Author: arlee

I am a Canadian textile artist in Calgary, Alberta. As textile artists, we connect and are connected to communities larger than our Selves, or our immediate environs. We encapsulate culture, technique, history and innovation every time we touch cloth.
Posted in Deliberation--do something you don't do--or haven't in awhile, Probably talking to just myself, UnknOwn Sister

no purpose from fear

Posted on by arlee

Stepping into/back into something you’ve done before can still be frightening.

It’s nothing earth shattering. It’s not dangerous, or WooWoo. It’s not something that is going to take tough lessons to develop. It’s not something that someone else is going to feel is wrong, or that could damage things in intent and function.

Such drama! It’s not that dramatic but it is scary for me personally.

Since Vic died, i have kind of drifted from day to day. He truly was my anchor. One of my first Things i wanted to do was redecorate. I have gallons of paint, all the tools, wallpaper and i bought a new couch (an AWFUL one, more on that later), a dining set (bistro size ’cause there’s really only me and Last Cat won’t sit still at the table…), rugs and curtains and sheets. Hell, i even have Decor for the Loo, and who does that? I have also of course copious notes and sketches and colour samples   —–   and nothing has been done, except in my  head. Oh, in my head it is

GLORIOUS.

(By the way, and this is the last time i will say this because some say i sound defensive, as if i’m trying to “excuse” any unseen (to the world) behaviour and him not “allowing” these things. He would, he did but i never got to them because you know, Life. So fuck you if you thought i had a controlling husband while i played “good little wifey”. Construe what you like.)

AHEM.

I will get to the House Thing when i have got the Other Thing going, And this is the part that “afears” me.

Twenty plus years ago, i had a wearable art business. I’ve mentioned it a number of times, usually vaguely. Actually i had it in my mind at least 2 years ago to go back to it. At the time, it supported myself and my son, not richly, but comfortably enough. I had a base of customers on first a small island, and then later on a not so crowded coastal area. People knew me, in person. There was no web yet, that came at the end of my business.I specialized in what i would now call evening outer wear, though i did garments for day as well, and hats and bags and Christmas shelfshit too. Most of it was somewhat glitzy–i had a passion for the metallics and velvets and lame etc from Little India in particular at the time. My specialty was the smoothest machine applique in everything from florals and geometric to celtic and abstracts. And things had POCKETS.

First i thought of doing wearable art with the natural dyes and fibres. Still do-able, some will surface i am sure, but the way people care for things makes their care of natural dubious at best. I’m not going to fight somebody about returning cash for the pit Ph stains, the guacamole lemon rings on the lap, the faded folds from leaving something over the back of a chair. And yes, Maiwa does it beautifully. I can’t compete and don’t want to with that. Kudos to them for the quality, and their long enduringbusiness  model and ethics. I will as i said in a previous post, still dye cloth and threads for the artists out there, the ones who supported my little online biz for 15 years. THANK YOU, BLOSSOMS.

What i have designed and will make then is Fun Stuff. I HOPE you think it’s Fun Stuff. My fear is no one will like it. I’ve made it a stand too that most of my “line” will fit bodies that are curvier, rounder, luscious and sick to death of polyknits with kitties, sequins and dumb slogans printed on them. There will be elastic, ties and looseness. If you want something fitted, sorry, these are going to be comfy loose go to town, go to read or stitch on the couch, go to hell with what you “should” wear after 185 lbs/50+ years, but not sloppy tents. Some will fit “off the rack” sizes.

I like quirky details and bold colours and prints. I like mixing them, manipulating the fabrics, adding offbeat, vintage, unconventional, ethnic details. Honestly i went a bit wild buying fabrics, but i just couldn’t resist certain prints and patterns and colourways. I have a plenitude of goods to work with. And i NEED to be DOING again, something i enjoy, something others may will like and that is bright and happy.

I even refitted the big bedroom upstairs to be my main studio now. It’s bright, it’s “connected” and it’s ORGANIZED. The basement will be the secondary area, storage, a huge table for large pieces to be embellished and bookcases with books, beads, trims, notes, etc etc etc. I always felt cut off down there because of course there are no windows. I don’t care about the drywall or the concrete floor: WINDOWS WITH NATURAL LIGHT ARE CRUCIAL for creativity.

