redoubtable Barbara Walker) account for their engagement with the world of fibre as a lifestyle choice or business idea. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, but one of the stimulating things about KnitKnit is that it illustrates how knitting has so clearly moved beyond questions of lifestyle to deal with larger issues concerning critical practice, aesthetic discourse, design choice, social engagement, and the politics of craft. Those whose business is knitting are represented here too—Joel Hoverson or Erika Knight spring most readily to mind—but then one turns the page and discovers in Jim Drain’s Forcefield collective, Bridget Marrin’s marvellous Švankmajer-inspired objects, or Mandy Macintosh’s Donkey Skin a world of creative possibility way beyond that of commerce.

Mandy Macintosh, still from Donkey Skin (1996)

Yet what’s so great about this book is that commerce and creativity do not cancel one another out and, in fact, they sit right next to each other in productive dialogue. Equally, design activities and aesthetics that might seem on the surface vastly different from one another discover, through the debate implicit in these pages, that they have much more in common than they might initially have imagined. For what could seem more different than Dave Cole’s gigantic ‘knitting machine’ and the miniature wires with which Althea Merback creates her tiny sweaters? Yet both artists talk articulately and in some respects, similarly, about their explorations of material, form, and scale.

Althea Merback, Gloves (2005), wire-knitted silk.

On a personal note, I particularly enjoyed reading again about artists and designers such as Liz Collins, Rachael Matthews and Lisa Anne Auerbach, who in their different ways engage carefully with issues of gender, cultural memory, occupation, and public space. And who can deny the appeal of the lovely projects by designers like Catherine Lowe and Anna Bell? You may not like all of the personalities or the perspectives represented in this book. There will be things you disagree with. You may not want to make yourself a jump in the wall jumper. But I ask anyone to deny the sheer vim of the world that is represented here, its wit, its vitality, and its refreshing ability to self-ironise that doesn’t in the least detract from the serious politics of its endeavours. Of the MAD exhibition Gschwandtner says that she wanted “reviewers to question why there are more knitters” and to “feel a community thinking about art and craft.” You can certainly feel that community thinking—as well as making—in many dynamic and exciting ways across the pages of her book.