Historic Fibers

Everybody Wins

We have a winner for the Zombie Haiku Contest! Or really, three winners. Ginny was the People's Choice winner with her nod to undergraduate brainlessness. Chris was the second runner-up with her trenchant critique of the Jane Austen/Zombie combo, and Nikki was the third runner-up with her ode to Zombie love.

The random number generator winner, Ryan, actually declined his prize since - get this - he already owns the book. I'll refrain from commenting on that one. He even actually published a book of Zombie Haiku poetry. Who knew that Zombie Haiku was a genre? Or that there were professional Zombie Haiku ringers entering my contest? So that means that both Ginny and Chris get copies of the book, and because I like everyone to be happy, I have entered into negotiations with Nikki to come up with an alternative prize for her.

Everybody wins. Have a good weekend, and watch out for Zombies.

Mundane

I don't know what it is about the week after a three-day holiday weekend, but it tends to be a morass of the mundane. I've spent the week doing boring, necessary things like visiting the post office, bank, recycling center, various stores to procure various necessary supplies, washing all my wool sweaters so they can be packed away for the summer, cleaning out the medicine cabinet, and all of this has been punctuated by uncontrollable yawning. Ho hum.

So let's take a look at some dyeing, shall we? Here are some silk noils that I dyed last week:

Silk noils are clumps of little nubbly bits of silk, and they can be carded into wool to give it some texture for spinning or felting. The blobs of different colors are bombyx noils, and the sheet of various colors are tussah noils. Exciting, no?

Tight Laced

I very much enjoyed all of your guesses as to what exactly the giant wool condom actually was meant to be. I hadn't expected that kind of a response, especially since it wasn't a contest, but I particularly appreciated the suggestions that it must be a "quiver". Especially given what it looked like initially. For some reason, that really struck me as funny.

Anyway, I'm here to end your agony and tell you what I was going for with that particular piece of felt. I was trying to make a bag for my spindle, which will heretofore be referred to as a spindle quiver:

Okay, maybe in that picture it still looks like a giant wool condom with grommets and lacing. But you can see that the whole point here was that the base needs to be broader to accomodate the spindle whorl, and the neck of the bag needs to be tighter so the thing doesn't fall out or rattle around, and there also needs to be some extra room for fiber.

Here it is all laced up:

I purposely made this one kind of plain, since I was experimenting with the shape and size. I think for the next one I'll place the grommets further apart so that I can lace the top more tightly. Kind of like a corset. Spindles are really sexy pieces of equipment (well, not mine, which is kind of a serviceable sort of spindle, but a lot of them) and they deserve a spicy little bag. I'll give the next one a little more pizazz as is befitting a condom - er - corset - erm - quiver!

Three Way Tie

Well, we ended up with a three way tie on the Zombie Haiku contest, so that means I have to ask you to choose among these three so we can declare a winner:

1. Undergraduates
Think they have all the answers.
Zombies ate their brains.

2. Zombie Jane Austen...
The mind boggles then shuts down
to protect itself.

3. my ex loves zombies
we watched dawn of the dead
now I love zombies

At least we're beginning to narrow it down. And I'm getting lots of practice at dealing with poll HTML. This poll will close on Thursday at 7 p.m. PST. Thanks for bearing with me here!

Meanwhile, back in the studio . . .

I've been goofing around in the studio lately, and have a few oddments to show you. First of all, I need to make a tea cozy for my neighbor, Rhonda. Rhonda and her husband, Chef Tony, run a catering business and they regularly feed me when I don't feel like cooking. Check out their catering menu, and you'll see why I like to keep them happy when I can. Rhonda is a tea afficionado, although we have very different taste in teas - she is more of an English Breakfast type while I am a devoted Earl Grey girl, at least when I can't get my hands on Mariage Freres.

I've known Rhonda for a long time, and I have a pretty good sense of her taste in color as well as in tea, so I dug through the piles of wool trying to find the right combination. Even after having dyed 5 pounds of wool recently, I didn't have the right yellow. I needed a more subtle Dijon yellow, and all I had were screaming Mozart yellows. But wait! I have natural-dyed wools, which tend to be more subdued. I know poor Maia has been despairing of all my acid dyeing exploits, since she is a proponent of all things natural dyed. She will be pleased to know that 1) I will be doing some natural dyeing very soon; and 2) this time, it was natural dyes to the rescue. Here is the combo for Rhonda's tea cozy:

Dijon yellow BFL dyed with osage, a green alpaca, a lilac alpaca, and the one all the way to the left is really a dark purple merino, even though it looks blue here. I'm thinking pansies (whoops, Vicki just plotzed - I can feel it). I'll probably need to throw in a more vibrant yellow for the pansy centers - I have a BFL dyed with Kamala that feels like steel wool but felts beautifully.

So while I ruminated on pansies, I experimented with a new gadget I picked up the other day. I went to the fabric store and became fascinated by grommets and eyelets and all the things necessary to make them. I brought home a pair of eyelet pliers and a package of eyelets, and proceeded to make holes in a felt swatch:

Now I'm even more fascinated with grommets and eyelets. These were really easy to do, and I love the way they look. Which brings me to the next bizarre studio experiment:

I know, I know, it looks like a giant wool condom. Honestly, it won't look like this when I'm done with it, and I'm going to make you wait to see what it turns out to be. I'm pretty sure you'll never guess. But I can tell you that there will be eyelets! Have a good weekend!

