It's a mystery!

It's the first dyefest of the season here at the Lawrenceville Frankenstein Dyeworx and new mysteries are afoot! I've had a batch of vintage damask napkins, a length of coarse linen, and a swanky 600ct stripey bedsheet from Goodwill soaking in soda as since, umm, Sunday (I think)

 There was no kosher salt in the cupboard and I couldn't justify wasting any sugar with hummingbird season about to open. Lurking in the back of the pantry was an old box of COW complete with mealy bugs - a charming protein boost that happens when you don't seal your flour and cereals in plastic. Is it just a southern thing or did I not notice them when we lived up north? It remains to be seen how the cream of wheat and bugs will interact with the soda ash, dye and cloth.

One thing is for sure, I won't be rinsing these in my washing machine. I'm out of time this morning so all of this will get to poach on the work table until this time tomorrow. We'll see what comes of all this mess.

Stitch heroics

Sometimes I sit with needle poised and wonder "Now what?"

Gerdiary continues to remind me that stitch really doesn't need to do much more than hold things together quietly. No heroics or gyrations are really called for.

juggling

I was relieved to find this one still hanging up at the office where I left it.

A notice was recently sent out instructing people about NOT  klepping  lunches from our shared refrigerators in the break room. Imagine having to write a politically correct interoffice memo about the moral issues surrounding BEING A THIEF! (read the bold letters in Sam Kinison's voice). There are no fast food joints within a reasonable distance from the office so if you don't bring something to eat, you go hungry, unless you eat something from the overpriced and under-serviced vending machines. Enough on that.

A few days away from it and now I'm pingponging back and forth between the two of them. Cousins, no doubt. Winter and Spring.  Do not wish for that which you can conjure for yourself through either hard work or deep imagination.

sweater weather

I'll even get to wear it today - it was snowing sporadically this morning! This is Georgia - and not the mountains - the weather has lost it's tiny mind.  I bought three of these cotton sweaters at Kohls years ago and wore two of them to death.

This one was originally cream colored and has been through several color changes - this being the only successful one.  it was really, really bad before.
That scrap of folded cloth is a half yard of muslin that was blue with soy resisted white spots, now burgundy and purple and wildly interesting.

rainy Sunday

In addition to leaving the current WIP at the office Friday night, when I tossed my stuff in the car I tore my right thumbnail to the quick and all day Saturday I kept banging it into things making it worse.

Last night it was all I could do to manager seven feet of a simple running stitch joining these two rayons scarves lengthwise. Why didn't I run it up on the machine in 15 seconds instead of taking most of "Lawrence of Arabia" to get this much done? It will be finished when I can cross each of those blue stitches in orange. Maybe later  this evening.

(Something new too)

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      It was so beautiful out yesterday I brewed a new tub of soda ash and submerged a large batch of cloths that I've been collecting all winter in anticipation of the first dye fest of the season. Did I check the weather report? Not.

There were a handful of bottles of dye stock that have been out on the deck since the fall, mostly blues, so I overdyed a cotton sweater that's been too horrible to wear in public (a combination of reds, browns and greens resembling road kill)      to see if the dyes still had some kick. Poor sweater spent today hanging over the deck rail getting rinsed in the rain all day long.

Baseball!

Sixteen days until Opening Day! I've don't bother watching the few spring training games that are broadcast on TV - the commentators seem to be so bored that they will yatter on about anything but what's happening on the field.

I dashed out of the office last night and forgot to take the current WIP off my cube wall. Unless I decide to start something new, there won't be any stitching at all this weekend which might not be a bad idea.
It's 'sposed to be sunny and 70 outside today. Sweetie took her first foray out of the house yesterday while Colin and I watched over her....just a few minutes around the front steps. While I was at work, she helped herself out the cat door and was staring in at Jim from the back deck demanding to be let in!

art rug

Like many people during these economic tough times, our family is "forting up".

The lease on Jake's apartment is up and instead of re-signing it, he's going to be moving home for a while. We have the room and it will be nice to have my favorite mechanic back in residence.

The trick was cramming this 8x11 (well, 7 something by 10 something) rug in a Honda Civic. I love a rug that is the same color as dirt - so sensible, so real. It remains to be seen what Voodoo, Karma and Sweetie will think of Juicy, who is a Maine Coon cat. He (?) looks like a beagle disguised as a black sheep.
Pictures to follow.

WIP languishing

Sometimes things just stall.

I found a little scrap of fire in the bottom of the sewing bag while I was looking aimlessly for something else - anything else, to move this piece along. I'm still shuffling things around.

The triangle is real and the smaller bits are digital. I realize that I could move these pieces around forever. Too many possibilities will keep me from making progress every time. I'm seeing the circle of things shaping up again and it pleases me.

Making way for the new

 I got the new Dharma Trading catalog in the mail the other day. Although the ink is smelly I can't help looking through it and making marks here and there knowing full well I'll be placing the order online and not on paper.

In anticipation of the new dye season, I've slashed all the prices for Raw Materials at Random Acts of Dyeness

lost 24hrs

I've finally taken the step of working beyond the mounted fabric. All that white space around the piece just won't do sometimes - especially when the standard sized canvas is not really right for the piece.  OMG, it's almost a painting.

Doing this made me very anxious - that old "artist faces blank canvas fever" came back like malaria. Then I reminded myself of the gallon of gesso I have languishing under the work table. There are do-overs aplenty in that can.


I did a little stitching on the current WIP last night but I was afraid to go too much further as I was still feeling pretty pointy headed and didn't want any blood on the design.

Yesterday (my day off) was lost to me. Tuesday night around midnight I took a new pill that's supposed to help my back pain and NOT render me deaf. Instead, I was a drooling idiot for most of my waking hours yesterday.

Jim and Colin had great fun mocking my stoned self and I will have have to revisit that tutorial, written heavily under the influence as it was. I know spell checker had a merry time of it. Wordy as hell for  a tutorial. Still, I had been thinking about what I wanted to say for some time so the thoughts were there just needing to be rounded up like so many rabid rabbits by the rancher with cotton candy for brains.

mummy making

As promised, here's my tutorial on making fiber mummies or fiber fossils.
I can't decide which name I like better.

Please read the whole thing through before you dive in and email me if you have any questions.