A podcast, breast pockets, todays ramble.

This week Ricë and I recorded a podcast on ” Going Flat and the Breast Pocket Project” and if you have an hour, please listen to it.

 

Studio Melly is up and running, hand dyeing embroidery floss. I ran out of cards to wrap thread on, and so, began making my own. I am crazy. It takes as long to make your own floss cards than it does to dye the thread (not really). And I do love seeing all the colors lined up in their boxes. I lament they are plastic, but can’t live without the orderliness. So I am ordering these.

I can tell you, I am learning a thing or two, dyeing all this thread. It is an interesting process. 

I have been gifted with an entire set of Havel Scissors. I like them a lot. They are a nice compliment to my sewing shears, but don’t replace them. The blades have a serrated teeth that has the effect of being grippy. I like these scissors for their accessibility, they are in high use right now.  Because I have an array to choose from, each having  specific use, I can confirm, I like the embroidery scissor, it is a bit too big for my Sew-plies purses, but it is lightweight and has a nice grip.

I don’t have an affiliation with Havel scissors, I am just giving my own opinion.

This is a set of pockets that I started working on last night. They will have graffiti stitching. 

We walked into Dumbo, taking photos and talking. The morning was magical and we began our walk just before the hustle and bustle of ‘family wake up time’. We had our cappuccino, we walked, paused, took pictures, it was great.

 I don’t know what this building is called. I will find out.

Neutralized Color

 

I am preparing for another Clever Guild class and these are some of the samples that I have been working on. I may be changing the name of that class, I am bot sure. I think the focus has shifted from being a boro inspired class to a embroidery and mixed media style class.  As I continue to create samples, I will work that part out.

When I dyed the threads shown in this post, I began thinking about dyeing a neutralized 4 step color wheel gradation of thread and I needed to work out the recipe to do so anyway. This seemed like an opportunity to expand my thread collection. And you know what? I still have not gotten the recipe down! So I will be dyeing even more thread in the next couple of days! My collection of thread is growing by 48 colors each time I dye. I see nothing wrong with this! What you see here is DMC 6 Strand Cotton, which is a favorite of mine. If you know where I can purchase bulk multi-strand silk, embroidery floss, PLEASE comment on this post.

I am a bit tired today and wanted to release a post about the podcast I recorded with Ricë, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. I will be conserving my energy for the rest of the day.

 

 

Bethany

Last week I put a post up on Facebook, asking if anyone knew of a uniboober or flattie in need to a pocket. Jennifer West responded, asking for a single pocket to be made for her cousin Bethany.  Here is what Jennifer said about Bethany:

My dear cousin Bethany died of breast cancer on Sept. 15 of this year. She was a brilliant soul: sweet, spunky and fearless. She had one breast removed and was in remission when the cancer returned with a vengeance and spread to her brain. The world will miss her.

It is so very sad to hear that another woman has died from this crazy disease. Rest peacefully Bethany, we will not forget and we miss you.

In the first few weeks after being diagnosed, I wondered, Geez, I am vegetarian, I am a healthy weight, what more can I do, should I do, to be even healthier? I looked at my breast surgeon and said, “I guess I need to start exercising”. She laughed at me and said something to the effect of, being diagnosed with breast cancer makes you want to exercise? And, well, yeah. I already eat healthy, I walk a lot, and as far as a life threatening disease goes, the one thing I can control is what I do with my body and how I eat. So exercise has been a major focus for me since I was diagnosed.

Months ago, I asked on a breast cancer board, what sort of exercise the other women were doing. One woman pointed out a website that, at first, was a boon, but then turned out to be a bane. The great part about finding that site was that it taught me that in terms of exercise, you are the person you need to compete with. You exercise because it makes you feel good and over time, you will also look better.

I fell in love with the host, I loved her gangly body and sheer excitement in cheering us on and encouraging us, but then…she got a boob job. And a lip job. And hair extensions. And a nose job. And now she still cheers folks on with excitement but I can’t see her anymore.  I watched with fascination as she made these changes to her already fantastic physique. Was she making these changes to get more followers? Did she have to get such big ones? I couldn’t get past the idea that she did it in response to the patriarchal demands that our society places on us as women, especially if we don’t know how to parse and separate ourselves from our culture. So I moved on. (No links to that site, she doesn’t deserve your attention.)

So, I started to get serious and began researching exercise after breast cancer, and you might think that with all this ‘awareness’ going on that someone would have an exercise program suited to the 12% of U.S. women who will be diagnosed in their lifetime. I found a research paper on weightlifting for women at risk of lymphedema after breast cancer treatment on the Journal of the American Medical Association. Then I found Marianne at MyOhMyTv. I watched her videos, read her posts and decided she was on my team, she is a feminist, who is smart and savvy, knows how to introspect about her own fitness goals and she is a founding member of Girls Gone Strong (here is the Girls Gone Strong Facebook page), all of the members of this group are on my fitness blogroll! I contacted Marianne, telling her of my needs as a survivor, and asking if she would be willing to work with me as an online client. I emailed the study results to her, she read them over and agreed.

