Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Inch by Inch

Silk and spindle

Progress measurable when our protagonist left off last week. And now:
Silk skeins

More! But slow. Spindles do move things forward, but wheels?
Purple silk

Much forwarder. This is Color 3, of 6, all of them from Fiber Optic Yarns (purchased at SOAR last October). The good news? She'll be at SOAR again this Fall!

I did go to Guild last night though, and spindles are portable:

Wolf yarn

So wolf yarn on wolf spindles! This is Timber Wolf, BFL silk from Fiber Optic Yarns.

The rest of the week? I packed and shipped a box. A big box, full of stuff I will not see for a year or so. So sad. And Happy! Box is done! Gone! and not here anymore.

Now, my laptop and I have a date for a few days, weeks, maybe a month. So help me, I will buckle down. Now. Really. No more distractions.

Like him:
Baby o

And her:
Marin peas

Look at that happy girl, eating her peas! Her other grandmother and I are not responsible for this (pea haters, that's us. Yay for Moms!).

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Baby Steps

Not much to see here in Grandma-land. A few small accomplishments. Some silk:
Silk fiber optics
became singles:
Silk fiber optic 2 spindles

was plied:
Plying silk fiber optics

became yarn:
Silk plied fiberoptics

Why so little to report?
Baby:
Jackson
and Big Sister:
Marin bath

Thank heavens for portable projects!

Friday, March 08, 2013

The Rest of the Story

hat4

Several years ago I made a hat. I made a calculated guess as to size, and yes! I made a paper, and then a cloth pattern. I spun some silk (warp, weft and pile yarn), dyed it, planned a design, and executed it with, if I do say so myself, a certain bit of skill. The hat top was, I thought, particularly nice:

hat top

The whole thing was lovely, in fact: nice, colors, it felt nice to the touch (well, silk pile!), had soft velvet lining and edging. Hat maker, I am not, however, and I did not calculate enough ease. It was a very small hat.

While not useful as a hat, per se, it was useful as a sculpture, a show piece, and in classes, a cautionary tale.

One day, I took it apart, to see if, without the thick lining, it could fit. It fit better (the thing could always be shoved on my head) but really? Still too small. But while it sat there in its un-lined state, I thought Bag! And began to plot its next incarnation.

No fabric I wove ever came close to looking like the colors of the hat-now-bag. Dilemma. So I over dyed it. Hmmm. OK, and maybe it goes with ....etc. you get the picture and the result is this post. I posted a glimpse of it here, but, as can be guessed, it did not work in its second incarnation (third?) either.

The colors, still quite rich, were too homogenous to show the pattern. The hat-now-bag was plain. I could remove the overdye, perhaps; the colors underneath might change drastically, but really? What did I have to lose? Time? So I threw it into a discharge bath. I added some of the yarns left over from its construction, in case I needed them for finishing.

It came out quite well! I like this muted palette, and I happened to have leather and velvet that would go nicely with its new look. I used the discharged silk yarns to make a band for the new bag:

image

It's now a good size for a project bag, has a silk lining and gathered top, and a new band with which to carry it.

Everything changes with time. Some changes are good, some not so much, some planned and self-initiated, some forced on us by circumstance. It just takes a little time before we can tell how it all will turn out in the end.

Hats are personal too, and can be serious or funny. One day, this little boy might be tormented by the way we dressed him up for pictures:
image