Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Finally a project on the Gilmore

I
I feel like I'm having issues getting things going again after traveling... I feel like I'm not doing anything. Which is one of the points of this blog, to let me know exactly how much or how little I'm doing. Since I returned from Italy, here's what I've been working on.

Cooked dinner for two chefs (intimidating!!!). I spent a lot of time fussing about the menu. It was fine, but I've made better. I think the pickled onions, home made salsa, and hand crafted tortillas elevated it a bit.

I painted two closets! Not that this is a big thing but it's time consuming. So I'm including it.

I finally threaded the Gilmore! I got up at 5am the day I left for Florence and wound this warp; I wanted to be tired when I got on the plane. It's Chiku bamboo from The Fiber Lady, in a gold/tan to blue dipped skein colorway. I threaded 270 ends at 30 epi and wove alternating 1/3 and 3/1 twill blocks; it starts with about 8 inches of checkerboard, then the stripes get longer; at the center I wove a bit of checkerboard and reversed it. This pattern was the recommendation of the ladies I went to Italy with . The scarf is now in the collection of my darling husband.

I started the Tour de Fleece; I finished the singles on the wheel and started a new 4 oz braid. I'll document that at the end of the Tour in it's own blog entry, but here's a photo.

In other areas:

• The Pebble Beach Shawl is still in progress, I think I'm about 1/4 done.  I keep having to rip some out and redo it.
• The skirt is stalled until the shawl is done.
• I fished out the blocks I pin wove, and tried to line them up. Will try again tomorrow.
• I'm trying to work out the directions for the rug that wants to go on the loom next. I think I have it figured, so I should be ready to wind a warp.
• I put edging on the piece I want to mosaic... Will check it out tomorrow then decide if it's good enough or if I have to pull it off, it's not that even.

My final post on Italy, after the tour is over....

St. Francis wore this!!!

Tuesday, June 12 was the final day of the tour, and the five of us took the train back to Florence; Sarah barely made it off the train after she settled us in! In Florence we said goodbye and went our separate ways. I hadn't looked for a hotel until we were in Perugia, and a terrible time finding a hotel for less than $1000 a night in Florence at short notice!  I ended up staying at the Hotel Veneto Firenze, in a quieter neighborhood a little further from the city center.  It was not as nice as the other hotels on the trip; my favorite part was the tiny shower, so small that if you dropped your soap you had to turn off the shower and open the door to bend over to reach it... but the bed was comfortable and the air conditioning worked, so I was happy.

During my last day and a half, I visited the following, and photos from these days are here.

First, I visited the Leather School, where students from all over the world learn how the Italians work in leather. There's always students on duty working, so you can watch how it's done, and an amazing selection of leather purses at good prices. The school was founded by the friors at Santa Croce after WWII to teach orphans a trade, and is in a fabulous old building... I was tempted there to buy a purse there, and in some on the leather shops in the area, but managed to hold out for hours until I was compelled to buy one by a street vendor.  Italian leather is the best!

Angel wings!!!

I went from there into the museum at Santa Croce, but not the church; my eyes were tired of Renaissance ecclesiastic art, plus I was in a sleeveless shirt and forgot my shawl... but check out the belt and clothing fragments from St. Francis...

Closeup of tablecloth

The Church of San Marco was fabulous! Beautiful frescos, interesting tomb, and the organist was practicing... The museum behind it was outstanding.  The upstairs monk's cells all had frescoes in them with religious themes to encourage contemplation. Two particular things struck me here; first, the angels wings look a lot like marbled paper and I particularly enjoyed looking at them. Second was the aha gob-struck moment when I saw more than one painting the included a tablecloth woven  in patterns that Marta had said were Perugian, and that looked just like what she had woven! On some of the other photos, you can clearly see the eye pattern.

Angel wings, eternal...

I arrived at the Museum of Archeology at exactly the right time to view the normally closed 3rd floor... I'm not sure why it was closed, but it was just one woman, one guard, and me. Their collection of pre-Roman, Etruscan, and Roman antiquities was stellar; they have much of the archeological relics the Medici family collected over the centuries.  In the courtyard, which was sadly only open on weekends, are mock-Etruscan barrow-type graves. Check out this lion. And it seems like angel wings hadn't changed much since Roman times...

