a new use for fabric

Isn't this wonderful?  Well, the fact of using a walker isn't wonderful but I LOVE how Gjeneve Hopkinson has decorated it to cheer herself up, after having a slight accident.  Deconstructed screenprinting and other goodies - many pieces donated by friends.  I simply had to share this!

Yesterday, I set out for Whole Foods but since it is in the same strip mall as the Dollar Store and K-Mart (an odd combination of demographics, don'tcha think?) I got sidetracked.  If I ever manage to print enough scarves for my open studios, there will be a mirror for people to admire themselves in, which I found at the Dollar Store.

Then I wandered into K-Mart, a store which I roundly despise because their customer service is so horrid.  Nonetheless, they have these wonderful cotton knit pants that are lighther than sweat pants and are soooo comfortable.  I had purchased a few pair in August and liked them so much that I went back for more.  Found only 2 in my size, not in my favorite colors but I bought them anyway, to the tune of $7.98 each. 

Then I found an as-yet unloaded rack of long-sleeved cotton t-shirts for $5.98 each (NOT made in China - although they were not made in the U.S., either).  Bought 5 white and 2 black (although 1 black was a v-neck by mistake and has to go back). Washed'em and sort-of shibori'd them, although I did this at home and most of my clamps are in the studio.  I was thinking I would sell them at open studios  but honestly, they are such heavy cotton and are so cozy and fit so well now that they have shrunk in the wash, that I decided to keep them for myself.  Perfect for winter and if I find more at another K-mart, I'll buy a truckload.  The only downside is polyester thread but most people don't care and even I don't care -- not for THAT price!

 This was supposed to be purple and you know how I feel about pink. Will have to overdye.

 

So that was yesterday's shopping adventure.  Today's was taking Marty to Lord & Taylor to buy a sport jacket and pair of slacks that fit so he can show up at his grandson's bar mitzvah not looking like a homeless person. Mission accomplished!  Reward - pastrami sandwiches/cole slaw/russian dressing for dinner.  The only trouble with that wonderful deli food is that it makes you very thirsty. Ah, well, you can't have everything.

rainy Sunday

Sigh...the last day of a lovely, long weekend. I took my pile of shibori'd fabric with me to the studio so I could trim and throw some at the wall and see what I had done. This color is somewhat inaccurate and this is by no means a composition or a piece -- but rather an inventory of what might work together. Naturally, in the midst of pressing all these pieces, my Black & Decker iron stopped, cold. Grrrr... So I cleaned up (sort of), pole-wrapped some silk and threw it into a dye bucket, along with one of my work shirts that needed a little jazzing up. By that time, it was 5:00 and time to head home. As I left the building, I was dazzled by the reflections of the lights on the wet pavement of the parking lot and despite the rain, took out my camera. These shots have not been manipulated: they are just as they came from the camera.

The bright upstairs window is the hallway where the light is on 24/7.

The parking lot view from the passenger's side of my car.There is a concrete plant across the street - you can see the wall.

A better view. This gritty, industrial scene is so beautiful at night.

Life is full of surprises - my cheapo camera with the bad focus has just given me some gifts, which are going into my "inspiration" file.

This charming painting arrived a few days ago from Regina Dwarkasing who lives in St.Maarten, along with some actual PODS. Wow, Regina - thanks!! I will be so happy when I can get back to my print studio and get busy with them. I love what you did with them here. Regina had read my post about the pods on the trees at Rutgers last month and generously sent me some from the tree in the only park on the island. I am truly honored and I promise to post what I do with them. I already have a couple of ideas. In the meantime, today I was back to the shibori buckets. This process is not for the faint of heart (or weak of muscle) -nor is it for people who are - ahem - impatient. I was dyeing in the kitchen, which is not my preference - but the 5 gal buckets are too heavy to be anywhere but in the sink, where I can dump them out without having to carry them anywhere. It seems that if I am going to do this in my studio, where the sink is down the hall, I will have to figure out a lwi process for it. Today,everything I dyed seemed to come out purple. Actually, I was overdyeing some things I wasn't happy with - and some of them have a long way to go. (what else is new?). Both of these were more blah before I reworked them. They were, as you can tell, one piece. I tore them in two and shibori'd them differently. The one on the right is more interesting but they might just work well together somewhere. This piece started with white and I think I threw it into some black dye. It is a lovely shade of green. Don't ask me what I did with the fabric - I have no idea. I guess I should be writing down what I do with each piece - but I'm in too much of a rush. This was an overdye of a white fabric that had bits of orange on it. Better than all that white.The dilemma is how to use them, but I guess that's the same dilemma we all have with fabrics we've printed. Shibori is ofen so strong that it can overwhelm something else -and it's a matter of using it so it works with your other fabrics and with your own style. Putting beautiful fabrics together does not necessarily become a piece of art just because. I figure this is a good opp for me to work on composition - but to me, the work still has to say something or it is just an exercise. Of course, that's ME. Not everybody feels that way - and I think it would be easier if I didn't. Oh,dear-myspacebarhasstoppedworking-so-I-will-say-goodnight.I-think-it-is-time-to-contemplate-buying-a-new-laptop.AARRGH.

