Denim Skirt, Because I can't stop starting new projects!

Over the past few years, as our concert-going has picked up, I have missed having a dark denim skirt in my collection as an option. Sometime in February, as I thought about what I wanted to wear to our next show (Anti-Flag and Flogging Molly) the stack of old jeans in my studio started calling to me.  I started in on this skirt a week before the show.

Cutting, pinning, dyeing, stitching and more pinning and stitching.  I have piles of beads all over my sewing table (a few too many projects going) and I didn't feel like relocating them to get to my sewing machine so I decided to finger-press and hand stitch this skirt. 

I caught most of it on hyper-lapse video.  The seam ripping and stitching at least. I compiled it into the following video with a rambling voice-over:

(I do not pretend to be good at video or editing, 

I figure the more I make myself do it, hopefully I'll get a little better)

I also threw it in a black dye bath with over double black dye I think that it should need and it still only came out dark blue. I'm not sure if maybe the fiber content isn't 100% cotton (as the label says) or if I just need to keep dyeing. There was no time, and, lets face it, I wanted to do some black sashiko stitching on it before it's first concert.

2 nights before the concert my brain wouldn't let me go back to sleep at 4am.  I had been looking at a lot of denim skirts and patches were on my brain.  I added a patch added at about 5:30am, I hated it, asked Bryan when he thought, then I cut the patch out around the spiral stitching that afternoon...I felt really off from not sleeping and for whatever reason, not being able to nap, so I just stitched. I'm going to continue to do various types of black stitching on this skirt so that it'll get darker from the embroidery floss even if I can't get the denim to fully dye black. Thus I have created another personal piece that will probably never quite be done, it'll morph and be a little different every time I wear it. Which is pretty fun. 

I have been getting into a different head space about hand stitching. It's not "too slow" its meditative and controlled. I no longer look at the time that it takes and, just like beads, one stitch at a time...one bead at a time...all of the work that I create is slow and builds up over time to become something wonderful. Everything good takes time and patience. I'm pretty over how fast everything is moving. The days and projects have been flying by despite my attempt to go slower.  How the heck did I finish a hand-stitched skirt in a week in the mornings and my lunch breaks?? It just...happened...and I enjoyed every stitch. 

standard concert dirty bathroom mirror selfie

What a great show!  It was worth being tired.

It turns out I had forgotten how to dye black and I needed to move my bucket dyeing to stove-top.  I need black for my next weaving so figuring out where I flubbed up became important...and I got it. Now I can put it in the closet for the next show or whenever I feel like stitching black again. 

I think it's going to go with most of my wardrobe..

Distracted by Repairing an Old Favorite

I'm supposed to be finishing my weaving, but, since winter hit I've gotten out a few old favorite pieces of clothing that I've had since the 90's which could use some love. One is the Calvin Klein winter dress coat that has remained perfect for my fit and style. Luckily I wore things a little too big back in high school and many of my tops still fit today. 

The outside of this coat is still in good shape but the inside lining was really torn up. I used to wear those jeans with the metal buttons on the pockets which did a number on long coat linings and bucket seats in cars. I started wearing this coat again much more frequently last year and the tears in the lining has been driving me crazy. It's time for a refresh.

I've been doing small hand stitching repairs on many of Bryan's things but not my own, so I decided to "treat myself" with my own hand-stitched and patched things. I did a clean out pass of the studio and realized I have a significant amount of satin-y fabrics in the stash. One has a wine-themed print that is really lovely, but I haven't wanted to use it for myself since I don't drink anymore. I had purchased a yard of this fabric from Spoonflower for a mask commission and the rest of it has been laying around saying "but look how pretty my print is!" and I tell it "but I don't drink!"... So as a consolation prize it gets to be some pop and flash in the lining of this coat. It'll barely be seen and it gives this patch project some extra flare. 

I think it's great that 90's things are back in style, I have been having fun reviving my past fashion choices. I noticed a few weeks ago that Vans even has a purple suede shoe back which was my first shoe purchase when I started shopping at the mall on my own back in the day. I loved those purple Vans SO much I may need to get the new pair while they're available. Of the shoes I have left in my closet from High School those didn't survive because I wore them so much.  I'm glad this coat stuck around so that I could give it new life!

