I don’t remember precisely why I got interested in jumping jacks – not the kind you do in the gym – the kind you cut from paper. With a little clever knotting and tying, when you pull a string, the figure’s arms and legs dance and flip around. Read More
A commemorative quilt with roots in Maine, bearing the legend Operation Iraqi Freedom, and adorned with American flag motifs, was unveiled Nov. 11, 2004, at the Women in Military Service to America Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. It was made aboard the hospital ship USNS Comfort… Read More
When baskets are conceived by creative imaginations and shaped by talented hands, they rise into the realm of art. Whether made as art objects to delight the eye, to hold laundry, tote one’s knitting or carry food to a summer picnic, these creations elicit from us an always… Read More
One of my friends recently traveled to New Zealand to visit her daughter. I asked my friend to bring me a skein of yarn from New Zealand to add to my stash. When my friend returned, she handed me 10 skeins of mohair yarn in a color that… Read More
What is it that prompts us to take up needles, fabric and yarn? It’s not about necessity. None of us needs more stuff. Nor do we need to make more stuff. The landfills are groaning with weight of the excess stuff we throw away daily. Yet, here we… Read More
The occasion wasn’t about knitting – except indirectly. It was a Christmas fair at Hampden Historical Society’s Kinsley House where knitted hats, mittens and scarves were for sale, along with many other handcrafted items. I was there as a vendor – as an author, not as a knitter… Read More
Harvard Business School in Boston is not the first place most of us think of when seeking information relating to needlework and textiles in Maine. But the Baker Library at that institution has collections of old papers and ledgers of interest to those who write about the history… Read More
Art is always manna for the senses and sometimes you really want to get your hands on it. “From Farm to Art,” which runs from Dec. 1 to Jan. 2 at the Ethel H. Blum Gallery, College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, promises to make you reach out… Read More
If you want to feel like a kid again and recapture what it felt like when you first discovered the fascination of embroidery, take a look at “Kids’ Embroidery” by Kristin Nicholas. Her book shows kids of all ages how to get started doing embroidery – or how… Read More
Applique is an easy craft to learn. All you do is hand sew small fabric shapes, with the edges turned under, to a big piece of fabric. It’s a little like patching, except there’s no hole to repair. The basic stitch used is the blind stitch, but it… Read More
The craft of stenciling is associated with early 19th century itinerant craftsmen such as Moses Eaton and Moses Eaton Jr. of New Hampshire. The father and son traveled through Maine and New England decorating walls in the homes of those who could afford stenciling services, but were not… Read More
Efforts to factor creativity, particularly the arts and crafts, into the Maine economy are not new. An effort to do just that occurred in the early 1900s, according to information at www.cranberryisles.com. The Web site posts the text of “Revival of Handicrafts in America” an article that appeared… Read More
Art Quilts Maine artists will exhibit contemporary quilt art until Dec. 30 at the Finance Authority of Maine in Augusta. FAME chief executive officer John Witherspoon said, “The creative economy is a part of the fabric of our state and integrally connected to jobs and economic growth. We… Read More
Pamper yourself: Relax with buckwheat hulls. No, you don’t eat them or make them into a facial mask. You make pillows out of them. Buckwheat hulls are the byproduct of milling buckwheat for flour, as the Bouchard family does in Fort Kent. The Bouchards use… Read More
One August Sunday afternoon when it was raining – again – and I was wandering around the house looking for something constructive to do, it dawned on me that I ought to clean out the cellar way. That would cut down on the risk of catching my foot… Read More
Recently, a copy of “More Fabric Savvy,” by Sandra Betzina, published this year by The Taunton Press, found its way to my desk. In the book’s introduction, Betzina writes: “Shopping for fabric has never been more exciting, or more intimidating.” That’s because in addition to… Read More
Earlier this summer “Joey Green’s Incredible Country Store: Potions, Notions and Elixirs of the Past and How to Make Them Today” by, of course, Joey Green appeared on my desk. I took it home, thinking I’d take a long look at it some Sunday afternoon… Read More
