hot august, cool sweets

Japanese food goes with the seasons in taste and looks and confectionery is famous for its seasonal looks. Here is a proposal for the month of August. You can see all the year here
This is July, but click on the link just above the number 7 to get the whole year.

Enjoy!

neki desu

origami, itajime and other common japanese words

The other day i checked Karren Brito's blog and found this interesting post on origami shibori.
i don't have the book she mentions, but i do have an origami book so i figured folds don't care whether they happen on paper or on cloth.
Looked for the book and then devoted 2 days to the exercise of folding and sometimes clamping(itajime) fabric to be dyed.
It is controlled fun as Monica Geller would say.

Made 2 or 3 samples one of them a small silk crepe itajime that is being presently embellished.
Here is one of the finished samples, cotton and the white squares are silk crepe. A lot less baroque this one oi?

neki desu

TAST 30- buttonhole wheel stitch

This week's TAST stitch was a riot! i would like to use it along with eyelet and buttons to create a heavily baroque surface. Go easy on the fabric and let the stitches do their thing.
i used sewing thread, hand dyed perle cotton, some silk noil, spun silk and wool. The wool was especially good to work with because it has "tooth" and it stays put. The silk noil didn't behave at all and was discarded for the exercise.

Can't believe it, week 30 and i have only missed, actually given up, on just 1 stitch.
Will be on my "to do in the future" list.

neki desu

slowly cooking with saudade

Confession time.
i had concocted my own homemade myths for example among others, crossing ponte Luiz
over to Gaia and frangipanis. This became a recurrent, very Freudian dream in which i was able to grow Frangipanis in my terrace. This was also a criteria i used for establishing whether i could move to a place or not. Lisbon, fine there are frangipanis there, Canary islands no problem. Actually 2 years ago when i was there i went all the way to the boonies to a garden center and bought 2 plants.
The lady at the garden center was very nice. but warned me that this was no go in Barcelona and i smiled and replied to leave that up to me.
Slightly arrogant girl my husband said.

So i schlepped the plants back on the plane looking like a bad case of look who's coming to the city from the farm. And i became dedicated and devoted to the plants
in the meantime producing some artwork using tropical flowers as motif/motive.
They survived their first winter inside the house with plant lights. And this year the bigger one graced me with flowers.

Curious as it is more coincidences, the book that revolutionized my weaving has an exercise using a photo of frangipani.I figured it had to be an extra special book(and it is).
So, no more recurent dreams,it is real. Will have to find more leitmotivs now.
While writing this i'm also cooking for some friends and listening to Mariza and fados, ci mancarebbe altro!

neki desu

rice flour resist update

Did some testing yesterday with rice flour resist. Although difficult to control it gives a nice crackle. Difficult in that:

• harder to see when dry because thin coats dry translucent
• less resistant to water/wetness
• needs a heavier coat or maybe 2 thin ones .

Despite that it's a nice addition to anyone's bag of tricks. The sample above is Pebeo setasilk silk paint on a recycled silk habotai shibori that went off the track.

On to other matters. As far as i'm concerned i need some sort of warm-up when i go to the studio, and blogging and checking the mail simply does not do it for me. Actually they are more of a distraction than anything else. You know, there goes the morning and i'm still at the computer doing one thing or another.

i was delighted this morning when i discovered Practically Creative net
i found a wonderful tutorial that can act as a 10 minute warm up exercise to ease you into studio work.
There's another one that i found useful as an unblocking tool
Both tutorials are useful and fun. What more can one ask for.

neki desu

TAST 29-arrowhead stitch

Arrowhead stitch is fun and one can play endlessly with it.A future challenge would be to create curves and curvy wiggles with it. Elisabeth of Quieter Moments has some wonderful curvy explorations.

i used DMC embroidery cotton, Stef Francis silk noil and Zwicky silk thread that i bought years ago in Lausanne. Strange enough i have not found any web site for them. Also included is a bit of Mokuba narrow grosgrain ribbon and some loosely spun silk .

i'm witing this using Explorer (UGGHH) and not my usual server as half of Barcelona is immersed in chaos due to a mega power failure. We are lucky to have had ours restored a while ago.
And so she dashed to the computer for her fix.

neki desu

can someone stop the girl?