Leaf Me Alone (Final!)

It's finished! This is the first sister-piece to She Can't See the Forest through the Trees and probably not the last.  December 30, 2019 is when I warped Delilah for this large Leaf Me Alone piece.  I have had lots of projects going on at the same time as I do with any large weaving (as you can see by all of my blog posts in the past 2 years!). I really need the extended time and mental space to get something like this piece finished properly. I finally got that with the second week we were in quarantine with COVID and then some solid full days-off that I set aside with goals to finish so that I could go skiing without stressing out about getting this done. 

I dyed the warp and weft in 2014, I wound the warp in 2017...I have finally come to the realization that dying and creating warps en masse doesn't work for me. I need to do one piece at a time.  I'm quite tired of looking at blue and green at this point! I'm really excited to be able to get back to the piece with the really long name, particularly because it's grey and black.

When I get to a point on a big piece like this where I can see an end in sight, it's important for me to have an exhibit in mind to submit to so that I will spend all my extra time finishing it. The driving exhibit for Leaf Me Alone is with the Handweavers Guild of America's Convergence Conference, I submitted this to the Mixed Media exhibit, we'll see if the juror likes it enough to invite it to Knoxville this summer. It looks like I might be able to squeak it into some other submissions this year too (Michigan League of Handweavers Biennial Exhibit). 

I feel like I've typed at length about this piece. How it represents my need for creative quiet space and less busying myself with socializing or even leaving the house. I'm so much happier, more productive and at peace at home with my little nest of kitties and Bryan. 2 days ago I read the following from my "Meditations for Women Who do Too Much" book and it describes some of the feeling that this piece can allude to for me:

Exerpt from "Mediations for Women Who Do Too Much" 

by Anne Wilson Schaef, Revised and Updated Edition 

It's taken me nearly 40 years but "alla my stuff" that I cherish most is my personal time and taking care of my emotional mental space. I spent years of my life with "Leaf me alone" running, yelling in my head which turned into anger, sadness and resentment.  Now I make sure to take a lot of time for all the crazy that's in my head!! Luckily it comes out of my heart and finger tips as these new pieces of artwork.

Leaf panel for Leaf Me Alone

Regardless of the emotion I feel behind my word pieces, I always hope that different viewers pull from their own personal experiences to relate to my works like these. We are all human experiencing things with very different stories or the same stories and we all have a huge range of emotions that need to bubble up and out.

All my Leaf Me Alone workings thus far....if you want to look into more ramblings. 

Video: Hand Stitching Leaves Together

I am in the middle of working on a leaf panel for my large Leaf Me Alone installation piece. My larger works take one to three years to finish so in this time there are a lot of posts about the process and progress rather than finished works. I wound the warp was wound years ago along with the smaller warps for Leaf Me Alone 1, 2 and 3.  The weaving came off the loom last year but is still not completely finished, I'm picking away at its leaf panel, making leaves as I play in the studio or bead on the couch and on-the-go. I collect them and choose what needs to go where as the piece forms. In this video I talk about choosing what leaf goes on next and how I stitch it to the leaves that are already forming the larger panel. 

I've made another process video. I'm not a fan of making videos or hearing myself talk in them for that matter.  However, it's the way that social and marketing is going. I find that when I'm scrolling around on the internet or social media I often will stop on videos of things being made, even if I have no interest in the thing. They're mesmerizing, especially the sped up time-lapsed ones.  I'm working on posting more video of my processes to capture where I'm at now in this moment with my work and how I create. My moments change and I've found that my artwork will mean one thing to me when I'm making it, but give it 5 or 10 years and it has a new meaning for me. When I give presentations about my work, they are never the same. I am constantly changing; my feelings towards different works can change. 

I enjoy looking back on past posts now that I've been blogging for as long as I have.  I'm hoping I'll appreciate these videos more as time moves forward.