A Motorcycle Cozy
Other than fudge, the gifts I've made tend to have the sweaty fingerprints of what my mother called, Made By Loving Hands At Home. You already know what I'm talking about. Long endless stretched out scarves, dishtowels embroidered with wavering stitches, lumpy needlepoint wrapped around bricks. Besides coming from a long line of cheapies, I come from a long line of talented needle-women, of which I am not one nor will I ever be. Even as a child, when given my Xmas-gift-to-make, I'd think, Big waste of time. Then I'd sit there splitting embroidery thread, pricking my fingers, getting brownish dots of blood over the linen, feeling sorry for my grandparents, who were the recipients-to-be of whatever tangled mess I conjured.
The woman who made the motorcycle cozie belongs to a new breed. She's an extreme knitter, one of a number of subversive anti-girlie craftspeople. You can see quite a lot of these women's work on the Art For Housewives site at http://housewife.splinder.com. This makes a lot of sense to me. There are plenty of oddball connections between revolution and weaving, since threading a loom is irritating and time consuming. Sitting over a bitterly repetitious task allows plenty of time for brooding and plotting. It's no accident in Tale of Two Cities that Madame DeFarge tirelessly knits, watching the carnage of the revolution tick on. Her clicking needles become a kind of metronome for the gathering violence.
There are some extreme embroiderers too. I think my attitude towards embroidery might have been a bit more, well, open if I'd known I could do something like this:
Cotton Square By Andrea Dezsö
from the Exhibition "Pricked"
The woman who made the motorcycle cozie belongs to a new breed. She's an extreme knitter, one of a number of subversive anti-girlie craftspeople. You can see quite a lot of these women's work on the Art For Housewives site at http://housewife.splinder.com. This makes a lot of sense to me. There are plenty of oddball connections between revolution and weaving, since threading a loom is irritating and time consuming. Sitting over a bitterly repetitious task allows plenty of time for brooding and plotting. It's no accident in Tale of Two Cities that Madame DeFarge tirelessly knits, watching the carnage of the revolution tick on. Her clicking needles become a kind of metronome for the gathering violence.
There are some extreme embroiderers too. I think my attitude towards embroidery might have been a bit more, well, open if I'd known I could do something like this:
Cotton Square By Andrea Dezsö
from the Exhibition "Pricked"
Or this:
Cotton Square By Andrea Dezsö
from the Exhibition "Pricked"
How about those for Christmas gifties?
Yeah, me too.
Cotton Square By Andrea Dezsö
from the Exhibition "Pricked"
Or if I could knit something like this: (from the show "Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting"...)
David Cole's "The Money Dress"
is made from 879 U.S. $1 bills cut
into 1/8" stripes and woven together.
or...
David Cole's "The Money Dress"
is made from 879 U.S. $1 bills cut
into 1/8" stripes and woven together.
or...
How about those for Christmas gifties?
Yeah, me too.
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