Following a project to where it says to go

One winter day nearly a year ago, I found myself fingering a piece of vintage white cotton that had languished in my fabric stash for a very long time – so long I didn’t remember precisely where I acquired it. I did recall, however, it had come from one of the thrift shops in Lincoln, Neb., I frequented in the 1990s.

The material appeared to be of the ilk used for old-fashioned roller towels. A roller towel consisted of a length of cotton cloth stitched into a circle and draped over a rod. Want to wipe your hands? Roll the towel to a dry spot. Later incarnations of the roller towel were sometimes found in public restrooms hung from a wall-mounted gadget that shone an internal blue light with mysterious powers on the wet areas, thereby drying the towel and disinfecting it at the same time. Those days gave way to the universal use of paper towels and hot-air dryers, thank heaven.

So there I was last winter wondering what I was going to do with this fabric that had just crawled out from the deep recesses of a cupboard. I knew I wanted to create something wonderful with it. But what?

Then, in a crude little basket I had woven many years ago from ash splints my father had processed, I discovered a large wooden spool of blue lightweight waistcoat silk, and another spool of darker blue medium-weight silk, both manufactured at least 100 years ago.

Yup, I thought, this stuff belongs together. I set fabric and thread on the table in my living room. I’ll get to this soon, I thought. Yeah, right. It sat there for several weeks before I had time or energy to think any more about it.

Why I became enamored of a grid pattern last winter, I don’t really know. Maybe I was having flashbacks to the days when I first moved to Nebraska and could not, without the aid of yellow sticky notes affixed to my dashboard, navigate my way around the city of Lincoln without getting lost. Once, I ended up miles north of the city before I figured out how to turn around and make my way south and east to Francis Street where I lived. (No Penobscot River on my left to indicate I was heading south. No Saddleback Mountain on the horizon to tell me I was going west.)

But there I was last winter, at home in Maine one stormy day when my driveway was clogged with snow, mapping out a pattern of lines delineating a whole bunch of squares and rectangles of various sizes.

With more patience than I thought I had left at this point in my life, I laid strands of the heavier silk along the lines I had drawn. I couched them in place with the lighter silk. By the time I finished that stitching, it was spring. I wanted to be out digging in the dirt instead of sewing a fine seam. I put the piece aside and forgot about it for the next six months.

Now another winter is here. I have picked up my embroidery needle again. I have begun to fill those squares and rectangles with stitches, bits of beach glass, tiny shards of antique pottery etched with cobalt blue designs, and pieces of the pearly reverse sides of clamshells, stuff I’ve collected for years with every intention of “doing something” with it.

I am using simple embroidery stitches – chain, outline, French knot, satin, coral and feather. I’m also using a mirror embroidery technique, often found in the needlework of India, to encase the pottery shards in cells of thread, making them look like barnacles, a friend commented.

I’m fairly certain I will add beads to the piece. Eventually, I’ll probably back it with pale blue satin and fashion it into something I can hang on a wall.

I have no master design in mind for this piece of embroidery. I’m content to let it evolve, to let it tell me what it wants to be.

Snippets

A Spin-In will be held 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 9, at Newport Elementary School. The event is open to those who spin. The gathering will highlight hats spinners have made. Those who have made hats are asked to wear them. The cost to attend the Spin-In is $2. Attendees are asked to bring a bag lunch, and goodies to share for the coffee table. Also bring a Yankee Swap gift that is fiber related and valued at about $5. A used equipment table for spinning, knitting, weaving and related items will be available. Fiber vendors also will be on hand at the event.

At www.knittingoutloud.com you can read a humorous story about the hat a woman knit for her rooster to keep its comb from frostbite.

Visit these Web sites to find free knitting patterns: www.sugarncream.com, www.cascadeyarns.com, www.classiceliteyarns.com, and www.plymouthyarn.com.

The Bangor Chapter of the American Sewing Guild will offer its second Get Creative With Your Serger class 9:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 9, at the Hampden Municipal Building. Instructor Chris Thornton will help participants embellish a pillow using a serger sewing machine. The cost is $10 guild members, $15 others. To obtain a list of supplies, visit www.bangormeasg.com or call 278-7270.

ahamlin@bangordailynews.net

990-8153