Working small for a change

Today I picked up scraps and made some little quilts. Postcard sized.

What a change and relief from the recent giants!  Working at small scale is quick and easy. Everything fits in the hand, holds together without pins and doesn't need special engineering support to get through the sewing machine.

Of course they don't have quite the same impact and they wouldn't keep much of you warm. But great to freshen up with a change, use some scraps and to try out some new ideas.

They also serve who only stand and puff

Sometimes my role as Fairy Godmother includes being a stand-in Gymnnastics Mom.  It's a highly specialised form of sideline athlete. 

Today's challenge involved cardio-vascular fitness, aesthetic sensibility and marshalling tiny gymnast-siblings into a production line.

Yes - the moms and tinies prepped the practice gym for tomorrow's junior competition. My favourite bit: the balloon walk!

Starting over

Yesterday I shared a fabulous knitting technique. http://stitchsarah.blogspot.co.nz/2014/06/knitters-delight-perfect-tubular.html

Tonight I finished the ribbing, admired my work, unpicked the contrast yarn and discovered...an orphan loop!  I'd missed picking up one stitch. Aue!

No cunning idea for rescue came on a flash of inspiration, so the oldest strategy in the knitter's repertoire came into play.

Unpick it all and start again.

A bit of a bother, but to be honest I made a better job of it second time round. It took about the same time as it takes to sing the Beatles "Starting Over" five times.  I wish this strategy were available in more facets of life!



Knitters' delight: perfect tubular ribbing cast-on

For a change, I share this technique learned two-thirds of a lifetime ago. Credit to Heather Halcrow Nicholson

1. Using any contrast yarn and speedy method, cast on HALF the number of desired stitches.

2. Knit one row in contrast.

3. In proper project yarn, knit 5 rows Stocking Stitch, beginning and ending with knit rows.

Now for the cool bit. 

4. P1 from the needle, move the yarn to the back.

5. With the left needle, pick up the bottom-most loop of project yarn where it pokes down below the contrast.

6. Knit this stitch. Move yarn to the front.

Repeat steps 4-6, alternating purling from the needle with knitting from the bottom row of project yarn loops, until all stitches have been purled from the needle. 

Voila! The knit stitches have created the tube and you have the correct number of stitches. Continue in k1, p1 rib as required. Unpick/snip out the contrast yarn whenever you like.

Singing again, dressed up!

I've said it before, it's great to sing. And everyone can.

Tonight, I sang in Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Ode to Joy, with our own amazing NZSO. Pictured, me in concert rig. Any opportunity for sparkling cleavage, I say!

You can find my next public singing dates here http://www.acs.org.nz

This is not simply an attempt to sell you tickets - though that would be great! - but you'll see there are a couple of opportunities to come to an Open Rehearsal, see what we do and even try it out for yourself in the anonymity of the chorus.

Remember, everyone can sing!! I invite you to take up one of these free opportunities to enrich your life with this beautiful activity. Wear whatever you like, but please join me!

Pre-concert nerves? why yes, just a little

Final night of review and rest, for tomorrow I'll be a Beethoven 9 gal.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L7lQ_KplYHs 

We're performing this incredible work - from memory! - with the wonderful NZSO 

It's more than a little scary to look forward to. Utterly amazing and exhilarating to do!

Life as a working artist. Part 6, Delivery

Today I delivered my first artquilt commission to very happy clients. I'm rather happy myself.

The work looked great, met/exceeded expectations and was ready slightly ahead of schedule. 

This project was a gift in so many ways: Recycling my professional skills in project management, client relationships and service delivery management.  
Working with people I respect, admire and enjoy spending time with.
Making something unique and beautiful, inspired by a joyous event.

Can't share the whole thing, but here are the last stitches going into the binding.

So, today is definitely a day living the dream and feeling truly grateful.

Out Of Order...

...and Otherwise Occupied.

I'll be back when I've beaten this virus. Hopefully in time to sing the big concert on Sunday.

I am my mother

We are so alike.

