When the sewing machine
your son found for $25
and returned to working order
so your husband could make you the jacket
you wear as you type--

--prefers the the spools of polyester thread
your adorable ex-grandmother-in-law
included in a care package
back in 1983
(nestled among
dented cans of tuna,
month-old brownies,
and a pile of her favorite Harlequin Romances)

--thread you have ignored for years
because you are a natural fiber snob
yet still could not bring yourself
to use or discard--
thread that has waited in the back
of your sewing machine drawer--

--so was more than ready
to take center stage
in the work of resurrecting a quilt--

--a hand stitched quilt
made you know not when
by you know not  who--
a quilt with very specific demands
 patiently spelled out
back in 2015 when the mending began)--

-- well,
when all those things come together
there really is nothing for you to do--

--but go with it.

Does anyone else have a thing about bags -- that deal where you can't imagine leaving home, much less making it through a trip, without having your elemental stuff in the perfect bag?

Or maybe you think you're set with a  satchel that is comfortable to carry and has room for all the essentials (flashlight, mug,  pocket hang glider, ear plugs, spindle, pencils, dictionary, novel, etc),  but then you start a new project

that generatesa bunch of material you absolutely MUST have with you at all times to survive whatever the future brings

which means that the extra large custom spindle case must be called into action

and the bag you were counting on is too small and the one that might work still needs mending 

and is not, truth to tell  (thanks to previous scattershot approach to reinforcing disintegrating fabric),

Well that never happens to me...

I seem to be out of words.

Here are a few pics though.

Ever wish you had eight arms?

Freakin' ideas. 

If I were to claim an historic textile practice,
I would be needlepoint. 

After nearly 30 years as a tapestry weaver I have spent far more hours in front of a loom than with needle and canvas, 
but for as long as I can remember,
the marriage and yarn and image has been a given,
and that certainty began with with needlepoint.

My grandmother, unless she was driving somewhere very fast in her pink Volkswagen bug or cooking something with lots of butter, always had a piece of stitching (needlepoint or crewel or sometimes knitting), in her hands.
So did (and do) at least two of her five daughters (my aunts, not my mother who was otherwise occupied getting a masters degree, learning to program computers back and teaching mathematics).  Grandma's stitching was an endlessly compelling and yet unknowable backdrop to many of my youthful imaginings. 

Once, in my youthful innocence, I asked her why she stitched other people's drawings instead of making up her own. Apparently that was a ridiculous question,
but I was left with a longing to give form to my own ideas--
if only I could figure out how.

My Mother and Aunts now have most of Grandma's work (rugs, bags and more cushions than I can possibly imagine), but I've never needed the physical manifestation of her stitching to know that, should I ever need it, permission to draw with yarn and needle was already granted. 

Not, of course, that one should make a career out of it.

Except, well, I did.

For all the goodness that has come from tapestry and knitting however,
 stitching on canvas has remained in the background--
a secret hobby the mere mention of which causes some tapestry weavers to draw back in horror if the two words appear in the same sentence.
 "Needlepoint is NOT Tapestry!!!!!" 
Of course it is not.
 But neither is it a lesser medium. 
(It probably has not escaped your notice that my needlework and  tapestries look an awful lot alike....)

Truth to tell, for most of my tapestry life, other than mending and sewing the occasional garment,  there hasn't been time for needlepoint.
In the midst of constant weaving, knitting, teaching, spinning, dyeing, drawing, hanging out with my husband and son and doing the dishes, the last thing I needed was another thing.
Indeed, I don't recall quite why I picked up needle and canvas 10 or 11 years ago,
though I know a conversation with Sarah Haskell about  embracing the grid of warp and weft (she loved it, I spent my weaving life trying to defy it),  had something to do with it, as did learning about Knotted Pile from Sara Lamb.

I do remember that the desire was fierce and immediate, and that the moment I found a piece of blank canvas I snatched every second to stitch, enthralled by the sound of the yarn swishing through holes, riveted by the the glow of the stitches -- so different from tapestry even though I was using the same yarn. ​

I made some bags, and cushions (as one does).
Then I began to study comics.
And that, for a time, was that.

Stitching, sewing, storytelling,
dyeing, drawing, dreaming,
 wild and magical and playful freedom to do as I pleased --
I'd never seen or done anything quite like it before.
When not tied up in knots about where the story was going
or how best to tell it once I knew,
I was entirely at my ease. 

