Martha Marques Threads of Meaning

Threads of Meaning at The Salt Exchange

2010-01-02T18:44:44Z

	I have been invited to do an exhibit of my quilts at The Salt Exchange at 245 Commercial Street in Portland. The opening will be Friday evening, January 15 and if you haven't been to The Salt Exchange yet now is your perfect excuse to check it out. If you have been to The Salt Exchange you don't need an excuse over and above the seductive food and the amazing wines. But possibly the quilts will enhance the experience for you. The Salt Exchange hours are 12:00-2:30 for lunch and 5:30-9:00 Tues-Thursday, 5:30-10:00 Friday and Saturday. February 5 we will be part of the First Friday Art Walk with wine and canapes for the Artist Reception from 5:30-8:00. You can also have Dinner with the Artist (me!) from 8:00-10:00. We recommend reservations for dinner, but the reception is free and everyone's welcome.
These are sneak peeks of some of what you will be seeing. The one above is called Conversation and is 10 feet square. The birch trees are life sized. And here is Le'ia which is the Hawaiian word for Abundance. Again Le'ia is 10 feet square and the leaves and fruit of the Ulu (breadfruit) are life sized. Ulu is the symbol of plentiful food, family and happiness in Hawaiian culture
	This image is of one of my earlier Hawaiian quilts and is entitled Li'i Li'i Ahi Pua o' Lehua (Little Flame Flowers of Ohia). It is a more modest 7 feet square and the fabrics are not hand dyed. I have a particular fondness for it because it has a faintly Celtic quality, in spite of being a Hawaiian quilt. Sharon Balai, one of my accomplished Hawaiian quilting friends from the Big Island called it "Irish Hawaiian Quilting" and thought it perfectly reasonable that my ancestors should be influencing my quilts in subtle and pervasive ways.
And here is a close up of Cotton, again a 7 foot square quilt. You can read more about Cotton on this site. The show Threads of Meaning will be running through April 3. I hope that you will find an opportunity to come by and see it and to enjoy the wonderful experience that The Salt Exchange has created for us in Portland.

Who Can Resist the Nupps?

2009-12-10T13:36:28Z

This shawl that is currently being stretched on my blocking board in the studio is not my own design. I took it exactly as it was written from Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush. It is the Leaf and Nupp shawl knitted up in KnitPicks alpaca/silk lace blend in a Yuletide evergreen color that has been discontinued (but they have other beautiful colors). It is being stretched using lace wires which you can see in the photo below. These are a lifesaver and I should have gotten them long ago. It saves putting a pin in each and every point of the lace, and then moving them all a bit, and then moving half of them again, and then tweaking that last 10% and then maybe these 5 pins over here could go a little to the middle....oops too far....back again....but that threw off these over here, etc., etc., until only strong drink (it could be tea people) will soothe your nerves.

What is a Nupp???? Do you see those lovely little bumps in pretty sets of three? Those are Nupps (which means knob or button in Estonian according to Nancy Bush). I am fascinated by them and I'm currently ogling the big lace shawl on the cover of the book which is the Crown Prince Square Shawl. This is a big ambitious project that will require a real committment of brain power so I am currently just ogling but it has many, many nupps.

And here is a close up of leaves and nupps stretched out in all their glory.

Those who know me have heard me say that I keep two kinds of knitting going at all times. Oatmeal knitting which can be done while watching a movie and Thinking Woman's knitting which requires close attention, a quiet room and lots of thinking. This shawl was a bit of both. It required close attention, a quiet room and lots of thinking for the beginning 10 inches or so whilst I learned the pattern. After that I could do it while watching movies but I kept the book with me at all times for reassurance (which I usually don't do). Also, when Joe (my husband) came over during commercial breaks to get some attention I sometimes yelled out desperately "Lace! Lace! Lace!" to give myself a few seconds to get the knitting out of the way so affection could ensue without dropping stitches. Dropping stitches while making lace is a disaster.....although I have heard of these things called Life Lines. I'll have to look into that.

