New From the Dyeworx

Imagine - dyed, washed and ironed in one day? What's my rush? My point in doing this rather dark and murky batch was to make some pieces specifically for discharging. In most cases I got what I was after. This group started life as a huge cotton damask tablecloth I bought on Ebay. This group includes some overdyes and some yardage Jan brought over. We used salt in the dye solution this time which I think accounts for some of the interesting figuring on this fabric. This is the piece that had the soy wax. Live and learn. The black took more strongly on the back than the front. If I had stopped and pondered a bit before throwing dye around I would have considered a few laws of physics, like gravity. Because I didn't want too much cracking in the wax, I laid it out flat on a piece of vinyl, spewed a few cups of soda ash solution over it and immediately attached it with brushloads of black dye solution. I should have laid it face down. Better still, suffered the cracks and immersed it.

Go get some inspiration

I'm supposed to be setting up the Lawrenceville Frankenstein Dyeworx but here I am grubbing about in my old bookmarks, deleting and delighting. Here is a list of artists I would OWN if I ever hit the lottery.Some fiber artists, some not.Some of these people you will know, others will be a revelation. In no particular order - Lorraine Glessner Mary Anne Jordan Mary Stoudt Gwen Fox Natasha Kempers-Cullen Ann Brauer Pamela Hill Hu Yong Yi Amy Robertson Janet Steadman Jette Clover Quinn Zander Corum Sandra LH Woock Mirjam Pet-Jacobs Keisha Roberts Eleanor McCain Katharina Lichtman

Soy Wax & Homegrown Comedy

Here's a piece of fabric slathered over with some of the soy wax I brought back from Convergence. I don't want too many cracks so it's hanging from the design wall until tomorrow's dyefest. Things are going to get fairly dark if that Cotton black works the way I want it to. I'm still knitting my way through each nine innings of the Braves amazing comeback. This recycled silk is a bear to work with and I have to struggle to keep from knitting so tight that the wooden needles squeak. I can always count on Colin to be as un-PC as possible at every opportunity. Last night he stopped by to see what I was up to, took one look at the knitting and said "What's this then? Flayed hobos? Bum skins?" I laughed for an hour and every time I take that knitting out I will start snickering.

Stop me before I hurt something

(28 x 23) I lost track of the number of times I started sewing on beads, making marks with black thread, outlining the worms with beige thread, etc. With each attempt at embellishment I would recall the title "Atavistic Inclinations" and pick out the nonsense. It's finished. Now I can get back to the last thing I was doing before this sidetracked me...what was that?

Stitching on "AI"

It's a wonder I'm getting anything done these days - I can't seem to tear myself out of the pool. After doing the cleaning chores and the obligatory "I'm exercising" laps, I find myself just drifting. I have been reading the sunday paper in soggy sections laid out on the deckboards. There is no bigger waste of time than reading a week-old newspaper but the cooling antigravity of the water compels me to stay a little longer. Once I am pruned to the max, I settle into the studio which gets hot despite the fan overhead and the AC. The stitched mouths are too subtle to see beyond a few steps away. I may add a few black vertical stitches by hand just for emphasis.