Happy 5th of July!!!

Well, like so much in my life, I am late with my Holiday-themed blog. I had dreams of coming up with clever knitting/fiber things that have come from the US. This is what I can remember I wanted to put in here.

We have the American fiber patroness, Betsy Ross.




Who seems to be in a room full of men with unusually large heads. Poor thing.



We have a very fun knitting blog that transcends space and time (well, just space) - Mason-Dixon Knitting.

The thread about naming the bluebirds is currently my favorite. I think my next dog will be named Skillet.

We have my favorite show's host who might just be too hip for me: Vickie Howell. I am, however, doing the KAL (knit-a-long) for the arm bands. Some of yous (yes, I said YOUS) had best watch out - you might get a BFF arm band in the mail when you aren't looking. I suppose I should post on the board that I'm joining. I want to embelish them with some sort of odd beady thing. The new issue of knitty came out, and it has bobbles of a sort in there. I might try to add some of those, since beads are just not really my thing. (Actually, I went to the JoAnn's in Round Lake; you know, the one with the very, very slow male manager who sighs and grunts - and is that sweat dripping on my fabric? - as he cuts your fabric? S-L-O-W-L-Y cuts your fabric? Their bead selection was wimpy. I didn't feel like messing up the lovely pile of bead packages that had ended up all over the floor from someone else's ransacking, so I just looked at the cheap plastic pony beads that were left on the pegboard and decided that "beads are just not really my thing.")

Incidentally, I love some of the socks and gloves in the summer knitty issue. I may, someday, actually knit a sock (two is too much). If I do, it will have to be the rpm socks, because they are photographed in front of a Smiths album....How soon is now....

OK. I will stop with the knitty links. You can click the link I have on the sidebar (it says surprise! No, it used to say surprise! and now it has fists of knitting fury that say blog this) and wander to your heart's content. Knitty is Canadian-based anyway (darn those Toronto-ans and their creative muster!), and it wanders from my original intention.

Back to the U.S.

So I went to the Quilt Show with Leslie, a friend I have met here in Chicago, in April. I've had the pictures, patiently waiting for the opportunity to show them. If you haven't seen an art quilt recently - do it. It's amazing. Women put entire years of their lives into these things, and it shows. Someday, when I grow up and get my Ph.D, I'll do my doctoral thesis on Homecraft: Women's Art and Cultural Transmission. Or something like that; I haven't actually decided on the title yet. Or the school. Or if I will even get to finish it.

I will simply, for now, post the pics, without the social commentary. I will not mention the fact that the things men make are called art and are highly regarded while the things that women make are called crafts and are belittled. That retrospectives by Important Male Artists and Movements have entire wings of museums dedicated to them while women and their art objects are grouped together with trade shows and Podiatry conferences. I'll skip all that. For now. Oh, but I'll make comments, no worries! I can't ignore the fact that I have opinions, after all.

You'll see that despite the fact that hundreds of quilts were at the show, I was drawn to some specific qualities. I was most affected by the quilts that weren't square. Others astounded me with their pure, technical prowess. And some made me want to jump right in and quilt. Which I have done, fairly successfully, but not for some time. Hence, the trip to the JoAnn Fabrics with the Manger Who Wishes He Were Somewhere Else.

So the photos.
Happy Wind by Ludmila Uspenskaya of NY, NY. Made from silk and cotton using hand-painting by the artist, wax resist, fabric collage, piecing, hand and machine quilting. The detail of the color is amazing, and the quilting feels very free form. I think the texture of the quilting matches the design very well. The quilting is tight, linear zig-zags over organic color forms. The painting and dying offers a depth that is enhanced by the natural texture of the fibers. I would call this piece a landscape, even though it is not a figural piece.

Like almost every other piece I photographed, I'd like to see more of her work to see if this is part of some narrative. Quilts to me tend to have a very narrative feel; each stitch represents a moment in time. I can look at a yarn or a fabric and remember what was happening, how I was feeling, who was around when I used that yarn or the fabric. It's as if every time I make a stitch, I am permanently embedding that moment into the fabric.