Turning Point

It came to me that a spiral of couched yarn might fit well here: I am liking this much better, now.

Contemporary Woven Boro is over and I am left with a deepened appreciation of fabric and how it can be put together, as well as of Jude Hill's dedication, knowledge and experience through her making. What a gift! Also, I mentioned Magic Bobbin Washers in a previous post and I am using them after experiencing some machine problems and the problems have cleared - so it seems they were a worthwhile purchase.

A few days ago I decided to combine weaving fabrics with holes and machine stitch to see what that is like. The back ground ribbed fabric is a kind of thick cotton and the rest is silk dupioni and cotton velvet. I used triple, free motion, and satin stitches and the overall result is thick and soft but I don't particularly like it - especially not the area around the focal point where the free motion stitch hardens the fabric. And when I went to clean my cutting board, I remembered a technique my CWB classmate, Helen, taught us and gathered up all the thread and fabric lint bits and sewed them together into a thread bead. Fast, fun and waste free!

I've also begun adding stitch to this one and did some decluttering and organizing in the studio. Alot of little piles of fabrics having conversations are piling up!

And I basted more of this and have another block for it in the design stage.

One block at a time...

The snow and flowers are reflecting movement towards spring, with it's unpredictable changes in weather.I made some colourful holes of my own as part of the Mark Making With Machine class - something I've wanted to try for a long time and hadn't gotten to until now.

This palette of pieced silks with some of my snow dyed linen also seems to reflect the changing season.

And I made a few more woven blocks. Contemporary Woven Boro will be over in a few days and I still have much I would like to do.

Pinwheels and Pins and Needles

This contemporary boro block is basted ready for stitch. It's a mix of linens, cottons, silk and velvet. The light triangles are natural dyed, although alot of detail is lost in this photo. And today's snow dye crop - kind of like watching a pot of water, waiting for it to boil....

Small Bits Adding Up

One more mini fragment from today's designing:

I pintucked some silk and have added pieces of it to a next contemporary boro design modelled on a traditional block. I'm leaving hems from discarded clothing in it because I like the extra interest of the stitched lines. In yesterday's Mark Marking With Machine class, we were exploring cable stitch, twin needles, and couching. I am feeling excited to discover more of my machine's capacities!

And someone in CWB had mentioned Pojagi - Korean textile wrapping of housewares - and I wanted to try stitching some transparent fabrics together just to see what it looks like. I used the machine, although I believe handstitch is the traditional method. I've laid the white and black joined fabrics over a quilted piece - so the only stitch I've done is in the purple thread.

I will do another post as I tried something unexpected, today...

Turning a New Page

I have wanted to make a fabric book for a long time... This is silk, linen and silk velvet combined with lace edged cotton for a reversible cover that I will add pages to.

Here is the full front and back before and after tea dyeing:

I knew the fabrics would absorb the colour differently, adding contrast and pattern - the silks are darker than the cotton, linen and lace.

Unicorns Are Real

Shimmering and shining...

And unexpectedly, a unicorn following a path to the stars. I could have made a more 'perfect' unicorn if I planned it - perhaps a white, slim elegant one with a mysterious look - but I just grabbed the closest jean scrap and outlined it quickly and discovered how tricky the applique was on those tiny pointed ears. So - not elegant, but making do - learning as I go along, using what I have and accepting what comes - my version.

That fits what a unicorn symbolizes to me - not what's perfect but what's real.

Scrap Happy

A night sky in progress: And imagine my joy when I found that this old Hungarian cotton tablecloth I bought for a dollar at a garage sale has mended patches and holes! Signs of being loved and valued.

I notice how I'm drawn to the smallest scraps that seem to magnetically pair together, becoming more beautiful - the simple beauty of fabric itself.

This one reminds me of a feather.

And I have been developing a focal point with machine stitch in this piece - but still have further emphasis to add. I am understanding what it's saying to me now.

Altered Weaving

Weaving a weaving of woven fabrics into a weaving - if you can get your head around that! And I am now wearing my heart on my sleeve.

