The angels get a new home, and landscaping

One nice thing about holiday traditions is that they can change over the years, with new elements added by chance or by plan.  Two years ago, when Vivian was pretty small, she was learning the names of birds and animals, and for some reason "owl" was early on the list.  One of my friends had given me a little owl made out of kimono silk, and sure enough, Vivian knew that it was an owl, and she wanted to carry it around.  After we put the Christmas decorations out that year, she was carrying the owl around one day and decided to put it with our three little gnomes, Herman, Sherman and Vermin, who always stand on the window sill.  And it fit so perfectly in the group that now the owl is packed away with the gnomes and comes out with them at Christmas, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that this year Vivian remembered exactly where they go.

When I was about ten years old my godmother gave me a set of little wooden angels, probably made in Germany, who made up an orchestra.  I've been setting them out at Christmas ever since.  As my own children, and now my grandchildren got to the right age they would be in charge of arranging the orchestra.  

Some years the angels have been arrayed on the piano, some years on top of the radio, once or twice on the bar, or this year, on the chest of drawers in the living room.

This is the first year Vivian has been old enough to set out the angels, and I explained that they all have to face the conductor.  She did it that way, and then she noticed the little stitched house that has been sitting on the piano for several months since I finished it.  She thought the angels ought to have it so they could go inside after the music was over.  And she was right -- it's the perfect size (if you put bunk beds inside).

Then a few days later my husband found this little snow-covered tree-on-a-spool hidden on a shelf in the kitchen, where it has sat for years since somebody gave it to me (I wish I could remember who that was...).  He wondered what it was and I said -- it's a tree!  And I put it with the angels too, right by their new house.

My readers help with calligraphy

Many times when I write about my frustrations with calligraphy (this year's daily art), readers make suggestions.  I've resolved to try out those suggestions before the year ends -- and yes, I've pretty much decided to stick with calligraphy again next year, because I certainly haven't done all I can do with the task.

Vancouver Barbara said "for a real thrill in randomness try very skinny pieces of cedar bark that have the ends smashed.  The "pen" takes over and you get some incredibly beautiful marks."

Not having any cedar bark at hand, I tried this with a strip of paper and decided it was a disaster.

I'll keep trying to find some cedar.

Karen Amelia Brown suggested that I try using a ruling pen, a gizmo with two arms whose distance apart is adjusted with a screw.  (Supposedly the ink stays in between and the outside of the arm stays clean enough to move smoothly against your ruler.)   I vaguely remember my father using a pen like this but I don't think it's in the stash of art stuff that I inherited.  So this experiment will have to wait till I venture out to the art supply store -- probably not in the immediate future.

Mags Ramsay said "using non-dominant hand can bring a fresh approach."  I've known that for a long time but it took her comment to nudge me into actually trying.  I used a fountain pen instead of a dip pen for these experiments because it gave me one less thing to worry about.  I was amazed at how difficult it was to make my left hand do anything I told it to!!  

The black writing in the first sample is nonsense letters; the green writing in the second is actual words in German, but written right-to-left.  The red is English, right-to-left.  For green and red I turned the sketchbook sideways so I didn't have to hold my writing hand on top of the spiral binding (new appreciation for the systemic difficulties that lefties face).  

All seem equally illegible.  I was pleased with the overall appearance -- the writing maintained its character throughout the page, and was reasonably good-looking as a pattern.  But I'm not sure whether I want to continue exploring this approach, since I have so little control over what happens. 

Thank you, readers -- suggestions are always warmly appreciated!  You can check out all my daily calligraphy on my Daily Art Blog.

Ornament time

As I have done for at least 40 years, I'm making ornaments this year.  In the beginning of this project, my work time was focused on coming up with a new idea each year, and in a good year, adding one or two people to the list -- new in-laws, new babies, new friends.  Lately it's a good year when I don't have to take someone off the list, and in this year of pandemic, it's especially heartening that I haven't lost anyone.

My daily art for the last two years has been calligraphy, so it's probably no surprise that I'm writing the names for the ornaments.  I usually just do initials, plus the year, but on the infrequent occasions when I've spelled out full names, I've never done so with a writing implement!  So, a first this year (hard to accomplish when the series has been going on for so long).

I visited my friend Marti last week and was delighted to find that she has hung all the ornaments I've given her over the years in a place of honor, pinned to a beautiful pale green quilt that she made.  This will be year #22 that she's been on the list, a long time and so many shared memories.

I left it too late this year, should have started my ornaments in October as it became apparent how unreliable postal service has become of late.  I got the two international envelopes in the mail a couple of weeks ago, but the US batch won't go till tomorrow morning.  Fingers are crossed for all of them to arrive on time.  Or if they can't get there for Christmas, at least before New Year so the "2020" won't be a lie. 

Thankful for another Designer DIY!

