Each Little World

Fiber Friday: Recycled kimonos

In the fall of 2006 my sister-in-law, Sara, and I were at an art opening downtown where we spied a young woman wearing a dress that had us enthralled. It was modern and clean-lined yet reminiscent of a kimono somehow. It was nothing off the rack; rather something an artist had designed and sewn. As we stared at her from across the room we suddenly noticed she was with an older woman — clearly her mother — who was dressed in a kimono. That clinched it; we had to compliment the two women on their unique style.  

We had a pleasant chat and discovered the young woman, Mayumi Takayama, was indeed an artist and would be showing her work as part of the weekend's Open Art Studio Event. We picked up a brochure and promised to stop by the next day. We discovered her studio was essentially her apartment and her mother was visiting from Japan. Mayumi was a painter and Sara and I both liked her work but much of it was sold when we got there. 

We were also delighted with the jewelry that Mayumi's mother had created and was selling. While we looked at it, she made us macha tea which we enjoyed while we all talked about art and textiles. 

The fiber necklaces pictured here were all made by Mayumi's mother (whose name I seem to have lost). They're made out of recycled pieces of kimono fabrics, sewn into tubes of different lengths and widths and softly stuffed. 

They're embellished with beads, buttons, embroidery and fabric-covered tubes of different sizes. On some necklaces the cords wind around your neck and go through the tubes which you can slide up and down to reconfigure the design. Other necklaces have slipknots which also let you make the piece longer or shorter. 

Some are just long lariats which you can wear with the ends hanging free or knot or tie however you wish. Every necklace is different but they're all lightweight and versatile. They're fun to wear and garner lots of compliments. And they're great inspiration if you sew and have the inevitable fabric stash.

February's best reads: WWI books

With the 100th anniversary of World War I looming on the horizon, the number of new books on the subject would make one think it had never been covered before. That volume makes it hard to pick and choose among many great titles. Two of my top choices are visual considerations of the event.

The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme

By Joe Sacco, W.W. Norton & Company, $35.00

This is a book that is a stunning achievment on any level. It's a panoramic look at one day of the war that unfolds in thick acordian pages covered with black and white drawings of soldiers, animals, buildings, weapons. The story of the war is captured in one vast 24-foot-long panorama. When you take the "book" out of its protective slipcase and begin to open it, the experience is both chilling and thrilling. I can't remember ever seeing anything quite like it in concept, scale or detail. 

There's an acompanying booklet with an essay about the battle by Adam Hochschild along with Sacco's annotations of his drawing. Even if you don't read everything, this is one of the few books that manages to give us a sense of the vastness of the battle. This video The Great War by Joe Sacco from WW Norton on Vimeo lets the artist talk about his book.

The Great War: A Photographic Narrative

By Mark Holborn and Hilary Roberts (Imperial War Museums), Alfred A. Knopf, $100.00

A mammoth book (almost 11 and 1/2 inches square and 2 inches thick) with 380 photos from the Imperial War Museums in London, so the pictures are all nice and big. I had been looking forward to this book for weeks but found it less satisfying in some ways than both Sacco's book (above) and the Met's history of photography seen through the lens of the Civil War. 

My response was due to the fact that I realized I've already seen a huge number of images of the war and also the sheer number of images in this book became dulling after a while. What was most noteworthy is this book looks at a much broader canvas, so we see the war as it was played out in Palestine, Africa, and the Ottoman Empire/Gallipoli, as well as many photos of the air and sea war. There are also images of Indian and Zulu soldiers among the many ethinic groups who fought in the war.

The book has time lines for each year of the war and the chapters open with full color close-ups of uniforms, including the one that Franz Ferdinand was wearing when he was asssassinated at Sarajevo. I also discovered a number of facts that were new to me; for example, there was a strict ban on soldiers using personal cameras on the Western Front, though many of these photos are a testament to the fact that the ban was not rigidly enforced elsewhere.

There were still plenty of amazing pictures I'd never seen like an aerial view of the village of Passchendale after the battle that looks like the surface of the moon; vast mountains of spent shell cases, and the officers of the No. 3 Squadron of the Royal Australian Flying Corps putting floral wreaths on the grave of the "Red Baron," the German flying ace, in a bit of photographic respect/news/propaganda. While the book is heavy on British photos, there are images from all sides; apparently many German archives were destroyed in WWII. 

