a summer full of nuances

summer is closing and friends are coming back to town. this morning had a catch up breakfast and my posting routine got pleasantly altered.

here's another 6 month shibori. it lived for three weeks in december in the pomegranate soup on my balcony. the molds in the liquid, the invisible friendly foes, did their thing .when i took the scarf out from the soup i almost fainted when i saw those dots. but then thinking about it it was kind of cool getting random patterning with no effort, sort of mindless patterning.

thinking along those lines i wrapped  some onion skins and let them to act as freely as they wanted. by then it was already february.the scarf spent spring  quietly developing some of its  qualities.

and then came summer. and ai. and dip one  and two and three. and still too pale.




















i started wondering about boosting the blue up with mx dyes which in the end i did.








 and here you have the whole number

 very pleased with the outcome. and i'm being coy :) hope you could all see the color nuances.

it will be in the shop tomorrow

neki desu

the little urchin-finale

the little urchin

the stages:

pomegranate layer

onion skins

ai

the finale:

 colors changed with the different manipulations, after all it took over 6 months to complete, with the dyes resting in order to develop.the ai layer didn't work as i wanted therefore i overdyed with mx dyes. purists abstain from looking :)

 still not sure whether to iron it flat or leave the textures.What do you think?

 i'll be adding it tomorrow to the shop along with a better color rendition photo because there's a bit more yellow than what  came out.



neki desu

is more, more?

following some sage advice i received i took a piece of cloth and let myself go. i had just two things in mind whatever the outcome  it was going to become a  much needed needlecase and i was going to use colors i don't normally use.the basic where is it going was already there ( -_o )

there were no preconceived notions about techniques, shapes materials nada, blank page.

opened drawers bursting with materials and in the end decided on wool roving (yes, in the middle of a heat wave)choosing what i call underwear pink
yuck!(>0<).
as a result it almost had to be needlefelting and i got going.

the felting layer was mindless work, but what if i add some free motion stitching to it? hate that pink- i ended in the hot pink spectrum laced with purple. what if i  embellish some of that iridescent chiffon?and beads oh yes, beads! hmm i need to pull it all together, the human touch of hand stitching. of course now that i am the self appointed master of bullion knots let's throw some in  and seed stitch to give some highlights and texture. functionality; how is it going to close? something simple a ribbon to wrap around. a bead at the end acting as a sort of closure. and then satin stitch all around. note: i stopped close to blue, but not quite, it's on the teal side, towards the green (  >0< )

 no pressure, no hesitation about when to stop.it was almost exhilarating. think i'll incorporate this kind of work as a routine exercise when the going gets tough. lots of  painless decisions ie.effective thinking, downplaying   the importance of techniques-they're just words in a lexicon.

besides chocolate gratification i needed something more. chance had it i found a link via the digital  designers group in stitching fingers.

a thank you gift for all you supportive people here is the free brush creating  application livebrush   which comes with hardly a learning curve and  will get you to those places or at least will give hours of fun.

and believe me almost all the gorgeous fabrics and designs out there that fill you with doubts about your work happen with a lot of help from the machine if you know what i mean(-_o)

 have a fun weekend!

neki desu