Hanukkah

I'm really feeling the hanukkah spirit this year! Holidays seem much more fun when there's a depression. Not so much pressure to find the perfect item, which is a great relief, for I'm a terrible shopper. Also, making gifts is much more accetable during times of economic strife! I made cut paper cards for my family. Here's the one I made for my mom.
And this is the one I made for my sister!
I made one for my dad too, but he's already squirrled it away in some secret place. He thinks I am conspiring to keep art from him.  You will have to imagine it- it had mountains on it.  He likes mountains.  I was stumped on a present to get for my mother, because, as I have previously stated I'm a terrible shopper and Mom is the woman who has everything. And if she doesn't have it, she probably wants to pick it out herself. So I had nothing, and no ideas, and then, all of a sudden, I had a moment of inspiration. I made her a case for her knitting needles! We suffer from knitting needle black hole proliferation at our house.
I used all my favourite fabrics. My sister brought us the most fabulous textile from Mexico.

Is'nt it beautiful?
For Nora, I made a pillow based on the quilt code she and I made up last year.

It means that she is a gold star lesbian who wants a nice trannie or perhaps a drag king to take her out for dinner. And possibly oral sex. Dirty quilting!

The back is the most beautiful rainbow step ladder! With vintage buttons I found in Santa Fe.

Anxiety Projects

I'm still reeling from the election. Being anxious about it for so long, it's hard to realize its over. Though I am thoroughly relieved, I still have moments of complete panic. Not that I don't have things to freak out about now. How can you deal with a world in upheaval, trying to find a job, and breaking up with your girlfriend? Well, damned if I know. But making stuff has always helped me. I finally finished the cardigan I've been working on since Santa Fe. Turns out, Careful Knitting Nelly is kind of slow! I admit, I got very angry that it wasn't going faster during the second sleeve. I haven't blocked it yet and its kind of covered in cat hair, but it came out very nicely.I also finally finished a scrap hat for Nora. Only took me a year to weave the ends in! Worst part of knitting, as far as I'm concerned.
Between Mom and I there is a lot of ugly scrap fabric in the family home, and really nothing to be done with it. I mean, neon fish with overbites might have been a good idea in some designers head- it appealed to 7-year old Nelly- but what to do with stuff like that now? In a fit of the crazies, I bleached and dyed all of it. (On the left is my post college dye kitchen.) Then I tore everything into strips and made a quilt top.


And when you have anxiety, its always good to have something to hide under.

To keep us from becoming completely demoralized from over work, the entire costume shop packed up last week and went on a little field trip Los Alamos.   Once the sight of nuclear testing, the city of Los Alamos seems to now have a thriving fibers community.   The exhibit was at the public library, and it was one woman's collection.  In addition to being a nuclear physicist, she has also been traveling the world for years, collecting hand made lace and lace paraphernalia.  She described it as a mania, which it certainly seemed accurate.  The people who must have sat there for years at a time twisting tiny pieces of thread by candle light must have been just a little bit insane.   The way it's made, all the layers and complexity, our maniacal lace collecting tour guide told us, was similar to figuring out complicated physics problems. 

Lace has such an intense history, people got so worked up.  But it seems like nobody remembers the makers.   Our lace collecting docent had obviously taken such loving care of each piece.

 
She pointed out that in one piece contained the initials "M M" in one of the flowers.  Can you see it?  I love reminders that people, probably people a lot like me made this stuff, their hands and their time.  And history doesn't remember them, because they were women, or because lace just wasn't important enough to be recorded, but they made it anyway.

My photography obviously doesn't do any of these lace bits justice, but it was incredible to see.  Cathy decided right on the spot that she was going to get some bobbins and start working on her wedding dress.

Weird fact about lace bobbins:  they used to make commemorative lace bobbins for public hangings.  So as your sitting, twisting threads, your thinking, "Ah, the day James Banbit was hung for heresy.  'Twas a bright, sunny day, and the children and I had a lovely time in the town square."  ????

  Any way, there was a lovely farmers market right next to the library and we got lunch there.  I also bought two skeins of yarn spun from sheepies right up in the hills of Los Alamos.  This awesome woman gave me delicious bread for only two dollars.  Because I didn't have enough money.

And at the end of the day we drove back right across the bandolier tuff. Which could make your heart stop.

Festivities

I went to the Spanish Festival in downtown Santa Fe on my one day off.



The visual culture here is just so different than the old protestent greenery of the north, it never fails to shock me a little bit.  I met this amazing woman selling beautiful weavings and yarn she had spun in a mill that she built herself in Mora, New Mexico.



You can see the indigo dyed yarn I bought in the lower right.  She told me that I could work for her in the mill, picking alpaca fleeces apart, before they are spun.  Wouldn't that be amazing? Here's the website for her mill: http://www.tapetesdelana.com/ 

Who knows what the future holds.  But in the meanwhile, fibers! 

Vintage Shopping in Santa Fe

I've been frequenting this one particular vintage shop in Santa Fe.  It's called Pegasus Antiques, and its within walking distance from my house.  It's also closing down, so everything is about sixty percent off.  This place is amazing, its so full of stuff, it reminds me a little of a store called Sophisticated Junk in my home town.   Pegasus has a huge collection of textiles- not just scarves, table clothes and aprons, but also fabric remnaments dating back to the 40s.
Here's one of the women who works there going through the fabric racks.

So much crazy stuff!
This is probably where Allison Smith's happy place is.  There are these insane "sampler jackets" made up all of little crazy embrodiered patches.
And an amazing hankie from World War I!
I've been really obsessed with old photographs lately.
And old west themed prints.
I bought this amazing purse for my self, so I can accesorize all south west-y.

I bought this amazing radish fabric remnant for my mom.
And also this table cloth.


And I bought these two 1950s fabrics for me!