06.03.08
Posted in General at 9:21 am by deRomilly
I hope you are all enjoying the start of summer.
I have been, but I am, right now, extremely frustrated. I want to be able to stitch, and I can’t. You see, last weekend I got carried away a bit in the garden and terraced the hill behind my house so that I could install the first of several raised beds we are putting in to raise veggies. I was a little… er… enthusiastic with weilding the hoe, and now my right hand is more than sore. The tendons are so inflamed that while I can maneuver knitting (pretty easily as long as it’s not size 1 needles…) and type (which is good, cause I do that in my day job…) I can’t control a sewing needle yet.
It means cross stitch and embroidery is right out for a few days while I recover. I also have difficulty controlling a pen, so I can’t write letters or draw. Nor can I play with geometric designs unless I have access to my computer. Since I’ve got carpool duty today, I’ve got an hour and a half to sit around after work. I was looking forward to stitching and enjoying that time. I forgot to bring my book, so now I’m not sure what I’ll do… nap? I’m just not happy unless my hands are doing something.
End whine. 
I have a couple of little geometric designs to post soon. I need to get them converted for you. I shall endeavour to do that tonight and get them posted tomorrow.
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03.26.08
Posted in General at 7:01 am by deRomilly
First, I’m losing it. The company that manages my 401K sent me an email today, and I thought it was spam, but was willing to open it anyway, because I was SURE it was from the “Yarn Benefits Center.” Was from “YOUR benefits center…,” Sigh. I think I might be in withdrawal. Since I’m losing weight because of a getting-resolved (yay!) health problem, I’m not knitting for myself right now, and don’t have time to knit gifts…. So I’m not fondling yarn a lot. Waaaaa.
Second. Congratulations to my old college roommate, who after leaving her marriage and suddenly becoming a single mom, is rejoining the workforce after 15 years into her dream position. YAY!
I promise a real textile post in the next day or two. There are several that just need a bit of tweaking, but I needed to get those two items off of my chest.
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03.19.08
Posted in Artwork, Dance, General at 8:52 am by deRomilly
In a previous post I asked myself if I am an evil cultural appropriator for wanting to use traditional ikats in my work. This question came up, in many ways, because of my alternate hobby of bellydance or raqs sharqi.
There is a debate raging through the dance community - quietly for the most part, although it flares up now and again. The debate revolves around the question: “by learning, performing, and transforming this dance, are we appropriating the culture of another people, just because it is exotic, in much the same way as Europeans in the 19th century appropriated the lands the dance comes from?
It’s a valid question, and one that bears deep thought. It can be easy, when you are American, and of multicultural descent, even if primarily European, to say, “Everything around me and my American heritage comes from different cultures, so what’s the big deal?” It IS a big deal to some Middle Easterners, many of whom feel that their entire culture is stereotyped by Europeans and Americans into the word “bellydance,” a word they don’t use to describe what they do.
Now, personally, I don’t see bellydance as much of anything but American. If I am discussing Egyptian dance, I’ll say “raqs sharqi,” if Turkish - “danse orientale” (which is, of itself a European term). “Bellydance” is an American term applied to a dance form imported in the 1800s and transformed into a performance art by mostly Americans, some of Middle Eastern descent, in the 1950s and 1960s, the US’s “Golden Age” of nightclub performances. I’ve seen many women, and some men, too, find peace with their bodies and their emotions as they learn this dance (a wonderful description of this phenomenon by another dance teacher). I respect its origins and try to learn as much about its history as I can. But “bellydance” in the US is as much Middle Eastern tradition as ballet is French tradition. It has drifted so far from its roots that while you can recognize the seeds of the movements as related, they are very different plants. I am not, of course, referring to the myriad of people who try very hard to learn the “traditional” dances (which have also been influenced heavily by colonial expectations, and could therefore be accused as being somewhat tainted even in their own countries. Modern Egyptian raqs sharqi, for example, has drawn from ballet as well as movements from various tribal groups in the region).
