Zigzag afghans

Baby, it's hot outside! So, what am I doing dreaming of candy-coloured zigzag afghans? We finally have heat and humidity and I'm being a team-player with this whole summer thing--after all, we only have heat for about two or three months of the year. As a redhead, I prefer cooler weather, but I'm being a good sport, OK? This doesn't stop me from fantasizing about curling up under this happy afghan. Last winter I even bought some yarn to teach myself how to crochet. It's possible that I may even get the hang of it to make a zigzag scarf, but I may not have the patience to make a large afghan. I'm waiting for cooler weather to go back to learning how to crochet. My wise sister-in-law has a rule not to "poach" on her seasonal hobbies: no knitting in summer for her! Smart rule.

Redhead

We've come along way from the days when redheads were ostracized. Now we glorify red hair and women are dyeing to have it (sorry, I couldn't resist throwing that pun in!). My mom, dad, brother and I were all born with it, as was one of my nieces. The predictions that red hair will become extinct may be far-fetched given that the gene is recessive and can express itself in families where neither parent has red hair: it sneaks up on a family when they least expect it. To my delight, it's happened to three couples that I know. Long live the sneaky red hair gene!


Famous redheads: Queen Elizabeth I of England, Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables), Lucille Ball, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman.


Great song: Redhead Walking by REM

Free-motion embroidery connections

A dozen years ago, my NSCAD professor Robin Muller gave me a bag of small indigo-dyed scraps leftover from an antique kimono that she was repurposing. Until a week ago, they were too precious to use. Then, BAM!, I knew how I would use them. Last week I returned to doing free-motion embroidery (FME) after a two-year hiatus. When I haven't FME'd for a while, I need to warm up to remember how to coordinate needle speed and hand motion for optimal results. Inspiration struck while I was in warm-up mode stitching old hand-painted fabric from my stash. After ditching the practice fabric, I reassembled every single bit of kimono fabric using FME on the base of an old dress shirt. Some of the bits were smaller than my pinky fingernail. To my surprise, the small bag of scraps yielded two tags and two pieces of reconstituted fabric that I'll probably cut up once I've had a chance to think about how to use it. For now, it's back to being precious.


The warm-up FME on painted fabric inspired me to piece the kimono scraps, and the pieced kimono scraps inspired me to begin another project that is top-secret until I work out the details. All I can say is that I'm excited about the new TSP (top secret project) and to see where it will lead me next.

Postcards: Evelyn Kelch

Evelyn Kelch seems to do no wrong. Her simultaneous facility for collage, photography, and graphic design astonish me. If money were no object, I would have bought at least four photographs from her 2010 found in downtown Dundas exhibition at the Carnegie Gallery. Whether creating stark collages from snippets of magazines or showing us her world through a camera lens, Evelyn has a well-honed eye for detail. I've now seen three exhibits of her collages and one show of her photography. I think it's time for another photo exhibit, although I heard that she may be returning to the technique in which she was trained: sculpture. Whatever she does, it will be great.

Quotes: Cage + Berkun

"Art instead of being made by one person is a process set in motion by a group of people." -- John Cage


"It's easy to forget that the innovations we use are comprised of a series of smaller innovations. However, making new things requires taking apart other things and learning from the pieces. Sometimes inventors even work the other way, developing breakthroughs by deliberately experimenting with existing innovations." -- Scott Berkun, The Myths of Innovation, p. 78*


*If you are interested in creativity, innovation, and ideas, I highly recommend reading Berkun's books and his blog.

Family gifts

In my frugal Mennonite family very little goes to waste. When relatives clean out their closets I am the beneficiary of their unwanted textile supplies. My grandmothers, my mom, and many of my aunts are (or were) gifted in the needle arts. Even my Opa (grandfather) got in on the act and hooked rugs. Some work(ed) from kits, others design(ed) their own projects. To date, I have received sewing notions from a cousin, three aunts and my two late grandmothers, and I put them all to good use. When I am stitching with floss from Erika, Hilda, Edna, Irene, Katja, or Helen, I think about them and am grateful that they are part of my work. I'm also mindful that my hands are using notions that they once touched. It's corny, but true.


Aunt Irene gave me the colourful nest in the top photo and aunt Hilda's floss is in the bottom three pictures. Aunt Hilda wrapped leftover floss from cross-stitch kits around carefully cut and labelled cardboard. When I've used up the floss, I'll incorporate the cardboard in future collage projects. As I said, very little goes to waste. If you look closely at the bottom two pictures, you'll see that one of her projects was done close to Christmas, because the leftover floss is wrapped around sections cut from a Marzipan box. Thanks to my relatives, I haven't bought embroidery floss in a long time.

TOAE 2011: Christopher Hayes

Bread tags are awesome, especially when they are gigantic. Christopher Hayes creates assemblages from old stuff, paint, imagination, and a sense of humour. A photograph of a larger-than-life bread tag by a NSCAD student in the late 1990's woke me up to the possibilities of ordinary, often forgettable, objects. I've been collecting bread tags for a few years now, but my collection is small considering that we rarely have bread in the house. Once in a while a kind friend will give me her stash. It's fun to see all the various shapes, colours, and fonts that differentiate the common bread tag. Christopher Hayes's bread tag sculptures are about 3 feet square. 

One day I would love one of these, along with one of Joanna Strong's rubber band ball paintings. Wouldn't they look perfect hung next to each other?