Aaah

For one reason and another, Saturday was quite a stressful day for me.
When I got up on Sunday morning, this is what I found on the kitchen bench next to the newspaper:

Isn't that lovely? I guess he really is a keeper.

Wandering around Paris

As I mentioned earlier, I spent a few weeks in France recently. I didn't especially go looking for textile-related things, but they seemed to find me, as they usually do.

One place we always visit in Paris is Hotel des Invalides. It's not so much that we have a passion for Napoleon's tomb, although that is pretty impressive. But the accompanying museum calls us back every time. It's the only museum I've ever visited which has medieval armour shoved casually into piles - here a stack of pikes, there some mail, over here a collection of helmets glaring fiercely at passers-by. And cannons of every description guard the central cloister. They do have more formal exhibition spaces too, of course, but the casualness of quantity grabs me every time. This time, we visited their excellent WWI and WWII exhibitions, which we'd previously missed. They have a chronological pathway you can follow, beginning with late nineteenth century exhibits, or you can amble about in your own order.

I was fascinated by the military uniforms. Many of them were surprisingly stylish for something that was essentially utilitarian. It's always hard to take good photos and most of my shots were for my own interest, but here's a page's uniform from the late 19th century.

All that work, so you had someone to fetch your drinks and take off your boots! The fact that armies had pages is itself an interesting comment on how warfare was waged in those far-off days.

And here is the embroidered traycloth for Marechal Petain's guards. Not, I gather, for the Marshall Himself but for the chaps detailed to look after him. The mind boggles.

We quilters know a lot about commemorative fabrics, but did you know there was fabric made commemorating the end of WWII? Here is a Victory dress, made in France just after peace was declared in Europe. I'm not sure if it was ever worn, and I can't somehow see it as the height of fashion, even in those times, but someone went to the trouble of making it.

Another place we go back to again and again is the Louvre. This museum is just the most brilliant place, and one of my favourite places in all the world. It's vitally important that you have A Plan when you go there, partly because it's huge, and partly because you can get sidetracked so easily from the things you wanted to see. Our plan this time was to have a third try at the Egyptian, Greek and Etruscan antiquities, which have been unavailable each time we've visited the Louvre. Just unlucky, I guess. This time we were in luck, and they were on display in the fullness of their glory. All of them. They have a lot. Many happy hours could be spent looking at them, more happy hours than we actually had, to do them justice. But we tried.

See this fabric? Ordinary looking, you think? A simple tabby weave linen, with a twisted fringe. It's from the 20th Dynasty in Egypt, so we're talking about 1100BCE. About three thousand years old. Pretty amazing for a medium that is generally considered ephemeral. I guess most of us who work in textiles are accustomed to the idea that what we make won't last forever and, let's face it, it's probably won't survive for three thousand years. This isn't the only example of Very Old Textiles in the Louvre - they have quite a lot of ancient Egyptian textiles.

Like this dress. It's very simple, but those lines across it are actually pleats, which I guess are what allows the wearer to put it on and to move once they have it on! This dress was discovered at Assyut, in middle Egypt, and dates to the Middle Kingdom.  That's about 2055-1650BCE, so this garment is anything from three and a half to four thousand years old. The middle Egyptian excavation I went on (twenty years ago now!) found a similar dress, which was dated to the end of the Old Kingdom-early First Intermediate Period - so that's about twenty years older than the oldest date for this dress. Styles didn't change much, so Egyptian women were clearly not fashion victims, out in the boondocks of civilisation, anyway.

And then there's the jewellery. No, not the flashy gold stuff - this is more your everyday dress wear. These ones date to the Middle Kingdom - three and half to four thousand years old.

These ones are New Kingdom - three to three and a half thousand years old:

And this beautiful beaded curtain is positively new - it's from the Late Period, so only about two and a half thousand years old.

And all that was just the beginning of the trip. I may share more later...



Going all girly

Last Saturday was Kambra Challenge day. I've mentioned this annual challenge here previously. We've been challenging each other for more than a decade now, and the results are always fascinating and unexpected.

