THE PROJECT

Last Saturday, there was a Kennet Valley Guild weaving class. The improvers are weaving patterns into infinity - and beyond. The 12-shaft loom came back with Shirley's piece cut off and it looks beautiful. I am pleased because I get very nervous about handing out drafts I have created. Anyway Shirley did not run into any trouble and the loom has gone to the next student.

At the coffee break, we discussed THE PROJECT. The Kennet Valley weavers are going to submit a group project to the Association's Exhibition this summer. And even though there was a lot of hand waving and not too many facts to clutter up the mind, 12 out of the 13 weavers said 'Yes, yes'. The 13th explained that she was already doing a Guild project for Berkshire Guild.  So I have to invite a lot of other people. On Sunday, we met up with a few more  weavers and got them all signed up. I am hoping we get 25 people. Each person will have to weave something like a foot square piece using a standard colour warp and any weft they want to. Rosie Price and I are already collecting suitable weft yarn although we shall buy the warp yarn. What, you ask, has the photo of four skeins of mohair got to do with this. Well on Sunday I was at a Braid Society meeting at Aldbourne and there was this mohair  for sale, flecked with multicoioured bits of cotton.    The base colour was pale grey and my reaction was, if I dye that using acid dyes, then the cotton flecks will stay undyed and they did. It shows up best on the yellow and green. So that has occupied a bit of time this week. Note that I am not telling you what THE PROJECT is - I am very wary of the rules about publication and will show photos atfter it has been accepted. 25 times 1 square foot is a large object!!!!

I have got the Megado up and weaving - again no photos because it is a present and I know the recipient sometimes reads this blog. Look nice.

At Bournville last Friday, we did more Procion MX dyeing. I did several pieces of shibori - including this piece in pink and sage green. When I opened it up, Annette, the tutor, said, 'Oh it's a garden with marigolds' and I said, 'It is supposed to be spiders' webs'. Over the weekend, I decided it was neither - it was dandelions. So this is where it has got to today. I did audition some leaves but they were too virulent a green. I could just machine stitch the outlines of some leaves on the sage green bits. But I don't fancy unpicking them if I don't like them. So currently it is pinned up on the wall and I will think about it.

My Thermofaxes for the Omar Khayyam book cover have arrived and I must use them. All in all, a good week.

Various

I have realised that there are photos on the web of the exhibition at Staffordshire University's Betty Smithers Collection   See here.   There is a photo of 'More Shoes' in No 20.

 After all the nice stencilling yesterday, I turned to the cover of a book I want to rebind. It is a copy of Omar Khayyam and belonged to my father. I have a design which is of the roof line of an Oriental city with a tower and I cut a stencil for it. Yesterday, I created the sunrise and painted the city but today I do not like it. Amongst other problems, it is too ragged. Part of the problem was my mean Scottish soul which used up jamjars of an old mix of acrylic paint and textile medium. The idea is use JetFx to get the title et cetera onto the cover. Despite adding more textile medium, it has all dried very stiff and is likely to crack when wrapped round a book. Woe is me. As I have already dismantled the book, I have no going back option. So possibilities are

1) Use the existing stencil and make up a new mix
2) Use the existing stencil and use textile inks
3) Abandon the existing stencil and get a Thermofax screen made. In which case I could use acrylic paint + textile medium. I will have a play in Photoshop and see if I can get a good city roofline.

With the usable left over mix, I painted these pieces of cotton and they have come out well. They will be usable.

Now off to Photoshop

Stencils and Textile Ink

I decided that the time had arrived to look at the Okinawan Bingata stencils and use my new textile inks. (Thank you Chris Fletcher) The top two prints were put on with a paintbrush over the stencil (anchored with paper tape). The left one used a quarter inch brush, the right  one was done with an Okinawan bingata brush which is used up and down with a dabbing motion. Neither is a good print although the Okinawan brush is better. The lower two were done through a silk screen. I taped the stencil to lower side of the screen and voila or we have lift-off or Eureka or something.

 The above stencil is a ball with some simple flowers. The next one is detailed chrysanthemums.  It is printed on a piece of cotton, space dyed by me as is the green fabric in the first photo. I like these.

And this is a stencil of cranes, again on a spaced dyed piece of cotton.

The inks are 'Permaset' and I heat fixed them with an iron. There are some points about these inks.

1)They take a time to dry.

2) Nevertheless the screen gets caked quickly and the screen has to be washed out promptly. Should be treated as though they were acrylic paints.

3) The colours when first applied are quite dark but they lighten as they dry. 

The stencils are fragile and also are positives, that is, they are intended to be used the way round I have used them. The larger bingata stencil is mounted on silk but is a negative. In other words, I should push a water-soluble resist paste through it, let it dry and then hand paint it. This is what we did in Naga City (Okinawa) and the painting was done with the dinky special brushes. But that is for another day. 