I wandered about, my brain full, and wandered into the beautiful Orsanmichele... No photos from there. Finally, pizza, Chianti and gelato at My Sugar for dinner, then I said goodbye to Florence.

These posts are late coming out, nearly a month; and I wonder what I missed by not posting as I went? In return, I certainly gained some perspective.  For the next trip, I'll come armed with a keyboard!

Italy Textile Tour, Anghieri and Perugia

The next morning, we left our temporary home in Florence, to visit Anghieri on the way to Perugia.  Photos for these three days are here.

View from the private living quarters upstairs from Busatti's.

Anghieri is a hilltop town that's listed as one of the most beautiful villages in Italy.   Leonardo Da Vinci painted a commission here, to commemorate the Battle of Anghieri, but the fresco was lost; it's rumored to exist under another painting. We weren't able to get in to see the painting that may or may not be covering Da Vinci's work; they were closed while we were there, but we were able spend an amiable half an hour wandering through the small medieval streets before our appointment at Bussati.

Want...

Bussati's history is on their website and worth reading; it's interesting how they've adapted to their changing customer base over the last 8 generations, encompassing 2 world wars, and changing political and economic climates. Currently they have a lovely premium weaving operation, partly in the basement of the old Palazzo and partly at a nearby manufacturing facility. They make fabrics and housewares, primarily in cotton and linen, in historic, traditional, and modern patterns, some with exquisitely hand crocheted or pulled work borders. The showroom is astounding, and anything you see can be made to order in a large range of colors, and relatively any size. I was eyeing this historical textile, in a different color, for a table cloth...  We toured the basement weaving room, filled with assorted equipment including a wool picking machine, but mostly automated jacquard looms, controlled by the ever-present punched cards. Giovanni, the patriarch of the family fired up a selection of looms to show us; it was Saturday, so the plant was not in operation, but he wanted us to see the machines working. You could see his love for and pride in his family business shining in his eyes as he answered questions about the looms, the family, and the business.  After the tour, Giovanni and his son Livio showed us around the private living quarters of the old Palazzo, where generations of his family have lived, with a stunning view of the city walls and valley beyond; showed us ancient family business journals supporting their pedigree in the textile realm; and treated us to some homemade Vin Santo and biscotti. After the tour, we walked to an excellent eatery and shared salads, pastas, and pizza.  After eating too much at lunch, I was forced to choose between returning to Bussati's to procure some table runners, or poke around the beautiful town. In all fairness, the rest of the group was ready to leave, so it was just me itching to walk to the top of the hill, and ramble in search of arrow slits and city walls, so I reluctantly climbed on the bus and we left for Perugia, assuming I would find something as delightful and lovely there.

After we checked into the recently remodeled Locanda Della Posta hotel in the old town of Perugia, I immediately went outside to check out the street fair going on. There were booths selling all manners of arts and crafts, and people in medieval costumes demonstrating medieval crafts. Check out this wonderful woman spinning wool on her drop spindle! Then I heard drums...
Linn and Eleanor and I followed. After some time and a lot of yelling, posturing, and other shows of testosterone, heralds came out blowing horns, and official looking medieval guys came out followed by men with flags; the flag bearers then started waving the flags and throwing them high into the air, and catching them. It was just like the videos I've seen of the festival in Sienna that accompanies the horse race; or that scene in Under the Tuscan Sun. It was pure magic. 

In 2016, Perugia began a medieval festival to celebrate an event that happened in 1416. Considering they've only been doing it for three years, it's remarkably well organized and staffed with costumed volunteers. After a couple of glasses of Rosso di Montefalco at a local wine bar, I asked one of the minstrels if I could look at the fabric of his jacket; he told me his girlfriend's mother had made it for him out of fabric a friend of hers had woven; it was a beautiful textures fabric, exquisitely sewn with novel detail, like the split sleeves.  I imagine the seamstress hearing how foreign women had stopped to admire her handiwork, and being pleased with herself.

What a treat it was to see the festival! It continued on the following day, and some of us attended some of the events, but I'll go back to what was on the tour agenda.

