Spawn of the Frankenstein Dyeworx

Of course I'm only going to post the particularly tasty ones. Believe me there are some devil's dregs upstairs in the studio quaking over what I have planned for them when I get the strength and inclination. The green goddess draped over the chair is a large section of damask table cloth and to me it looks like the south lawn just inside the gates of heaven. This was a fun little cartoon to draw in soy wax. Looks like I have an indigo bucket hidden away somewhere but I don't. Below are the Cherrywood fat quarters that I had the nerve to tamper with.As nice as they were before, I like them better now.

uplift me

After a night of bad sleep due to some kind of intestinal uprising I find myself cranky and apologize if I spoke harshly or flipped you the bird during my foray to the post office. I usually dance in line and lip-sync with the Muzak while I'm in there. Today all I could do was let the half-wall hold up me and my packages. So I came home from errands and delved into the Sunday New York Times as I crouched over a bowl of tomato soup with too many crackers in it for a pseudo liquid diet. The image on the left is my interpretation of the one blazing from a full page ad for Sothebys May Contemporary Art Evening Auction. It's a good thing they keep the riff raff out, I woulda waved my paddle for this one. In the magazine section there was an ad for ABC Carpets version of a Gee's Bend Quilt. They happened to depict one of the few that I like but when you go to the website, it's not there. Meanwhile Bravo was showing back-to-back early episodes of West Wing that I had never seen.As always, late to the feast. Between Mark Rothko and Aaron Sorkin I am on the road to feeling better emotionally if not physically.

helpers

This is what goes on when your back is turned.This is Voodoo making himself comfy on the kitchen table on a piece of fabric that has been prepared with soy wax. Black hair will be an interesting element.

palette brewed, holding for weather

FOF08 - day 2 (finally) A good time to cleanup, break, think about lunch (hey! I've been up since 6am) and wait for the fog to break and the temperature to head from the present 51 to the promised 70 and sunny. These are dye concentrates and I rarely take one color straight out of the bottle without spicing it with one or two others. All unique, all the time. Like that Custom Blood? A new mix that includes the dreaded Fuchsia 308. We'll see how the fabric likes it.

Smiling faces

So what if I didn't get to go to fiber camp? Better,I got to meet Colin's lady Raquel who is a delightful young woman. They left here midday yesterday to get her home to Gainsville, FL in time for a singing engagement but she has happy plans to relocate here to the ATL. I think they will be making great music together.

First Fruits

What's this, you say? Some kind of bread dough complete with mold? Nope. It's a yard of vintage cotton damask hatching out a sprinkling of rock salt (which actually had rocks in it!) coated with a variety of dye powder colors. Yesterday during a particularly slow Braves game I just couldn't stand looking at all that fabric waiting for color. I left it stewing in the soda ash solution since Tuesday as it has been just too cold and wet outside for dyeing. Wet is OK but cold is a no-no. Here it is after wash, dry and iron. I also gave the rusted pieces a thorough cleaning. I made two of each of these pieces with the intent of doing some further surface design stuff to them. Some soy wax, some overdye - who knows. Today is going to be the first sunny day in a week! Today the colors get mixed and the real fun begins.

harken back to days of yore

The recent acquisition of a ton of beautiful cotton prints has me thinking about the genuine blankets that I have made in the past. As with most quilters, my very first quilt was for my first child. Colin will be 28 in a few months. This blankie was used daily as much for dragging around as sleeping under and so was machine washed and dried almost every other day (for about three years) out of necessity. To this day, I'm impressed at how well it held up. Nine months is a long time to fiddle with one project. The only exposure to quilts I had then was casually examining a few dusty relics in antique stores. Even then they were undervalued. I think I took a book off the shelf in the library and put it back. No one in my family quilted. I was on my own with my own ideas about how a quilt was built. I saw it as a building process even then. The fabrics were all special except for the pink backing. I just can't remember where I got it but I know I chose pink to hedge our bets - this was before you could easily know the sex of your child before it was born. The rest of the fabrics were all family treasures in my eyes.Even then I was a fiber hoarder. The pale blue came from one of my favorite dresses back in sixth grade. The light brown print was a shirt that my husband wore when he was very young. The orange, green and yellow print came from a Mumu that my Aunt Jo brought me from Hawaii and the dark batik was a hand-me down maternity blouse given me my own of my longtime friends, Hilary. I can still picture her wearing it. She's a grandma now. I cut each two inch square by hand using a cardboard template and a pair of paper scissors. Once I had piles of squares, I decided that the design possibilities would be improved if I cut each square diagonally. Then came weeks of puzzle shuffling and then the hand stitching began in earnest. It's all hand pieced and was originally tied with cotton floss in the middle of each unit but in early use the knots weren't holding up so I went back and hand quilted inside each and every triangle. What else should one do while watching your baby grow?

