Houston, Here I Come!

Starting Wednesday, I will be vending in Booth #564, selling hand-dyed natural yarns in small skeins --- perfect for surface design techniques --- and a selection of my original, signed and numbered postcards. I'll also be helping Virginia Spiegel in the FFAC booth selling postcards to raise money for the American Cancer Society. If you see me, say hi!

P.S. Thanks to Cherie Brown for offering me her extra ticket to the Bernina Fashion Show!

More dyepot fun

I just love this yarn! Initially it was dyed to a light blue --- boring. Then I tied some resists in it and overdyed it in the coreopsis dyepot, thinking it would turn a variegated green & blue. Instead, the coreopsis is old enough that it is dyeing more orange than yellow, so I got a blue & orangey-brown variegated yarn --- rather ugly for my taste. Last attempt --- another resist pattern and another overdye with blue. Voila --- a great variegated yarn!

This is a piece of Kona cotton that I folded and tied in a resist pattern and tossed in the blue dyepot. I think it has possibilities...

Beeswax

Yesterday I had a fun afternoon playing with beeswax. I melted a combination of beeswax and paraffin in an electric skillet, then used a brush to apply it. I was working on backgrounds on pieces for an upcoming exhibition. The piece above is my favorite after the first two rounds of waxing. Next will be the addition of some color.....stay tuned.

Studio Shots

We seem to be having an expose on studio spaces, so here is my contribution --- without any pre-cleaning. I currently work in one of the upstairs bedrooms, and it is waaaaay too small. But the upside to that is that it forces me to work efficiently, and when I start to get overwhelmed with too much stuff, I clean out and condense. If I had more room, I know I would have more supplies.

From this...

to this...

This is one of the newest set of postcards that I am working on. I still have beading to add to the others and who knows what else. I will be taking these to Houston, along with other new postcards, to sell in booth #564. After Houston, if any are left, they will be on my website for sale.

Last of the Blues

The dyepots are winding down for the winter. As much as I enjoy natural dyeing during the growing season, I also look forward to the break from it during the winter. It gives me a chance to concentrate on stitching and knitting instead.

This photo is of some wools and bamboo dyed light blue on the right, and some wool, silk, and bamboo on the left that was dyed green with the chrysanthemums, then overdyed with a quick dip in blue.

Textures, Textures, Textures

This is a collage of several photos that I took on my downtown photo expedition. I was on the lookout for textures, lines and grids.

Kay Sorensen's Art Quilt

Kay Sorensen announced on the QuiltArt list ..... "Quite a few years ago I made a very interesting quilt. It's 18" by 420". It's done with a variety of 1.5" strips of hand dyed fabrics. One side is various greens, yellows and golds alternating with neutrals that can loosely be classified as browns. The other side is various reds, pinks and oranges alternating with neutrals that can be classified as grays and blacks."

How do you hang a 420" long quilt? She purchased a 126" long heavy bronze curtain rod and looped it over the rod, then hung it over the archway from her sunroom to her kitchen.

Since Kay doesn't have a website or blog, I offered to post the photo here for everyone to see. Thanks for sharing, Kay!

Light & Shadow

I love the way the sunlight has cast shadows from these tree trunks onto the concrete wall behind. If you look closely, you can see that there are also the remnants of vines spiderwebbed on the face of the wall. Inspiration is all around us --- if we just take the time to notice.

It's Finished!

"20 Squared"

This is the piece that started out with the black images of an old Model 20 Singer sewing machine. Next I added the gold images of the same machine from a different viewpoint and some text from an old advertisement for the machine. This piece is for the "Altered Views" exhibition.

The Mysteries of Natural Dyeing

These are the chrysanthemums that I harvested for the dyepots.

This is the extracted dye liquor.

And this is the finished yarn --- dyed a gorgeous teal green.
Last year I obtained a beautiful lime green from this same plant's flowers.
This is what makes natural dyeing exciting for me!

Cochineal Skeins

Once again, it is raining here --- has been raining all day. So it seemed like a good day to rinse out the cochineal skeins. Only issue with doing this on a rainy day is that I then needed to rig up an indoor drying system. So far, so good.

Summer Sunsets

Yesterday I spent the majority of the day with my son, taking photographs of interesting architecture and graffiti around the downtown area. We shot some fabulous photos, and I have plenty of inspiration for a new architectural series. As evening approached, we walked around the lake where we live and took sunset photos. Seemed like a gorgeous end to an enjoyable day!

On The Design Wall

This is today's view of the design wall. This is a piece in the beginning stages for an exhibition called "Altered Views". The background squares are hand dyed cotton, and the images are screened from a photograph I took. Any ideas on what the original image is?

Last Vestiges of Summer

These are the remaining dye jars from this summer's harvest --- a few coreopsis, cosmos, goldenrod, catalpa leaves, and black walnut leaves. I also have a 5 gallon bucket of black walnut hulls still soaking and dyeing.

And these are some of the last few Roma tomatoes left on the vines. Hopefully they will ripen before the first frost. I've already harvested the other tomato varieties for green tomato jam.