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Die Nase. I've been writing fragmentary bits of pattern for a crochet face for years now, and finally put hook to yarn and made a prototype nose today. Here are my "pattern" notes, which also function well to show why I don't write patterns: Dec, Dec, inc, inc, Dec Dec Inc inc Plain x 3 Inc inc Plain x3 Sl, ch2, dc2tog, ch2, sl Dc flt Sc3tog The next challenges are figuring out eyes and lips, and then, of course, integrating them into one pattern. (Eye holes are easy enough, but sculpting the curves of eyelids a little harder).

Timaeus 1: tetrahedron prototype.

I’m the kind of person who’s too impatient to wait for there to be good daylight and make sure there’s no crap in the background for me to take photos and post them, so here are some photos taken at night, under artificial light, with some bags in the background (my office is my studio is my lounge. Mess is inevitable).

Anyway, somewhat delightfully ironic to call this a prototype, since prototype can mean both the first thing you make which you then go on to perfect, or the thing from which all future models are derived: almost like a platonic form. The form which is to be perfected in future models and the perfect form from which all later (imperfect) models will be derived are represented by the same word.

Why is that ironic? Because a tetrahedron is one of five Platonic solids (tetrahedron, hexahedron [more commonly known as a cube], octohedron, dodecahedron, icosahedron): it's a platonic form. It's the prototype for all tetrahedrons. Except I'm hoping that the next ones I make will be more perfect that this. My prototype/Platonic form is imperfect and rough. But it is still the first manifestation of the basic concept from which all the others will be built.

I will (hopefully) explain more about the Timaeus (A Platonic dialogue where these solids are mentioned) as I make more and expand/explore/refine.

I wish my WIP photos were more interesting/aesthetic/intriguing, but hey. As long as the finished pieces have those qualities I won't complain too much.

I've also been playing with wire crochet again.

Things I'm working on at the moment: a giant hyperbolic mass, in super bulky/chunky yarn. This is 12 balls in. (It takes about 40 minutes to get through one ball). And some geometric crochet - beginning with a simple series of Platonic Solids. Currently layering and layering fabric stiffener onto one triangle for the tetrahedron to see how many coats it's going to take to get a sturdy enough facet.

I'm running a workshop (co-designed with colleague, who is a star and also did most of the prep whilst I was busy talking about the Stitched Iliad at UCL's Homeric Summer School) this weekend at the festival as well. I'll post photos from that later.

Book 1 & 2 exhibited together at the Beyond the Borders festival.

This afternoon I am giving a talk at UCL about the Stitched Iliad. It is open to the public, if you happen to be in London at around 4.00pm

End of book 2.

Maaaan, I really need to get back to practicing free-motion quilting.

Quilting Circles - Ruler Work

I am having so MUCH FUN with the Circles on Quilts templates by Westalee Design by Sew Steady.  There are so many possibilities.

Two Circle on Quilts sets include four sizes that can quilt concentric circles from 2-inches to 12-inches at ½ inch increments.

The templates rotate from a pivot point. A metal tack is placed underneath so the template rotates from from the same axis point to create concentric circles.  Watch short video demo below.

Using the Circles on Quilts is so EASY. With the right free-motion tools: thread, needles, supreme slider, a machine capable of free-motion quilting and gloves, all you need is Westalee’s ½-inch ruler foot and the templates to make perfect circles WITHOUT marking.

A 10-inch and 9.5 circle made the outer 1/4inch channel and a 6-inch and 5-inch circle created the inner ½-inch channel. Both channels created space for a beautiful swirl of feather plumes. A 2-inch circle in the center and the 5-inch circle encase the swirl design.

So, what do you think? Are you ready to try the templates?

Tagged: #this is a really sad p0st #because y0u have t0 have s0 much hate t0 take s0mething that is literally taught in anger management as a relaxati0n technique and make it n #0t relaxing #y0u kn0w the saying D0 what y0u l0ve and never w0rk a day in y0ur life #it apparently d0es n0t apply t0 this pers0n #n0r d0es hist0ry

Thanks for you expert insight into my psyche and all my hatred. No, I don’t make a “fucking fortune” from my job. I just don’t find it relaxing. I am allowed to not find it relaxing, because it is, unfortunately, not “literally relaxing”. If you find it relaxing: good for you! I never said you, or other people, couldn’t find it relaxing, but I am tired of people assuming that I must find it relaxing. I’m not telling you that you cannot find it relaxing, and all I ask is that other people don’t tell me that I should be finding it relaxing because it “literally is”.  Apparently this is too much to ask.

But here’s the thing: I don’t. I don’t find it relaxing. And I am very much allowed to not find it relaxing. And I will defend my right to experience embroidery as not relaxing. I shall sit here, obscenely sewing without finding it relaxing, defying science itself and the very ordering of the universe with my stubborn refusal to find my job relaxing. I shall lead the subversive revolution of people being allowed to enjoy things they don’t find relaxing, to do things they don’t find relaxing regardless of whether they enjoy it, and to get annoyed when other people tell us that we must find it relaxing. And presumably, with every non-relaxing stitch I sew, a puppy with die and a fairy will lose its wings. 

“I can’t make a living 0ff this and I actually d0 enj0y it.”

You are conflating “relaxing” and “enjoyment”, and then implying that I claimed I didn’t enjoy embroidery, and you even go so far as to later assert that I hate it. You are putting words in my mouth. “relaxing” and “enjoyment” are not the same thing and I never once claimed I didn’t enjoy embroidery. Other things I enjoy without finding relaxing: rollerskating, mountain climbing, writing academic articles, horror movies. 

“ I have n0 idea where y0u’re getting this n0ti0n that embr0dery wasn’t s0ld at high prices.”

Perhaps the reason you have no idea where I got that notion from is because that is not a notion I have, nor one that I expressed. But apart from the fact that that’s not actually a thing I said, the citation for the quote I was discussing is right there in the post. The Subversive Stitch, Rozsika Parker. 

The history of embroidery is long and complicated. When it was sold, it was sold at a high price. When. By the 18th Century it was seen by a large group of people as a leisure activity, something that women did to decorate their homes, NOT something they sold. These are the women I am talking about - I even acknowledge that this ignores other women: “But all of this is to say nothing of the women who did do embroidery as work, as a living, who did sell their labour.” 

“I have n0 idea h0w y0u t00k an activity specifically designed and scientifically proven to be relaxing…” (my emphasis)

Citation needed. 

“and made y0urself hate it”

Citation needed. 

The person reading hate into this is you. The person assuming I hate something that I never said I hated is you. I really don’t appreciate being so mis-represented, to have someone claim I said things I never said, and to even go so far as to make assumptions about my mental state and assert that I hate things without any evidence that that is in any way true. And to then imply I don’t know anything about history, or think that it doesn’t apply to me: It’s rude. It’s really, really, rude. 

Finally: There is a reason a whole range and variety of therapies and relaxation techniques exist: it is because different things work for different people. It is because there isn’t one universal thing that has been scientifically proven to work for everyone. And context is important. Sometimes I find cooking relaxing. Sometimes I don't. It's the differences between cooking for myself or my loved ones, cooking recipes I am familiar with or making it up as I go along, and knowing that it can take as long as it takes; and cooking to a deadline, having to strictly follow recipes I'm unfamiliar with for people I'm also unfamiliar with. Embroidery is my job and I still don't find it relaxing.

Don’t tell me embroidery is relaxing.

“By the eighteenth century embroidery was beginning to signify a leisured, aristocratic life style — not working was becoming the hallmark of femininity.” (The Subversive Stitch, Rozsika Parker, 1984: 11)

Women’s work as an oxymoron: if women do it, it cannot be work. Women cannot work, so anything a woman does cannot be work. Therefore, embroidery, actually called ‘work’ by women, cannot be classified as work. It is instead, a leisure pursuit – assuming one is not paid for it. And one cannot be paid for it because it is not work, cannot be work if it is produced by an upperclass woman. To try and pay her for it – for her to try and sell it would be to undermine her husband’s fragile masculinity by implying he cannot support her. But all of this is to say nothing of the women who did do embroidery as work, as a living, who did sell their labour. 

I think this is one of the reasons I get irritated by people telling me it must be so relaxing to sew. I don’t find it relaxing. It is work. It is labour and it is my job. I don’t tell other people that their work, their job, the thing they do everyday must be ‘so relaxing’ because that would be an absurd assumption to make. Maybe they do find it relaxing. Or maybe they enjoy it, but don’t find it relaxing because actually it’s hard work and concentration. But it is not my place to assume these things, and of all the questions one could ask about another’s job, whether it is ‘relaxing’ is a strange place to start. What are people implying when they tell me I must find embroidery relaxing? That it’s easy? Unskilled? Requires no concentration? That it’s not work. 

Some people find embroidery relaxing because they do it as a hobby. They do it as a thing which is not their job. Just as some people take up wood-carving as a hobby. But do people tell the professional carpenter that their job must be relaxing because it is considered by others to be a hobby? 

Don’t tell me my job is relaxing. Don’t tell me my job isn’t work. 