Christmas in April

I have not mixed one bottle of dye and the temperature has turned sweater cold and greasy for lack of a better word to describe mist mixed with pollen. I have spent the entire morning paying bills, filling out forms and contemplating (just contemplating) getting our taxes done. Grim stuff. There's a knock at the door- it's the mailman with three packages and right behind him, the FedEx guy with a really big box. It's fabric from Testfabric by way of New Smyrna Beach, and an outfit I scored on Ebay and a really heavy box. Imagine, if you will, that you walk into a new fiber store. One that is stocked with the most amazing array of prints and hand dyed cottons. Drool provoking rainbows of light and texture.Generous cuts folded precisely, colors and patterns in love with one another, bundled together in tiny towers and tied with various exquisite lengths of iridescent ribbon and lace. Your eyes wander, your fingers fondle, you take mental notes coming back to your favorites over and over. Then, the gracious shopkeeper hands you a 20 inch square box and says "Pack carefully, fill it full and take all you can carry." How strong are you? What does it take to respond to such incredible generosity? I have an angel who has just made this reverie come to pass. Thank you A., from the bottom of my heart.

sum up - day 1

No hummingbirds yet but a fabulous Pileated woodpecker stopped by for a second. Got a nice new working surface. Rounded up all the tools including some new big fat brushes. No dye mixed yet. My little deck frig died over the winter so I'm going to stock it with dry ice tomorrow. I can't decide if I got more or less done. There were a lot of interruptions. Post office, plunder JoAnns and Michael's with 50% coupons. {{gasp}}} a Nap! About 50 pounds of miscellaneous cottons, damasks and linen soaking in soda ash solution. Some huge. Some not. I was tickled to find a small packet of alginate in the dye tub. Mixed up a gallon of goo. Here's the first fruits of the venture, I guess. I finally unwrapped those vinegar stinking frying pans. Some Rust. Now, what do I do about my husbands rusty camping cookery? I don't know if I am going to overdye these or leave them alone.

10,000 looks

According to Sitemeter on Mar 31 2008 6:14:44 pm someone from St.Paul, Minnesota,USA was the Ten Thousandth visitor to this blog. Holy Cow! If you recognize yourself (a Comcast subscriber, btw) let me know and I will send one of those relics of the past, a Post Card!

FOF08 - Lawrenceville Frankenstein Dyeworx- day 1

All right folks - daylight's awastin'. I know my awfully early ways aggravated my immediate neighbors at FOF last year but for me, sleeping in is not an option. As I begin my own studio week, one of the things I'll appreciate is having my assistants close at hand. If I can get the Black dye the way I want it, I will be making some cloth in Karma's honor. Such pretty patterns. I did this yardage last night while watching the Braves home opening game. No idea what becomes of Sharpie markings through the rest of the dye/discharge process but I'll find out. The first order of business this morning will be making a big tub of soda ash solution. We are expecting thunderstorms here all day so I'll be inside working the soy wax at the kitchen table. There is also a bundle of cloth, vinegar and rusty frying pans outside that has to be opened and inspected. Is color taking a back seat this year? I dont' think so. Although I have been in a black/grey state of mind for a spell, I'm counting on the dyes to bring me back to myself. C0lor mixing begins later today! Thunder and lightning be damned.