gifts from afar

 The mailman snuck up and left a box of beautiful cloth on the front doorstep sometime yesterday. I will have to reconsider taking off my wet bathing suit on the back deck and and strolling through the living room bare assed even though I do shut the front door when I'm out back swimming.

Exquisite cloth - and the best part is I now have a scout in distant lands who knows exactly what I am on the lookout for !

"Rêver 3" is finished. Stronger colors than the first two, more complex shapes.

Stepping back and looking at how this one turned out I recognize that although none of the units touch, they all relate in some fashion to the ones closest to it, something I don't think about consciously when I working on it clutched up so closely.

I'm sure there will be more.

Big Night at Turner Field

Jimmy and I went to Turner Field on friday night and watched the Braves beat the Diamondbacks. They have fireworks every friday night but I can tell you they look much more spectacular when the home team triumphs.
Jim agreed they were Grucci  lite which is pretty good for ATL.

That's Jan K., my usual partner in baseball crime (her neighbor gives away season tickets!) my husband Jim and self. It was hot and smarmy but that's baseball in the South - always worth it.

soy & dye experiments cont.

 
I washed out those two napkins last night and then decided to discharge to see how the color "uncovered".

Lots of lessons here. To spare myself yards and hours of waste time and cloth I bought
Jane Dunnewold's book on the subject last night.


It won't arrive in time for the weekend so there will be further wandering in the dark!
"Not Moons" and more are  for sale in the store.

....DING!

ps - thanks to all who replied. I bought Jane's book last night but will keep messing about all weekend, all uninformed!


OKAY! Here's the first one all crunched up. I thought I'd get a lot of the hardened wax off it before getting into the hot water.  Hand washed it in very hot water & Dawn several times and have no intention of machine washing it.

here it is, still damp but I don't anticipate it being a whole lot lighter when it drys which is a nice characteristic of woven cottons like huck, sack cloth and damask.

I'm really tickled with the results and have lots of plans including reworking some finished quilts that have become tired in my eyes. A few things will be disappearing from my main gallery.




I was looking over a prospectus yesterday and had a horror when I realized that nothing in my gallery is less than three years old!  Something has to be done...

Even the second one, which I immediately christened "Nasty" came out very interesting.

And a big bonus.....

...the soywax+dye crumbs are everywhere and the dye seems to be still active. These are two damask table napkins wet with soda ash that I used to clean up the work table.

I'll stuff these in a jar and leave them for tomorrow.

soy & dye experiments

The dyes and soy wax that arrived yesterday kept me up thinking about them last night.
I've long wondered about mixing the dye/resist process somehow, as counter intuitive as it seems.  I know someone had written a book about it and can't find the thing - so here I am re-inventing the wheel cause I can't wait to read about someone elses discoveries..if you know the book I'm talking about please email me.

Meanwhile, I set my trusty muffin tin in a rusted frying pan of water on the side burner of the gas grill conveniently located on dye deck.

For the first one, I waited until the soy way was completely melted and stirred in a teaspoon of dye into each muffin.

It blended pretty quickly and working fast, I applied the colored wax directly to a huck towel that had been soaked in soda ash.

The backside is even interesting.  It's going to kill me to wait to wash this out but what a great excuse to get some chores done!




Below is the other half of the huck towel, also damp with soda ash. This time I spooned the dye into the muffin tin while the wax was still melting and it did not blend as well or easily with the wax.

I started out wanting some "white space" and used wax without dye (covered over now)  but it was looking so nasty that as soon as the wax cooled I rolled it up and put it in with a quart of monkey blood.

washout will be lunch-ish.

monetizing?

Have any of you fellow bloggers taking the invitation from Adsense to "monetize" your blog and, if you have, are you needing a wheelbarrow to take your money to the bank?
Somehow the term "Monetize" conjures up visions of Jesus kicking the moneylenders asses on the temple steps  or Miss Cleo taking folks' grocery money for bogus card readings and spells. Am I crazy, stupid or both?

On a happier note, the UPS man just dropped a box from ProChem on the doorstep. And me with almost no white cloth!

PS....Yeah, I've decided that monetizing sound a lot like a case of the cooties.

signs of fall

This is view right over the back edge of the pool. there are several trees even closer than this one off screen right. The shade keeps the water cool and relatively algae free right through the summer but they (and the critters that live up there) drop endless loads of crap into the water.

