Tangible Daydreams

Renovating the game room

2012-01-26T00:40:00.000-08:00

I'd love to show you what wonderful craft project I'm working on right now. Well, technically, I could...

...because I do have a shawl on the triloom. I'm trying to variegate 6 different colors of yarn, working from light to dark. But I'm currently stalled on this project, because...

...currently my energy is going toward re-doing my downstairs game room. OUT with the decades old, dirty, stained, and stinky (really really stinky) carpet! This week was large item pick up week for the garbage man, so we ripped it all out this past weekend.

I really wish this photo had been in better focus, but I can't resist putting it up here anyway. I had about half a second to take the shot until Misty decided she didn't want to be thrown away after all. (Yes, we had been trimming the palm trees too. It ended up being quite the pile!)

Anyway, we got the carpet and disintigrating padding up and out, and then I pulled up all the tack board.

And that goes to show that you can find moderately interesting photographs anywhere. Even looking down into the garbage can.

Last night Eric also ripped out part of the ceiling, where we had some old water damage from where the old air conditioner leaked down through the upstairs floor. So I learned how to cut drywall, and we rasped it down until it just fit the spot.

Eric put that back up, while I went around and spackled in all the nail and screw holes, and Shane worked on getting the rest of the padding up from where it was glued to the cement floor.

So, we're almost ready to paint, and will probably do that this coming weekend. The walls will be a light cream, that will end up looking white but be a little warmer in feel. And then we'll put down oak toned laminate flooring.

Busy busy busy!

But not in the craft room.

365 photography project

2012-01-18T20:06:00.000-08:00

One of the things I've been doing has been working on my photographic skills. I've got a ways to go, mind you. To get in some good practice, over the last year I've been posting a picture a day at my personal Facebook. This year though, I'm trying to step it up a notch from posting anything to trying to actually post something decent. (No promises on success, mind you.) So I decided to head over to the 365 Project, where other folks are working on the same thing. I figure I'll tap their brain and get some inspiration. If anyone is interested, it is at:

http://365project.org/lissamc/365

That is a whole community of folks taking on the challenge of posting a picture every single day for a year. If you're over there too, let me know. I'd love to follow along with your project!

(The picture above was one I took last Saturday. The Ferris Wheel was right in front of my booth during a craft show. This shot is of the guy tweaking it a bit before he opened for business. You should have seen the line halfway down the street all night long!)

Re-Boot! Felt Baby Booties (method 2)

2012-01-12T21:46:00.000-08:00

I was going to make a set of felt baby booties yesterday, like I did here: http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/12/tutorial-how-to-make-felt-baby-booties.html . But..um...well, I wasn't really paying attention when I was laying out the felt, and I didn't get a good enough over lap on the top of the foot area. When it came time to cut the booties apart and take the resist out, that area kind of drifted apart. So much for one piece baby booties. I was Not Amused.

But, I didn't want to waste the fiber and the effort so far, so I went ahead and pulled the wool out flat and made two small and rather misshapen pieces of flat felt. I intended to set them aside, in case I thought of a future project for them.

But then, I was wandering Pinterest (I'm on there as http://pinterest.com/lissamc/ ), and came across a link to a tutorial for 'Happy Feet' Felt Baby Booties. http://www.ctpubblog.com/2010/03/22/happy-feet-felt-baby-booties/ On a whim, I printed out their pattern, and laid it out on my little sheets of hand made felt.

Oh awesome! They just fit. I cut out the pieces for the baby booties.

Now, I looked at the instructions. Blanket stitch around the edges that would be otherwise unfinished. Blanket stitch? Hand stitching. Ugh. Not my favorite of activities, so it wasn't surprising that I hadn't picked up that stitch before. Luckily, their instructions made it easy.

Now, using the same stitch, I put the toe on the sole.

And then the back piece went on.

Add a ribbon...

...and I got a pair of baby booties out of the project after all! They took several hours longer than the one piece pair would have, but I learned something new and they look rather cute.

So the initial failure is now a resounding success! My lessons learned? Blanket stitch isn't that hard after all. And more importantly, mistakes don't necessarily have to be a stop. Sometimes, they can be a change in route, and the outcome can end up just as good if not better. It just takes looking at the project from a different angle.

Arizona full moon rise into the Belt of Venus

2012-01-08T23:24:00.000-08:00

My family and I went hiking in the White Tank Mountains this afternoon/evening. It was a beautiful day for it here in the Phoenix area, and we were coming down off the mountain just after sunset. My sweeties gave me a new telephoto lens for Christmas, and my husband was game enough to lug my tripod along with me. So when I spotted the full moon rising up into the Belt of Venus (http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/stargazing/84903812.html), with a saguaro cactus making a classic Arizona desert shot, I had everything I needed to grab the shot. I'm really tickled with it. I couldn't have gotten the clarity with my normal lens. Expect to see more landscape and wild life photography pop up here in the blog over the coming year.

Then tonight I got to looking at one of the shots, and cropped it in like this:

Oooh...I so want to find a way to make this image into a pendant! Maybe I could learn fused glass? Or print it out, and sandwich it between two glass slides? I've seen some neat work done that way. Or.... I must do some research. There has to be a way. Oh! And it would make a spectacular bead tapestry piece! You could light it from behind, and let the moon just glow. I'd have to find several shades of beads to get the color gradation right. And then I could...

Don't you love it when the wheels start to turn?

Picture a Day project: 2011

2012-01-05T21:23:00.000-08:00

Over the course of this past year, I've been doing a 'Picture a Day' project over on my personal FaceBook. This started as a way to keep in touch with my daughter as she was away at college, so she could see what was going on at home. It kind of took on a life of its own. Some of the pictures are posted because they're pretty. Some are posted to document what is going on day to day. Some are pretty stupid, snapped at the last moment because I forgot to take one of something interesting. (The dogs are always good for a last minute subject.) But over all, the practice has helped me train my eye to actually look around and see what is going on in the world around me.

Anyway, I thought it might be fun to pick one picture from each month, and post them here as kind of a year in review.

January: I was wandering around downtown Phoenix at night, after a friend's graduation. This statue is one of the ones outside of the Herberger Theater.

February: For years now, February has meant Estrella War. Estrella is a large (around 5000 people give or take) week long Medieval historical recreation event that my family enjoys attending. This is my son at sunset, looking at one of the camps along the road.

March: I did my first big order of hand painted silk scarves, and kicked off a whole new line for my Tangible Daydreams shop. This set of scarves went to the singing group Celtica.

April brought lovely weather to the Phoenix area. We started taking regular hikes at the White Tank Mountain regional park. This is a hedgehog cactus that was blooming along one of the trails.

It was still beautiful in May, so this is back at the White Tanks again. This is a cholla cactus, against the setting sun.

June: Road trip! Not all of Arizona is cactus, and it pays to get out and around--especially when it is getting hot down here in the valley. We took 89A from from Flagstaff down through Oak Creek Canyon and Sedona. This is Oak Creek.

July: The SCA (historical recreation) practice had moved to night time, to beat the desert heat. Here is my local group's ballista, aiming at the setting sun, waiting for it to get cool enough to play.

August: My family went to the theater. This is my husband and son, testing out my new hand painted silk ties. The ties ended up being another great addition to the Tangible Daydreams shop.

September: By this time, I was getting good at finding pictures wherever I went. This is simply one of the peacocks that wanders the grounds of my local library. I came out from getting my books, and spotted him posing against the flowers. Quick! Hand off the books to my sweetie, grab the camera out of my pocket, and I've got the shot the instant before he wandered off.

October: And sometimes, you have some advance notice and can get in the right place in the right time. We're back to the historical recreation. This is my consort swearing fealty, after getting the highest award for service that the group can give. He was surprised--but I knew enough to bring the good camera to the event, just in case.

November: Sometimes it pays to look behind you, too. I work at the community college as a model for the drawing classes, and we had set up a costumed pose out under the trees. This bed of flowers was behind us all, away from the direction that everyone was looking. But they were lit up beautifully in the afternoon sun.

December: I don't get snow here in Phoenix. So a field of fluffy white cotton on a blustery grey day is about as close as I get to winter.

I think I'll keep going on this project. I wonder what I'll have for a year in review come this time next year...

Tutorial: How to make a flat sheet of wool felt

2011-12-26T23:43:00.000-08:00

I'm in the process of making a warm hat for my husband to use for SCA (historical recreation group) use. There is a style of hat that is popular here, especially on cold winter nights. I've heard it described variously as Viking, Mongolian, and Russian, and I'd guess that variations on it turned up in multiple cultures. It has 4 or 6 panels, which are sewn together and trimmed with fur. See here: http://pushingfurniture.blogspot.com/2011/07/off-my-game-and-onto-another-one.html for one reconstruction, here for another (minus the fur): http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/manshat.html , and here for some period artwork showing the hat in use: http://www.strangelove.net/~kieser/Russia/PeriodImages/SemyaYaroslava2.jpg .

I made him one several years ago, from a sheet of hand felted wool, and he absolutely loved it. He wore it, and wore it...and one time when he was washing it, the hat shrunk. You should have seen him pout. So, I get the old one and I promised him a new one. The first step in the process was to make the sheet of wool felt.

Here's how I did it:

Materials:
wool roving (not superwash)
hot water
dish soap
bubble wrap
netting
towels

I didn't measure how much wool I actually used, but I used up this pile plus a bit more.

I put down a layer of bubble wrap to work on. Then I started laying out the wool roving. I grabbed the end of the roving between the base of my palm and my fingers, and pulled out a tuft. I put the tufts down one next to another in a row across the bubble wrap. Then I did another row of tufts across, slightly overlapping the first row. I continued laying out my wool in an nice even layer this way, until I had a sheet that I thought was big enough.

I want to get four felt panels out of the final sheet of felt. The wool will shrink as I work it, so I needed to lay out a sheet of wool roving at least half again as big as I wanted the final size to be.

Once I had the size pretty much right, I put down a second layer of wool at right angles to the first one. Putting the fibers down crossways will help them tangle together in the felting process.

Then a third even layer of wool went down, at right angles to the previous layer.