Once upon a time this would have bugged me terribly. Now it's comfortable, friendly, a source of comfort and compassion, a foundation for cooperation.

No doubt it's been true forever, but it seems recent. Maybe it's to do with a bit more relaxation on her side and more maturity on mine.

Maybe as we both grow up we are learning to like ourselves and the reflection of ourselves in each other.



I am my mother-in-law.

I realised today that my quiet, no-fuss, engineer husband is even smarter than I thought he was.

Not only was he smart enough to recognise and secure unto himself the marvel that is me, he has also Married His Mother.

This realisation has been dawning on me for a while. Spent the last 24 hours with my lovely mother-in-law. If course she's lovely, she's Just Like Me!

*we like the same breakfast
*we find the same things funny (almost everything but especially the male members of the family)
*we are both crafty needlewomen
...the list could go on for some time.

We had a super-fun day together, sewing, knitting and playing with her extremely flash embroidery machine. Now I know I don't need one myself, I've got a pal who loves to share.

The blokes didn't get many words in edgeways, but the clever chaps like it like that.

Being able to be friends with the in-laws is a great blessing.

The legion of teachers

I've learned a lot from books but more from humans.

Almost every skill, piece of knowledge or strong memory has a person attached.

Maybe this is a result of my gratitude practice http://stitchsarah.blogspot.co.nz/2014/01/gratitude-again.html. Each time I exercise a skill, use some knowledge or review a memory, the person arises from my memory and I thank them silently.

Chris, who clarified depreciation accounting; Annette, who gave me the key to perfect mitred bias binding; Julie, who taught me how to find my "head voice". There must be hundreds of others. 

I think of you all as the benefactors of my life. I honour you by using your gifts as well as I can - and by sharing what I have received.

If you can speak...

... you can sing.

I've been singing in choirs most of my life, even had some individual lessons to improve how I sound alone. Nothing special to begin with, but over time I've improved, and I expect that to continue. More about that in this earlier post http://stitchsarah.blogspot.co.nz/2012/10/learning-to-sing-at-last.html

It's the Best Thing. Better than chocolate. Or sex. It may be that I'm doing either/both of those unskilfully, or that more participants/lessons might help, but you get the idea.

If I were given a diva's bouquet for every time someone said to me "I wish I could sing" or "I can't sing" ... florists would be our most profitable business sector.

I don't know where Voice Shaming comes from, but it's a horrible thing we do to each other. 

Why do people with zero expertise choose to sneer at others' voices?
Why do so many of us take that baseless criticism on board?

Honestly folks, if you can speak, you can sing. 

Singing uses exactly the same physical equipment as speech, just some additional skills required. Some people may find those skills easier to learn than others do, and some people's physical equipment may offer a more pleasing basic sound than others, but it's something we all can do. And it feels so good! If you sing with me, 100% guarantee I won't be judging what you sound like, I'll just be so happy we're doing a fun thing together. 

The picture is my view at rehearsal in the Auckland Town Hall. A whole lot of happy people doing the good stuff.

Personal best

Walking is a key part of my mental and physical health programme. The favourite is 6km at low tide on Muriwai Beach, but anywhere with a reasonable surface will do.

I use Map my Run on the iPhone to record my efforts. It's a simple enough app but like anything, prone to issues caused by the User.  This morning I somehow fumbled an unintentional Pause at the beginning. Over a kilometre later I noticed and resumed. Net effect: significant distance covered in tiny time.

The resulting spectacular pace makes my regular brisk walks look rather, well, pedestrian - it will have to go. But I'll keep it for a while out of vanity. A 93 km/hr split - not bad for a middle-aged artist.

What shall I do about it?

Something is wrong somewhere, the details matter not. I shared my thoughts about it with a friend.

With great perceptiveness the friend responded "that's what you get when xxx and xxx. Welcome to the future"

I don't want to accept the inevitability of that kind of future. I want to find the sweet, powerful effective place between doing nothing because it's pointless, and doing any old thing out of impatient reaction.

Somewhere between my friend's clever cynicism and my passionate anger, surely there lies a powerful source of energy and direction. To take meaningful action that might improve the situation.

For now, I'm making the world a better place one beautiful warm artwork at a time. While looking about for other leverage points.

Going to the water

When I'm angry, sad, afraid or hurt - thankfully a diminishing proportion of my time - I go to the water.

A swim or a walk on the beach is exercise, always a good tactic for emotional balancing.

There's beautiful or at least neutral sensory input (scenery, sound of waves, texture of sand, buffeting by the wind) all of which help me get out of my head and into my body.

Even more beneficial, the ocean or river is an unmistakeable reminder that everything changes, all difficulties wash away in time. That anger, fear or sadness need not be permanent.


Life as a working artist. Part 4, Going boldly online.

I think I made my first website in 1996. I've been posting pictures of my working process to my Facebook timeline for some time, and today I made a FB page for my studio or business or whatever it is. As a former cataloguer the proffered categories seemed incomplete, unhelpful. Curious to find out if this will be an effective way to share what I'm doing. There are a few more developments in that line still to come.

It's been a long circular path to come round to making an online presence for myself. It seems a little strange when so much of my recent energy has gone towards making in the physical realm. We'll see!

How long does it take? Part 2, Are you really asking about duration?

I am still figuring out how to answer this question.

It comes most often from the non-crafty, non-artist person looking at my work, with perhaps a degree of horrified fascination.

They are (at minimum) intending to show a polite interest. They are (I think) baffled by the mechanics of creation.

Like a good former reference librarian, I can't take this question at face value. I want to climb into their head a little, figure out what it is they really want to know.

If the question was "how long did it take?" that's amenable of a brief answer:elapsed time at x intensity.

However, the question is almost always "how long DOES it take?" and I think that's a deeper question about ongoing process and the experience of making. 

Am I right? 

The photo shows a king-sized quilt of hand-pieced 3-D bow tie blocks, 4 inches square. By the end of the project I could stitch one with my eyes shut, in about 15 minutes. I made them only when travelling, over a period of about 7 years. How long did that take? To me, it is the least interesting element.

How long does it take..? Part 1

Once upon a time I had hair long enough to sit on (which is a most unpleasant thing to actually do). I lost it as the result of a bit of drama. A story for another day.

People were always wondering if it took a lot of time to care for. 

Nothing could be further from the truth. Undo the overnight braid, Rapunzel; twirl it around a few times and stick something interesting through the nest. 1 minute. Easy-peasy, super quick.

Now it's short and to look good requires a daily soaping, a selection of sticky products, hot-air drying with 2 sizes of brush, generally quite a bit of fuss. Minimum 15 minutes.

Or, I can leave it be. In the interests of doing something more interesting with my time.

If you know me on Facebook, you may have seen my Bed Head Project. Selfies straight out of bed. Immortalising the wonderful styling efforts of the feather pillow. Much more fun than all that hot air!

Thanks to Corin for the inspiration for this post :-)

Life as a working artist. Part 3, Later introduction.

...more librarianly whakapapa. Things took a technical turn, I understudied and eventually replaced the IT librarian. Made my first website in '96. Learned to read building plans, procurement documents and service level reports. Ran educational and design projects, participated in ILS specification and selection, managed major system migrations and system configuration to support developing library business needs.

My colleagues were clever, well-educated people with an amazing work ethic and esprit de corps. We had so much fun.

I'm not working in libraries any more, but I'm glad my professional life has largely been in service to the servants of the reader.

Life as a working artist. Part 2, Early introduction.

The format of this post title complies (if my memory serves me) with the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd revision (aka AACR2) for titles of the individual parts of multipart works, where these titles have both numeric and textual components.

In other words, I have been a cataloguer.

Why the confession/demonstration?  Reviewing Con's list of #blogJune participants against my draft posts, I felt I needed to assert my library chops - because I won't be talking much about current library practice.

For most of my working life I've thought of myself as a librarian, though I don't hold a library degree.