Grandchildren Minding

Last week I extolled the beauties of the Mediaeval Manuscript Exhibition to my son-in-law and I spent yesterday minding the grandchildren while he went to London to see it. Since they spend most of the day at school, I took my sewing machine and a lot of bits of pieces, including two pieces of fabric created to reflect tree bark and created yet another bag. By the time I had backed this piece with a larger piece of cotton and fused a lining to it, sewn the outer bag together, sewn the lining (including pockets), assembled the handles (brown velvet ribbon sewn to webbing) and put the lot together, there was only an hour left before the children reappeared demanding food.

This side was created at the Bournville class about a year ago.

Here is the other side. This one was created at the NEC Quilt Show last August. They are not linked by the fact that the two sides are about bark and are brown(ish). It might have been better if I had created two more pieces which were a better match but that's hindsight for you.

This is part of my 'try to finish a few projects' blitz. Today I will finish off four copies of Michael's Morning Glory book at the Bookbinding class and prepare for a class on Coptic binding in 10 days time. I am taking a class with Lori Sauer in Wiltshire. There is a bit of Coptic binding that I have never done satisfactorily. 

And then there is the Megado waiting to be tied on.

Snow!!

Yesterday the weather forecast was for lots of snow and I was in two minds as to whether to go to the Kennet Valley Guild meeting but, in the end, decided I had better as I had several pieces of dyeing to return to their owners and, in any case, Rosie Price was ill (cold/flu) and the beginner weavers had to be talked to about yarn calculations.  I had arranged with my daughter, Anne, that I would phone her at 1 and she would read out the weather forecast because horrendous things were forecast in the way of snow. My worry was driving home over the Cotswolds. 

At 1220 I had done all the things which I had to when someone pointed out to me that a clear sky outside had turned black and nasty so I fled. Anne at 1 o'clock said that it was already snowing hard further North. In the event, there was no snow over the Cotswolds and none in the Severn Valley until I got off the motorway and approached the Malvern Hills when all of a sudden there it was - the white stuff. When I got home, there was already a lot lying in the garden and half an hour later it was seriously thick. The road outside the house is very steep, fairly major and it's a bus route. There was one car trying to up the hill about half an hour after I got home. Then nothing and they have clearly stopped the buses. Last year I helped dig a bus out which got stuck across my gate.

So I will concentrate on threading the Megado and tidying up, doing post, binding books and think about making a bag. I have come across two really nice pieces of fabric worked in Mola work and think I will make a bag out of them.

The above is a double page spread plus one page fold out from three volumes of Latvian textiles I have on loan. The owner wants to find a good home for them and I have made several suggestions. The text is in parallel Latvian and French and contains lots of sketches of people in costume as well as many examples of patterns such as the one above. There is the occasional weaving pattern - but not as a draft, just as above. The ones I have come across  look like overshot.  How do I know they are weaving patterns? Because they say 'Tissage en lin' underneath!! which is French for 'Weaving in linen'. Now I come to think of it, the patterns I have seen would good in white on white. I must go through the books and take photos of all the weavings. I dare not scan them  as each volume weighs over 3 kg and I am afraid of tearing a page. The background is that the books were originally published between 1924 and 1931 and were republished in 1991.  They are pristine. No ISBN number that I can find.

More Words and Images

This is my latest effort on the theme of 'Words and Images'. It is a calico shopper with letters in words and the other side - - - -  -

has the word Images - but written in fabric with images. A bit jokey but good fun.

Probably more important (to me anyway) is that I had another onslaught on documents.  And I have started on the sectional warp on the Megado. It should be finished the threading today.

I discovered recently that I have no copy of Michael's Morning Glory book for myself so I prepared to bind four. Two are completed and are in the press and two have their covers drying out. They can be finished tomorrow.

I have an easy weekend ahead and am looking forward to completing a few projects.

More Indigo Dyeing

Yesterday I went to Birmingham with an indigo vat in the boot - plus all the bowls, buckets and tools needed. The meeting was organised for the Midlands Textile Group but various other people came too. The primary purpose was for Sarah Cage, the hostess, to show people how to do natural dyeing. We worked in her conservatory  and everyone did lots of 'stuff'. The photo on the right is a piece I created at Committed to Cloth last autumn which I have got to dislike more and more. So this is after clamp resisting and a few minutes in an indigo vat. Much improved in my opinion. I believe that this is because the eye sees the clamp pattern first and the words are now subdidiary.

 I did several skeins of wool and the ikat warp and four balls of white 3ply  as shown on the left. I dunked each ball in the vat by about two thirds.  The final result of one ball when in a skein is also shown. Mottled blue would be a good description

I have been given this tea towel recently. Isn't it gorgeous? It certainly will not be used to dry dishes! It is currently pinned to my design wall in the 'Studio'. I must get used to calling it instead of the 'Music Room' which is what is was when Michael was alive. We held concerts in there!!

Until the new bookcases arrive (next week?), there is no point in having a major clear out there but I am doing a bit of preparation.

And another present!!! Aren't I the lucky one!! And they also are pinned to the design wall.

Apart from washing all the indigo  dyed yarns today, I have made two copies of the Morning Glory book. I gave away a lot at Christmas and did not realise that I had none left at all. I will make another two tomorrow. I am not committed to anything tomorrow and I hope to work my way through a lot of odd jobs.