unpicking

When thinking about process, there is nothing more instructive than unpicking someone else’s stitches.

I found a beautiful hand-embroidered cloth on ebay. I have plans for it. The plans involve deconstructing and transforming it into something else. I began by undoing the slip stitches of its heavy, worn cord edging.

Then I started to unpick the tiny stitches which attach the embroidered front to the cloth’s very fine silk back. The silk is faded but luminous, alive with copper and green.

The secrets written in the cloth began to reveal themselves. Neatly folded hems. Pale green silk thread that moved through the cloth like clockwork. An outer layer of heavy cotton satteen. An inner layer of lining satteen, fresh and bright because unseen for decades. Embroidery worked through both layers. Each thread end carefully woven and hidden. The back of the work faultless in its steady execution.

. . .and just as mesmerising as the front.

It was then that my fascination with the little mysteries of this cloth changed into a something else. I felt a sense of privilege and respect — in unpicking the stitches I was re-living the work of their making, admiring the skill of a talented needlewoman. But my act was also one of trespass: me and my snipping embroidery scissors were destroying a once-whole thing. And as I, blithe, curious, surgeon-like, began to examine the cloth’s insides, I uncovered the truth of its age: the satteen was of a certain kind, and a little older than I’d imagined. I was an historical vandal, cutting through the threads of time.

In cutting someone else’s threads, as in wearing someone else’s clothes, there is the frisson of encounter. We don’t know and will never know the person who made or wore the thing, but they are speaking to us nonethless, in the movement of their hand through the stitches, or in the the shape of their body left in the garment. There is something deeply uncanny in the silence of cloth and clothes: the trace of an unknown and never-to-be-known physical presence. (One does not buy second hand shoes, because one shies away from the ghost of the foot inside.) As I unpicked the stitches, then, a simple encounter between me and the cloth changed into a more complex one between me and its maker. Because I was un-making a made thing my act seemed an intimate one, but it was an empty intimacy, an intimacy with no content. The embroidered cloth was both speaking and not speaking: of a someone living in those stitches and of the silence of the grave.

Wallace Stevens’ brilliant poem, The Emperor of Ice Cream, (1922) has much to say about the dumb intimacy of embroidery — and of death. Stevens describes the covering of a woman’s corpse with a cloth she embroidered when alive.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam
(lines 9 – 15)

Here the corpse is, like the cloth she embroidered, an everyday material object. She reminds us of death’s easy finality. Yet she also suggests the mute compassion of the world of things. We feel the weight of her hands on the lost knobs of the well-worn dresser; her fingers quick movement through the stitches of the cloth that decorates her dead countenance. She does not speak, all we can know is her corpse and her cloth. And it is in the relationship between these two material objects that the essence of the poem (perhaps another object in itself) lies. Gaudy embroidered fantails will never cover death, but each small act of making is an end in itself, capturing the (perhaps pointless) vitality of the human. Now get back in the kitchen (says Stevens) and enjoy your ice-cream.

Having unpicked my thoughts I will get on with the uncanny work of unpicking.

York Craft Tour

(Felix in Duttons).

I am busy. I do not find long working days particularly good for either body or soul. During periods of insane activity, one must always find a little time to spend in the restorative presence of friends, and it was great to meet up with Felix the other day. We spent a lovely, crafty few hours in York, highlights of which included a cake shaped like a cauliflower, and these amazing tea-cup buttons that Felix found in Duttons (of course).

(very Felix buttons)

After this, and my earlier button pilgrimage with Ysolda, I thought it might be a good idea to produce a map, linking together my favourite York crafty locations. You can click each map-marker to see my notes on each location, or click on ‘larger map’ to zoom in and see the full thing in much more detail.

View Larger Map

Each marker takes you to one of eleven craft hotspots. In no particular order, they are:
1. Duttons (for Buttons)
2. Betty’s (tea. baked goods. confectionery.)
3. Viking Loom (embroidery, quilting, beading)
4. Sheepish (best place for yarn)
5. The Japanese Shop
6. York Beer and Wine (and cheese and cider) shop
7. Priestley’s Vintage Clothing
8. Quilter’s Guild Museum
9. York Castle Museum
10. York Brewery
11. Monk Bar Chocolatiers

(Betty’s. Yorkshire delicacies indeed).

This list is entirely personal, and a bit idiosyncratic. For example, I like ‘Sheepish’ for Yarn, and the ‘Viking Loom’ for embroidery supplies, and I prefer both to ‘Craft Basics’ on Gillygate. On my list you will find beer and cheese, wool and cakes, the finest local produce and ingredients, and (perhaps incongruously) some lovely stuff from Japan. There are also two brilliant museums: the York Castle Museum (chock full of fabulous textiles and intriguing domestic objects), and the museum and archive of the UK Quilter’s Guild (now happily housed in their new home in St Anthony’s Hall). Check their websites for opening times and listings of current exhibitions.