Three brief words on my hotel: Fashion over Function. Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful, newly renovated, and in a great location. But in my ideal world, Function and Fashion are inseparable soulmates.

This attempt at restoration failed three times before
they had a priest come bless the process

The next morning, we met Giorgio of Studio Moretti Caselli at the Perugia Cathedral for a quick tour before mass; the Studio had restored several of the windows in the cathedral. After leaving the cathedral, we took a detour by Pasticceria Sandri on the way to meet Giorgio and his wife Anna at their studio; definitely worth a stop if you're in the area. I had one of those tasty little rice pudding like pastries that was a joy to eat in the morning, and a coffee. At Studio Moretti Caselli, we learned about the process of painting images on glass; the technique fell into disuse at one time and was re-discovered by the founders of the studio in the mid 1800's. Basically, they start with purified ground glass; mix in a pigment, then fire it just enough to melt the glass but not enough to alter the pigment; they paint and re-fire the glass many times (I think the number 50 was mentioned) until they get the effect they're looking for.  The lead grout is routed to add strength (obviously) and also to enhance the image. The building is a 15th century Baglioni family residence (the rest of the Baglioni family buildings were destroyed after an unsuccessful fight with the Pope and the Rocca Paolina, a massive fortress to force Perugia to behave itself was built in its place; you can still walk through the basements of the Rocca Paolina which stood for very few decades before destroyed by a rebellion). A couple of the rooms still have the original frescoes and period furnishings.  Aside from restorations, Studio Moretti Caselli does some stunning original works; they glow in a way that I can't describe, you really need to see them. After the Studio tour, we walked a short distance to the Basilica di San Domenico, and viewed more of their restoration work. 

Next up was lunch; because of the festival, several restaurants were serving medieval menus. Starting with cured meats, cheeses, and olives, the meal progressed to zuppa di fave e piselli  (fava and pea soup), then cinghiale alle olive (boar stew with olives) and fegatelli all'alloro (something made of pork liver, roasted, and put on a stick). (Thank you Sarah for the picture of the menu!) It was really tasty, and I've actively lost in recipe translations!

After lunch, some of us went to archeology museum, located in the old Convent of San Domenico. They have an amazing collection of Etruscan artifacts, especially from the old cemeteries of Perugia, and a stellar view of the Etruscan city walls; also some partial Roman era mosaic floors. After the afternoon gelato, we returned to the area around the hotel to observe more of the festival.

I can't resist a mosaic floor.. this fragment made me happy.

A question about Italian gelato: how do they get the fruit flavors to be so intense? One of the answers is that gelato is normally not as cold as American ice cream, so it's easier for your non-frozen taste buds to pick up on the flavor. But that's not the only thing. We spent a fair amount of time pondering this, without coming to any conclusions.

On our last day in Perugia, we visited Giuditta Brozetti, an old church now being used as a production hand weaving workshop. Marta, the owner and head weaver, told us the story of the building, Umbrian textiles, and the hand weaving company founded by her grandmother that Marta still runs.  Marta had just received a special award: Maestro d'Arte e Mestiere, which she explained as a big honor akin to being a white rhino...  She was referring to herself as being one of the last of her breed, but I didn't understand the implications of the award until I researched it later. This effectively designates her as a Living National Treasure, comparable to Japan's Preservers of Important Intangible Cultural Properties. It's a pure delight to find this type of designation in a country other than Japan (Italy also recognizes artisans in the areas of food and wine, which speaks to it's cultural importance), and a pure honor to have spent time with Marta. 

This old church feels like a sacred space honoring millennium of weaving and I was struck dumb with reverence watching Marta as she glowed with passion for her craft.

Marta showed us the traditional four shaft loom that women

worked on in their farmhouses, and some of the traditional local patterns,  then showed us the exact same patterns in paintings dating back to the Renaissance. She's woven textiles to reproduce some of the textiles depicted in those paintings. She described to us how the intricately patterned cloth was made in the Renaissance (too long to type here, ask me if you're interested) then how it's made on jacquard looms.  We then looked at the old jacquard looms, all hand operated (with two flying shuttles!); the hand operated card punches, the warping mill, the hand cranked bobbin winders... 

