Three Good Things

1.) This boy


2.) This cheetah


3.) This scarf

My loom is shoved in a corner right now. The idea being, I need a break so that I can finish up some other projects, regroup, refocus. During the hours I don't waste in front of the computer screen (instead of finishing projects, regrouping and refocusing), I hang out with this kid, visit this cheetah at the Maryland zoo and ogle these beautiful scarves by Lynn of Loom on the Lake.

Also, I take Meyers Briggs tests and force my boyfriend to do the same.

ISFJ, if you're curious.

3 Things that are Happy 3 Things that are True

Happy

1.) Rachel arriving at the playground wearing aviators and bearing coffee to share while we played with my girls, Carmencita and Sylvia

2.) Singing Sacred Harp last night

3.) Sunshiney, warm days

True

1.) Focusing on happiness makes one happier.

2.) Papaver Vert is my favorite felt business in this country (and it is run by someone I met only briefly but admire very much).

3.) Drinking tea is better than sculpture class.

The overdyeing of that one scarf?

The one that was kinda boring?
Epic fail. Now it kinda just looks like a mouse pooped on it. Still more work to do on that one.

Today's project (interrupted by frequent Pinterest and Facebook procrastinations) has been to FILE my FACE off! I've had this filing cabinet that I picked up off the side of the road a couple years ago and I'd done an OK job of using the top drawer because it was all ready to go. It had its metal filing apparatus in there already and whatnot. The bottom drawer has just been a catch-all of crap I don't feel like dealing with (seriously, like, all the paperwork from a failed house-buying venture in 2007, bills that didn't get paid around the time of my mother's passing, but which have since been dealt with... serious drawer full of depression down there. And not using the Pendaflex system, I assure you.).

Who doesn't love icanhascheeseburger?

Anyway, I finally splurged on the $10.45 metal filing rack thingy that's used for hanging files (of course now I have an extra because you buy them in pairs) and I'm getting rid of some stuff, filing some stuff in a more spacious way in that bottom drawer and kicking butt, Carly-style. If you saw my studio (which is where the filing cabinet lives) right now, you'd probably guffaw. Yep. But I swear I've made leaps and bounds!

Natural Dyeing...the Next Steps

Here are some of the fabulous photos that Rachel took from our dye day last weekend. As I type this I'm over-dyeing a couple of the scarves that turned out a little less interestingly than I had hoped.


The alkanet root is really stinky so we put that dye pot outside and just ran an extension cord from the kitchen to the electric burner. Thankfully it wasn't too terribly cold out last weekend.


Get a load of these onion skins! That's only half of what I've collected over the past several months--I wanted to save plenty for the natural dye workshop that Rachel and I will teach next month.


The annatto seed was beautiful but very subtle, especially compared with the rich, gorgeous color we got from the onion skin and alkanet root.

So, I sat with the scarves and skeins for the week and decided to keep a couple of beautiful pale scarves as they were, but today I chose two of the less awesome pieces and did some more shibori (stitching and clamping as a technique to resist the dye) and am now dyeing them in a mixture of the leftover annatto and onion skin dye.

Perhaps I'll share how they turned out in the next post!

Natural Dyeing....First Steps

I've loved natural dyeing since I first learned how to do it with Louise Wheatley and Margaret Hluch when I was in college. I've explored it a little one my own since school, but frankly, I just never make the time. It's a multi-step process and "natural" does not equal safe, necessarily. There are a lot of precautions one should take while natural dyeing, particularly if doing so in your kitchen (which is what I'm doing). There are still chemicals involved in the dye process, even though it's called "natural." Chemicals occur naturally in the world, but that doesn't mean you should eat them. So don't eat or drink or smoke while you dye.

Tomorrow my friend Rachel (who is fabulous) will come over to have a natural dye party with me and I am tres excited. I'm getting ready by mordanting some scarves and a few skeins of Tencel for us to play with. I'm doing an alum mordant this time. That is, I'm preparing the fibers to better receive the dye and keep them more color fast by dissolving aluminum sulfate and washing soda in water on the stove and soaking several silk scarves and skeins in the solution for about 8 hours. Here are a few photos of the first steps. Hopefully there will be more tomorrow when we break out the onion skins, alkanet root, and annatto seed!

Washing the fiber in Synthropol.

Hanging to dry (but you've got to wet the scarves again before adding them to the mordant solution to ensure the mordant is evenly distributed).

Simmering the aluminum sulfate and washing soda.

This weekend...

Yesterday and today I've been working on this t-shirt quilt for some friends. They are a lovely couple with a brand new baby and they commissioned me to do it a while back (a couple of years, I'm embarrassed to admit) and it just never happened. Well, I'm finally getting around to it (and I have no intention of charging them--it's a gift, now!). Feels good to get this closer to checked off my list.


Did you notice the lovely new night stands next to the bed?! Chris made them for me for my Christmas present (which he finally gave me last night)! I won't lie. I really wish we could just do the Christmas thing on Christmas like everyone else in Christmas-celebrating world, but these bedside tables were totally worth the wait. Early V-day present, I guess?


In other news, here's my cat sleeping in a box,


and here's my new haircut,


and here's a method to tie on a warp that I will probably never use again.

Also? It's snowing! Crazy warm weather lately, but today it actually feels like February in Baltimore!

Hand Held

(borrowed this photo from the Sun)

Run to the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Do it now and see Hand Held: Personal Arts from Africa. This is an awesome exhibition curated by my friend (and former weaving student), Dr. Nichole Bridges. She has pulled gorgeous examples of artwork from the BMA's collection and put together a warm, inspiring, kick-ass show. It includes beautiful strip-woven textiles, tools of the trade (heddle pulleys!), combs, hairpins, vessels, chairs and more. It's arranged in such a way that you can MOVE and see all of the beautiful works up close and personal, which important because the show is all about stunning objects for personal use. You should imagine what it's like to hold this vessel in your hands, to rest your body on this head rest, to wrap your hair in this scarf...

The show closes on February 5th!! Go now!