rockin' the punk, punk, punk

To keep the retail therapy to a minimum I ducked into Mike's Crapola Emporium and bought a few hanks of plain white DMC floss, one hank of white Perle and ran out the door ignoring the 50% sale signs everywhere.

I hand painted them  with procion MX..a pesky business that would have been better with q-tips - but since DMCs variegated colors are so pricey, I'm hooked on making my own now

I love the sound that the needle makes ...punk, punk, punk, punk.

can't stay away from the dyedeck

Just a little fast fun while waiting for string to dry.

Tod reminded me that I wanted to try dyeing my own embroidery floss. I also have a large cone of mystery string about the weight of Perle cotton - it might be Tencel; and a small ball of sugar and cream cotton...they all got the treatment but   are strung out all over the deck drying. Nothing much to look at right now but next time I'll think through just how to do it without NOT getting a bunch nasty wet knot in stuff.

Interesting how inspiration blooms just when you make a committment that takes you away from the studio. Is that creative procrastination?

The threads were pretty yucky..

alien skins

Why bother with taking pictures of the wet stuff when they look like this DRY! I can't wait to iron this batch tomorrow. Inspiration flying. I had forgotten how much I like all this faux texture. I should have noticed that there was almost none in my stash.

Mothers Day

I told the boys not to fuss about Mother's day but I'm glad they ignored me. There were gifts, flowers and a trip to get my fishing license so I can legally drown worms in the sunshine at Lake Lanier.

It's been  years since I've been there and at a mere 40 minute ride away, it will be a fine substitute for the beach.
The fishing is just an excuse.

The weather was beautiful today and I was gifted with a large bag of vintage towels and dinner napkins - dye lovers everyone one of them.  I was thinking about the lilacs I used to cut from the wild up in NY. My mother always loved them.

big blues

Even the commercial prints took the dye well. I should have cooled and warmed two of these just a little more but the summer is long and there's lots more white cloth..

I have another project that is pressing and will have to set aside this hands on stuff for a small ton of administrative work, starting with updating my main website. The biggest chore will be re-shooting all of my major pieces..sweat pours just thinking about it.

the Buggy Oatmeal brigade

Remember these from yesterday? After a rush of strong pure colors these are a complex and delicate breath of fresh air.  The blues are in the dryer and I'll get them ironed and up on the wall in a little while.

Sometimes the Blues

As I surveyed the proceeds so far I noticed a distinct lack of blue so first thing this morning I brewed up some blends, readied the cloth and made the plunge. The greens you see above are some over-dyes and a few commercial prints that needed some help.

I'm  making an attempt at replicating some of the nicer buggy oatmeal pieces from last summer..still have a large box that now sports some dead moths in it too.

There is also little pot of sunshine to balance everything out.

putting it all together

This is what I'm doing with the new cloth. Ironing damask completely changes the character of the cloth and brings out an iridescent quality that is hard to capture digitally.

This stitching is purely functional. It's a good thing that every one is a pleasure because this piece is 48x60 inches.

I'm afraid to admit to myself that I'm making up as I go, one piece of cloth at a time, as they relate to one another and not to the big picture.

The good thing about this technique is that it's pretty easy to snip a few stitches on the backside and remove or reposition an element. The cloth is very forgiving and there's lots of it.

First Fruits!

Thanks to everyone who commented and the private emails I received about these fabrics and my process. I'm taking the good advice and making up these samplers so you can try it out in your own work. I'll be working my way through the alphabet to name them - this is "Amphora".  The pale blue mottled piece, left center is linen, and everything else is vintage damask.

The ruler is up so you can see the scale and I've gone to some trouble to make sure this looks to my eye and my monitor as color correct as I can make it. That big golden triangle is a piece of the Butternuts from day before yesterday - the crew from yesterday are tumbling in the dryer right now and will be well represented.

I'll be posting these groupings for sale over at Random Acts of Dyeness and hope to get a half dozen up this morning.

To the far right, you can see a piece of a direct print of one of the Reveres -  a good example of what I do with my hand dyes -

here's a better look. Printed on card stock, 11"x17"

All this from just three colors. These are pretty wet but if the butternut results are any test, these won't be all that different when dry.

dyedeck action

I cut up more fabric than would fit in just one pan  (methinks this studio minion is planning a mutiny) so two other colors were called into action.

I will follow the rest of the rules for the processing.

The Butternuts are about to hit the dryer after a thorough thrashing with synthropol in the washer. I'll update this post with pictures in an hour or two.

Now it's stitching time....


ps...as promised...and a portion of all of these will end up in the store..

for JB

Dear JB.
    I just couldn't bring myself to take scissors to your beautiful tablecloth so different things are going to happen here.

There is no more satisfying stitchery that a new sharp threaded with a double strand of 12wt Sulky cotton biting effortless through four layers of supple vintage damask. Once the tension is applied the two pieces become one. This must be what stitching flesh is like, healing.

I'm just going to allow the colors and the cloth have their way with me for awhile.

Thanks again JB where ever you may be.

butternut break out

I'm going to let them all just hang there in the rain for today - save me the water and energy of doing it by hand. The ones with other colors going on are overdyes.

This is a pleasing method..mixing up enough of The Color of the Day in one of those deep steel hotel tubs, tumbling the fabric chunks altogether then letting them stew for a few hours until another good tumble with a  dose with soda ash sauce and then an overnight soak.