Another New Bad Habit

Someone (reveal yourself here) recently talked about expanding their blog reading away from strictly artquilt blogs. That set me on a quest. Clicking on the little "Next Blog" button can be akin to suffering a black-out drunk. You sit a the computer, start clicking and the next thing you know, six hours have gone by, there's drool on your chin and you've the beginnings of a nasty bladder infection. Well, OK, it hasn't gotten that bad - I do have a life even thought the ants in my kitchen don't think I have anything else to do all day but kill them one by one. Will someone please pass the word that I did all the dishes and wiped all the countertops and locked all available food up in plastic tombs!! Back to blog surfing. There is an incredible amount of wretched drek out there but, without benefit of search results I stumbles across this hilarity. I have to write and see if they'll let me play even though I am a complete knitting failure. I can crochet like crazy. Very crazy.

Searching for a title

Still wondering about a good name for this one. Every time I dwell on it I start to get the grins. It looks like a party to me.
The YLI variegated cotton machine quilting thread I ordered from Red Rock Threads came yesterday and I am loving stitching this one. Big J is co-operating nicely even when I switch to metallic threads.

New fabric, New Technique

Nothing else gets me out of bed faster on a Saturday morning than hand dyed fabric waiting to be washed out! This is a piece of the 400M pfd I just got from Testfabric and I loved it before I even put the dye on it. Delicate yet strong. We had some dye leftover from over three weeks ago that I stashed in the little beer fridge out on my deck. (It is SO NASTY in there - I put a root beer in the freeze compartment by mistake and it exploded). I wanted to paint directly on the fabric with the dye so I gave it a quick dip in soda ash solution and spread it out on plastic covered picnic table. I read the directions on the alginate thickener but of course, I didn't believe them when they said "a little goes a long way". Instantly I had two pots of clumpy cream of wheat. Dumped the now room temperature dyes in and blended them in as best I could with a whisk which I bent. Gave up on getting smooth thickened dyes to use brushes with and dived right in to grab up handfuls of dye glop and finger/hand paint. It looked like a violent crime scene when I was finished. Covered it over with a sheet of light plastic that barely touched it just to keep the cats off it. It was tough to hand wash the clumps of dye/alginate out but I didn't want to put that stuff through my aging washing machine. Cool results I'm thinking.

Day Off

Laundy? Cleaning? Cooking? You must be joking! I spent the morning taking new pictures of my Ornamental Innards series so I could get them posted up on my Etsy store and see if the buying public is ready to do a brisk business in faux guts. And now that I have finally gotten the pool pump working properly and the chemistry straightened out in My Blue Heaven, Aliens have come to roost here. I held extensive interviews with them throughout the morning and have determined that they are here on vacation with benign intentions and have welcomed them on behalf of the Earth. Somebody has to be nice. I wonder if they like chili?

New on the design wall

I've been doodling and dreaming with this group of fabrics since I got back from NY. So much so that they talked me into re-washing, drying and ironing them today as a group. What's up with that? So far they are hanging quiet on the design wall (the pale blue of which is really starting to aggravate me) but it's not quite stone quiet. There's a low hum happening. Yes, Debra, that is my voice muttering about keeping the skull blinking and camera rolling all at the same time. I sound like a bratty kid. The moment I clicked on Publish Post, this cold bugger leaped under the desk onto my foot and then up into the bookcase with Voodoo in hot pursuit. Note the dust bunnys stuck to his chin. He was released unharmed, but I suspect he has a deal with the catz that they bring him in over and over again without any wear and tear.

fun stuff

Look what came in my favorite cereal! When was the last time you got anything really cool out of a box of cereal?? CHECK THIS OUT.

Traveling

As you may have guessed, I'm away. How brilliant of me to be following this heat wave up the Eastern seaboard. Time and circumstance. Spent a lovely weekend visiting Jimmy in Bel Air, MD where he is working. We went to see "Pirates of the Caribbean" which has made me think seriously about getting a tattoo. Then we went to a fish joint where they served large platters of crabs that you had to eat with a wooden mallet. I watched and had a nice civilized crab cake. and shrimp. and oysters. and ....there were still lots of leftovers for a kitty bag. Next a quick rail trip into the heart of the Baked Apple to have breakfast with one of my oldest friends, Borin.We roosted over breakfast at the Stage Door Deli until the lunch crowd shooed us out. Finally, a short week with my family. That's Patty, Robb and Kitty at the restaurant where Patty is hostess part time. Mom & Dad are as ever.

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?