New Option for Your Holiday Shopping

 

RedNuns Open

On-line Shop

RedNuns Roberie and Scriptorium

at

www.etsy.com/shop/rednunsroberie

 

 

Traditionally the roberie (French) is a very special room in a monastery;

the place where vestments are created and stored.

 Today it is the sewing room; a place where creative ideas come to life.

 

About Our Shop

“We are contemplative monastic nuns creating handmade original needlework and graphic arts to support senior sisters in community. Featuring natural fibers; handspun yarn; traditional methods in quilting and writing sacred icons; recycled papers and attention to ethical manufacturing.” Specializing in knitted lace, hand quilting, traditional icons, original greeting cards.

Redemptoristine Nuns are members of a contemplative monastic international order. We recently went through a long period of dislocation and then relocation to our current home in Beacon, NY. Three of our senior sisters have come to need special care. This Etsy Shop endeavor is an effort to help in covering the considerable cost of their care. These sisters have been dedicated to prayer for the world for a combined 175 years. They deserve the best we can provide for them. Thank you for helping us in that effort buy patronizing our Etsy Shop – RedNuns Roberie.

The nuns creating items for RedNuns Roberie have been making beautiful things by hand since childhood. Our skills, styles and materials have changed over time. Our aim today is to feature handmade items with high quality natural fibers while giving attention to environmental issues and justice in manufacturing practices.

Thank you for visiting RedNuns Roberie. Be sure to click on any item of interest. A whole page of information will appear.

Purchases may be made with a major credit card or PayPal.

Dioramas in Miniature

Independence Hall, Philadelphia, PA - 1.25 inches across
Matthew Pleva

Heidi Abrams and Matthew Pleva
 

Artist Genes

Prevail

From

Grandmother
 
to Grandson


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My mother Matilda Nimke is an artist. As a teen in    the 1940s she opted to attend a special commercial high school in Manhattan, the School of Industrial Arts. The program was designed to train artists and craftspeople whose skills would be an important resource for the businesses on 7th Avenue, the garment district of New York. My mother, inspired by her aunt and many friends who worked for designers, chose to pursue fashion design. By 1947 she was the mother of two and that dream faded away. Beginning in the 1963 Mom began painting again and taking classes, especially at the Brooklyn Museum.

Here are some of my mother's paintings. She discovered her gift for watercolor, much to our delight. Today Mom has put the paint brushes aside. I used to tell her to "clean less and paint more". Fortunately she did paint more. Her grandchildren and great-grandchildren will all eventually enjoy looking at her work in their own homes.

In turn I have dabbled here and there. A bit of drawing and painting was overwhelmed by work in the needle arts. Mom exposed us early to all kinds of art and craft media as well as needlework. Many family members worked in the garment industry; all the women sewed; many did knitting and crocheting of the most elaborate kind.

 

Now it is my son Matthew (the middle one) who is making his way through the art world with more training than his grandmother or mother every had (BFA - SUNY Purchase). He also has much more imagination than most people. Here is a Photobucket Slide Show  of his most recent gallery show at the Art Riot, the establishment that he and his lovely lady Heidi Abrams (and greatest support) have created on John Street, uptown Kingston, NY.

 

Scenes of Kingston
 top - home
middle - Old Dutch Church
foreground - Henry Hudson's Half Moon 



Knitted in Your Mother’s Womb

What mortal hand can e're untie

The filial band that knits me to thy rugged strand.   
Sir Walter Scott 1771-1832 – The Lay of the Last Minstrel

Little Owl cardigan for my grandniece

Is it the Book of Psalms or the Book of Wisdom in which we hear that our creator God knew us as we were being knit in our mother’s womb? Could it be that our God is a knitter? That may be more than a bit of a stretch. But knitting is an apt image of the work of creation – a slow and deliberate effort of the benign artist. Someone once said that “The act of creating is all we know of God.” When we create something with our own hands, out of our own imagination, from our own design – written, painted, sculpted, woven, knitted, embroidered, molded, carved, sewn, constructed, drawn, etc. – we experience the vital creative function of the divine.