The Tuesday Night Knitting Club

2009-12-02T20:16:54Z



	Here is a montage of the Tuesday Night Knitting Class at my studio, Threads of Meaning. The first picture is of Pat working away studiosly and with great concentration on socks (two at a time/toe up).....and then someone, probably Ann who you see looking ironic and then riotous in the pictures above, said something funny. Sometimes we have to instruct firmly....."I am at a tricky part....now don't say anything interesting." which of course immediately leads to someone trying to say something both interesting and outrageous. The picture on the side is of the studio itself. And the shots below show Violet (puppy) in the arms of her mother Emily. Emily has just finished the sweater that she is wearing which we copied from one of Ann's that we all liked. I have cut off Emily's head in the sweater shot because it was a bad picture of her. This was my fault. Emily is very lovely as you can see in the good picture of her that I took sitting at the table and smiling at her knitting.

A Mostly Garter Stitch Baby Sweater and Bonnet

2009-11-17T15:33:47Z

I have used garter stitch in this sweater for three reasons. 1) Garter stitch is simple and soothing to work since you knit every row.

2) Garter stitch lies perfectly ﬂat so you donʼt
have to fuss with a curling edge on your sweater.

3) Garter stitch makes a ridge or horizontal line of bumps every other row on both sides. So you can use the ridges to
keep count of where you are in the pattern.

I recommend sock yarn for baby sweaters because it is

1) washable,

2) has wool content for warmth and

3) comes in better colors than typical baby yarn. I recommend a hand dyed yarn for this sweater since the garter stitch is most beautiful when the yarn has some subtle color changes.

The pattern is available on Ravelry

I have some hand dyed sock yarns available on my Etsy site

Winter Blooms in Milano

2009-10-28T14:47:56Z

These headbands, dyed up, spun, knit and felted from Maine wool, are now gracing the heads of two of Patrizia's lovely daughters in Milano, Italy!! I designed this kit for the Portland Fiber Gallery last year. Patrizia was in the Gallery at 229 Congress Street getting some pointers on turning a heel on her travelling sock before her flight back to Italy when she saw the picture of my daughter Devan wearing the headband. Devan, as you know, models for me all the time because she is beautiful, biddable, and will model for her mother for free.

Patrizia and I communicated surprisingly well considering that her English is twice as good as my Italian which is nonexistant. She managed to convey to me that she wanted two of these made and shipped to her in Milano, Italy before November 1st. Was this possible???? Just barely, I managed to get across to her, but yes....possible.

I shipped them off on October 14 and Devan and I are delighted to think of them wandering around the streets of Italy. The colors were dyed over a brown Maine wool of particular background. The wool was then spun and knit up. I washed them in the washing machine twice to get them to felt sufficiently and then needle felted the flowers onto the surface. I then knit up some handspun merino (for softness next to the ears) to make the lining, pressed the be-Jesus out of them to get the edges nice and flat and raced them to the Post Office. I hope they made it in time -- two weeks should be enough don't you think?

My Sister's Extreeemely Long Scarf

2009-08-19T22:16:56Z

Here is a picture of my very tall sister Peg in her extremely long scarf. I made it for her birthday, which was July 2. Yes, yes I know that it is now August but summer time is no season for a wool scarf and I actually did start it on her birthday. I had about 8 ounces of Corriedale roving dyed in every shade of red and a few shades of yellow which I was planning to spin up for her to make a Fish Bone Lace Scarf (pattern on Ravelry). I knew that 8 ounces of handspun would make a normal scarf but I wanted to make this longer. Anyone of you who is taller than average knows the deep longing in your heart for a scarf that is "too long" having exhausted your patience over the years with scarves that are always too short. Peg wanted a scarf that would hang down below her waist, wrap in at least two big swoops around her head or neck, and then hang down below her waist again. So I decided to ply the handspun Corrie with some recycled cashmere that I had in my stash in order to stretch the yardage. I had purchased this from E-bay years ago from a woman in Canada who unravels cashmere or merino sweaters and it had been hanging around ever since waiting to be useful. I had thrown a couple of the small, crinkley balls in yellow dye baths over the years so some of it was orangey and some of it was the original cherry red color.

The net effect was five hefty skeins of a wonderfully soft, lofty, light weight yarn with a mix of all of the colors that look the most beautiful on Peg. You can see from the pictures how lovely she looks. When I had knit about 8 feet of scarf and still had two hefty skeins left I asked her, a little nervously, "Peg, how long did you want this scarf really? Because I can easily make it 12 feet long." She demurely replied, "That would be nice." So here it is, twelve feet of beautiful fiber knitted up into a reversible herringbone lace pattern and wrapped around Peg. Happy Birthday!

(Devan modeled the scarf for the pictures on Ravelry and declared that she wanted one for her birthday. Thankfully that is in March.)

Hooded Jacket for Everyone

2009-07-25T12:05:40Z

Here is the Knitting Receipe for the family favorite The Hooded Jacket for Everyone. It has literally been made for almost everyone in the family. The dolls have gotten some of these, and my son Blake who is 6'4" and 230 pounds has gotten one, and I have made them for every age and size in between. The garter stitch body is a nice easy knit....perfect for car knitting. I made my first one of these in the car on a trip to Minnesota to visit our grandson Damian and the garter stitch was very calming while we were navigating long driving days on unfamiliar roads. And then, of course the color work provides for a little bit of stimulating fun, and the finishing details are clever and tricky and consequently have an entertainment value of their own.

4 stitches/inch using size 6 needles for this sweater. 3 skeins of worsted (160 yards) in main color, 1 skein of contrast color for this size (6 months to 2 years depending on your baby) -- Chest measurement is 21” but can be expanded to 22” by moving buttons.

BUT -- you can make the sweater with any weight yarn, any needle size to fit any finished size by just doing the math.

AND you can make the sweater without the two color knitted bands. It’s not as fancy but you can substitute contrasting bands in plain stockinette or garter stitch and the sweater will still look great.

Here is the view from the back. Although it is hard to fully appreciate the charm of the tassel until you see it bouncing across a playground on the head of a toddler.....or a 6'4" son This pattern is available as a Ravelry download or you can find it on our company store www.threadsofmeaning.com

Cotton Quilt

2008-08-18T15:11:56Z

Cotton is for sale on etsy

Cotton was not only made in Arizona but is also inspired by the history of Coolidge and Randolph, two small towns about halfway between Phoenix and Tucson. We lived in Coolidge for three years when Devan was in Middle School. Coolidge is a small town that historically has made a living off of the Pima cotton which grows so well in the irrigated, sunny soil. The Casa Grande ruins are in this little town and consequently we can infer that agriculture has been a big deal in this area for about a thousand years.

Because the Arizona climate is so unGodly hot I used to run on the dirt roads beside the irrigation ditches early in the mornings before the sun got too high. When the pima cotton started to grow the fields were awash in green with delicate pink flowers. After the cotton was fully developed the farmers would cut off the irrigation and let the plants dry out because that makes them easier to pick the cotton bolls off. And during that time of the year the temperature in the region is well above 100 degrees and the air is dry, dusty and hot, hot, hot. On my morning runs I began to wonder about the people who had moved into the area, particularly in the 30's, in order to work in the fields. I went down to the local historical society to see if I could do a little research.

Blocking Elizabeth's Lace Shawl

2009-07-08T13:46:56Z

I just finished a commission for Elizabeth (of the Slouch Beret) for a lace shawl. She saw me wearing this one this "summer" at the Portland Fiber Gallery. The fact that it was chilly enough to wear a wool shawl explains the quotation marks. Elizabeth is an engaging older woman who has simplified her life by wearing only one color....and it is a color that suits her perfectly. Some might even consider it no color at all. She favors the soft, off white color of undyed wool. This shawl is knit from the same material that the Slouch Beret was crocheted from....a merino/alpaca/silk blend that she bought from the Portland Fiber Gallery.

How and Why to Use a Soaker

2009-06-22T18:31:20Z

Have you ever heard of a soaker? Your grandmother will probably know, and your great-grandmother definitely would. Soakers are an old technology used before plastic pants for diapering children. Wool holds up to 1/3 of its weight in liquid before it begins to feel damp, which makes it the most useful fiber for a soaker. The wool is also mildly antibacterial and breathes which helps eliminate diaper rash, and makes a soaker more comfortable in hot weather. This is how it works.