I felt around to see if there were any spots that seemed kind of thin, and added a bit more wool there to make sure the felt wouldn't have any weak spots.

Then I put down wisps of other colors for a pattern layer. I know the wool will shift somewhat in the felting process, so I didn't try for anything too precise.

However, a layer of netting over my work at this point helps keep things pretty much in place, and keeps the wool from sticking to my hands in the next step.

Wool fibers have microscopic scales. When you add hot water, those scales open up. When you add a bit of soap and some agitation, the fibers slip around and the scales kind of velcro themselves together. The result is a transformation of a pile of fluff into a durable fabric. So, my next step was to heat some water, add a squirt or two of dish soap, and ladle the water gently over the sheet of wool roving.

I gently patted down on the netting, and worked the water around until all of the fibers were saturated. (At this point, I remembered to put towels down on the floor, because things were about to get messy.)

When everything was wet, I started gently rubbing my hands around in a circular motion. After a bit, this got the surface of the wool to start to hold together, locking the pattern mostly in place.

Then I started from one end and rolled up the whole bundle, bubble wrap, wool, netting and all. I rolled the whole thing back and forth about 50 times, working my hands back and forth along the bundle. Then I unrolled it, rolled it up from the other end, and did that again.

Then I unrolled the bundle and carefully flipped the proto-felt over. I smoothed out the wrinkles, then bundled it up again and repeated the rolling process.

After several times of doing that, the felt was starting to hold together nicely. Now the netting was no longer needed, and I set it aside.

I added some more hot water, and continued to alternate between rolling...

...and simply wadding up the felt and throwing it on the table.

Felt will shrink more in the direction that you work it. So when the corners of my sheet of felt started to bulge out with a mind of their own, I rubbed the felt diagonally into the corners to bring them back under control.

Eventually, I had my felt shrunk down and thickened into a sheet a little larger than I wanted the finished product to be.

I took it to the sink, and rinsed and kneaded it under cool running water. This got the soap out, and shrunk it down that last little bit.

Yup! Just right.

Here is the finished sheet of felt, hanging up over the patio railing to dry. Next up will be cutting my pattern pieces and assembling the hat. But if I were a little more careful to make the edges even, I could use this same technique to make a felt rug. Maybe I'll make one of those next!

Silk ties in action: Copper Canyon HS Acapella Singers

2011-12-22T21:38:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a project right now...but I'll have to wait until after Christmas to show you all. In the meantime, here is a shot of the Copper Canyon H.S. Acapella Singers. They were caroling this evening, and did a wonderful job of it.

Why am I showing you this in my crafting blog? Because the three gentlemen up there in the back are sporting my hand painted silk ties. Aren't they dashing?

I told them that if they got to wear the ties, they had to model them for me. They all took their best GQ model poses...and then broke out laughing an instant after I snapped the shot. But I got them!

Oh...that tall one in the middle there? That would be my son. Yup. I'm an evil mother, torturing her teen by taking pictures of him all dressed up, and posting them on the internet.

Tutorial: How to make...nope, not saying until after Christmas because my family will read this...

2011-12-20T23:57:00.000-08:00

Ok now, if you are a member of my family, and you live in Arizona, quit reading this. Really. You can come back and take a look after Christmas.

Here is a picture to fill the space, so you can click away to a different page. (The rest of you, just scroll down past my tree.)

Still here? Ok Eric, you need to pretend to be surprised on Sunday morning when you unwrap yours then!

Now then, I've been making Christmas ornaments to give to my family this year, and I thought I'd share what I did in case anyone else needs a last minute craft project. These are wet-felted wool snowmen, with bead decorations.

You'll need:
white wool roving (not superwash)
dish soap
hot water
white cotton crochet thread
black sewing thread
big eye sewing needle
beading needle
scissors
an assortment of beads:
   3 black 'E' beads
   4 black seed beads
   2 small black bugle beads
   1 small orange/copper bugle bead
   2 long bugle beads
a scrap of ribbon, yarn, or finger loop braid

Ok, first thing we do is to make three little wet-felted wool balls, in various sizes. Grab some white wool roving. Don't get superwash wool, because that has been treated to prevent felting.

Pull off about 6 inches of roving (more or less, depending on how big you want your ball to be), strip it apart into three pieces, and feather it out a bit.

Roll a piece of the roving up into a ball.

Wrap another of your pieces of roving around it, and then the third, building up the wool into a nice round ball.

It will look like this. Now, take your dish soap and the wool ball, and head to the sink.

Put a drop of dish soap on your hand, and rub it between your hands until your palms are lightly coated with soap. This will keep the wool from sticking to your skin in the next step.

Run the tap water until it is hot. Cup the ball of wool lightly between your hands, and run your hands under the water until the wool is soaked through.

Now you have a soggy lump of wool in your hands. Put another small drop of soap on your palms, and start to toss the wool back and forth between your cupped hands.

Wool fibers felt when you add water, heat, a bit of soap, and agitation. The microscopic scales on the wool fibers just kind of velcro themselves permanently together. So after you throw the ball back and forth for a bit, the surface starts to hold together.

Once the surface holds together, start to roll the wool ball around between your cupped hands, like you're trying to make a ball out of play-dough or clay. You'll probably need to rinse the ball and your hands briefly under the hot water again, to get rid of some of the soap suds and give your hands a bit of traction.

When you have the ball holding firmly together, rinse it, set it aside, and repeat the process. You're aiming at having three balls of slightly different sizes, to make up the snowman. I made enough balls for a half dozen ornaments.

It is very possible to keep rolling the balls around in your hands until the agitation turns them into nice firm felt. But I took a short cut, and tossed the wet wool balls into the dryer for half an hour or so.

When they came out, they had firmed up, and shrunk quite a bit. Now, my snowmen were ready to assemble and embellish.

Here are the rest of my materials. I have a rather extensive bead stash, so I just went rummaging around. But you can decorate the snowmen however you wish. They make a great blank canvas for your own creativity.

To assemble your snowmen, measure out a length of white cotton crochet thread that is about 4 times as long as your snowman will be.

Thread your big eyed sewing needle with the cotton crochet thread, and poke right through the smallest wool ball.

Thread the middle sized wool ball onto the thread, and then lastly the big ball. Now, turn your needle around and go back up through your snowman the way you came, so your needle ends up coming out of the small ball again.

Pull the balls tightly against each other, and tie a knot on the top of the snowman's head to hold everything together.

Tie another knot at the ends of your thread, to form the loop for hanging up your ornament. Trim off any excess thread. There! You have a wet felted snowman blank to decorate as you choose.

This is how I decorated mine. I strung the beading needle with the black sewing thread, and secured the thread at the bottom of the middle ball with a small knot.

Then I sewed on one of the black 'E' beads to be the first of the snowman's coal buttons. I went up through the felt to the middle of the ball, to get to the right place for the next bead.

After sewing on three beads for the buttons, I poked through to where the snowman's arm would be.

To make his arm, I strung a long bugle bead, and then a seed bead.

Then I skipped the sead bead, and went back through the bugle bead the way I came.

I snugged that tight, and stitched through the felt at the base of the arm to hold everything in place. Snugging things in tight makes the arm stand out from the body of the snowman.

I poked through the ball to the other side, and added the second arm the same way. Then I poked over to the center of the neck, up to the top ball, and over to where the eye would be. A small seed bead becomes the eye.

A very tiny copper bugle bead made a good nose, and then two small black bugle beads became the snowman's smile. When everything was stitched down, I took tiny stitches and knots at the bottom of the smile to secure the thread.

A bit of fingerloop braid knotted around the snowman's neck made a jaunty scarf. (I'm not going to include the directions for the braid here--this is already long enough. But I did a tutorial earlier, and you can find it at http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/02/tutorial-basic-finger-loop-braiding.html .) If you don't have a braid, a ribbon or bit of yarn would work.

Then I made more snowmen, so the first wouldn't be lonely. They do get kind of addictive to make!

I hope you have fun with these. Merry Christmas!

Late night cooking: scrambled egg and sardine sandwich

2011-12-18T01:34:00.000-08:00

My taste buds are very happy, and my tummy is wonderfully full. Ahhh...comfort food. No, there are no pictures with this because I didn't think it would be so tasty while I was rummaging around the kitchen.

It is 2 in the morning, and I'm just thinking about getting sleepy, but I had the munchies. Now, I could have some chips, or some ice cream, but I wanted something with at least a slightly closer resemblance to real food. So I went up and rummaged around the kitchen until inspiration struck, and I came up with this surprisingly nummy sandwich:

Egg and Sardine Sandwich

Ingredients:
2 slices bread
1 egg
1/2 tin sardines, diced
cayenne pepper
1 slice American cheese
butter

Melt a tbs or so of butter in a skillet. Toss in your bread, and toast it until lightly golden. Remove from pan. Add the egg and the sardines into the skillet, and scramble them together until the eggs are cooked. Assemble the sandwich: Add half of the egg/sardine mixture to your bread, put in the slice of cheese, and stack the rest of the mixture on top of the cheese. Sprinkle to taste with cayenne pepper. Toss on the other slice of bread to make it a sandwich, and have at it.

EDIT: Ok, I tried this on my family at lunch today, and they all looked at me like I had grown another head. Evidently this is only really good if you already like sardines. Which they don't. (Well, I still liked it!)

Tutorial: How to make felt baby booties

2011-12-16T01:35:00.000-08:00

Today I made a pair of wet-felted baby booties, and thought I'd take some pictures as I went along to show you all how I did it.

The first thing I did was to make my pattern. The little lady who is getting these has a foot that is about 4" long by about 2" wide, so that is the center oval there on the left side. I drew another oval half again as big around that, because wool shrinks as it is becoming felt. Then I drew a second matching oval over on the right, and joined them in the middle to become a weird looking U shape. (Picture two boots lying on their sides, with their tops touching.)

Then I took that U, and cut it out of a tightly woven, sturdy fabric. (Those are my felted rocks littering the project. I use them as pattern weights.)

After I had my pattern, I assembled the rest of my tools and materials: wool roving (NOT superwash), bubble wrap, netting, hot water, dish soap, and a scissors. Not pictured is the towel I put on the floor to catch drips. Felt making is a wet, soapy job.