Found this Barbie doll lace with bits of silver and could not refrain from adding it to this one. Guess i'll call it a work in progress. More to come???

About finds and works in progress this link can keep you playing for hours. If you like David Hockney's photo collages and studies in fragmented reality here you can make your own. Thanks to Sharon B for pointing the way.

neki desu

the ant and the grasshopper all in one

The rusted fabric. i'm producing background fabric for the winter like the little ant of the fable, but i'm also having a ball like the grasshopper.
The fabric here is cotton and i didn't do much to it except lay the bolts and nuts on it and keep it moist for 2 days. Will it hold up for centuries without rotting away? i won't so i really don't care! Enjoy the moment.

neki desu

busy , busy

Me and the piece. It's one of the fabrics i used for the resists comparison.Always happens,start zen and end baroque.i over stamped it with an old Indian wooden block.The funnest part was doing seed stitch to bring everything together.Did it work out?
The quality of the light in the photo is a lot better than usual.I t was taken outside under the parasol which gives a nice diffused light.

neki desu

although hard to believe i'm a weaver also

Been carried away by instant gratification and doing just a little weaving. But first and foremost i am a weaver. Boy that's a statement!
Here is the second of the Holes series. i'm installed at Undoland. You know when the curve is not curving gracefully and you see it 5 centimeters afterwards? And this is weaving at 50 picks per centimeter give or take.
Yet this is love and i keep thinking about the next one in the series which will incorporate some surface design.
A side thrill is weaving with my Japanese silk shuttle and bobbins.

neki desu

living on the terrace under the parasol

Taking advantage of the cool summer, very pleasant for Barcelona. But trying to get things done. This is another one of the crackles halfway completed. i don't like to publish incomplete work however i made an exception here.The trimming to be used is dyeing and there's going to be a black and white shibori patch.The person who envisions the way it will turns out wins!
Checked Sharon's blog this morning for this week's stitch and it's another easy, fun one. Goody won't ever come indoors!

There's also cotton fabric rusting on the terrace ( thanks Lynda for answering my SOS) And a new indigo vat fermenting away. The previous one got too too fermented and it spoilt.
Strike one and counting.

neki desu

TAST 28- sheaf stitch

i skipped the previous TAST which was bullion stitch.Too many problems with it at once and hey! i'm officially on vacation.
This week's sheaf stitch was better, although i had bleeding problems. But that's the thread's fault and not the stitch. It's also a bit too busy, but again, that's the fabric and not the stitch. Wanted to use that fabric badly before it turned into a pumpkin. i'm going through a heavy dyeing phase taking advantage of the summer weather and doing lots of sample dyeing. More about that tomorrow.

It's a fun stitch with lots of possible variations. i discovered (DUH!) that using the stab method one can add more stalks to the stitch. i'm still on tenter hooks concerning the sewing and the stab methods as i don't know the whys. Sometimes the stab method feels like cheating.

Threads were silk noil from Stef Francis, DMC verigated cotton single and double stranded and some odd perle cotton remnant.


neki desu

state of grace

Happy here. This one went like sliding on banana peels. Effortless, one go no stop until the end. It felt good for a change to have no doubts.The background is polenta crackle + discharged and stamped and over painted with some opalescent green paint. The gorgeous ocher fabric is from an American lady friend, Penny Mora, who lives in Madrid. It just brought everything together. The stitching was free and fun, no pretense here. There's some more on the background just to add slight visual markings.

After such exhilaration i have to sit down and start doing some drawing. One cannot live on serendipity land forever,

neki desu

poor girl indigo

Or how to turn 2 flops into a relative success.

Another summer of total indigo flop.Fermented it has and it smells awful,but it hasn't reduced. To combat frustration i took this scarf from the YUCKK pile and dyed it itajime style. It was in the YUCKK pile because i warped it for double weave one layer in unmercerised cotton and the other in silk hoping for collapsed. It did not happen, well it did but in such a slight way that it does not merit to be called collapse. It is more of a texture, the warp stripes on the sides in cotton slightly ribbed and the checks in the center slightly raised. The scarf had also some weaving flaws.

