Playing in the snow...

.
...for a few minutes only, back inside before my toes turned blue. The first snow-pic is the dress lying in the snow, the one below is its imprint.

Making a start (2)

Sorry I couldn't come to the last meeting. Hope someone will blog about it here…
I've been crocheting this little dress, from a single nylon-thread. It is denser than I expected. Had to work on it against a dark surface, so I could see what I was doing, and by excellent light only, presently next to my lumie-lamp, which also helps expel the winter-blues. I am not particularly thrilled by this object, wished I hadn't spent so much time on it but felled compelled towards completion, even if just to dismiss. Will try again with a much thicker crochet hook, make it lighter, loopy. In the meantime I might also play around a bit with the image.
Ultimately I would like to make something that is on the verge of disappearing, or appearing, and quite like this embossed version.


Or crumple up the dress and let it find different shapes.



Materials: nylon thread, twig, wire
Dimensions: 24 cm x 19 cm

Making a start

I'm sorry I couldn't come and meet you all. Thought I'd make a start by myself and explored the collection of Slough Museum on their website. The object that lingered was this almost ghostlike image of a doll's underskirt from the late 19th century.


Object Number: 1985.027.001D
Description: Bowyer Collection of Needlework and Textiles -
19th c dolls under skirtWhile I would love to see it for real, inspect it (the seams, the waistband, those stains), I am also attracted by the quality of the image, its melancholy feel. The object might not be real after all! This could be the lightest of pencil drawings, or a picture of a skirt come loose from its wearer like a kite from its string, floating across a twilight sky in search of her… I also like that the image doesn't give a clear indication of size, it might be a doll's, a girl's, a woman's underskirt, delicate, hand-sewn, ever so light.


I dug out some tiny old sketches and a paper figure I made a few years ago where the skirt does not conceal the upper body, but actually replaces it. I'm mulling over ideas now, want to crochet, focusing on lightness, the threshold between thereness and not-thereness. A lot of my work is to do with memories, their fragility and elusiveness, the point where a memory becomes a story becomes a memory.