Historic Fibers

Something from Nothing

The weekend was unbearably hot, and there was really nothing else to do but stay inside and amuse myself with fiber. When I felt, I generally trim off the excess unfelted fiber and stuff it in a bag, and the bags were starting to stack up. My intention was to card up all those bedraggled bits and pieces, snippets and strands, and turn them into batts. In other words, I planned to make something useful out of nothing in particular.

So there I was, stuck inside with two whole days stretching ahead of me, and I was ready to tackle a time consuming and somewhat tedious task, just to divert my attention away from the fact that should I venture outside, I would instantly be incinerated. I got out the bags and got out the drum carder, and started to make a batt. I've always had the finest carding head on the carder since I've generally been making batts for spinning, and I want the batts to be smoothe and buttery. But for felting, I needed texture, so I switched over to the coarse carding head and started stuffing everything I could find or scrape off the floor through the carder.

Some of the batts look like clown barf:

Never fear, this will all melt into gorgeous felt. The lumps and squiggles will either disappear or create interest, and it's fine either way.

Some of the batts were so sublimely beautiful that they took my breath away:

The more subtle ones are pretty to look at, but they may completely disappear when felted. Time will tell.

I had 6-7 bags of fiber, and ended up with 16 batts in my arsenal:

In the end, a nothing weekend turned into something after all.

Slavic Uncle Monday

I've been reading Anne Lamott's book, Bird by Bird, which is a book about writing. I'm dealing with the mother of all writer's blocks - have been for some time now - and Lamott helps cast writing (or the lack thereof) in a humorous light. I especially like what she has to say about Mondays:

"Mondays are not good writing days. One has all that freedom over the weekend, all that authenticity, all those dreamy dreams, and then your angry mute Slavic Uncle Monday arrives, and it is time to sit down at your desk."

She recommends that you not try to write on Mondays ("Why set yourself up for failure?"), and I concur.

Mondrian Cake

Remember how I said I wanted to make a Mondrian hat? A pastry chef at SFMOMA makes one Mondrian cake each day. I want that cake.

Fitting

I've been stuck on a cycling plateau for a while now - riding the same distance in the same time and not feeling like it's ever going to improve. As luck would have it, Dan won a bike fitting at the high end bike store in town, the one that caters to the triathletes and the competitive cyclists, and since he has already had his bikes fitted, he gave it to me.

I was a little bit nervous about the whole idea. I'm not a competitive cyclist and have no interest in becoming one, and I was worried that the bike tech might be a bit snooty about the whole thing. But I shouldn't have worried, and it actually turned out to be fun. I am amazed at the ways a well-trained person can tweak a bike. My tech dude measured angles and heights and even used a level to make sure everything was just so. The results were pretty spectacular.

I'm a pretty slow cyclist. I usually ride about 20-25 miles several times a week, and it takes me a good hour and a half to 2 hours, which means I'm averaging 10-12 miles per hour. 2 hours a day on a bike is about the limit of my attention span, so in order to increase my distance, I'm going to have to get faster. I'd like to hit 15-16 miles per hour on average - just as a point of reference, professional cyclists usually hit speeds about twice that fast. Before the bike fitting, I could go that fast for short periods, but I couldn't maintain it and I was reaching to get there in the first place. In my first test ride after the fitting, I was hitting 15-16 miles per hour consistently without reaching. I'm a believer.

I'm getting to the part that explains how I can justify talking about all this geeky bike stuff on a fiber blog. One of the bike parts that got replaced was my seat post, and tech dude just happened to install one by an interesting bike manufacturer:

It's hard to read the logo, but this is a Felt seat post (although it's made from carbon fiber, not wool). I'm quite certain that one of the reasons my bike fitting made such a huge difference is this seat post. It is, after all, only fitting.

Ascot

Ladies Day at Royal Ascot has just come and gone. Check out this year's hats!

Postcard from the Edge

I got this postcard last year, and have yet to find the perfect person to send it to:

Perhaps I should send it to my dissertation.

The Second

I've been contemplating the second piece in the Torch series. Here's what I have so far:

This one was made in three layers with a stacked resist. I like the colors, but I'm not entirely enthralled with the triangular shape of the underlying layer. I'll continue working with this one to get a more interesting shape. By the way, there is a silk hankie overlay on that bottom layer.