I couldn't make the unveiling this year, which was a shame, because I really wanted to see what the others did with our challenge fabrics! They were eight dyed fat eighths from Lisa Walton at Dyed and Gone to Heaven:

Challenging fabrics, aren't they? They're so very... what's the word I want? Oh yes... pink.The challenge, from Donna, was to use these fabrics, plus a single print fabric. The group reactions were predictable - I don't think we've reacted with enthusiasm to any challenge yet! The problem was to avoid something really cloying.

However, the one group in the world that really loves pink is small girls, and I just happen to have one of those in my family. Granddaughter Kate is rarely seen without some pink about her person, so she seemed the logical person to receive my pink project. I wanted to make her something she would use, but I just didn't love the fabrics enough to make her a quilt. So a small project was needed.

It was quite hard to find a fabric that worked well with the pinks but wasn't too sickly. I didn't find any commercial fabrics I liked, so I decided to paint and print my own. I used Setacolor paints and an Indian woodblock.

And here's my project - one side:

...and the other:

 

Kinda cute, isn't it? I'm pretty sure she's going to love it.

 

If you want to see the other Kambra challenge works, they're over here on the Kambra Challenge blog.

Time to play

Back home again, after a fantastic trip to France (of which more later). It's so terribly hard to get out of holiday mode, don't you find? I managed to wring a few more days out of my holiday but this week, my computer is reminding me of things I ought to do, and the usual activities that fill up my days are happening, so I can't really pretend any longer.

One of the things my computer is insistently reminding me about is the ATASDA Open Studio weekend, which will happen on November 7 & 8 at the Epping Creative Centre, Dence Park, Epping, where most of our meetings and workshops in NSW are held. The idea is for ATASDA members to showcase their work, which is not only different from more traditional kinds of textile work, but different from each other's work as well.  Normally, this would just be a reminder to me to show up on the day, but in a fit of madness, Fibrecircle decided to take a table for both days, to show off our work and maybe even sell a few things. So I really need to make a few things, and maybe (gasp) finish a few things, so I can show people the kind of stuff I make.

So today, I drew and painted a kid's t-shirt. As you may have noticed, I'm rather interested in graffiti lately. (I must say I was disappointed in the Paris graffiti I saw - perhaps I just wasn't in the right places?) I've always been interested in layers - palimpsests on old documents, sgraffito work, walls with patterns marking traces of past occupancy - basically, traces of what went before and the interesting things that happen when you superimpose unrelated things. Graffiti is part of that interest, I guess, since graffiti artists seem to have no concern about what's already on a wall before they add their work, and even sometimes seem to incorporate it into their designs.

My graffiti designs are not that complex - they're time-consuming to draw and paint, and are much less layered than I'd really like. I think there's more to do with this idea, if I stay interested.

Anyway, here's the t-shirt.

It's a kid's size 4 and I'll probably be selling it and other stuff like it at the Open Studio weekend.

And there's going to be an election!

News to you? Either you don't live in Australia or you've been living under a rock. (Is it a large rock? Can I come and join you?) I am so over this election campaign. I never thought to hear myself say this, as I've been interested in politics all my life, so I am shocked at myself.
But this is such a non-campaign. I've rarely heard so much said about so little.

I have another plan. How about every ballot paper, House of Reps and Senate, henceforth includes the option None Of The Above? If NOTA wins (as I suspect this time, it might), we hold another ballot in four weeks. But no-one currently in parliament is allowed to run again for at least five years. 
No-one.
Yes, this does mean they can't run next time either.
Goodbye Tony.
Goodbye Julia.
Wayne and Joe, you're out too.
Sorry, Bob, you might have done better but the electorate didn't like you enough either. Maybe you could ponder what it means to run the country as well as saving the world?
Now, who is left that might just have an idea about where this country might go? There must be someone... (and no, Nick, it ain't you.)

And how about we change the way we do things? No more having weeks of, "will they call an election?", followed by two weeks of "yes we did, but we aren't campaigning yet", and then tarradiddle US-style Campaign Launches where every creaky ancient politician is dragged out of retirement to tell the wildly-applauding party faithful, and the omnipresent cameras, just how great the latest batch is. And then two weeks of being as nasty as possible to the others, without actually stating any policies that might distinguish one from another. No more. Hooray, I hear you say? But what would we have instead?

