mixing it up

i wrote this awhile ago, but hadn't posted it.

i started my trained art life in illustration, using paint and paper. since graduating, i've slowly leaned towards fibers, and have focused on them in the last few years. every now and then i would take out the paints and canvas, work on a piece, and once complete, put the paints away again.

 the other day i had an inclination to do some needle lace, so i grabbed a scrap of linen, and practiced some lace edging. it was a small piece, and i wasn't really sure what to do with it other than find some way of framing it. riffling around under my bed, i came across two canvases i've had forever. ah, inspiration! i took out the paints again, and have completed two canvas's incorporating my fiber work. i like the texture of fiber, the color of paint, the mixture of flat 2-dimensional and the slightly more dimensional fabric.

is this the beginning? who knows, but it is fun.

yarn finds

it's fantastic when you find habu yarn on sale. i managed to get three balls of a-5 silk, and one of a-64 linen paper, all in a muted yellow green which is so pretty. happy!

lace is fantastic

while glancing through a piecework magazine i came across some needlelace. i'm always entranced by needlelace when i see it; it's really pretty, with delicate webbing, curving arabesques, tiny areas of transparency. venetian rose point lace, italian reticella, 17th/18th century italian lace, coraline, 17th century gros point de venise, point de neige, punto in aria, are all gorgeous examples. i decided to try my hand at making some, and found it quite mesmerizing, with lots of possibilities (you can't get more travel easy, it's just a needle and thread). my first tries are a little wonky, but i find them charming anyways.

one of the pieces i wove awhile back needed something more; needlelace in green would be just the thing. i went for a bit of playful flora, and attached it with a small brad which i painted with nail polish. i find it strange that antique lace was mostly made in white thread (some exceptions being black lace for mourning, and spanish mantilla lace). it would make it easier to change between clothing, and it would be punchier against the rich hues of the fabric, but i think lace could be so much more modern if it were done in color.

um...where are the other veggies?

this year was going to be THE year of gardening. i was going to aerate the soil, mix in my compost, start seedlings, create rows in the soil, maintain everything weed free, and reap the benefits of my labor. well. i did do most of those things, except that most of my seedlings died. all of them but the 16 squash seeds, and a handful of the tomotillo or maybe the huck cherries (they look similar and i put them in similar seed containers so i don't actually know which ones made it).

the other thing that happened is the weather; we've had more than 40 continuos days of over 90 degrees, and only 10 or so of those days had any rain. i've been out watering morning and evening (serving up a buffet for every mosquito in a three mile radius), and the squash have been thankful. they're ginormous! every time it does rain they grow another three feet i swear.

today i noticed my first fruit from my labor, a wee squash! it's like a lightbulb. it's incredible what the squash tentacles wrap around. here is some blades of grass entrapped by the vine.

thankfully, my trusty orchids are loving being outside this time of year. lady of the night is blooming (she is scented only during the evening), but i won't be wandering around in the dark to smell her (though it is an intoxicating musky scent).

enthusiastic collecting

since coming back from japan, i've found much delight in having a cup of green tea for breakfast. lately, my taste runs to the earthy genmaicha tea. i also love the taste of matcha (i still haven't purchased a bamboo chasen yet) and sencha.

the utensils for serving japanese tea are interesting; the ones i've garnered have focused my attention on exotic woods and unique pottery glazes. i already had a small green and brown tea cup for the winter months, and recently bought a handthrown tea bowl for the summer (the width and size allowing the tea to cool faster) on my trip to asheville. the kyusu tea pot's squat shape and long handle are perfect for brewing enough loose tea for one, as well as being visually cute (it's glaze reminiscent of birch trees).

i was browsing ebay for kiri wood (paulownia) boxes and happened upon this tea chest which i believe is used for storing the teaware. kiri wood is velvety smooth and lightly burned to bring up the grain, as well as being resistant to rot (a wonderful thing when living in an area of high humidity); i am most attracted to the silvery color though.

i am still hoping to come upon a shifuku wrapped chaire, and a kiri wood box tied with kumihimo. one day.

creative organizing

i started a natural dye sample book to keep track of what i've done so far. when i was working on my kasuri piece i added those yarns to it right after i was done; mostly the tiny remnants which were left after weaving. then, today, while waiting for the mistletoe to simmer, i decided to add cuts of the material i had dyed last year. it's filling up nicely, and i realize that pinks, oranges, yellows, and greens are the only colors i've made as of yet. i need to do some dyeing with purples, greys, and blues.

while i was at it, i made some cuttings to do a lightfastness test. they looked really pretty in the window. i hope they don't fade, or only slightly. i think a part of me likes to remain in denial of the dyes fading, so i didn't do any testing till now. which is a bad way to go about creating things; knowledge gained is never such a horrid thing.