I spread the bubble wrap on the table, and put the pattern/resist on top of it. (The bubble wrap keeps the water more or less contained, and the texture gives me something to rub against while I'm felting down the wool.) Then I put down a light, even layer of wool roving.

I put down a second layer of wool roving, at right angles to the first one. Notice that the wispy ends are hanging slightly over the edge of the resist.

Then a third layer goes down, at right angles to the last one. At this point, I felt around and added a touch more wool if there were any thin points.

Now I added the surface decoration, which in this case was little wisps of four different colors of wool roving.

I carefully flipped the whole thing over.

Then I removed the resist for a moment, and wet down just the center of the stack of wool with hot hot soapy water.

I put the resist back into place, and then gently folded those trailing edge wisps over it.

Now, just like I did before, I put three more layers of wool right over the top of what I'd already done, and added some more color to match the other side. Again, the edges were trailing beyond the previous work.

I wet down the center again with hot soapy water.

Then I flipped the whole thing over again, and folded those edges over one more time. At this point, the resist is totally encased in wool. I wet the whole thing down with the hot soapy water.

Now I put the netting over my wool, and gently rubbed it with my hands. Wool fibers will felt themselves together with water, soap, heat, and agitation. The netting keeps the wool from shifting out of place too much while the rubbing forms a beginning of a felted skin on the wool.

I flipped it over gently and rubbed the other side. After awhile of repeating that, the felt started to hold together nicely. I'm working more on the middles at this point, because I don't want to really hard felt down the edges until the next bit.

At this point I cut the U shape right in half. Now I had two boot blanks started on their way.

I carefully pulled the resist out of the center of the boot blanks.

Then I stuck my hand into the boot, and rubbed the seams flat until they held together, flattened out, and didn't have any lumps. A little more soap and hot water helped this along.

Now that things were holding together, it was time to really make felt. Remember that wool felts together with agitation? I spent about an hour, working back and forth between the two booties. I scrunched them up and rolled them between my hands. I rubbed them against the bubbles in the bubble wrap. I frequently stuck my hand in the boot, and rubbed the felt around my fingers. I knew that the more you rub the felt in one direction, the more it will shrink in that direction, and I used that to shape the boots until they matched the dimensions I was looking for.

The tops of the boots kind of had a mind of their own on the shaping. I could have left the edges kind of rustic and natural looking like this.

But instead, I trimmed the top down even.

Then I rubbed the top end between my fingers to heal the cut edge.

I also added a little cut down the center top of the boot, to make it easier to get on and off.

When I was satisfied with the shape and size of the boots, I rinsed the soap out with cool water, and left them to dry.

You can see how far they shrunk from the original pattern!

And here are the finished booties. I'll have the little girl who is getting these put them on when they are slightly damp, and wear them around until they are dry. That will finish the shaping process by molding the felt to perfectly fit her feet.

Felt covered stress rocks

2011-12-14T22:46:00.000-08:00

I was experimenting tonight, and came up with these palm sized felt-covered river rocks. Everyone at the shows I do loves to pet the large door-stop sized felt rocks that I use as table weights, so when I had a request for palm sized ones I thought it was a great idea. The person who suggested these wants them as as fidget or stress relief stones for the work place. I think they'd also make great napkin and/or paper plate weights for picnics. What do you think you'd use them for? (They will be $3.50 each, or a set of 6 for $20.)

Triloom weaving with Loops & Threads "Cozy Wool" yarn

2011-12-13T22:38:00.000-08:00

I've been searching for just the perfect yarn to weave shawls with on my triangle loom, and I think I finally found it. My pegs are spaced just a little further apart than on most triangle looms, and I've been dealing with the fact that most yarns are a little too thin to give a good, solid fabric when they are that far apart. But this week I tried 'Cozy Wool', by Loops & Threads. (I bought it at Michaels.) It is a 50% wool, 50% acrylic blend, and is not only very toasty warm from the wool, the acrylic makes it really soft against bare skin. My only real complaint is that it comes in a limited range of colors so far.

This is what the shawl looked like on the loom. I used purple, dark blue, and light blue to give a nice plaid effect.

While it was on the loom, I was afraid that this yarn was going to be too skinny for what I had in mind, too. You can see the gaps between threads. (I did go back and wiggle the threads around to even up the weave.)

When I took the shawl off the loom though, the yarn immediately blossomed some as I released the tension.

And then I wet finished the shawl in the washing machine, with hot water in the delicate cycle. After the shawl dried, the fabric looked like this:

The fabric has transformed into a very stable weave that is thick and luxurious, and soft to the touch. Yes!! I finally found my yarn. I'll be making more shawls from this brand for sure.

The finished shawl looks like this:

Looking back on a month's worth of craft shows

2011-12-11T11:50:00.000-08:00

I've been kind of quiet here for a bit. I got to thinking about it, and realized that this spate of few blog entries has coincided with my first forays into having a booth for my items in real life, as opposed to just on Etsy. I did two nights at Glendale Glitters, which is a big holiday to-do for my home town. Then I did an evening for the One Voice Community Center, for their first entry into being part of the First Friday art scene in downtown Phoenix. And then a day craft show at the community college I work at. Oh, and I had my scarves and ties up at a concert at the Irish Community Center.

In each case, I made just enough sales to cover the booth fees, material fees of what I sold, and a little bit more. Successful...but not wildly. I did hand out lots of business cards, so there may or may not ever be anything that comes of that. I learned how to set up a booth, how to deal with the public, and how to take credit card sales. (I recommend squareup.com.)

But in each case, I came home totally drained. It took me 2-3 days after each show to really fully recover my energy. I don't know that it was necessarily the physical part of things, because I had help setting up and tearing down for most of those shows. No, I think it was this poor introvert needing to put on the public mask, and sparkle as the artist on display. I can do that role, and I do it well. But it doesn't come easily to me, and it takes its toll.

So...Yes, I think I do need to keep doing in person shows. It gets me local visibility, and does add sales. And I get valuable feed back and insight to what people are looking for. (Those silly felted rocks got the most interest of all. Everybody just had to pet the table weights! I'll be making some more in hand size, as fidget stones.) But I think I need to limit my shows to about once a month, so my inner introvert doesn't get totally tapped dry. And I need to spend the coming year researching shows, so the few that I choose make up in quality for the lack of quantity.

Oseberg style tablet weaving loom: first attempt

2011-11-29T01:36:00.000-08:00

Here's the first attempt at warping up my new Oseberg style tablet weaving loom. (See my board on Pinterest for pictures of Medieval illuminations of this style of loom: http://pinterest.com/lissamc/medieval-tablet-weaving-equipment/ ) Eric made both it and the cone yarn holder for me, which I used while I was measuring the warp. I love having a wood worker in the house! I'll actually get to weaving tomorrow, once I find a shuttle that isn't already in use. Then we'll see if I did it right or not, and what I need to change for next time.

If the loom looks familiar, that is because it appeared in earlier pictures as my scarf and tie display rack. I ran a clothes line across the top, and clothes pinned my scarfs to the line so they could flutter gently in the breeze. In other words: Yes, I conned my sweetie into building me a reproduction Medieval loom under the pretense of needing a display stand for my business. I'm sneaky that way!

Once I get this figured out, I'll do a how-to blog entry. Right now, I'm seriously winging it. I have absolutely no instructions on this style of loom, so I'm kind of going on my experience in doing back-strap weaving, and crossing that with my inkle loom weaving experience. I think I have it...but we'll see.

It is an adventure!

Glendale Glitters at Henny&Ev

2011-11-26T01:48:00.000-08:00

I had my silks and felt up on a table today outside of the Henny&Ev boutique (http://www.hennyandevboutique.com/), in the same area and time as Glendale Glitters (http://glendaleaz.com/events/glendaleglitters.cfm). It was kind of a long day, but really fun to do. I'm enjoying being able to talk to people, and share my art.

I actually spent a good portion of the time sitting and spinning yarn, while my daughter and husband sat behind the actual table and took care of the business side of things. Spinning is really eye catching to people in general, and particularly fascinating to young children. I have a minute or two mini demonstration about making yarn that I can give at the drop of a hat. It includes letting the kids touch a little roving, and then twisting it between my fingers and folding it back on itself. I lost track of the number of times I gave that little talk! But it is so worth it to see the light bulb come on in folks' eyes when the roving turns into a little snip of two ply yarn before their eyes.

I had a basket full of my hand spun yarn next to me as well, so folks could see what the end product looked like. I think several folks got a better appreciation for how much work used to go into making clothes. And I think a few might look at spinning lessons some day.

This is what was tempting me. A few tables down from me was a very lovely lady who also spun. She had some rabbits out front. That big one on the right is an angora bunny. She has one angora that she might be willing to sell to another spinner. Oooooh....bunny fur is sooooo lovely to spin! I'm trying to tell myself that 3 dogs, 9 cats, a parrot, and a tank of fish are enough animals in the house. Really. But....but....bunny fur!!!

We had a nice slow but steady flow of people wandering through our little enclave. We were a block away from the main action. However, just a few houses down from us these folks had set up an enclosure and filled it with snow for kids to romp in.

It was a very popular attraction. I grew up in the midwest US, so it seemed kind of amusing to me to truck in snow. But this is the Arizona desert, and most of the kids around here just don't get the chance to throw a decent snowball on a regular basis. They had a blast!

Ok, I need to get off to bed now. I'll be back out to do it again tomorrow. I'll head out to set up again at about 1 in the afternoon, and should be there until things close down at 10 pm. That makes for a long day...but if it is like today the time will seem to fly!

A tale of two skiens

2011-11-21T01:01:00.000-08:00

I model for the life drawing class at the local community college. The students are starting to get bored drawing nude bodies about this time of the semester, so the teachers try to change things up a bit to hold their interest. This last Wednesday the teacher had me bring a costume and my spinning wheel, and we took the class outside under the trees. It was a beautiful day for it! I did some warm up 2 minute gesture poses, and then the teacher had me sit and actually spin yarn for the rest of the class time. Spinning involves small, repetitive motions, so it wasn't too hard for the students to draw the action. And I got to fill a bobbin full of white wool singles over the course of the afternoon.

