Extreme Needleturn, Part 3

Put on your helmets and buckle your seat belts for this is the extreme of extreme needleturn appliqué! These are the labyrinths in which I lose myself. As usual, the fabrics come from flea market clothing.

Improvisation V, 48”x45”/122cmx114cm, May 2000, hand appliquéd (labyrinth), machine pieced and quilted.

This piece was worked from the bottom up and the needleturn took about three years. 

Nine colors entwine around a light source.

Stitching proceeded inch by inch because sometimes five colors come together. 

Revolution 2011: Order and Disorder (41.5"x46", 105cmx117cm) was shown here.

I carried around this labyrinth for about ten years, working on it periodically. Yet the colors made it agreeable to work on.

A garment serves as the canvas for a current project. This labyrinth is somewhat easier because there are fewer colors, four fabrics plus the circle fabric.

I added a pocket from another shirt.

It occurs to me that this post contains a lot of labyrinths--I'm lost...

Confusion

Warm weather in November has caused confusion in the garden because we live in the Northern Hemisphere and winter should be approaching.  The pear and apple trees blossomed in all their glory.

Other trees and plants are making a comeback after the huge hailstorm in mid-October. However, they seem confused about the season because of the balmy weather. New leaves and flowers grace the cumquat tree, whose large leaves (about 10" long) are mostly shredded. 

The problem : our climate is off-kilter and after the Sandy mega-storm most people appear to understand that—finally.

         A number of years ago an advice column caught my eye. A young marine biologist complained of unhappiness and depression stemming mostly from her job. She felt that the biologist’s job had been reduced to "documenting the decline." The advice dished out cavalierly ?  Change jobs.

Excuse me ?! It seems to me that we are beyond that option. Climate change and the decline of the planet must be faced by everyone or else. Given the greed of the multinationals and the industrial/military complex, the or else may be inevitable. True, humanity has been on the edge of extinction for most of its existence, and every generation faces horrendous events. My father fought in WWII, my grandfather in WWI, and an ancestor fought in the American Revolution. I never heard my father or grandfather speak of these nightmares. They preferred to hide their memories and try to live "normal" lives, I suppose.

Not only does terrible violence face us (the evening news is just a small sampling), but nature’s backlash reminds us that we’ve really made a mess of things. And yet, in an attempt to survive, we may find kindness, compassion, and beauty around us.

It seemed appropriate, then, that the apple blossoms appear in my sketchbook/ journal as an unusual event. Lovely in their light pinks surrounded by the spring green of new leaves, they would normally represent hope and renewal. However, these blossoms are doomed and so I chose a dark background fabric suggested by one of the photos I took. (It was about to rain, so plein air sketching was out of the question. I had to sketch from the photo, which I would usually consider cheating).

The background presented technical problems. I sketched in white pencil, which tended to erase. So I stitched the design first.

I snipped pieces of fabric to fit within the lines, allowing the dark background to show. It gives sort of a cloisonné or mosaic effect.

Then, the free motion stitching.

And so, I will gently "document the decline" while giving thanks for all the blessings. And wishing all those who celebrate Thanksgiving this week a wonderful holiday.
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By the way. After much reflection, I decided to start a new blog of tiny bits, MulticoloredSnippets, that serves as a sort of daily journal in which I keep track of my work/play. Possibly of no interest to anybody but myself, more photos than text, unpolished. http://multicoloredsnippets.blogspot.com/

When Life Hands You a Lemon, Part 2

"...Make Lemonade" follows. This is a simple recipe that I just learned from my daughter, fortunately, considering the amount of lemons I have. It is soooooo refreshing on a hot day. Other recipes exist--this just happens to be my favorite. Tried and true.

Real Lemonade

Wash 10-12 lemons (quantity depends on the size of lemons) and cut them up into eigths—enough to fill a blender about ¾.  

Put them in blender and fill the blender ¾ full of water.

Add 2 c. sugar and 1 tsp. vanilla. If you like a tart lemonade, add less sugar.

Blend until you have a pulp. (I have to take my time on this step in order not to burn out the blender motor.)

Pour into a large pot, add 4 c. water, and let sit for an hour or two.

Put a filter (the kind you use for tea) over a pitcher and filter out the pulp so that only the liquid remains (I press the pulp in the filter with a spoon). Toss out the pulp.

Taste the resulting liquid. If concentrated, add water. If still bitter, add more sugar, then refrigerate.

Obviously, shelf life is relatively short since there are no additives. Use within several days.

Or the lemonade can be put in plastic bottles and frozen. Once thawed, use it within several days.

This technique works for limes as well. For an elegant drink, you can add a couple of limes with the lemons when blending for lemonade (my favorite).