In the 1st caterpillar phase I shelved books at the local public library, learning about order, searching on microfiche and film, caring for serials, profiling and selecting for housebound customers, managing volunteers, most importantly delivering service to a community.  My colleagues were clever, well-educated women with an amazing work ethic and esprit de corps. We had so much fun.

We also worked through the mission that is a green-fields library computer system implementation - from card catalog/circulation to a menu-based amber screen system. 

Then I went to library school and moved on to 10 years of cataloging. Books, yes but also music (sheet & recorded), MBA videos, journals, newspaper articles, exhibition catalogs, jigsaw puzzles, toys, artworks, a rug, a banana and my favourite : packets of chocolate biscuits.

I learned about meticulousness, accuracy with speed, judgement, access, supporting discovery, indexing. My colleagues were clever, well-educated women with an amazing work ethic and esprit de corps. We had so much fun.

[Part 3, Later introduction will follow]


Portrait by one feature: shoulders

He's a short man, made to look shorter by the disproportionate breadth of his shoulders.  They nearly ended his life before he had a chance to draw breath -a struggle for him and Mother to achieve his birth, both battered and bruised.

Those shoulders powered kayaks through white water, hockey balls into the net, sometimes knuckles into faces. I learned their breadth most accurately, making custom-fit shirts short enough, lean through the torso, with room for the bulky deltoid and trapezius muscles.

That frame gives him the posture of a fighter, of a man who carries the world on  his broad, broad shoulders.

Portrait by one feature: toes

Sometimes you need only one of their features to bring a whole person to mind. An excellent observation practice for the working artist.

Tenfold, no losses, broken One hides the memory of her pain
Tinted - the bolder the better.
An almost-perfect curving arc of graduating lengths.
Big Ones lean a little away from centre, witness to winkle-pickers past.
Otherwise we are all straight, strong, flexible, talented!
Number 4 nestles slightly under number 3
Tiny 5 has a triangular nail. She too shows the signs of the search for the perfect shoe.
We have learned to accept the Jandal, but go everywhere we can unwrapped. Best of all in the ocean. 

By my toes shall ye know me.

Portrait by one feature: hands

Large hands, strong and steady. Warmer than most.
Deft in precise creation and repair of delicate things.
Scarred and soft - the serious hard work is long past.
Square ridged nails - short on the left, long on the right - a guitarist
Quiet and restful, not eloquent, shy.

You know whose hands these are.


Portrait by one feature: eyes

Like a precious jade
Like the most delicate of ferns
Like the tropic sea I anchored in
Like a new apple
Her eyes

(Sometimes you need only one of their features to bring a whole person to mind. An excellent observation practice for the working artist.)

Life as a working artist. Part 5, Burden or bonus?

I'm putting in a solid 9 hours a day in the Soft Foundry (my sewing studio) and making more beautiful warm things than I ever have.

The more I make, the more ideas I get. Everything I sketch or arrange sparks off a new trail of inspiration.

Sometimes all these wonderful ideas and inspirations feel like a burden. How will I ever work with them all?

For now, the plan is to draw, sketch or sample as much as I possibly can. I don't actually have to make them all. When it's time to start something new, I just do whatever I feel like. Simple, really.

Here's a something that might become something, someday. Or not.

Best sort of delay

As is so often the case, I've left today's post to the last minute. It will therefore be short.

The hour of writing is so late because I've been out for the evening - a date at relatively short notice with a dear friend.

We saw an  excellent film (Ida: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ida-2014), ate a delicious supper, best of all, hours of challenging and amusing conversation.

In my hours in the studio alone I've thought a lot about human connection of all sorts. Again and again I realise the benison of friendships old and new. 

Life as a working artist. Part 1, Wardrobe crisis

It's pretty dreadful. 

I used to care about how I looked when I went to the office. My shoe collection was legendary for variety, colour and often total lack of practicality.

Now it's PJs or exercise clothes all day. And on my feet? Not even nail polish.