Silk and wool vareigated lace weight

A few weeks ago I posted some pictures of knitted lace shawls, the making of which has become a passion of mine. That some of my life be dedicated to the creation of something beautiful, whatever the art form, is a necessity for me. Handwork of many kinds especially knitting, quilting, and spinning fit as hand to glove into contemplative life. This is true of any effort at artistic creation. Designing a garden, arranging flowers, as  well as any and all of the visual and creative arts fit the life of prayer and serve it well. Each is a creative, slow, repetitious, contemplative process that can remove us from the noise and distraction of 21^st century life in the first world.

Handspun merino wool lace weight knit-on edge

Needlework is something practically bred in the bone of my history. I was urrounded by a family and a neighborhood dominated by talk of New York City’s garment industry. Sewing machine operators, sample and pattern makers, pressers were joined by my mother in her youthful pursuit of fashion design. My father would often survey his daughters gathered with their mother around the dinette table all absorbed in needle work of one kind or another and declare, “Another meeting the of the Idleness is Sin Club!” I do not remember being taught to crochet. I just seemed to have always been able to do it beginning with mini-items of clothing for Ginny Dolls of the 1950s. My mother started us in embroidery by handing us a scrap of white fabric, probably torn from an old sheet and stretched in a hoop, along with a sewing needle carrying colorful thread. She would say, “Draw a picture.” Thus we learned how to make a friend of that pesky needle.

Variegated wool sock weight with crochet edge

My mother introduced me to knitting when I was about ten years old but I was significantly helped along by a neighborhood friend a couple of years older who at least knew the knit and purl stitches. Mom’s help was limited. She could not follow written directions and made all of her gorgeous boucle tops via step-by step instructions at the local yarn store. I remember a white blouse with evenly spaced black jet hanging beads and another with a checkerboard motif highlighting the scoop neck. Every Brooklyn neighborhood had at least one yarn emporium in which a sorority of knitters filled chairs pushed up against walls bearing floor to ceiling shelves of  woolen fiber in a riot of color. In high school I decided to knit a real sweater for the first time. Mom was not encouraging and warned that she could not help me with directions. But the older sister of a friend promised I could do it under her guidance. The rest is history. Most of the people I have loved in my life received products of hasty needles performing in the rythym of the continental style of western European knitting.

I tell friends that if I sit in front of the TV without any needlework in my hands they can safely assume that I am dead tired. Years ago, when I began to find myself at many and various meetings, especially evening meetings following a long day of work, knitting came along to keep me attentive and awake. This seems counter intuitive but knitters universally report this phenomenon. We always have a simple project put aside as ‘meeting knitting”. This knitting also helps me to keep my mouth shut. There is also some truth in what Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the author of At Knit’s End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much, declares: “...the number one reason knitters knit is because they are so smart that they need knitting to make boring things interesting. Knitters are so compellingly clever that they simply can't tolerate boredom. It takes more to engage and entertain this kind of human, and they need an outlet or they get into trouble… knitters just can't watch TV without doing something else. Knitters just can't wait in line, knitters just can't sit waiting at the doctor's office. Knitters need knitting to add a layer of interest in other, less constructive ways.”

Natural handspun lace weight

Having tired of sweaters, hats, socks, Afghans, plain shawls, and baby attire I tried lace knitting a few years ago. I failed abysmally when following written directions and was told, “You just must learn to read charts.” It is consoling that at my age I could, with discipline and attention, pick up a new skill. So now I am enchanted by knitted lace. The treasures of antique patterns from European countries are being published, particularly those of the British Isles and Estonia. Yes, lace is knitted. What we call Belgian lace is not knitted. It is woven with intertwining threads each one on its own bobbin. But while women of the Low Countries and France were producing this lace, women in Spain and Ireland were creating wedding ring shawls, lace knitted in such fine yarn that the entire thickness of a shawl could be gathered and run through a wedding ring. Interestingly the history of knitting reveals that it probably originated in the Middle East and that Muslims brought the craft to Europe around the 10^th century.

