I’ve been thinking lately about how summer should be a time that follows a different rhythm. If not slower, then it should at least be restorative — a chance to enjoy the extra daylight hours and the delight of walking out the door unfettered by the extra layers we have to cope with much of the rest of the year (not counting, of course, the long sleeves and netted hood I’ve been wearing in the garden as defense against this year’s burgeoning black fly population). Beyond that, and perhaps more importantly, summer should be a time to keep computer work to a minimum, which is what this post is really about.

The beginnings of a new piece, all tied, knotted, and ready to dye

With that in mind, bear with me as I sort through things over the next weeks. The blog and I will still be here each Friday, but I am going to try to write less — an effort to free myself from the laborious editing and polishing that consume so much time. Hopefully that will lead to gaining more hours for the actual stitching and drawing I write about. It will be a way to cut myself some much-needed slack while still sharing what’s going on behind the scenes in my studio, what’s on my mind, and the various miscellanea I run into that I think will interest and, hopefully, inspire you.

As you can see compared to the seam ripper, this is a small piece – the fabric is only 15 x 15 inches. Even so, it took me almost 3 hours to sew and knot the threads. The dye process, however, only took a mere 20 minutes.

I look forward to, and encourage, your continuing comments and emails when something you see here resonates with you. And please let me know how you switch gears to allow for extra elbow room during the summer months – I welcome new ideas.

❖

Apologies to those of you who are also on my general art mailing list; this will be something of a repeat…

Carefully snipping the knots and removing the threads is sticky and laborious business, taking another hour to accomplish. But the thrill of revealing the pattern makes it all worth it.

I was really happy to receive a link this week to the museum-produced trailer for the 2019 Rijswijk Textile Biennial. It has made me all the more excited to go see the show in person this fall. I’m also looking forward to seeing the illustrated catalog of the show, written by Frank van der Ploeg.

Searching the web, I was gratified to find that Textile Forum blog has written about the exhibit, using one of my images, among others, to illustrate the article. Notice of the show was also picked up by TextileCurator.com

The experiment this time was to break the frame down into smaller sections – a pattern within a pattern, so to speak. Also, I wanted to try this arched shape, rather than keeping all lines straight and square.

For those of you who remember Textile Forum as a print magazine, publication was halted at the end of 2013. Since then the former publisher, Beatrijs Sterk, has continued to “report on themes of textile creation, education and textile cultural heritage via (the) blog, addressing all those interested in textile culture”.

If you are looking for in further avenues to learn about the world of textile art, Textile Forum blog,  TextileCurator.com, and Textile Is More! are all sites that look to be fruitful resources. Another site I would love to be able to read is Textiel Plus, but unfortunately it appears to only be published in Dutch.

The finished size of this piece will be about 10 x 10 inches. While it’s interesting to see how the dye interacts with the outer edges of the pattern, I prefer cropping the pattern with clean edges along the perimeter, the way they will appear once the finished piece is stretched and framed.

One final resource is The Woven Road – another site learned about through Instagram.  What caught my eye was a quote that was attributed to The Woven Road, and which seems a suitable sentiment to sign off with.

“When we engage in fiber arts, we are creating something, but we’re also participating in historic traditions tens of thousands of years old. You are not only making art for your soul and for future generations, you are embodying the work of our ancestors.”