Mike and I spent the winter solstice eve at a special "Here Comes the Sun" performance by Molly Moon and Riley O'Conner as a benefit for new solar panels on the roof of the Purple Porch Food Co-op--how crunchy is that? This was a fun evening, followed by a fresh snow on Christmas Eve that left us with about eight lovely white inches on the ground. Now, a few days later, we are staying warm indoors as the temperatures go into digits minus zero. Winter in northern Indiana is a time for making things with wool.
I like to have some portable projects for when I am a passenger in the car, or just watching the news or a movie at home. I unearthed a horde of single and damaged work gloves in my parent's basement and then cut them in half and embroidered them to tweedy whole cloth with wool tapestry yarn. Who knows why so many gloves were saved (there are dozens, all colors, sizes and fibers), or what possible purpose they were intended for, but here I am, finding a purpose for them! These are evidence of the power of depression-era thinking. I know I have not yet found them all. Many of my friends have passed on to me other textile caches, found when they eventually needed to empty the family home for sale. Those are artifacts often loaded with memory and grief, but these gloves, they' re just wacky.
Embroidered work gloves, a few of many
I have started to combine the individual gloves into a larger whole with felted wool from deconstructed garments and blankets. I love working with wool, but only in the winter, it needles so nicely, and the colors are so deeply saturated. I am using mostly wool for the stitching, and a bit of perle cotton. Here are a few details:
What I Am Reading:
I reread The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. I read it in the 80's, and it was just as chilling in 2017. Also, The House Among the Trees, by Julia Glass, The Rules of Magic, by Alice Hoffman, Future Home of the Living God, by Louise Erdrich, Under a Pole Star, by Stef Penney, and State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett.