Crochet Every Way Stitch Dictionary - Book Review

Crochet Every Way Stitch Dictionary

125 Essential Stitches to Crochet in Three Ways

Dora Ohrenstein

Paperback

9 ½ x 7 ¼”

287 pages

Publisher: Abrams (May, 2019)

There are two basic avenues to gain knowledge of any subject: (1) via study through books and/or the classroom; or (2) from direct experience. Both have their place, but when it comes to crochet, the former is almost impossible as there is scant formal written information on the subject, especially when compared to its’ big sister needlework art, knitting. Just to provide one cursory example, I pulled out a general textiles book from my personal library, written in 2005, and searched the index for knit and crochet entries. I was expecting a fair amount on the former, but was unsure whether crochet would have made the cut. I was surprised when, after mentally recording that more than three quarters of the 24 entries under “K” in the book were about knitting, the almost 2 pages of “C” entries contained exactly one about crochet – “crocheting.” And that lone entry in the textile wilderness was contained, tellingly for my current purposes, in a chapter entitled “Nonwovens and Other Methods of Fabric Construction,” and was grouped together with macramé, netting, and tatting, as alternative ways to create openwork fabrics. Of some note, this textiles book also included hairpin lace as its own method within this grouping, indicating it as a subset of crochet. I can only guess that the frame used to create hairpin lace was the reason it earned its own distinct entry separate from general crochet.

Enter Dora Ohrenstein.  She has been writing books on crochet and crochet design for the better part of the last decade, and the title that had, until now, the biggest impact on my designing career was her 2011 title Creating Crochet Fabric. Before it, I was not a fan of swatching, and initially I purchased the book for the design projects (and have made one, the Juliette Shawl, which project made the blog in this entry back in May, 2011). While the design projects drew me in, it was the brief, ending stitch dictionary and fabric creation that kept me coming back to it, again and again and again. Dora spent considerable time throughout the period when that book was first published attempting to get everyone – both designers and non-designers – to just swatch. Ohrenstein was trying, back then, to get everyone to learn to love the art and beauty of crochet fabric as much as she did through the means she knew best: direct personal experience with hook and yarn.

A swatch sampling from Crochet Every Way Stitch Dictionary

Fast forward to now, and Ohrenstein’s latest title, Crochet Every Way Stitch Dictionary, picks up rather elegantly, and with some innovation, where Creating Crochet Fabric left off. In keeping with my theme of how one gains knowledge, Dora’s opening words in this book provides her personal roadmap: “I taught myself to crochet as a twenty-one-year-old hippie while living on a houseboat in Amsterdam.” It doesn’t get any more hands-on than that. While she would leave crochet for a singing career in the intervening years between that hippie houseboat and now, creativity has never left Ohrenstein, and it shines brilliantly in this, her most recent entry, on the way to get everyone hooked (no pun intended) on the possibilities of crochet fabric. (Note: Dora has also completed an Artfully Voie de Vie Questionnaire here back in 2012.)

My version of Plump Posts, p. 126, worked in
Cascade 220 Superwash + a 5.00 mm hook

For designers and non-designers, swatching is the cornerstone of most any knit and/or crochet endeavor. For the maker, it yields vital information on gauge and fiber behavior with a particular stitch pattern, the lynch pin of whether a project will be successful. For designers, swatches are mini-fabric windows through which designs flow, morph, grow. Each attempt yields different informational fruit, all of which goes into the trifle that will become future fabric. We designers become the masters of the 4” fabric square, the going industry size for determining whether a design is, or isn’t, a potential publishing winner. The swatch is, of course, conventionally a means to a bigger design end and, most probably, was created in service to a design idea already formed.

What Ohrenstein wants us to recognize and internalize is that the swatch is a vehicle for stitch patterns that, in and of themselves, are a wealth of design information and inspiration. Exercising the swatching muscle can (and I might argue) should be one of the foundational design inspiration tools in any self-respecting designer’s tool kit – to be exercised at any point, whether or not with a particular design in mind. This book shows that how one manipulates a stitch pattern via increase and decrease can just as easily lead to other design inspiration. Stitch pattern increase and decrease is just as much an art as a skill.

My Open Ovals swatches, p. 236, using
a fiber cocktail of Habu Textiles Silk
Mohair + Tahki Stacy Charles Luna
held together + a 4.25 mm hook

After introducing some perfunctory basics on stitch patterns and how they create designs, Dora lays out the book’s organization – stitch patterns in five flavors over six chapters from closed stitches to open, texture to lace, and that final crochet mainstay – ripple stitches. After thumbing through each section, I chose the first three stitch patterns that caught my eye to work up for this review.  My gut is consistent when it comes to the types of stitches I like – I chose one from the texture section, one from the classic lace section (and that’s my favorite section in the book, truth be told), and one from the ripple section because its increase was just so darned intriguing.

Working these swatches was not only a pleasure because each is charted (such a treat – work the chart and fini!), but also because I chose stash yarn for each, and for this textile fan pairing the right fiber with stitch pattern is always a fun exercise. Working some of the decreases on the first texture stitch swatch instantly gave me other ideas on what could be done along that particular edge. The lace swatches were the most satisfying, not the least because I chose to work them up in a mohair blend. The ripple increase swatch was, however, the most enlightening. I know I shall be going back to that swatch as well as that 

Tilted Ripple, p. 270, was by far the most fascinating
swatch worked. I used Drops Puna + a 4.25 mm hook.

section of the book (at the end, and the shortest) to further investigate.

While this is technically a stitch dictionary, I find the title slightly misleading. I do not find the stitch patterns themselves to be the star, but how we can learn to manipulate them. In that respect, this book is indeed innovative, because stitch repeats in whole cannot always be successfully increased and/or decreased. Ohrenstein, through her instruction for each increase and decrease, is giving us the underlying tools to successfully get any stitch pattern to do what we want it to.

It is a shame that we (at least in the U.S.) tend to look down our noses at craft (although this continues to change and evolve). Ohrenstein, with this latest title has, along with her title from 2011, created a one-two punch for anyone wanting to create crochet fabric, or learn more generally about fabric creation and manipulation. As crochet is seen more and more regularly on the fashion runway, it takes its place alongside knit fabrics as a potential design fabric staple in any house’s seasonal collection. Resultingly, I find both of these Ohrenstein titles should be useful not only to a general craft public (as each title is categorized by their respective publishers), but also relevant in any textile or design classroom setting. Then there would be, at minimum, three crochet entries in any thorough book on textiles.

If you love to create fabric (crochet or otherwise) as much as I do, and you’ve read this far (ha!), now comes the payoff: I had no idea Abrams would be sending me two copies. Therefore, I am so thrilled to be able to give a copy of Crochet Every Way Stitch Dictionary away to one lucky winner. All you need do is comment below on why you want a copy of this book, and what you hope to learn from it. I will be awarding the copy to a winner via random number generator from all comments received between now and the end of the day next Monday, June 17th. 

Good luck ... and happy swatching!

Wednesday, June 19th Update: Sorry I am a few days late in awarding a winner - but I gave the random integer generator a whirl just a few minutes ago, and it picked number 1 (and 5 was the alternate), so Missy of A Tree Hugger's Wife wins this awesome book! I will also be posting this on Instagram, so everyone can see it there as well. Thanks to everyone who read the review, and especially to those who took the time to leave a comment. I urge everyone to add this title to your crafty book shelf - you will not be disappointed.

Coastal Crochet - Book Review

The cover of Coastal Crochet. All book photos by Anne Podlesak, used
with kind permission of the author.

Coastal Crochet
Author: Karen Whooley
Various Formats; 95 pages; 8.5 x 11
Publisher: Occhi Blu Press (2018)
ISBN: 978-0-9723232-4-6
eBook ISBN: 978-0-9723232-6-0
Language: English

I attended (for a single day) the recently held Chainlink Conference, the annual crochet event organized by the Crochet Guild of America (CGOA). This was my first attendance at this particular event (I have, in the past, attended a few Vogue Knitting events as well as the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival - photos from both which you can view here on the blog). 

It was a whirlwind afternoon, with a lot of meeting. During my walk through the marketplace (which was almost at the end of the day), I managed to say hello to Karen Whooley. Local to the Puget Sound just like myself and a self-publisher (also just like myself), I was quite open in my willingness to review her latest, sophomore self-published effort Coastal Crochet.

As an author who has worked on each and every aspect of a self-published book, I know exactly how much effort publishing one's own title entails. While Whooley managed to assemble a well-seasoned team to help her, ultimately things always rest with the author in this type of publishing, so my hat is off to Karen for a strong second effort.

This is a clean, straight forward assembly of 12 (mostly) summer designs utilizing all of the colors found at the shore. I love her choice for the cover (the design is Storm; that stitch pattern is fantastic, and I think its provenance can be traced to Robyn Chachula's Crochet Stitches). I have included photos here of my favorite designs from the collection. 

Deep Blue Sea

Shoreline

Deep Blue Sea is not only a unique shape - trapezoid from a beginning half-circle - but is an excellent pairing of stitch and yarn. The same thing holds for Shoreline - I love the colorway used to highlight stones along the shore, and graphic black and grays are always a winner with me. Coastline is a cross between a poncho and a pullover - it is a fresh garment shape and in the soft beige/gray green of the Anzula Fiber yarn used, this design is very striking.

