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.

submitting

here's the yarn stash i'm taking to the georgia national fair. it is a nice assortment of colors i think. there are definitely some which i will be keeping (they're so pretty, it would be hard to part from them), and some i will post to etsy when the fair is over. other entries you may have seen before if you read this blog; mini quilts, lap quilt, various cushions, weavings, smocked pin, beaded pin, etc.

mmm...sorbet

after making some adaptations to my flax wheel (mainly replacing the flyer hooks and smoothing the orifice), it spins a little better. i was able to spin up a pink batt i had made the other day; it reminds me mostly of raspberry sorbet.

weekend fun addendum

i spun up two of the batts i carded at the workshop. the batt formerly known as clown vomit was plied with a white alpaca. it was a definite learning experience. i spun it on my ancient flax wheel (which is quite the finicky beast when it comes to spinning anything thicker than fingering, and you can just about forget spinning fat and thin singles) and it may have taken me a few hours. i try not to think of it. the plying was done on a drop spindle (again, the ancient ones' fault, as it absolutely refuses to spin counter-clockwise). not that i don't enjoy plying on a drop spindle, but it is a little awkward to try any fancy art plying. but, in the end, i really like the color play and softness of the yarn.

after borrowing my good friend's schacht matchless spinning wheel, i spun up the purple batt, plied it, and was skeining in about an hour. wee! it's quite lovely, and i really like the flashes of purple silk and amethyst corriedale locks. another lesson learnt; it is true that you shouldn't mix differing lengths of fiber when creating a batt, as the longer fibers all but disappear while spinning (much like a corespun, with the longer fibers acting the part of the core).

mine, all mine! bwahaha!

one thing that happens when you go to a fiber event is that you come home with a lot more fiber than you had. i purchased some yak/tussah, muga silk, red eri silk, and cotswold locks. my teacher was more than generous with fiber, and i was more than greedy accepting it, so i also acquired silk noil, bombyx silk roving, wool, more wool locks, dyed tussah, a couple of silk hankies, and some wool "junk".

today i was thinking i needed some way to organize all this treasure, so i went about making muslin sacks out of some heavy duty muslin i had leftover from a patternmaking workshop. i was able to make nine of them before i ran out of cloth. i also need to get some cotton twine to use as drawstrings. labeled metal and paper tags will go on the cords so that i know what each is when they become a pile of similar muslin puffs. now i'll have no excuse for not spinning, as i am more than amply supplied with fiber. dyeing all this fiber should keep me occupied for some time as well.

easy peasy

wanting to do some quick and easy natural dyeing, i decided to try a technique using extracts from the extract dyeing book, "colours of the rainbow" by helen melvin. the process is quite fun! i had purchased some silk hankies when in asheville, and decided to dye them along with some wool, linen, alpaca, and cotton.

the two colors i used were osage orange and teal (from hue & dye). i presoaked the fiber in a copper mordant to bring out more greens in the colors. i was rather surprised by which fibers picked up which color more; the wool grabbed the most blue, the silk grabbed the most yellow, and the cellulose fibers tended to the paler tones. i was especially pleased by the alpaca.

i pried apart the silk hankies for spinning later (august when i take a silk spinning class), wound the yarns onto bobbins, and twisted the silk organza to get some pleats when it dries.

another experiment i have going is a traditional indigo vat which has been brewing for awhile now. this shibori example is from a piece of duckcloth i want to make into an oilcloth apron; i'm just waiting for some of the smell to air out of it. when i say traditional, what i mean to say is urine and indigo. but i must say, the vat itself smells less odiferous now than it did when i first started it.

little weavings

i've been struggling with my last couple of warps. i get an image in my head, not clear or precise, just go with it, and put planning aside. pretty much just warping first and thinking about the weft later. with this set of weavings it worked out well, as i was able to experiment with a variety of warp threads and techniques.

using a fine paper yarn and a strip of bunny fur created a light, tiny weave with open spaces woven in silk. i need to frame this one, but am still working on that part.

this one was a mixture of kasuri remnants from a previous piece; very speckled.