Nothing to lose.Bought dark blue Dylon which funnily it's not listed on the website and tried some clamping without much thinking. The color is much more indigo looking than in the photo.In the end it came out well and i have claimed another one from the pile.
The photo is not one of my bests but i sort of liked the color scheme.

neki desu

flour resists

Lately i have been experimenting with different flour resists, started out by using Complex Cloth's mashed potatoes resist recipe, then went on my own. i have experimented with a mixture of cornmeal and cornstarch paste and rice flour paste to get a crackle textured background. As it was experimental i kept it simple by using fabric paints instead of thickened dyes and used scrunch dyed cotton fabric dyed with procion MX.

My personal conclusions:

• The mashed potatoes recipe gives a very flexible paste, good for stamping, not too good crackle.
• The rice flour paste if very thin gives an interesting veiny crackle.
• i used a rice flour layer, sponged paint on it , let it dry, re covered with more paste and re painted it with another color. This gives depth in the crackle.
• Cornmeal and cornstarch paste gives an interesting granular crackle- my favorite.

Tips:

• rub the paint to create splotches within the crackled surface.
• use two different colors for more visual texture.
• use metallic paints for extra zing.
• work in layers- interesting results can be obtained.
• different crackle effects can be obtained if the fabric is dried stretched or flat.
• a bit of tugging on the bias when the fabric is dry improves the crackle. Ditto fro crumpling.
• if you get an amazing crackle scan it and digitalize it so you can print it on fabric and use it again!

i want to get cassava flour and experiment with it. Most of the batik cloth from Africa uses it as a resist. And while on the African topic check this site out.
Let me know of your experiments.


neki desu

blue indigo from purple missus

Look what i got today! And in my favorite color! Purple Missus must have read my mind. The photo does not do justice to the piece. It is rich in subtleties and full of drama. Thank you Lynda!

neki desu

more UFOs

Finished this one yesterday celebrating Tanabata.Recycled shibori silk in shades of black and white and the small rectangle in pinks and yellows. Some commercial silk and hand stitching for a bit of spunk.The small rectangle is outlined in machine stitching using a double needle (for the first time). Fun!

neki desu

today is Tanabata

One of the most beautiful and romantic Japanese legends is that of Tanabata. For me it is especially moving because it talks of a weaver princess.It is also the festival of lights and a celebration of the solstice when people all over Japan carry lanterns and write good wishes on pieces of paper.

neki desu

i can really get used to this

Having time. Some time for experimenting. Bread baking.
Completing UFOs.
This is a spin off of the bottom one. Recycled silk stamped and stitched using weaving silk yarn.



This one is recycled handwoven silk crepe dyed and stamped. i cut out the hibiscus image from a digitally printed organza piece and tried assorted stitches learned from the TAST challenge.
Different silk doupioni threads and DMC cotton.
The piece was begun last winter during my hibiscus phase. Not that it has faded out, but it is less acute during the summer.

Oh btw i got a C this term in Japanese.


neki desu

a little help from cyberfairies

Yesterday i was enjoying some surfing time when i discovered
the 3 minute egg
It's an excellent resource for when one gets stuck and needs the proverbial kick in the butt. After this, i think, there are less if not no excuses for creative block.
Enjoy.

BTW no post without image.This one is a fractal kanoko shibori!

neki desu

TAST 26 and life

High drama.Finished the translation and almost lost my marriage arguing over word choices.
Stitchery as an unwinding resource. It works!

TAST26 half chevron offers a lot of possibilities. i started out and the motifs were somewhat skewed no matter what i did or how i marked them . Then i realized the fabric had problems, one side longer than the other. Weavers know that this means tension problems while warping.
Nonetheless i had already dyed it,no big deal, and had already started stitching, big deal here.
So i went with the flow, remember this was a -let's- unwind- a- bit -project .
It turned out not totally horrid, had a pleasant something.
So here it is cop out master.
i used scrunch dyed cotton, cotton thread, silk thread and loosely plied silk. There's also a bit of couched rayon ribbon from Mokuba . This incredibly lucky soul has a shop a block from her place!

neki desu