Since I am the daily swimmer, it falls to me to keep ahead of these Augean stables and now that the buses are rolling the signs of fall are setting in.

But today I witnessed first hand where these leaves keep coming from. I mean, do you see one single brown, yellow or sickly leaf in my woods? Not.



Right on the other side of the fence my neighbor has a towering tulip tree  and the leaves are coming off it like confetti on New Years Eve...

catchup

I was not as fully divorced from electro-doings as I wanted these past days  but  still, lots got done.

On the other hand, there's nothing like a new bed to make one think about becoming an Olympic class sleeper. You just don't how bad the old bed was until you get a new one! I wake up feeling taller each day.

Work continues on Rêver 3 but there are stronger value changes in this one and I am anticipating even more vivid ones in the future. Dreams will sometimes pass into nightmares without you noticing.

A pair of swan feathers underway...I keep telling myself "less is more"

  and finally, finally
I am tackling the construction of this large piece. Getting these very disparate types of cloth to lie down and true up is crazy pesky.

The darkest one in the foreground is vintage cotton sackcloth (thanks Rosemary), the middle part is the last of the Nantucket flea market damask tablecloths and the pale strip on the far edge  a vintage percale - a sheet from my Aunt  Jo's lodge in Flint Michigan.

These three pieces of cloth have been only been joined because of the colors I gave them. The whole process seems to be against their individual wills but I am taking the wheel with a firm hand.

Happy FRIDAY!

Even though I have to work the day job this weekend, I'm taking a break from the computer and hand stitching.
My hands will be doing bigger, different things and my eyes will look for far horizons.

And if you are a fan of the game and can tune in, don't miss the Braves game tonight. Tonight they retire #6 and honor legendary manager Bobby Cox.
It will be a very big deal

self indulgence

I just came from ProChem like a junkie from her dealer...Sunflower,  Sun Yellow,  Hot Pink,  Rosewood,  Brightest Blue,  Turquoise,  Lapis Indigo Blue,  Kiwi,  Raspberry,  Plum and some  Soy Wax.  There will be many more hot days for dyeing here in Georgia but already the daily battle of pulling brown leaves from the pool has begun. It seems to start happening the minute the school buses start prowling the neighborhoods.

Yesterday's mail came in balance...a very belated rejection from the TSGNY exhibition (freeing up my entries for other shows - Yay!) and a tiny beautifully wrapped package from Morna Crites-Moore.  I'm not a jewelry gal - been wearing the same tiny gold and diamond hoops that my family gave me for my birthday ...um, two years ago. but I've coveted these for so long and slept through the night without noticing them so it will be a long running association.

She also sent the tiny hand stitched block and as I examined it I was amazed to see that this type of block was constructed on a base - a notion that never occurred to me. I immediately grabbed up some scraps and tried it for myself. Makes me wonder what else I am missing never having educated myself in the breadth of traditional sewing techniques.

faux natural...

...is what they look like to me. The loss of color will probably delight a lot of people. Me...not so much. But here they are. You can see closeups with and without the flash.

Although a lot of people prefer to use cloth in it's natural state, I especially like to iron the damasks when the dye process is finished. You can see by this detail that the huge tablecloth I stumbled over was probably created to be a souvenir for a tourist visiting the "auld sod".  One could only hope that it was actually manufactured in Ireland!  

The rest of the lightweight cottons will have to wait, in fact, I'll have to rewash them. SOMETHING went Lint Wacko in the washer and 99% of it gravitated to the pieces below. I will NOT be sitting over these with a roll of scotch tape today.

I've taken out the few that I'm keeping and everything else will be made available in the store over the next few days.

swimming with the cloth

I laughed out loud when I ready Judy's latest post cause I had just come in from the pool and teaching some new acquaintances how to swim...


While I shot this video, Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic" was playing on the radio....YouTube took away the music but I bet you can hear it playing in your head. (You can open in another tab and play the song Here...  go figger)

fruits of the weekend

Everything is in the washing machine - drying? ironing?
Maybe tomorrow - the day job recommences today.

I think I need a mid season pallet reassessment. I threw away at least five empty dye jars and colors are missing. And I want more soywax...off to Prochem!


