Yo Mama's

Argghh…I’ve probably mentioned this before but nothing gets my back up like statements such as “Not your mama’s _fill in the blank_” or “Not your granny’s _same thing_”. I’ll bet it was your mama or your granny or an aunt or somebody who’s mama/granny/aunt taught them who taught you how to knit or crochet. What exactly is wrong with how your mama or your granny did it? Styles change, sort-of, and yarns change, but the techniques are mostly pretty much the same as they were a hundred years ago. So why do today’s crafts have to be separated so emphatically from what has gone before? I mean they can’t really be afraid of looking too “retro”! Everything seems to have a 1950’s, ’60’s or ’70’s flavour to it these days. They just put it together it in different ways than we did.

Which brings me to my next peeve: I can’t tell anymore what’s fashionable and what’s just plain ugly. Recently I’ve seen so much that I remember from my childhood but the new combinations are sometimes bizarre! If I remember it the first time around, does that mean that I can’t wear it the second time? More importantly, would I want to?! Ah well. It’s hard to get me out of my sweat pants and Birkenstocks anyway. But please ’splain to me why anyone in their right mind would even consider a tartan blouse with puffy sleeves and a big floppy bow at the neck? Anyone?

I’m really happy that some styles have changed over the years. When I was a girl, we couldn’t go downtown shopping without a good dress, hat and gloves on. Men always wore hats when outdoors too. Girls had to wear skirts to school. No pants allowed until the year after I graduated when the rules changed, though they still weren’t as indulgent as they are now. I can’t imagine how my teachers would have reacted to the “thong panties sticking up above the low-rider jeans” fashion among young teenagers! Immediate suspension comes to mind. On the other hand, some of the new trendy little purses would have been right at home with my mom and I owned a black velvet newsboy cap when I was 15. Everybody seems to be wearing that shape, male and female, in all kinds of fabrics. Looks terrible on me now with my 2-inch hair. But I still adore hats. Ah fashion, fickle and strange!

So I forgot to mention how my guild meeting went. I was working away on my Little Squares Sweater and it was amusing when a new member and her mom who were sitting behind me exclaimed “Oh, you knit like we do!” We started looking around at all the knitting going on and it was pretty much split 50/50 for English vs Continental styles with maybe a slight edge to the English way. I really don’t think it matters as long as you get the results you want anyhow. Lots of people knit at guild meetings, at least until the lights go down for slides or whatever. The program was a slide show from a former member who used to weave rugs for interior designers but found that 1) it was a lot of work for not a lot of money and 2) it’s hard to weave even 2 rugs a year with a small child demanding your time. Heh. So now she works as a liaison between a Tibetan-owned rug weaving atelier in Katmandu, Nepal, and North American interior designers. A perfect job since she has had plenty of experience with both sides of the exchange. She showed slides of her stay in Katmandu studying with the weavers and dyers which were really interesting.

The atelier owner is a very smart Tibetan woman and she employs a mixture of both Nepali and Tibetan artisans, male and female. The styles they create are a mixture of traditional and Western modern depending on what is wanted. The traditional motifs are tigers, dragons, phoenixes and clouds. The biggest loom allows weaving a huge pile rug that would probably only fit into a commercial building and it takes 6 months to weave it! Impressive. They use silk as well as wool in their rugs and sculpt the pile after it is off the loom to enhance the design. She had an example skein of the handspun wool and it was lumpy and hairy and altogether not nice but the result after weaving was amazingly beautiful and long-wearing. Quite a lot of the yarn is lost after trimming with big iron shears which seems like a waste but you need a long enough length to work with. The Tibetan style of creating pile uses a rod and the yarn is knotted around the warp threads and wrapped around the rod to create the pile. The rod is left in until the whole row is knotted, changing colours where necessary for the pattern and then it’s beaten into place with heavy hand forks. Then the rod is removed for the next row of knots. This is quite different than the technique used in the Middle East, where they don’t use rods and the pile is also clipped after weaving but just flat without sculpting.

This isn’t the same company, but it’ll give you an idea of the designs and some history of rugmaking in Tibet and Nepal. And here is another interesting read.