When it comes to the pure poetry of embellishment, ribbon is it. Ribbon adds a jaunty, festive note to gift packages. It ties up little girls’ hair and makes them feel pretty. It weaves through the verses of “Scarborough Fair” and even has its own song, “Scarlet Ribbons.”… Read More
When Janet Cloutier of Orono read about the Needle Arts Mentoring Program in this column recently, she got in touch with the Helping Hands Foundation, which sponsors the program, to find out how to set up a program at Orono’s Asa Adams School. “I learned… Read More
Blue and pink floral chintz embellished with pale pink beads. Black velvet hand-embossed with a symbol from a Chinese language. White cotton decorated with three-dimensional blue florets and green leaves. These pillows are from the imagination and nimble fingers of Lelo Hardy of Bangor, who operates Pillows by… Read More
I stroll outdoors nearly every day. It’s exercise with a small “e.” As I walked along Lincoln Street in Bangor recently, I spied a bird’s nest on the ground under a maple tree, blown there, I suppose, by one of those great thunderstorms that passed through the area. Read More
Rainy days often seem endless and staying inside is the only option – unless you are the kind of parent, as I was, who tells your kids, “Put on your swim suits. Go out and play in the rain.” Truth be told, I was out there with my… Read More
I don’t know how to speak or read Russian. But one day last summer, at a friend’s camp on Wyman Lake in Moscow, I found myself helping Elina figure out a pattern published in a Russian knitting magazine. Elina came to the United States from… Read More
For Carolyn Ulrich of Castine it’s a crewel world. Ulrich’s passion for the art and craft of crewel spans more than 20 years. Ulrich’s introduction to needlework began with her mother, Grace Bastey of Bangor, who was an accomplished needlepointer. Mrs. Bastey completed needlepoint pieces,… Read More
In English, the Spanish word colcha means coverlet or blanket. But in New Mexico the word is used to refer to both an embroidery stitch and the finished piece of work created by using the colcha stitch. Colcha expert Teresa Archuleta-Sagel of New Mexico writes… Read More
Traveling into outer space? Don’t forget your quilt. In this case, the traveler is the Mercury Messenger spacecraft. It was launched into the heavens Aug. 2, aimed toward the planet Mercury. It’s a 5 billion-mile trip, not a direct flight; it has to do-si-do with… Read More
Two of the best fabric care allies available are those old standbys, vinegar and baking soda. Both products are versatile enough in their uses to merit books of their own – “Vinegar” and “Baking Soda” – both by Vicki Lansky, published this year by Book Peddlers on recycled… Read More
When the summer heat – provided we get any this summer – makes you put aside your knitting, factor in time to laze around and do some woolly reading. “KnitLit, Too,” edited by Linda Roghaar and Molly Wolfe, is a good place to pick up… Read More
I swore I’d never do it again. Well, I’m doing it again. I’m talking about needlepoint, a needlecraft that never appealed to me very much. Oh, I love what it looks like as long as someone else has done the stitching. I don’t like the rigid texture of… Read More
A bride’s stellar accessory is the veil, that all-important wispy fall of white tulle tumbling from a crown of flowers – fresh or silk – or cascading from a cluster of silken bows, or a circlet of lustrous faux pearls and white lace. The veil is the hallmark… Read More
The St. Croix International Quilters’ Guild and Washington County Community College have the perfect reason for needleworkers and quilt lovers to make a trip Down East. They are the co-sponsors of a quilt show, “St. Croix Quilts 2004: Down by the Riverside, in Calais.” The show will be… Read More
Blame it on the Victorian-era beaded purse Debbie Dolley’s mother-in-law gave her as a gift. With the beaded bag, Dolley found bead bliss, and it wasn’t long before she was designing and making bead jewelry. “I love the texture, the feel, the look, everything,” Dolley,… Read More
Many years ago, after my grandmother Hamlin died, I received, as my only tangible legacy from her, the crocheted doily she left unfinished. It was done in one of the many variations of the pineapple pattern, which she probably knew by heart, she’d used it so often. The… Read More