Unbelievably, I have had a request for another recipe, which is also extremely simple.

Limoun (lee-moon') or Pickled Lemons 
Wash 3-4 large yellow lemons (yes, there are green lemons; it is the thick skin that counts here).
Cut into the skin from stem to navel, but not clear through.
In the meantime, prepare the brine in a bottle (mason jar, for example) large enough to hold the lemons. 
Fill the bottle about half full of water. 
Add enough salt to float an egg. I find it helps to heat the water so the salt will absorb faster and then put it in the bottle when cool.
Add 2-3 T. vinegar. 
Put the lemons in the brine. Add water if they are not entirely covered.

It takes about 6 weeks for the lemons to pickle and they last for a l-o-n-g time. My bottle of limoun is about a year old and the lemons are still good. Limoun can be used in salads and North African main dishes. I chop up a small amount in very small pieces and put in potato salad, for example. 

Now on to more interesting things: my sketchbook page with fabrics laid down.

   The final version.

And I found that working with yellow, which I seem to avoid, pushed me into a cheerful composition that happily illustrates the old saying under discussion.

When Life Hands You a Lemon, Part 1

Maybe you’ve heard this one before. "When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade." Having taken a road less traveled (how many Americans do you know living on farms in Tunisia ?), this motto comes frequently to mind—I probably drove my kids nuts with it. Lately, it’s become literal. Here’s my lemon crop.

Fortunately, I learned a simple lemonade recipe last summer. Now, I’m not one to give out recipes and I would not presume to tell people how to cook. I’m a Happy Eater surrounded by Finicky Eaters. That is to say, I don’t mind fast food hamburger joints (to please the grandkids) and if someone takes the time to cook a meal and put it in front of me, I’ll eat it no matter what. It’s the thought and work that count. On the other hand, I can recognize fine cuisine and resent going to an expensive restaurant and getting mediocre food (happens frequently). My own cooking is simple and done from scratch with fresh produce and some of my own spices.

I have rosemary,


and thyme,

and sage, which intends to take over the garden, 

and bay leaves (would that be a bay tree?).

After this digression, the lemonade recipe will have to wait, because my sketchbook/journal takes precedence. Although I know how to draw, it doesn't interest me that much because I'd rather spend my time stitching a labyrinth. However, I've been experimenting with sketching on fabric, which began here. And that, my friends, might be the best of both worlds. Of course, this is not an original idea--take a look around the internet--but, I'm re-inventing the wheel for myself.
It occurred to me that I could sew a piece of fabric to a page in my loose-leaf sketchbook/journal (loose-leaf so that the pages can be removed to work upon).










I chose a quiet piece of fabric from a 
men's shirt, then went out to find a couple of scarce lemons left on a tree.
I added more fabrics, and traced over the drawing with a black permanent pen (like a sharpie).
Then began the fun part of free motion sewing. I went several times around each form with black thread to suggest a sketch-y look, after which I wrote the words with pen and sewed over them.





                            So maybe I could reconcile myself to the idea 
                    of keeping a sketchbook/journal on a more regular basis. 

Containing Things--Mosaics and Otherwise

Since summer heat was not conducive to mosaicking (no air conditioner by my work table), it was time to finish a few plant containers. Here are two pots made from 3-liter olive oil cans.

The sides of the container on the right have wing motifs suggested by broken tiles and in line with the wing theme inspiring two stitching projects on which I'm currently working. 

They will sit in the wall spaces around the patios.

An aside. A fair number of rocks and stones can be found out in the fields so I collect the bigger rocks into piles and my husband occasionally remembers to bring them home on the tractor. Recently, he said peevishly, "I see you haven’t used the rocks I brought you."  Ok,  ok. 

I now have a rock pile sculpture on the kitchen veranda, unscathed by the big hailstorm. And two new containers grace the stairs to the roof. The lineup:

              The first one sports a band of circles and a top border of tiny pieces.

The design for the next container started as (wild) flying geese, however, the wing theme inspired me to add extra triangles to create a flurry of wings. 

A flying geese design in light green echoes the white wings. At least the mosaic containers stood up to the hailstorm and I suppose my poor ragged plants will manage to revive with the pleasant autumn weather. Now I better get to planting the new additions.

And Best Wishes to all celebrating Aïd.

News Update: The Tunisian government is now officially in limbo although it continues to function. The Constitutional Assembly's mandate ended on October 22. They had one year to write a constitution (which they could have accomplished in four to six months), but, they have as yet to produce a final document. It appears they appreciate their hefty salaries. The ruling religious party claims legitimacy because they were elected. Voters say they voted for a group of people to write a constitution within a year. Elections have been proposed for June 2013, however, who will organize (and control) that process remains unclear. So far protests and demonstrations have been peaceful, with the exception of the lynching of the leader of the Tataouine Nida Tounes Party (an opposition party) on October 18th by ruling party demonstrators. An unheard of horror that provoked anger among Tunisians, especially since nobody has been arrested despite a large number of witnesses. In any case, nobody wants a vacuum in power, which could lead to a civil war. And so the lid remains on and things are contained...for the moment.

Extreme Needleturn, Part 2

"Extreme" seems to be the word of the day. Yet, sometimes things work out the way they should. Fortunately, my garden took center stage last week, even though it was gasping, because Friday night a hail storm that lasted at least 20 minutes with hurricane-force winds beat it up. Every tree is moping, especially the fig trees that usually sport gloriously huge leaves, which are now shredded. The citrus crop, which begins to ripen at the end of October, is mostly on the ground. It was in the high 80°s, low 90°s during the day and here’s what we found outside the kitchen door after the storm in the evening: 

The hail measured about an inch across (2-3 cm). Several inches piled up like drifts of snow.

The foot looks chilly--it might need a sock!

Just another example of the extreme forms of weather facing humanity. Guess we better get used to it.

On a more cheerful note and with cheerful colors, I turn to my favorite subject of needleturn appliqué. Many years ago, I tested out some easy ins-and-outs in "Etudes" (Studies), seen here, and then played with more complex improvisations. Improvisation I  (Jan. 1992, 31” x 30”/77cmx79cm), which you might recognize as the side frame of my blog, suggested the possibilities of complicated structures that resemble mazes, although it is machine appliqué and not needleturn.

It was made from the small scraps of a bigger project.

The following piece, Improvisation II: Où sont les tigres? Où sont les Hommes? (Where are the Tigers? Where are the Men? March 1993, 41.5"x36.5"/1m06x93cm) contains a few bits of tiger/zebra stripe fabric in the pieced background.

Tigers are an endangered species, and Men? Living in a country with a dictatorial regime led me to wonder how much people could take and what had happened to the Men who would stand up to its violence. The viewer can find the tiger fabric, but the Men?

And yet, this piece makes me very happy. My needleturn technique converged with subject matter and color taking me along a path to my own visual language. I'm glad to have had a reason to revisit it.
                  I end with a piece in the "early extreme" style--a study in forms.

Improvisation VI: Bonheur et bonne humeur (Happiness and Good Humor, June 2000, 44"x63") is a cheerful exploration of the possibilities of needleturn without a maze, just one color at a time. The background provides contrast thanks to its white layered, raw-edged cottons and uneven side edges.

However, the background now seems a bit empty. I'm tempted to come back to this piece to add stitching. The border, a commercial fabric, could use some, too. I think I'll add it to my l-o-n-g list of works-in-progress.

Gasping Garden

My garden gasped through August, revived with four days of rain and slightly lower temperatures in September, which gave a second spring.

Now it's gasping again during the Indian summer with temperatures in the 90°s F. (35-38° C.), dropping only slightly at night. The warm weather doesn’t fool me—I know it’s time to prepare for winter, so the roof got it’s coat of water-proofing (the back-breaking inconvenience of a flat roof), and then out came the paint cans and brushes. While my husband takes care of repairs, the shutters, doors, gates, and railings have been getting my attention. 


I like the freshly painted shutters--no dust. That will last for about a week.

Have you noticed that people on Pinterest have whole boards about gates? Which made me appreciate my no-nonsense garden gates made of pallet wood and freshly painted. 



Besides being kind of cute, they serve to keep our farm dogs off the patios and out of the raised flower beds.
A few new objets trouvés (sounds nice in English, fancy way of saying ‘found junk’) have been added to my kitchen terrace garden. I discovered a bicycle chain and sprocket in a field. I resisted the urge to paint the sprocket (round rusty metal object on left, below).

                                   I like the sculptural effect of the chain.

On the right, an old bird cage got painted along with the shutters. Good plant protection from the cats. One of my cats just walks into, onto, and over potted plants--even prickly succulents. 

For this project, I cut wires on the side of the cage to be able to open it up and insert pots.

           Of course, I must point out that my bidet (which began here) is looking better than ever. My dentist stopped by for a (friendly) visit and when he saw it, he decided to put an old sink and bathtub in his garden to plant. As I've mentioned before here, Tunisians love to accumulate and now he's pleased that he kept them.

On the left you can see a rusty piece of wrought iron railing that showed up out of nowhere. I’ve got to get a grip on the junk around here!