more strata

Hope you're not bored with the series because there are 5 or six more.

This is one of my faves.Organza on commercial felt, the felt is very black and dense, thus creating a nice contrast with the organza.There's some hand stitching and machine stitching on them. The dialog between the hand and machine stitching is subtle, but visually interesting.

Moving on to some appealing finds. One to whet your appetite for color and pattern after so much black. :-)
From India, where else, Print color pattern
And one for laughs, in a world where all creators are perfect and they never f**up here's Craft Fail
Refreshing indeed!

neki desu


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wooo! me too

Visiting Fiona's blog i came across rosiepink . How could i resist? Look at those colors!
So i placed an order on Friday the 8th and it arrived yesterday the 12th. Absolutely brilliant, counting that there was a weekend in between and that it was coming from England.
Postal instant gratification exists :) Not only that, i also got kudos from them :) :)
While you're at Fiona's she's got an interesting post on Felt United and the international day of felt.
Guess what we all be doing?

neki desu

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8 big misconceptions about dyeing

photo by Liz Plummer

The other day the periodical alarm regarding dyes went off again.It has always annoyed me and the tales about how incredibly toxic MX dyes are have always amazed me. Yet everyone goes about the house happily spraying oven cleaner, window cleaner etc etc. etc without giving them a thought. The reasoning behind the lack of concern might be that as they are household products they are perceived as safe. WRONG! and yes i'm shouting.

Hand in hand with that myth, -excuse me you're not going to eat the powder as a spread or breath into the jar as you judiciously would not breath into any unknown jar, right?-the following go around and around in the ferris wheel of dyeing and they periodically re-surface causing varying degrees of alarm to new dyers and fiber artists.
And now without further delay and not in any specific order here they are, the MoD s - those magnificent myths of dyeing

• you should use hot water to dissolve MX dyes.

If you do that what you'll be doing is activating the dye making it react with the water before it can hit the fabric.It means waste of dye and weaker color yield.

• MX dyes cannot be used for silk.

Yes, they can be used, provided you use acetic acid as the auxiliary chemical. Colors are as bright as you are able to dye them.

• Avoid using soda ash with silk.

This is a half truth. While in strong solutions it may weaken and dull silk, weak solutions do not present problems. In fact silk is scoured using a mild soda ash solution in a number of short baths.

• Salt is needed to fix the dye.
  

Not really.What salt does is reduce the solubility of the dye in water and this favors the adsorption of the dye by the fiber.It also acts as a surfactant by suppressing the negative surface charge on the water so that the dye molecule can move towards the fabric and attach to it. (Knutson.p 51)

• Dyes have a shelf life and after that they are useless.

Another half truth. They will probably not work with cellulose fibers, but will perform satisfactorily on silk with acetic acid as the auxiliary chemical. Shelf life depends on the storing conditions, light and humidity. We too have a shelf life.

• MX can be used to dye in cold water.

Well, depends what you call cold. They need at least 70ºF(20ºC) to perform optimally as immersion dyeing.below that, you're throwing dye way and wasting your time.
And i will not discuss batching temperatures here as this is a topic all by itself.

• Fabric/fibers should be rinsed in hot water.

Not the first rinse. This one removes the salt and chemicals. Then you can rinse the fabric in hot soapy water until it runs clear. The last one -and this is me- should be with Synthrapol just to be sure there's no more unfixed dye.

• Natural dyes are greener and eco friendlier. Yes, provided you do not use any mineral salts as mordants. However there's a debate as the amounts and dilutions a home dyer uses will not change the eco system in ages. There's a personal choice here as with most things in life. Yet there's also the issue of toxicity in plants. Not all plants are made equal and being plants is not a synonym of being pretty and friendly. This is my all time favorite myth, seems that not too many have been attacked by a nettle plant :)
  

And the onions you may ask. Apart from the fact that their skins give beautiful oranges and yellows they also make me cry just like the above.

There is an excellent on line resource all facts as it is kept by a chemist. It's also a labor of love . If you have doubts about dyeing visit Paula Burch's site

neki desu


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spacing out and playing with sand

thisandthat.com

Won't be a bore. It will suffice to say i was able to recover the indigo vat. Now i have 2 vats going!!!

Changing gears and shifting to much needed R and R found a play page.Good for design ideas too. Click on the small square on the top right.
i love the soothing sound of shifting sand!
Thanks to Hobby Princess for the link.

neki desu

Change -a project

from this to this

i keep following this month's TIF concept with a twist.
Need a display case for your ATCs? Well, now you know what to do with a wooden wine crate! Buy cheap acrylic paint because you don't want perfect coverage. Thin it even more with water and paint carelessly, giving it a distressed look that goes well with the rough, knotty veiny wood.
Let it dry and that's it! Display your ATCs.
The bonus is that you need to drink all that vino :)

neki desu

autodenter

Warp already reeded, now some minor adjustments and it will be a weaving Easter.
This gizmo is an autodenter, a very high tech sounding name for a mechanical tool :) and it came from here.
It does make denting easier once you've tamed the beast, which tends to fall apart in the beginning as it comes with a built- in learning curve. It should also come with tranquilizers, but no such luck.
In spite of all the above once you master it it's easy to use and efficient.
Some recommendations:

• i've noticed it works better( imo) with denser reeds, 10-15 ends x cm. and thin yarns. Actually, for thicker yarns and wider spaced reeds there is no need for one.
• You have to control the side push or else you'll skip dents. Yes, that happens!
• i'd start with 20-30 threads tied to the back of the loom and practice till you get the swing of it as it can generate some stress in the beginning. Then when you feel confident move on to using it fully.

This is just a visual presentation of the tool. go here for a vid on how to use it.




neki desu

kakishibuzome

kaki kueba kane ga naru nari Horyuji
Masaoka Shiki 25-26/10/1895

I bite into a persimmon
and a bell resounds -
Hôryûji
(translation by Janine Beichman)


A bit early for persimmons, since it is a winter fruit. But i'm anxiously waiting for the return of a friend from Japan who is bringing me kakishibu or persimmon tannin juice.
Persimmon is sort of a wonder fruit and one of its wonders albeit not the most wondrous one is the dye. Beautiful shades of tan to brown are obtained by dyeing with the fermented juice. And as all things Japanese the relative ephemeral quality of the dye and its subtle changes is what makes it more treasured. Wabi- sabi aesthetics.

Waiting for the stuff to arrive and having had no experience using it i dedicated some time searching the net and found all kinds of relevant and delightfully irrelevant information. It is a potent disinfectant,insect repellent, waterproofing substance, treatment for survy and the list goes on. Not to mention its delicious culinary uses.
Relevant to dyes there is Kakishibui a company that sells the extract and has some wonderful examples of dyed fabric and clothes and this delightful Japanese webpage.

i have my fingers crossed hoping for an extension of hot summer days so that i can enjoy dyeing on my terrace.
Oh and i forgot! The color code for a persimmon color is persimmon color
HEX: #F94D0B RGB: 249, 77, 11

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

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