Which leads me to textiles. When I or my family travels, I am often gifted or purchase as souvenirs, fabric and embroideries. Sometimes I buy pieces here that were created specifically for export. The question my dance experience triggers is, if I use these pieces in my art, or even the techniques I learn from them in my art, is it cultural appropriation in a bad way? My community has always been extremely diverse. My friends include Vietnamese, Indian, Native American, European American, African and African American, and the list goes on. Personally, when I use a textile or a motif in my artwork, especially if it comes from one of the cultures I am tied to by friendship - it will be used to bring those friends and acquaintances into my work - much as I might use a piece of my grandmother’s dress in a crazy quilt to evoke her life and work. I try to incorporate every textile and image I use with respect. When all is said and done, someone somewhere will probably be offended, whether because I have excluded their culture, or used it.
But hopefully, the people who matter to me won’t be, because they know I respect them as people.
Thoughts? This cultural appropriation thing is a HUGE topic. And one that can fall into any genre, be it painting, dance, writing, textiles, etc.
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02.26.08
Posted in Threads, General at 2:16 pm by deRomilly
MargB of Maggie’s Textiles left a lovely comment for me on my last post about multi-colored threads. (It’s now available in pdf format on the Needlework Articles page, by the way.)
In the comment, Marg referred to an “ikated” design, a term I’d never heard before. I knew about Indonesian ikats - the lovely pieces of weaving used for sarongs and tubular skirts, in that I knew they existed. No clue about the process of creating them, though. And I didn’t know that it was a general weaving term.
While trying to track it down, I found several lovely sites on ikats in general — from the scholarly treatise about how the different designs relate to different social groupings in the islands found on asianart.com, to page upon page of photos of beautiful weavings. (Am I a horrible cultural appropriator for wanting access to some of these to use in my art and embroidery?)
The neat links included:
In any case, “ikat” refers to the way the warp or the weft (usually the warp, sometimes both) is measured, tied off and dyed before weaving begins. Marg says she sometimes used spaced dyed yarns to simulate this type of work, and her recent blog post about it explains in greater detail, with a photo of her own work as well…
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01.30.08
Posted in General, Uncategorized at 3:05 pm by deRomilly
I really meant to be blogging more now that I’m back from my visit to the Pacific Northwest.
First, I want to say that the past week has proven to me that I am truly blessed. I may have been kept from blogging (more on that later) but I am very pleased with the outcomes of all the adversity. I want to apologize for my absence. I won’t go into details, but the quick and dirty story is as follows:
- Went to Seattle to discuss health issues with my aging father. He’s agreed to move out here, and now we’re just trying to figure out how. In the process we drove down to my old haunt in Eugene, OR and I got to talk to Mindy and her family at the needlework shop, as well as many of my old friends. It was like I’d never left!
- Last Friday, my husband and my godson were in a car accident, and while they are fine, the schedule’s been kind of messed up as we’re down to one car for transportation again.
- I entered, on a lark, drawn by the promise of Sharon Boggon’s handdyed threads, her contest to guess how long her sampler has become now that she’s stitched all of them together. Six inches wide and 33 feet 2 inches. I guessed 33 feet, and along with two others, won! I’ll post pictures of the pretties when they arrive!
Back at the beginning of the century (hee, that sounds so… ancien regime!) I wrote an article on stitching with overdyed and variegated threads. I found that article yesterday, and am working on two things. I’m updating it a little bit with some new products I’ve noticed since then, and I’ll post it as several blog entries AND a downloadable pdf that you can put in your personal library. It’s got a couple of small patterns I designed in it to try out some of the techniques as well.
Hopefully I’ll be able to get that posted soon, as well as updates about the trip, and where we go from here!
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01.11.08
Posted in Finished Projects, Artwork, Counted work, General at 11:17 am by deRomilly
Happy New Year, even if it is a bit delayed.
Last year was hectic on the family front, and although I managed to maintain my art development, and got some designs completed, nothing quite got finished the way I intended.
This year promises to be an improvement. The family issues should be mostly resolved by the end of March, and I hope to have things up and running by June. (Note that this is a goal: It’s subject to slippage.) What I’d like to do is get Golden Circle Designs back up and running completely, business license and such so that those of you who have asked me about designs I had for sale five years ago can have access to them again.
In addition, there are several knitting patterns in the works, a companion piece to Lucinda in the Rose Garden, and quite a bit of one-of-a-kind artwork that is ready to go. I’ve included a photo of Lucinda for you, I’m sorry it’s small and not the best: my original image is my old business disks, which of course need different hardware to read. I’m going to have to do some conversions… and soon!
