devorè revisited

looks pretty unappealing oi? wire knitted  and linen knitted together in a technique called plating.

each yarn knits on one side so you have a *double knit *the technique presented some issues that i'm sure practice will sooth.also tested a thicker cotton yarn with the wire at the top.being thicker, the cotton covers the wire better.

linen and mono-filament, my latest best friend.

 the devorè part using fiber etch.

 the linen mono-filament needs more tweaking in terms of temperature.if hot enough to dissolve the linen it will melt the mono filament :(

wire presents no problem. however the frayed edges need some treatment to appease the architects surrounding me. or not. next will be aging the wire.

had tried devorè on some woven silk linen pieces time ago and on commercially woven silk linen fabric.

 all the knitting activity is because i'm waiting for more heddles to arrive.the thinner the yarn i use the shorter i am on heddles. and to think my dobby loom is just 70 ms wide.

on the life in general department started aqua gym this week.quite a workout!

and got great tickets for the opera.thrilled that in my new town one can enjoy opera without having to sell either the firstborn or the spouse or both.

neki desu

rusting 101 June TIF

My rust story for June TIF. i found my old tjantings while shifting stuff around in my studio.When i was still fielding my way into surface design i started doing batik, but couldn't be bothered with ironing off the wax. In fact as i hate ironing i knew i'd never become a batik artist. Nonetheless i had bought assorted tjantings, the good copper ones, and MX dyes. Those got me into dyeing, while the tjantings rusted away.

Oh that lovely patina on copper, that's what i want! This is my project!
i took some of the copper wire knits i have been trying and added acetic acid and salt. But it didn't work.Then my friendly chemist from around the corner suggested what's used here to decrust (is that English??) calcium encrusted taps,faucets toilet bowls and and voila mesdames, lovely patina i got! It is a potent and vile substance called salfuman. Don't ask me the name in English as i haven't been able to find it.

Ok now how does one give that idea a textile body? Think. Think more. And time was fiercely ticking away as i remembered i had some linen and silk fabric as a permanent resident of my stash. Why not use it and destash a bit?

The fabric was dyed first in an alkaline bath for the linen and then in an acid bath for the silk because i wanted the silk to be more saturated in color than the linen. i was pleased as the color came out very similar to the patina.
The next step was to do some sort of reverse shibori.This was accomplished by masking some lines and brushing Fiber Etch to burn away the linen. This Fiber Etch has also been a long time resident of my supply stash.

As a final step i located one of-if not the -last pleating shops in town and had them custom pleat the fabric.
You can see the result. The shawl is very simple, but has a lot of movement.

All in all this has been a challenge albeit a fun one. Conceptualizing while destashing or vice versa.
i could not refrain from giving one of the photos a cross process look so it would also look rusty and aged. :)

neki desu