Today knitting has enjoyed a great revival, especially in its appeal to the young, and not just women. Taught one of my own sons how to knit as we enjoyed a pre-concert picnic on the great lawn of Tanglewood, the Bershires summer home of the Boston Symphony, in Massachusetts. Later he said, “Mom, now I know why you love doing this.”

Links:

http:///www.ravelry.com
(everything knitters want to know about knitting and a zillion patterns)
http://www.knit-a-square.com/history-of-knitting.html  (history)

Book:    No Idle Hands: The Social History of Knitting by Anne L. MacDonald

 

Quilters Guild Celebrates

Wiltwyck Quilters Guild

Celebrates

35th Anniversary

 

 

Thirty-five years ago I participated in the founding of a guild of quilters. It was born out of the effort to produce a pictorial quilt honoring the history and culture of our county in honor of the bi-centennial celebration of our country. Yesterday the Wiltwyck Quilters Guild enjoyed an anniversary luncheon meeting. It was my privilege of offer the following remarks. Over 100 women attended and a wonderful time was had by all.

 

 

      

 

          In 1976, in late winter and in early spring, traditional quilting bee season, four to ten women at a time gathered around a large frame dominating the living room of the Kingston home of Ruth Culver. We marked, threaded needles, thimbled them through all three layers of the stretched quilt, buried our knots (if there were any) and we shared stories. I have been told that you would appreciate hearing the Guild story.  Much will be familiar to my peers here and I beg their forgiveness for any failure of my memory. That 1976 quilting bee, women working and creating, united in a mission to mark the bi-centennial of our country, is just part of the story.

It all began with Ruth Culver for whom quilting was not a resurrected historical craft but an art born of necessity, a skill bred in the bone and coaxed into day light by women who had gone before. Like women in the dust-filled Oklahoma mud soddies of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, they made quilts so their families wouldn’t freeze and made them as beautiful as possible so they wouldn’t go mad. This sensibility was in Ruth’s Appalachian heritage DNA.

That heritage morphed into quilting courses at Ulster County Community College in the 1970s. With the coming of the nation’s bicentennial a dream was born – a county quilt presenting a pictorial history of the place and its culture. From the ranks of friends and students Ruth gathered 42 women ranging in age from 18 to 78 and invited them to an initial planning meeting on a windy February night in 1975. Each of us has our ‘how I got started with the Guild’ story. After taking a class with Ruth this meeting is where my story would begin.

After growing up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, I’d married and lived in Connecticut before moving to Kingston in 1974. Surrounded in childhood by garment workers, knitters and embroiderers, I’d always had a needle in my hand. But I ignored the thimble. Such a nuisance! My Aunt predicted that I would never be a real seamstress until I’d made friends with my thimble. That friendship was to be cemented by an introduction to quilting. Ruth Culver is the second person I met upon moving into our house in her uptown Kingston neighborhood The rest is history, thimble and all.

The organizational meeting that cold winter night was my first outing less than a month after a Cesarean delivery and with a nursing baby in tow. I nearly fainted after running across the windy parking lot and up the stairs of Vanderlyn hall. Collapsed in a chair and did some Lamaze breathing and was ready for business.

 

I do not remember precisely what was decided at that particular meeting. But I do know that we were fired up by Ruth’s enthusiasm and her ‘no obstacle too great’ attitude. We talked about eventual size, what blocks might depict, materials, timeline for production, work sessions were we would help each other solve design problems and swop fabric to get just the right tone and texture for the pictures we were going to paint with fabric. We dreamed too of mounting the quilt in a show incorporating other quilted pieces. All of this eventually came to pass. The nursing baby eventually played under the frame as we quilted in Ruth’s living room. There were non-stop bees composed of rotating quilters, one leaving and another taking her place before the seat had time to cool. There was not a single topic of interest to women that was not discussed around that quilting frame: children, husbands, discipline of both, parents, childhood memories, recipes, home remedies for illness, networking of every kind. Our youngest quilter, Kathy Baxter Krayewski, was only 18 and she got some education. We were teachers, artists, homemakers, nurses, business women, secretaries, waitresses, retirees, college students, young mothers and grandmothers from every ethnic, racial and religious background who became friends in the effort to create something beautiful, a tribute to our history and culture, emblematic of our pride in the bicentennial celebration of our country. The Guild has in slide form a photo of each block of the quilt. My father came with a tripod and his Rolleiflex to immortalize each block. Those slides have now been digitized. They were used in presentations made to 4^th grade classes in schools throughout the country to augment local history studies during the period of the bi-centennial celebration. 

The dream of a show featuring the quilt came to pass in late spring of 1976 in the art gallery of the college. We were so pumped up after that show and wanted a place to put our energies, a way in which we could maintain the bonds formed between us. We also knew that working together spurred us in creativity.

Early in the spring of 1977, to express our gratitude, the 42 bicentennial quilters presented Ruth with an album quilt at a luncheon in her honor. We all knew that we did not want it to end and discussed at table how we would proceed to create a permanent group. We know of the Embroiderer’s Guild and thought we could promote and educate others while stimulating our own creativity and skill development. In conversation various names were tossed around.  Ulster County Quilters’ Guild, Kingston Quilters’ Guild were rejected In our research for the historical blocks of the bicentennial quilt we had learned that the early Dutch name for the area was Wiltwyck (wild wood) and I suggested we us this name. Wiltwyck Quilters’ Guild has a nice ring to it. In the summer of that year Ruth, Polly Briwa, myself and one other woman whose name eludes me, met a number of times to write the organization by-laws.  We began regular meetings at the college in the fall of 1977 and elected Ruth as our first president.

Aelittle side story his called for here. Polly Briwa was a larger than life personality, a sort of ‘Auntie Mame’ figure dedicated to her enthusiasms. She and her IMBer husband lived in a restored old stone Dutch house on Sawkill Road. She became a prolific quilter but she was also a chain smoker and died much too early. After moving to Glens Falls she became active in the guild there. Upon her death, her husband began sponsoring a cash award for the finest log cabin pattern quilt at every guild show in Glens Falls.

Looking back, it seems we worked at brake neck speed, but we were younger then. Most of us had families and/or other day jobs, were creating fabulous quilts at home, meeting regularly as a fledgling guild formalizing its structure AND mounting our first major show in June of 1978. This last could not have been accomplished without the visionary leadership of Ruth Culver and the considerable tech support of Ulster County Community College under President Donald Katt. The college provided the venue, insurance, printing and security for a show that ran for two weeks. Since many of you, I am sure, have been involved in show presentation there is no need to list the complications but for others I must. Themes, invitational quilts, raffle quilt, judges, prizes, staffing, vendors, demonstrations and workshops were all put into place. How pleased we were to present the profits earned to the college scholarship fund.

So much for history. I cannot close without speaking of how the Guild achieved its primary purpose which is to promote the art of quilting and continue skill development in its membership and become a sorority of quilters; women with purpose and creativity . At a time when the commercial sector had not yet responded to the bicentennial boom in quilting we were inventive. Before clear grid rulers we used metal and plexi-glass scraps purchased at places like what was then P&D Surplus on the Strand in Kingston. We had our husbands cut them into measured strips. Before rotary cutters we made pattern pieces with Shrinkydink plastic stolen from our kids (smooth on one side and matte finish on the other. Kids drew on it, cut out designs and baked them in the oven until shrunk. And for the hand quilters among us we do not fail to remember when Elaine Blyth, charter member from New Paltz, reported quilting her prize winning navy blue and white patchwork beauty entirely on a lap hoop. This was the equivalent at the time of moving from a Commodore 64 computer to and Apple PC or today stepping up from a simple one purpose cell phone to an I-Phone. We simply couldn’t believe it. “Are you sure you won’t have gaps and ripples?” we asked. Elaine reassured, “Just baste the hell out of it in a frame and quilt from the center out. She was right and we were liberated.”

          Thank you for the part each of you has played in allowing the Guild to continue to achieve its purpose and flourish. A mark of your success is the number of members who have been admitted to the Catskill Quilters Hall of Fame over the years. Other signs are the continuing string of workshop offerings and the presentation of bi-annual shows. You are to be congratulated.

On a personal note, although I withdrew from the Guild in 2000, the education in this art form and the influence of countless creative, generous and inspiring women stayed with me. I continue to quilt and have become more adventurous in my efforts. For that I am grateful. But most of all, I am grateful for the memories, the wisdom, camaraderie, listening ears, and creative example of women. Some things about quilting never change, except that now men are sharing the wealth.

In the mid-1980s when I was inducted into the Catskill Mountain Quilters Hall of Fame, I closed my words of gratitude with this citation from the Book of Psalms. With your kind permission I will use them here:

May the favor of God be upon us,

and prosper the work of our hands,

O prosper the work of our hands.

          Best wishes for your upcoming show. Thank you.



Triggers of Memory

Between the Sheets

           This morning I changed sheets; a mundane necessary task which for the sake of degenerating lumbar disks is frequently postponed. Yet I do relish the luscious sensation of slipping between sundried sheets reminding of fresh air and sunshine; 100% cotton percale, although muslin will do, preferably line-dried. Hanging the family wash on a pulley rope clothes line stretched between house and telephone pole is a science I learned at an early age; spacing and strategy required so no whites would be soiled by obstacles. Discerning neighbors noticed planned placement, a factor in rating urban household management skills.

            Today’s chore conjured memories beyond skill and function. The yellow sheet with woven decorative edging turned out of its folds and unfurled over the bed is well over fifty years old. Its survival attributed to the quality promised on its label “Dan River – 100% cotton percale” and having been stored in my mother’s linen closet, kept in reserve for guests.

            How can it be dated with a degree of certainty? It is one of the “good sheets” used when Dr. Epstein, our family physician, made house calls to diagnose and treat measles which kept a second grader out of school for two weeks. A call to Dr. Epstein was followed by an abbreviated bed bath, a clean pair of pajamas and a change of bed linens. The routine was enough to cure because Mom often said, "All I have to do is call the doctor and you get better."

            These sheets, their elegant textured borders never becoming wrinkled off grain in the wash, their crisp coolness relieving fevers, spoke the word “special”. These sheets had come from Gimbles Brothers after all. My aunt, the family’s arbiter of value, quality and good taste, benefitted from insider information. Her neighbor, Eddie Frankavilla, presided over the linen department in Manhattan’s historic department store just south of Herald Square. Fastidious bow-tied Eddie who knew his stock well and was a connoisseur of merchandise quality shared news of upcoming sales. After picking up the best 400 thread count percale sheets and plush towels ordinarily out of our price range now happily affordable, there would be an obligatory walk through the fabric department. My aunt and my mother ran materials through their sensitive fingers testing texture, heft and weave, occasionally pronouncing a bolt of cloth to be “nice goods”. Following down the aisle I would touch material worthy of their endorsement; lessons for life in fabric evaluation. Such a trip to Gimbles would disappointingly include only a glimpse of the department catering to coin and stamp collectors, my father’s lunch hour haunt.

            The beautifully trimmed high quality sheet placed on my be today lost its mate years ago and was passed along to me by my mother likely for use, she thought, on the beds of my sons. The sheet spoke “pretty and feminine” and was again kept in reserve. Resurrection came with my return to a single bed in monastic quarters. The sheet is not a mute relic. It has survived, continuing to speak to me of a former time, of a former world, and of dear ones long gone. Surely, ‘they don’t make them like that anymore’.

Habits in the Making

First a Note: The small but none the less faithful audience for this blog must be waiting for an update of our relocation situation. Frankly the process was so demanding and arduous that we've been taking time to catch our breath. Small updates appear every few days on our Facebook Page "Redemptoristine Nuns of Esopus". One of the things that has to be figured out is how to change that name! In the meantime...someone asked on Facebook for pictures of Redemptorist habits. That was easy to do.

The "Habit Work" of the Redemptoristines

Almost complete - only sleeves need to be sewn on

When the Redemptoristines first came to the Mount St. Alphonsus in 1957 their remunerative work was to be sewing habits for the many professors and seminarians. Brothers who were expert in this work taught them how to make the habits. One of the brothers had been trained as a tailor of German military uniforms. Over time each sister took a turn  working in the  habit department. When the seminary closed this work could no longer provide adequate income. Then the community began to make capes for the Knights and Ladies of the Holy Sepulchre.