Coastline

Two other garments and six additional accessories round out this collection that Whooley places within her love for the western coastline of the United States. She also spends a fair amount of her introduction going over her favorite seaside places along said coast. Because I also know the lay of the land here in the west, I was a little surprised when I kept flipping pages and noticed that all of the designs were photographed in front of a fresh water lake. Karen acknowledges this at the end of the book, and I expect there is a fun (or at least memorable) story involved in the reason for this. That is, sometimes, the way self-publishing goes.

Whooley includes charts and schematics in her written instructions for each design, so crafters can choose the method that best works with their making style. I personally would rate all of these designs suitable for intermediate crocheters; Karen describes these designs as being suitable for anyone "who is comfortable with the basic crochet stitches." Several of these designs do incorporate shaping (and some of it unique), so if someone has yet to make a garment, a few could fit the bill in this collection (especially Coastline and Mist, which are very forgiving). While the cover tank isn't too difficult in terms of shaping, its stitch pattern rests on post stitches which can be a challenge for someone comfortable only with basic crochet stitches. I think sometimes designers (and I have, in the past, been guilty of this) give makers all kinds of technique and stitch credit when, in fact, that credit might be just a tad aspirational. A maker's desire can, however, overcome a lack of experience with a stitch or technique.

In the end, this is a well-rounded collection with something for most crocheters. If you are looking for some pretty designs to span the end of summer into early fall, I can surely recommend the designs in Coastal Crochet. They should keep a hooker happily making through well past the end of summer.

Reading Round-up

Everyone – it is August. August! August. I have already started to see Halloween items in the stores. Man oh man, where has this year gone?

I realized recently that I had not perused any new (or recent) crochet or knit books in quite a while, so I decided to check out a bunch from my local library just to see what was up in book titles.

Initially (of course), my search and perusal was bounded by those titles carried by my local library. While I have an amazingly awesome local public library system, it nevertheless does not carry every knit and crochet title out there. At least on the crochet side of things, they definitely are missing some recent titles from Interweave, as well as the most recent book from Dora Ohrenstein. While I must give honorable mentions to Modern Crochet Mandalas (edited by the in-house Interweave editors) and Vintage Knits by Marine Malak and Geraldine Warner (those old designs have stood the time test), there were two crochet titles that most interested me - the first, I am admittedly a little late on the review (it came out in English last summer), and the second is an updated version of a classic.

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Crochetterie by Molla Mills is, in many ways, the modern anti-crochet design book. Editors spend considerable time and energy trying to curate crochet fabric and designs that fit into knit fabric’s mold, with (some) historically disastrous results (can anyone say overweight crochet cable pullovers?). Ms. Mills takes basic crochet stitches, goes with the grain, that is, the strength of crochet fabrics created and, situating her designs squarely within her native Finland, has produced a book of designs that is equal parts hip, surprising, and aesthetically pleasing.

You will not find one lace crochet shawl in Crochetterie (because you know I was looking). In fact, other than a filet crochet soccer bag, there’s no lace to speak of anywhere in the book. However, if you are looking for unconventional accessories with bold lines and color work, this is absolutely the publication for you. The book is broken into four main design chapters – home, clothes, travels, and equipment – and there are designs in each chapter that jumped out and called my name. I particularly liked the “Do Epic Shit” poster (yes, it says that!) done in stranded black and white double crochet, the Wayfarer jumper (which is modeled by her dad, but can absolutely be a unisex design), bow ties for man and beast, and an amazing Folk Bag are just some of the stellar designs in this compilation. Ms. Mills has also created a “man made” tag in single crochet thread (again, black and white) that can be liberally applied to most any piece in the collection. It looks most awesome on any of the bags or cases in the collection. I particularly liked it on the Lumberjack’s Backpack.

There’s also a section on equipment as well as on self-care, including stretches for the crocheter. What makes this title stand out to me, however, is how much of Ms. Mill’s life is represented in the book – from her tale of losing her design notebook to featuring her family and artistic friends throughout – it is, in many ways, deeply personal and very engaging. Do be aware that, since it was not originally written in English, some of the conventional crochet nomenclature and technical directions are not present. Nevertheless, a seasoned crocheter will have no issue quickly grasping how things are explained.  Makers should also be prepared for a lot of notions use, as well as leather, other mixed media closures, and other non-crochet finishing touches.

Simply stated, I love this book. It will make its way into my personal library, and I’m already working on a few of the designs.

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I have had Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Tips, Techniques & Trade Secrets (shown on the left side in photo at left) in my personal library for, like, ever. It is my go-to book when I have sticky design questions, as the tips and tricks in it are always a great springboard in helping me solve my own particular design dilemma. When I heard that it was being updated, I was fairly thrilled. 350 Crochet Tips, Techniques, and Trade Secrets has just been released, and I managed to get my hands on a library copy. 