I actually have several spinning wheels. The one I use for the drawing classes is my Ashford Traditional, because it looks the most like what people think a spinning wheel ought to look like. However, it is also the wheel that I lend to my daughter most of the time. We only have a few bobbins for it, so I figured I had better open this one back up before too long. So today I took the wheel back out with me to my local SCA (Medieval historical recreation) practice. I had a second lovely sunny afternoon to sit and spin, and filled up a second bobbin full of singles.

This evening I took both bobbins full of singles and put them on this Lazy Kate. Now, I don't know who Kate was, and why she was considered lazy, but this device to hold bobbins of yarn while you ply them together is a really useful little gadget!

To ply yarn, I feed the two singles from the bobbins back into the spinning wheel, this time turning the wheel in the opposite direction from my original spinning direction. When the two singles twist back on themselves it strengthens the resulting yarn, and if you do it right it makes a balanced yarn that won't kink up or untwist itself, or bias your stitches. That makes the yarn much nicer for knitting or crochet.

When I had a bobbin full of finished yarn I wound it off into a skein, using my weasel. I think it is technically called a clock reel, but when I was growing up my folks volunteered at a restored colonial farm house on the weekends. They had one of these, and the other volunteers called it a weasel. They said it was the basis for the nursery rhyme, "Pop goes the weasel', because after 40 turns around (or 100 yards) the device would make a clicking or popping sound. (The monkey in the rhyme would have been the child pestering the mother as she was working.) I've since been told this isn't true, but I love the story anyway.

All told, I got two beautiful skeins of two ply wool yarn, for a total of 262 yards. I'm going to have these with me on my table this weekend when I set up at Henny & Ev for their craft show on Friday and Saturday night. (http://www.hennyandevboutique.com/) If they don't find a home though, I'll hold on to them for the next time we've got a dye pot going. I like having a stash of hand spun white wool for playing in the colors.

Fairy Stones! Or pattern weights for sewing. I can't decide which.

2011-11-10T21:41:00.000-08:00

The other day, I did a tutorial on how to wet felt a rock. (http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/11/tutorial-how-to-make-wet-felted-rock.html) In the comments, Charla mentioned that she was going to make some smaller ones up to serve as pattern weights for sewing. I thought that was a fine idea...

...and then I got to thinking. I have a craft show coming up on Saturday, and there is nothing on my table that is down in kid range. I remember when my kids were younger, how much they enjoyed when there was something colorful and inexpensive in and among the adult priced pretties, that was just for them. It is so frustrating as a kid to have a few precious dollars, and all the lovely things are still way out of your range.

And then in the middle of the night, in that half awake/half asleep phase, I pictured these little soft and colorful stones. And I pictured garden fairies, sunning themselves on river rocks on lovely days. And I thought, if you were very lucky, those fairies might come to visit. Wouldn't it be lovely to have a special cushioned stone seat to offer them, so they would feel welcomed and at home?

So today I scrounged up some little river rocks, and spent several hours making up a batch of Fairy Stones. I'll offer them in my booth on Saturday, so the kids can have something that is just for them.

And so the fairies can have comfortable seats.

Tutorial: How to make a Wet Felted Rock

2011-11-08T23:11:00.000-08:00

I read the weather report for the craft show I'm slated to be in this coming Saturday, and there is a chance of rain. In Arizona, that also means a good chance of wind. Thinking ahead, I thought it might be a good idea to bring along something heavy to hold things down on my table. Rocks would be good...but plain rocks are kind of boring. I decided that I'd make a felt coating over the rocks, to make them look neat and to fit in better with the theme of my table. Besides, they are fun to do!

Here's what I did:

First I went to my nearest source of fist sized river rocks. That happened to be the dog kennel in my bedroom, because my spaniel thinks he's a rock hound. Seriously. He gathers them from behind the hot tub in the back yard, brings them in, slobbers over them, guards them from the cats, hides them under my pillow, and eventually stashes them in his den.

I picked out a batch. Malcolm and I had a talk. I gave in and let him keep one of his treasures, and took the rest away. He was not amused. This is despite the fact that he still had like a dozen rocks in the crate.

Anyway, now that I had obtained a rock, I also dug through my stash and picked out some wool roving. This is mill end stuff that I got from www.thesheepshedstudio.com/. Make sure when you get roving for felting that you don't get 'superwash' wool. That has been treated to prevent felting.

I broke off a length of roving that was long enough to go around the rock, and feathered it out so it was thin, even, and wide. Then I wrapped it around the rock.

I wrapped another section of roving around the rock at right angles to the first one. Criss crossing the fibers like that makes it easier to felt them together.

I had lots of white, so I used that for the inside layers. Now I added a layer of my base color, again at right angles to the previous layer.

One more layer of base color at right angles to the previous layer, and I had a tribble. No, wait. I had a rock ready to felt.

But I decided that I didn't want a plain colored felt rock. I added some wisps of other colors to decorate it. I know things are going to move around in the next stage, so I wasn't really attached to the exact placement of the decorations. (At this point some people like to put the wool/rock combo into the cut off toe of a nylon, to keep things under control in the next stage. I don't find that necessary, but it can help.)

I took the tribble to the sink, and then coated my palms with a thin layer of dish soap. This serves two purposes. The layer of soap helps keep the fibers from sticking to my hands. And the soap gets down into the fibers, and helps them slip around against each other. Wool fibers felt because they have microscopic scales on them, that kind of velcro together when you add water and agitation. If the water is hot and soapy, the felting goes faster.

I turned on the hot water, cupped both soap slicked hands around the rock, and let the water run through my fingers onto the wool until the wool was wet through. It is hard to show this to you, because I also have to use one hand to take the picture. So this is the wool just after it has been wet down.

Now, making sure there was some soap on my hands, I gently started tossing the rock back and forth between my hands. It was kind of wrinkly, but a skin started to form as the outer layer of wool grabbed on to itself.

Once that outer layer formed, I could toss it back and forth a little harder. The wool started to shrink down against the rock, but things were still pretty mushy. (If I were using a nylon, I'd carefully peel it off at this stage, when the fibers began to migrate through the nylon.)

After awhile things held together, and I could rub the rock and roll it around in my hands in addition to throwing it back and forth. I alternated now and again between adding a dab more soap to keep things slippery, and running the rock under hot water to shock the fibers and keep the suds under control when they started to take over.

Now it was a matter of time. I kept throwing the rock back and forth, rolling it in my hands, slapping it, and generally abusing the wool. After awhile all the mush went away, and I had a solid, seamless coating form fitted to the river rock.

I set it with the other rocks to dry...

...until Malcolm came in to check on me. I put the rock next to him, and he was rather confused. That wasn't his rock, was it???

The dog is convinced I ruined a perfectly good treasure. But I think it will do the trick quite well, and I'll be felting up the rest of the rocks too. (Don't worry--there are plenty more for the fluff brain.) Between the batch of them, I don't think I'll be blowing away come Saturday!

Getting ready for the Glendale Holiday Open House show

2011-11-07T10:24:00.000-08:00

Well, this is going to be a new step for me! I'll have a table outside of Henny & Ev (http://www.hennyandevboutique.com/) this coming Saturday as part of the Glendale Holiday Open House event. (http://www.visitglendale.com/news/holidayopenhouse.html) The town is handing out walking maps to the historic downtown area, and we'll be on it.

I've been concentrating on getting my Etsy store up and running, and doing custom orders for people. I haven't actually had a display table of my work for the public in...um...well I did that a couple of decades ago, I think. Once or twice. With a totally different line of art. Oh man, am I getting nervous here!

I've already bought the table, and tracked down an umbrella to borrow for the day. The table space available is only 6 ft, and Kendall (the owner) would prefer that we didn't bring EZ-ups, so the umbrella sun shade is going to be the way to go. I signed up with Square (https://squareup.com/), so I'll be able to take credit cards. That did mean I needed to upgrade my phone, as I was still using mine from about 10 years ago. Somehow, the technology has advanced a wee bit in the past decade. Fancy that. (The sales guy wanted to hang my sim card on the wall as an antique.)

My husband is making me a display stand for my scarves. I wanted two uprights that I could clamp to the table. I'll string a clothesline between them and clip the scarves onto that, so they'll flutter in the breeze but be secure. I got to thinking about it...and conned him into making me an Oseberg style tablet weaving loom. You can see what I'm talking about on my Pinterest board at http://pinterest.com/lissamc/medieval-tablet-weaving-equipment/ . It should work perfectly for my display, and when I'm not using it for shows I can use it for my historical weaving. He's got it a good portion of the way done. I'm sneaky, and he rocks.

Now, I still need to figure out a table cloth, and a basket to hold my juggling balls, and oh yes...having Enough Stock. Which means, I need to get off the computer here, and spend the day making some more of the square head scarves. And steam the baker's dozen of rectangular scarves that are hanging in the middle of the picture up on top there. And do I have enough juggling balls. And...and...Yes, I'm obsessing.

Anyone who wants to leave me some tips in the comments? I'd really appreciate it.

Now...Back to work!

Medieval hand spun and hand woven wool over dress

2011-11-05T19:33:00.000-07:00

Awhile back I made a Medieval style dress for the historical recreation group I'm part of. It was made of my hand spun wool yarn, hand woven into fabric and sewn together into a tunic based on an extant piece from about the 1300's. I promised a couple of folks a picture if me in it, but it has been too hot in Arizona to wear it...until today. We had a cold snap last night, and an event today. I finally got to give it a go! I found it very comfortable, and quite cozy.

So for those of you who asked, here is a shot of me in the finished outfit. It is: a hand made wool over dress and linen under tunic. Hand braided belt, and a belt pouch of hand woven fabric with a bead work heraldic overlay. Shoes from http://www.garbtheworld.com/. Carved stone medallion from http://www.gemartist.com/. The only bits that aren't hand made on this ensemble are bits that you can't see...and I'm starting the research on those.

A wrap up of previous posts about this project is here: http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/06/historic-hand-spun-hand-woven-tunic.html

Modeling for Life Drawing class on Halloween

2011-11-01T02:01:00.000-07:00

When I'm not working in my studio, I spend my time modeling for life drawing classes for the local community college. On Halloween, that gets to be lots of fun! One of the teachers came in over the weekend and put together this setting for me to play in.

