Advice in the most unexpected manner

2014/12/282015/01/15Leave a comment

“Working material into the hand, learning by working it of its obedience and its resistance, its potency and its weakness, its charm and dullness. The material itself is full of suggestions for its use if we approach it unaggressively, receptively. It is a source of unending stimulation and advises us in a most unexpected manner.”

—Anni Albers, “Design Anonymous and Timeless,” Magazine of Art, 1947

From a piece by Sarah Jones on the Kaufmann Mercantile blog. The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation has more.

Image is Anni Albers’ Design for Tablecloth, 1930, from the MoMA

parsons and peacocks

2014/12/172 Comments

Sitting, waiting, thinking.

peacock rug complete

2014/12/092014/12/094 Comments

After completing stitching and staring at it for a while, I trimmed the edges of the silk gauze to about a quarter-inch (6 mm).

I washed and gently blotted it mostly dry, then pinned it into square(ish) and left it to dry overnight.

The raw edges are turned to the back, corners mitered, and the edge oversewn exactly one row of the 49-count silk gauze with a double strand of Gütermann silk. I pondered the binding color at length, and finally chose the darker gray.

This is what the back looks like, and shows the combination of tent, basketweave and snarled stitches. Mistakes were made. Many were corrected, but some were discovered too late. Kind of like life.

I fused featherweight interfacing to the back, to protect and seal the raw edges. Note to self: dust your build floors more often!

And here’s the finished rug, inviting you in to the Sea House Pavilion for a cup of tea or a glass of wine. It’s a great place to watch the storm blow in.

lifelines

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in no particular order

2014/12/022014/12/042 Comments

Peacock rug getting there! Just the remaining green background left to stitch. Then blocking and binding.

(Finished size will be 4.625 x 3.125 inches (11.75 x 7.9 cm), 227 x 153 stitches, Gütermann silk on 49-count silk gauze, from a design by Roger Fry, as charted by Melinda Coss in Bloomsbury Needlepoint From the Tapestries at Charleston Farmhouse.)

Then I’ve been playing around with Kris Compas’s current tutorial for an upholstered parsons chair, using this great cotton stripe from a thrift store shirt. Other than (endless) work on the Peacock rug, I think this is the first miniature building I’ve done since I packed everything up to move in the summer. (The cording is made from three strands of DMC floss, and is more true to scale than using all six strands. In case you noticed.)

Penultimately, here is my first repeating pattern!

The color palette is a combination of hues drawn from photos of the ocean and from the persimmon tree in Soquel. The simplicity is perhaps underwhelming, but this represents hours and hours of work. Onward!

And finally, I did go back to the indie dollar store and buy up all the boxes of Prang KantRolls.