Girl Thunder Takes DC!

Meet America's latest superhero... Girl Thunder!!! 

Girl Thunder at the U.S. Capitol.

Girl Thunder waiting for her beer.

Stitched up this thunder bolt cami to match a gift I made my squeeze and I could not love it more. I feel like a superhero when I wear it.

Silver chain stitch surrounded by red pearl cotton 5.

I can't imagine having more fun this weekend than I did with my uber cool art girlfriend Juline! I tagged along with her while she attended a workshop at the Hirshhorn Museum. (Juline is one of the smartest, wittiest and talented working artists I know.) I gorged myself at the art museums in DC. So much stitch-speration to be found!

Out the back window of the Carolinian on Amtrack.

We road the rails from Durham, which I highly recommend. 

DuPont Circle is a dramatic little Metro stop.

The freedom of walking around the city with Juline, stopping at any art exhibition that caught our eyes...it was inspiring and energizing.

Synecdoche, Byron Kim, 1991-Present

Juline showed me some her favorites contemporary and modern pieces at the National Gallery of Art. We hung out with the Calder sculptures. (Don't forget to see the Calder exhibition at the Nasher!)

We were both taken by the Byron Kim's Synecdoch, 1991 - Present, which features the flesh shades of a variety of people on panels and arranged in grids. The hues are so varied and delicate. Juline and I both love grids and codes, and the affect of seeing skin tones lined up like this is breathtaking.

Right now I'm working on a swap piece for the Phat Quarter Spring Swap. And I have about thirty other ideas, sketches and projects stewing.

In the light tube moving walkway at the National Gallery.

Having people like Juline in my life is a gift. She inspires me with her own mind and creations and also with the creativity of others that she exposes me to.

Big thunderbolt.

 Go Girl Thunder!

Happy Girl Thunder!

Books & Stitches is out!

Issue 2 of the fabulous stitching ezine &Stitches just came out and Nicole & Carina have outdone themselves with this one.

I love the theme of books and stitching. In particular I enjoy the tutorial from Jessica Kelly of Paper Stitch who makes lovely pieces of art with embroidery and vintage books. I have purchased Jessica's artwork for a gift and I'm the proud owner of a piece. Check out her etsy shop.

I've been a huge fan of Nicole & Carina since I first started stitching and they used to blog for Feeling Stitchy. I remember being particularly taken with a gorgeous piece Nicole made for a Phat Quarter music swap last year featuring her take on Ophelia.

Ophelia, 2011, by Nicole Vas van Avezathe

I could not have been more thrilled when Nicole asked me to contribute to the second issue of the ezine! My piece takes a more art than craft approach to embroidery and finding inspiration in art galleries and exhibition catalogs.

So please check out the newest issue. And tell your friends!

Chaos, bolts & chain stitch

There are many stitchers who favor neat, even stitches. While I admire the fineness of orderly stitching in other people's work, I must admit that I like a little more chaos in mine.

Silver chain stitch for my thunder bolt.

And I love using chain stitch--heavy and uneven--as a fill stitch.

I adore layering and piling the rows of chains next to each other, as I've done in this thunderbolt for a cotton camisole I've made for myself. More photos of the finished work, soon. I feel like a 1970s superhero in this design. Like a Girl Thunder.

A little red, chain stitch outline.

Boom.

More Spirograph tanks for me

Detail, stitching through Sulky Solvy.

My retro obsession continues unabated (just like the "domestication of the dog," to quote Homer Simpson) and I've been stitching myself spirographs. Lots of spirographs.

Me outside my office.
(Thanks, Jess, for taking the photo!)

Sporting a double, pink and orange spirograph on a navy cotton camisole to go along with the red one I stitched on a black cami. My new summer uniform.

Pearle cotton in pink and orange.

I think I got back into Spirographs last summer when I met a guy who had a spirograph-esque tattoo on this inside of his wrist. I love the elegance of the loops and the throwback feel.

Feels like Summer.

Now I've started a new camisole with a special image on it inspired by my squeeze... And I'm back to my word stitching project. AND I'm excited about the new Phat Quarter swap I'm sign up for from MrXStitch. I'm geeked about the piece I'm designing on the theme of Spring for the fabulous Lisa who blogs at A Cuppa Tea With Me. It is a mashup of sorts.

Go, stitching!

Sweetie darling & 70s retro mashup

Going through a 1970s nostalgia phase. Spirographs, Twister, Barry Gibbs' tight white pants and sexy Jesus mane... and woodgrain fabric. Can't get enough of woodgrain fabric.



I like the knot under the "i."



Made my girl Keefie this little "sweetie darling" hooped action on some precious woodgrain cotton.

"Sweetie darling" comes from Absolutely Fabulous. Back in the 2000s, Keefie and I drank vodka gimlets and fought off the boys together. And we loved those ill-behaved English women, Patsy and Edina, from AbFab. We were each other's sweetie darlings.