PS- the rate of color loss was severe. I put it down to old dyes depleted by exposure to high temps...once mixed they are supposed to be stored cool. the Lesson..mix only what will be needed for a session or follow the rule!

the recurring alligator dream

I went to sleep last night with achy stiff fingers on my right hand, presumably from all the washerwoman activities that go along with hand dyeing. I dreamed that I was swimming in deep water -not salt and vaguely cloudy like Lake Lanier can be - and was close up to and touching a whale which was sunning itself at the surface when something grabbed and bit down on my right hand. I went under the water and saw what at first appeared to be a patch of seaweed but quickly realized that it was an alligator about to take a better grab. 

"Alligator Dream"   2009

As it opened it's mouth I stuck my cell phone between it's jaws sideways and pulled my right hand free and remember thinking  "water damage was not covered in the warranty". The alligator hurried away with my phone in it's mouth and I turned back to the whale who was about to swim away and hitched a ride like it was no big deal. I remember looking at my hand and seeing angry red dents on the side of my middle finger and it ached like I had jammed it.

fini

I'm so glad I waited to do part two until this morning. The paler colors you see here were just hatched out from the group that went into the dyes this morning - a very tempered hand at the color helm was necessary. 

And for once, I got a set of greys that I like - MX Gunmetal and a tad of mystery mud to warm it.

Keep in mind that these colors will all  be stepped back a bit once they are washed and dried. For tonight, I'm just going to let them pickle.In the lower right corner are three or four damask table wipers.

August dyefest - day one

It was much hotter out on the deck than I expected and I was delighted when a brief thunder storm passed over and cooled the proceedings  down just a bit.

My personal thermostat seems to be broken these days. I overheat like an old Ford and cannot be cooled down quickly or easily.  I had to call an early halt but will pick up where I left off tomorrow.


I'm planning on a more subtle group of colors this time out. The dyestock that I'm using was mixed two months ago and has not been stored under optimal conditions and so, hopefully, will give the paler colors I hoping for.

All the cloth I'm working with is vintage - tender as Jude would say - and feels like it wants a gentler color touch than I'm used to dishing out. Some color whispering is underway.

I bought a heavily starched and ironed damask tablecloth at a yard sale this morning.
A little yellowed around the edges, it was tied tight in a bundle with jute and weighed several pounds. When I got it home and unfurled it for washing it was four by ten feet!

my soul restored

I got in the pool today for the first time in too long and found my legs were weak for walking against the water..step one in my patented pool cleaning process..get it whirling.  Must get back into form.

The pollywogs got on just fine without me peaking over the back edge down onto their busy little worlds.


I found the missing soda ash and got the cloth in to soak for the dye days to come. When the sun gets down behind the trees - when the light is not so severe, I will mix colors that I have been daydreaming about.
 

Dinner is prepped for later and I finally sat down with the sewing basket to get some stitching in. I am loving each of these elements and they are starting to reach out to one another in unplanned ways.

more here...

making ready for color

 This is from a previous dyefest earlier this year.

 After looking over the piles of white cloth in the studio - I feel a dyefest coming on. Preparations today=color tomorrow and Sunday.
There are color promises to keep.

Home again from NY

Not a speck of fiber to report on unless you count picking up one damask tablecloth at a local thrift shop. All the shops I had planned on visiting were closed for the summer! I spent the week visiting with Mom in the nursing home and Pop at Casa Useted. Both my sisters had grandchildren visiting too.
Four generations under one roof!

We had Bryan's first birthday party (one of three I think). I was not able to get one single shot of him that was not blurred - a champion wiggler!










That  same day Pop got acquainted with Amy's French Bulldog, Junior.  He was perfectly happy to take a ride with Pop on the scooter. A good time was had by all.

sewing to go

 


There's a long post here about the two on-going hand work projects that I'll be taking along. 

There are some much bigger things on the horizon.





Here's most of the contents of my scrap jar flattened out and stacked tight. When it's rolled up, a mere cookie dough log in the sewing kit. It's SO aggravating that my tiny kit has to be checked and I can't work on anything during the flight.
So dangerous, these sewers, armed to the teeth with needles, pins and tiny scissors!

I don't know if I'll have easy/consistent computer access where I'm headed
so this may be a blog vacation too. Ciao4now.

change of direction

Looking at these together on the wall and marking the feeling I had when I determined that it was OK to baste the first layer in place, I reflected on something Grace said about the cloth she is working on for the mcd class.

It's made me recognize that my choice of path/project  for the class was incorrect, which would account for it feeling forced and disorganized. I'm still going forward with it because it's intent was utility all along - I need a Magic Cloak. The cold will return here someday.

