life is but a walking shadow

These are silk organza pictures no bigger than 20 cms.i love working with silk organza albeit the difficult it is to photograph. The photo has some photoshopping, but the work was not touched up, Organza dyes beautifully,though and you can also selectively degumm it to add more visual interest. This picture is a collage of sorts and the dots were computer generated and then digitally printed.

i used freehand watercolor crayon drawing on both and it adds a nice texture that contrasts with the stitching.The watercolor crayons can be smudged with a wet brush,the degree of wetness afecting the blur and smudge of the crayon. this in the end has to be fixed with an appropriate fixative.

neki desu

Tags: surface design, stitching, digital printing

of tags and tagging and labels

In my world these were tags and labels.Until not so long ago.
Then I discovered the real use of Tecnorati and discovered delicious and tags
became something else.Less to do with clothing and fiber content
and more to do with ,classifying, ordering, proiritizing visibility.
Which reminds me this is the beautiful blog of Nuno. Incredibly inspiring images of Porto-enjoy.

neki desu

Tags: tags, tagging, labels

a little gem

neki desu

Tags: japanophilia

true black and a visit

Karren Brito stopped by and then commented on her blog. Now we know for sure Dylon works. It may not be cost effective for big quantities, but for a couple of meters or half a kilo of silk yarn it works. The protocol is the same as for MX on silk, add acetic acid. I have a chemist shop around the corner and I get glacial acetic acid from them so that's what I use.
Here's the link for dylon with some very interesting info. As I said their black is reliable and their pewter grey
is fantastic for overdeying. So are the reindeer and desert dust beiges. For dyers who are still crying over the demise of chino I would suggest trying them. Here are some silk yarns dyed with dylon The top one is 120/2 silk and the bottom one is silk bourrete. It is not as black as the other because of the kind of yarn, but it is blacker than the picture.

I thought it would only be fair to include a pic of the much commented disaster. Believe me,it is much worse.A strange thing I noticed that after ironing it for the photo most of the pink haloing on the white stripes had subdued. Any ideas on this?

neki desu

Tags: dyeing

stormy weather

Arashi means storm and we have had a lot of that recently.It was forseeable after such a hot summer.I just finished a translating job and decided to work on this project that had been pushed to the back burner.Shibori silk to use as insets for my red top.Right! that one that has been sitting around all summer long.Well, the pattern has already been made and the fabric cut to it so it's really not that bad.
One thing I discovered was that a black MX dye that had been reported in various forums as being it didn't meet the grade, separating and haloing during immersion dyeing like crazy. Back to my trustworthy never failing Dylon black.

neki desu

Tags: dyeing, shibori

contrary to perception

As many things in life this picture is not what it seems.It is a paper tablecloth.
This was good an excuse as any other to reflect on that concept.
Yesterday I took my "real black" dye and shiboried and dyed a piece of silk hoping to get super black on white.This will later become inserts for my red top which is in process right now.
To make a frustrating loong story short" real black" my eye. It dyed with a hideous reddish overcast. Will have to overdye with navy to try and kill the red.

neki desu

Tags: dyeing, shibori

now this is wearable art!

I discovered this Japanese site and I think everyone working with textiles should take a look.
It's not the ever Japanophile expressing her views,the clothes are objectively beautiful.

neki desu

Tags: japan, wearable art, japanophilia