There was room for me in the center, and little vignettes on either side of the podium.

We usually start a class period by doing 'gesture' poses, which are 1-3 minutes long. They are good for warm ups, and allow me to do some more strenuous and twisty poses. For the afternoon class, one of the students who was in costume came up and posed with me, just for the heck of it.

And then I did some longer poses, which were anywhere from 20 minutes long up to an hour long. I got to play a dead body in both the morning and the afternoon classes. (I took a walk around the room to look at student drawings after the morning dead body pose, and tweaked it a bit to improve it for the afternoon class.)

And the students decided that this pose was Little Red...about to kick some serious wolf tail.

I normally don't get to share this part of my creativity with you, because normally I'm not wearing a heck of a lot for class. But every now and again I get to play with costumes. It is a nice change of pace, both for me and for the students. And there is some really neat artwork that comes out of these sessions!

Glowing Petroglyphs gourd bowl

2011-10-30T00:34:00.000-07:00

The Native Forum team on Etsy is participating in an 'Artists Exposed' treasury this coming November. That is a gathering of listings where the lead picture is a shot of the artist themselves, rather than the item. It lets folks get to know one another a little bit better. I didn't participate last year (my native blood dates back to the 1800's, so I always feel like a visitor to the team), but got my guts up to play along this time. But I wanted to have a new piece of art work for the listing.

So, I took the time this week to transform this gourd:

The gourd was originally grown in Casa Grande, Arizona. I scrubbed it down, sawed it open, scooped out the innards, and cleaned and sanded it up. Then I dyed the bowl inside and out with a half dozen blended colors of leather dye, and sealed it with several light layers of clear spray. The darker streaks down the outside of the gourd were inspired by a phenomenon called 'desert varnish', which is a dark patina that forms on cliff faces in arid climates.

I sewed a decorative chevron rim treatment in waxed linen.

Then came the fun part. I regularly go hiking in the White Tank Mountain Regional Park, located just west of Phoenix, Arizona. If you look carefully when you are on the trails, you can spot ancient petroglyphs that were carved into the desert varnish by the Hohokam Indians, probably somewhere between A.D. 500 - 1100. Rangers say that some of the images may actually be up to 10,000 years old. I have collected many pictures of the petroglyphs, and for this bowl I went back through my albums for inspiration.

I sketched the symbols on the gourd, and then carefully drilled holes along my lines. It adds a nice texture to the gourd during the day...

but the bowl really comes alive at night. The next pictures are of the bowl in low light conditions, with a tap light inside of it. With light streaming from inside, the ancient images take on a glowing new life.

You can find the bowl at http://www.etsy.com/listing/84957986/for-artists-exposed-gourd-bowl-with

For my own 'Glowing Petroglyphs' piece I use a votive candle on a stand inside, which makes a lovely warm and flickering light. But the gourds are flammable. I don't leave mine unattended, but for safety's sake I sell the gourds with a tap light included instead of a candle.

Oh...the picture I used for the 'Artists Exposed' part of this? I grabbed this one that my daughter snapped of me last July. I was in my studio, trying out one of her pop-tab necklaces. They are actually quite comfortable, and really fun. She's planning on listing them in her own shop over the next week or so. That is a D&D d20 dice hanging from the choker. Yes, we're gamer geeks over here.

Wet felted juggling balls

2011-10-20T22:16:00.000-07:00

I'm making juggling balls tonight. This is a great way to recycle used golf balls! I wrap the golf ball in three light layers of wool roving, and then add wisps of various colors of roving on the surface as decoration.

I love the transformation that wool goes through on its way to becoming felt! Magic indeed. On the left in the above picture, you see the golf ball wrapped in the roving, just before the felting process.

I've wet down the middle ball with hot, soapy water. I've started gently tossing it back from hand to hand, to create a kind of skin on the ball. Felt happens when wool fibers are exposed to water and agitation, and microscopic scales on the fibers kind of velcro themselves to each other. Heat and soap help the process along.

The ball on the right has been rolled around between my hands for awhile. The fibers have locked together, and shrunk down tight around the golf ball. From here, I toss the juggling balls into my clothes dryer. They thump around and make a gawd-awful racket, but the heat and agitation finishes the process of hardening the felt.

The finished balls end up looking like this:

The golf ball core gives these juggling balls a nice weight and solidity for throwing. The felt coat gives the balls a nice bit of grip, so they don't slide out of your hands quite as easily. My juggler friends give these a thumbs up.

Who knew silk could walk off on its own?

2011-10-20T00:35:00.000-07:00

Well, I think I took another step forward in being a maker of desirable pretties. In a backhanded sort of way. It goes like this...

A few weeks ago, I took my hand painted silk scarves and ties into work for the students to look at. And soon after that, I had the scarves and ties on display at the concert my singing group gave. They were on a table in the back of the room, while I sang with the group in the front. (You see where this is going?) There was a big sign with them, giving the prices, mentioning that a portion of each sale went to benefit Celtica!, and giving my contact information.

Fast forward to last night. One of my scarves sold through my Etsy shop. ( www.tangibledaydreams.etsy.com ) This morning I went to package the scarf up...and it wasn't in the bag with the rest of my inventory. I tore my studio apart, thinking I had misplaced it (and collapsed my craft table on top of me in the process--but that is another story). It was nowhere to be found. I was late to work at this point, so off I went.

There is a lot of time to think and mull things over when you are a life drawing model. I worked two classes, which means 6 hours (more or less) of pondering. When I came back home, I followed a hunch and checked the inventory in my bag of goodies against the inventory in my Etsy store. Sure enough, in addition to the one scarf, there was a second scarf missing (different size, but same color scheme) as well as one of the ties. Yup. Somewhere along the line, I had gotten shoplifted.

This is the first theft of my hand made items. In a very back handed way, I feel more legitimate now. Frustrated, absolutely. But like I passed a rite of passage. I tell you what though, next time I'm not leaving my goods at the other side of the room, even for an instant!

I made things right with last night's customer, thank goodness. I refunded her money, and will be sending her second choice scarf to her free of charge. I hated having to tell her that the scarf she bought had already found feet and walked off on its own. She was very understanding, so all is good there.

I hope whomever has my scarves and tie enjoys them. No, really. I'd like my work to be treasured.

But I'm a little disappointed in human kind at the moment.

Celtica!, silk scarves and ties, and a hand made lucet

2011-10-09T16:43:00.000-07:00

I sing with a group called Celtica!, that is based out of the Irish Cultural Center in Phoenix, Arizona. We held a concert last night in memory of one of our charter members who passed away recently. It actually went quite well, despite my butterflies. I do so love singing in a group. I just don't like performing in front of actual people. Somehow that performance thing comes with the territory, though.

I gave my camera to a friend (Rebecca Baum) for the evening. She got several good shots of us, despite the low light and the lack of flash photography. I went in and cropped them up a little bit. What I'm really pleased with is how well the scarves and ties pop out. These are some of my hand painted silk pretties that the group uses as accents to the outfits during formal performances. They really give the group a unified look.

That is me on the far left in the first row.

In other news, my birthday was last Wednesday. My husband has been busily at work in the wood shop, making me fiber tools. He's almost got the charkha finished, for spinning fine cotton yarn. He did get a lucet done for me, made of walnut. A lucet is a tool for making strong, fine cording for things like drawstrings and laces. I think I've convinced him to make up some more of these, so I may end up expanding my Etsy shop to carry these too. In the mean time, I love mine!

Now, it is a lovely afternoon here in Phoenix, so I'm going to go enjoy the daylight and work in my front courtyard. It is so nice to be able to get outside again, after the heat of a desert summer!

SCA: Atenveldt Arts & Sciences Championship...sort of

2011-10-02T01:01:00.000-07:00

I'm part of the Society for Creative Anachronism, which is a historical recreation group that studies the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Today was my kingdom's Arts and Sciences Championship event. I brought along my camera, because I had planned to make a blog entry with all of the lovely items that folks had come up with. But, well...I never did get to see the entries. When they are being judged, the general public isn't allowed in the display room. And just before they opened it up for public viewing, I was called away to a meeting that lasted for more than an hour. By the time I got out, the display had been cleaned up. So, I really have no idea what was entered this time around.

However, I still had a marvelous day, and I'm going to show you pictures of all of the unofficial artsy stuff that went on. This is what the rest of us did to amuse ourselves while the judges were busy with the official business of the day.

To start off, we got there while the King and Queen were holding their court, where announcements are made and awards are given. I was pleased to see my apprentice get recognized for his artistic ability. (He is an awesome bard, and also does map making and teaches how to make drinking horns.) In this picture, the King is about to present him with a hand illuminated and calligraphied scroll suitable for framing. The scribes in our group work hours and hours to create individual works of art for all the award recipients.

After court, the judges went off to do their thing, and the rest of us looked for ways to pass the time. The rapier fighters and the heavy armored fighters both held tournaments that were fun to watch. Here is my champion in the heavy tournament, just an instant before he delivered a blow to his opponent's leg. Good clean shot! The armor, costumes, and weapons are hand made. (They're wearing more armor under the tunics.) You can't just go to WalMart to get a helm these days, you know?

Speaking of costumes, everyone who attended the event was in some sort of costume. Most had made the outfit themselves. Some of these get very elaborate and accurate to the time period. This is my daughter's friend, in a dress she designed and sewed based on a portrait of one of Henry VIII's wives. Isn't she spectacular?

Back inside, we had various musicians playing the afternoon away.

Lots of people brought some sort of handwork to do, and to teach others.

And, there were some items on display that weren't in the actual competition.

All in all, it was a marvelous day. I'm still a bit put out that I didn't get to see the actual competition portion of the day...but I spent my time surrounded by good friends, beautiful things, and people who were more than willing to share the neat arts that they were passionate about. How can you go wrong?

