on architecture

too hot to move even  in slow mode. stitching is pretty ideal for times like these. an old wip. the image was created during my digital printing period and printed onto silk organza.the kind of organza you can't find now, tightly woven, opaque and crisp.like what it's supposed to be.not the flimsy chinese one which looks like gauze and acts like starched gauze, ( _ _ ) then the print was attached to felt and laid to rest for the dream of the righteous aka the big sleep.it was found during these hot days ,you know the one about idle hands right? embellishments took place; finally using beads from my stash again.

 

which brings me to the architecture part: the architecture of my trip is all laid out. plane booked.traveling has changed since my trip in 018.one has to look at many factors bcse price is not really affected, it will be expensive. but if not eagle eyed you'll end up having a 12 hour layover for the same price of a two hour one.¯\ ( ツ ) /¯ another thing i learned was that round trip costs more than a multy city ticket which is a hands down advantage.you can land in one city and take off from another, saving on train fare and two hotel nights if you go back to where you landed. it worked beautifully for me . and that was what i really wanted to do when i started thinking about the trip.

staying at my fave hotel in kyoto, not at my fave in tokyo but close by on the hood. 3 nights in kamakura to see and ride the enoden train, my latest freaky hang up. it's going to be  a highly relaxing trip bcse ill be stationed in kyoto for 14 days ,taking side trips in the  kansai area.then kamakura and tokyo, of course.

neki desu

 

no time for losers 'cause we are the champions

lazy sunday stitching after the  champion's league hangover. even i who doesn't care for soccer.

hand  and machine stitching  on felt, digitally printed organza embellished with hand stitching.

eased into monday by stitching and baking cupcakes.

in the good reads dept: here's our past & our future history as textilians. enjoy!

neki desu

changing technologies

 trying to schedule some digi printing on fabric i found these two bottles of bubble jet set which i had bought in one of my trips to the states.you can tell how long ago this was as liquids were still allowed on board.

this was the,dare i say,only way back then to fix printer ink on fabric. it worked well, but sometimes there were issues with shelf life. one also had to be careful when ironing the fabric to freezer paper ( i have supplies of it to last my lifetime) as it would easily scorch or create air pockets.

one of the bottles is seven eighth full, the other remains unopened.

fast forward to now and golden digital ground  which have been around for a while now. easy, no iron, and one can tape the fabric to a paper and put it through the printer, hence avoiding the formation of air bubbles.

too bad technology hasn't advanced in adding hours to a day .

neki desu

waiting therapy

also known as procrastinating. have a bunch of beautiful excuses such as waiting for more heddles.

this is  free motion machine embroidery on needlefelt , hand stitching ,ai dyed commercial  knitted bandage, digitally printed organza and angelina fiber. also lots of fun while i wait.

neki desu

living again, but with a cold

something cool i made over at color lovers got me back in the swing. the pattern was digitally printed on silk organza and cut into strips with my brand new mini rotary cutter. just great to be working in a manegeable size again.

from a left over double weave warp in black and white i went back to photoshop, drew some wiggles,

threw on the dw presets et voila mesdames.

i am using the organza to weave blocklike areas, but since the pattern is wiggly the blocks are not square. no big deal , just wanted to do something fun to help me ease into the fall with lots of sewing lined up. not wanting to sound pompous, but will be further exploring double weave to the end of the warp.

and oh yes, the cold as they say over here i am like a soup-or- i have a soup.
 husband san came home one day totally blasted and three days later it's in/on me.

better now than in the winter when you feel miserable .

neki desu

work table serendipity

after yesterday's work this was the look of my work table. the photo has some photofun, the surface of the table is as it happened.

think i might print this on cloth and do some stitching.

neki desu
 

japan

still on my mind  and working on it.  heat shaped laminated plastics, stitching and painting.  digitally printed piece of poly organza with some stitching.
want to see if i can portray angst.


neki desu

putting the pieces together

 literally and figuratively. been  slowly working through  my sorrow for the  japanese  disaster and trying to put some sense to that.

also working with plastics and stitching. plus my machine knitting-this time wire- and rust.

the squares are handmade sisal paper from when i tried papermaking. what can represent japan more than handmade paper!