Leora Raikin, a native of Cape Town, South Africa, who lives in Los Angeles, has a passion and she wants that passion to spread across the United States – maybe all the way to Maine. Her passion is teaching embroidery and the Ndebele culture of South Africa. Read More
If you are a fiber farmer, or consume animal fibers as a knitter or needleworker, anywhere in the United States and maybe even around the world, editor and publisher Linda Cortright of Rockland wants her quarterly magazine, Wild Fibers, to be your magazine. “The impetus… Read More
Sometimes when I sew I go at it with hammer and tongs. Literally. Recently, my sewing tools included a ball-peen hammer, wire snips, needle nose pliers, the shears I use for pruning roses and an awl. Plus a paper clip and a narrow strip of duct tape. The… Read More
Now, when it comes to the human nose, paper products rule supreme. Handkerchiefs have been relegated to the realm of collector’s items, quaint little squares of fabric edged with fine crochet, tatting or machine-made lace. Some are hemstitched, most are white, but others come in flower prints or… Read More
University of Maine art education students Jessica Andresen and Emily Morris recently culminated an art education seminar course this semester, under the direction of Dr. Laurie Hicks, when they conducted a stenciling workshop at the Page Farm and Home Museum on the UMaine campus. “We… Read More
Recently I received the Leadership Guide from the Needle Arts Mentoring Program, whose motto is “Stitching generations together.” The program got its start in the usual way – two women saw a need and started stitching. Those two women, Marilyn North and Bonnie Lively, developed a fiber arts… Read More
I was relieved to see that the April issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine was published this month. I feared, given the current state of all things Martha, that advertising executives would pull their ads and cause the magazine’s demise. Of course, some advertisers have done just that,… Read More
Maine Fiberarts, an arts service not-for-profit organization in Topsham, is sponsoring The State of Fiber 2004: Exhibitions and Events Celebrating Maine Fiber. This is a yearlong event paying homage to the work, past and present, of Maine shepherds, quilters, knitters, felters, guilds and other entities that utilize or… Read More
The March-April issue of Piecework magazine, one of my favorites, contains news of artist Lois Jarvis’ ground zero quilt, which contains 700 photographs of people who died when the Twin Towers fell in Manhattan. The quilt is part of the American Spirit Quilt Exhibition, now touring the United… Read More
The 27th anniversary of Elvis’s death is Aug. 16. That gives knitters plenty of time to pay tribute to The King. I’m hoping that a few By Hand readers will knit Elvis wigs, using a free pattern on the Internet. It’s not a pattern for the faint of… Read More
One of the most intriguing and delightful aspects of knitting is the texture one may create by passing a slip stitch over, knitting the same stitch over and over to make bobbles and nubs, making yarn overs and decreasing stitches in special ways. The Aran Isle patterns of… Read More
Teddi-Jann Covell of Orono and her son Darren, a member of Boy Scout troop 478, are all tied up in knots – polar fleece knots, that is. Covell, an air traffic controller, crafted a scarf, blanket and pillow from the material. She helped her son’s Boy Scout troop… Read More
Sewing machines whirred and needles slid through fabric at the Penquis Higher Education Center in Dover-Foxcroft several Saturdays ago. Nearly 30 women assembled on a snowy day to participate in Project Linus, which makes and distributes “security” blankets to children faced with life crises of one kind or… Read More
At last. My pack rat ways have paid off. A reader from Alton e-mailed that she was desperately seeking a knit baby sweater pattern published in the 1969-70 fall-winter issue of McCall’s Needlework and Crafts magazine. Well, thought I, that sounds familiar. I went to… Read More
Long before I was a grandmother, I crocheted granny squares. I made my first granny square afghan in 1967 when I was 22. I was living in Patten then and recovering from an illness that kept me in bed for six weeks. In order to keep my spirits… Read More
OK, fellas, I know you read this column – and I know who you are. I have my sources out there. It’s Valentine’s week, love is the air and Cupid is on the move. Instead of buying your sweetie a valentine, why not build, fabricate or bake one?… Read More