Nothing.
From the minute the PM steps out of the Governor General's office, no party may advertise.
No new policies may be launched to public fanfare (or, more likely, indifference).
Anyone kissing other people's babies in shopping malls will be arrested as a child molester. (Hey, anyone else would be!)
Any politician who holds a press conference about *anything* is immediately disqualified from running.
Let's see the politicians running *from* the cameras for a change. With a paper bag over their heads.
Let them sit quietly in parliament wondering if they've done enough.

Extreme? Not really.
Guys, if you didn't bother to tell us what you stood for before the election was called, we don't believe what you say you stand for, once it has been called. Sorry, but we just don't.
You've had your chance to show us what you stand for, what ideas you have, what vision you have for Australia, during the past three years. If you didn't bother, you don't deserve our vote.

Me, I just wish I could vote None of The Above.*

*Opinions authorised by Nola in Bennelong for the entertainment of regular readers

Now we return you to your normal viewing. Thank God for textiles!

Actually, I've been quite busy...

... though much of it has been on real world stuff and not involving lovely textiles.

However, I have not been idle. I finished a jacket I've been knitting this winter, from yarn I bought at the Sydney Craft and Quilt Fair in 2009. OK, I know I didn't 'fess up to buying it back then, when I was crowing just a smidgen about how little I bought. But, in my defence, I did buy it at the very end of the last day I was at the show, after it had been calling to me all day. And since the Exotica stand was immediately opposite the Bendigo Woollen Mills stand and the tub of yarn was right where I could see it all day, I think it was just meant to be mine. And that's all I have to say about that.

The cable was down the front of a jacket on the cover of The Knitter, Issue 3. That jacket had other cables and was knitted in quite a different yarn. Why make it the same way as the pattern you actually really liked in the beginning? That would be obvious.

I'm not sure if it's a hard cable or I'm getting dumber (I do have my suspicions about that) but it took me several tries to get it right. I hate those cable patterns with weird deformed X's and Y's that all look the same. For some reason, I kept cabling back when I meant forward (or vice versa) and it wasn't until I stopped knitting and worked out what it was I would do, if I were making that cable *without* the pattern, that I actually saw what I had to do. So, strangely, it seems I am much better working without a pattern than I am when I follow one. Scary thought...

So here it is, my very classy masterpiece.

It has a moss stitch band, which gives the edge some definition. Here's a close up of the tricky cable:

Not that tricky, is it? The problem was that little outer curve on the larger twist, which cables the other way. Of course it does! Obvious, isn't it? It really is a lovely cable. The yarn colour is a beautiful greyed purple-maroon, somewhere in between the colours you see here. Evidently, it's one of those colours that are impossible to reproduce electronically...

I also found another garment I knitted earlier, in the workroom this week. I'm not quite sure why it was in the workroom, because when I tried it on, it fitted beautifully and looked great. I think I had some idea that the zipper wasn't put in well, or that the neckline didn't sit right. I am rarely my best critic when it comes to finished garments.

This one was based on a picture in a magazine, possibly Family Circle, which I cut out back in (ulp) the seventies, because I loved the shape of it. I think it was meant to be knitted in Herdwick - remember those yarns that were all heathery, in neutral tones? The unattributed designer was inspired by the garments of the 1940s, and it had something of the feel of a bomber jacket. The yarn I used is actually reknitted. I know, nobody does that any more but I loved this yarn so much, I couldn't bear to say goodbye. It would have been a Patons yarn, probably Totem, which started out as a medium silvery brown. I knitted it up in the late eighties or early nineties as a traditional gansey, the fishermen's jumpers from the ports of the UK. From memory, I used a design from Whitby, the port closest to the place my mother's forebears emigrated from, in the mid nineteenth century. They came to South Australia and their marriage was the 51st in the new colony.

I wore that jumper for years, but alas, a moth decided it was the perfect home for her new babies. I washed it and set it aside because I really didn't want it to be the end. By now, the yarn had aged to a lovely silvery beige, the colour of a well-weathered fence. Eventually, I unravelled it, setting aside the spoilt part. I modified my basic cardigan pattern to something I thought would end up similar to the picture from the magazine. It doesn't look quite the same (I think that one had a collar) but I'm very happy with how it turned out.