I haven’t been working with her for long, but I am being consistent and I am seeing some initial results. Just this morning, as we were snuggling and waking up, David said, you are feeling tighter! And I have to say, I also feel more balanced, centered in my body, my endurance has improved, and yes, I am tightening up all over the place. It feels good.

I will be talking more about body image, society and the female form in the next few posts, and I do hope you are interested.

Jingle McEver

 

Last week I was contacted by Morna McEver Golletz through Facebook. She asked for me to put a name to a pocket. And when Morna told me her mother was named Jingle McEver, I knew I needed to put more than a name to this pocket, I had to honor Jingle’s memory with a full blown and beautiful pocket. Jingle was mother, a teacher, a watercolorist and an inspiration. Later in life, Jingle became a Uniboober.

Morna said these things about her mother: 

“Her name is Jingle McEver. She’d be so happy to be doing this.”

and

“…she’d love that you’re from Brooklyn. Her favorite grandmother (and great grandmother and family) settled in Brooklyn after coming to America from Germany.”

“…my mom was an artist from early in her childhood. She taught art and painted, largely watercolors, until she could no longer. She was also a grand encourager of creativity and art in her five daughters.”

I feel honored to make a pocket for a woman who is so highly esteemed. I feel honored to make a pocket for a woman named Jingle. Thank you Morna.

 

As I get used to being a flat chested woman, I seek imagery of other like minded women. Jodi Jaecks made international news for fighting to be allowed to swim in her local pool without a top. Margaret W. Smith had a preemptive bilateral mastectomy because she tested positive for the BRCA2 mutated gene and members of her family had been treated for breast cancer as well. There is also the Scar Project which shows some mastectomies as well as some reconstructed images of women. And then there is the photographer Carly Ries who is working on a series of photographs of women who have gone through treatment for breast cancer. 

I am glad that women can have their bodies reconstructed after breast cancer treatment, many women need and want these options. But for those of us who do not, I am happy that we have some trailblazers who are putting images of their bodies out into the public realm. Seeing images of women who choose not to reconstruct their body is important, beautiful, simple, empowering. 

We, as women, are bombarded with images of how we should look, products we should use, exercise programs to loose weight, fashions that will only look good on size 0 models (0?? What. Who wears size 0? Should we dissolve into the ether next, become totally invisable?)  We see these images and headlines so often, we can forget that they are telling us to be something other than what we are. I have yet to see an ad by the ‘pink ribbon people’ that uses imagery of a single breasted or flat woman. This needs to stop.

It makes me happy that women are bucking the norm and going flat. Putting their images out into the public eye. Normalizing the choice that many women are forced to make in a lifetime, without pandering to the need to fit in and have an acceptable body image. It is about time. 

 

 

 

Her name here:

 

I fell in love and I wasn’t even thinking about it. That is the way with love, don’t you think? It’s a backdoor experience.

I really must thank Libby for sending me all of those pockets. I love the small pre-constructed squares. Libby has some master rippers over there. These pockets have snips of thread left in the needle holes. Pockets as canvas. For painting, stenciling, stamping, embroidering? I am on a creative tangent and I am using pockets to explore artistic themes. Pockets are a quick and dirty size.

Quick and Dirty Breast Pockets <———————Um? I like those 5 words together.

The above pocket was stenciled and embroidered. This pocket needs a name, anyone know a uniboober who needs representation? Leave a comment, first names only, all names considered! I will be making pockets for the foreseeable future.

Marlene

This is probably one of my first hand carved stamps. It is at least 15 years old, if not older. This pocket is being made for Marlene. A Pool Party mate. We exchanged emails this week. She is having rocky times right now. So I whipped up a pocket for her and this stamp just seemed the right imagery to use.

See that scrumptious Laura Wasilowski thread? May I say, “Yum”? I will buy this thread again. I would like to see her colors in person. This is a rainbow skein, it is bright, which is not my normal ‘go to’, but it really suites this pocket.  It sews beautifully. 

I look forward to hugging Marlene, next time I see her. 

Cleverly Lisa

 I don’t really advertise this fact but I give private lessons in my home studio, when asked and if I am able. So when Lisa Chin emailed me last month, asking if I would be teaching any classes during this week, I suggested she might take a private lesson. Lisa was in the city for a personal celebration and wanted an ‘art class’ to have a little fun. Do you think I could have taken more pictures? Yes! 

We worked with thickened dye on mostly cotton, we did some monoprinting, stamping, ruling pen, freezer paper, we used stencils, we gabbed, laughed and nibbled some nosh. I love how our worlds are made bigger and smaller by the internet, I read Lisa’s blog, I keep up with her through Facebook, she has made breast pockets for me!

And better still?

She encouraged her twin daughters’ volleyball team to make breast pockets for my project. These are the first paper pockets that I have received, and they brought tears to my eyes. The red one on top is my favorite (is it OK to have favorites?) It reads, 

The beating

Heart

inside the chest

is what counts 

more than the

breast

When I lifted the three pockets that Lisa made off the top of the pile of paper pockets, to read this sentiment, my heart strings sang. The young woman who wrote it is 15 years old (and unknown to Lisa, one of her daughters made it). Big happy sigh. Wednesday was a great day.