It's All Art

Today I'm going to meet with Robin of Meridian Jacobs. Robin won the Artery's gallery exhibit lottery and she got the November 2010 slot for the gallery space. All of the fiber artists want the November slot because it is the best time of year for us to showcase wool and fiber art. Since Robin is a weaver, most of her pieces will use wall space for display, so I checked with her to see if she might be interested in doing a co-exhibit with my three dimensional work, and she agreed.

We've been trying to nail down the theme for the exhibit. I had been fixated on doing a series in which I translate master paintings into felted objects of one sort or another. The whole reason I had that idea in the first place is I am obsessed with making a cloche based on Mondrian:

Wouldn't that pattern make a great hat? This will be a challenge to do in felt because there are such precise lines, but I think I can do it one way or another. There are a lot of other great possibilities - I've been digging back through my art books and have lots of ideas. Robin had some pretty amazing thoughts as well, so we'll meet today to look over images and decide on some paintings we can start with. We'll do some paintings together with her interpreting them into woven pieces and me interpreting the same piece into felt, and then we'll also choose some works to do singularly.

Now, there are various schools of thought on this sort of thing. Some might argue that using another person's art as inspiration is cooptation, but I disagree. I think it draws a parallel between different mediums, and claims that textiles ARE art, even if they are functional. You can see where my opinions fall on the whole "art versus craft" debate. To me, it's all art and functionality is a nonissue. So-called "fine art" serves a function, even if that function is more cerebral than physical. So whether art functions to make you think or can be used to open a beer bottle, I would rather surround myself with carefully and mindfully created objects than with soulless, mass-produced dreck. And I suspect many of you would agree.

You Decide

Okay, I am going to let you all decide which of the fantastic haikus deserves the second book. I had thought I should narrow the field down a bit, but haikus are not very long, and I'm going to exclude Ryan's haiku because he already won a book. So I will list and number the remaining haikus, and there is a poll so you can pick the one you like the best. Terri suggested that people should not vote for their own, but I think you can if you like yours best. Here we go:

1. Undergraduates
Think they have all the answers.
Zombies ate their brains.

2. Mister Schubert writes
Zombies dance across his score
Music entwines death

3. Zombie Jane Austen...
The mind boggles then shuts down
to protect itself.

4. tracking, hunting you
your entrails are so tasty
your fear draws me near

5. my ex loves zombies
we watched dawn of the dead
now I love zombies

6. blood, death, destruction
zombies eat brains except the
one who likes liver

7. Brains!!! the zombie lacks
Shuddering, lurch-armed toward
YOU, his next big snack

8. I tried to love you.
But love is a messy thing
when with a zombie.

9. Brains he says glibly
I do not think so, kind sir
The frosty reply.

10. Appearance of life
Is the zombie’s true deceit
While in search of brains

11. Nothing in the world
Is more delicious than brains
Except for more brains

12. Damballah Wedo;
Night of the Living Dead ones...
Partying all night!

 The poll will be open until midnight on Sunday, May 24. Please vote for your favorite:

Zombie Haiku Winner

The random number generator has spoken, and Ryan was chosen as the winner of the Zombie Haiku contest. Here is Ryan's haiku:

in the April rain
her book of zombie haiku
withered by the oak


Now, I do have another copy of the book, and we can pick a people's choice winner for the second book, but I have no clue how to narrow down the field. I like all of the entries! Any suggestions?

All is Forgiven

Dear Mondavi Center,

We haven't had the smoothest relationship this season. In fact, I have been referring to it as "the season from Hell" for some time now. It started with you denying me tickets to two out of six events I requested.

Then, you assigned me a terrible seat located in string quartet Siberia for the first concert. I couldn't hear a bloody thing. Your ticket office staff remained unmoved by my plaintive pleadings that they really needed to exchange my seat location for the second concert, and in fact offered me a seat that was worse than the one I already possessed.That turned out to be a very strange concert for a variety of reasons that neither of us could anticipate or control, although I could at least hear it.

Remember that concert ticket I tried to add on to my subscription? The one you wanted to charge me $10 to mail three miles across town? That was unnecessary.

And then there was the whole Brandenberg Concerto debacle. The concert was canceled, then rescheduled due to a "stage equipment malfunction," and I had to rearrange my entire life to be there. Granted, it was worth the effort, but still. And when I checked on my waitlist status for one of the events I was initially denied, your ticket office staff informed me that there were 600 other people on the waitlist, and I should probably make other plans for the evening.

I was not amused.

But you have managed to redeem yourself. Yesterday, at the 11th hour, I received a call from the ticket office, who offered me a ticket to see Yo-Yo Ma, playing the unaccompanied Bach cello suites, over the other (now) 699 people on the waitlist. I can only interpret this as an abject apology on your part, and I am reminded why I liked you in the first place. I think we can both agree that no one deserved to be at that concert more than I did, and I am quite certain that no one enjoyed it more.

At the moment, all is forgiven, but there is one concert remaining in this season. Don't blow it.

Optimistically yours,

Julia

Zombie Haiku - Last Chance!

Okay, so maybe it isn't your very last chance, but the entries on the Zombie Haiku contest close tomorrow at midnight, so get busy! Thanks to Margene, who told Chris, who blogged about it, there are some pretty good entries. I'm really enjoying reading all your takes on the Zombie Haiku theme. Keep them coming!