on the upper right corner there's a piece of  digitally printed poly organza. the image is of the ever present electrical wires that you see all over the sky in japan. all those wires get fed by the nuclear plants. to highlight the wires and as a design element there's some stitching using black silk thread.

turning a page.

more pieces. fearing that i sound  like the empress of gloom i'd like to comment on the demise of fiberarts mag.

i've been a subscriber for over 30 of their 34 years when they still published in black and white tabloid form.

 until it was sold, the mag was rob pulleyn's labor of love. there were some hard times, i remeber. but  he  thought creatively, the subscribers responded  and  he kept going on.

reason given was that there was not enough subscription mass.... seems that how- to recipe mags and vanity visit -my- studio -and- see- how- wow- it- is  mags are more profitable. and of course selling supplies. so you have to keep those recipe mags churning. has  the publishing company been struck by foxification ?

the demise is sad news for serious weavers as it was the only magazine along with textileforum which ran  in depth informative articles and kept tally of what was going on in the field worldwide.

along with the closing of weaving programs in many college departments the weaving critical mass will be reduced pretty soon  to a few  hard core members  of  the resistance.

i was offered a subscription to quiltart mag. sounds like the  oh you are a weaver! i do needlepoint type of conversation.

interpret my silence.

  neki desu

slowly adapting

to the change of seasons. there's  no direct sunlight in the terrace until one o'clock, so that's good and bad news in one shot.

i have some things on the proverbial back burner, slowly cooking. meanwhile i'm shifting focus and working with the image above.

this is a flame fractal generated with apophysis a wonderful freeware program. it  has  an incredibly steep learning curve, but it's worth learning. give yourself lots of time in order to create your own flames and don't expect instant results.

the image was printed on lutradur™ and it will become a surface piece with lots of stitching and various other treatments. 

doing mental workouts for the backburner stuff.

neki desu

archaeology

found this yesterday while organizing the studio getting it ready for some visits.

this is circa '96 .no big deal, but i find interesting  that it is a compendium of ideas that were  explored and developed in later works.

at that time i was working with photopaint and i'm pretty sure that version did not include layers. so with the resources i had at hand i had already started with a crude version of  the woven word. my weaving program did include overlays and i remember rotating and pasting the letters one by one and then overlaying the structure. i didn't know  about aspect ratio nor inclusive structures at that time. (thank you Alice!) nor i knew about resizing files. i just wanted to weave words.

i had also started stitching, very simple running stitch, remember feeling somewhat odd stitching on  handwoven fabric, a feeling still to be overcome. i wanted to use it as another layer of meaning, not content  with using it as a highlight. i  had already some years behind me doing shibori, and was trying to incorporate it to weaving as a product and a practice. the digital printing was a new practice that blew my mind at that time. all those images lost in time, paraphrasing  Roy Batty .

what i find most interesting is the development in time, everything that i've learned from then on without even noticing.working slowly, one day at a time, non stop. and yet there's still so much to learn ahead of me. the road is long and rich.

as a dear friend always says "sweetie, everything takes ten years"

neki desu
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preview of coming attractions

Or my newest love for iridescent chiffon. Among other new things :)

neki desu


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which way?

This way or this way?

neki desu


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and now some digital work

This post was the prelude to the postcard pictured here. The seamless pattern created in the tute was printed on tyvek and then stamped over in some parts with metallic paint.
Over the week i got a message from Arlee in which she generously offered to share some pages on lace embroidery which i very gladly accepted. The embroidery is well above my present skills, but nonetheless, it gave me some ideas and a new direction.
And here's the latest on the lace chronicles.

The week has flown between studying Japanese and joining teams and further exploring Etsy and it's possibilities. It is a lot more than a venue for virtual shops, that's just the surface. Lots of time also spent on Facebook trying to sort things out. Feels like having a 9 to 5 without a paycheck. LOL!

In planet weaving the scarf was finished 2 weeks ago, but i' mot cutting it until i finish the rest of the warp.This is called discipline and also trying to weave something for the complex weavers study group i'm in before i get kicked out for not submitting a project .
i feel i need a dyeing distraction session :)

neki desu



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1-2- cha cha cha

It seems that i have limited brain space and currently all of it is occupied by/with Nihongo and its intricacies.
i have been working on this series as on automatic writing. Just flowing out.
And it has taken Jude and MargB astute comments to put me on track and start making associations. DUHH!!
Curious to see what the effect of establishing all those associations will be.