Cloth Paper Scissors is putting out an eBook of projects related to up-cycling, that includes a project that I wrote for them a few years back, Recyclababes.

Download your copy today!

Leslie Riley interviewed me for her Art and Soul Blog Talk Radio program. I would love for your to listen to it!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf

Listen to internet radio with Art And Soul Radio on Blog Talk Radio

Round Up!

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I participate in a pool program, offered by my hospital to help survivors recover. I love this program, I go once a week, I connect with other survivors in a predominantly physical but also, at times, emotional level (which works best for me, I can’t go deeply into the emotional side or breast cancer or its treatment, I would rather enter into a more physical connection with other survivors) and we stretch, play and laugh together. Teri, our instructor is well versed in Range of Motion issues and the exercises that will help with them.

I made sure to ‘represent’ for us Flatties, and I squealed when they mentioned me specifically. 

I would never have thought that an aspect of the cancer experience would madke me feel so passionate. I firmly believe the ability to ‘Go Flat’ is an issue of women’s rights. This is an issue of body autonomy, women must have complete control over the only thing we can control, our bodies. As a result, Going Flat must become normalized. Women who forgo reconstruction should not wear breast forms for any other reason than having a preference to do so.

When the beautiful, deminuitive 75 year old fella pool program attendee, looked at me and pinched her ‘bubby’, which is what she calls her breast form, telling me she hated wearing it for the last — years (more than 2 decades). I fell in love with her, and fell in love with being a feminist, again. Her daughter keeps telling her to put the breast form away. But she does not feel able to leave the breast form behind! 

She called me brave. A teacher. She looked at me in awe.

And I am brave, many women cannot imagine leaving home without their breast forms. Others very much want to leave them behind, but feel pressure to wear them for their jobs, and for the people in their lives who expect them to look a certain way. As more women like me, Margaret  W. Smith and Jodi Jaecks put their bodies and their choices out there, normalization of this bodily form, this aspect of women’s lives, will occur. Society will  re-member the full array of shapes that an individual woman’s body can take in a lifetime. But no woman should feel compelled to wear forms because our society is misogynist and ignorant and has set up an expectation of what the female form should look like. Especially in light of breast cancer.

Breast Pockets are being made around the world!! I have put out a challenge for folks to make 1000 breast pockets to raise awareness for the women who choose not to reconstruct their bodies after breast cancer and to pave awareness for those who would like to put their forms aside entirely. October 22 is the deadline, you can make pockets in whatever way you choose, paper, cloth, mixed media. You can use this pattern, if you feel the need. If I have not answered your email (they are piling up) on where to send them, please be a greasy wheel!  😎

The above pocket was made by my good friend Elliot (who will be turning 9 on October 31) and can be seen here with her sister Alex, snuffling. 

Alex (who is 5 years old) and Cricket (we will leave her age up for debate!) also made some pockets. I have heard from folks as far ranging as Hong Kong, Australia, Finland, Canada and here in the U.S.  I really hope to get 1000 pockets made in a very short period of time. Will you please help?

To update you on my knitting world, my Boardwalk is coming along just fine! I need to knit about 5″ of stockinette stitch before the neck detail will start. I love the Malabrigo yarn I am using. The color stacks up beautifully. I am hoping this pattern will become a favorite, one that I can knit again and again.

And one last thing.

My mother has begun a new venture, a store featuring ‘Coastal Inspired Items for You and Your Home’ (I love this summation) called The Captain’s Chest. I am so very proud of her for doing this and would love for you to click over and see what she has in stock, perhaps you’ll see something you cannot live without! My mother is passionate about coastal living, entertaining, food and family and she does a beautiful job combining all of these into this new endeavor. Please check it out.

Steeped in Breast Pockets

As you know, I am asking for help to make 1000 breast  pockets in memory of or to honor your friends and loved ones who have decided against reconstructing their bodies after breast cancer. I posted this ‘Call For’ on Facebook, because it seems we all hang out there! Libby, from Mija Fiber Art quickly emailed me saying she had been saving breast pockets, taken from the clothing she uses to make her art for the last 10 years, she went on to offer me two boxes of breast pockets.

I could not refuse. 

The two boxes are so jam packed, the pockets ‘stick’ together. They are also somewhat loosely arranged by color!  I have not counted them. I love them though. I love that cloth has memory. The seam allowances remain turned back, there are snippets of thread left where the pockets were ripped from their original home. They become ‘documents’ (information or evidence that serves as an official record). And they each have personality, funky, wild, subdued, loud, quiet prints. 

My goodness. Largess comes in interesting, fun and exciting ways.

This is a pocket taken from Mija’s Largess. I am using hand dyed pearl cotton to highlight the printed leaves. This pocket is not yet complete, but it is calling my name as I type. 

If you are making pockets, please post them to facebook, or your blog, and let me know! I am keeping a pinterest board with all the pockets that we make and post about. Thank you for helping me get the word out.

Now I am off to go make some tea!