There's a neat little shaped slot at the neck, which I don't think was on the original either...

...and it has a ladder pattern up the sleeve (not visible in the main photo).

It actually looks great when I'm wearing it but I don't think you need to see that!

Playing with photos

I haven't been blogging much lately, becaue I haven't been marvellously creative. Most of my time and energy has gone into The Maharajah's Garden, the travelling suitcase exhibition for ATASDA. The two suitcases of textile artworks, Saffron and Jasmine, will travel all over Australia from March 2010-March 2012, visiting schools, groups and galleries, for no more than the cost of onward registered postage. There's more information, and hopefully soon some images of works, on the ATASDA web page.
However, I thought I'd share some images I prepared for the Fibrecircle group recently. For a long time, our list of things to try has included manipulating photos on the computer to use in our textile art. That's something that's a bit difficult to work on in a group situation, so I made us a little sheet showing some of the effects you can get with the same image, using effects that are found in most graphics programs.

The base image is a view taken at Fountains Abbey, UK in 1995. The second image shows that original image Inverted. Inversion on a black and white image puts the darks where the lights were, and vice versa - like a photographic negative. On a coloured image, it also inverts the colours to their opposites on the colour wheel. Here the greenish shades of the original have become purple. The third image shows the original image Posterised. Posterising an image cuts down on the number of tones, making it more flat and poster-like. You can see in the image the various tones in the original have changed to green, grey, yellow, black and white. I really like Posterising images, because it really changes the mood so effectively! It's also a fun way to see what's really there. Sometimes our eyes get hung up on the detail of an image, and Posterising really cuts to the chase.

While we're playing with Posterising, it's often quite interesting to Invert, then Posterise. In these images, the photo was inverted, as in the second previous image, and then Posterised with different settings, emphasising different tones.

I mentioned black and white images. This is the same image converted to black and white, using different levels. The third image is the first one Inverted. You can see that playing with the settings of the conversion gives quite different moods and emphasises different elements of the photo. Inverting the black and white image changes where the light falls. I find converting to black and white is often a useful step, if I want to take shapes from an image. It seems to clarify things, and often is a good intermediate step in changing a photo to a line drawing.

Most graphics programs are designed to improve not-very-good photos! So you usually have some means of correcting exposure. Playig with exposure settings can also significantly change the photos you want to use in your art. You can often set a light source, and of course over- or under-expose to create a mood. The first image above had a light source set at the actual light source (the door at the end), while the other two were over- and under-exposed.

Most programs have a number of distortion options. These are just a few - the best bet is  to play with your software and see what you can do with it. These are Ripple, Distorting upwards (you can go in any direction), Blast or wind effects (and the same image Inverted), Wind effects Posterised, and Faceted. Ripple and Faceted look rather like water reflections - or as if your image is about to disappear!

The first three images here use the Emboss function, which is found in most programs. It changes the image to look like a low relief. By itself, it's pretty boring but if you Posterise it as well (two different settings shown here), it really emphasises the shadows of the embossed image. The images in the second row show Tiled (or Puzzle) images, with different values of disruption. I haven't found a way to use this function in my textile art yet (other than patchwork) but it's interesting!

These images show various kinds of blur. Gaussian blur, Motion blur, Motion blur Posterised, Zoom blur with the focus above the light source, Zoom blur  with the focus below the light course and Zoom blur with a narrower focus, off centre left. I like the way that the door at the end becomes ambiguous - perhaps a figure?

These images play with the Equalize function. Basically, it's a brightness adjustment, that changes all the bright areas of your image to the same level. The first image has been Equalized, the second Equalized and Inverted, the third Equalized and Posterised, to further flatten the image. Compare the third image here to the third one in the first set of images, which was simply Posterised. Different effect, isn't it? If you were going to emphasise the two images with stitch, you'd take them along different paths.

Last of all, changes in hue can really affect the mood of your image. The first has the hue manipulated, the second has changes in both the hue and the saturation and the third in hue and exposure. Each has its own mood.

This is just a quick gallop though some common possibilities. It really isn't a substitute to playing with your software to see what you can achieve. But keep in mind, you can spend hours playing with images like this, but how useful is it if you don't take that next step and actually print one out to work with?