The stars are star stitch. Convenient.



A 1970s image involving Keefie... her family being evacuated from Tehran when the Shah was overthrown. I envision helicopters taking off at twilight, filled with tanned, bell-bottomed Americans in 22k gold jewelry.  And for some reason, in my fantasy, the Eagles' Hotel California is playing in background, pierced by the chopping roar of the helicopter blades. Coppola is slated to direct my reverie.

Go figure.

Keefie (left) & me at a recent Caps v. Caines game.

Cool Cat. Rattled Skull.

Wool felt & embroidery floss.

Several stitching projects are in hoops around my apartment these days, but I haven't been finishing anything. Lots of little sketches and ideas. More craft and less art, which feels a little strange. But it's all good.

Made this simple, wool felt, catnip LP for a cool cat I know named Vann. Looks a little more like a hockey puck than a record, but I wanted him to be able to bat it about. Word is, he does. This makes me happy because he is such a cool cat. And every girl loves a cool cat who plays by his own rules... as long he is lovable and purrs like a slightly drunk locomotive when scratched. And Vann does.

Records are on my mind these days.

I got caught in a tempest on Saturday night and was drenched in rain and stung by hail. Literally. Struck hard on the tender scalp. It felt like the universe was bullying me. I'm not proud to say it, but I felt sorry for myself.

But Spring is here. I rallied. Back to my embroidery hoops and stitching, peeps. Back to sketching, crazy ideas, and great conversations with wine and friends. And back to sunshine. I didn't work so hard to make my life what I want it to be only to be crushed by a storm. Besides, I love storms.

Go!

Spirographs, Star Fox & other small stitching

After pulling a week's work of dense, little stitches from my Tiny Great Curve piece (which was heartbreaking by necessary), I've been making small, fun things this week.

Stitching a spirograph though Sulky Solvy.
Red pearle cotton, chain stitch.

Turned one of my zillions of summer cotton camisoles into an ode to the fabulous spirograph my my youth.

I want to embellish all of my little summer tanks!

Stitched up a set of thick, Pottery Barn dinner napkins into an ode to 1990 computer game catchphrases. (Star Fox is the cutest thing!)

Love the playful language in these crazy phrases.

I'm really enjoying this simple, happy stitching! Making little gifts for myself and my lovely peeps. More of these little stitched odes to come.

Playtime has just begun!

Summer beckons... warmth, friends, books, bootcamp, zumba (with Kate and Katherine), art, stitching, trips (DC with Juline and Miami with SF)... life is full of joys.

In a war, someone has to die

So said a temporarily out-of-work professional African soldier. So heard Danish artist Hanne Bang, who was inspired by a television news interview she saw with the soldier to create a collaborative, stitched art project titled, "In a War Someone has to Die." 

Stitched handkerchiefs. Foreground, Katherine,
background, me.

Bang is collecting embroidered handkerchiefs from stitchers around the world, each inscribed with the soldier's line in her/his own language. She will sew these handkerchiefs together to form a large installation artwork later this year.

I heard about the project on the MrXStitch site. My friend Katherine and I decided to participate. We each stitched up the line in Spanish. Spanish is my mother's first language and I had her write it out for me in her beautiful, strange handwriting. I used a brightly colored new handkerchief and chain stitch.

My handkerchief in chain stitch with little stitched flowers.

Katherine is bilingual, having learned Spanish while in Honduras in the Peace Corps. Her husband is Honduran and she uses Spanish professionally in her social work career. She stitched it up on a vintage handkerchief in backstitch. (Interestingly, Katherine's mother's first language is German. I wonder if she ever considered doing it in German.)

Katherine used a vintage linen.

I love the way that the artist's experience with the news media lead to this art project. To me it shows how being open to stories and news from around the world can inspire huge, collaborative projects.

Imagine the scene: A reporter and a camera person interview a professional African soldier for a Danish news program. The segment is viewed by the Danish artist back in Europe. She is moved by the coldness of the soldier's words and she plays with the feelings and associations that the news story stirs in her.

Brightly colored pink cotton.

Bang then reaches out to the stitching community, online and in her physical surroundings, and we all are pulled into the creation. My mother, who has no other connection to the professional soldier, the unknown reporter or the Danish artist, writes out this sentence at her kitchen table. And she is disturbed by the words her daughter stitches. But she is used to me and she is game.

My mami's handwriting.

Read more about Bang's work here.

Big Yes! Chaos Theory Scarf by Lesley Starke

Prepare your nerdy heart for some seriously geeky and gorgeous patterns generated by an eight-point, early chaos theory computer code.

Science + Craft = Joy.

No, you did not read that wrong. My Durham String Thing buddy Lesley Starke is knitting up this double-sided scarf using Rule 30 from early chaos theory, written by Steven Wolfram (father of Mathematica.)