Detail of side poket flap and sleeve button holes
Note top stitching in both

Still we are very attached to providing this service to our Redemptorist brothers. Sr. Paula is the master of the craft providing expert measuring, establishing proper patterns for fit, cutting and putting it all together. Sr. Mary Anne taught me how to make the stiff collars (machine belting)  complete with hidden hooks and loops and insert them by hand. This process takes about an hour and a half. Often I do the sleeves with their faced cuff and lapped button closure.

Collar put in by hand just yesterday
Note hidden hooks and loops as well as
collar extension that gives a bit more neck
room after a good meal

It gives us great pleasure to see a Redemptorist wearing one of our habits, especially if it fits well. Even Archbishop Tobin and Father General wear our habits. But it is such fun to meet and measure those men about to profess vows. It feels as if we too are sending them on their way attired in a new habit and accompanied by our prayers.

Time for a Book Review

The Paper Garden

by Molly Peacock

Pancratium Maritinum




No, this is not a painting. No, it was not recently done. No, it is not the work of some agile, bright-eyed student of the fine arts or avid botanist. This is an exact botanical reproduction entirely constructed of cut paper. It was made in the late 1770s or early 1780s. The artist, Mary Granville Pendarves Delany (1700-1788) began creating such works in the 72nd year of her remarkable life. After the death of her second husband, a much older man with whom she had a most affectionate marriage (very unlike her first), she distractedly picked up paper and small scissors in an attempt to create an exact replica of a geranium blossom. With this creative act and she became the originator of the art of paper or mix-media collage. She produced 985 of these works in an eight year span. These breath-taking botanically correct cut-paper flowers are housed in the British Museum. In 2010 a large exhibit featuring some of her works was mounted at the Yale Museum of British Art. 

Molly Peacock's book, The Paper Garden: An Artist {Begins Her Life's Work} at 72, NY: Bloomsbury, 2010, is an unusual combination of biography of the subject with a smattering of the author's autobiographical material. Although her family had good connections they were forever concerned with having enough money. However, the good connections served Mary Delany well so the book is sprinkled with great historic figures such as the composer Handel whom she met as a young girl and in adulthood was invited to sit-in on his rehearsals!

Her story appeals to the artist in me. Her pursuit of beauty and art throughout her life, her ingenuity and application and skill in her seventh decade sets her up as quite a heroine. Even more encouraging is that a lifetime of fine work in the needle arts seems to have prepared her for this tour de force. Twelve of her works appear in the book, some with additional detail images. It is worth looking for the book at your public library (where I found it by pure chance) just to examine and mediate on the blossoms.

The Little Prayer Shawl that Grew

Here is a quilted piece only hinted at almost a year ago. It was made at the request of the eastern region of the Association of Contemplative Sisters. The intended use was as a prayer shawl to be draped around the shoulders of a newly elected president or to envelop with warmth a member in need of healing and being prayed over by her sisters.

The organization provides mutual support to members who share pursuit of the contemplative way, both vowed religious and lay woman married or single, as well hermits, in a wide variety of locales, cultures and life styles. For those lacking a like minded group nearby, ACS conquers distances and provides members with a sense of community which offers encouragement for the spiritual journey.

Photoshop Adaptation

A single orans (posture of prayer and praise) figure has long been the logo of the organization. A cluster of these figures readily came to mind as the center motif. The background reflects the joy experienced by our members in the gift of God's creation. The piece measures 9 by 4 feet. All of the materials are 100% cotton. The orans figures are  backed with iron-on interfacing and machine appliqued. The background, my first attempted at creating a land/sea scape in fabric, is a brick work mosaic pattern. Fabric was chosen with both color and depicted texture in mind. It is machine quilted in a free hand meander pattern. Small fabric loops were sewn to the top of the reverse to allow for hanging. Velcro allows  the loops to be hidden at other times. Although this piece was a great challange it was a joy to create.