the curly weft threads all but lost the linen warp, which is cool, as it brought focus to the pile weavings. it was quite fun to try these surface embellishments, hopefully i can use them in future pieces.

linen on linen can be boring, but the pattern really comes through, and the shots of cochineal dyed cotton add interest.

this yellow thread was really fun, so chunky, and made the pattern huge compared to the first one. i played with some pile weaves and a chain stitch like weave in purple yarn.

there was a tiny bit of warp left, so i finished off with some cottolin and bamboo.

i have another linen warp now on the loom, but i'm a little lost as to what weft will be going on it. i had wanted to use a tsumugi silk yarn, but it completely overwhelms the warp, so i need to do some planning. i shall spin some wool, and think some more.

an old one but a good one

my mentor and friend bonnie lent me one of her spinning wheels on friday. it's a lovely old wheel which has a lively history. while visiting england, she stayed with a friend who was in her eighties. this grand lady knew bonnie was a spinner, and decided to pass onto her this spinning wheel. she told her the story of it's provenance; when she was a girl of sixteen her scarborough beau crafted it as a gift of love. sadly though, he soon died, and they did not marry. bonnie brought it back on the plane, and her husband soon had it in tip-top shape. i'm very honored that my friend let me start my spinning on this wheel, and i was able to spin some soft grey alpaca on it today.

this is my first spinning wheel spun yarn, it's a white/color specked merino/silk and grey alpaca. the merino blend i had spun on my drop spindle several weeks ago, and i thought would go lovely with the soft grey of the alpaca. i'm very pleased with the end results!

things we create

well, as i await the necessary unbuffered acid free tissue paper so that i may mail it off to japan, i thought i would finally unveil the piece i've been working on. i'm quite fond of it, and would like to keep it forever, as it's the first truly artistic piece i feel i've done in awhile.

i used cochineal and osage orange on a tin mordanted silk to get the various salmon hues, cochineal for the raspberry color, and osage orange for the weft kasuri. the binding process took awhile, as there were many lengths of fiber that needed to be resisted. dyeing was an interesting experiment, as i wanted a soft gradation of lighter to darker pink near the top. this was the first serious natural dyeing that i did without a clear formula for proceeding. i used my notes from japan, the book indigo, madder and marigold, and random recollections from my memory of things i've read. now, my hope is that the dye colors will all hold up to time and the environment. well, fingers crossed.

be creative with your mistakes

as i was winding the yarn onto the warping frame i entertained some doubts as to the viability of one of the yarns i was using. so about halfway in, i went with those doubts and tried the pull test to see if the yarn would hold up to the stress of warping; and it snapped, easily. so, with the conclusion that it wasn't going to work, i went back and replaced those areas with a different yarn. reminder to self, do the pull test first when deciding on yarns for a project, and definitely before ever starting to handle them.

i hate waste, especially of fiber. so as i was looking at the little O's of yarn i thought of chaining them into a bracelet. then i thought of a horseshoe clasp, but not having one of those, i dug through my box of silver from my college days and came across a sterling safety pin i had made. voila! i have a funky new silk bracelet. wow, two jewellery pieces in a row, if i keep walking down this path i'll have to set up a store.

glimpses of the whole

i'm not quite ready to show you the entire piece yet, but here are some glimpses of my naturally dyed kasuri weaving. i am in love with the texture and feel of the viscose silk, and really want to create more pieces from it. it took the dye really well, considering the stiffness and texture. the dye worked itself into the core of the silk, so i think it will last okay. i will be mailing this piece off to japan next month to be in an exhibit of work by students of the kawashima textile school, where i studied a few months ago. i'm very excited, as it will be first piece in an exhibit.

baubles

as it is gift-giving time, i can unveil the little presents i bought at the kamigamo handmade market. there were so many kaitei charms at each booth, it was difficult to choose just four. they're all just too kawaii.

one of the things i'm incorporating into my daily life is japanese incense; it smells lovely unburned, exotic while burning, and lingers for several days in a pleasant way. i hope it will freshen up the air in my studio as well. further updates on that front soon.

i knew of kumihimo before i went to japan, but it was still a charming surprise to come across it and find that i liked the fresh colors and modern aesthetic.