I’m planning on “opening” Unkn0wn Sister the end of November. Unfortunately it WILL be late for a lot of Christmas spending, but i can’t wait longer than that to get back into the pond. I’ll be giving some little visual hints until then to entice and lure (i hope 🙂 )

 

PS This post is an affirmation. By writing it all down, i HAVE to do it, or lose credibility/face/respect. Maybe i should get out the lipstick and write it on the bathroom mirror.

Well, SOME of it, the mirror ain’t that big.

 

Posted in Not so ordinaries, Probably talking to just myself

Tired of chasing my tail, ha, caught it!!!

Posted on by arlee

Dear Followers and Friends:

This has been a tough year for me, not only what i’ve shared publicly, but also behind the scenes. I’ve never figured myself for a delicate little flower type, but apparently i am. We all have different levels of bravery and ego and drive, and mine have been battered enough this year that i am changing my focus, or rather, dividing it into 3 parts.

In the autumn and winter i have decided i will concentrate on my wearable art interests with interesting commercial fabrics, simple shapes with unique treatments, sizing for “larger” women (and this is not a dig or body shaming because *I* am a “larger” woman, especially after this GD year) and bold colours. I’ve never done “winter colours” for any reason and see no need to go the dark, minimalist, almost dreary route–we need colour in the winter, perhaps more so if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, suffer from SAD or just love brilliant and saturated luminosity!

In late spring and summer, i will return to my love of natural dyes, providing you with Mother Earth’s palette in the usual mixed packs and perhaps next year, some yardages.

Thirdly,  many many years ago, 45 to 50 of them actually (!), i painted. Though i enjoyed it a lot, I wasn’t very good, but it’s appealing to me again and i’d really like to if not be “serious”, at least be more diligent in learning and to have fun too.

Incidentally, my late Beloved NEVER EVER EVER stopped me from doing any of these things. He was *very* supportive, but as with any life there were too many times when you don’t get to do what you want to, because necessity and time demand other directions. These are decisions made now for a different lifestyle, one of being alone i’ve never experienced before. It’s up to me to be me, for me, about me. Not selfishly but self aware.

So, i haven’t abandoned the biz, or you, so please don’t abandon me. I’m in the process of washing fabrics, designing patterns, figuring out colour combinations and choosing styles and hope to start showing them next month. You may be tired of hearing “soon, next week, perhaps, maybe, hopefully, etc, but i WILL get there. I simply NEED as any of us do, *something* in my life that keeps me going, and i plan on going at least another 20 years!

Thank you those who have followed and those who have supported me on so many levels, whether with a purchase, or a kind word, or just the click of a “like” button. You’re all Peaches, Blossoms and the Bestests of people.

Posted in Probably talking to just myself

to everything turn

Posted on by arlee

There are definitely two of me right now. One is exhausted, can’t remember to wash her hair (did you know your hair can start to dreadlock in a week and a half?) or do laundry (because how do you wash what you have been wearing for two weeks if you are still wearing it?) I’ve been eating, yes, but rarely enjoying (does feed the cat though), haven’t stepped out of the house since the 27th of April when i sent a dear friend off to the airport to go home (i actually made it to the parking lot to do that) after she came out for 10 days to straighten me out, and the other is exhausted of being exhausted, of messes not cleaned up, of boxes and bags of fabric and dyes ordered but not touched, of fresh air not breathed in, back garden not tidied for a new season. Then i repeated all that but did  go out 2 days in a row when my son came out for a whirlwind weekend visit the 21st of June in which he did pretty  much what my friend had done and that i had let go of again…..

Did all of that make sense?

 

In January, we lost old Sally, the cat we inherited from MIL. In February, i lost my Beloved. In March, i lost my Mother. In April, Nessie the DogFaced Girl passed on.

