Alanna Nelson | Textilfilia

Make Felt in Marion May 7

Apr 4, 2022

Soap, water and wool; express yourself and create; your own felt fabric.

May 7, 2022 1:00 – 3:00 pm

Silvershell Beach, Marion, MA

Join me outdoors near the shore as we play with soap, water and wool to create a piece of felt all your own.

Play with color, include your favorite symbols and learn several ways to create felt. Learn how your wool choice impact the final fabric.

Class price is $20 and includes all materials and supplies.

Register here. It’s a good activity for those 12+. We’ll sit and stand and might get a big wet. Bring an apron (oil cloth, if you have one) and get ready to roll up your sleeves.

Soap, water and wool is part of South Coast Spring Arts and is the first time I’ve taught since December 2019! Can’t wait to be outdoors and see what people create.

Join me!

Wool felt success at Alanna Nelson learn to felt class 2019

← 5 Squares for the Violet Protest Invasion of the Invasives →

5 Squares for the Violet Protest

Dec 16, 2021

• Respect for the other • Citizenship • Compromise

• Country over party and corporate influence

• Courage • Candor • Compassion • Creativity
Core American Values promoted by the Violet Protest

Can we agree on these American values? Artist Ann Merton thought so, and sought to remind the 117th Congressional delegation of their obligations to their constituents. With that, the Violet Protest launched.

Calling out to those who create with textiles, red and blue 8″ squares were gathered in hopes of creating a violet wash of expression. Knitters, weavers, quilters, crocheters, embroiderers, surface design textile artists of all kinds stepped up. More than 2,000 people from all 50 states and many Canadian provinces made at least 5 squares.

I’m one of 229 people in Massachusetts who donated squares.

Violet Protest Quilt Square by Alanna Nelson

Did you notice only four squares? As I photographed before sending them off, a flared edge on a knit square caught my eye. I pulled back the bind off and chose a different technique then popped it in the mail! At least it got to Arizona by the deadline.

Creating the five squares was straightforward, in principle. My stash yielded fabric, felt, thread and yarn that fit within the Violet Protest’s framework. But how to best express the seven principles and the message of the protest?

Probably too much energy was spent on this topic. As the deadline neared, my goal switched to imbibing each stitch with the unity, determination and good will of the project. I thanked Congress for their work. I scolded Congress for the divisions that they represent. I gave a pep talk and promimsed to do my best to embody those values in my civic life. And I finished those squares within the framework, by the deadline.

Violet Protest squares on view to the public

Squares that reached Arizona by January were included in an exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum. It looked glorious, and yet not all of the 13,500 squares donated had arrived yet.

After the exhibit, Ann and the team packed up 24-25 squares and an explanation of the project for each of our 435 members of Congress.

Did the Representatives see them? Did they feel them? Will they feel the mandate demanded?

We don’t know yet. But each of us can hold those values to guide our own behaviors. There’s a lot to do, and each of us can contribute to civic life.

Thank you, Ann, for working so hard to create this project. She hopes to make a documentary about the Violet Protest, and if you’d like, you can donate to that effort.

Luke Haynes

May 24, 2021

“Because let me not be defined by my gender! Let me not have to create works that are a reflection of the single most obvious difference between me and the standard!!

Let me not be defined by my “otherness” but rather my “sameness”!!!”

Luke Haynes after his interview with Abby Glassenberg’s podcast While She Naps

I miss the quarterly SAQA MARI meetings (Studio Art Quilt Associates Massachusetts Rhode Island Chapter). Heading out on those Saturday mornings were special treats. The meeting format was pretty straightforward: chitchat, then a presentation on technique or arts management (how I loved the meetings where Vicki Jensen at ProChem shared her vast knowledge), more chitchat over packed lunch and then show and tell. If not carpooling with another art quilter, I’d detour to discover destinations near the meeting location. Many times, though, the in person meeting would drive me straight back to my studio for play and progress on my own work.

The SAQA MARI programming committee adapted with the times and now offers Zoom alternatives. On May 16, the guest speaker was Luke Haynes. His express ride through his approach, inspiration and exploration of quilt as object, as sculpture, made from used textiles and celebrating himself, his community and quilt history lingered long after I clicked “Leave Meeting.”