Silk from milk? Yeah, that’s right. It involves the milk of transgenic goats and … spiders. A spider’s silk-producing glands and a goat’s milk-producing glands are anatomically similar. Every spider cell contains silk-producing genes, so if you grind up some spiders, extract the genes and… Read More
Phyllis Winslow, 76, of Rockland has been knitting for 70 years. Her mother taught her when she was a child growing up on North Haven. “I’ve knit every day of my life,” she said – so much that her patterns for socks, mittens, caps and… Read More
Several months ago, our own ShopGirl wrote about a group of women who got together to shop hop to all of the Marden’s stores in Maine. How about applying that idea to fabric stores, for those of us who are always in hunting and gathering mode for new… Read More
When Mary Chase of Blue Hill read that knitting makes my elbow moan, she called and suggested that I learn to knit the European way – holding the yarn in the left hand. She agreed to give me a lesson. I arrived at her house… Read More
For years, for no other reason than the simple pleasure of messing around with fabric, needle, thread and ideas, I made myself a rag doll each holiday season. I made so many, they filled a trunk. I used commercial patterns for some of the dolls,… Read More
Christmas is over. Instead of packages tidily wrapped and placed under the beautifully decorated tree, we have what appears to be paper garbage destined for the curbside. But before you start heaving stuff into black plastic bags, take a look around. Some of that stuff can be recycled… Read More
In September and October 2002, the Craft Yarn Council of America conducted a survey to measure the incidence of crocheting and knitting among women in the United States, to describe knitters’ and crocheters’ yarn usage and shopping patterns, to measure attitudes toward crafts, and to identify and track… Read More
All I want for Solstice, Christmas and Hanukkah is peace on earth. I want it stitched firmly and forever into the fabric of life upon the fragile blue-green planet we call home. Knitting, crochet, embroidery and other needlework don’t have the power to save the… Read More
A nice way for children to learn the joy of giving during the holiday season is for parents to spend time helping them make gifts for loved ones. Here are a few ideas to get you started: Decorated plant pots -Using washable craft paints, paint… Read More
Knitting as meditation really works. While I was making mittens for the little boys in my family, I got to thinking about the “creative economy.” It occurred to me that if artists and other creative people are the linchpins of the creative economy, then some of those people… Read More
We’re into the Christmas and holiday countdown now, and I can feel it breathing icily down my collar. Time to craft a few greeting cards. That’s why I called Teresa Kelly, 70, of Brewer. Kelly is an expert at doing crafts using paper and rubber stamps. She has… Read More
Maru Mori brought me/ a pair/ of socks/ which she knitted herself/ … I resisted/ the mad impulse/to put them/ into a golden cage … and give them/birdseed/ and pieces of pink melon. The moral/ of my ode is this:/ … what is good is doubly good/ when… Read More
Rug hookers and those with an interest in antique hooked rugs will be happy to hear that a rug stencil collection that once belonged to businessman Edward Sands Frost of Biddeford has come home to roost at the Maine State Museum in Augusta. The museum acquired the collection… Read More
When I resumed knitting this year after a hiatus of more than five years, I learned very quickly that the finger bone throwing the strand of yarn around the knitting needle is, indeed, connected to the elbow bone. After knitting even a few rows, my elbow protested in… Read More
Depending on one’s perspective, Halloween is either the most evil night of the year or the night that marks the almost halfway point between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. It’s also the night to attend a costume party or a night to stay home and pass… Read More
At last. Someone has found a way to combine writing and stitching. That someone is Susan Sherman of Appleton, who is the idea woman behind the Maine Authors Quilt project. “The hard part,” said Sherman, “was that there is no comprehensive list available of Maine… Read More
Artist Caitlin Conte, 55, of Bangor may have the best reason of all for protecting the Penjajawoc Marsh – faeries. Her studio looks out on the woods that border the marsh, which in the recent past was the center of controversy involving plans for a Wal-Mart Supercenter. From… Read More