 

 

The weekend that J was here (my darling son) we took the ashes of Sally, Nessie and Vic out to the mountains, and they were scatter-buried in the family plot, final rest spot: the Barr/McGuigan Mountain Heart Cemetery. Some of Vic went to the Ocean too where my boy lives.

Selena (Momma Cat) 2009, Miss Piggy (Minoux Cat) 2015, Moe (Big Boy Cat) 2017, Cosmo (Big Boy Cat #2) 2017, Sally (Duchess of Canterbury) 2024, Vic (My Beloved Beloved) 2024, Nessie (DogFaced Girl) 2024

Slapshot and i will join you when our time comes.

But, it IS a new season. A season of being alone, except in my memories. A season of resettling our home (which weirdly is now “my” home—at least i THINK it is, having still not heard back from the GD mortgage people….), of deciding that some of the studio can now move upstairs to a sunny bright big room. A season of adjusting to ONE person (me) and ONE animal (the cat) (Slapshot), rattling around in a 3 floor townhouse.

When i see the world get stupider and stupider, it’s best to go out in my very messy over grown garden and smell the roses. Literally.

This rose (a hybrid rugosa) was pretty last year. This year it’s verging on glorious-ness. You see, this is the one i sprinkled some of my Beloved’s ashes in at the base. They obviously love each other. The blooms are twice the size and frilliness, and the bush itself is twice the size of last year. The scent is sensuously strong and viscerally everything a rose should look like and smell like and be. A repeat bloomer, i’m hoping for roses lasting for a good summer run until the first frost.

 

“Therese Bugnet” was developed in the 40s for our growing zone (Oft Cruel 3) by an Alberta man who named them after his daughters. (There’s “Marie Bugnet” as well, a snowy white i’d like to find as well.) When i bought Therese, she was a barely there stick with 2 leaves in 2017. She suffered badly at the old house, never getting bigger than 1 and a half feet. No blooms. In this back yard since, every year she got braver. Maybe next year her size will be the 5wide by 7high and COVERED in blooms. She’s tough too–never had bugs, viruses, mold, nada. I kind of ignore her until she’s in bloom, minimal water and poking and fertilizer.
I sat out here yesterday for an hour in the gloom of a lousy summer. I was/am sad, but i felt my Beloved doing his awkward pat on the back. “Things will get better, Hon. They always do.”
And it IS also time to get off my Sorrowing Bazotski and be me again. I have over 100 yards of various fibre fabrics and many many bags and packages of magical plant potions to dye with, a billion ideas and 11tybajillion sketches to work from. It’s time to launch the wearable art business again. I will still be offering packets of mixed fibres and colours and threads and bits of trim for artist work by you, and you and you, but i’m going back to my main love and that was very limited edition wearable art for real bodies.
 Bear with me too, as things are still garbled in my brain, and tangled in my heart and hands. It’s been only 124 days since my Beloved passed away.
For the rest of my life I will search for moments full of you. Sam Cannon painting
Posted in Not so ordinaries

Good night, my Darling

Posted on by arlee

I love you so much. I’ll miss you for a long time, but i will join you someday. My love, my rock, my hero, the “wind beneath my wings” as we joked, my husband for 20 years which has not been long enough, Vic passed away in the early hours of Feb 25, 2024.

Thank you to the nurses at South Health Campus in Calgary, the Palliative Care Team, Vic’s co-workers, my neighbours, Constable M Guenter, Vic’s cousin’s wife Rhonda (my “sister in law” though that’s not quite correct ❤ ), the cabbies of Uber and Amber at the funeral home.

Vic will be cremated, with no service and in the Spring, my son and i  will take him to near Elbow Falls to be with the furbabies and the mountains, and some of him to Vancouver Island to be with the ocean he loved too.

Last night i dreamed he was sleeping with me, a vivid warm feeling. I could sense his body, his weight in the bed and this morning i woke a bit more at peace.

