gifts for craft rooms

Twelve gifts with makers in mind:

A little loom

Rainforest color pencils

Envelopes, every size

A good knife

Slippers made from hand-dyed chambray

Good light for tired eyes

The cutest way to sweep away eraser dust

A handmade kettle for endless cups of tea

Something handwoven 

A real workbench

Nice needles

Grid paper

*

Cricket loom / Irojiten Rainforest color dictionary pencil set / washi paper envelopes / Shinola x ProEdge art knife / Ariana Bohling chambray and alpaca slippers / OFS task lamp / hedgehog table brush / handmade copper kettle / Lesley Creed handwoven alpaca throw / Sjöbergs cabinetmaker's workbench / Japanese tapestry and sewing needles / A5 notebook by Craft Design Technology x Life Notebooks 

gifts for animal lovers

Mina Perhonen thoroughbred sweater / Peterboro Basket Co. pet carrier / Annette Ferdinandsen fly wing earrings / Robert Allen for Dwell Folkland fabric / Stubbs and Wooten fox-print flannel slippers / Tassie gem 'Excuse Haste' intaglio seal / New York Review Books bird lovers' collection / rabbit-print tablet case / Sgrafo pottery bear.

pieces of color

Raw Color: Tinctorial Textiles, a commission by Van Eijk & Van der Lubbe for the ABN Amro bank office in Eindhoven. 13 semi-translucent wool curtain panels dyed with natural dyes.

The term tinctorial relates to most organic dyeing agents categorized by the term in their latin name. The dyes used in this project derive from three plants, madder root – 'Rubia tinctorum' for the reddish hues, woad – 'Isatis tinctoria' for the blueish hues and reseda – 'Reseda luteola' for the yellowish hues. All agents are purely applied in different concentrations to achieve more or less saturation. New shades are created by over-dyeing the fabric with two agents resulting in greens, purples and oranges.

clouds

Paule Marrot: Clouds. Design for a textile.

Also available here.

'their hearts have not grown old'

*

Walter Crane wallpaper design: Swan, Rush and Iris. 1875. At the V & A, via Erie Basin.

*

Félix Vallotton: The Swans. 1892. Woodcut.

*

Jin dynasty textile fragment: Swan Hunt. 1115-1234. Plain weave silk with metallic thread. At The Met.

*

Late 19th/early 20th century ivory mounted 'swan' parasol, white painted shaft with carved and polychromed swan head finial. Via Hovey Design.

*

Cygnus: Miniature of the Swan. From Francesco Buzzacarini's 1460-1470 transcription of De sideribus tractatus, a 1st century astronomical treatise generally credited to Gaius Julius Hyginus. Image from the NYPL Digital Archive. More details at BibliOdyssey.

*

Fragment of a Roman statuette, 1000 B.C. - A.D. 1.

*

THE trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty Swans.
The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

William Butler Yeats

never to dream of spiders

Fabric works by Louise Bourgeois, from the show at Cheim + Read:

Untitled, 2005. Fabric. 16 x 20 3/4 inches.
Untitled, 2005. Fabric. 12 1/4 x 15 inches.
Untitled, 2005. Fabric. 9 3/8 x 11 inches.
Untitled, 2006. Fabric with ink and fabric collage. 15 1/2 x 15 5/8 inches.
Untitled, 2005. Fabric. 24 x 31 inches.

Untitled, 2005. Fabric. 16 1/4 x 21 1/4 inches.

I went to this show last month, and I've been thinking about it ever since. It was wonderful.

Post title from a poem by Audre Lorde.

blues

1. Thomas IV Joanie bucket bag

2. Vintage Taisho period boro at Iko Iko

3. Tsumori Chisato denim butterfly jeans

Noémi Raymond. Circles Printed Fabric. c.1939-40. Via sealmaiden.

i had a flashback of something that never existed

Ode à l’Oubli (Ode to Forgetfulness)
2004
Hand-made cloth book, 36 pages.
Fabric, lithographic ink and archival dyes
10 ¾ x 13 ¼ inches (27 x 34 cm)
Published by Peter Blum Edition
Produced by Solo Impression, New York and Dye-Namix Inc., New York.

Further reading: NYT 10.17.04.