closing in on done.

its been a lot of fun.

First fruits of the season

Here they are washed and dried. Early outcomes are always guideposts for me. I can see that one of the warm color blends has a level of Fuschia in it that I will have to ferret out. The muslin that I pulled from the closet seems to have a level of resistance to dye that I find surprising while the old damask remains extremely open to the dye...less would be fine.

I'm taking the three intensely colored pieces straight to the design wall..the pale one will go back to the dye table for further clean up service.

color rescue

I thought about it some overnight and remembered how much I liked the  results from using various dry agents to carry and distribute raw dye powder.
(see Sugar Dyeing for a full explanation and some rules) .

Today it was a half pound of quinoa that I bought last year with the intention of cooking it up to see if I like it.  I wasn't in the mood for cooking or eating any weird or good for me so it's languished in the pantry since last summer.

 Since then there's been some controversy about how the booming demand from other places for quinoa has driven up the price devastated  the local culture and economies where it was a staple crop. More about that here and here.
So I went ahead and put my half pound to work in the service of my art.

These are outside in the garbage bag incubator baking in the sun. I'm wondering if the dry grains will swell with the heat and water and make patterns on the cloth.  If there's time I'll hatch them out before work today. Below is the first tablemopper of the season - always full of promise.

color fatigue?

As nice as it was outside today, I had to mix the dyestock in the kitchen - it was too breezy out for safe handling of fresh dye powder. Running water was nice too, instead of dipping and rinsing tools and containers in a big tub on the deck.

So I took my time and got the basic colors mixed but I ran out of gas and

and squeeze bottles for the variant colors. I had a few pieces of cloth ready for wiping up but did a few quick and dirty baggies instead.

The violence of everything seems shocking to me. I think my brain has been regrooved in recent months. I put the dyes in the refrigerator and will think about what comes next.

sunday early

In preparation for mixing the first new batch of dyestock for this season I spent some time inventing some new color names...the colors themselves won't come until I get to the worktable later today...among the contenders: Octaria, Spar, Beaucoup, Slurry, Plush and Sunday Sauce. There will be my standards: Monkey Blood, Steel and Blue Lightning! New names help me think about regular colors in a new way when I am building a palette from red/yellow/blue.

Meanwhile I spent the morning visiting with Jake who stopped by to render the verdict on Colin's car (well worth salvaging to our collective relief)  and packing up a box of Art to go off to market.  I was a bit distracted and forgot to put the duck pillow in the box. Next trip.

And that's not a breast on the box - it's a piece of a page from an old calendar with paintings by Georgia O'Keefe - a painting of a shell rather injudiciously snipped by yrs trly trying to make a pretty label. I'll make a pasty before I subject the inmates at the PO to anything that could possibly be interpreted as racy. The blue marker didn't take over  the tape.

freed

Here they all are freed from that fusty pink background. I'm not even going to address "now what?' for a while.

They have the feel of patches to be sewn on something  wearable.

But I'm going to set them aside for now because this weekend, the sun is supposed to be out and the temps in the 70's.

It's been so long....

moo

It's been that kind of a day - rainy and cold, only fit for curling up in the stitching chair.

But first thing this morning I got bogged down ordering postcards from MOO.  25% off is hard to resist when you chance upon something you actually need.

What I should have done was select images before hand and checked that each one was adequate to the print process, but I worked "on the fly" as their web process encourages. It's a lot like what happens at a buffet...so many tasties out there that you put one tiny dab of 20 things on the plate. Too much to eat but not enough to satisfy. I was upset to find that many of my images were not large enough.  This is my first MOO experience...I'll let you know how things pan out.

some redecorating

As much as I loved the old header, it's time for some shaking up. In anticipation of the new dye season, the image behind the title above is a damask table napkin that I got "hands on" with last season. Errand number one today is a stop at the pool supply place for a tub of soda ash.

I've also tried to improve readability, enlarging the fonts that matter...let me know if I've made a difference. So much depends on each users viewing settings.

fiber surgery

Nope, not a background....

Freeing the elements from that sad background is underway. One done and my right hand is shot even though I've put my Dad's wire cutting shears to work.

I'm thinking an exacto knife might make things a little easier.

You can see the thickness and density of the cotton batting. This was actually a sheet of printers felt that I scored a long time ago. It was not a good choice for the purpose. Now I'm paying.

a short digression

I finally got all those wormy, deeply carved machine stitches picked and washed out of this piece .

Its' been blocked on the design wall because the thick cotton felt batting that I used has felted and allowed the base cloth, a very old piece of damask, to pucker and wander in places.

I'm still at a loss over its lack of sense. It looks like a chunk of 1920s wallpaper.

Thanks to the magic of digital manipulation, I'm sorely tempted to take the big knife to it and get several small things that work all on their own, like this:

taking steps

After all the festivities and hostess-ing I'm also proud that I made a deadline!

"Material Witness" being held by the WCAGA right here in Georgia.

Time to get some of these creatures out into the public eye. I'd cross my fingers but I have work to do.