Basketry supplies, and Pinterest

2011-09-30T18:45:00.000-07:00

Now this is going to be fun! This is a haul I got through Craigslist. There was a basket maker who had to move suddenly, and didn't want her stash of weaving supplies to go to the dump. I took them off her hands for $50. I think I won! That is 7 laundry baskets and 2 moving boxes full of reed, most of it already dyed. In addition, there is one basket full of basket bases, and some handles. One box alone is worth more than I paid for the whole treasure trove. I foresee teaching some basketry classes in the near future.

Now, I only have to figure out where to store this all. Um....hmmm. That might take some work. The shed is still stuffed full of gourds, leather, and fleeces.

In other news, I've started playing on Pinterest just in the past few days. http://pinterest.com/lissamc/ It is like my own digital bulletin board, except that I can share it with other folks too. I had looked at the site now and again, but didn't see a use for it for myself...until I realized that I could use it to draw together images when I'm researching a topic. To start with, I've begun a board for my Medieval felt research. Anyone know of any pictures of actual Medieval artifacts made of felt scattered around the internet? I'd like to add them to my board.

The finished gourd

2011-09-27T23:07:00.000-07:00

I finished up the gourd I've been working on. Take a look here to see the process:
Cleaning a gourd: http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/09/cleaning-dried-gourd.html
Dyeing a gourd: http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/09/dyeing-gourd.html
Weaving on the gourd: http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/09/teneriffe-weaving-on-gourd-lid.html

And here's how it turned out!

I'm pretty pleased with this one. The weaving especially was fun to do. I started with a color scheme, and with the beads in place, but improvised everything from there. I was aiming for an organic feel that was still fairly balanced. So if I used a color or technique on one side, I used it across the way in a slightly different form. It holds the design together without being rigid symmetry. Not bad!

Teneriffe weaving on the gourd lid

2011-09-23T22:17:00.000-07:00

I've been busy modeling for life drawing classes this week, so I haven't made as much progress on the gourd as I wanted to. But here's what I've been up to. (Check out the previous steps in this project here:
Cleaning a gourd: http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/09/cleaning-dried-gourd.html
Dyeing a gourd: http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/09/dyeing-gourd.html )

My first step was to find a handy circular guide, and with a pencil lightly mark out where I wanted to drill holes.

Then I drilled two rows of holes with my little hand drill.

I pulled out some waxed linen that was similar in color to the gourd lid, and measured out about 5 yards. I tied a knot in one end that was too big to slip through the holes...

...and then threaded it through one of the holes from the backside of the lid. (I glued that hairline crack, so it wouldn't be a structural issue. The crack doesn't go through to the front anyway--looks much worse than it is. But I'm careful.)

I took a moment, and strung a few beads onto the waxed linen. My needle was too big to fit through the holes, but luckily I could take the needle off and just pop them over the end of the thread.

I rethreaded my needle, and took the thread down into the hole directly across the way.

I came up in the next door hole, and went directly across the center again to the other side.

I repeated this step, building a web across the gourd lid. I had put an odd number of holes in the circle, so the last thread went just halfway across, and came up just beyond the center junction.

The warp is now in place, and I'm ready to weave. I started weaving over under, going around the center junction.

I snugged the thread down tight, making a circle.

If you'll notice, that circle is a little off center. To work around that, I went back and forth now and again in addition to round and round, until I had a nicely centered circle.

It doesn't look exactly perfect, but I wasn't worried since my next step was to sew down the knob that allows me to pick up the lid.

Now I buried the end of the gourd colored thread, and added in a contrasting circle of grey to make the handle pop visually.

Now, the fun part begins. I weave under/over, back and forth with the waxed linen, just kind of doodling on the web. I have no real plan charted out. You can chart out lovely patterns, but I'm just playing here with a free-form design.

I decided that my design might change depending on what the rim treatment was going to look like, so I added grey linen for a visual pop. It is whip stitched going around one direction all around. Then I reversed direction and whip stitched going the other direction all around, letting the stitches cross at the rim to make a neat V pattern.

And that is as far as I've gotten tonight. Next up is more doodling with the waxed linen in a free-form design. And maybe another row of gray V's on the rim of the bowl in addition to the ones of the lid. Still deciding on that. I'll probably wait to decide until I get the lid done, and see what it needs from there.

Dyeing the gourd

2011-09-17T23:17:00.000-07:00

In my previous blog entry (http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/09/cleaning-dried-gourd.html) I showed you how I cleaned up a dried gourd to get it ready for turning into one of my decorated bowls. Today I took the next step, and colored the gourd.

First, I used some sandpaper and smoothed down the rim of the bowl and the lid.

Then I gathered my materials. I used several colors of leather dye, and a smidge of gold acrylic paint.

First thing I did was to dye the inside of the bowl and the lid a yellow, and let it dry. I decided that was a little bright, and put a layer of white dye over it to tone it down.

Then I used the leather dye on the gourd. I started with darker colors at the base of the bowl, and built up to lighter and lighter colors. I encouraged each color to drip down into the previous layer. I tried thinning the gold acrylic paint out with some leather dye for a glittery layer, but it just clumped up and looked icky. So I wiped that off, and tried a layer of acrylic paint thinned with water. That worked better, but the texture was still kind of thick. I got a hint of glitter gold, but I think I'll skip that experiment next time around.

When I had the color pretty much how I wanted it, I turned the gourd over a canister to dry.

After it was dry, I took a rag to it and buffed it up to smooth out the texture, and remove excess dye.

Because the acrylic paint was in there, the buffing stripped up some of the color where it was a little thick right at the rim. So, I took some sand paper and turned that into a feature. It actually added a cool texture. No mistakes!

I checked to make sure the lid was colored in such a way that it coordinated with the bowl.

Then, I took the bowl and lid outside and gave them 4 light coats of sealant.

Next will be the fun part! I do weaving on top of these bowls to decorate the lid. I had a request for a weaving in light neutral colors: white, grey, tan, silver, and gold. I think I've figured out the accent beads and handle I want to use, and I've ordered some grey waxed linen to go along with the white and warm tan that I already have.

OK, mail, get here with my linen! I want to keep playing...

Cleaning a dried gourd

2011-09-15T00:52:00.000-07:00

I'm just about done with the scarf project, and so I'm moving on to my next requested work: a decorated gourd. My first step was to head out to the stash in my shed, and pick out a dried gourd. I brought it inside a couple of days ago, to give it time to adjust from the baking desert heat out in the shed to the cool and somewhat more humid air in the house.

A raw gourd has a waxy coating on the outside of it, which needs to be removed so the dye can get to the rind of the gourd. I scrub the coating off with a copper kitchen scrubbie and some water. Sometimes you need to soak the gourd for a bit to loosen the coating. But you need to be careful not to soak too long, as the dry rind will swell and perhaps crack. And, a wet rind is softer and more fragile. But in this case, the waxy coating came off in about 20 minutes worth of scrubbing. (Sorry about the focus on the picture--I was paying more attention to the work than the documentation.)

I let the gourd sit for 24 hours after removing the waxy coating, to make sure it dried back out again. Because, again, wet gourd = more fragile gourd. Then I took it out to the garage, put my dust mask on (very important!! No mold spores in my lungs, thank you very much.) and used my little craft saw to carve open the top.

Inside is a mess of seeds and dried pulp.

I took my handy dandy scraper, and had at it. The insides went into a bucket, and were destined for the compost pile. If you don't have a scraper, various spoons work well. I used to use a grapefruit spoon.

You can get pretty far with just the scraper.

But I like power tools. This is a specialized sanding bit for my drill. You need to be really careful to keep a good hold on the gourd, and work very patiently. I've cracked more than one gourd on this step by letting things get battered around.

But you can see how it strips the rest of the dried white pulp coating off of the walls of the hard rind.

I did the same thing to the top of the gourd, so I had a lid for my future bowl. I'll probably sand the edges of the rim just a bit, and maybe sand down the inside of the bowl. But it is pretty much ready for the decorating part now.

Cave Woman costume

2011-09-12T03:05:00.000-07:00

Just for silliness...

I'm part of a historical recreation group, that studies the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Usually. But...um...in the written guidelines, they never actually put down a starting date for our recreation. So once a year my local chapter gets really really silly, and puts on a Caveman Tournament. Our warriors toss furs over their Shining Armor, scramble for weapons in a pile in the center of the ring, and beat each other with sticks and rocks. Ugh! (Rocks in this case means tennis balls that have been duct taped together.) Winners of each round are Smart Cavemen, and get to start the next round with a newly invented weapon instead of scrambling in the pile with everyone else. The spectators dress in their finest cave couture, and much silliness and fun is had by all.

I woke up this morning and realized that I wanted a New Cave Woman Dress. I've been using fake fur wound around me the past few years, and that is very very hot in September in Phoenix, AZ. We're still hitting triple digits on a daily basis. So this afternoon, between painting scarves, I trotted out to the shed and pulled out several soft leather hides from my stash of neat stuff. The hides are thin enough to fit through my sewing machine. I stitched two of them together into one long rectangle, snipped two rows of holes, and ran two leather thongs through the holes as a drawstring waistband. That made a wrap-around skirt.

Then I put my tank top down on another hide as a general pattern, and cut around it to make a halter top. I used some more leather thong to tie the straps around my neck, and to make a criss-cross lace up back.

This is how it turned out.

You know what? It was actually really secure and comfortable. Nice and cool in the desert night, and soft soft soft against the skin. I think I'll be a cave woman for Halloween, just to give myself a good excuse to wear it again!

Ugh!

Still working on the scarf order for MIT

2011-09-05T22:56:00.000-07:00

I'm still working on the MIT commission. I sent this sample scarf to them on Saturday, so they can decide which font and phrase they'd like on their silk scarves. I use the stamp pad to give me the template, and then trace over that with the Sharpie paint pen. After that, the lettering stands up to the washing machine quite well. I think the easiest lettering to do was the small italic 'great ideas change the world' stamp, but we'll see what they prefer.

In the meantime, tonight I'm steaming the first dozen scarves in the order. To set the color and make it wash fast, I wait at least 24 hours after painting a scarf. Then I steam it for 3 hours. After that, I let the scarf sit for another 24 hours before I wash and iron it. This process makes the color quite permanent. (The grey scarf above has been through the wash at least a half dozen times already.)

My husband snapped this shot of me rolling up the scarves to get them ready for the steamer.