Initially, I am not certain exactly where the tips and techniques were increased - there are exactly the same number of pages in the same number of chapters in the book. I compared my old 2007 book with this latest version - page by page - and found only 10 noticeably different pages covering 5 different techniques, and in four of the five instances it was more of a change in book layout and visuals; only in the 'garment shapes" section is there actual content difference (and I, admittedly, do like the updated material here). 

Having said that, if you don't have the previous version of this book in your personal repertoire, I would highly urge you get the updated edition. Eaton is one of our best crochet treasures, with knowledge to spare. Your library will be all the richer for it. If, like me, you already have the initial version of the book ... well ... I think it will still serve you well for many years to come.

Knitted Wraps & Cover-ups - Book Review

Knitted Wraps & Cover-ups
Paperback; 132 pages; 8.5 x 11"
Publisher: Stackpole Books (July 15, 2015)
ISBN-10: 0811714446
ISBN-13:978-0811714440
Language: English

Trust the art, not the artist, so the adage goes. D.H. Lawrence believed it was the critic’s role to rescue the art (in his instance, the tale) from the artist. I’m pleased to let you know that no rescuing is needed for Knitted Wraps and Cover-ups, the latest book of hand knit designs from Annie Modesitt. These designs stand up just fine all on their own, no critical help needed.

The Fitted Lace Off-Shoulder Top, photograph
by Laura Neel, used with permission from
Annie Modesitt.

I admit to being a big fan of Modesitt well before my own crochet and knit designing career began. Additionally, given my own recently self-published freshman book of designs, it was hard for me to decide which hat to wear for this review – the fan hat, the designer hat, the book/maker hat, the artist hat? As you’ll see, I pretty much wore all of them.

My swatch of the lace pattern (one
complete repeat worked over 20 sts + rib
selvage) from The Fitted Lace Off-Shoulder
Top, worked up in Patons Lace Sequins on
U.S. size 5 needles (and my gauge was good!)

Modesitt is known for designs with a dramatic and/or costume flair, and there are certainly several designs in this book to feed that appetite in any knitter. Lots of bold color (stained glass was her inspiration for three of the designs, and one other, the Morse Code Cowl, certainly veers in the stained glass direction from a color perspective), and those bold chunky cables on the cover pieces, worn together, would certainly fall into the above categories. 

However, I found myself drawn almost instantly to the lace designs in this collection. The Sweet Lace Bolero and the Fitted Lace Off-Shoulder Top are both pieces that if you’re a lace lover like me, you’ll definitely want to make. I’ve already worked up a quick swatch of the lace for the Fitted Lace Off-Shoulder Top with whatever appropriate weight yarn I had close at hand. It’s a pretty lace pattern, and combined with the back and sleeve ribbing detail, will make a beautiful top. Both of these lace designs can easily be worked in longer form for those who might not want a cropped cover-up.

Plaid Vest, photograph by Laura Neel, used
with permission from Annie Modesitt

There are, of course, other designs that appealed to me: the Lace Cuff Shrug (an easy piece with just a hint of lace at the cuffs), the Plaid Vest (and I’m usually not a vest lover), and the Basketweave Bolero all have great texture and color appeal, yet are easily constructed and quick projects that should provide knitters with reasonably instant gratification.

The designer in me was impressed with the number of pieces in this collection. Knitters will be pleased with such rich choices all in one book. The book/maker in me loved the written as well as charted instructions, the schematics, the strong terms and abbreviations section as well as the ending visual index. The techniques section I found slightly perfunctory (yet still crystal clear in the instruction department), although I can empathize with Modesitt. She saved it all for the designs!

While one could certainly argue that designing is a personal act, not all designers come from such a place. I found Knitted Wraps & Cover-ups a uniquely personal collection, and much of Modesitt’s personality shines through between, as well as on, the covers. From her use of models (one is a family member), to her introduction (when was the last time you read a designer’s description of pattern writing as “democratic?”) to the range of designs themselves, I came away with a composite sketch of Modesitt as inclusive, traveled, and someone who cares deeply about knitting techniques and process.

In the end, not only can you trust the art of the designs in Knitted Wraps & Cover-ups, you can and should trust the artist as well.

What A Life this Fee-Fi(ber)-F.O. Friday

Isn't this Cascade Venezia Sport just gorgeous?

