June TIF

June TIF is a challenge. It's about potential, about becoming, about transformation, about possibilities.
We all work with materials that are transformed, sometimes coaxed into something else.
A hairy mass transforms into yarn. Yarns and threads stop being linear and become tri dimensional, white fabric gets dyed, cut and shaped. Materials alter their look by getting distressed in so many ways...

i have been thinking lately of how the stitching that i learned last year from the TAST challenge
has slowly found a place in my work, sometimes more successfully than others.
And all the techniques that i've come across with have stopped being just techniques and have also filtered down adding new vocabulary to my work, trying to be part of it, not just sitting on top.

It's an exciting process from learning to production, from borrowing to digesting to incorporating.
Although i'm not sure yet where i'm going. So don't follow me. :)

neki desu

ode to domesticity : sample, sample, sample

It's Tuesday, the bread machine is churning away and i've just finished untieing the loom controlled shibori sample. It will be this summer's indigo vat victim, if the vat runs well, that is.
i'm not well known for my sampling, an activity i have a dislike for. But lately i've come to bite the dust as i have no other option. Or is it that finally i've grown up?

This is a lovely 20/2 cotton with a 20 singles weft from a Japanese company (surprise, surprise)
that had a mill near Girona. The company closed down some years ago and my friend got hold of some yarn cones for me.
The supplemental weft was a bit thicker than what it should have been and created that lacy effect.
i'm not sure if i like it or not. Also in the not sure department is the white background. It is too white for the bold blue motifs and i'm thinking about dyeing it a very light blue before gathering the shibori weft.
The loom is already warped so there's no chance of dyeing the skeins. Therefore i'll test the blue background by doing some p-shopping to it. Bless the program for color sampling!
i said i had no option but sample, but this means warp the loom and weave 20-30 cms, cut and move on..Not like regular sample champs who put on a whole warp for this sole purpose.

i'm also not crazy about the baby doo-doo color of the borders. This was what i got from the murasakizome. No beautiful deep, rich purple here. After 10 i lost count of the dips and was still not getting there. Even bought bottled water as i think my tap water is very hard and heavily chlorinated too.
Hopefully the indigo will take care of the color and add some interest to it.

Now i have to weave the shawl, which is on the 12 shaft table loom. My romance with this loom continues.
i think i have definitely grown up.

neki desu

is this firenze?

Well, no. This is the view from the bridge in Girona, a short one hour and a half pleasant train ride from Barcelona.
Every time i go there i like it more, it's full of among others, interesting photo opportunities. i'll let you with some of the photos i took last week.

Today i needed to shift focus -pun intended- and do something else away from studio work, which has been pretty intense lately.
There's a lot of p-shopping- don't know where i read you can't use the word as adjective, sue, sue, ue, because it is proprietary. Weren't it ironically sad it would be hysterically funny given the orphan works bill.
The colors are intentionally off as a result of applying a cross processing action.

Beautiful belle epoque iron grill.

an alley in the jewish ghetto, one of the best restored in Europe.

an old fashioned menswear shop

colorful wall with a blurry effect to soften it a bit

neki desu