And despite all the pictures I've seen of the Western Front with its blasted mucky landscape, I was still taken aback at a picture of stretcher bearers carrying a wounded soldier through a sea of mud that reached their knees and above in the Ypres Salient in 1917. As well as a heartrending image of a "Pals Battalion" from East Yorkshire, all the men turning toward the camera and broadly smiling as they march down the road at the Somme.

Very near the end of the book, there's a photo noting that when the Armistice brought fighting to an end at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11th, 1918, the Allied line was located at Mons, Belgium, the scene of the first encounter between British and German troops in 1914. A sad bit of irony reminscent of the American Civil War that began and ended at Wilmer McLean's home. Plus ca change.

Both books are available through Wisconsin's South Central Library System. 

February's best reads: Garden books

Designing with Conifers: The Best Choices for Year-Round Interest in your Garden

By Richard L. Bitner; Timber Press, $34.95

I already own Bitner's conifer encyclopedia, so I was not surprised to find that this title is equally good. It is well-worth searching out if you are looking for ways to add winter interest to your garden or to make it more low-maintennce. Filled with information and tons of pictures of conifers of every color, size and genus. I have lots of conifers in my garden already, but looking at Bitner's book made me realize I have room for more. I was especially taken with tall, narrow forms. They make dramatic exclamation points in the garden and they are easy to squeeze in because they don't take up too much room.

I think for most of us the biggest issue to using conifers is finding varieties that are beyond the usual. Klehm's Song Sparrow is a good source that I've used and also Rich's Fox Willow. The older I get, however, the more willing I am to pay for larger specimens so I don't have to wait forever for them to make an impact. Finding what I want in those bigger sizes, I suspect, will be the real challange.

One of the real benefits of Bitner's book is his chapter where he looks in depth at the garden of Cassandra and Bryan Barrett, which is a conifer lover's heaven. The couple are hand-on landscape designers and Cassandra talks about how to use conifers in the garden, gives her design tips and then shows us in photos (with the plants all numbered and named) how to add conifers to the under, mid and upper story of the garden. 

Bitner and the Barretts have me chomping at the bit to get ordering and to get working outdoors. 

This is the garden of Cassandra and Bryan Barrett which is dissected in Richard Bitner's wonderful new book: Designing with Conifers.

The Gardens of Venice and the Veneto 

By Jenny Condie with photographs by Alex Ramsay; Frances Lincoln Publishers, $60.00

What's not to like about a coffee table book about Venetian gardens, especially if you are reading it during a cold, snowy Midwestern winter? This is just as beautiful as you might imagine. It's filled with images of old brick and stucco buildings surrrounding courtyards of potted citrus, some of whose pots are 500 years old. It's a joyful paen to age, patina, meadows, vistas, and water, water everywhere. 

What I did not expect to find, however, was modernity. There it was in an outstanding example: the extraordinary garden of the Fondazione Querini Stampalia. Designed by Carlo Scarpa in the early 1960s, the garden flows out of a formerly-private estate that now encompases a public library and art gallery. Scarpa is a name that is new to me but I will be searching out more of his work, based on the views below. 

 

Both books are available through Wisconsin's South Central Library System.

Garden tools / garden jewels

Just because I can't work in the garden at this season doesn't mean the subject hasn't crossed my mind. Reflecting on working in the garden brings to mind all the "jewel tools" I own. But these shiny pins are just too pretty to wear outdoors when I'm actually working in the garden.

This sweet set of sterling silver hand tools (below) came from Smith and Hawken many years ago.

This set of tools — described on the packaging as a nursery fork and nursery spade — are American made and were purchased last summer at J. Kinney florist on Monroe St. in Madison. They are each about 4 inches long (10.16 cm), compared to 2 and 1/2 (5.08 cm) inches for the tools pictured above.

Another sterling silver creation, also probably from S&H, holds water so you can wear a fresh posy without it wilting. I love the concept but learned from experience that you can't bend over when you're wearing this pin or the water suddenly spills out! This one is 2 inches long (5.08 cm), including the handle.

Do you wear jewelry in the garden — or garden jewelry?