"If you lay off the 'parallel lines on the canvas,' the 'balance of light and dark,' and other art history shibboleths, if you really look at the painting or sculpture or photography or installation work or video and pay close attention to the ways the images resonate with your own life, then the world of your experience and the world of the artist's experience have a chance to connect." (p. 161)

"My job was becoming increasingly difficult. The challenge was to maintain a very clear vision for the museum in terms of inquiry and scholarship while also attending to the real necessity of balancing the budget and raising money - and to create an organizational climate that was highly productive and efficient but was also fair, compassionate, and human." (p.148, emphasis in original)

As I wrote in this post, I'm reading (and have just completed) Marcia Tucker's memoir A Short Life of Trouble: 40 Years in the New York Art World. What an inspiration! Feminist (although she wouldn't use the moniker until later in her life), artist, curator, museum founder, mother, wife (twice), Marcia Tucker challenged conventional wisdom pretty much from the opening bell. Tucker's experiences are a perfect mirror of the social changes we've seen since the early 60s: she eschewed law school and became the first female curator at a major New York museum - The Whitney (she was in her mid-20s) even though her father wanted her to join him in his law practice; she dealt with ageism and sexism inside (as well as outside of) the workplace; she was the first woman to be fired from a curatorial position at a major New York museum, first woman to found her own major New York museum (The New Museum of Contemporary Art); Tucker faced head-on her own museum's institutional racism (much to the chagrin of her Board of Directors); her second marriage was to a man 17 years her junior, she didn't give birth to her daughter Ruby until after 40, and died of cancer in 2004. Phew! There may have been trouble, but it was surely a jam-packed life. 

As someone who, more times than not, finds myself going against the grain, Tucker was not only a breath of fresh air, but someone in whom I saw a kindred spirit (except for the marriages and kid parts). In every instance of egalitarian or inclusive thinking she exhibited, I kept saying yes! out loud to the page. It is no small feat to be in conflict with the social norms of one's day and still live a principled life. Tucker did it in fantastic fashion and left a legacy of artistic mentorship and vision that continues to meaningfully impact long after her death. 

We should all be lucky to have so much trouble.

As I continue to work on crochet designs (and some knitting ones as well!) set for future publication, I take heart in knowing that even though there are times when it feels like relevant crochet design gets undercut (for myriad reasons), persistence and a healthy dose of laughter can win the day. 

Since my persistence and laugh are still present and accounted for, I'm feeling pretty darn good.

Now head on over to Andrea's blog - the Wonder Why Gal and see what's present and accounted for on the farm this week.

A Lesson in (Most) Things Cultural and Sociological

Ann Mah's Mastering the Art of French Eating
Published by Pamela Dorman Books/Viking;
273 pages, hardcover

The memoir form is, perhaps, one of the most difficult literary forms to successfully pen. It is a delicate balance between self-aggrandizement and vulnerability; the best ones strike that balance perfectly, thus allowing the reader to make a meaningful connection. However, since the form is also the most accessible for many writers (whether beginners or well-seasoned), there's a sea of bad memoirs upon which one can cast a wide net.

So it is with great pleasure (and more than a little relief, really) that I highly recommend Ann Mah's Mastering the Art of French Eating: Lessons in Food and Love from a Year in Paris. Let's get the set-up quickly out of the way: Mah, a food and travel writer working (at the time) on her first novel Kitchen Chinese, along with her diplomat husband Calvin (who really delivers quite an heroic supporting role) move to Paris for what is, at first blush, a dream diplomatic assignment. Things get complicated rather quickly when Calvin delivers the bad news: for the first year of his assignment, he'll actually be stationed in Iraq. Mah's dreams of dinners à deux in quaint Parisian cafes are quickly dashed and replaced with lonely nights in their apartment eating toast (albeit with some tasty toppings) and speaking nightly to Calvin from the Baghdad war zone via Skype. So much for love in the city of lights.

Now, to be certain, Mah's problems are middle class - she's got a great place to live in one of the most exciting cities in the world. As she herself recounts (and I'm paraphrasing), she's got all the emotional and economic support any "trailing spouse" could need or want. Nevertheless, she's still a foreigner in a strange land, and is forced to deal with creating a meaningful life for herself (and all that entails in a foreign city), while at the same time dealing with the anxiety of knowing first-hand the danger her husband faces each day. 

I used both cultural and sociological in this blog entry's title because I was amazed at the breadth of experiences Mah shares with her readers in these 273 pages. There's definitely a whole lot of French history, travel, and food lore (and enough food locations throughout France to make this book almost necessary if one were planning a visit anytime soon). That I fairly expected. What reeled me in were her honest accounts of everything from French waiters who showed their exasperation at her beginner's French when ordering in the opening chapter, to her experience in a French citizenship class (an eye and ear opening as well as thought-provoking experience for Mah; having taught political sociology, I instantly identified with the instructor after the lunch break). Mah infuses her year of discovery with a healthy dose of 21st century feminism in all its complexity, as well as a willingness to admit to lessons learned that she never could have expected. Low on the self-aggrandizement, fairly balanced with vulnerability - a winning combination. I pretty much couldn't put the book down.