Marta, however, faces the same problem I've heard from artisans on three continents so far; how to keep the traditions alive while adapting to modern sensibilities and modern markets, while competing with inexpensive goods and dealing with shrinking sources of raw materials. I'm sensing this is a world wide trend.

After lunch, I wandered some of the back alleys of the city, looking for an Etruscan well (it was locked up on Monday afternoons); I walked to the top of the city walls, and looked out over the plains, trying to get my mind to settle, then went to see the Etruscan arch, one of the old city gates. I visited the Galleria Nazionalle of Umbria, which had a large collection of ecclesiastic art and a few very old textile fragments, similar to what Marta had woven. 

That night, we met up as a group for our final dinner, and made plans to return to Florence by train the next morning.

Kudos to Sarah and Simon for a phenomenal tour! I had frankly worried that nothing could live up to the tour I did of Kyoto last year, but honestly this did. I give it an A+, all thumbs up. The agenda was well thought out and we had access to an amazing and varied set of artisans of a caliber you don't often meet.  There was enough downtime to sit and mull over what we'd seen, or sight see and shop, if that's what we wanted. They gave us maps in each location, personalized for us, showing major sights, artisans, friendly restaurants, ATMs, and so on. My only complaint? TOO MUCH FOOD!!! But I can hardly blame the Tour Studio for that.  If you are reading this and thinking of booking a tour with them, and I can answer any questions, please comment on this blog and I'll be happy to respond.

And thanks to my new friends Gretchen, Eileen, Eleanor and Linn for being so kind to adopt me into their tribe. These are women I'd happily tour with again. Hoping it may happen someday!

Italy Textile Tour, weaving at Fondazione Lisio

Founded in 1906 to keep alive the art of hand weaving with fine silk and precious metals, Fondazione Lisio offers classes and courses of study, and also does commissions. We were here to learn about and weave on 100+ year jacquard looms.  I'll talk about two things here; one is what I saw at Lisio, the other what I did at Lisio.

Photos from these five days are here.

The jacquard loom revolutionized the manufacture of complicated woven materials in the first decade of the 1800s; it essentially allows individual threads on a loom to be controlled by holes punched in very large paper cards. Jacquard wasn't the first to think of using cards this way... several prior looms had used cards but failed to automated the process; Jacquard's mechanism allowed for very complex patterns to be woven relatively quickly, and by one person. For more information on the loom, what it did to the weaving industry, and how that led to modern day computers, I'd recommend Jacquard's Web.

???? Yeah, that's what I was thinking...

Our experience with jacquard looms started with a tour of the facility, followed by some textile analysis, discussion of the weave structures we'd be working with, some strategies to design thread tie downs to enhance the look of the fabric, and different ways to tile repeating designs; a lot to cover in less than a day!  Eva, our instructor, spoke near perfect English, and was clearly a master of her craft.  Wow.  I'll admit some of this went right over my head... Then we got to meet the looms, and try a few picks of damask and a few picks of velvet to get a feel for the weaving process and the huge looms.

There was a decision point here... did each of us want to weave the pattern that was already on the machine? Or design our own? I decided I wanted to learn more about the looms, and poke around the facility, and not design my own pattern. The rest of the group ended up designing their own patterns, and I eavesdropped and spied on what they were doing so I would understand the whole process.

Machine to lace the cards together

First they drew their patterns on paper, and input into a computer program. When the pattern was what they wanted, they punched the cards for those patterns, checked the cards, and sent them through a giant sewing machine to stitch them together. I don't have a photo of the card punch! But this is the big sewing machine...

The cards were then loaded on to the loom and tied into a loop, and the weaving commenced. Sounds easy, right? We were working in very fine silk; approximately 200 warp threads per inch; so even tiny designs took 50 or more cards for a two color design (one warp color and one weft color) and double that for one warp color and two weft colors. This process took the group about 3 days to accomplish, with many of them just getting weaving on the last day.

I loved this loom...

