Weaving by the Swedish artist Karin Larsson in the beginning of 1900s

I was inspired by a young artist to show you this.
Karin Larsson's The Four Elements, in her weaving loom. Enjoy!

More on Karin Larssons work here, from an exhibition about her.

Green, brown, yellow and purple...

For the first time in my adult life I have tried to dye something, and it came out great!

 I have memories of dyeing a cotton scarf at a camp when I was maybe 12. The plant we used as dye was birch branches and aspen leaves. The people that used aspen got these really nice yellow scarves. We that were stuck with the birch got dirty light-green to beige scarves that looked old and worn... It was a major disappointment, especially since I had asked for permission to use the aspen, and the camp leaders said - no, we will split all groups in two parts, and you can't be in the other group. Why not? No idea. Probably some kind of semi-I-will-show-the-kids-I-have-the-power scheme.

Anyway, since then I have not dyed anything with natural colors that I can remember, and I am not counting stains from tomato sauce, blueberry jam, wine, or coffee on my shirts. In early summer I bought some undyed white silk scarves, white cotton yarn, and cleaned wool rowing (basically unspun naturally white wool). We got some books, and read and learned. The materials have to be pretreated with alum, a chemical, so the dye takes better, so I did that.

 Now, what to use as dye? I knew I wanted to make different colors, and base it on all natural, things I had at home.

The first batch was red onion skins. Who knew that red onion can give green colors!? Surprise! The colors showed in the book didn't really match what I got, and that is probably due to the chemistry of our well water. I also dyed some filter paper in this batch.
 
Second batch, coffee... Old coffee grains, cooked up again, filtered off, and then used as a dye bath. I think my coffee was pretty weak, so it became a light brown.
Third batch, yipeee, Turmeric! From the spice cabinet. What a color! Bright orange!!! Like, like, I don't know what. A living, deep orange.
Final fourth batch was a little test. Sometimes we have fresh blueberries from the store that go bad (=mold) in the fridge, so I had saved up a bag of them in our freezer. I cooked the berries down, filtered them, and then used the blueberry juice as a dye bath for 4 days. I had put the textiles and the dye liquid into an old orange juice bottle. Unfortunately I screwed on the top tight and left it out in the sun - after 4 days the bottle was ready to explode. Fermentation! :) Nothing got destroyed, and the colors of light purples are gorgeous.

The dyed wool and cotton yarn is now in Baltimore in AREA's artsy hands, to be used in some creative work. I can't wait to see what she will do with it.

What I learned?

• Always treat your fibers with mordant, then the colors will be better. 
• Don't hang the finished textiles for too long in the sun or they will become sunbleached. 
• Do not make fermented blueberry juice. 
• Big-mouthed orange juice plastic bottles are great for long-term dyeing.  No risk that an animal will drink it and you can shake it a lot to distribute the liquid well. 

Art, art, art...... from the capital

A little less than a year ago I was visiting Washington DC and took a few hours to visit some of the amazing museums they have here.  Here is just some quick snapshots of some great art and design I saw, for your enjoyment:

Neil Jenney's 'Coat and Coated', Corcoran Gallery.  This is a self-referential piece of art.


 John Garret's 'Mixed media', Renwick Gallery.  Metal quilting...


Darryl and Karen Arawjo's 'Nest of Fifteen' handmade baskets, Renwick Gallery.


Larry Fuente's 'Game Fish', made from toy pieces mostly, Renwick Gallery. 


'Michael James' 'Quilt #150, Rehoboth Meander', Renwick Gallery.


Stairs inside the Museum of the American Indian.


The outside of the Museum of the American Indian, designed as a sedimentary rock wall.


Window into the courtyard of Freer Gallery.

Which one is your favorite?

Stamp of the Day: knitted scarf

Just a gorgeous, old-fashioned knitted scarf on a stamp from Sweden (2011), and the whole set next to it.  I'd like to have one like this...this pattern is both so simple and complex.  This series of stamps is called 'Mönstrat', which means patterned.  

American Craft Council Show in Baltimore, the good stuff

It all started with that I went to the Philadelphia Craft Show about two years ago and met the quilting artist Erin Wilson, whose work I love.  PP bought a little piece of her work for me (thanks) and from there it went down hill (which is a good thing!).  We saw her work again in May in Morven in Princeton, with several new pieces, including a quilt in green, browns, and reds that I am now the happy owner of!  I look at it every day. Here is a piece of it as a taste for you all.