Definitely read Mastering the Art of French Eating if you want to learn about French history and food; certainly try the recipes, but stay for a personal story that will absolutely touch you, with an epilogue bursting with poetic justice. Merci, Madame Mah. 

(Just Another) Melange Monday

It's Monday ... time for melange. 

Initially, let me say I am thoroughly enjoying Goli Taraghi's short stories in her 2013 collection The Pomegranate Lady and Her Sons. Taraghi's writing has been described as accessible (it is), laced with mysticism (it is), as well as "constricted by class consciousness" (not certain I agree with the constricted portion of that). The mystical elements serve well the reality of tumult and revolution that marks Taraghi's Iran. The short story form allows it all to be digested in short, tasty, and easily manageable bites. I give this collection all the stars possible.

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If you're around the New York City area and have the time, I hope you'll check out my friend Ruth Marshall's latest exhibit Closely Knit: A Textile Analysis of Animals, the opening reception for which will be held this coming Wednesday, April 30th from 6:00 - 8:00 pm in Central Park's Arsenal Building. Her previous work (think endangered wild animal pelts meet knitting needles) has received wonderful reviews, and I have no doubt that this latest exhibit will be met with the same. The exhibit will be in the Arsenal Building through June 20th, dotted with talks throughout that time. Hit the above linky to find out more information and see Ruth's amazing work. And remember: no animals were hurt in the knitting of each life-like pelt.

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Finally, while I'm discussing other people's art, I really must mention a recently published book by a Ravelry friend and artist, Jacqueline Boyle. She's co-written and illustrated a book to be read to babies in the womb. Can't Wait to Show You: A Celebration of Mothers-to-be can be found on Amazon, and looks to be rather super, really. She's co-written it with a literacy specialist and they harnessed the copious amounts of research indicating the benefits of reading to babies in utero. I just love anything that promotes reading and literacy, as well as the sweet illustrations. My hat's off to Jacqueline - I've been viewing her art for a few years now, so this is an exciting new development.

Juxtaposition Makes for Beautiful Art

The Fine Art of Crochet: Innovative
Works from 20 Contemporary
Artists, Gwen Blakley Kinsler,
 published by Authorhouse, 2013
 and available here on Amazon

Female artists are still vastly underrepresented in the fine arts world (by approximately 3:1) and still represent bargain shopping at auction.* It is a rather amazing fact, although not surprising considering all the time and artistic ground women need to make up in the male-dominated fine arts legacy.

So it is with a wide, satisfied smile on my face that I provide a review of Gwen Blakley Kinsler’s The Fine Art of Crochet: Innovative Works from 20 Contemporary Artists. Kinsler, the founder of The Crochet Guild of America and an accomplished artist and designer in her own right, has curated a simply fantastic group of artists in this book that celebrates, through each artists’ selected works, the crochet art movement from 1915 to the present. (Full disclosure: Kinsler interviewed me in spring 2013 for Crochet World Magazine’s Talking Crochet newsletter. However, as will be demonstrated below, my interest in and appreciation of fiber art was well established prior to her interview, so this review is conflict-of-interest free).

Kinsler immediately grabs the reader with her pick of cover art - Bonnie Meltzer’s Global Warming is not only visually arresting but also timely. Kinsler then opens the book with a brief introduction and background of the crochet art movement. In the opening quote, she lays the juxtaposition groundwork by quoting Bruce Hoffman, Director of the Snyderman Gallery, on the emergence of crochet in contemporary art, and then writes that “Crochet is a craft whose time has come.”  Some aspect of “craft” in female voice/“art” in male voice is a running theme (either stated or unstated) in almost every artists' work in this collection, which includes four men and 16 women. Some artists, such as Georgina Valverde, Leslie Pontz, Carol Hummel, Pate Conaway, Nathan Roberts and Kathleen Holmes, openly explore the link between gender, craft and art. Other artists may be silent on the explicit link, yet conveyed to Kinsler the connection they feel with the women who handed down the crochet legacy that informs their work. Yet others, like Arline Fisch and Bonnie Meltzer, were among many female pioneers in the artistic crochet movement in the 60s and 70s.  One minor point: I do wish Kinsler would have included the year the works were created in the individual artworks’ captions; it would not only have been informative, but also provide a link to the fact that some of these artists have been working with crochet techniques and the fiber medium for several decades.