Meanwhile, my loom and I were getting to know each other...  I was weaving damask on this loom.  I could easily stand under the light bar on the front.  The two ropes advanced each of  two mechanisms on the top. The smaller back mechanism controlled the 8 shafts on the loom, and  the larger front mechanism read the pattern cards and controlled groups of threads. In this particular configuration the two ropes were attached to  one treadle. I'd treadle to advance the mechanisms, throw the background color, treadle to advance again and throw the pattern color; each row of the fabric was two weft threads.  Make sense?  I was happily weaving along...

Then weird shit happened!! The pattern stopped advancing and all I was getting was plain weave. I continued to weave for about an inch, then waited for Eva, who was helping another student...  While waiting, I closely examined my loom... and sure enough, found what was keeping the cards from advancing. On my loom, the cards cascading down would occasionally jump of the rail, and literally get it's knickers in a bunch, if a loom had knickers. After Eva fixed the problem and then had to resync the two card decks, I kept a careful watch on my machine behavior and either climbed up the ladder to fix the cards when they misbehaved, or stopped until Eva had time to look.

A largeish section of my silk fabric, 

which I am delighted to have woven. 

These machines are tetchy. First, they're old, and were not made to the more exact tolerances that modern machinery is; that and they've been in use for a long time, and their wear profile would understandably make them behave differently. Second, they're made for production use; experienced weavers take a few days to get to know the peculiarities of a machine they're never woven on. Don't treadle hard enough?  Maybe you don't advance to the next card. Let the pedal up too fast? Maybe the hooks that control the threads jump off their rails and you don't get the right pattern. There's a lot of moving parts, and a lot that can go wrong.  So many new things to remember, so much that can go wrong.  I was in heaven! Machines like me!!!

There's photos in my Photos album of what the others wove, including some absolutely grand elephants by Gretchen, and some cut velvet woven by Eileen.  Eva, Sarah, and my co-weavers were concerned that I would regret not designing my own piece, and there was a moment where I wished I'd gone through the entire process including design, and punch cards, and so on. It didn't take me long to realize that what I wanted was to get to know a loom, and that coming up with a design and working under pressure to get it up on the loom would have made me stressed and cranky. I'd love to come back for a week or two and go through the whole process... Maybe at a cooler time of year!

This weaving was hard work; they're standing looms, and require that you stand with one foot on the treadle and one foot not while leaning in to push the beater forward and throwing the shuttle. Oddly enough, it's the standing leg, not the treadling leg that got tired. So I spent some time walking around the rest of the studio.

Setting up a loom for velvet (not the red velvet)

There were machines to wind warps, a two step, two machine process. There were machines to wind pirns, and machines to wind warp bobbins for velvet. There were looms with velvet on them, looms with fancy brocades on them, and a computerized jacquard loom where a student was weaving a lovely picture of Mount Fuji; she's the person who designed the pattern I wove. One of the more interesting projects the Foundation was working on was a commission from a museum in Dresden; they were weaving 100ish metres of plain red velvet and plain cloth of gold for a restoration project; I found a video in German detailing the work. The velvet had to be made the same as the original; so it had a twill ground cloth (instead of plain weave) in a pinky color, instead of red like the warp that was cut. I watched the weaver on one of the velvet looms as she tied on new warp bobbins for the velvet... I think it took her 3 days.  The manual labor boggles the mind, even for someone used to making things that take a lot of labor.

I also wandered the halls looking at framed samples of some of the fabrics, some of which I photographed, others I did not. There's some amazing work there. And a amazing workshop, where one of the weavers gets drafted to fix things.

The rhythm of the day was breakfast, shuttle to Lisio, weave, break for pastry and coffee, weave, break for lunch, weave, break for chocolate and a coffee, weave, back to the hotel, drinks and gelato for dinner.   Add in periodic wanders around the building, and that was pretty much it. At the end of the day, my mind was completely blank, wiped, tired. I ate way too much of the pastries Simon got for us every morning, and the wonderful lunches catered by a small local restaurant. Does it get any better than this?

Towards the end of the week, after class, Eileen and I walked out to Bacci Tessuti to look at fabrics... I found a lovely denim blue wool linen blend... and bought 3 meters of it to make a jacket in my tailoring class this fall. When I showed it to DH, I commented that it would make a lovely summer weight sport coat for him, if he could find a tailor... So now we're looking for a tailor and I need more fabric. This is not a problem that worries me.

On our last night in Florence, after we'd said good-bye to Eva and to Fondazione Lisio, we had dinner at Il Santo Bevitore. I had a delightful fish dish with a fried squash blossom, but the real highlight of the dinner was some amazing hand cut pasta with a light amazing sauce over a wood pigeon ragout. There was just the right amount of sauce to highlight the pasta, cooked to perfection, and the ragu was so tasty...  It was lovely with this Chianti!
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Italy Textile Tour, Florence

We actually had prosecco at our kickoff,
but I drank a lot of these later in the week.

Florence is hot, muggy, and overrun with tourists in June; lots of Americans acting like they're in the Disneyland of Renaissance art and architecture. Yo, Countrymen! Please behave yourself when you go abroad!  The nice man I bought a hat from suggested November, January and February as the best times to visit.  I'll heed his advice when DH and I make our return plans.  

Full Photos album for these four days is here.

Day 1

On the first day of the tour, we met in the late afternoon on the veranda of our hotel, the Palazzo Guadagni on the Piazza Santo Spirito. It's a little confusing to get into the first time, but the hotel is on the top floors of the old Palazzo with stunning views over Florence from the veranda. The rooms we were in were blissfully facing the Pitti Palace, instead of the very hip and noisy Piazza Santo Spirito, so I never heard the late night revelry.  There I met Linn and Eleanor, guild mates of Eileen and Gretchen, and finally met Sarah and Simon, who briefed us on tour logistics. After drinks and snacks, we walked to Il Latini, a charming restaurant on the other side of the river. It's tucked away on a side street but not hard to find, and seems to be very popular. We ordered a little bit of everything, and passed it around. What I remember best was the Tuscan steak, and the tenderest rabbit I've ever tasted, seasoned with rosemary, and way too much food. And a perfectly lovely Chianti. I rolled myself back to the hotel and swore never to eat again.

Day 2

The colors!

On the second day, we walked through the Oltrarno (the "other" side of the Arno), and by this sidewalk farmers market... Look at the colors!

We met Valentina for  coffee and pastry at this fabulous coffee bar, Santa Rosa Bistrot, for a quick language lesson and briefing on things like coffee customs. How much language can you learn in an hour? Not much... but it was interesting to listen to Valentina talk about typical Italian life.  Two rules: don't have a cappucino after 11AM and don't skip meals. So I ordered a caffe macchiato  and had a piece of cake.

All silk!

The next stop was the Antico Setificio Fiorentino workshop and showroom; they've been weaving dreams since 1786.  It's true! Just look at their website! On the high end, these are the folks to go to when you're not sure what type of silk fabric you want for the upholstery in your yacht, but you want it to remind you of the ocean; they'll help you design it, then weave it for you by hand or machine. Besides bespoke textiles, they have their own line, too, of fabrics and coordinating passementerie, working mostly in silk and selling to interior designers. Most of their machines are mechanized older vintage Swiss jacquard looms but they still have some hand looms for special fabrics. We also saw fringed trim being made by hand; an automated jacquard loom weaving several decorative bands simultaneously, all the same pattern but with several little shuttles (there's a video in my Photos album).  They also use an amazing warping mill made from a design by Leonardo di Vinci.

Fringe on a specialized hand loom

Chiara, one of their interior and textile designers was our host; and the director, who lovingly maintains all the looms, was in house warping a loom but able to answer our questions.

After lunch, we visited the Art Restoration Institute where Martina explained how art is restored, assisted by one of the bi-lingual students, Julia. The students here embark on a three year course to learn how to restore paintings, frames, mosaics, frescos, graffiti,  statuary, and so on. The owners of the painting only pay for materials, and the students work under the direction of their highly skilled teachers; their primary client is the Italian government. We saw several paintings in various stages of restoration, and got to see some of the techniques they use to restore in a way that can be reversed, and that is easily detectable but not distracting. Many of the techniques were developed after the flood in 1966; restoration is still being done much of the art and manuscripts. Wikipedia states that at the height of the flood, the nearby Santa Croce area was under 22 feet of water!  The Institute is in an amazing building; we were lucky enough to see the phenomenal frescos in the directors office, restored by students. This place was incredible; if you're ever in Florence and can swing a tour, do so. The plein air art tour folks at our hotel were jealous!

