fiber field trip

I got on the train and went into NYC yesterday for a fiber field trip with my knitting in tow. (I didn't think about taking my camera so when it struck me that I wanted to take pictures I did have my phone.) The SUN was so BRIGHT, because it's finally Spring, that I could barely see the image on the tiny led screen---lucky that they are even pictures of something. Manhattan has it's tulips going.


It was a much larger shot of the center islands on Park Avenue filled with tulips and the multi-story buildings in the background, but the image is too large to extract from the phone and I don't understand image editor...the rest are at least viewable.



...so train to Manhattan, subway downtown, oops!, subway uptown to 86 St, walked south, oops!, walked north. I get so distracted I spend a lot of time backtracking to most of my destinations. Ah! The Guggenheim appeared so I was going in the right direction.



And finally the Cooper Hewitt at 91st.



and the entrance billboard for the show....



I have been anticipating this exhibit and was happy to finally be on it's doorstep. There are impressive felted pieces in this show----the yurt-ish conservatory installation...the sunlight space was luscious.




So much work, so much wool--silk?---netting draping from the ceiling....I saw the video of the artist working on this piece on Martha Stewart's website. I could only think how much I wanted the artist's set-up---big tent outdoors, big tables, garden hoses spouting with hot water and assistants. Sigh.

Other than the conservatory, the exhibit is intimate, darkish rooms. There were samples of industrial-created felt, and hand-created wet felting, but not so many pieces of knitted-to-felt. I was distracted by a couple that were looking and babbling in a foreign language as the woman pulled out her camera to snap a few pictures, prompting the guard to her side. They apologized and then went into the conservatory, continuing to take pictures throughout the rooms. I took my phone out and took the conservatory pictures (whoohoo and usually I'm such a girl scout!), poor as they are---I was not to be outdone. I will have to peruse the catalogue to remind me what I saw, like the Urchin Poufs---knit with rope size "yarn", Slices of large logs of spiraling felt colors, Textile stones, ---it was all good stuff! I wish I had been the only one in the exhibit and was able to touch and examine everything! The catalog pages will have to do.

I spent a fair amount of time in the Cooper Hewitt Museum shop wishing I could make a gift registry of all the things I loved and needed.(Get out much?) It's the kind of environment I like to shop in and be shopped for in.

Back on the subway at 86th, to 33rd. South on foot to Habu on W 29th, my old neighborhood. (I do much better south of Times Square.) 29th, 8th fl. No problem.



Looked at the sample book, looked at the small sale baskets amassed on the floor with tiny hanks of interesting fibers...chose two tiny hanks, both silk. Done. Outta there. Though I did try to palm off the dollar coins from the metrocard machine and the young Japanese speaking woman was not to be fooled by my funny money. (I was forced to buy pastry in Penn Station to get rid of the coins.)

So much for my fiber field trip! The weather was lovely and the city was teeming with people on their way home. I knit on my wooly experiment all the way to Stony Brook. When I got home I realized that I needed to rip it all out. Sigh.