 Our friends at the New York Times haven't given us a Designer DIY for a while, but how nice to save it for Thanksgiving!  And the fancy designer trick this time is -- wait for it -- mending!!  And not just mending, but mending with sashiko stitching.  Never mind that in June they got another famous designer to give us incomprehensible "advice" on how to mend jeans, now they're trying again, except this time we get a jacket for the pictures.  And never mind that in July, in a different section of the paper, they got a guy to teach us how to mend jeans with sashiko. 

I guess there's only so many good ideas that famous designers are able to come up with.

This week's advice comes from Sir Paul Smith, "known for his sharp suits and signature rainbow stripes," and who I suspect hasn't spent a lot of time actually mending anything.  But he did share with us that "In this day and age of excess and more, more, more, I am often reminded of my dear mom who always used to darn socks or elbow tears."  Seems that when Sir Paul would go to Japan in the 1980s he discovered quaintly mended old work garments, and brought samples home, and now wants to help us mend our duds with the same techniques.   

Illustrations from New York Times Style section

"Lay the garment flat on your working space," cut a patch "of material of your choice" with an inch and a half margin larger than the tear, and "pin the patch into place."  No guidance on how to lay the garment flat if the tear is on the elbow, as suggested by a later illustration, or whether the patch goes on top of the tear or underneath.  Not sure what the hands are doing in the corner of the illustration.

Anyway, you "start to stitch along the first seam of your patch."  Where's that?  More troubling, "make sure that the knot is on the inside of the patch for the first stitch and that it goes through both the garment and transplant patch."  Say again?  Surely they don't mean the knot goes through both the garment and the patch? Surely they mean the needle.  But wait -- if the knot is in between the two layers, how can the needle go through both layers?

Not to worry, the illustration shows you what to do.  Or does it?  Is that a knot in the middle of the patch?  Are we seeing the needle making three grabs and emerging under the left thumb?  What are the left fingers doing?  Looks like they're just underneath the patch and the stitching is going just through the patch.  Where's the jacket?  How do you hold onto the whole jacket while you're stitching the patch?  

Not to worry, the next illustration will clear things up.  Or does it?

Back to the stitching.  "The sashiko stitch can be a simple running stitch and can run horizontal or vertically."  (If you don't know what a running stitch is, maybe you can look it up online.) 

"Leave a slight gap (say, a quarter inch) between the stitches to create a warp and a weft."  Huh??  You might think a guy who has spent 50 years in the rag trade would know that warp and weft live in an entirely different ballpark from hand stitching.  

Skip a half inch and put another row of stitching, repeat till the patch is totally sewed on.  You can use a ruler if you want nice straight lines.  There are lots of sashiko patterns, we're told, and you can find them online. 

Now the beautiful watercolor of the finished project:

Hmmm.  How do you suppose they got the patch on the sleeve?  Especially since the first step is to lay the garment flat on the table?  Instead of those gauzy drawings of hands doing something to something in space, maybe it would help if the drawings showed how to do the tricky parts.  I wonder how many readers will stitch their elbow patch through both layers of the sleeve?

Plague diary -- thankful in so many ways

Things are getting worse with coronavirus these days, our daily tally of new cases on a steep upward curve, hospitals again filling up and businesses being shut down.  Now the public health people are worried about family gatherings, fearing that Thanksgiving will become a bonanza of superspreader events.  I'm worried, of course, and my sons have organizing a fancy Thanksgiving dinner that will be prepared in our three kitchens, split into portions and delivered to the other houses.  (I'm doing mashed potatoes and cranberry-orange relish.)  

And yet, in so many ways, pandemic life has been good.  No, I can't see the grandchildren as much as I would like, although we sometimes get together for walks.  And no, we can't eat out as much as we would like.  The occasional carry-out is good, but it's usually easier just to cook at home.  

why is one person dressed for winter, one for fall and one for summer?? it's a weird family

But there's a good side.  As others have also noticed, we haven't had a cold all year, because who would we have caught one from?  We've both needed emergency medical intervention, one including an ER trip and overnight hospitalization, the other with four visits worth of dental work, and didn't pick up a single germ.  And lockdown has provided lots of time that I'm trying to make good use of.  I've read many, many books.  I've been making lots of art, and even some progress on cleaning the studio. 

As we contemplate the dire winter ahead and wonder how long it will be before we can receive a vaccine, when the economy will ever recover, whether a whole generation of children will be blighted by their interrupted education, my husband and I have nevertheless thought hard and often about how fortunate we are.  

Fortunate to be retired, so that we don't have to worry about getting sick at work or chained to a zoom screen all day or having our employer go out of business.  Fortunate to have our sons close by, even if we have to be careful about seeing them.  Fortunate that we have plenty of room to be housebound without claustrophobia, and each have our own TV, out of earshot of the other one, and that we each have things that interest us and tasks that we love to do.  Fortunate to have each other, so there's always someone to talk to about matters big and small and to help you up when you fall, literally or figuratively.  And so very fortunate to anticipate a grownup in the White House very soon.

I wish a thankful Thanksgiving to you all, and hope that we'll all be together as internet pals for a long time.