the last of sweet things

well, i've eaten the last of my malebranche matcha cookies today. i decided to make an occasion of it, and made some fresh sencha extra green tea (a blend of my gift of sencha from the ladies of the cafeteria from when i was in kyoto, and matcha tea from ippodo). i paired the cookie with a frosted rice cracker, served up on my grandmothers' noritake china.

i like the play between the lines of the cracker and those of the tea pot, as well as the white and green balancing. i've had two cups of green tea everyday lately, usually between breakfast and lunch; it sets me up to go out and work in the studio.

although matcha is my favorite flavor in baked goods and icecream, genmaicha tea has quickly become my favorite drinking tea, and mixing it with matcha to make it extra green is quite delicious!

kokedera

so, today was an amazing day! it took three hours to get there, but visiting kokedera was definitely worth the trip. the peace, serenity, closeness to nature, and so much unique greenstuff of this place is surreal.

moss was growing everywhere; on both living and dead trees, on rocks, on cement, on the walkways, it was incredible. i took so many photos, it was hard to narrow it down to the few i'm posting.

the temple complex itself was really nice, and in lovely condition. the way they limit the amount of people who can come at once, preserves the tranquility and makes taking photos a breeze; i had so few photos that had people in them.

there were two trees growing together, which i think they marry, and tie a cord around to show this. it was kawaii.

i love this place, i hope to come back to it one day. if you're in kyoto, this haven of peace is absolute bliss.

textural yet delicate

i came across a really neat cone of cotton slubby thread and also a jade green cone of pearl cotton at my local yarn store; i love slubby textiles. looking at these thin yarns i really wanted to weave a scarf from them along with a grey bamboo yarn from my habu stash which i could pack for my trip. when i got home i plotted out some warp stripes with the green and grey against the cream, figured out a good width and length and had at it on the warping board.

needless to say the first warp was a disaster; all of the slubby threads stuck to each other like velcro. so this particular thread would be a weft yarn unless spaced with a slicker material. good to know. i salvaged as much as i could, placed them on bobbins and rethought my plans. when in doubt, fall back on pearl cotton.

the second warp went off without fail, and i was able to thread up, get tension, and start to weave. i kind of plan as i go when it comes to the weft threads, i like the sudden thought flashes that happen when i do this. taking notes along the way helps though. and keeping a record along with samples of yarn used.

i like how it came out, wrinkles will only add to it's textural appeal, and it's really light; so perfect to pack for travel.

underneath

i'm really enjoying my experiments with natural dyestuffs. the exhaust baths are incredible! the first soak in the avocado skins gave me a cool medium pink, but when i reused the dyebath a second time the cloth became a warm pinky peach, mostly pale in saturation.

with the red onion skins the first fiber batch came out a yellow green shade, and the second dyebath was a rich olive green. i wasn't able to reuse the marigold dyebath, as i poured it down the drain foolishly. but i'm hard at work collecting every bloom my little plant throws forth!

i wonder what would happen if i were to change the ph of the dyebath? i must pick up ph strips when i go grocery shopping again, and do some reading research. i would also like to collect more local dyestuffs. i'm on the lookout for sumac berries (which aren't ready yet), eucalyptus leaves, and anything else that would yield somewhat colorful material. i would love to dye some purples, for instance. anyone in the south east have any good sources or plants i whould look out for?

second baths

i dreamt of dyeing an ombre swatch before going to sleep the other night. so the following day, i used the leftover dye baths from my previous experiments, the avocado and the red onion skin. i noticed something about the finished swatch; the colors were not the same as my first samples. so i gathered up some swatches of material, and did some more dyeing.

the second red onion dyebath produced an olive green instead of the bright chartreuse. i rather like this color as well. the fabric took the dye up rather quick, same as the first bath, so perhaps i can get a third dyeing out of it yet.

the avocado bath also produced a color shift. the results from the first bath was a cool medium pink, but the second gave me a lighter warm peachy pink, very pretty. i let it simmer for over an hour, and the color did not deepen much from the swatches i pulled out after half an hour; so perhaps the bath is exhausted.

red = green?

i'm in the middle of prepping fabric for the dye pot, so i thought i'd post a photo of my red onion skin results. i used alum as a premordant, and with the exception of the two lighter colored bits, they are all cotton. the triangle wedge is a scrap of wool felt and the other is a scrap of unknown fabric i had at hand, both of which i just threw in the dyepot to see what would happen.

i used an organic red onion, just the outer dry skins, boiled it for five minutes and then removed the skins and dunked in the fabric. the fabric just drew up the color so quickly; the longest any of them were in the pot was fifteen minutes. i really like this green gold color, it's very pretty.

well, off to check on my fabric pots!

just a tiny glimpse

or not so tiny. here's a peek at what i've been working on the last few days. it's up and framed now, but it's too dark to photograph. i find that i really like embroidery, hand and machine.