(Ysolda by the River Ouse).

One of the best things about York is how compact and pedestrian-friendly it is. All of the craft hot spots on my list are within or near the city centre, and all are in in easy walking distance from each other. Walking around York is aided by two of the city’s unique geographic / architectural features: its rivers and its walls. The city is bisected by the rivers Foss and Ouse, the latter of which is lined by a lovely Georgian path known (then and now) as the “New Walk“. As well as being a genuine pleasure in itself, a quick walk along the “New Walk” takes you to the haven of refreshment that is the York Beer and Wine shop. A York organisation has produced this great guided tour of the New Walk, which I strongly recommend reading. (I used to live in the first location on this tour many moons ago when I was a student. Ahem.)

(The New Walk in 1756)

The Romans built the original walls around the city they named Eboracum. These defensive walls have been rebuilt several times since over the centuries, and today you can walk almost the whole way round the city centre along well-maintained wall paths which, according to York City Council, are tramped on by around a million people a year. Several of my craft hotspots are near to the bars (or gates) which form the stopping-off and getting-on points for wall-walkers. These include Monk Bar Chocolatiers (located, unsurpsingly, by Monk Bar) and The Viking Loom (close to Bootham Bar).

(Felix walks along the city walls toward Bootham Bar).

As I said, this list is entirely personal, but if any of you Yorkshire folk feel I’ve missed a really vital craft hot spot, do tell me, and I can make additions (or amendments) to the map. Hope you enjoy it! Thankyou!

(tree of knowledge on the doorway of York Minster).

given

Over the past month or so I have been embroidering this:

A crewel-work cover for my parents’ old piano stool. The flowers that to me say thrift and yarrow have their origins in two different Katherine Shaughnessy designs. I combined them, added extra grassy stems and a wee bee.

the fabric is a linen mix with something slightly stretchy in it — good for upholstery. All of the stitches are very simple: chain, stem, running, split, seed, french knots for the yarrow and a little bit of satin stitch for the bee. I was very pleased with the end result — and the recipients like their new stool cover just as much as I enjoyed making it.

Other things I’ve made and given include this bag for my sister:

The fabric is from Amy Butler’s recent upholstery range and the pattern comes, of course, from the lovely Amy Karol. I squared up the bottom of the bag with some very stiff lining fabric and added a magnetic snap fastener to the inside lining. Sweeeet!

Then there was this:

and another pic:

A cosy wrap for my mum in a simple lace repeat and Rowan cocoon knitted on 8mm needles. The pattern, “Haven,” is from Kim Hargreaves super new collection. A very pleasing winter knit.

Also in cocoon we have this:

This intriguing looking item has been named The Wal-piece. My dad dislikes fussing around with a scarf, but still requires something to keep his neck warm when he’s out in the chilly winter garden. This was the answer — part polar neck, part scarf . . . indeed, part balaclava. I had a look at similar items designed for a similar purpose by Elizabeth Zimmermann in Knitting Around and came up with my own version, which accommodates the back of the neck as well as the front (unlike those made by EZ). It was knit from the top on one 6.5mm circular needle with increases between the ribs every second round to the desired width and length. When worn, it recalls those chain-mail thingies worn by knights underneath their helmets, viz:

Thankfully, my Dad does not look *quite* like that, either in or out of his functional and cosy Wal-piece.

As well as his sweater, Mr B received a scarf inspired by this one, sported with style byThe Wire’s evil and charismatic Stringer Bell.

his version came in lovely, soft, undyed shetland aran from Shilasdair:

Made in garter stitch with a slip-stitch edging, this was probably the most mindless knitting I’ve done since I was 7.

Finally, my niece and nephew each received a pair of target wave mittens in shetland aran:

I love Norah Gaughan and this is a super little pattern — I did make some mods, though — shortening the thumbs by about four rounds and knitting tighter than the recommended gauge, having read that the pattern tended to come out rather large for small hands. These ones turned out great.

I’ll post about things received shortly. Meantime, Happy 2008!

words and stitches

Last night I dreamt I was reading a sweater. I stood at the front of a full room. The sweater was my script and I read aloud from its stitches as if they were braille. Perhaps this dream suggests my mind’s happy ability to mingle together what I do for a living with what I do in my ’spare’ time. On the other hand, it may be a more disturbing indication of how thoroughly the world of yarn and textiles has invaded my subconscious.