Paper Lanterns, Arline Fisch, from
 Arline Fisch: Creatures from the Deep

I am fortunate to live in a part of the country that recognizes, explores and celebrates the fiber arts, for I’ve seen two of the included artists’ work in separate local major museum exhibitions in the last four years. I can state unequivocally that Arline Fisch created a whole new world with her crochet and knit pieces in the Creatures from the Deep exhibit, and one of the pieces from the collection is included in Kinsler’s book. Fisch’s talk connected with the exhibit was a watershed moment for me, as she discussed her use of non-traditional materials. Additionally, one cannot think of fiber artists and not also think of Jo Hamilton, whose incredible “crochet painted” portraits were included in the BAM Biennial 2012: High Fiber Diet exhibit, which I also had the pleasure of viewing.  

I am thrilled to have added The Fine Art of Crochet to my personal library. The artists’ respective inspiration and art will no doubt inform and inspire me. Kinsler has added a much needed female voice to the male-heavy fine arts conversation. I know which works included in the book are my personal favorites, and I urge everyone to seek out this book and find your own unique inspiration within its pages.

_________

* For more on these topics, see Redressing the Balance: Women in the Art World, and In the Art World, Women on the Verge, two of many, many online articles.

I'll be participating again this year, blogging up a storm for an entire week.

Damn The Office Torpedoes

For better or worse, I am a product of public school education. Where I attended public school, there were few schooling options –the private, parochial school where the financially better-off sent their kids, or the public school. There were a few elementary schools dotted throughout the city neighborhoods, and then one public middle school and one public high school.

Back in the day, we were offered a public education that included elective “vocational” courses. General art class and band, while not technically considered vocational, were open to every student (and I won’t discuss what transpired when I came home with the violin; conversely, I was rather proud of all the hand ceramics I created while listening over and over and over to the Best of Bread album), as well as typing (yes, on an actual, manual typewriter) and the basics of business finances - spreadsheets and the like.

 

Then there were those courses that were gender segregated: sewing and cooking for girls, woodworking and shop class for the guys. While I wasn’t too interested in the latter, I also wasn’t too keen on the sewing class, but it came part and parcel with the cooking, in which I was very interested, so I struggled through seaming a pair of pants that no self-respecting teen would ever wear, and counted the class sessions left until the measuring and rolling could begin.

It was fairly well established that one took the vocational courses (especially shop and woodworking) if a student wasn’t on the universally agreed-as-better-for-future-prospects college-prep track. Since I was whizzing my way through AP English, French and Latin (oh, the verbs I conjugated), my time in cooking class was seen as pure fluff. Such is the long and winding (and expensive) road of the designer.

We internalize the popularly expressed value of work at a very early age. What all the adults pushed was the grand and glorious benefits of college, and then only a certain type of college experience, one which didn’t (and still doesn’t, really) include getting one’s hands literally or figuratively dirty. Enter Matthew B. Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft, a brilliant polemic against the prevailing wisdom that everyone must be an information worker in order to have and engage in work that has societal value.

 

Crawford, with a Ph.D. in political philosophy and ownership of his own motorcycle repair business, makes the argument for the “useful arts” – his classification for carpentry, plumbing, electrical work and mechanical repair. Using his own rather colorful personal story, Crawford recounts his disengagement from that of information worker to transformation to shop owner where he shoulders the responsibilities of, as well as fully engages with, the uniquely complete sense of accomplishment felt when he accurately diagnoses and repairs a mechanical issue. As someone who solves construction problems almost daily (and then memorializes those solutions for the general public – you know, pattern writing), I readily identify with this sense of accomplishment.

Crawford is at his most sarcastically brilliant in the chapter “The Contradictions of the Cubicle,” devoted to his short time as an articles indexer.  The opening paragraph pretty much lays it out:

“The popularity of Dilbert, The Office, and any number of other pop-culture windows on cubicle life attests to the dark absurdism with which many Americans have come to view their white-collar work. Absurdity is good for comedy, but bad as a way of life. It usually indicates that somewhere beneath the threshold of official notice fester contradictions that, if commonly admitted, would bring on some kind of crisis … it is impossible to make sense of the [modern] office without noticing that it has become a place of moral education, where souls are formed and a particular ideal of what it means to be a good person is urged upon us.”

As someone who has spent most of my adult working life in offices of many stripes, I read this chapter and kept wanting to hit the imaginary solidarity bell and yell out “ding, ding, ding.” If truth be told, I probably did do that on several occasions. And if I am kneeling at the truth altar, I must admit my brief complicity with and performance in this absurdist dance while a design school instructor. How many former students groaned at the mention of the dreaded group project? Yes, that was me attempting to instill a particular value – damn the torpedoes, and all that.

Neither Crawford nor I are in any way suggesting a disengagement from society and community – far from it. In fact, Crawford makes the convincing case that as a small business owner in the business of dealing with the real-world mechanical problems of his clients (most from his very own backyard), he gets to see the consequences of his work up close and personal just about most days. This provides him an opportunity not only to get better at his art, but to reap the benefits of such a community presence.