 Needlepoint Comics provided a kind of elbow room I was not, at the time, getting with tapestry, 
though those familiar with my work may notice that Stripes is connected to the tapestry book Casting Off, picking up where that book ends.

None of this stuff happens in isolation.
In fact, most of the work on these comics took place as I was writing the novel that would become the Rough Copy series of tapestries -- sequential narrative finding its way into tapestry in a different form.
When I began to actually weave those 13 pieces though, I had neither time nor creative energy for  anything else -- and certainly not something as demanding and compelling as needlepoint.

But now I'm back.
And it was those tapestries that are responsible --
 the addiction to words that was not entirely (even remotely) cured by weaving them,
led to unscripted writing at the loom (no cartoon),
which generated an idea that I might be able to write longer sentences on a backstrap loom,
and sucked me down the rabbit hole I'm currently in (discussed in myriad previous blog posts),
and then the lightbulb moment (lights are good down in rabbit holes),
that I have been weaving the linen grid I longed for back when I was making those giant comics panels above, but couldn't figure out how to do without a floor loom. 
Sometimes I am so dense.

 Now, alas, I've gone on and on,
​the work is calling
and I have not addressed the technical aspects of the thing
-- yarn, sett, materials etc--
which is what I meant to talk about.
Ah well.
Maybe next time.
​I'll know more by then anyway.

See ya!

​

But what does work look like? 
And how can you identify a distraction when you meet it?

What are distractions anyway, if not the first tiny steps -

in pursuit of a dream?

Where they begin

and where they go

(if anywhere at all)

is the great mystery.

But the only way to find out, is to begin.

It is my belief that every tapestry has the right
to move and sway and spin.

Indeed, freeing my tapestries from strictures
​is what you might call a long term goal.

Not that it is often realized.

Tapestries  end up on walls more often than not
(and look darned good while they are about it).

But even when on the wall, they usually have the structural integrity to hang with minimal support and do not need to be stretched or stapled or otherwise confined.

Not that I haven't done all three things to various works over time,
but it always feels like I'm being mean.

Twirling is such fun. 
And cloth is so good at it.

Getting my work out into the air is made easier for me
because I work in all my weft tails as I go
so the front and back look essentially the same.
(They are not but that is not a topic for today).

Indeed, to touch on something my friend Summer wrote about in her blog post yesterday,
I  end up spending a lot of time in the guise of a beginner.

Tapestry books are another way to escape the dreaded frame,
the reader getting to touch each page in its turn
​and experience ​the heft and fluidity of this amazing cloth.
One of these days, I'll return to these.  
​When the time is right.

Isn't it great how ideas circle around?
Nearly 20 years after that first mobile,
I'm exploring the form again.

When I started writing this morning I thought I'd end up getting into some of the reasons I find frames claustrophobic.  but I think I'll save that for another day

It's all just so interseting.

First, weave a tapestry.

Next,
Decide if you can bear to sully its inherent perfection
with another medium.

 Sometimes I can't.  
Sometimes I must.

 I have never liked mixing my media.
(Never Mix Never Worry...)
But as I've mentioned before,
some ideas are hell bent on having their way.

So in I go.

1. Draw , or trace a drawing, onto rice paper.
Note: It'd be nice if I could specify what kind of rice (or maybe mulberry) paper,
but I'm using scraps left over from some else's printing class 
and it is unlabeled.  Perhaps you can tell by looking?
At any rate, it is semi-translucent, flexible and strong..
In my first experiments I used cheap tracing paper
but it crumbled beneath my needle.
  I read somewhere that tissue paper works, but don't have any.

​2. Baste the sketch to the tapestry with thickish cotton thread
-- something that is strong, easy to see and easy to pull out--
then start stitching along the lines of your sketch with wool yarn and running stitch.

3. When all the lines are in place, gently tear away the rice paper,
one shape at a time.  Bigger shapes are easier than small ones.
​This is a fiddly process.  Tweezers can be helpful.

4. When the paper is all gone, the lines can be further defined
and the shapes filled in.
​ I generally pause at this point.
​
In love with the simple dotted lines
it sometimes takes a day or two before I'm ready to 'color in' the shapes.

Once started though, it is hard to stop.

The colored stitching stays on one surface of the tapestry
though as you can see below, it shows through if I've not been super careful
Also note the slight drawing in of the tapestries where there is lots of embroidery on the other side.

 I often get carried away with the pleasure of needle and yarn,
but find less is generally more to my liking.
​
In the image below, a few solid lines
and  a little detached buttonhole stitch
​was all that was required.