My tote bag matches my knitting! I didn't plan this...

After a nap and a gelato, we went to La Serra MK Textile Atelier to meet Margherita Pandolfini and Karl Jorns  at Margherita's family home, Palazzo Pandolfino.  The building dates to approximately 1514, and Margherita briefly told us the history of the family and the lovely gardens, as if everyone knows where their family was in 1514. The greenhouse on the top floor of one of the buildings was added much later, and Margherita has converted it to a surface design workshop. Vibrating with excitement, she and Karl showed us some of their work, which is spontaneous, fresh, lively, organic; their work echoes their infectious enthusiasm. Sadly she didn't have any of her current work for sale, or it would have come home with me; she'd taken it to London for one of the larger flower shows. So we sat down to stamp, stencil, and paint like water color on little tote bags. Karl and I soon started discussing eco prints, mordants, screen printing, stenciling, hand painting, and all things surface design. A glass of wine, some snacks... I left pumped about coming home and painting fabric.

Did I get any photos at the Art Restoration Institute or at Palazzo Pandolfini? No!  I have no excuse, and both were photo worthy.   Do check out La Serra MK's website, it's got exquisite photos of the garden and workshop, as well as of Margherita and Karl.

Day 3

Paolo shows us his grandfather's sketchbook,
which he didn't find until after his grandfather died.
What a special heirloom!

The next day, we visited Paolo Carandini who works with parchment, primarily making boxes. He explained to us how parchment is made, and showed us some of the tools he uses to work with it. lecture on how parchment  He then showed his boxes that tell a story; he heavily researches a topic that takes his fancy then fills the box with images and items that fit with the topic. He showed us one box inspired by women during Klondike gold rush; it included images of the womens suffrage movement and images of the Klondike. He does an amazing amount of research for these boxes... There's a good article about them here.  Some of his boxes are adorned with images that his grandfather, a woodcarver, had drawn... His work was stunning. I could not resist a little box with an owl on it, which I brought back for DH, who was as delighted with it as I was.

Mercato Sant'Ambrogio

Next, we met Valentina at the Mercato Sant'Ambrogio, which was a open building full of shops selling meats, charcuterie and cheeses; outside there were vendors selling all manner of local fruits and vegetables, bread, and so on.

After we'd wandered through the market, oogling the wonderful food, we reconvened at
Teatro del Sale for lunch. This is a club (yep! I'm now a member) created as a "place for socialization, thoughtful relax and entertainment." In the evenings there's usually a musical act, and at lunch during the week, members can have a wonderful buffet lunch; this was a great opportunity to taste a lot of different dishes.  The food was incredible. I ate too much.

Day 4

Maria working her marbling magic

On the fourth day,  we went to  Giulio Giannini e Figlio, a bookbinder and paper decorator. When I talk about paper decorating, I mean marbling.  Maria, part of the 6th generation, took over the family business; she talked a little bit about the issues she faced being taken seriously as a business woman by her father and uncles, as well as the issues she has faced making her work relevant in a world where hand bookbinding or hand marbling  is rarely called for. Maria demonstrated paper marbling to us in a backroom lined with old leather stamps; she's got an amazing eye for color and pattern; then we gave it a go.

 I asked Maria about her marbling media; she uses carrageenan, which she buys in it's unprocessed seaweed form, then cooks it and strains it.  Compare that to Dharma's put it in the blender product.

The shop in the front had all manner of marbled goods; boxes covered in marbled paper, stationary, note cards, intricately decorated leather goods, it was so beautiful and inspring. Now I'm all excited about marbling at home again.  I think I'm going to kick start that with a class at the Center for the Book in San Francisco.

We had the afternoon free after the visit with Maria; the rest of the group took the train out to Prato to visit the textile museum. The museum, an old textile mill, is a stop on the European Route of Industrial Heritage (this route bears closer scrutiny; lots of textile museums, mining operations, and railways, etc), and apparently has a large collection of very old textiles and an excellent conservation workshop. They gave it mixed reviews, I'm guessing on how well it met their individual interests; I regretted not going. I spent the afternoon with my feet up; my feet and ankles had mysteriously swollen (salt? heat? too much walking? a combo?), and I wanted to be fresh for the weaving the next morning.

Textile tour in Florence and beyond! Before the tour...

Did I mention I went to Italy for a textile tour?  I've been back a couple of weeks now, working through the photos and trying to digest everything I did and saw.  The next few blog posts will be about the trip, but I broke it into a few pieces for readability. Photos of my time in Florence prior to the tour are here; most of them have identifying text in the Info section of the photo.

I'd booked myself into the Handwoven Textile Tour with the Tour Studio; I'd tried to join them last year but it was cancelled when the other participants backed out. That ended up being ideal for me, since I'd spent so much time in Japan last year. It was the first time they'd run the tour, so there were no reviews, so I wondered how it would go... It's Italy, right? It would have to be good?

It was extraordinary.

Torre della Pagliazza at the Piazza Santa Elisabetta;
6th or 7th century tower now part of the Hotel Brunelleschi. 

I flew into Florence a couple of days prior to the tour start to get some of the jet lag out of my system before meeting up with our guides, Sarah and Simon, and the four others on the tours.  For the first two nights, I stayed at the Hotel San Firenze on the Piazza di San Firenze; it's in a great location, with lovely quiet rooms, and a great breakfast. During the first couple of days, I saw the outside of the Duomo (line to get inside was hours long), the Ponte Vecchio and other points of interest around the old part of the city. I had tickets for the Uffizi Gallery (pro tip, get your tickets online ahead of time!), which was amazing, and did Elyse Weiner's IJourney Florence  audio walking tour.  This tower was on Elyse's tour... it's one of the older buildings in the area, and sits on top of some Roman ruins... And it's right across the street from a charming little store that sells some amazing trims!

Note that there's a lot of must-see places in Florence that I didn't see. The reason is that DH and I plan on spending a couple of weeks in Italy for our 25th anniversary next year, so I was saving a couple of special places to see for the first time with him. 

I'd been in touch with the rest of my tour mates prior to the tour; they all belong to the same weaving guild in Rochester, New York. These ladies are amazing weavers, and were a pleasure to tour with and I wish they lived closer! Two of them, Gretchen and Eileen, were already in Florence the night before the tour, and were kind enough to include me in their dinner plans at Il Santo Bevitore, saving me from eating alone again at a sidewalk cafe. Great choice! Turns out Eileen is a foodie.  After dinner, I walked back to my hotel across the Arno, watching lightening striking in Florence's dramatic skies, the Ponte Vecchio in the distance...

Eileen and I met the following day and toured the Florence museum of Anthropology. They have a lovely international collection, but few local artifacts. We checked out Casa dei Tessuti, an amazing fabric store, then had gelato at an amazing place that I was unable to find later... and returned to our tour hotel, Palazzo Guadagni.  That night we hooked up as a group and started the tour... 

View from the Ponte Vecchio

It's summer vacation!!!

I cannot begin to tell you the glee with which I am greeting the end of the school year and the beginning of my summer vacation. After decades of working, I can finally appreciate what it will be like to have completely unstructured time, for those few brief months before I start school again mid August.

I was so delighted about it today, that I bought DH a trash can for the garage. Now that's love.

I'm thinking about my fashion illustration class. The instructor claimed she could teach anyone to draw a fashion figure. Here's my sketch the first day of class, and my final project in watercolor, titled "Macy's Sells Hijabs".  HUGE difference. My thanks to Kathleen for all her help!

I am a little disturbed by the implications for women's positive body images, and the effects drawings like this the self esteem of women who think they should look like this.  These are not human body proportions!!! A part of me is sad to have participated in the celebration of unattainability. On the other hand, I learned a lot about figure drawing that would be fairly easy to adapt to more realistic people, and that was my goal in the class; to be able to render human-like figures in more than pencil with clothing that I might want to wear; I think I can do this now.

I'll end this, then, with my happy palette, which would make a splendid fabric, no?