tactile color

today was a colorful day! it started with the dyeing of my kasuri skeins, which went well; that is, after i corrected the first batch of dye which i had made a mathematical error in, by having to discard it down the drain. eh, check math twice, measure dyestuff once.

after lunch we took a visit to the kawashima selkon factory and museum. very neat! they have a ginormous 24 meters wide hand loom which they create large tapestries on, such as special stage curtains, and large scale wall tapestries. there are smaller hand looms which are used for weaving obi, both ooak commissions and regular orders on the second floor. most of the obi can take anywhere from one to six months to complete. i love the little shuttles they use, i would think they would definitely be useful for inlay weaving.

i actually had an opportunity to try my hand at weaving an obi earlier last week (see hand in upper right corner of below photo? mine). so hard! you work from the backside of the piece, so you don't see it until you take it off the loom, as well as the loom takes a lot of muscle to operate. i was so nervous!

after dinner, one of my classmates had a box of natural dye samples she completed at a retreat last weekend. they were so lovely, both silk kinu and wool uuru.

tomorrow is the start of my warping the kasuri. i'm scared, but excited, i don't want to mess up the placement of the warp kasuri areas.

taking apart and reassembling

several months ago i sewed a shirt together without a pattern and added some decorative elements to it. i liked different things about it; but i also disliked several things. so, i decided to remove the silk scales from the pockets and sewed them together into a necklace. i like it ever so much more.

not another skirt this time

even with hurting my lower back i've managed to sew something. albeit slowly. and painstakingly. but still, it takes ones mind off the pain every movement creates.

i've had a yard and half or so of some really soft organic cotton grey jersey laying in my yardage pile for a bit of time now. while surfing around the internet i came across a really cute jumperon a child's clothing store. and thought perhaps i should tackle something a little harder than a skirt.

i started out with the jumper in mind and drew up some patterns; front, back, and sleeves. i made some corrections as i cut my four pieces of fabric, adding a bit more width to the back. pinned and sewed it all together, and was a little "eh" underwhelmed about the piece while trying it on. off it went, and so i added some of my precious nani iro binder's tape around the sleeve hems, and gathered them with elastic. still not entirely loving it. the front just seemed all encompassing. too much grey. but i was really liking the back.

as i was pondering the fit of the front my eyes started following the lines of the pockets. if i cut the front out a bit, so that it opens, and curve the sides around to the length of the back, that would be more flattering.

out came the scissors, off went the very broad front, and a much better silhouette was born. i wanted to add kooky details to this top; fancy bits and buttons. in an array of pinks and golds i sewed scales around the pockets and lined the inside edge with antique gold and pink trim to give it some weight.

overall i like this piece, it's soft, eclectic, and not a complete screw up in the sewing category.

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.

while goofing off

i have these two pieces of stitched fabric that i discovered in a scrap bin at school. the color mixture isn't something i would merge, as they aren't my favorites; but, there's something appealing about them.

awhile back i knitted gauntlets with this heavenly alpaca yarn and couldn't bear to toss the ends. looking at the stitched scrap i remembered the bits of yarn, and they went together so well that i had to find a way to merge them into something.

i haven't made a pincushion in awhile so that was the choice. i used some lovely striped tasmanian wool for the back, and sewed on some buttons from my collection. one of my favorite bits of cloth in this pincushion is the metallic linen; the sheen isn't captured well in the photos, but the button reflects similar qualities.

comfy bench that was once a coffee table

i love getting new pieces for the dollhouse, and checking the item off of my list of things that would complete it. while looking at the large room that is the living room/dining room, i pictured a lovely long bench to go under a picture to the left side of the future dining table. it needed to be low enough to sit on and to add cushioning, but thin enough so that it did not crowd the room.

while browsing a dollhouse store we discovered while going the wrong way, i came across a quartz topped coffee table that would be perfect. i was actually amazed that real quartz was used, and not a plastic alternative. it has quite a lovely sparkle and weight to it. i had a few scraps of orange dupioni silk that i was saving for that area and decided to make two box cushions; there not being enough material to make one to cover the entire top. i rather like it, and it goes very well against the wall.