If you don’t know Luke’s work, think big. We’re talking at least seven feet square densely quilted three layers, made from used textiles and using traditional quilt blocks as the backdrop for a portrait. Inspired by famous compositions and iconic paintings, his portraits of friends and people in his neighborhood inject his quilts with contemporary sense of place and immortal remembrance. These art quilts hang on walls in galleries and also grace beds. Quilts often are anonymous works, signed on the back. Luke signs in all caps on the front, and even makes his name part of the composition.

A quilter after my own heart, Luke photographs his beautiful work outdoors, draped in stunning natural settings, wrapped around people. These objects transform space as it transforms as a work of art. His objects are beautiful and useful. Luke chooses to challenge the role and place for art. What do we value? What is desirable and worth commemorating? How we carry those parameters forward?

Sometime in the mid 1990s, Michael James shook up the quilt world by saying something to the effect of quilting will not move forward as an art form until quilters create art. I would have read this in Quilter’s Newsletter magazine or perhaps the International Quilt Association. Making quilts near Rome in those days, when the internet was young, I found James’ statement thought provoking and I tried to get my head around his perspective.

At one of the first quilt exhibits in Italy, I remember a surprised and perplexed visitor looking at my work and exclaiming, “This isn’t a quilt. It’s art.”

In her mind, art was a world apart. She came for quilts, that iconic American bed covering whose popularity bubbled up in those days. It was another expression of “made by hand” that Italians cherish. While textile hand work was overwhelmingly women’s work, an “artigiana/o” or artisan is anyone who creates or manufactures objects. Tailors, cheesemakers, boat manufacturers all are artisans.

After his 45 minute presentation, question and answer time wasn’t as spirited as I thought it may be. Was I the only one who was still taking it in? Did others in the mainly female over 60 audience find themselves pondering questions afterwards? The first question was more of a statement: she pondered the perspective difference and vision he had. Is she still thinking about it? I checked out the SAQA MARI Facebook group, and the conversation was sparse.

I love the way Luke wraps himself, his neighborhood and the way galleries are happy to accept his work as art. What would Michael James think?

Maybe that conversation will happen some day. In the meantime, I’ll head back to my studio and keep on making things.

Thank you to the artists whose legacies sustain us today. Thank you to today’s artists whose creations and connections lead us toward tomorrow.

Mary Oliver’s poetry is one way I slow down to appreciate the beauty of existence.

Wishing you a fulfilling journey.

← In honor of a client 5 Squares for the Violet Protest →

In honor of a client

Apr 16, 2021

In our house, she was known as the “Closet Lady.”

Nearly a decade ago, she found me through the grapevine. I repaired and recreated textiles. Her silk Roman shades needed mending, suffering sun damage. She insisted that the repairs happen without uninstalling shades. I could adapt, no problem.

Thus began five years of journeys to her meticulously decorated home. I would sew, repair, reweave and piece together the silk textiles carefully chosen to coordinate with the furniture, paintings and other decorative elements.

We set appointments on the phone, from her land line only. I introduced her to the pleasures of a smartphone. She promptly purchased one, but I never saw her use it.

How did Closet Lady acquire her moniker? In her front entry, the coat closet had a door. When you opened it, there was a large gold French passamenterie gold tassel at the end of the light pull. It looked out of place with the wooden hangarars and neatly stacked cloth covered storage boxes on the shelf above. She purchased smocked gold dupioni silk to make a curtain that created a backdrop for the tassel. When she opened the closet door and pulled the tassel light cord, the closet glimmered.”It gives me great pleasure to take my guests’ coats and jackets and keep them in a gracious location,” she mused after I installed the curtain.

Like me, silk and wool were irresistible to her. Silk curtains, silk shades, silk duvet covers, wool paisley jacquard weave upholstery adorned windows, archairs, piano stools. She had worked with a designer to decorate the home when she first purchased it, but clearly she was in charge of the project. To find the exact colors, textures and patterns was a grueling process and she had no desire to do it again.

All repairs happened at her home. Packing up my tool bag, I curated a selection of threads in a range of weights and fibers that reflected the home’s palette. Pearl cottons, silk, wool and cotton embroidery threads, buttonhole thread plus machine and hand sewing threads were neatly lined up in a box. A daylight lamp and sewing machine often traveled with me. Normally, it was a four hour stint at her place.

Of course I should stay for lunch! Dainty dishes, cloth napkins and vintage flatware elevated the deli salad as we discussed Museum exhibits, current affairs and political escapades. A stickler for grammar, she would frequently bemoan errors she heard on NPR or in the New York Times. These lapses were not just noted, but reported to the perpetrator. My conversational contributions were subject to the same scrutiny.