planting color

i'll be the first to admit that i haven't much of a green thumb. some would say, black; or at least grey. my orchids have survived, for the most part. however, putting aside all that, today was a day to dig your hands into soil, rip roots loose, and arrange heights and colors in a container of clay.

we have a front porch that sits mainly in the sun, which perhaps makes it seem barren and harsh on the best of days. it's nice to sit out there once the sun falls behind the house, but at that point the mosquitoes become your bosom buddy. i've learned that the little blood suckers absolutely abhor lavender. so to my way of thinking, "lets plant lots of lavender on the front porch, thus fending off the mosquitoes". lavender loves the sun, anyways.

so into the neighborhood big box garden store, which of course, did not have a stem of lavender. but oh, there were lots of pretty smelling flowers. so i started grabbing plants which met three requirements: strong scent, either pinky purple or yellow green flowers, and of course differing heights. so these were the groupings i put together when we arrived home. i hope they like their new neighbors. this is definitely new to me, you know, gardening. better luck tomorrow as we go a'hunting for that lavender!

seeking knowledge

once i had my loom arranged nicely into it's new home, i realized that there was a gully of information pertaining to sophy that i did not have. i would need a source, and turning to the internet i thought i had one between the covers of a book, learning to weave. but upon reading the book and having many questions i began to think that perhaps knowledge from flesh and blood would be no bad thing.

so, perceiving that a fibre guild would contain people who were experienced, knowledgeable, and willing to share, i went in search of one close to home. luckily for me there is one in savannah, the fiber guild of the savannahs. and also that they were to have a gallery opening that friday, and a monthly meeting on the following day.

the exhibit was very well attended and contained exceedingly beautiful, skillfully rendered pieces. i met one weaver, bonnie, who is willing to have me as a student. i am glad for this.

at the meeting we discussed guild business, the upcoming may workshop, and were shown how to create a beaded button, or pin. i created a moon rising into the starlit sky amongst hills of green. i am excited to be a part of this community of women, who i hope to learn much from, and who have welcomed me amongst them.

something's growing in here

well, maybe not. several weeks ago i tried my hand at growing a moss terrarium. it looked lovely for several days; then just kind of, well, died. i do tend to be that person that can't even keep a rock plant alive. weirdly enough though, i do really well with orchids.

while browsing @home yesterday i came across these little planters (they're around 1" deep x 3" long x 1-1.5" wide). there were three left, so i took them all home. remember, i have this fascination with all things miniature.

at first i was just going to uproot another patch of moss from outside and try my luck again at growing something. but when i woke up this morning i received a stroke of inspiration from an interview featured on etsy; i would needle felt some moss for my new planter!

digging into my box of felt, finding the right colors, grabbing my felting needles, i was glad of my crafting material hoarding ways; i didn't need to get in the car and drive an hour away to see my vision to fruition.

i started with a rich chocolate brown for the soil, mixed a lime green with a softer green for the moss, and felted them to fit into the planter, avoiding my fingers as much as possible. when it was done to my satisfaction, i took a regular needle and some thread to make the little spikes. i accented my first one with vintage stamens that i had also picked up. eh, voila! a non dyeing plant that i can put anywhere!

pin it to me!

after this last month i've finally regained some of my creative equilibrium. i sat down and sewed two pins yesterday, and i have to say they're both lovely little wisps of fabric.

on the shores is a pin reminiscent of cotton candy, and summer days spent among blossoming trees. i used a bit of the scraps from my party dress, the nani iro coururiere fabric, and one of my vintage pink rhinestone buttons for some bling.

melted jelly beans is a multi hued sparkly take on the piece of fabric i used in my strawberries from space pincushion. it's so yummy, that fabric; sadly i can't recall who made it or where i purchased it. with the print as inspiration this pin called for sequins and lots of them.

i've listed both pins on etsy, so if you're interested...

as to why it's looking a little bare bones on my etsy storefront, it's because some of my work is now available for purchase at shopscad in savannah.

guava

there's a restaurant in savannah that deals in pizza which i've heard has a pesto pie with guava. i would really like to try this. maybe this week i'll find out and let you know how it tastes. i love guava juice, and the color of its flesh is amazing; not quite pink yet not really peach.

while thinking of this, i felt the need to put together this color combination for a cushion. i've titled it "the importance of being guava". i haven't actually seen the whole film the importance of being earnest, nor read the book. i feel it fits though, in whichever weird convoluted way works for you.

the linen that i used for the front is exceptionally awesome; the texture, the weave, it's softness, the lightness of the natural linen against the white cotton. yum. i was thinking it would be very nice to have an article of clothing in this material.

they chose me!

i received a lovely email the other week from a person on etsy who chose to feature one of my pincushions on their treasury. needless to say i was very excited! this is my first (that i know of) and i took a screen capture of it. there it is on the bottom left; it's the first pincushion i made, after the rains. i'm such a proud creator to be included with all of the other lovelies.