For the time being here's the latest postcard. Lovely tyvek again. This time digi printed on an iridescent background. And pleated tulle, something i reclaimed from a postcard i made last year.
Check my Flickr for some explanatory notes on the card.
And if someone knows the name of those pom pom trimmings please leave a message.

Back to Nihongo.　ときょう　が　いちばん多きです

neki desu



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March TIF

Photofinishing March's TIF. Too many things happening and i guess that's a sign of Spring. Since the concept was the small things in life i wanted to work with lines and basic forms and started by way of animation
Then continued experimenting with doodles and i never got to post about them. In short here is the distilled concept, a spirograph image drawn on printed silk organza. The spirograph circle is like the mandala of life and the stitching is straight stitch and seed stitch, very basic stitches conveying the idea of simplicity. All of it on gray commercial felt. The choice of felt is because it's one of the basic textiles since the beginning of times and gray belongs to the trinity of basic colors black , white and gray.

Changing direction, the other day i got a comment presumably from the anti black background brigade. i have been pondering a blog makeover, but i don't think it includes changing the background color, the reason for black background being that photos look very well. You have to be a darn good photographer to have a white background and blogs with crummy photos are one of my pet peeves. As we are all approaching a certain age and textile people's vision ages more quickly than others :) there's a solution for dancing typography. You just hit control and+(CTRL+) and type becomes bigger and more readable.
Oh key shortcuts! whoever invented them deserves purgatory points :)

neki desu

What to do with a digi printed piece of silk organza?

The one that didn't print crisply and has been lying around for years. Getting shuffled from one place to another. From the top drawer to the bottom one because i can't bring myself to throw away a piece of silk organza.

Recycle! turn a UFO into something else, something different because one has made changes in two years.

The silk organza print was a project for a submission to a juried show whose jury never saw. scanned a lace doily and assembled it with a fractal image that i created and then printed it.i Wasn't happy with the outcome so i dropped the project.
Last summer i was testing iron on transfers for an end of the year present to my Japanese classmates and i used the piece to test the transfer on. Figured that being a discard it wasn't going to get ruined. Done and moved on, yet i could not bear to throw the jinxed fabric away.

A couple of weeks ago i found the piece again and since it was a f.up i cut it up and used it ad a base for needlefelting. i liked what was happening to it so i stepped on the gas, ignoring the speed limit and went for a joy ride :)

This was the first one.
And here comes number two

My doubt is whether to tag this as a UFO or a WISP.

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

the gift of time

With time, finally, in my hands some of it will be devoted to clearing UFOs.
This is the first installment. Silk organza digitally printed with a fractal image and then embellished with some stamping and stitching. i have some doubts about it though.


neki desu

my brain feels like mashed potatoes without the gravy

i've been studying so hard for my Nihongo test that i'll go nuts if i don't take a break and do something else. So here i am in front of the computer,in a sort of occupational therapy mode.
The images are from the new series im working on -Shibori Twins where i've been experimenting with a few techniques and doing some fabric recycling. i went wild printing and stamping on a perfectly nice silk habotai shiboried scarf that did not meet the grade, but still good for cut and paste.The designs take advantage of the shibori motifs.

Here is what happened to the gum arabic tutorial fabric. i added digitally printed organza with fractal motifs and freeform embroidery.My first try at free form and if i overcome the fear of wrecking my sewing machine it will turn into a fun thing.


This is a detail of the fun part




neki desu

Life, questions and the art of living

As a follow up from yesterday's post about my dobuts and questions about following one's voice i got a message from Annica at Fabulous Threads with a link to Bruce Mau's Incomplete Manifesto.
If you've followed the discussion all i can say is to check it out because it adresses some of my questions and then some more. In want of an analogy it is like a shot of good sparkling wine, or water for abstemious folks. Enjoy!

Today's illustration is a textile design i made months ago and will eventually get digitally printed, although i think that it needs to be simplified for a home printing job.

neki desu