 

Posted in Probably talking to just myself

no title

Posted on by arlee
Vic has a very aggressive lung cancer and is in the last stages of his life, however much time he has left. Tomorrow he will be home to be in some comfort and with myself and our remaining animals. At this point i do not want to talk a lot about it, as we are both overwhelmed. It’s enough to know that you are thinking of us, even if briefly.
I love and adore my Greyman, my soul mate, my rock.
Posted in Probably talking to just myself

Life doesn’t come with sum ups

Posted on by arlee

But after almost 2 years of not posting, i want to make sure everyone knows i’m still here, and still “doing things”. Sort of. No pics though.

It hasn’t been great. My mother has broken both hips in the last year, so with also a knee replacement, she is now the Bionic Woman, from the waist down at least. Currently, she is in hospital for the second hip replacement (tripped over the dog’s work, a chewed up rug…) but does not sound like herself and is “trapped” there until the 1st of February at least. First hip operation a year ago she was home the next day and moving around, this time i think she’s going to give up……

Greyman and i have spent the last year trying to figure out why we both feel like utter shit after quitting smoking. Aren’t we supposed to feel better??????? It’s been 15 months, neither of us cheated, but guess what? We have pneumonia, mine barely negligible, his enough to put him in the hospital at the moment, short of breath, also as they have discovered, severely anemic and with an ulcer or two. He’s been there 3 days and will be for at least another 2 weeks, and i miss him and i’m scared for him. He has a breath exerciser and a liquid diet, which means when he gets to come home, he’ll probably weigh as much as a stick. But he will be a breathing stick at least.

Oh yeah, and through my own self neglect, i am pre-diabetic. I love food so this sucks. I’m still learning what the fuck the difference is between healthy food and not healthy because i thought i WAS eating healthy……………..

We do wonder though why for the duration so far of our no-more-smoking lifestyle, both of us have been EXHAUSTED. We’ve had weekends for months when we would get up at 9, go back to bed at 11, get up at 3, back to bed at 5, up at 8 and then back in bed by 10, both of us sleeping like the proverbial log. We tried “happy pills”, but anti depressants made it worse, so stopped those. Still a fricking mystery. The Lizard Brain (the one/part responsible for addiction, pleasure and stubborn-ness) is NOT pleased at all. Asshole.

The cat we “inherited” (from his late Mom) died a month ago in the closet, all curled up and passed away in her sleep. Sally was my Duchess of Canterbury, the sweetest, gentlest, quietest kitty i’ve ever had. I miss her sleeping on me, and i mean ON me–i was a hammock for her, always with the little cold piddies and tummy on me.

Haven’t gardened for 2 years.

We did drive back to Ontario (almost 7000K round trip) the summer of 21 to see what’s left of my family, 2 brothers and my Mom. First time they had met Greyman, and we all got along wonderfully.

I’d had great plans for the Christmases of 21/22/23 (Holy shit, thought it was 2 of them, not 3…), dyed and collected all the stuff together with my sketches and patterns and trims and beads—–and did NOTHING.

Took a print dye class online in 21, did nothing with it. GOOD class though regardless of my non results.

I’ve been planning on creating a wearable art line again, have accumulated the necessary fabrics, drawn up the patterns and collected the raw materials for dyeing—-lots of ideas and sketches, not even any prep on fibres done yet. MUST GET OFF ASS AND GET AT IT. I DO want to do this, seriously. Really. Really i DO. I loved it when i had my wearable art business in the 90’s.

Taking another print and dye class currently, more comprehensive and “glamorous” (YES i WANT “Glamorous” results and will have them.)

FB and Instagram are my main entertainments these days, though i do keep up on the ocassional blog, so i know what most of you are doing. Waving madly at you, hi, hi, hi.

So, bets on when i post again?

Posted in Ecoprints and Natural Dyes, FybreSpace the shop, journal: lessons to learn

12th Anniversary Sale!