While eschewing my grammatical errors, she would bring her writing to me for analysis, ever searching for the perfect word and tone. I suggested synonyms and phrasing options for her correspondence. Mind you, this was included in my $35/hr textile tech charges. She encouraged me to charge my editorial hourly rate, but I never did.

Sections of the textiles most beloved to her had more reweaving than original fabric. Did she really want to sink more hours into extending their fragile lives? My schedule was tighter, working deadlines on projects that paid better and were located closer to home. I gave her the number of a great upholstery business that could recover a few of her chairs when she found the right replacement fabric.

We exchanged holiday cards. On occasion, we would send each other newspaper clippings.

In the summer of 2019, she sent me a letter asking me to please come, as her textiles needed me. She would gladly pay my time in transit and hoped I could fit a trip in as soon as possible. I felt split: this gig didn’t pay much, but her gracious hospitality and appreciation for our time together put this offer in a different light.

I responded that could get there in the fall. If she wanted to drive or have them delivered to me, I would work on them gradually. That summer was so busy, it didn’t occur to me until I wrote her 2020 New Year’s card that she hadn’t responded.

In February 2021, my New Year’s card to her returned to me. “Unoccupied” was scrawled across the envelope.

Discreet as she was, traces of her personal life on the internet are nondescript and few. Deep in a pdf newsletter of Boston club, there was reference to her death. While the exact date wasn’t listed, late summer 2019 is probable.

Knowing that she had no children and her nephew was the closest family member she mentioned, I wonder what happened to her carefully curated home. What about that gold silk smocked curtain? Those gorgeous tassels that she enjoyed every day?

I am grateful to have known her.

Story of Myrtle

Jan 26, 2021

“Would you knit me another one?”

THUNK went my gut when Mom asked me that. She had just tried on the Myrle cardigan I’d knit for her and the fit was too tight. Fortunately, we were on the phone, so my body language was probably not as nonchalant as my voice.

“What bothers you about the fit,” I asked.

“Let me send it back so you can wear it.”

Daylight shines through the lace cardigan as it hangs in window

According to my project post, I cast on this sweater on August 1, 2019. Ah, yes, I took it with me on our 2019 sailing vacation. Too much concentration and dark yarn in the cabin at night meant I worked on other projects.

Autumn 2019 was full of local government campaigning, so there wasn’t much time to knit. Turns out, this wasn’t a great traveling project in the early months, too. In December, I pulled it all back and started over.

By February 2020, as I neared the finish line, I discovered that I placed the armholes incorrectly. Rip back, add a repeat and go for it again.

March 2020 began a time of interior updating and downsizing as we decided to move. It wasn’t until September that my evening knitting returned to the Myrtle. Mom was so patient. “I’ll be happy whenever I get it.”

Myrtle is a lace cardigan knit in fingering weight yarn in one piece from the bottom up. Its main lace panels were repeats of 19 stitches over 16 rows, with the motifs leaning left or right to mirror each other. You can read my notes on how I mapped out the pattern in my Ravelry project.

I made several modifications to the sweater that Mom did like:

Lengthened body by one repeat before binding off for underarms.
Chose a jewel neckline instead of a scoop neckline, which required three more repeats before binding off.
Worked stockinette for the underams instead of the mesh pattern. This created narrower upper arm circumference, which I hadn’t remembered to consider.

We couldn’t find the perfect buttons, so I made Dorset buttons using crewel embroidery wool. Mom loved the buttons, so I’ll do that again.

Yes, you heard it. I’ll do just about anything for my Mom. It makes sense to profit from my muscle memory and lessons learned while it’s still fresh.

So this long-term effort was a good practice run?

Mom went to her LYS and ordered the same yarn again. She sent me the pdf. I’ll copy and paste the pertinent sections of the pattern so I’m not flipping back and forth as I did the first time.

It’s a lot of knitting, but winter is still long. Cheers to good evenings and cups of tea.

What should we do with the lovely lace sweater she doesn’t want? Me wearing it would require gargantuan mental reframing. Let me use that effort elsewhere. I’m not quite at the point where I can just drop it off at the consignment shop…. your ideas, please!

Message me on Instagram or Ravelry.

← A Season Well Spent In honor of a client →