Either way, I have had both words and stitches on the brain since my day at the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate. In the quilt competition, my sister and I were both struck by Sara Impey’s contribution:

Sara Impey, detail of Quilt Blog (2007)

Her Quilt Blog is a truly beautiful thing – the sheer quality of stuff and technique really sings out of the stitches. But it is also a serious meditation on the conflict between the momentary and the slow process, particularly as that regards ideas of making. One’s first instinct when looking at the quilt is to understand it speedily, almost instantaneously—to read it as a straightforward message to the viewer from the maker. Following the words from left to right, you quickly trace a narrative questioning the process of making (‘. . . find yourself asking why anybody bothers making things in this age of instant gratification. . . ’). But, in the act of unpicking that narrative you start to notice how the characters emerge out of the negative spaces on the fabric canvas. It is almost as if the quilt is writing itself. Impey stitches only in the spaces between her thoughts. She makes us look at the process of making under and behind the words we read. In so doing, we contemplate the gap between vision and labour—the gap that is the time of the quilt’s making, its slow process. So we are prompted to think in a rather different way about her art, her fabrication. Rather than seeing the quilt as a lovely thing conveying a message to us in a moment, we consider it more fully as an object made over time . . . the time of its stitches . . . a long time! The quilt is both doing, and meditating upon, what it is saying—acting itself out, and thinking about itself with some considerable aplomb.

Sara Impey, detail of Quilt Blog (2007)

The narrative time of stitching was also an issue in the Primmy and Jessie Chorley exhibition. I found Jessie Chorley’s fabric-books and book-fabrications particularly intriguing. Like Louise Bourgeois, Jessie Chorley reflects powerfully on books, stitches and lives as made-up things; as narrative processes; and as numinous objects full of meaning. But though her books are certainly suggestive in their stitching-up of time and memory, I confess I found the Chorleys’ oppressively cutesy household aesthetic something of an impediment to what was most interesting about their art. In that small exhibition space surrounded by the work of the Chorleys’ I felt as if I were trapped in a 1980s fantasy of Edwardian femininity—a sort of hollow Holly Hobbie world with little basis in, or recourse to, the lived traditions of women’s domestic creativity. However carefully considered their familial self-presentation is in its appeal to memory, fantasy, and the uncanny, the Chorleys’ aesthetic had (for me at least) the unfortunate — and certainly misleading — effect of suggesting that their art had little to say to the world beyond itself.

My reaction to the work of Tilleke Schwarz was completely different. Both my sister and I were completely blown away by it and could have spent the whole day with her embroidered canvases alone. In one way or another, Schwarz’s art is often compared to graffiti. She clearly possesses a certain urban chutzpah, but because hers is so definitively an art of stitch and the slow process, I find the graffiti association a little misleading. A more moot association might be with white noise or radio interference — as the momentary or incidental constantly intrudes upon the slow-time of stitching, living, and remembering. All of her canvases somehow suggested aural interference to me. And her mixing of different stitch techniques and genres, as well as the intrusion of other bits of the material world into the stuff of the canvas itself, conveys how the ephemera of everyday life disrupts and yet defines narrative comprehension of ourselves and our histories.

Tilleke Schwarz Beware of Embroidery (1997)

Schwarz has an ability — unparalleled to my mind in contemporary textile art — of mingling wit and poignancy in stitch. In Beware of Embroidery a banner bearing familiar SWEET ‘N LOW lettering flies blithely and bullet-like toward the anguished visage of twentieth-century Jewish cultural memory. In the same canvas, an enormous and slightly scary bottle of brown sauce divides and illuminates a figure whose ghostly whites and reds seem to suggest material pain and spiritual salvation simultaneously. Embroidered cats sport anarchically over every path of meaning. Neat and ostensibly prim cross-stitched figures kick each other up the arse. Overheard snippets of conversation, advertising copy, scraps of text, and the walk-don’t-walk imperatives which allow us to successfully negotiate the confusing labyrinth of ordinary living all gather together, reminding us that there is never the one story to tell ourselves about ourselves. Schwarz’s stitches say that the stories are always going to be interrupted, the narrative constantly disturbed, by the fabric of life itself.

Tilleke Schwarz, Count Your Blessings

In Count your Blessings Schwarz stitches the familiar image of a coffee-cup lid telling its drinker to ‘sip with care.’ In someone else’s work, there might be something obvious about rendering a disposable thing in an art form that is so emphatically not about disposability. But there is nothing obvious here. Schwarz’s coffee cup speaks beyond that simple contrast between the slow-stitch-medium and the ephemeral commodity. It says something about how the disposable might actually take care of the human; about how, even as we wander distracted in a world of terrible, alienating things and events, the cup we drink from will remind us not to burn ourselves. In stitch, the cup is re-appropriated as a messenger of caution and resolve. Yet even as embroidered art lends this thing an agency almost human, elsewhere in her canvas Schwarz reminds us of how chillingly de-humanising the process of appropriation or representation can be: “members of aboriginal communities are respectfully advised,” stitches Schwarz “that a number of people depicted in photographs in this room have now passed away.” It is this dialogic and inconclusive quality of each canvas that is so refreshing and ultimately modest about Schwarz’s art. It is as if just by listening to the symphony of everyday life Schwarz has turned herself into an instrument and played it all back to us—in words and in stitches, with quiet accomplishment, with breathtaking virtuosity. And it is up to us what we make of it in the end.

Images reproduced by permission of the artists.

for the women of Juarez

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.