Heart Wear

I finished stitching this today and suddenly had an idea... What if I put it onto the sweatshirt I was wearing?

I am so pleased with this - as it feels really 'me'. I also made a patch for one of the sleeves -

to cover a bit of existing design - so I will be wearing my heart on my sleeve!

Home is Where the Heart is

Some of us in Contemporary Woven Boro are making hearts to hang outside in February - scraps of colour to beckon spring. Mine is a soft flowering heart with roots - like a prayer flag for growth. And this is all made from used clothing or garage sale scraps. I dreamed of making a weaving that had these half circles as part of the design. I'm not sure it's quite how I want it, but this is where it's at so far.

I am so enjoying myself and have a deepening sense of home.

Something Old, Something Blue

Keeping Pace

Contemporary Woven Boro has me on fire with design ideas. Such a pleasure to be 'weaving' again and working in a way that feels native. I am keeping up between my two classes, but dividing my time means less experimentation in either one, overall. Here are some various cords and braids I machine stitched

using a variety of materials. I also completed my thread painted flower - it takes a long time to fill a three or four inch diameter!

Automatic Can be Artful

Here is some stitch exploration I've been doing as part of the Mark Making With Machine class. It's a mix of an automatic stitch and free motion. I want to fill it in further but my thread kept breaking so I thought I would take a break too :). I've also been sampling a few automatic stitches and feel delighted to explore them through content, placement, colour, size and composition. I made some shapes and lines and a story began to unfold and ideas were igniting and then I was in that feverish state of creative excitement you may recognize. And then I found that the conversation on Boro in the online class had begun and I felt moved by all there is to learn and the sheer beauty of the world of fibre and stitch. Bliss....

I also tried out my free motion couching foot with limited success, but I will experiment further with different yarns.

This and That

Here are some fabric scraps gathering ready for Jude Hill's Contemporary Woven Boro class and sorting through them is like taking a trip down memory lane for the last four years. I have alot of colour and fewer neutrals. I've also been basting fabric weavings and it's good to regain those pins, as I know I'll be needing them!

I've also been finishing my machine thread colour scales for my other class, and I overdyed these fabrics - adding bright green and magenta. They're more interesting now, but I may do another round of colour. I am curious about how different methods of dyeing compare to each other. I used low immersion methods here - with three hours of batching and a different recipe and the results are as vibrant as the tray dyeing. It seems to me there's room for alot of leeway.

And serenditpity plays a large role, too.

Holding the Tension of Opposites

The sun joined the moon in this window, today, and a stitched door also formed below it. I am going to be challenged taking two courses at once in what feels like such opposite directions. While Comtemporary Woven Boro doesn't begin for another week, the class blog is open and I want to ease into the spirit of that as well as carry on with samples and projects for the Mark Making With Machine course. I considered adding machine stitch to this - even felt intrigued and chose two potentials, but just couldn't bring myself to do it. I enjoy both handstitch and machine - but there is a very different feel to each. While I have combined them in other pieces - it has to feel right.

In class yesterday, we sorted our threads to sew samples of colour scales for value, temperature and intensity and we tray dyed fabrics in a pleated, swirled, scrunched and twisted fashion with two temperature variants of our chosen colour, as well as did a dye painted piece. For some unknown reason, my warmer red dye hardly gave any colour. I'd heard dyes have a shelf life, but I didn't believe it. I brought my batching fabrics home to rinse and iron before next week's class - partly because I also did a bucket full of a wide range of fabric samples, using the same two reds, plus a teal green and a pink, and I added a few other manipulations. Here is burlap, silk velvet, silk gauze, trims, a doily and crocheted squares. I was surprised at how purple came into the mix - because I had expected the two compliments of green and red to yield some browns - but considering my green was a teal, the blue in it was enough to tip the scale in the purple direction. Sometimes combining opposites can yield something unexpected!
From the same bucket, here is cheesecloth, silk ribbon, a variety of threads, scrim, some kind of chenille/towel fabric and rayon that was a pale green.

More dyes in a next post...