The Sharpie Paint Pen Wins!: Adding silver lettering to the grey silk scarves.

2011-09-03T01:24:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a commission for MIT recently. They ordered a batch of hand painted silk scarves to use as dean's gifts. Most of the scarves are to be in this grey and black color scheme, which I have down pat. (The 13th scarf is currently drying on the stretcher frame.)

However, they also asked if I could add their name in a metallic silver lettering. I said yes, of course I could...and since then I've been figuring out how to do it. They sent me an assortment of stamps to use. The trick has been finding the right ink or paint to use with them. I wasn't having much luck, so today I went out and bought a bunch of possibilities to test out.

I've tried: Lumiere metallic silver, Lumiere black, acrylic paint with fabric medium, Color Box stamp pad, Clearly Better stamp pad, A La Mode stamp pad, a Pen Touch silver pen, and a Sharpie silver Paint pen.

Results: The Lumiere silver paint and the acrylic paint didn't show up against the grey of the fabric, unless I got them rather thick. If I got them thick, they blobbed on the stamps and didn't give a crisp, clear lettering. The Lumiere black had a thicker consistency and worked decently with the stamp, but it didn't show up well on the darker parts of the scarf. And of course, it wasn't silver.

The stamp pads gave a crisp clear lettering, and the A La Mode stood out the most against the fabric. I ironed everything I tried to heat set them all, and then tossed the scarf in the wash. All of the stamp pads washed right out, which I kind of expected as they are formulated for paper and not fabric.

The Pen Touch silver pen kind of bled a dark halo around the lettering, and then washed mostly out of the fabric.

However, I found a winner in the Sharpie paint pen. I used the Extra Fine Point silver pen. It is billed as an oil-based opaque paint marker. I used the stamp pad and the A La Mode ink to give me a template, and then traced over it with the Sharpie. You can see that it came through the wash with flying colors.

MIT gave me a handful of stamps to try out. I'll be working with them some more tomorrow, and then I'll ship this sample scarf off to them so they can choose which stamp they prefer for the finished scarves. I do have one more dye to try out tomorrow, but as it stands I have a viable option for adding the silver lettering to the grey scarves. Here's to experimentation!

Pre-washing and ironing silk scarves for the MIT and the Celtica! commissions.

2011-08-30T23:55:00.000-07:00

I spent the afternoon washing and ironing 40 silk scarves, getting them ready for the dyeing process. Yes, I know. Some parts of my job are so terribly glamorous, no? Well...maybe not so much. But each step is necessary. This one makes sure there is no sizing or gum or oils or anything left on the silk that might interfere with how the fabric takes the dye. I'll start on the fun part tomorrow, which is actually adding color to the silk.

40 scarves sounds like an awful lot to find ideas for...until I realize that 30 of those scarves are for a commission that I'm working on for MIT. (25 grey and 5 coral colored scarves, to be dean's gifts.) And a few more will be dyed in the blue/green colorway for the singing group Celtica!. So that actually leaves me just a handful left over for playing with new color combinations. And, it leaves me a cushion of supplies on hand in case I screw up one of the commission pieces somehow. I don't foresee any troubles, but it is nice to have back-up.

So, 40 scarves, and I'll be painting at least 32 of those over the next few weeks. I'm going to be busy!

Come to think of it...busy is good.

New size of silk scarves for the Etsy shop

2011-08-27T01:21:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to share a peek of what I've been up to. I got a commission a bit ago from someone looking for a head scarf for a friend who was undergoing chemo. She liked my hand painted silk scarves, but the rectangular shape I usually make didn't quite fit the bill. So we put our heads together, and I came up with a half dozen 30" x 30" hand painted scarves. The size works quite well for the head. I played around with them today a bit while I was taking pictures for the Etsy shop, and found they work quite well as neck scarves too. Want to see?

This is the one she chose for her friend. It heads out in the mail tomorrow.

The rest are still available, though. http://www.etsy.com/listing/80557838/silk-scarf-square-hand-painted-in-blue

http://www.etsy.com/listing/80558984/silk-scarf-square-hand-painted-in-peach

http://www.etsy.com/listing/80560128/silk-scarf-square-hand-painted-in-green

http://www.etsy.com/listing/80560971/silk-scarf-square-hand-painted-in-orange

http://www.etsy.com/listing/80563378/silk-scarf-square-hand-painted-in-pink

I do so love playing with the colors!

Kumihimo, 50 challenge, and the ties in action

2011-08-21T23:03:00.000-07:00

A few years back, a challenge went around the arts community in the Society for Creative Anachronism. The group is coming up on its 50th anniversary, and so the arts folks issued a 50/50 challenge. The idea was to do 50 of something before the SCA turned 50. I chose two weaving challenges--one for narrow wares, and one for yardage. The idea was to weave 50 yards of each. I've been kind of distracted, but tonight I finished up the above kumihimo braid, and it came in at 5 1/2 yards long. I looked back at my records, and that pushes me over the top of the narrow wares challenge by 2 1/2 yards. DONE! It may take me awhile, but I keep plugging away at it. Now, to the yardage challenge....hey wait. Checking my records again... Wow!! I was at 43 yards out of 50 before I did the yardage for my Estrella entry this past February. That ended up being just over 8 yards long. So that challenge is done too! That was 50 yards of narrow wares (inkle, card woven, or kumihimo), and 50 yards of fabric from the floor loom, over the course of about 3 years.

If you're wondering about the kumihimo, I used cotton crochet thread. The finished braid was set up just like the new one you see on the disk. I used two threads of dark blue, and 6 threads of variegated light blue. The braiding pattern is the same one as in this tutorial: http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2009/06/kumihimo-braiding.html .

In other news, I went with my family to the theater today, to see a production of "Hairspray". It was an awesome performance! I do so love live theater. My husband and son both decided to wear silk ties that I had hand painted, to give them a test run. Thumbs up all around. Don't they look spiffy?

The ties do too.

Silk painting and color theory: blending complementary colors

2011-08-21T01:38:00.000-07:00

I'm back to dyeing silk scarves again. I was asked to recreate the color scheme of one of the rectangular scarves, but in a 30" x 30" square instead. It will be a head scarf. I said yes...and then realized that I didn't remember how I got that exact scheme. However, I think I got pretty close here, don't you? It has a little more of the pink/purple than the original. The colors are all there--just in slightly different proportions.

While I was doing the square scarves (I made a half dozen of them, just to offer some variety of choice) I decided to play with color theory. I know from a class I took some years ago that colors that are across the color wheel from each other are called complementary colors. That would be red/green, blue/orange, and yellow/purple. If you mix complementary colors, you can get some awesome earthy tones.

So, I decided to play. I chose 4 colors of purple, and 3 colors of yellow dye. I put 4 eyedroppers of the yellows on my palette. (I used the canary yellow twice.)

Then I added a half an eyedropper of purple to the yellows.

The left two colors mixed into beautiful browns and oranges.

The right two however were a little more pink than I wanted.

So I added a eyedropper of saffron yellow to those two mixtures.

I painted the whole scarf with squiggles of color, then added salt in swirls and scatters.

Then I sat back, and watched the paint dry. When that got old, I went and got dinner, and came back later to see what I had. The salt pulled the dye into intricate patterns, and the dye lightened into a beautiful warm, rich scarf.

I have all 6 head scarves dyed, as well as one short rectangular scarf that is a test of coloration for another commission. That last one is currently drying on the stretcher frame. Next up, the scarves need to set for at least 24 hours. After the wait time, I can steam the scarves to set the color. After another 24 hour wait I can wash them and iron them dry, and they'll be good to go.

And yes, I took better notes this time.

Fulling hand woven fabric--What a Difference!

2011-08-17T16:55:00.000-07:00

This is actually an older project, but I was talking about it briefly on Ravelry today. (I'm there as 'TangibleDaydreams'.) This was one of the first projects I wove with my hand spun yarn. The yarn is singles, from a merino wool and tencel blend roving that I picked up at the Griffin Dyeworks fiber retreat some years back. The colors were inspired by a summer family trip to the beach and ocean in Mexico. The pattern is an undulating twill design that I drafted in a workshop given by Sharon Alderman.

The interesting thing about this project to me is that I decided to see just what seriously fulling the woven fabric would do to it. So after I got it off the loom, wove in the tails, and twisted the fringe, I tossed it in the washing machine on hot and let the machine do its worst.

This is how it turned out. The fabric shrunk by at least half, and thickened up considerably. Where it had a lovely drape right off the loom (I was thinking shawl with it), it stiffened up after fulling. The pattern was partially obscured, but still showed through and gave a little bit of texture. The colors melded together.

Well, it wasn't going to be a shawl any more. But, it wasn't ruined. Instead, it turned into a seriously kick ass table runner, which I love love love. It is just the size of my dresser, so I have had it displayed there for several years now. The fabric wears like iron, and I suspect it will still be in good shape several generations from now.

(The spinning wheel in the picture is a great wheel from the 1800's that I have pressed back into service. The basket on the right comes from Prague, and has carded fleece in it that I'm gradually spinning for another project. The candle holders and the eagle sculpture were done by my father. And two of the stacked boxes on the left are hand made as well--one by a friend, and one by my grandfather.)

Suggestions for fabric paint for stamping?

2011-08-15T19:32:00.000-07:00

Hey all, I'm looking for some advice here. I need to stamp fairly fine lettering onto a silk scarf, preferably in metallic silver. The result needs to be permanent, flexible, and washable. Anyone have a favorite brand of fabric paint for stamping? I tried Lumiere applied to the stamp with a foam brush, and that didn't give a clean image. I'll head to JoAnne's or Michaels tomorrow to pick up some other options to try, but thought I'd get some advice from folks who have been down this learning curve before.

Soft grey silk ties

2011-08-13T02:06:00.000-07:00

I've been asked to work up some silk ties that are similar in feel to the grey silk scarves that I make.

Now, I make these by using black Tinfix dye mixed with water in various strengths, and then sprinkled with silk salt while it dries. This dye is steam set and then tossed in the washing machine. The ties can't stand up to that setting treatment though, and need to be heat set and dry cleaned instead. So, I've been making ties using Setasilk dye. The black dye with silk salt comes out looking very striking and flamboyant with this dye.