Kantha embroidery is the art of the women of Bengal, India, who use remnants of worn-out white cotton saris as foundation fabric for their work. Kantha uses a close running stitch to fill a design on several layers of background fabric, which is densely covered with stitching to… Read More
For centuries, lace has been the epitome of fashion flourish and embellishment – and usually reserved for wear by those who could afford it – such as royalty – or for ecclesiastical use as vestments and winding shrouds for church leaders. Nuns may have produced most of this… Read More
The Bangor City Council recently issued a proclamation “recognizing the efforts of the organizers, sponsors, staff, volunteers and city employees who contributed to the success of the 65th annual National Folk Festival,” an honor they certainly deserve, for the work of their hands are what made it all… Read More
Eighty-eight years ago this month, a red-headed charmer with an eternal smile was born in Arcola, Ill. Well, not exactly born, reclaimed from the attic and recycled, is more like it. And not, as you might assume, by a mother. Raggedy Ann, the beloved doll, was created by… Read More
Oh, the tangled web I was certain I’d weave, but didn’t, thanks to Deborah Bergman and her genius for planning. Weaving, she said, is all about planning, one of the aspects of the skill she most enjoys. I was at Purple Fleece, Bergman’s studio in… Read More
Beth Gardner’s shop, Spin Me A Yarn, may be the best-kept secret in knitting circles. Three years ago she opened the shop in part of a renovated garage at her home in Orono. “Knitting,” she said, “is sort of an addiction with me. I knit… Read More
I’m doomed. I have all the symptoms – I’d rather craft than eat. I’ve begun thinking in multiples of the number of items I can make in any given crafting session. I lie awake at night calculating how many lavender sachets I can get from X amount of… Read More
Martha Crouse of Eddington can take a seemingly unrelated jumble of items, mix them with a liberal dash of imagination well laced with a runaway sense of humor, and see what someone else might not. Take, for example, an old wooden chair bought for $2… Read More
For Betty Littlefield, 77, of Brooks, everything old is beautiful and that includes a charm string she bought at a yard sale about 20 years ago. At first glance, the charm string looks like a necklace of beads, but a closer look reveals that it is made of… Read More
When it’s too hot to knit or crochet, it’s the perfect time to read about needlework and daydream about future projects. That’s why they made porch swings and hammocks – perfect places for dawdling over needlecraft books. Public libraries have troves of craft and needlework… Read More
Have you ever been chased by a hoard of barefoot children age 7 and under, one of whom is your grandson, all wielding squirt guns? Well, I have – and I haven’t had that much fun in years. The occasion was my grandson Cody’s sixth… Read More
If you love quilts – and who doesn’t? – set aside this weekend, July 25-27, for The Pine Tree Quilters Guild Maine Quilts 2003 exhibition at the Augusta Civic Center. The show’s theme is “Quilts from the Past … Old and New.” It will feature more than 500… Read More
I don’t know who T.S. Eliot had in mind when he wrote these lines in his poem “Portrait of a Lady” – “And youth is cruel, and has no remorse and smiles at situations which it cannot see. I smile, of course, And go on drinking tea”- but… Read More
I have pretty rocks and fossils lining my windowsills, a basket of seashells I use as a doorstop and several vases filled with beach glass I’ve collected in many years of day trips to coastal and inland beaches. Doesn’t everyone? Jen, a member of my… Read More
Connie Young, 62, of Searsport took up quilting 10 years ago as a way to deal with grief when her husband was nearing the end of his life. She is self-taught, and is drawn to whole-cloth quilting rather than pieced quilts. “In the evening when… Read More
Summer solstice was last Saturday. The sun reached its highest point in the sky and it was the longest day of the year. Swedish residents in The County held their traditional Midsommar Festival and more than a few wore wildflower wreaths on their heads. Although the solstice party… Read More
There we were, five women and one man in a waiting room at Eye Center Northeast several weeks ago. We were waiting for our pupils to dilate before having eye examinations. We nodded and smiled politely to one another. One woman was holding a magazine at arm’s length… Read More
