Makery Diary (June 2024)

A glimpse into what mischief I'm making in my studio

Hello friends!

I hope you enjoyed my newsletter celebrating sixteen years since I wrote my best loved song “Tazewell Beauty Queen.”

Today, I thought I’d share some of my making with you. Ever since I was a kid, I have loved working with my hands. I remember spending long hours with my Wonder Woman and Wizard of Oz coloring books. I still treasure my tins and boxes of crayons today! In fact, I have a jumbo box of crayons in both of my studios right on my desk!

Lately, when I go to museums or out and about I’ve been challenging myself to reproduce huge paintings using a very tiny sketchbook and crayons. It’s a wonderful experiment and especially exciting when the painting is abstract.

Joan Mitchell is one of my favorite painters and I’m very lucky that there’s a room full of her paintings and lithographs at Tate Modern right now. Here is here painting and my crayon version right next to it.

And here’s a landscape painting by Spencer Gore called The Cinder Path in Tate Britain which shows the approach to Letchworth Garden City. Only two days before I saw this painting, I’d been to Letchworth to pick up my early 20th Century Cammeyer banjo which a clever gentleman had fitted with new tuners!

In the top right example, I used crayons and sat on one of those nifty little folding seats they have at Tate Britain (anyone can use them and they’re normally by the elevators). I sat with the painting for about thirty minutes. On the bottom right you can see the chalk drawing I made of the same scene. While I made the chalk drawing, I was on the train and I challenged myself not to look back at my previous crayon drawing or the photo I’d taken of the painting! This was such a fun experiment. Thanks to Pete for sending me a tip which was specifically earmarked for crayons – though I interpreted “crayons” broadly and bought these chalks!

You can see just how small my tiny sketchbook and crayon tin are. They fit together in the palm of my hand. Lately, I’ve added broken lavender, pine green, and dark brown crayons to the tin because I was always missing those in my color choices.

May was the month of workshops all of which I received as birthday gifts from the Englishman and my grandmother. I took two workshops with one of my textile design legends. When I went to Davidson College, my mom sent me to the dorm with Sarah Campbell “Gypsy Dance” sheets!

I made two small collages in her workshop at the Fashion & Textile Museum and began a big one which I finished at home over the next two weeks. In the big one, Stanley Bear and I are in the kitchen and Stanley (though normally very well-behaved) is making a mess with Cadbury’s chocolates and biscuits (biscuits in Britain mean cookies). Here’s a movie showing my collage with my “Tea and Bear and Me” song as the soundtrack.

Wow! That’s the first time I’ve included a video in my letters. Enjoy!

I also decided to knit the wildly popular Emotional Support Chicken. I learned how to knit short rows in garter stitch with this pattern which is bound to come in handy. So, if you’re a bit anxious about trying short rows in knitting, this is a really fun way to give it a try! Here’s a link to their tutorial. I also added a heart to my chicken. Here’s a link to Norman Nimble Needles’ YouTube on how to make hearts. I made about ten hearts once I learned because all of the little hearts just made me feel happy! Honestly, when you hug your finished chicken, you do feel very good. The designers of the chicken pattern have just come out with a hat and cape pattern for the chickens. So, it won’t be long before my own Henrietta Penny is thus adorned.

When I was growing up, I loved sewing yarn into pre-punched cards depicting Holly Hobby and her friends. Eventually, this turned into actual sewing which consisted of funny attempts to turn handkerchiefs into Barbie dresses. One day, I could finally make nice and sturdy stitches. I prefer to sew by hand over sewing with a machine because I can take my sewing with me or sit by the TV or the radio and sew without running a machine. Machines are definitely fantastic when it’s time to get down to business and put something major together, though. I’ve been sewing these quilt blocks together by hand for years now, just from time to time. I now have enough finished blocks to turn them into a quilt. I’m using some Sarah Campbell “Gypsy Dance” fabric for the joining squares in my quilt. My Mom had saved the offcuts from my university bedding for all these years! Thanks, Mom!

As part of my personal birthday month festival of workshops, I took a rag rug making course with Graham Hollick at West Dean College’s Bloomsbury campus. I can highly recommend Graham as a teacher and the Bloomsbury building as a fabulous place to take a course. I also think their courses are reasonably priced compared to some offered by other groups (the Fashion & Textile Museum workshops and instructors are great, too, and the cost is reasonable as well).

We were supposed to bring a simple rug design. Hahahahaha! Of course, I couldn’t behave. I decided to make a design with Stanley Bear and me in front of our beautiful pink house. Stanley is reading an invitation to a fabulous event in imagination-land.

I did, however, think better of it and simplify my design for the class.

I had THE BEST time. When I got home, I decided to work on a smaller design to practice my newly learned skills. So, I drew a ship on the sea and set to work. Because I was born on a Thursday and taught the days of the week poem which says, “Thursday’s child has far to go,” I’ve always loved this image of wandering. It also reminds me of the song that I wrote back in 2016 called, “Will I Always Wander?”

I got out my crayons and watercolor paints, too, when we went to France for my birthday. Here is a watercolor of the beach at Audresselles, a small fishing village south of Calais.

Now, I am knitting a cardigan with mushrooms and rabbits on it! I’m enjoying that so much. AND, I decided I would like a different handbag to carry around – I made the one I currently carry from recycled jeans and it’s been great! But, a change would be fun. So, I am combining a finished floral needlepoint which I found at the charity shop with a tweed vintage men’s jacket which I found at a different charity shop. So far, I have about $10 in it. I’ve deconstructed the jacket and it has about 55 pieces! I’m going to use every bit of it for different projects.

I hope you’ve enjoyed traveling through my makery adventures! I could say so much more about museum adventures and teddy bears rescued, but I’ll sign off for now.

Here’s a sweet photo of Stanley Bear and the new friend he made in France.

I’m sending you bear hugs and kindness always,

Jeni

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My latest article for Modern Daily Knitting is on the Lace Museum in Calais, France.

I post about my music and makings most days on Instagram and Facebook.

You can hear all of my music on Bandcamp (also iTunes, Spotify, etc, just search for Jeni Hankins or Jeni & Billy).

Button and crayon fund tips are gratefully accepted at PayPal and Ko-fi.

Stanley Bear and I say, Thank You!