Figs. 8-15. Embroidery on paper. Rainy day pastimes for children. 1910.

Yarisal & Kublitz - Anger Release Machine, 2008

“Experience the most satisfying feeling when a piece of China breaks into million pieces . All you have to do is insert a coin, and a piece of China will Slowly move forwards and fall into the bottom of the machine, breaking, and leaving you happy and relieved of anger.”

If ONE MORE PERSON says “What if they’d medicated Van Gogh!?” I think I’m permitted to set things on fire.  If they’d medicated Van Gogh, he’d either have painted twice as much, or he’d have been happy and unproductive.  And you know what? Starry Night wasn’t worth a terrible price in human misery. It’s neat. It wasn’t worth it. Sometimes I wonder if being an artist makes me jaded to ART. Because it’s not magic and it’s not mystical, it’s just paint or pixels.  And it can do amazing things! But you don’t owe humanity to be miserable just so you can move paint around in interesting shapes. Jesus.  Art is not some kind of Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas bargain where you agree to be miserable so everybody can go “oh! Neat!” for 5 minutes.

Ursula Vernon, dropping the mic.  [x] (via magdaliny)

Right and below the needle: 8 stitches in five different threads, all in the wrong place. -____________________-

Behold the awesomeness that is the World’s Largest Crochet Blanket, certified by Guinness World Records on January 31, 2016. Measuring 11,148.5 square meters (120,000.98 square feet), this colossal blanket was created in Chennai, India by members of a social media group called Mother India’s Crochet Queens. A total of 2,500 participants contributed to the project, ranging in age from 4 to 93, and originating from all over India and 13 other countries besides.

“Subashri Natarajan, the crocheting enthusiast who initiated the project, asked contributors to send in granny squares, rendered in their choice of color and style. The simplicity of the request was deliberate: It allowed not only beginners to take part, but it also made it easy to combine disparate pieces into one massive whole. Many sent in entire tapestries, each revealing the unique personal style of its maker.”

The entire project took about six months to complete. After the blanket was assembled and the record certified, it was divided up into 8,034 individual blankets to be distributed to people in need, which is possibly even more awesome than the world record itself.

[via inhabitat]

Is This Art For You?

A while ago I got angry at the claim that the purpose of art should be to make people uncomfortable, and to push them out of their comfort zone. I’m not down for that sort of prescriptivism about the purpose of art, especially when it comes from such a… neurotypical place of safety and comfort. It’s easy to say that the purpose of art should be to make people uncomfortable when you yourself live the majority of your life in comfort, happiness and security. But not everyone has that luxury. Some people spend most of their time outside their “comfort zone”, in discomfort, pain, over-stimulation, insecurity, and danger. And there is absolutely a place for art that is aimed at those people that focuses on trying to give them the exact opposite: for the viewer whose normal state is one of discomfort, art that attempts to provide them with some comfort and security is just as radical as art which attempts to shake the complacent and usually comfortable out of that state. 

  There’s space for all kinds of art, but when a viewer categorically states “art should do this”, they are not just denying the lived experiences of other people and the ability and right of art and artists to attempt to enter dialogue with those people, they are in fact, claiming that all art should be for them. 

  Whether art is ‘for you’ or not is neither the imperative of the artist or the viewer alone. Whether art is ‘for you’ is not a declarative ruling from any individual. Whether art is ‘for you’ is instead part of a discourse between the artist and the viewer. The artist creates work with certain people in mind. But even if they declare ‘this art is not for you, it’s for other people’ they cannot stop you appreciating it, viewing it, interpreting it in ways which they did not intend. Equally, the viewer cannot stop the artist’s intentions shaping how they make art, and making it for certain groups of people, they cannot stop other people engaging with that art and feeling that it is ‘for them’. What happens (or should happen) is that in viewing the art, in deciding how they feel about it, and measuring it against what they personally want from art, the viewer is entering a silent conversation with the artist. And if the viewer decides that a piece of art is not ‘for them’ that should not be taken by either party to constitute a criticism. It is simply a fact about the piece of art, and whether it functions as an interaction between viewer and artist. If it’s not ‘for you’, just find something that is, and move on. 

  The flip side of this is that for some people, for marginalised, divergent, diverse groups, it can be incredibly hard to find art that is ‘for them’, and they have every right to bemoan the lack of that art, and, perhaps more importantly, the lack of artists (more accurately, of opportunities for those artists, because they most certainly do exist) who make art that is ‘for them’. 

  There’s space for all kinds of art, but when someone complains that ‘all art should be for x purpose’, this is not the same as saying ‘I cannot find art that is for me’ or ‘this specific piece of art is not for me’ and yet, for people who usually live in comfort, security and peace-of-mind, these sentiments are often conflated.

Don’t tell me embroidery is relaxing.

“By the eighteenth century embroidery was beginning to signify a leisured, aristocratic life style — not working was becoming the hallmark of femininity.” (The Subversive Stitch, Rozsika Parker, 1984: 11)

Women’s work as an oxymoron: if women do it, it cannot be work. Women cannot work, so anything a woman does cannot be work. Therefore, embroidery, actually called ‘work’ by women, cannot be classified as work. It is instead, a leisure pursuit – assuming one is not paid for it. And one cannot be paid for it because it is not work, cannot be work if it is produced by an upperclass woman. To try and pay her for it – for her to try and sell it would be to undermine her husband’s fragile masculinity by implying he cannot support her. But all of this is to say nothing of the women who did do embroidery as work, as a living, who did sell their labour. 

I think this is one of the reasons I get irritated by people telling me it must be so relaxing to sew. I don’t find it relaxing. It is work. It is labour and it is my job. I don’t tell other people that their work, their job, the thing they do everyday must be ‘so relaxing’ because that would be an absurd assumption to make. Maybe they do find it relaxing. Or maybe they enjoy it, but don’t find it relaxing because actually it’s hard work and concentration. But it is not my place to assume these things, and of all the questions one could ask about another’s job, whether it is ‘relaxing’ is a strange place to start. What are people implying when they tell me I must find embroidery relaxing? That it’s easy? Unskilled? Requires no concentration? That it’s not work. 

Some people find embroidery relaxing because they do it as a hobby. They do it as a thing which is not their job. Just as some people take up wood-carving as a hobby. But do people tell the professional carpenter that their job must be relaxing because it is considered by others to be a hobby? 

Don’t tell me my job is relaxing. Don’t tell me my job isn’t work. 

According to Rozsika Parker (The Subversive Stitch), since the Victorians associated (or re-associated?) embroidery with women and femininity we have had to argue that what we do is art rather than craft. Women were arguing that embroidery was art in the 17th century. We’re still having to argue for it now. 

Men don’t have to argue anywhere near as hard when they engage in textile work to have it presented as art, because ultimately it is still the case that in much of western society, the same piece of work is primarily considered art or craft depending on the gender of the maker. 

Don’t tell me embroidery is relaxing.

“By the eighteenth century embroidery was beginning to signify a leisured, aristocratic life style — not working was becoming the hallmark of femininity.” (The Subversive Stitch, Rozsika Parker, 1984: 11)

Women’s work as an oxymoron: if women do it, it cannot be work. Women cannot work, so anything a woman does cannot be work. Therefore, embroidery, actually called ‘work’ by women, cannot be classified as work. It is instead, a leisure pursuit -- assuming one is not paid for it. And one cannot be paid for it because it is not work, cannot be work if it is produced by an upperclass woman. To try and pay her for it -- for her to try and sell it would be to undermine her husband’s fragile masculinity by implying he cannot support her. But all of this is to say nothing of the women who did do embroidery as work, as a living, who did sell their labour. 

I think this is one of the reasons I get irritated by people telling me it must be so relaxing to sew. I don’t find it relaxing. It is work. It is labour and it is my job. I don’t tell other people that their work, their job, the thing they do everyday must be ‘so relaxing’ because that would be an absurd assumption to make. Maybe they do find it relaxing. Or maybe they enjoy it, but don’t find it relaxing because actually it’s hard work and concentration. But it is not my place to assume these things, and of all the questions one could ask about another’s job, whether it is ‘relaxing’ is a strange place to start. What are people implying when they tell me I must find embroidery relaxing? That it’s easy? Unskilled? Requires no concentration? That it’s not work. 

Some people find embroidery relaxing because they do it as a hobby. They do it as a thing which is not their job. Just as some people take up wood-carving as a hobby. But do people tell the professional carpenter that their job must be relaxing because it is considered by others to be a hobby? 

Don’t tell me my job is relaxing. Don’t tell me my job isn’t work. 

my night manager (who is a gay man) and i sometimes sit down and exchange stories and tidbits about our sexuality and our experiences in the queer cultural enclave. and tonight he and i were talking about the AIDS epidemic. he’s about 50 years old. talking to him about it really hit me hard. like, at one point i commented, “yeah, i’ve heard that every gay person who lived through the epidemic knew at least 2 or 3 people who died,” and he was like “2 or 3? if you went to any bar in manhattan from 1980 to 1990, you knew at least two or three dozen. and if you worked at gay men’s health crisis, you knew hundreds.” and he just listed off so many of his friends who died from it, people who he knew personally and for years. and he even said he has no idea how he made it out alive.

it was really interesting because he said before the aids epidemic, being gay was almost cool. like, it was really becoming accepted. but aids forced everyone back in the closet. it destroyed friendships, relationships, so many cultural centers closed down over it. it basically obliterated all of the progress that queer people had made in the past 50 years.

and like, it’s weird to me, and what i brought to the conversation (i really couldn’t say much though, i was speechless mostly) was like, it’s so weird to me that there’s no continuity in our history? like, aids literally destroyed an entire generation of queer people and our culture. and when you think about it, we are really the first generation of queer people after the aids epidemic. but like, when does anyone our age (16-28 i guess?) ever really talk about aids in terms of the history of queer people? like it’s almost totally forgotten. but it was so huge. imagine that. like, dozens of your friends just dropping dead around you, and you had no idea why, no idea how, and no idea if you would be the next person to die. and it wasn’t a quick death. you would waste away for months and become emaciated and then, eventually, die. and i know it’s kinda sophomoric to suggest this, but like, imagine that happening today with blogs and the internet? like people would just disappear off your tumblr, facebook, instagram, etc. and eventually you’d find out from someone “oh yeah, they and four of their friends died from aids.”

so idk. it was really moving to hear it from someone who experienced it firsthand. and that’s the outrageous thing - every queer person you meet over the age of, what, 40? has a story to tell about aids. every time you see a queer person over the age of 40, you know they had friends who died of aids. so idk, i feel like we as the first generation of queer people coming out of the epidemic really have a responsibility to do justice to the history of aids, and we haven’t been doing a very good job of it.

Good luck with the firings, it looks amazing. :O

Coming to life

Writing a poem which you can’t read to anyone Is just like dancing in the dark.

Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto IV.II.33-34 (via thoodleoo)

I wonder how important he thought it was that it actually be "read" in the literal sense. Would Ovid think that the stitched Iliad is like dancing in the dark? Or would he say "okay, poems that can't be seen or heard."

But I understand his pain: some people write poems or books or create art for themselves, or to express themselves and having expressed themselves, they don't care if they actually expressed themselves *to another* person or not. (Indeed, they might prefer it if they knew they hadn't). Other people do it to communicate: they do it to express themselves and they need or greatly desire that *someone* see/hear/feel what they did.

Some people see art as self-expression and as having value intrinsically as self-expression, some people see it as having value only insofar as it allows or succeeds as communication with another person: do you create art for yourself, or for others? (Of course one might argue that even if creating art to be understood by others, it's still ultimately being created *for* the artist, to satisfy their desire to communicate...)

My literature classes didn’t help. My professors stressed the importance of approaching a text with detachment, with a critical gaze rather than an emotional one. There wasn’t a place in academia for gushing or ranting. There wasn’t room to simply say, “I loved this and I don’t know why.” One had to use academic jargon. One had to be methodical and thorough. It was like listening to a song and wanting so badly to get up and dance, but instead of dancing, you have to sit there and think about why those sounds made you want to dance and consider the exact mechanics behind the formula of a danceable song. And I didn’t want to fucking do that. I just wanted to dance. I just wanted to read. I just wanted to write. I didn’t want to deconstruct lines of poetry or do a close reading of Faulkner’s usage of semicolons.

Jenny Zhang, ‘The Quiet Importance of Angst-y Art’, Rookie (via tristrapedia)

As far as I’m concerned, counteracting this kind of limited approach is one of the primary goals of the para-academic. We need to understand and teach that understanding, appreciating and celebrating an emotional engagement with a text as a valid form of approaching a text, and one that enhances intellectual approaches to it.

Sometimes in my art I actively want to throw the intellectual engagement out, to say “no, not this time, not with this piece, come at this from a different angle, your degrees and grasp of theory aren’t the most fruitful approach here.” And that’s precisely because I’m so used to, and so tired of, seeing anything non-intellectual thrown out.

But in an ideal world we would just completely deconstruct this false, exclusive binary and accept that some people will favour one approach, some another, that for some people they can be combined with different levels of each approach present, and that none of these are intrinsically better or worse than the other, they’re just the approaches that we like best.

I really like how quilts like this start to look a lot like graphic distortion on computer/TV screens. (I love that humans can find even glitches and errors to be aesthetic and wonderful and fascinating).

I finally finished this quilt top tonight-sorry for the poor lighting- I just couldn’t wait! I love how hundreds of scraps from my other projects came together to make something so happy and vibrant. #quilt #quilting #scrapquilt #scrappyquilt #triangle #trianglequilt #wip #colorful #colors