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.

And since hand/arm rest
IS the order of the day
I'm not even going to edit
or re-type  all the above nonsense 
but rather,
and against the better judgement
of my inner Storymaker
(who prefers things to be tidy--
or at least not to end so abruptly),
I'll hit Post
because really,
why not?

--aka: three projects to keep
my holiday angst
​ in check.

1.  a twined basket 
made with
dead leaf cordage
(iris, daylily, cornhusk)
​ and coffee filter yarn

roughly but satisfyingly mended
​with a lopsided eggbeater drill,

some hand spun linen,
and a couple of needles,

now the middle of being read
with enormous enjoyment
(extra powerful since it is once again sturdy)--
and with particular joy
because Kate's first chapter
is on mending....

that turned out to be too big
to fit through any doors in my house

but which nevertheless
makes a fine blind

for photographing 
the rare and non-migratory
​ ten foot pink flamingo.

Life's grand and absurd, eh?
Might as well
​let the good times roll on
(even when the gifts inside
​ are invisible).

Our house does not have a linen cupboard,
which means we only  have
one set of sheets at a time.
and on laundry day
​ they must go
off the bed,
into the washer,
onto the line,
and back onto the bed
before nightfall.

My husband is also a restless sleeper,
and wears out our sheets 
at what seems a prodigious rate
so over the decades
we've been through
quite a few.
And of course this makes me sad
as, being a textile person,
I get attached.

Happily however, though the cloth gives way
in the middle of a sheet
there are still many useful bits 
around the edges.
I've sewn many into bags
for shipping tapestries,
and storing clean fleeces.

Others, I've loved so much 
that I sewed them back together every which way
with bits of themselves or others
layer upon layer,
like so much flannel Boro
which can be used as an extra thick sheet
a funky quilt,
or even an indoor sleeping bag.

Still others have reinforced
my favorite bathrobe
(my only bathrobe, actually),
which grows thicker by the year
as the yummy old cotton wears away,
like sand on a coastline,
and is subsequently replaced
with the rich edges
of the most recent sheets
whose centers have bitten the dust. 

A few years ago I wondered
if actual linen linens
might last a little longer than cotton,
so splurged on two huge flat linen sheets,
on the theory that constant shifting
of bottom to top
and top to bottom 
and this side to that
might distribute the wear.
It seemed to work, for a while.
Certainly faithfully turning them 
has given me lots of good practice 
making tight hospital corners 
on whichever was acting as the bottom sheet.
But alas, even as they have grown
softer and more delicious,
the usual wear patterns still showed up
and the day before yesterday
as I hung them to dry from the beams of my studio,
I saw actual holes.
​Sigh.

Sides-to-middling is a thing
I've only read about in novels --
 usually used as an adjective 
to describe genteel poverty
or excessive thriftiness
as in "she has sides-to-middle sheets."
It's not generally seen as a compliment. 
But somehow it always intrigued me.
And it seems straightforward enough.
So yesterday I cut the sheet down the center,
​(the one with actual holes),
began hemming and patching the new (worn) edges,
and later today (I hope)
​will stitch the previously unworn sides
​together to become the new middle.
​It won't be fancy,
But I hope it can go back on the bed.

But my mending is rarely fancy.
There is no special thread
or elegant Sashiko stitching in this work.
Not that I'd mind if there were.

I just know that if I set up such expectations
the mending would not happen,
so I rely on plain old running stitch,
the occasional backstitch to anchor it,
whatever thread that is at hand,
(quilting thread, embroidery floss, all purpose in some color).
and sometimes a patch
​ (fat quarters are fun)
on the inside or out
(or both for the butt of my jeans).

The results, alas, are haphazard
since for me the point
is to extend the life of beloved
or particularly useful  clothing
so they (and I) can get back to work.

Not that mending isn't work.
Indeed, without me really noticing
​I find that it has become
an elemental component of my practice --
not only to extend the life of a handspun sweater
​or expensive sheets,

but also to honor
​some perfectly replaceable leggings
​that just happen to have come in to my life
​and fit just right

which makes them as valuable
as whatever spindle spun 
backstrap woven cloth
​I make while wearing them. 

as shovel-handle friction had its way
amidst the falling snow.

But LOOK!
It's not snowing now.
And I've already showed you
way too many photos
​ of the underside
of my textile rich life.
So back we go to whatever it is we were doing.
My needle awaits.
​As does the bed.

Gotta have ‘em!

Fabric store ‘eco-felt’ (from plastic bottles apparently),
that has been languishing in my shoe experiment stash,
plus a scrap of nylon something-or-other
​from a failed waterproof shoe experiment,

and the not-quite-worn-out soles
​ from the now-disintegrating yellow ones,

equals a relatively swift,
and somewhat half-assed,
pair of minimalist running shoes.

Function has an elegance all its own.

Or, as wise women have said,
“​Done is better than perfect.”

As winter draws to a close (or pretends to),
the pile of sweaters in need of a minor mend
grows ever larger --
​one more unfinished task among many.

​Knitting sleeves from shoulder to cuff with mending in mind
means it’s generally just a matter of removing the worn out fragments,
ripping back a few rows (admiring the shape the currugated rib yarn while I’m about it),
and picking up the waiting stitches to cast off again--
so I know I’ll be thoroughly engaged in the process once I start.

Indeed, I love mending--
just as I love the satisfaction of having mended
and of using/wearing things that have proven their worth over time--
so I’m not sure why I put it off.

Perhaps that is why mending is helpful —once I start--
as it helps me to remember how much I liked this yarn,
​ how much I like it still.

​Look —the colors glow brighter even as the re-knitting commences.

Or maybe it’s just that the sun is now shining on the snow
and bouncing into the studio,
reminding me that it is not yet spring
and an almost mended sweater will keep my best beloved warm
far sooner than the fleece I’d otherwise be carding for the next one.

Knitting and Mending too.

May your days be warm, mellow and delicious.
Yesterday, I took a nap.
A small triumph.

Back in the New Year!

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...

After seven years of hard wear and two cuff mends,
the bottom of my son's sweater had begun to fray.
Shoulder to cuff is my preferred way to knit sleeves, which makes cuff mending a simple matter of unraveling a few rows and re-knitting (with other yarn if necessary).
The cast on edge of a bottom up sweater is not, however, made for unraveling,
so I  went up an inch or so, snipped a strand of yarn, and pulled out one row all the way around, leaving a nice row of stitches to pick up and an inch of sweater to unravel for re-knitting (discarding the yarn from the bottom couple of rounds which was too weak and worn to re-use).
Foolishly, I picked the row right after a cable turn to snip to separate the two sections, so the unraveling was more awkward than it might have been.

But eventually I got it all sorted and reknit and cast off.  Starting an inch up means that next time I can unravel right from the cast off end which will be much simpler. 

The only drawback to picking up the stitches and going in the opposite direction is that the loops are half a stitch off, but with the cables this really isn't evident.

Nothing miraculous  about any of this,
but a good deal of satisfaction in keeping it going, and much pleasure in handling the sweater and the yarn again.

It was a thoroughly-planned garment that began with choosing the fleece (grey Rambouillet X)
and went on to months of spindle spinning,
endless samples plied, yarn dyed, swatches knit ​and
​mailed across several states for perusal and approval.

Final decisions on yarn weight and color led to massive plying (4 ply won out over 3), huge dyepots,  much  knitting, and even some swatch unraveling at the very end as all those cables used more yarn even than what I thought were overgenerous calculations.

Sometimes I think my love of mending has nothing to do with practicality 

and everything to do with the energy of time.
It is as though the fabric itself is imbued with accumulated stories
​ and by continuing to use it,

by saving the good parts of beloved but unwearable clothing to make other things

and then mending them again when, surprise  surprise, they continue to disintegrate,
the stories in the fibers not only stay put, but also get to keep unfolding in ways that might never have been predicted decades, or days before.
​
Two weeks ago I posted about fixing my running shoes and in the comments Lisa asked:
​  "At what point does the "Ship of Theseus" kick in and they become not the original shoes?"

I dont' have an answer to that, though it is fun to think about.
​And certainly once I've covered up all of this-beloved-but-vanishing linen-that-was-once-my-favorite-favorite-jacket with chain stitch, 
the nature of this particular bag will be quite different.

I might feel a new person when I carry it.
Or perhaps it'll demand a fresh purpose.
Being stuffed to the gills with spindles and pens and notebook and wallet and phone and empty bags for whatever I might find, or unceremoniously  twisted into a sort of a backpack while I bicycle downtown, or hanging patiently on a hook waiting for me to do something--anything--out in the world and away from the studio, is probably not that much fun.
But it will be usable, which is the point.

Yesterday I wound a linen warp -- the first in a while--

and I noticed, as the strands unwound from the cone, how very differently I felt about the yarn
than I have about the hand spun wool with which I've been weaving for most of the winter.
​Setting aside the widely different nature of the two materials for a moment
(not least the ability of my camera  to focus easily on linen and not so much on wool),
with the wool I am careful and careless at once and work with familiar ease.  
We, the yarn and I, already have a history together and therefor a kind of casual trust.
I know what to expect from it even as together we make something new.
Its flaws are my flaws and therefor both forgivable and irritating.
Like a piece of clothing I've been wearing forever.
Or shoes I made for my feet.

With the linen (which I inherited, unlabeled, from a retired weaver), all is new,
all unknown, and though I can admire its sheen and color and texture, it is not until I've leaned against the backstrap for a few hours,
not until I've unrolled and washed and stroked the yards of cloth, that I begin to feel a connection with its future.
It's not bad. Indeed, it is exciting.
Until yesterday though, I hadn't been able to name the difference. 

Note: Margaret Sunday wrote a wonderful piece for ATA talk, a forum for members of the American Tapestry Alliance which you might think about joining if you are not already a member,  about the inherent creative possibilities of the juxtiposition of the new and the familiar:  "...we are simultaneously neophobes (haters of the new)  and neophiles (lovers of the new). Where/ when the two qualities meet, ie: where their contrast is most intense, is the ah-ha!"  

My attachment, then, is not fear of the new.
Nor is it a belief that my labor is so precious.
Indeed, one of the many reasons for making and mending my own things (particularly if I can connect with the material from the very beginning), is because I'm distressed  by how little others (usually women, at least in the garment industry), are respected for their labor.
My hands and the work they do are in no way more important or valuable than anyone else's.
It's just that they are mine to use and abuse and admire as I will.
So ​I've grown attached. 
As I do.
:-)