I've also been thinking about how to mount these, and I think I will attach them to sized, stretched canvas, possibly with an archival PVA glue. But I'm also thinking about using a textile medium to stiffen the folds on the upper layers and give them some body. I'll need to do some experiments on pieces of felt that don't really matter before I decide.

I already know what the third piece will be, but need to set aside some time to make it. I'll keep you posted.

Names

I'm one of those somewhat annoying people who feels a need to name some of my belongings. Not everything, mind you, just certain things that I interact with happily and often. The Prius, for example, is Percy, my road bike is Scarlett, and my electric tea kettle is Jeeves. Oddly enough, some objects that I am quite fond of do not have names - my spinning wheel for instance has never seemed to require an appellation.

It seems natural to name living things. The cats, of course, have names and each has a few nicknames. The squirrels who have recently decided to populate the redwood trees around my house have been given sweet, affectionate names by my neighbor, but since they keep digging up my cilantro, instead I refer to them with a string of quaint expletives.

Children sometimes give their toys names. You may have noticed, in my studio shelf photo from a few days ago, that I have a pink, sparkly stuffed unicorn. Let me explain about that. It was a gift from my 14-year-old cousin, and I love it because she gave it to me and also because it is so completely NOT me. Sometimes it is good to be open to things you would never choose for yourself. And I think the pink sparkly unicorn deserves a name, but I haven't been able to come up with anything appropriate. I thought about "Twinkle," but I used to have a boyfriend who referred to a certain part of his anatomy . . . Ahem. Let's just say it's too close for comfort. Which brings up the interesting topic of what people name parts of their bodies. Any sociologists out there? That would make a riotous topic for a dissertation.

Just about every item I have knit has a name - all of the patterns have names so therefore the sweaters, scarves, gloves, hats, etc. have names as well. Sometimes the names don't stick, but I suspect the Scotland sweater will always be the Scotland sweater (and it has recently begun to have sleeves!).

Most of the felt hats I make have names, but that is more a marketing thing than a sign of attachment. The first hat I ever sold was a pink confection named, for marketing purposes, "Clara Bow." In my mind, I sarcastically called it "Barbie's Dream Hat," which is something I would prefer the current owner not know.

I am acquainted with several people who name their electronics, and I never really have before. The first iPod had no name. And I suspect its distress at being an anonymous servant to my questionable musical taste led to its tragic demise. I don't want to make the same mistake with the new iPod, and I would also like it to have a less problematic relationship with Schubert, so I have named it Franz. Franz appears to have a cheerful disposition, unlike its less cooperative predecessor. I think we will get along famously, as long Franz resists the siren call of the buckets of water, which shall remain nameless.

Addendum:

The pink sparkly unicorn conundrum has been nagging at me (no pun intended). Since I don't generally do cute, I decided to take it in the complete opposite direction and come up with the most butch name I could think of, excluding "Butch," which lacks imagination. The unicorn will hereafter be called "Spike." I may need to make it a black leather studded collar. And possibly replace the eyes with red glowing LED lights. Hmm.

Demo

I did a felting demonstration at the Artery a couple of weeks ago, and it was a surprisingly fun experience. I got hooked into it when we realized that after the ceramics show came down, there was nothing going on in the gallery for a week. So Sara Post and I went to work to organize a series of demonstrations by the various artists to show how they do what they do.

I hauled all my stuff to the gallery on a Friday evening and proceeded to demonstrate how to make a hat, and I had a nice group of people rotating throughout my 3 hour shift. One of the fringe benefits was that I ended up with a couple of hats. My theme for the Fall season will be the Four Elements, and I started with earth. Here is a beret made of that copper alpaca/silk that I dyed a few weeks ago:

I also mixed in some gold flax and added a long cord, which I may trim or string wooden beads on or something. Who knows. I also made a large beret using the merino/silk noil batt that I dyed a while ago too:

The shape isn't perfect on this one, but I'm thinking tweaking the shaping anyway, and may in fact add some shibori felting for texture.

A second fringe benefit of the demonstration was that I ended up with the beginnings of a mailing list. Most of the people who saw the demonstration wanted to learn how to make a hat, and I just happen to be teaching a beret class at Lambtown in October. I've been trying to figure out how to add a widget to the blog so anyone interested in classes can be added to the mailing list, but the code is eluding me at the moment. So if any of you are in the area and want to be notified about the Lambtown class, drop me an email. It should be a great event!

Studio Shelf