Posted on by arlee
Wow, how time flies! 🐦 I have spent the last 5 months working on myself and i think Self has learned some lessons and taken them well to Heart 💖
Imagine my surprise when i noted too that August of this year marks my 12th year as a natural dyer! I’ve learned so much from both my own experiences, and the wisdom of a few trusted and expert teacher friends from around the world: i love you Special Blossoms!
To celebrate this, i will be having a “12 days of the 12th FybreSpace Anniversary Sale”, starting August 4th and concluding on August 23rd. All fabrics and threads will be 15% off and all Art 30% off. My prices are in Canadian dollars, and as always, i refund any extra shipping paid.
New items will be added through the 12 days. Please share this as you can. Thank you too, all the Lovely Petals who have supported me and had/have faith in me in this journey of colour and knowledge❣️ FybreSpace, the shop, is here.

PS, i going to try to keep posting again, as *I* miss it!Now i HAVE gleaned ideas and techniques to try with other textile arts, kept up with my natural dyeing and do talk to a few people, but i haven’t made anything really since Christmas 2020, at least not that ever got finished. And i used to post very frequently, as much as 4 times a day in the beginning of my blogging (2003!). I used to be rather funny, then i got whiney, then i turned mean and antagonistic, and then i started reading a lot of books and had nothing to say for myself… Looking now i see i have posted only NINE times since the end of May last year………………………………………….

SO, i pledge to post at least once a week–if anyone cares anymore because most of us, self included— are busy on FaceBook, Twitter and Instagram than blogs now, but i miss blogging–it is/was where all the real work was shown, the sharing and the laughs, not just the dramatic staged “LOOK AT ME VALIDATE ME FOLLOW ME LOVE ME LOVE ME LOVE ME” photos with the short pithy or pleading messages—erk, i do love like them still, they serve their purpose for a variety of reasons.

Posted in "OPINIONATION", FybreSpace the shop, Home Cookin' the Cloth, natural dye research, Natural Dyes

beauty is… (and a shop update)

Posted on by arlee

…in the eye–and in camera in this instance–of the beholder!

Here’s another thing i love about natural dyes: NUANCE. These two photos are of the same pack of goodies! Taken at different times of the day, the light conditions really show the subtlety of the colour components that make up each dye. Below, these are mixed batches of cochineal, madder and solidago. HOT CRAYONS!

I can “replicate” these in a sense, knowing what’s in the pot, but when you use “leftovers”, you can’t be sure of the proportions. Just/trust letting the pots do what they will, is much more satisfying. Oh sure, there have been a few Muddyduds along the way, but hey, overdye to the rescue!

One of the other delights of these deep colours is that they will last longer. I cringe when i see some of the weak pale colours that are an IG “standard”. Some of them *are* pretty, but they’re NOT going to last–to me it’s like putting 1/16 of a tsp of cinnamon in the cinnamon rolls–it’s discernible, but barely. Are people not aware of WOF, or are they being too cheap with it, or do they think it makes their pound of madder last longer which cuts their costs??? Here’s a perfect example, “madder dyed”:

How long is this going to last, under ordinary conditions of wear and light exposure, even under following “special care instructions”? I’ve seen clothing lines blithely calling this (and that photo specifically!) naturally dyed, and then producing multiples of the garment–that to me IS cheapness of production. Ever noticed that samples from extant collections are (for the most part) still VIBRANT, or at least very indicative of the original colour?

And yes, i DO sell softer colours, but they are NEVER as insipid as the above! There’s still a good percentage of WOF in my work 🙂

Anyhoo, that’s my two cents. I have other offerings in the shop as well, if you care to peruse them, and thank you again to all the Lovely Blossoms who have the faith and trust to support my small endeavours.

 

Posted in eucalyptus, FybreSpace the shop, lac, Madder, Natural Dyes, Naturally dyed threads, quebracho rojo, solidago, tansy

the PHD post (Piling it Higher and Deeper), and shop update

Posted on by arlee

I’m not hoarding, but it’s starting to look like that in my studio: piles and slipping stacks of various fabrics and colours, snarls and twangles of thread in more fibres and colours, and nowhere to move or work!

There’s so much here that i will never use–and never mind how much UNdyed i have still to work through! I’ve been putting aside small packs for myself with the intention of Making, but this time i slipped in notes and sketches so i wouldn’t forget what was so all fired fascinating about the selection at the time 🙂

So….threads and fabric packs now in the shop!

A sampling: