taking another tack

The beautiful new cloths suffered in  a failed attempt at a neutral black. After batching a whole hot day they were crawling with green blooms. Rather than moan over it  I dreamed a plan that includes overdye and discharging. There are in the colors right now.

There are tons of cloth in the world still waiting and these will be just as special as others I have worked on, not failures...it was only the experiment that ran off the rails.

committing large

This one is all hand basted but last night I dreamed about stitching it on the machine. Successfully combining machine and hand stitching in a large piece is my next great challenge. Arlee is going to be my go-to guru here as she has mastered the trick as far as I'm concerned.

I did some research on how long "Consolation"  took me to finish and at that rate, this new piece might not see an end until next Spring if  I do it all by hand.  No sacrifices or compromises here, just adaptations that will work on larger pieces.

There were great gifts and finds this weekend too. JR and I made a stop at OHCO in Covington and, dumped in a holding pen in the parking lot, I came across a few large expanses of a remarkable cloth that you will be seeing soon...next on the design wall, for sure.

When I finally got home there was a package with several of the most exquisite pieces of my all time favorite fabric, vintage cotton damask and what I call huck. Thank you so much Nancy! As soon as the weather dude promises me a hot, dry day, these will be taking part in the great BLACK DYE experiment.  More the the yet undiscovered Karma piece which I am slowly sneaking up on. Clink on these pictures to appreciate the  workmanship that went into them.

loose on the town

This weekend has been all about a good change of pace for me - away from work, the day job and the fiber studio.

These are my two best friends, Jan and Jan. Although I am not an introvert, I tend to be an insular person and I don't get out with like minded individuals so often that I don't recognize how special these times and friends are.

 Jan K has a friend and neighbor who frequently bestows her with Braves season tickets which she shares with me when I can free up my schedule. How could I not in Chipper Jones last season? It was a strange Friday 13th at the park, with all the luck running to amazing and serendipitous. The skies were abrew with heavy thunderstorms but not a drop fell all evening. The entire ballpark was darkened by a 16 minute power failure in the 2nd inning and not a soul in the place went Zombie crazy and acted up. We had great seats, great food and great company in the people who came out on a threatening evening to love on their team, watch them beat the NY Mets  AND the best fireworks I have seen since the bicentennial events in NY!

Saturday I spent the day with my other BF Jan.
We did time together at AT&T..only other former AT&T operators and call center employees could really appreciate that.  This day out will be our last for some time to come since she is taking an amazing opportunity to move to CA and be a part of her son's growing family while he returns to school. Although I will miss her, I can't help but be thrilled for her, she loves the SF Bay area so...and now I will have the ultimate excuse visit the west coast.

jazzworking

why can't I remember how much better it always is with music? I could hardly nap I was so frothing to get on with this one..changes upon changes.  FYI it's about 42" high.

B&W in heavy weather

I had a two hour dinner break from work this evening.

The trees are thrashing about under darkening skies and the thunder and lightning are getting very serious. Power will probably go soon. We made up cold salads for dinner and I gobbled mine like a prison inmate and ran outside to get a few more pieces painted. All the while "George Harrison - Living in the Material World" playing in the background.

I scored a beautiful linen dress at GW today - here's one half of the front, the buttonholes ranked down the right side. There was also an enormous cotton lawn skirt..yards of white cloth, thank you Queen among women, and a teeny tiny white party dress..something a hooker might wear to a christening maybe. Halter top, peek a boos around the waist and a short flounced skirt, all in white cotton with tiny dots fuzziness woven all through.

All of them deconstructed and plunged into the sauce for further contemplation and action tomorrow. 

sad to say both of these were spoiled by my haste and optimism. It rained a lot harder than expected and too much water too soon smooshed paint and dye excessively...

thinking along those lines

I'm   starting to think about a Karma cloth.

I wanted more contrast that just dye would give me so I reworked these pieces with textile paint. My bag in the foreground  tells me how hard it's going to be for me to stick with just black and white so I'm not going to force the issue.
 
Spent a little while last night snapping the fuzz out of the latest batch of dyed cloth. With all those raw, torn edges why am I amazed at the amount of lint generated.  I even made bold with the iron for  while to seek out the true nature of some of the sorrier looking pieces.
 
Like civilized folk, we even had company for a little while. It was nice to see Jake and Missy.


( I do not put blue dye in my pool)

finishing

I took advantage of the morning light to start the homestretch on Consolation. It's been trimmed, hemmed, fitted and generally civilized yet maintains it's original wildness. For me, being pleased with the journey of a piece is as strong as the satisfaction of finalizing it. I would guess that the proliferation of UFOs comes from when the artist, myself included, loses sight of this core idea, usually by letting the process or the materials take control. It's a constant battle.

I let both of them, process and materials, get the better of sense yesterday by spending several hours out on the dyedeck when it was too damn hot, again. The sky was overcast, in fact there was even a rain shower for a while, but the heat got the best of me and some stupid and ugly things came out of it. I didn't pay attention when a new discharging agent leaked into my left glove and  I reaped a mild chemical burn over most of my palm.  The cloth...a mixed bag of mutts that will need further work, but not today.

I've started staring at some of the latest pieces from the ongoing dyefest. I thought I'd never see that Bonnie Blue again since it's been discontinued but apparently I've hit on the right blend of who knows what snip of sky and dash of deep blue sea. You'll be seeing a lot more of this color in my work. It pulls me like the sound of the surf.

While I was cleaning the pool this morning (must be in it to do a proper job) I was joined by a hitchhiker who plopped coldly onto my shoulder as I passed by the ladder. I wonder if he was one of the jillions tadpoles that I've rescued from the pool cleanings over the years?

a working 4th

My July 4th is probably a bit different than most folks. As a veteran of the phone company and the current employee of another round the clock operation, I'm accustomed to working on most of the major holidays. So it will be today. I will hear the local fireworks and give thanks for the drenching rain we had yesterday but keep my fingers crossed that some yahoo won't set fire to the neighborhood with illegal fireworks.

Knowing that the shank of the day would be taken up listening to people lie, complain, and whine, I officially set down the burden of judgement and started my day with a little creativity by rebooting my dye palette. I did a few direct dye painted pieces and left them in sun to bake.

They are all sparkly and intense while wet but don't get too excited. Experience has taught me that this method of applying dye results in weak, washed out colors. It's OK though cause I have a PLAN. It's all about the lines and shapes much more than the colors or lack thereof. Look, even the Table-moppers are having a good time.

July's crown

Thanks to number one son for capturing this for me. I took the cards outside for a blessing last night but didn't bother with the camera. I'm glad he was paying attention.  While I was grilling dinner this morning I broke my own vow and put a few more pieces into the dyes. Some rank scraps that needed over-dyeing, a piece of some stripey weirdness that Jake got for me at yard sale while we were in NY and a quarter of a spectacular damask tablecloth that arrived yesterday - the kind I love with the tiny dots all woven through.
 They shall stew under tonight's full moon. And now to swim until I prune.

dye day wrap up

When I took the new pieces out of the dryer this morning they seemed to be infested with LINT, as if I washed a tissue or two along with them only I know that's not the case. So I took everything out onto the upper deck to give it all a good snapping shake creating a snowstorm of fuzz. Happily they gave up the fuzz to a little vigor. Then I spent a quick half hour ironing this unruly lot.

 Compared to the shimmering delicacy of damask, this varying weights of linens are very masculine by comparison. Tough cloths, every one of them. A fiber gang. I'm glad the colors stayed as strong as I wanted for this first round.

I'm going to suspend further attempts on the dyedeck until this brutal weather backs off. I find myself skipping steps and forgetting what comes next. The pleasure in the doing is just not there under these extreme conditions.

For a few minutes the trees tossed and moaned last night and I hoped for a thunderstorm but nothing materialized.

I'm going to hunker down in the AC of the studio, think about what is next, work with what is already at hand and attend to a few administrative tasks I have been putting off, like ordering new business cards and redoing the website.

Little stuff, you know, like the Augean stables....

I've also decide to extend the sale in the store and will be adding some of these Tough Guys into the mix.

poached linen and birthday festivities

Not the best picture but I like the way it lights up the room. One of my favorites from yesterday's foray into hot folly - trying to conduct a dyefest out on the deck like it was any other day off. Even though it is covered by a canopy, ( I call it the Burn Dyedeck for a good reason) yesterday (and today) was ridiculous at 104 degrees by noon. I really should have anticipated that soy wax would not behave in it's normal, docile and predictable fashion and that some colors would strike harder and faster while other would purely wilt as did yours truly. Even after a spell in the pool I was wiped out from heat. poached and not fit for much the rest of the day.

So no more day-long frenzys, going forward. I'll set up a few pieces in the early morning cool, leave them out to stew for the day and start all over again the next morning. I've converted a large cooler to a soda ash holding pot and there's plenty of white goods now with more coming in daily. Have to learn to pace myself.

And even further proof of my poached brains, I neglected to post in celebration of Colin's birthday. Jim went to great lengths to find a Carvel Cookiepuss ice-cream cake, and we gobbled it before it could melt. Mmmm... Ice cream cake for dinner.  Here's the birthday boy, my artistic accomplice.

past time to stop

I don't even want to know how hot it is. You just know it's time to stop when you start making messy mistakes. Oh, I know the red-headed devils always turn out to be my favorites but who needs a whole stable full of them?

Lots of mad scientist notions in play this morning - using up a bag of played out epsom salts  to carry dye powder. Mixing up pearl-ex gold and silver into binding solutions for some Pollock style homage. Several levels of bloody mud colorwise and a batch of silk prepped with wine vinegar because I had no white.

Some new approaches to finishing the fabrics too including decanting them from the mason jars and just letting them bake dry in the sun before any rinsing or washing.  Lazy labor saving devices for the most parts but dye batchers will call it wisdom. Time will tell and I am in no rush.

I found what might have been someone's hippy wedding dress in a bag back in the closet. A dimly recalled Goodwill purchase. Hastily deconstructed with scissors, now well represented in the jars. Lawn at it's best.

and now tea, plums and pooltime.

too hot to dye?

Not too hot for the dye or the cloth but too hot for humans. It's supposed to be 103 degrees out by midday so I spent the early morning just making preparations for tomorrows earliest hours (more triple digits are forecast) .

These are the wet samples that I hastily crammed into mason jars yesterday. The heavy markings are due to the lack of manipulation and a nice variable.

       All these are varying weights of linen and this cloth is FIERCE. My arms are tired from ripping. Most of the larger pieces have been put into the sauce and a few are in a soywax experiment. I'm trying to take advantage of the severe heat by settting a few pieces (with soywax chunks and crumbs folded in) out in the full sun in a black plastic garbage bag. Think it will get hot enough out there? Where are my crayons, now that I think about it....

dyefest prelims

It's been a long time coming! I snatched off little pieces from the box of goodies that arrived yesterday, let them soak in the soda ash solution all morning and plunged in the colors by lunch. They will poach outside on the deck in this heat for the rest of the day. Tomorrow morning we will see what is what....

truing up

My sense of balance gets disturbed when I try to leave a piece "as is"-  whacked, as it was, out of the whole cloth in the first place. Like an animal skin.

 I was in Autozone the other day and actually pulled two hideously expensive genuine chamois out of their packaging to find the outlines of the critters they came from. Not satisfying shapes at all and the thought of needling them had me cramming them both back into their tiny plastic capsules.

So the edges of this one have been determined but
I'm still undecided about mummifying (or not) but that beige has got to go and will most likely be painted, or maybe paved over if I can find some more loosely woven linen.

 the answer to my quest just arrived from Texas! Thank you Barb!

summers day off

I spent a few hours at the Honda dealership this morning. Seems like something in the airbag will kill you rather than save your life. Supposedly they fixed it while I stitched in the waiting room. A little girl about seven came to observe and, after a minute, asked me what I was doing as if she had never seen someone embroidering before. Sensing that she was asking just to be polite, I gave her the one word answer. She sniffed and sat down to poke at her device but kept an eye on the proceedings with no further questions. Maybe she looked it up.

 After a while, I ran out of white thread, packed up and wandered around the lot marveling at how most of the current models are so much bigger than my 01 Civic...and I still get better mileage than all but the hybrids.
From the opulent Crosstour, a fancy box of air, to the snappy little CRXsi which would surely land me in the pokey, they were all beautiful. I told the salesman that rather than choose between them, I would take them both when the first lottery check cleared. A man of faith, he gave me his card with a smile. 

And when I got home I spent the rest of the best part of the day drifting and dreaming here.

still on the wall

 


I'm kind of glad I didn't snatch this off the wall the instant it wasn't working. The blue part has something I want to pursue but don't know if I want it tussling with that gold piece.

"Consolation" is still in the hoops and I'm starting to be on guard for the stop signs.

It's brilliantly hot and bright outside, this late afternoon light bounces off the steep lawn and trees in the front yard...so different for the direct light in the morning.

I'm expecting some gift  cloth for dyeing sometime soon and am really looking forward to a dye day.

L’Heure Bleue

  The sun is gone, the stars are holding their breath and one can reach back in time at will but I am hollow-eyed with introspection and melancholy. Blue? Why not. I'm told it's my best color.

I have been listening to Will Patton reading "Nightwoods" by Charles Frazier and it never ceases to amaze me how the emotions and revelations of good storytelling affect me.

A question about how we first came to stitchery was posed on the QuiltArt list and, in response, I dug back into a story of my own invention  and shared it  remarking that all fiction has it's roots in someone's history.

Writing with intent is emotionally exhausting and it's no surprise how many authors were seen as crazy to start with or wound up that way eventually.

A glass of Lazy Girl, cool sheets, and the pine needle sachet balanced over my third eye..all will be well in the morning.

trying not doing

Nope..not happening. And I knew it wasn't happening when I first stuck that reconfigured chambray shirt up there when what I really want is another linen jacket to hack up. Wishful thinking won't get it done.
 I have recognized the difference between the work that  springs from a spontaneous confluence of mood, intent and materials, and the work that just tries too hard.

Looking back over stuff, I found perfect examples.
"Frida Brings Home the Bacon" literally fell out of the scrap jar when Jinx gave my glass fish bowl scrap jar a nudge and it smashed on the floor. I remember picking up the pieces one by one, shaking them over the trash basket for shards and laying them out on the table. 

I was really hooked on watching Frida and Diego on the Owl cam at the time, despite the tragedies,  I quickly wanted to follow up with another piece showing the chicks.  Contrived and studied is all I can see in the results, as cute as the little buggers are.

So the lesson for me today?  Fuhgeddaboudit trying to get from A directly to Z. Side trips, getting lost and stops along the way are mandatory.