The third annual Fiber Frolic, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, June 14-15, at Windsor Fairgrounds in Windsor, sounds like the place to get happily snarled up with yarn and the animals – llamas, alpacas, rabbits, angora goats and sheep – that produce the fiber. Cost of admission… Read More
To get a fresh take on old skills, I went back to school one morning last week – to teacher Martha Stepp’s fourth-grade class at Weatherbee School in Hampden. My escort from the principal’s office was Taylor, one of Stepp’s pupils who chose to learn… Read More
Sylvia Hachey, 67, of Dixmont doesn’t keep track of how many balls of crochet cotton she goes through every year, but she estimates that it’s at least 25,000 yards – from which she creates 400 to 500 items, including doilies, tablecloths, table runners, pictures, coasters, snowflake ornaments, bookmarks,… Read More
Orenburg lace is, perhaps, the epitome of knitting intricacy. I read about it in “Gossamer Webs: The History and Techniques of Orenburg Lace Shawls” by Galina Khmeleva and Carol Noble, but never in my wildest dreams did I expect to see examples of it. Several weeks ago, Betty… Read More
The last snowy gasp of winter turned the landscape white – again. It was the first week in April and despite the snow, some primitive gong went off in my head. The next thing I knew I was scrubbing and digging, caught in the early throes of my… Read More
Remember macrame? Don’t panic. It isn’t making a comeback – or maybe it IS – I did see a macrame handbag on the shoulder of a woman walking in a parking lot. In a recent issue of Harper’s Bazaar, I also saw a photo of a pink chiffon… Read More
Poet Pat Ranzoni of Bucksport begins her splendid narrative poem “Making Maybaskets” by stating, “You’ve saved small pasteboard containers all winter.” That sentence alone was enough to get my well-developed sense of nostalgia all fired up. When I was a child growing up in Bingham, hanging May baskets… Read More
One of the pleasures of writing this column is that I get to hear stories about stitching. Everyone has one, it seems, and that comes as no surprise to me. Blessed be the tie that binds, no matter what your needlework persuasion. Connie Bryce, a… Read More
Nowhere is the tradition of decorating eggs more closely allied to the mysteries of life than in the Ukraine, where the craft has been known since 3,000 B.C. and is called pysanky. Pysanky is done with a special tool called a kistka, beeswax and dyes. Read More
For some people, wearing clothing made of fur is the ultimate act of insensitivity. That stance, in turn, leaves those of us with fur coats moldering in our closets – in my case, cowering, the poor sad thing – scratching our heads over what to do with those… Read More
I’m a little afraid that my knitting is going to land me in big trouble. I’m concerned because I just bought a copy of Anna Zilboorg’s “Knitting for Anarchists” at a downtown bookstore – you, know, guilt by association, the Patriot Act and all that. No, no, Zilboorg… Read More
It’s probably no coincidence that Athena, the Greek goddess of war, is also the goddess of arts and crafts. When she’s not at war planning battle strategy, she’s at peace making beautiful and useful things. Historically, if they are not directly involved in the action,… Read More
Yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day. I turned up my nose at the green beer and contemplated Irish crochet instead. I wonder how many Irish immigrants came to America and found their way to Bangor using money earned by crocheting lace? That statistic, I fear, is lost in the… Read More
If you’ve ever said, “I don’t have time to knit,” – or sew or crochet or quilt – you’re not alone. But the fact is we do have time. We just need to figure out how to organize ourselves to make use of that time. Instead of just… Read More
One man’s trash, another woman’s treasure is a theme that runs through my life. Never was that more true than when I bought a cozy little house in Hampden in 1989. When I moved into the house, I discovered in the crawl space under the… Read More
A stitch, the simple act of pushing a needle and thread through a piece of fabric, is a powerful act. It is the first step in making something useful or beautiful. But it also is a way to speak out against injustice when the right of free speech… Read More
Last summer, I found button heaven in a trunk at Bend in the Road, an antiques mall on Verona Island. It wasn’t just any trunk, but one of those big, square, made-for-serious-travel steamer trunks from the 19th century. Full of buttons. When I see a… Read More