Some works want even less than that.

ps. Before I hit 'post', it suddenly seems like a good idea to mention a few favorite books about stitching-and people-who-embroider.  There are, of course, myriad how-to stitching books out there, basic instructions and ways to think about stitching as an artist, but not so many that delve into the theory of embroidery.

Here are some links :
The Subversive Stitch by Rozsika Parker
Celebrating The Stitch by Barbara Lee Smith
Hand Stitch Perspectives and Machine Stitch Perspectives
both by Alice Kettle and Jane McKeating
Also a monograph on the artist Audrey Walker that I think I got from the Selvedge magazine bookstore, but am not sure. 

In making these links (and I apologize for using Amazon, but it is an easy way to get the information across) , I see that my copy of Subversive Stitch is out of date as it has been re-issued with new material, a new cover and a new high price.  Also, Celebrating The Stitch can be had for one American Penny (plus shipping). 

In going through my book collection, I found that I have more books on stitching than I have on tapestry weaving, but more catalogs of tapestry exhibitions. This probably just means that there ARE more books about stitching than tapestry, and more embroiderers than tapestry weavers.  But does it also mean that there are more tapestry exhibitions?  
Probably not. 

What are your favorites? Do tell!!

Unlike my Grandmother's  silver, paintings and jewelry, these exquisite pieces of cloth were uncontested, my sister and I the only grandchildren to even notice them.
Simultaneously gleeful and mournful, we 'rescued' these gorgeous things from whatever fate might have had in store for them had we left them there.

My plan, at the time, was to use them as ground fabric for embroidery--
such lovely cloth (edges already finished), cried out for imagery.

Or so I thought.
But after one attempt, I found myself paralyzed.
I'd get something out, turn it this way and that,
imagine drawing with needle and yarn,
then put it away. 
​
At first I thought it was because I wasn't all that interested, 
stitching a short-lived distraction from tapestry with no staying power. 

It turns out, however, that embroidery doesn't work like that for me.

 Exquisite fabric demands perfect stitching,
or at least a plan,  and my deliberately messy, spontaneous needlework is more at home on bits and scraps where I am free to change my mind -- about stitches, about yarn, about whatever it is that I have to say.

This is probably why I'm not a quilter. 
Pristine yardage is  lovely already  and cutting it to bits only to sew it together again
​makes my scissors shake. 
Perhaps it is also why I am a weaver and knitter.
With those techniques I can build fabric the exact size I need for whatever I have in mind.
As, indeed, I can build an phrase out of scraps. 

Sometimes I worry about the linens in the suitcase.
I don't, after all, want them to feel abandoned.
So now and again I heat up my iron and give them a little press with lots of steam,
admire their sheen and think of ways I might put them to work.
Then I roll them neatly (don't want permanent creases in the folds), and put them away.

One of these days perhaps I'll start eating my granola on one of the placemats,
 accidentally slop some tea in one corner then wipe blackberry juice from my mouth with my great grandmother's monogram.
Loosen them up.  Loosen me up. 

Until then, I'll continue to delve into my scrap basket and see what shows up.

Faces have been making me crazy for decades
​but I can't seem to stop working with them.

In the past, I've gone for extremes -- a portrait, or almost no features at all.

I am not, by nature, a portraitist so getting 
​ three people 'right' in one tapestry was definitely cause for celebration. 

Easier, by far, to skip the features,
especially in small work where less is often more,
though viewers are sometimes confused by this.
"Where is her face?" they ask.

"Sometimes," I reply, "a face distracts from the story."

At other times, emptyness is the point.

This  enormous commission relied on specific faces and
 I spent months worrying if I would get them right.
​
On my next body of work, it was a delight 
 to skip the heads entirely

As I write this and look at these images,
I realize that avoiding the trauma/ drama of getting faces 'right' 
was a large factor in my decision to stop accepting commissions.
People wanted to be in their tapestries and they wanted to look like themselves.
Too much pressure for me.

Indeed, it was a tremendous relief to focus on my own ideas
and explore ways in which body posture could portray the mood of the moment,

Studying comics  added a new dimension to my work
and I found that​ simplifying but not eliminating the features
allowed figures to be both general and specific.

How is it that this work can keep grabbing me? 

  ps.  NEXT WEEK is my stop on the ATA Blog Tour, so I will post  a day later than usual, on Wednesday the 27th, as Wednesdays are blog tour days.
Be sure to stop by Elizabeth Buckley's tomorrow and see what she has to say


​