Sea life

Tonight I had to dye up some socks for the store.
Since I had the dyes out I over-dyed the white motif I'm thinking of using.
the white seemed stark to me, it needed some warmth.
Looks like a sea creature that washed up from the depths,
got me thinking about the nudibranch inspired fabric I dyed up a couple of weeks ago...

Another Layer

I dug out an old experiment, It seems to mesh with the woven piece

and I like the way it looks when light shines through

Hmmm

A seriously weird color combo, Teal green, navy shibori scraps and bits of one of Lar's old shirts, more work to be done on it....

Old and New

Mom's old bandana meets scraps from the Fire Haori in an experiment from c2c3. I kind of love this...

What happened next...

Right so when last we left the story I decided to dye the ends in 4 different colors. I experimented last spring with ombres and I thought that would be the way to go, just dunk the ends and let the color wick into the fabrics. I figured that it would react differently with all of the different fibers...

It did!

I didn't forsee it traveling as far as it did in some cases though!

Interesting how it kind of stuck to the straight and narrow path and didn't spread weftwise... or is it warpwise?

also interesting that it didn't disturb the root motif too much.

I kind of like the results,

I think.

Of course laundering the piece after dyeing it made the fraying edges really come apart, but again, it feels more root like and organic so I'm good with it.

I think.

and no, I have no idea what comes next, I will have to mess about a bit more, and see what happens.

Catching Up

OK I have been feeling very tongue tied for the last 2 weeks.

However the project has been slowly progressing so I'm going to try to catch up all the stages I've been passing through in one huge post.

Here we go...

I pretty quickly discovered that I wasn't going to be able to stabilize the weaving while it was on the hoop. So I took it out and began to quilt it onto a backing.

I chose to use a running stitch in soft neutral colors to anchor each square. The work was a bit intensive as each square the direction and color changed. As I was working it occur ed to me that the work might be a wasted effort as I planned to add appliqued motifs of some sort over the top of the weaving. things slowed considerably as I decided what I would like to add. While I was thinking I noticed this:

This is a piece that I have hung on my bulletin board, odd thoughts in collage form, then I noticed this:

A piece of dyed cotton gauze I made last spring. I liked the compass like way the motif splays out from the center, it relates to a cardinal direction/time/seasonal theme I had been thinking about.

It also connects to the root idea.

I cut two pieces over the woven work making a root-like mandala. I liked the mandala, it was a neutral color but darker than the background but I found that even though the cotton gauze is quite transparent it wasn't showing much of the ground, so the best solution was to stitch it down around the motif and cut it out.

Much better, the root mandala relates nicely to the grid too.

I've spent some more time quilting the background down now and looking at all of the extra fabric I left hanging off of the center. I'm circling back around to the cardinal directions...

and each cardinal direction can be a different color.

So I've constructed a dye structure to hold the fabric up while I dye the ends of the strips.

That's where its at, for the moment.

Whew!

Wandering Off

OK So I'm already wandering off on a tangent, but hell, the tangents are where the fun is right?

No, really I WILL get back to the recommended process but I just had to try this.

I have about 40 of these cheapo embroidery hoops and they were just begging to be used for something... so why not weaving?

Of course how will I attach a backing... or will I?

Tangles

I was captured in this web some time ago...

I love the organic texture of the weaving.

I've formed an idea for an experiment with fabric and time

tonight I cut strips of white for it.

All sorts of fabrics, cotton, silk, mystery fiber...

enough to play with.

a tangle to sort out.

New Adventure

Ok so I've gotten myself set up to take jude's Cloth to Cloth workshop!

I'm excited. hopefully it will help me to focus a little better...

I think I will try to revisit thickets as my muse for the duration and see where it takes me.

so now I'm off to prep some fabrics for dyeing so I will have something new to work with!

Bird seed

Yep I went to the bird seed... the glue is still drying, I may add more to it.

Patterns

Playing with concentric patterns.

The one made of maple seeds turned out rather Victorian looking to me, or maybe Edwardian. As if it was made by some English gentlewoman sitting in her drawing room on a lazy afternoon to pass the time.

I'm not sure if it is done or not. I may break out the birdseed.

The second one is burnt shibori, I am unsure of weather I like this result. My first thought was... not complex enough, I do like the folds though... so maybe.

Done, and some Garden pics

Finished the last small weaving, I am pleased with the way the blue connects the pine needles... sort of lace like.

We spent some time in the yard today stacking wood and enjoying the end of fall

I've got some pictures of the last blast of autumn colors, this hydreangea finally flowered this year for the first time (I think it has been planted for 3 years now) only one flower but the fall color of the leaves is surprising a smooth blend of green and deep violet/ bronze.

Purple smoke bush and spirea

Spirea and amnosia

Hosta that has become a strange sculpture

Near the end

Hmmmm...

inches

Growing by inches, teaching me patience.

Ultra -Violet

It was one of those days where frustrations seemed to accumulate as it went on. They seem to have dissipated now. I've started another small weaving. Trying a different color for the warp, electric royal blue... and a narrower shape.

5 min sketch

A quick sketch of my favorite subject Rasta, our VERY tired dog.

Another small weaving featuring pine needles and the fall colors that have surrounded me the last few weeks. The colors have begun to shift to bronzes and burgundys now. Autumn is mellowing.

Little Loom - How To

Wow! I've been gone longer than I thought. Thanks for all of the comments... I've had a request for some directions on making a little loom so here goes:

First I cut a piece of thick watercolor paper (cold press, 140 lb)

to 1 5/8" by 4 1/2"

its stiff enough to hold the warp threads but thin enough to cut accurately.

then I cut a piece of heavy card stock cut to 1 5/"8 by 4 1/4"

this will be stiff enough to support the warp threads without bending

next I marked 1/8" intervals along both of the short ends of the watercolor paper and cut short slits at each mark

then I stacked the two pieces with the slitted ends protruding beyond the card stock to either end and wrapped the entire thing with duct tape to hold it together

To warp the loom I simply wrap thread around the entire thing going through each slit then tie the two ends together so it will hold tension

that is it quick and easy.

As to what I am weaving with... well aside from the found objects I'm mainly using embroidery floss since that is what I have at hand.

I doubt that this will last very long as the watercolor paper will eventually lose its stiff and no longer hold the threads properly.

However I think the basic design could be modified with more permanent materials so it could hold up over time/use.

Tossed By the Sea

Today I went to the beach with a friend. As cloudy and cool as it was, colors popped and captured the eye everywhere. Rosa Rugosa is no longer blooming but rose hips are ripe and abundant.


Some of the colors were in my personal noncollectable range. This lobster shell glowed in blue, green and rust but would have smelled like a seafood restaurant dumpster in no time, so a picture had to do.


Goldenrod is blooming in the dunes.

A most astonishing blue and red. This really tempted me, I almost broke my rule (nothing stinky), in the end common sense prevailed. The white thing there isn't crab but shark cartilage. There was LOTS of that around. I wonder what is killing the sharks.
In the end the things that found their way home with me were pieces of driftwood.

More stones.

A few fragments of shells.

And finally two bird skulls scoured white and clean.

One is a gull (pretty sure of that) the other may be a cormorant.

they are graceful and exquisitely delicate, weighing so little you can almost feel the flight in them.