Fiber Friday: Indian bags

I've always had an interest in little bags that add a decorative note to my outfits but are useful as well. The pair in the first two pictures below are made of remnants of textiles from India. They're just big enough for a comb and lipstick, a little cash and an I.D. Sometimes I wear them as crossbody purses and sometimes I put a knot in the cord to shorten it and wear the bag around my neck like a dramatic pendant. 

The bag on the bottom of the pair is pieced and embroidered. The top one appears to be a remnant of a Kantha textile. The Madison shop where I bought them is long gone and I don't really have any information about them other than what I can tell by looking at them. 

Another Indian bag is pictured below. This one is from Sri, a wonderful on-line source for textiles from Japan and India. That's where I found this mid-20th C. bag from the state of Rajasthan. It is about 14 inches x 8 inches (35.5 cm x 20 cm) and made if cotton. The two bags pictured above are half that size. 

I use the small bags frequently but mostly keep the larger one on display in my red room. I have a tendency to overfill it because of its size, and worry that I will tear it or the strap will come lose. Rather than restraining myself from stuffing, I just enjoy looking at it instead.  

In the first two pictures, the bags are resting on an African Kuba skirt, probably dyed with mud. The bottom display surface is a Japanese window screen/shutter.

Vases: Ikebana baskets

The guest room at our house has a row of Techline bookcases filled with gardening books and my garden journals. They are topped off with my Ikebana basekts. Since I snapped this photo I've added another one for a total of six baskets from four different sources around the country and the world.

I use them to create my version of Japanese-influenced flower arrangements. But mostly they live in sculptural splendor adjacent to the computer and my desk where I can enjoy them year round. 

The shelves also hold a clear glass storage box of natural items. As well as a pair of woven baskets of garden clippings, tags and notes that I am supposed to be dealing with right now in preparation for the upcoming gardening season.

See more of my vases here and more about the Ikebana baskets here.  

Girls who read

Monday's snowfall brought our season total to 49 inches (124.46 cm), 12 inches (30.48) above our "normal" total for this point in winter. I don't think it's that bad remembering the 100+ inches (254 cm) we had in the winter of 2007/8. This time around it's the cold that's keeping me by the fire with a book. Reading continues apace here. And when I make it out to meet friends, books usually end up as the main topic of conversation. 

I've always been a big reader. It's something that sets you apart when you're young and not usually in a positive way. This is the poem all reading women have been waiting for.

 

The best season

Ten thousand flowers in Spring, the moon in autumn,

a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.

If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things,

this is the best season of your life.

— Wu-Men

Welcome back: Klehm's Song Sparrow catalog

In the midst of all my gardening books are two cardboard magazine holders. One is for the current year's garden catalogs and the other is for the prior year's catalogs. A good catalog offers more than pretty pictures. There is critical information about planting, mature size, climate limits and light requirements. I keep two years' worth of catalogs because nurseries often rotate what they offer, building up stock one season and selling it the next. 

If I consistently order from a nursery I may keep their catalogs for lots longer than two years. My oldest Klehm catalog is from 1995 when it was more words than pictures and included beautiful water color illustrations. They were memorable.

Even though I order via on-line catalogs and look through their hundeds of words and images on the computer, nothing matches slowly paging through a paper catalog. This year Klehm re-instated their print product — brought back by popular demand after a year without a catalog to scroll through with our hands.

The Klehm family knows their customers and they took our distress to heart. Their response doesn't really surprise me. That's why I keep coming back: fabulous plants from an equally fabulous family of plants people.

KLEHM'S SONG SPARROW NURSERY PHOTO

Foliage Follow-up: 2.16.2014

I brought a Geranium with red-splotched leaves indoors from my deck and another from my mother-in-law's when it started to get cold overnight. I planned to let them go dormant and then "resuscitate" them in the Spring. But they've never stopped growing. And they haven't been attacked by any of the usual indoor winter plant pests — at least so far. This Geranium even includes a clump of Tiarella in the pot with it that has continued to look beautiful all winter and is now sending out runners! You can see its dark green leaves in the back of the pot.

If you want to see what kind of foliage other gardeners are sharing today, visit Pam at Digging who hosts this monthly chance for those of us who love leaves as much as flowers to have our moment.