I Won the Yarn Wars
It took two days of detangling, but I WON.
These are my mini-cakes of self-patterning sock yarn that I dyed in the workshop two weekends ago. The color motif is turquoise with white flecks to teal green/emerald to chartreuse to violet. This was taken at night; the flash makes the chartreuse look more yellow than it actually is. The base was Gems Pearl (or Opal—what's the dif again?). As always, click if you want a close-up.
And since I'm all photo-happy and the room is as clean as it may ever be, I present you with my beloved corner desk, revived, resuscitated, and reinvigorated:
The view from my desk (this is my creative studio, I guess, because it contains my graphics studio, my loom, my sewing stuff, and is where I'll do most of my designing):
Finally, the Stash Closet:
About the closet. It runs the full length of that wall (basically to the edges of the photo). There are huge tubs hidden behind the walls that the sides of the bookcases are up against. You can just barely see the ones to the left. There is another whole set of them on the right and yes, they all graze the lower shelf.
But there is still a little room for more... muwahahahaaaaa!
Bookcase to the left: all knitting, weaving, sewing, fibers-related books. Bookcase to the right: all designing books (software manuals, How-To's, design concept books).
I love books. I love yarn. I have more books. They are in one case and two towers in another room. I need a library.
Well, tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be 29 again for the 15th time.
Labels: dyeing, loom, sewing, stash enhancement, workshops
Spun Out and Dyed
Today I succumbed. My
Ashford Traveller (the old single treadle style) and I went to our local
LYS and took a
Beginning Spinning workshop.
We started with a top whirl drop spindle then progressed to the wheel. I caught on fairly quickly until we got to the wheel. Treadling single is kind of tricky. It's such a one-sided rhythm that it kept stalling out and broke the flow.
There were some other wheels available in case participants didn't have one of their own, so I was invited to try a
Louet S51 with a double treadle.
Ahhhhh. Even rhythm.
It still took time to get the hang of it. I didn't quite have it when the workshop ended. But I did rent the
Louet for a few days to work on it and decide whether or not to buy a new wheel.
Then I discovered
Ashford offers a double treadle conversion kit for the
Traveller. They are built with DTs standard now. I'll get the conversion kit (more cost efficient) and see if that changes things and makes it more user-friendly.
This evening, I dug out some 12-year-old roving that I'd purchased when I got the wheel (yep, only took a dozen years) and sat on the deck with the
Louet and practiced. Pretty soon I began to develop a rhythm. I stopped over twisting so much, and the consistency improved. When the skeeters started biting and it was too dark to see, I went in. I'd been out there an hour and a half, in the zone. Very cool.
I don't think I'm ready yet to spin up the handpainted rovings I bought back in March, but I'm really psyched about this.
On Saturday,
Fiberworks had a
Dye Your Own Sock Yarn workshop. You KNOW I couldn't miss that. We used
Lanaset and
Kool Aid dyes (yay, I've been wanting to play with
Kool Aid). Using roving for practice, we did handpainting, vat dyeing, microwave versus electric skillet (crock pot/stove) versus sunshine, then we did self-patterning YARN on our choice of Gems Pearl fingering or sport (I went with sport). Wayne, the LYS owner and our instructor, came up with a brilliant method of separating the sections out. I won't reveal it here without his permission, but I've never seen it done anywhere else. He should publish the technique.
One of these days when I'm not so lazy, I'll post photos of all my recent endeavors. Until then, Happy Father's Day to all the daddies out there.
Labels: dyeing, spinning, workshops
The Best Birthday Present Ever/Fiber Workshop
(No, it's not my birthday, that's in June.)
On March 23, 1920, my mother entered this world. Thirty years later, on the same day, she and my dad were married. For her birthday gift that year, my Mom got my Dad as her lifetime partner and best friend.
Had they lived past 2006, Mom would have turned 87 today, Dad would be 89 (February 23) and they would have celebrated 57 gloriously wed years.
Happy Birthday, Mom, and Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad. I miss you both.
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In other news, to prevent this from being a maudlin dead parents post... I spent the day in a Fiber workshop at school. Marilyn Prucka, a very talented fiber artist, quilter and printmaker from Michigan came to the college to give a one-day workshop on Corn Dextrin and Potato Dextrin resist techniques. (If I had a website link, I'd post it, but there isn't one yet.) We learned to use discharge methods—thickened bleach or sodium alginate paint medium mixed with thiorea dioxide (Thiox)—with the resists on black fabric to get some interesting results.
We used Country Classic Beechwood in black and regular cotton in white for our samples. In addition, we were able to experiment with commercially-printed or hand-dyed fabrics (such as samples we did in Surface Design class using Procion MX dyes) using these techniques.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. The bleach pulls a luscious orange-red from the Beechwood; the Thiorea (which I kept hearing as Diarrhea, LOL) was more subtle and resulted in a shiny dark grey area that has an almost metallic effect. However, that could be something I did to it, I'm not sure. I'll have to ask my fibers prof if that's correct (the way I have it). Different fabrics will bleach to different colors.
The potato dextrin cracks and pulls in as it dries, a bit like batik but the lines are different. The corn dextrin is smoother and is good for drawing fine lines. They can be used together or separately, with masking tape, with stamps, can be drawn into, can be used to silkscreen-resist... and a piece can start one way and end another. Example: put down potato and corn dextrin, let dry, apply bleach, watch it pull color, rinse out, apply more resist, more bleach, rinse, neutralize the bleach... apply more resist, immersion-dye or paint with dye... steam... rinse... apply more resist... etc. It's endless and the more you do to it, the more interesting the textures and colors become. Bleaching pulls colors that it's very difficult to get when trying to apply it with paint.
The downside of this method is the time factor. The dextrins and Thiox both should ideally be left to sit overnight before moving to the next step of application; the bleach, however, is very quick. The thickened paste only stays active for about 15 minutes so you have to work fast, and then you have to dunk it in water as soon as it's two shades down from the color you want so it stops bleaching (almost—it actually stays mildly active until it's neutralized but bleach can be left unneutralized for a couple of years after only rinsing before it begins to break down the fibers).
I'm still in progress with the samples, so I'll try to remember to take digi's when I'm done and post them for the curious.
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OK, I've reported my daily activities and sufficiently honored my beloved parents on their special day. I'm starving, so it's nachos and a Netflix for me. Have a great Friday.
Labels: college life, family time, workshops