She is knitting with two skeins of yarn at the same time.

Lesley is a scientist in ecology. She says that the project is the brainchild of her friend Joe Sexton (not a knitter). “He and I use similar approaches to the ecology work that we do. To put it broadly, we use satellite images to detect and analyze changes in the landscape.”

Back in 2009, while he was finishing up his PhD in Ecology from Duke University, they had a conversation about their work that exploded into this wildly beautiful creation.

Random triangles and shoots!

I love the stark black-and-white translation of the computer code and the random waterfalls and pools it creates.

The Code (pattern) runs along the bottom of the scarf.

Lesley claims that there is no pattern to this double-knit scarf. Here she explains how it works:

“I'm using a code that has 8 keys to it-- each produces a single answer: black or white, to create a random/chaotic image of black and white. The keys are each three-stitch sequences that I read on the row below to determine what color I should stitch in the present row. Four of the keys yield black and four yield white”

Their friends on Facebook
 recognize the code.

Don’t you adore this combination of computer code, utility (this is a scarf, after all, and will eventually warm Joe’s neck), wildly open creativity and the randomly beautiful patterns it creates?

Lesley, mad scientist & knitter, at work.

Big Yes to Lesley! 

"Big Yes!" is a blog feature where I share, with their permission, a piece of textile art that has opened my eyes to the possibility of what we can create.  When faced with things that are truly beautiful or moving or that fill me with awe, I try to say yes. More than that, Big Yes.

Un petit lapin for Katherine

Stitched this little sleeping bunny for my dear friend Katherine's birthday.

Stitched in pearle cotton, displayed in 3" hoop.

Katherine is an animal lover and actually has a pet rabbit that she rescued from a random parking lot. (What a white, pink-eyed bunny was doing alone in a parking lot is not known.)

Katherine is an amazing woman. She spins, knits, wet and needle felts (my favorite pin cushion is a geode that she wet felt for me), among other crafts. She is the fastest talker of anyone I've ever known, and that is saying a lot, because I'm from NYC. She is also the fastest knitter in the world. One moment she is buying the perfect skein of robin's egg blue yarn and then next she is wearing some insanely beautiful, intricate, finger-weight lace shawl.  How does she do this?!

He makes me think of my late dog Django
when he was a puppy and slept in a ball.

Happy birthday, sweet Katherine! Thank you for letting me into your life and being such a generous, caring soul. Friendship is not just about fun and games and telling entertaining stories. It's about sharing ourselves, the good and the bad, and spending time together, learning from each other. Katherine gets this. Others don't always.

Love you, cupcake!

Adventures in NYC, Part 3, Stitching & Purple

Can we talk thread? Can we talk floss?

Detail of Tiny Great Curve, chain stitch in Valdani 12,
color  2 (charcoal).

While in NYC, I did venture out of Brooklyn and spent a glorious bit of time at Purl Soho, feasting on the threads and flosses.

Koigu wool needlepoint yarns.

The fabrics were wonderful, too (especially their collection of Liberty of London) but there are decent quilt shops in NC. The flosses and threads... those are harder to find.

Liberty of London fabrics, hooped near the door.

I can and do order threads online, but being able to paw through silk thread and bin after bin of Valdani 12 in every conceivable color in person... that is a special treat. And their collection of embroidery-worthy linens is not to be missed.

Wanted to spin this DMC cotton wheel!

Bought myself a collection of Valdani in greys and purples for my Tiny Great Curve self portrait. It is pleasure to stitch with this. I also treated myself to a spool of Trebizond twisted silk in a lilac for highlights on my latest piece.

Some of my supplies for the latest piece.

I didn't purchase any of the Liberty of London fabric because I'm anxious about money and storage in my apartment, but I did spend a little time fondling the bolts. I wasn't alone! Another woman was standing next to me, doing the same thing. "It's like silk," she said. And I nodded eagerly.

These bolts called to me. And to other fabricphiles.

Since being home I've been doing a fair amount of stitching and playing ideas. Making progress on my Tiny Great Curve piece. Still stitching words galore. Generally feeling very upbeat and creative. 

WIP, current state of Tiny Great Curve.

I only wish I could make it to Fiber Philadephia this weekend. The exhibitions of textile art look like they are going to be amazing! Alas, funds won't allow this. 

Leaving Purl Soho in my purple beret.

I think that the purple ground fabric of my latest piece has made me a little fixated on purple. I keep wearing a purple hat. And these beautiful purple hydrangeas are a constant source of inspiration.

From my squeeze. Excellent taste.

I keep them close to me, next to my laptop, in my tiny little bay window space, surrounded in my collection of Pantone color post cards.

Purple, floss, silk, art, time with Erin's beautiful family, stitch-speration, handwritten notebooks and marginalia, and stitching. These are all things that NYC gave to me on this visit. Will get back very soon.