representing

I've been so inspired lately by seeing what amazing things other artists are doing with my cloth, I've added a page over here so everyone else can see what's possible. Humbled, I am.

If you've used my cloth in your art and want to be listed, email me with the linkage you'd like and pictures even!

past lives

This  came in a box of treasures gleaned here and there by someone who knows what I like.

It's a ladies blouse, all pleats down the front, linen calling for an hour of careful ironing using a pressing cloth to prevent shininess.

Not going to happen. Based on the tag I'm thinking it's quite vintage, but  still heading for dismemberment and the dyepots.  It has some exquisite details. Aside from my rude handing in the washer and dryer, it's flawless. If you'd like it as a garment, let me know and I won't chop it up. But you are going to have to iron it yourself.

it's Fling time

                                           After a few more false starts with the fish and leafy looking chunks of green
damask, I've put them away for now.

While I was looking for something else, I stumbled across one of the first flings I made a few years back "Stories in the Garden with Monkey Teeth".

Flings are lightweight quilts with no batting. There will be a new nephew coming in August so it's time to get busy.

The charm of making flings was all about ease and lack of rules. I used torn strips of random widths of muslin to build foot square base blocks on the machine. Sort of log cabin without all the fussing. Once I had enough blocks to make the size quilt needed, each on got its own little hand appliqued picture. I kept the pallet broad, used fabric that could take wash & wear use, more of the

same muslin in this case. Hand dyed. Then the blocks were arranged and the front and back machine stitched together poking the two-sided monkey teeth (think prairie points gone wild) in random location along all four sides..not too many. Snaggly.

Then the whole thing gets stitched together with some more loopy, random lines of hand quilting.

I got a peaceful, easy feeling just looking at these pictures.

frittering

A pink moon and that purple rain has me dislocated in time.

Trying to quiet the buzzing and humming of my life with a little stitch, but it's not happening. I guess four stitches is not enough. I'll try again tomorrow because  I really like these little fish and don't want to waste them.

The rest of the second dye lot has been cleaned and processed and is good to go.

This has pretty much taken over my life.

tales of woe, cont.

Grace, here's your Sun. It was a woven tea towel at one time and I swear it came from your thrift shop years ago, white and pristine.

 I remember now that the soy wax just doesn't work all that well on wovens. But on the harder fabrics, like this Kona cotton, Pow!

Hard Lessons...

....relearned. Beyond dye and soy techniques, it's important to pay attention to the hand or character of the various cloths when you are salvaging vintage or otherwise castaway cloth.

Every single one of the pieces from Round Two has been machine washed and dried twice. The water in my washing machine was still not hot enough to dissolve the soy wax. It left the cloth happily then floated to the surface to clot around the inside of the upper regions of my washing machine. Hand picking and scrubbing was the only remedy. Then, there's a big problem with the cloth.

There was a piece of flannel and two sections of something really nasty I can only describe as silk (?) noile (?). It took the dye, to be sure, but it left a residue of tan, fuzzy sludge over everything else. The only solution has been to hand wash each and every piece in a shallow pan, twice.  This is going to take some time.

that was Monday

It's pool cleaning time. None of the tough stuff (and it's tough down there, folks) is on me, but it's still an all-consuming process for a few days.

 If it wasn't for Colin, I'd be running a heartbroken in on Craigslist, "free  pool. Come and get it."

I keep this picture in the front of my thinking....

Yesterday was Charlie Monday for real, even if I didn't make the FB post -something I'm going to be phasing out anyway.

 I spent the morning with him because he's been fevery and unable to go to daycare. Happy that the doc said it was just
A Thing, no ear infections and he'll be on the mend in good time.

All other concerns and activities go by the boards, family comes first, always.

round 2 - full sun

 There's no cover on the deck anymore and it's ablaze today. It might be 70 with light breezes, but I am roasted. A hat would have been smart but the worst is over.

These foundlings have been dashed and dotted with soywax and will probably undergo a second round of dye once this one is over. Some of the over-dyed pieces are going to be smashing. Patience is in order. I've run out of time for this stuff today.

With a nod to my dyemaster, Elizabeth Barton, the dry cloth went straight into the dye, low water style. They'll wallow a while and then I'll bless everything with the soda ash sauce.

My own technique is harder, faster, but all new things considered today, a day of fresh starts in many ways.

fry for now

The Fish project is coming along. I started digging in the closet just to see what is actually in there. Holy Crap!  That request I put out for white goods?? Don't go crazy.

I pulled one box from a high shelf and the bottom broke...a blizzard of white goods is now up for review for a round of soy-resist and dye tomorrow, weather permitting.

There were boxes and baskets of things that are going into the Fat Baggies blend. Of course, I took first dibs. It's funny how one's taste will change. Stuff that I used to hoard for myself will now be up for grabs.

 I found small baskets of treats and wonders that just fell into place for an as-yet unclear vision, but I know I want to hand applique and embroidery  -  think in terms of the Creatives. Critters just doing what they do when no one is looking, just like people.

revisiting

 FB served up this and other memories this morning. I'm ambivalent about that feature, but for this, I'm grateful.

I can remember the hand of each of these cloths - the black hole went into one of the first Karmas. The rich orange with tiny white spots was a cotton lawn scarf I bought on spec from Dharma Trading.

I can also see I need to work on this year's color set. My reds are too warm and too many.There's soy resists and textures going on  here too - things I'd like to revisit when the weather final decided to cooperate.

If anyone has any old table linens that they'd like to swap for a set of hand dyes, get in touch. We'll deal.

hurdles

I can relate to that face. Charlie and I have been struggling with the same upper respiratory day care cooties for a week now. If snot was gold I'd be ordering that Benz E-550 right about now.

Slap me for complaining, I'm grown and know the course of these things. Poor little guy can actually get up and run when he sees me pick up one of Jimmy's soft, old handkerchiefs and will point to his nose and say "Boo-boo" as in "take it easy, Nana. It's only boogers."

The best time of the day was when I knew he needed a nap, but would fight it to the point of hysteria, so I shut us both in his room, put his pillow and blanket on the floor and we settled in for seven consecutive, slow readings of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", trying on a different character voice for each reading because my own is so cracked and broken.

After three, I settled on a soothing, gravelly whisper and he lay there on his back, clutching my sleeve with one hand and his own topknot with the other, eyes heavy-lidded and focused somewhere magical. I am so full of wonder to be the one (not the only one, I'm sure) to be introducing him to the magic of books.

I actually got in some writing time last night and ironed out a few things that have been taking up too much of my RAM. More about that elsewhere.

In the light of self-promises to get my corporeal self back in functional order after a long period of neglect and abuse, I volunteered to wheel my little assistant around the neighborhood for an hour or so this morning in the service of getting my stamina back. All this before downloading this  and cobbling together my own dance program. Here's music to move to or you're dead.