I’m considering making some of these available via Etsy or Ebay before I can get the website up and running. I’d love opinions on this option…
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11.15.07
Posted in "Freestyle" embroidery, General at 12:00 pm by deRomilly
Owls burst into my life this morning when I was reading my blogs over my cup of tea. There were owls everywhere, from Doodle-Wednesday yesterday to a link from In a Minute ago to an owl pattern…
My paternal grandmother collected owls. Owls of all types. She had soapstone hand-carved owls from Seattle’s Olde Curiousity Shoppe that I bought her, glass owls her daughter brought her from Italy, Owls from every city she’d ever visited. She was an owly-looking person, too. I realized as I thought about including a photo that I don’t have any. I’ve emailed my aunt, keeper of all things geneological, to hopefully remedy that problem. Fingers crossed. My paternal family was very photogenic, and I would really like to have the old photos, at least in computer form to use in my textile art and to just have, for that matter. THe pattern would make a lovely addition to the collection, which I don’t know who has now. I was moving so often twenty years ago that I passed it on to one of my cousins for safe-keeping. I hope it’s loved.
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09.28.07
Posted in General at 11:57 am by deRomilly
I don’t normally like the idea or the result of altered books. My inner librarian and inner historian combine to shudder at the idea.
That said, I really like the link that was posted in the Fabric Art Journals blog this week. The link is to some beautiful cutwork books. Check it out. I’ll wait.
While I’m still getting the heeby-jeebies from the idea of cutting up books, the absolute beauty of some of the finished products of these are really mitigating that. This in itself is unnerving me.
So go have a look. Feel free to come back and let me know what YOU thought. I’m very curious now as to what others think.
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07.19.07
Posted in Historical, General at 9:55 am by deRomilly
Something I am working on is Wild Abandon. This is a problem for me in two completely different ways. First, I tend to have WAAAAY too much of it when I am performing. Saqra once said in a workshop that you shouldn’t give the audience all of yourself in a performance: they know and still want more. The ballet tradition I come from, being less intimate, requires you to give your all (without appearing to). This is a problem for me in raqs sharqi, because I can burn out, and the point, for the most part, is control. Add this to the excercise-induced asthma, and I can kill myself in a 3 minute routine if I’m not careful. And I’m often not careful. Don’t die onstage, but as soon as I get off I collapse wheezing. Not conducive to extended living.
On the other hand, my stitching designs tend to the elegant and reserved. Sometimes this is construed as not having as much depth as it could. At others it’s construed as elegant! 
Finding a balance in this is my challenge. Hence the Sumptuous Surfaces class. I’ve always admired Sharon B’s deep, extravagent layers of embroidery on her work. (I even drink my coffee at work out of one of her limited edition mugs…I love it so much!) Somehow, though, I haven’t been able to break through the very elegant satin stitch and smooth couched gold that I discovered in the Chinese textiles exhibit that the University of Oregon’s museum of art has on display and in their vaults. I fell in love with the Ch’ing dynasty’s Imperial embroideries, and everything I do seems to reflect this. I want to add more European Baroque to my repertoire.
So. Now you know my two goals for this year: one in dance, and one in stitching. Keep me honest, will you? The final design is finished for the class piece, and I’ll get it photographed and uploaded as soon as I can get to my camera (the heart-sister borrowed it to take pictures of pseudo-nephew’s volcano erupting…)
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07.10.07
Posted in General at 12:13 pm by deRomilly
In my time away from fiber, I am a technical writer. I translate between the geeks who develop the application and the people who sit at the computer and actually USE it… As such, and since many of my friends are in tech support, I hear horror stories about things the people in front of the computers do, including using the CD drive as a cupholder, mailing photocopies of floppy disks through the mail to tech support to get help, and so on.
Now the Yarn Harlot is not a “stupid user” as some of my technical support friends call the cupholder crowd. She is a very smart lady who is also very funny and writes books that I devour whenever they come out.
But there was a disconnect between what her computer geeks were telling her in computer geekese, and what she was hearing in plain English… I see how this happened, and I know that it’s just like talking to a Brit about “being knocked up.” The words are the same, but the meanings are completely different…
See the story here, and then let this be a lesson to all: hire a technical writer to translate between the two of you! Or, at the very least, remind your geeky friends that words have different meanings in real English and in computerese!
(My consulting rates are quite reasonable…)
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