Where There's Smoke

That was too exciting! Unfortunately the house across the street and one over was on fire this morning. The last (of four) fire engines is still there mopping up and reporting to the Chief and the Fire Investigation guy. I don’t think they actually needed four fire engines but I guess they were bored and didn’t have anything better to do at the time. They were obviously from separate fire houses because they spent an inordinate amount of time high-fiving and slapping each other on the back. Meanwhile white smoke was pouring out of the house and a few firemen were actually trying to put it out. It was disconcerting to see men with water hoses and axes go inside. Glad it wasn’t my house. It’s a nicely kept little house and recently sold so I don’t know the owners. But I didn’t see anyone who looked anxious enough to be them anywhere among the many neighbours who “casually strolled by” to ogle. Can you imagine getting a phone call from the fire department that your house is burning? Or coming home after work and finding your house in a shambles? The fire looked to be in the basement. Wonder what caused it so I can reassure myself that it won’t happen in my house. Brrr… And it’s raining again as well though it’s supposed to clear up by late this afternoon.

Hmmm…did I mention that the view of the Little Squares Sweater yesterday, though it looks like the front with the knit stitches and all, is really designated the back of the fabric? I hadn’t realized that side was up when I took the picture. The back is actually the beautiful side:

And the part you can’t tell by looking is how wonderful and crunchy it feels, especially after blocking it. The nylon ribbon yarn (Lion Brand Incredible in “Copper Penny”) and the slightly overtwisted 2-ply wool handspun knit on what, for the size of the handspun, are oversized needles (US 9, Denise), just gives it a crêpey feeling that is so nice. It drapes really nicely too, which is a good thing for this oversized kimono sweater. When it’s done all I’ll need is a sweater “stick” to hold it together fashionably recklessly in front. Maybe T will make me one on his rather underused lathe. Maybe if he gets the new one he wants? I’m hoping anyway.

This evening I’m going to the first weavers & spinners guild meeting that I’ve been to since last June. It feels like a very long time ago! I don’t weave much or at least I haven’t for the last maybe 5 years but I do spin occasionally. And it’s not like I don’t like weaving any more. It just seems hard somehow to buckle down and do it. Maybe I need to get the boa off the big loom and get some tea towels on it. I need tea towels. I don’t really need the boa. Even if it does have some wonderful yummy yarns in it including the aforementioned Copper Penny Incredible. It will totally coordinate with my Little Squares Sweater and I have to finish it, just to clear my loom if nothing else. It’s just so hard to sit down and do it. The warp is only a half-inch wide and the weft (not the fancy pattern yarns but the boring 6 shots of tabby between) are just tedious. I’m more than half done. For a whole 2 years! Yikes!

As I was saying, I love my guild. It’s the first one I joined when I found out guilds existed back in 1985. The ladies and occasional gents (the latter of which include our current president and the workshops chairperson) are the most supportive and generous and helpful and genuinely nice folks one could ever meet. Some of them are my best friends (next to T that is). They’ve hung in with me through teenagers, elderly parents, parental demise, discovery of my birth family, sibling troubles and even...gasp...textile problems! They’ve turned me on to a whole bunch of new fibre addictions and I've taught them a bunch as well. The best kind of friends. Many are elderly, some are young and enthusiastic. A few even have sadly passed away.

It’s interesting that a number of my fellow guild members have branched out from just spinning, weaving, and dyeing into the larger territories of surface design, art quilting, book and paper arts, beadwork, and other fibre arts along with me. We’ve expanded. Which is why I recently joined the fibre arts guild as well. Several others from my first guild have done so too. I haven’t found as many good friends in the new guild (apart from those who came from my original one) but it takes time. Maybe after I’ve belonged for over 20 years? Hopefully not that long. But I like it because they don’t limit themselves as much. They’re more innovative and more interested in the “art” part of fibre arts. More interested in galleries and exhibits and statements and art in general. Maybe I just feel a bit restricted in the old guild and a bit more free in the new one? Or maybe it’s because nobody really knows me that well yet and I haven’t taken any guild positions or taught any workshops. I’m laying low and just absorbing. Being one of the crowd. It’s actually refreshing in some ways. However, I won’t give up my membership in the weavers & spinners guild. It’s a huge part of my life. I just zipper my lip these days when volunteer opportunities come up. I don't know why but I really feel I need a break from responsibility. I just want to do stuff for me for awhile.