How did it get to be so late? I spent the evening playing with shibori, but the results were not as dramatic or successful as they were in class. I was trying to do too much in too little space/time. A few came out well, the others I need to redo. The linen I wrapped was really too much volume for the size of the pole and while I got a gorgeous pattern, it was only on one end of the fabric. More, tomorrow.

ok, ok, OK!

I promised I'd continue about the workshop, so here I am again. It's Tuesday morning and I am going to finish what I started yesterday before I start my multi-tasking for the day (paying my mother's bills, cooking, baking, going to the doctor and TRYING to find time to do a small shibori thing). This is one of my pieces -- bamboo skewers and rubber bands. Gloria Hansen's blog has fabulous pix (she was non-stop with the camera) and it turns out that she and I took a lot of similar shots - so check her blog when you're done here. In the meantime, here are some pictures that she doesn't have on her blog - LOL. Some of my own favorites. I love the serendipity -- and of course, I can't remember what I did to get these results - but even if I did the same thing again, it would be different.

That's enoughfor now. I had better get back to real life and the chores at hand. For those of you who asked, Jan Myers-Newbury does not have a website and I don't know her e-mail address, so I would think the best way to contact her if you want to book her for a workshop is to contact the Pittsburgh Fiber Arts Guild and have them forward your message to her. I think their website has her schedule listed if you want to take a workshop with her. Don't forget to check Gloria's blog for more great pictures.

Put me into rehab

I've got another addiction. I started to post last night about Shibori Heaven day #2 but was just too tired to continue. So I scrapped the post and you'll get two days worth tonight, if I don't conk out en route. Jan is a wonderful, giving, teacher and you should RUN if you have a chance to take a class with her. Pictures are worth pages of blablabla inutile, so here are some of yesterday's surprise packages when we emptied the dye pots. The circle was stitched shibori. Gorgeous. Somebody asked what the poles were for. We used the PVC pipes to wrap/tie and or twist and scrunch our fabrics as we wrapped them around the pipes. Results vary, depending on the diameter of the pipe and a million other variables. Too tired to post any more. To be continued.

shibori heaven

It's 1:am and Benedicte and I just finished doing our homework for tomorrow. Stitching, clamping, wrapping. And most important, putting our names on our cloth...because once it comes out of the dye bath you have no clue whose piece it is unless you've signed it. Here, Jan was about to demonstrate one way of pole wrapping. But that was early this morning and it seems like eons ago: we can hardly remember the process by now -- there have been so many other things in between. Notice the rapt attention Gloria and Colleen are paying while Sherryl gets ready to take her own picture of the demonstration. Benedicte IS adding soda ash to the buckets: she and I were the chief stirrers this morning -- every 15 minutes we waltzed into the other room and put our hands in the buckets after the cloth had been thrown into the dye. I still don't understand how I got dye on my right hand while I was wearing my long, heavy rubber gloves. Of course, Benedicte's were the crème de la crème of heavy duty gloves - but oh, well - I guess I can check out her supplier. Here are the somewhat crowded buckets while the dye was working its magic. Looks like a mess, doesn't it? But wait till you see what some of the results were...Cut to the end of the day and Jan was giving a stitching demo - which was, in fact, part of our homework tonight. Not my cuppa, as you can imagine - but we'll see what tomorrow's results bring. Stay tuned!