Of course, Crawford writes what he knows – he is a white guy and the book reflects that fact, which leads to my biggest criticism of it. In many passages, he describes his willingness to learn at the hands of those with more experience (of course, other guys), yet makes many derogatory references (backhanded and otherwise) to maternalism and catty female attitudes and behaviors. I wonder if he would have been such a willing student if the teacher had been an attractive female, or if a woman telling an off-color workplace joke at his expense might not make him just a tad uncomfortable. I do note that his references to maternalism stem more from a place of raising the status of self-reliance over dependence as opposed to someone dissing a perspective based purely on gender, yet that independent spirit he wishes to foster - which has a very rich history in this country - has been held and espoused by (mostly) old white guys.

 

In the end, Crawford is advocating a particular kind of agency and freedom - one which fosters thinking for oneself as well as true diversity of mind and action, no stifling office trappings attached. He describes it as a sort of neo-republicanism. I'm certain my terminal degree informs my stance that I'm not willing to use such a loaded classification, but of course I do not possess a Ph.D. in political philosophy. All I know is that once you strip away all the jargon, Crawford lives a life that just makes sense, and accessibly describes it in Shop Class as Soulcraft. It is a way of being in the world that deserves its rightful place amidst what we value.

 

Vote for Great Color and Design

Happy election day to everyone here in the U.S.! I cast my vote yesterday (love mail-in balloting); I also cast another vote several weeks ago when I pre-ordered the new Crochet Noro book. When I received it at the end of last week, I could hardly wait to sit and pour over it. I was not disappointed.

Where to begin? Well, let's start with the designs. There's a little something here for everyone - sweaters, accessories, interior design pieces, and jewelry. Each pattern is marked with a skill level: one box is easiest, four boxes for the seasoned crocheters out there. Personally, I find several of the designs deceptively simple, and for good reason - the yarn is the star here, so no need for intricate stitches (more on this below). There's also a lot of motif-based designs - a full quarter of the designs in the book are accomplished with motifs. I love a great motif, so I'm all for this. More involved patterns (including all of the motif-based designs) include charts as well as written instructions.

The collection also brings together most of the big names in crochet design - Robyn Chachula, Doris Chan, Lily Chin, Yoko Hatta, Linda Permann and Mary Beth Temple just to name a few. Of some note: a full 8 designs (just slightly more than a quarter of the collection) belong to Yoko Hatta. Incredible. Three of my absolute favorites include two from Hatta - the Boxy Cardigan and the Puff Stitch Cowl. I'm also partial to Lily Chin's Chevron Hat. Her great use of yarn and stitch makes the cap look like a piece of jewelry. I've also fallen hard for the Buttons & Flowers Shawl - what a great design concept for a shawl. Buttons at the center of each motif make customizing fit a breeze as well as ensuring it stays around the shoulders. Just genius. I even have loads of similar mother-of-pearl buttons. Hmmmmm.

 

But let's not stray too far from what we're all head-over-heels in love with: that great Noro color! This lushly styled and photographed collection is a feast for the eyes. With each flip of the page, you will have an intake of breath at the color explosion. The pieces run the gamut of color - from deep, earthy fall to bubble-gum-inspired to jewel-toned. No matter your color palette preference, there's something here for everyone. I really appreciate the wonderful layering of color in each photo. It really speaks to me as a painter (as well as a home cook). Layering is the name of the game, and the wonderful Noro colors are showcased to perfection.

I've had four skeins of Kureyon in the discontinued number 221 colorway (greens, purples and peach) just waiting for the right project. You know I broke out hook and Kureyon and in two days flat whipped up the Puff Stitch Cowl. Hatta's pattern calls for 6 skeins; I augmented my four with an unknown (but perfectly coordinated) aran weight yarn from Vivian over at Bits 'n Pieces and wound up with a lush cowl just 7" shorter than the original:

My version of the Puff Stitch Cowl, made
with 4 skeins Noro Kureyon (colorway 221) and
augmented with an aran-weight wool

 

This cowl is a simple 4-row repeating pattern, constructed flat and then seamed at the end. I wet-soaked in a small amount of hair conditioner and blocked prior to seaming and the yarns bloomed and softened nicely. I cannot tell you how much I love the color in this cowl.



The back of my Puff Stitch Cowl

If you haven't gotten the message yet - I love, love, love Noro yarns, and I am thrilled with this new Crochet Noro book. Run, don't walk, to your local bookstore and pick it up. I think it might sell out quickly. Sixth & Spring is on a crochet roll this year (with the special crochet edition of Vogue Knitting earlier in the year) and I couldn't be happier.

Er, well, I might be if they would invite me to submit a design or two ... but that's another story for another day.