And now Erin was exhibiting her new work again in Baltimore, at the American Craft Council Show.  I really have been pulled into the craft world through that first visit in Philadelphia. (Well, we also went to Baltimore to feed AREA who is in art school there :)

So, the American Craft Council Show is a giant thing, with maybe a thousand selected exhibitors. Everybody that is someone in the craft's world in the US is apparently there.   Everything is small-scale, handmade, and based on craft techniques.  Not everything has to be utilitarian, but I think the idea is that it has to be built on the idea of crafts in the past.  I am not sure, and I think the Craft Council isn't really sure either, because some things that I expected to see at this show are totally lacking.  More on that later some other time.  Now on to the good stuff.

Two new amazing quilts by Erin Wilson.  The white one reminds me of winter and fog...  What do you see?

I love the felt art by Danielle Gori-Montanelli. She cuts and glues felt together as legos, licorice pieces, flowers, rocks, and all kinds of other fantastic things.  Chocolate too!

Gayla Lee's glass pieces were fascinating. 

And this photo is for EH, look a bowl with painted geraniums! The bowls are made by Sherwood Forest Design. I think this was the only painted wooden bowls I saw there.  There was plenty of turned bowls in plain wood, but not much in this 'old-country' style.

This I like!  Michael Michaud takes nature's designs, mostly botanical, and cast jewelry pieces out of them.  I own several and love them!  Actually, right now when I write this I am wearing his lilac flower ear rings.

And here is my new find!  Andrea Haffner's designs, jewelry with natural twists and turns.  She collects natural objects, mostly plants, dries them them embeddes them in resin inside small metal boxes.  It is all handmade, unique, fantastic and gorgeous.I bought one of her small pendants, a darkblue box with a tiny mussel and three pearls inside, like a piece of a moonlit beach. [images from Andrea Haffner, used with permission]

There were many more interesting things to see, but I was running out of battery in my camera.  If you want to explore some more things we liked, check out: 

 Bryan Hopkins, Functional and Dysfunctional Porcelain

Robert Woldow, glass

Deborah and Richard Bloom, obsidian windchimes

Holly Tornheim, wood carvings

Liz Alpert Fay, hooked rugs and much more

Wendy Stevens, metal handbags

Laura Baring-Gould Studios, bronze sculptures

JAK designs and their tulip scarves

The not so great stuff gets a separate blog post at some other time, maybe, maybe not.  We will see.

Stamp of the Day: Swedish socks

Just a few days after I wrote the Socks entry here on the blog, a Swedish postcard showed up in our mailbox from friends in Sweden.  And guess what the stamp was?  Socks!  What a coincidence.  Socks are not really common stamp motifs indeed, in fact I can't remember ever seeing any other stamp with socks on it.  And here they are - striped, knitted socks on an official Swedish stamp. 

For the love of socks, and not just any socks...

I spend about half of each year wearing my favorite socks - those times when it is colder and you need something warm and cozy on your feet.  It is even better (I think) if the socks both makes your body and your mind happy, and therefore I love colored, patterned socks, especially striped socks. My favorite winter socks are from Smartwool, an American company that actually makes their socks in the US.  They have striped, cabled, patterned, funky, long, short and just gorgeous socks.  OK, so I am a sock woman...  Right now I have Swedish socks on, cotton with black and white stripes like a piano.

A few days ago I ordered a 3-pack of new socks from them.  I expected to get just the usual, three pairs of socks tied together with some plastic strap in a plastic bag.  But, big happy surprise when they arrived today.  I opened the postal package and inside was a long, narrow brown cardboard box.  On the top of the box it said "Lucky, lucky you!".  Ahhhh!  I opened the box, with a Christmas feeling in my stomach, and there they were, neatly folded up, three pairs of differently patterned red socks.  My heart filled with joy!  Not only did I get socks, but I got LUCKY socks!  Smartwool really knows how to please the customers.  Thank you, Smartwool!  And the box, that will be perfect for storing my jewelry-making tools...

Oh, I should also tell you that these wool socks can be washed in the washing machine (on cold, low temp), and last for a long time.  Yes, they do wear out, but that is because I wear them so much. 

PS.  I rarely endorse products, but in this case I really think this product is great.  And I didn't get paid a penny to write this, in fact, I paid over $40 to get three pairs of wonderful socks.  Nobody on this blog gets any freebies from any company in return for good reviews.  Nope, here we tell the truth as we see it.

Textiles from the past

Earlier this summer I had to change the fabric on my kitchen sofa. The blue checkered is my old fabric, probably made in China, bought in IKEA around 15 years ago. Under that was the stripes one, in white with yellow, red and blue lines. Might be bought, but probably home woven on a loom. Maybe my grandma did weave this, since I got the sofa from her and she knew how to weave. The next is certain to be home woven, brown, okra and black in patterns. To my surprise the oldest fabric is a printed one, with lovely roses, very romatic feel. The rose fabric I left on, and a new Ikea-fabric on top. This time striped in white, blue and red.

Maybe some day I can put a handwoven fabric on the sofa. My grandma´s loom is out of the barn and put into the guesthouse. I have decided to try to learn how to use it, with some good help from my aunt. Lots of new terms to learn, I´m reading up in borrowed books.

Bits and pieces on the internet: itchy edition

Fossil discovery: Giant fleas from the Jurassic, that might have sucked blooded from dinosaurs (NY Times). How about meeting some of these 2 cm long creatures on the inside of your wool sweater?

Some of the Republican presidential contenders appear to want to live in a different century.  Like the 1800's or something. This is both sad and upsetting. (NY Times opinion piece by Charles Blow)

Did you know cashmere comes from goats?  And angora from rabbits? So, why are people OK with wearing the hairs from goats and rabbits, but not eating them? Eating the meat, not the hairs, I mean.

Itchy poison ivy doesn't let a simple fence stop it.  In fact, it enforces it and makes it its own fence.

So, what are you readers itching about?

Bacon bits and pieces on the internet: green stuff

I love green things, both alive and very dead. But not mold. Molded green glass is OK though. (From the American Glass Museum in Wheaton, photo Vilseskogen on Flickr - more glass photos here)

More green things:

Green sushi for cowboys, kind of: picklelicious by The Good Wife (check out the photo)

Nathan Strandberg and Katie Kirk has some really nice green illustrations, except those that know me know that I don't eat celery...  This is so retro 60s and 70s to me.  I never thought I would like these shapes and colors again, after a giant overdose when I grew up, and now I do.  Fads go in circles. Even orange and brown is back with a vengeance.

There are green book trees for your wall (from Shawn So in South Korea)

And I think I could live at Green Bridge Farm (if it wasn't in Georgia, USA, too hot!), but I like the idea of smaller houses with some privacy with a common vegetable farm and pond...   pick your house here (pdf file).

And here is something partly green that I do not want in my house, even if it is crazy in a way. 



And some very green chairs from a restaurant in Stockholm (photo Vilseskogen on Flickr).

Favorite artist: Erin Wilson, quilting queen

An artist grows in Brooklyn and her name is Erin Wilson.  We saw her work for the first time at the Philadelphia Craft Show in 2011, where her large quilts of tiny, tiny pieces of handdyed, stitched pieces of fabric caught my attention and drew me in.  I love them!  The photo above is borrowed from her website, and shows one piece of a much larger quilt.  The patterns, geometric, but also natural and slightly random invokes fantasy, imagery, and emotions in a way that no textile work ever has before for me.  Here you have architecture, geology, interior designs, sailing, machines, factories, trees, shapes, and tepees, all at once - and what one person sees is not the same as the next.  Simply wonderful!  Expensive too, so I never thought I would own any of her work. (photo above, copyright Erin Wilson)

After we came home from the Philadelphia show, my husband gave me a package and in it was, you guessed it, one of her miniquilts, a 2 x 2 block mounted neatly on a wood frame for hanging on the wall.  Here it is!  What do you see?  I love it and it is now at home in our newly renovated guestroom/office.  This is really creativity at its best.  Thank you Erin for sharing this with us.

 

And then, right after Christmas we got a little brown package in the mail.  Hmm, we thought, wonder what this is.  Erin sent us a quilted tree ornament, just like that!  What an incredibly wonderful surprise!!!  When I see this I think about the power of red love, how it cracks through hard rocks and layers. Others might see the Washington Monument at sunrise, or a rocket at the Florida seashore... the impressions and feelings and interpretations are endless.

Dear Erin, Thank You so much for sharing your work and love for fabric with us.  You are absolutely amazing! We love your work and will buy more of it, promise.  Looking at these quilts make me so happy!

 (Now, go over and visit her website and GET LOST IN COLOR AND SHAPES)

SILL

New design, clearly inspired by the design culture in the 1950´s in Sweden. Here the kitchen towel "Sill" by Marianne Nilsson. More towels and fabrics from Almedahls here. I like this fabric too, "I svampskogen" av David van Berckel.