Breath of Fresh Air

Last week I took myself out for a much needed day on the town. I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where I stumbled upon what is probably the smallest exhibit there, Gems of European Lace. It took me about 5 minutes of trying to locate room 599 before asking a guard where the room was. When I finally found the room, I was quite pleased to be alone in it.

OMG. Usually when I go to a museum or gallery, it is my hope that something will affect me deeply. I hope to be able to have a physical response to what I see. I shed some tears, I was so deeply affected. 

One of the pieces on display was presumably used and worn by Marie Antoinette. I took photographs of every single piece. I tried to imagine who might have made the lace, man or woman. This needle lace piece? Those hexagonal supportive stitches that hold the piece together? 7 stitches per bar. Um. Wow. 

Ever since I was a child, I have held textiles, lace, embroidery, crochet, cloth, the items that are considered ‘feminine and female’ in the art world, in high reguard. I mean, just look at the story told in the lace above. Angels, a fountain, birds, flowers, tassels, bugs. All the good things, represented as a story and wearable too.

Experiencing a hand made item like this, one that is as old as it is, makes me want to be a better artist. It gives me something to  strive for. It might also suggest that I need to employ an army to get all the things I want to, done!

I am dyeing threads and trying to work all of the kinks out. See the threads in the box? The manner that I dye threads creates these white undyed spots (that show up as lightly colored flecks), which occurs every 6 inches or so. This week I am working on eliminating that undyed spot. It takes alot of time, because I am dyeing thread in groups of 48 colors. I think I figured it out, but, I need to wait for this last batch to soak and dry before I can confirm this.

And because I need something to embroider, now having gads of colors and thread options available to me, I started making what I am calling Breastplates. The rabbit from earlier this week is part of the Breastplate at lower right. I will stitch, sew and print these plates for some time to come.

The party begins.

Mish Mash.

I bought an album by Sophie Hunger. She is worth a listen. Check her out.

 

I really like Kellie Davis of Mother Fitness Revolution. I was introduced to her web site by Bret Contreras site (who calls himself The Glute Guy-which I think quite charming, albeit goofy) 😉 The two coauthored the upcoming book, Strong Curves, which I preordered, I never pre-order! I am quite excited about this book. Marianne has worked with Bret. In the fitness world it seems that people mentor and teach one another, it is quite an interesting place.

 

I own one piece of jewelry from these folk. I check them out now and again. Lil’ shopping. Then I head over here. I own a pair of boots from CYDWOQ. She says shyly. Riches! Honest to goodness riches. Those boots were comfortable from day one. Amazing. And they will last for quite a long time. These boots can be resoled, and there is a great cobbler in the neighborhood. My Man bought me a shirt sold at J Crew, made of Liberty of London cloth yesterday (I wish you could actually see the print). There will be many a fun day in that shirt! 

 

The Graffiti Breast Pockets are coming along. They need a super shift, a change, an intensity of color, additional motif, something. I have begun to push them in a new direction.

In Episode 6 of the last Mad Men season (4?), Peggy has this print by David Weidman hanging in her office, which I love. I am embroidering my version of these daisies onto the pocket at upper right.

Today I have a doctor appointment in the morning, then I plan to take my sewing supplies to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to stitch/draw. Excitement.

Hand stitch

Stitch, hand stitching is such a quiet endeavor. I love it for that reason. I love keeping the apartment so quiet that you can hear the needle break through the cloth. Over and over again. I also love the way stitch changes the nature of the cloth you work. 

This is a set of breast pockets that I am making in my own name. This will be a dense mix of thread and imagery, hand stitched ‘paint’ (no paint will be used, just hand dyed thread).

I am extending the deadline for the Breast Pocket Project, right now I need about 800 pockets to meet my goal. 200 pockets are a great accomplishment, and I did ask that you send the pockets during the week of the 22nd, which is today or now. I know many more pockets are on their way to my neck of the woods as I type, but if you have it in you to make more pockets, please do.

Brave, fiercely.

I have been conversing about cloth, it is a personal, ever growing and ongoing discussion, really. I have this ‘metallic’ white cotton, I bought it ten years ago, I don’t know its name. (Do you??) 

I am a total Mad Men Fan. And right now I have a crush in Michael Ginsberg‘s character.  Please repeat the above paragraph in Michael Ginsberg’s cadence and accent.

Please.

Use his gestures too.

See? I am revealing myself. 

ANYWAY. Back to the cloth!

I think the ‘metallic’ is plastic, I don’t know, it is a festive  cloth, whatever it’s content. I reverse basted some of the mettallic cotton cloth to the center front band of a tie front wrap. I love what the cloth has become.

But,

if this cloth has plastic content, I would like to say! Way to make plastic magical, whoever designed this cloth! Thank you! It is somehow, really magical.

I wish I had a selvedges that would tell me more about these different pieces and parts. I remember taking a steam iron to them early on and watching them shrink in front of my eyes, by inches! I knew it would happen and did it on purpose, so that I would get used to the eventual look, not the newly-bought look.

You know?

The graffiti Pockets are coming along! You can only see a bottom corner up center, top. I like what is happening with this set of pockets, but progress is slow. Stitch as color is infiltrating my thought process. Stitch as painting. Stitch as communication.

Either way, I am interested in stitch, clothing, cloth and what each of these ‘ideas’ brings to a garment.

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.