The reason I named this series "Rêver" was all about the state of mind I experienced as I made my choices of color and shape within the gentle bounds of the gridded white base cloth, each relating to it's neighbors in comfortable ways and bounded by a comfort zone of whitespace. Each small rectangle now becomes a canvas on it's own - a second, and sometimes third layer of expression.
All the cloth for these comes from my scrap jar where I keep snips as small as postage stamps because I can't just throw them away.

Now I have to figure on how to bring that entire jar with me on the plane. I was going to just take a carry-on but it looks like I'm back to checking a bag.

preparing to fly

I've laid the groundwork for another "Rêver" using a chunk of that silk/linen blend skirt and find myself gravitating to stronger colors this time out. I've been looking at the other two long enough to go forward in a slightly different direction. I recognize and honor the comfort of the grid even if I am disorderly within the lines. 

 
Now I have to round up enough raw materials to hold me through a week away and remember that I will have to check a bag whether I like it or not because traveling with projects full of pins and scissors demands it. 

Have to remember to pin the note on that says "Dear TSA, Warning - Pins Here -please don't get blood on the fabric"

And here are the books I scored at the GW. I have looked at and handled a few e-readers but can't imagine not holding the real thing in my hands.

"Everything happens for a reason..."

I heard that expression a total of five times in the day yesterday. I always add on "and in it's own time". Something is demanding my attention.


Meanwhile, my buddy J. and I hit the road yesterday in search of a new Goodwill to pillage. Another  J. gave me the notion of finding Goodwills near more affluent neighborhoods..and was she ever was right, but we didn't consult the map before we went questing. The light purple is how we got there, the darker purple how we got home. 

Still, my little car sits for too long unused, is good on gas even running the AC and it gave us time to catch up, reflect and plot.  Over lunch I found out she had reconnected and made peace with the spouse who had abandoned her to single-motherhood so ago. It was wonderful to hear the relief in her voice from putting down this burden of anger and bitterness carried all these many years.

When we got back to my house with our finds, we sat in my newly AC'ed studio and chatted over most of a Braves game on TV, re-hydrated and generally relaxed like the queens of our world that we are. Blessed.

SNOWDAY!

It's snowing white cloth here in the studio. Once I picked out the sewn down pleats and a hem that actually had a silk ribbon edge, this size 12 skirt has yielded about two yards of what I think is a silk/linen blend. And look! a grid! This morning I'm going to start another in the "Rêver" series. Bliss....

Speaking of Bliss, my Goodman forced me to accept a small air conditioner in the studio late yesterday. I've lost my view of a shrub and the neighbors roofline but the sacrifice will be worth it until the fall. When Colin first

plugged it in the temp readout in the room was 99 but I suspect that was as high as it could show.


The pile of white things I keep stumbling across continues to grow. I plan on saving a sleeve or collar here and there but there will be a dyefest sometime late in August. I'm heading for NY next week and invariably bring (or ship) home amazing finds of vintage cloth that's just begging for color - there will be Monkey Blood, Robin's Egg, Butternut, Granite, and more as the daydreams add up.

even the labels are pretty. I never knew what "ramie" was until I did a little research. This blouse fooled me into thinking it was cotton. I also know it should take the dye nicely.

It was pleasant enough in the  studio last night for a little hand stitching. This is one of the elements I'm making for the Magic Cloth Diaries project.

It's time to set aside the trixie stuff and start work on the actual garments, now that I can handle the fabric without feeling smothered and getting everything all sweaty. 

You did WHAT?

Of course we're never supposed to talk about our day jobs  but JEEZ LOUISE!! When you call up an organization to make an official report do you think that you might know what time it is where you are???? That you might have most of the pertinent facts and information is just too much to ask - I wear out the U-N-K keys typing the work Unknown over and over. Could you possibly be holding a pen or pencil in your trotter?!? Why BOTHER, Why call? I know !! it's COVER YOUR ASS TIME!

This work calls for me to be polite, civil and non-judgmental with people who are often covering up their own malfeasance about 30 times a day. (And I wondered why my hair was falling out) - to be compassionate would be too much of a stretch.

Between callers and calls I take a moment to swear in a way that would make sailors faint. Anyone passing by my home office would hasten away, heart quaking.
I curse their lineage and pray they have not yet reproduced.  I am a strong proponent of the Darwin Awards. I could hand them out daily in my line of work.

although the Buddha might cringe, I think the balance is appropriate.