However, as cool as they are, they are not the same in feel to the scarves. So, today I tried out using Dye-na-flow dye on the ties. Here's the initial results.

The lighting wasn't the best, because I'm taking the picture late at night in the studio. But I think this has a softer contrast, and is closer to what they had in mind. I'm using black and pewter grey dyes, blending them on the tie, and then adding the silk salt. I still need to iron them to heat set them, and run them through the dry cleaners to see how the dye holds, but I'm pretty pleased with the result. I like the more pronounced wave pattern still, but the all over organic is cool too, and closer in feel to the scarves.

I'll get better pictures later. But I wanted to show the initial results. The same technique with different dyes really does give different feeling results.

From left to right, here's a scarf, the new tie with Dye-na-flow, and the old tie with Setasilk.

Hmmm. Now that I look at them, the ties are a warmer grey than the scarf is. I think that is partially a result of the different silks between the scarf blanks and the tie blanks. The ties have a creamy undertone.

Sewing tip: straight trim around a gentle curve

2011-08-10T02:23:00.000-07:00

I'm making a medieval tunic for my sweetie today, and I got to the part about putting on the trim around the bottom hem for a bit of pizazz. When I started sewing costumes I had a heck of a time figuring out the trick to making flat trim nicely bend around the gentle curve of the hem. So I figured I'd share my solution, in case anyone else is in the same boat.

The issue is: hems tend to flare outward on tunics, skirts, and gowns. That makes the outside edge slightly longer around than further up the fabric. Now, if you have trim that is slightly curved to match your hem line, you're all set to go. But all the trim I've come across is straight, not curved.

So, first thing I do is sew down the edge of the trim that is closest to the hem.

That gives a nice smooth edge by the hem, but there is excess trim buckling up on the other side. Now, you can deal with the excess fabric by folding that over, making tucks as you go around. However, somewhere along the line I learned a trick.

Fire up your iron, and set it to the steam setting. Hover the iron over your trim for a little bit, giving the trim a nice good steaming. Gently press the trim, steaming as you go. (Make sure to test your trim so you don't scorch it with your iron.)

Here you can see the result. The left side is the before, and the right side is the after. The steaming and pressing shrinks up the trim, sucking in that extra fabric. Since you already sewed down the outside edge, that stays the appropriate length. You've just made curved trim.

Pin down your edge, and sew that sucker down. You may still have to take some pleats and tucks, depending on the severity of your curve, but there won't be nearly as much fiddling needed as you might have had to do without the steam trick.

See? All stitched into place, nice and neat.

Old textile equipment at a garage sale

2011-08-06T16:48:00.000-07:00

I was very good today. Very very good. I went to an estate sale, and I didn't buy the Beka rigid heddle loom and floor stand. They wanted $75 for it, but didn't have instructions, and I think some pieces were missing.

I didn't buy the antique spinning wheel. It was a tiny thing, and rickety enough that it fell apart if you tried to actually use it. Pretty though. They said they thought it was a 'bride wheel' from Austria, used as part of a dowry, but had no real history on it.

I was very tempted by this antique tapestry loom though. I could have gotten it for $200. But again, it was too rickety to actually use, and it was missing parts. If I'm going to take up floor space in my house with fiber equipment, I rather want to be able to use it. That piece belongs in a museum, instead. I recommended they take it to the Pioneer museum, or to the antique dealers downtown.

So, instead I held myself to one little purchase. I picked up this old weaving shuttle.

I have a collection of weaving shuttles displayed on my studio walls, and didn't have one of these yet. It is a shuttle for a silk ribbon loom, like here: http://www.greatamericanweaving.com/facility.html . This one says 'Biehl & Son' inside. I haven't been able to find any Google hits on that, but I'm looking. In any case, I've rearranged my collection on the wall, and it now has a place of honor in the display.

Not a bad day!

Card woven belt

2011-08-06T00:59:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a card woven belt this week. (See the previous post for more pictures of the process.)

So, after I got the weaving done I finished the ends by making twisted fringe. I could do that by hand, but having the proper tool for the job makes the process go much, much faster. I do appreciate my fringe twister!

The belt was 7' long (not counting fringe) after weaving. To wet finish it, I just threw it in the washing machine on hot. It ended up just over 6' long.

I'm pleased with the way this one turned out! This belt will probably end up being a gift. I think the next thing I want to try on the card weaving front will use a similar set up. I'd like to try double weave, to weave words. Now that I've got the hang of card weaving again, it is time to try something new.

Triloom weaving with Red Heart Swirl, card weaving, and project planning

2011-08-02T01:11:00.000-07:00

I've been weaving in my studio recently, while I'm in between silk painting projects. I've finished one project, started one project, and have another one in the planning stage. Hey, at least one is finished!

This is the finished one: a new shawl on my triangle loom. I'm still hunting for just the perfect yarn to use with this loom. The pegs are kind of far apart, so the yarn needs to be super bulky. The result needs to hold together securely, drape beautifully, and be super soft against bare skin. This attempt used Red Heart Boutique 'Swirl' yarn, which is a mix of polyester, acrylic, wool, and alpaca. It certainly passes the skin test! And it drapes wonderfully. But I think it is a hair too thin to be really structurally sound. I'll need to wear it for awhile to see how it works.

I'm thinking the way to go with the yarn hunt might be to use a double thickness of yarn, instead of trying to find a really thick chunky yarn. That would give me more of an opportunity for color blending, too. The materials would cost more, since I'm using twice as much, which is why I haven't really experimented with this yet. But I think I'll try it out for the next shawl.

After I got the tri-loom put back away, I dug out my inkle loom and got it warped up for card weaving. I clamp it to the cone holder my husband made me, which makes warping much easier. In fact I just leave the loom on there for the weaving part too. It puts it at a nice height when I'm sitting here in my computer chair.

This project will be a belt, inspired by the colors in the heraldry of my local SCA group. I'm doing a card weaving pattern that relies on having two light and two dark threads in each card. I paired the white and the yellow threads for the 'light', and the blue and the purple threads for the 'dark'. They are close enough in value that the eye visually blends them at a distance, and you just see the contrast. I used the red for the border. The store didn't have 4 balls of the same shade of red, so I got two light and two dark. I set it up so the pattern subtly continues on into the border. I think I like that effect!

I'm finding I really prefer card weaving to inkle weaving. The pattern opportunities are very flexible, the resulting fabric is much sturdier, and it is easier to get a clean even selvedge.

The project that is in the planning stage was inspired by this post, by Susan of 'Thrums': http://weeverwoman.blogspot.com/2011/07/between-two-pages.html . She is a most inspiring weaver, and a very gracious lady. She was weaving book marks in very fine linen and cotton. I was particularly caught by the results of the 'tromp as writ' pattern half way down the entry. Is that not spectacular? I realized that my dobby loom had the capability to weave that pattern, and asked if she minded if I took inspiration from her work. Not only did she not mind, she sent me the pattern draft. Did I mention that she is very gracious? Lovely lady.

I can see this pattern slightly larger, made up in yardage to be turned into a Medieval tunic. I wove yardage recently in my hand spun wool yarn, and sewed it up into a super warm winter tunic. But I wanted something for summer wear too, seeing as I live in Arizona. So I went ahead and ordered dark blue and green yarn in 10/2 mercerized cotton from Webs. I'm eagerly waiting for it to get in!

If I have time in and among other (paying) projects, I'd like to get that worked up in the next few months. I've also got some sewing that I want to get done, and there is a possibility of a large scale scarf order in the works.

I do love staying busy here in the studio!

Ten years since I got my Laurel...musing late at night

2011-07-26T03:43:00.000-07:00

This Friday will be the 10th anniversary of when I got my Laurel. For the non SCA folks out there (which is probably most of you), the Laurel is the highest level arts award that the Society for Creative Anachronism gives out. (The SCA is a historical recreation group that studies the Middle Ages and Renaissance. See sca.org)

I didn't feel I deserved it at the time. I was just, well, plain old me. As ordinary as a pebble. So, I started taking formal art classes at the local community college, to figure out what folks thought I already knew. Art history... 2 and 3D design... ceramics... photography... sewing... painting... life drawing... They had a hard time getting female life drawing models, so I offered to help out--even though I was just a middle-aged house wife. It is now several years later, and I'm still modeling for various classes. Pictures of middle-aged me have hung in museums and won ribbons in shows. (Talk about strange to walk in and see!)

I put the class teaching to use, experimented, learned new techniques on my own, and went to various weekend fiber retreats to learn even more. I passed on what I was learning to others whenever I could. And then in the last few years I opened my Etsy shop (tangibledaydreams.etsy.com) to see if I could give this whole professional artist thing a whirl. That has been a real trip!

My self image has been gradually changing. I call myself an artist now, and a model. I'm not just a middle aged house wife. (Though, I'm still that too. Layers of identity.)

I also finally decided to do a 'master work' for the SCA, and a few months ago completed that hand spun, hand dyed, hand woven dress. (http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/06/historic-hand-spun-hand-woven-tunic.html) It took a good part of a year plugging away at it, bit by bit. When I finished the outfit and put it on? And twirled around in it to flare out the full skirts? Then I felt like maybe I could call myself a Laurel, too.

It has been an incredible 10 years of learning, stretching, and reaching out.

I decided to celebrate this mile marker on my journey by buying myself a new Laurel medallion.

I got it from another Etsy shop, here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/sjengraving . It is a beach stone, that they engraved for me. And I love it. Because, yes. Ten years later, and I still feel as ordinary as a pebble. I'm still just plain old me...but I do keep plugging away at it, learning and growing a drop at a time. And that does add up.

Given enough time, simple drops of water can polish rock.

A Tour of my Studio

2011-07-22T01:56:00.000-07:00

It is my habit after I've finished up a chunk of project to spend a day or so straightening my studio back out again. I am not the neatest person when I am creating (ok, I'm just not the neatest person, period), so every now and again I need to find the surfaces again. I have so much stuff crammed into my little room that I really need to put one project away before I can bring out another one. But, since this is probably as neat as it is ever going to be, I thought you might like a tour of the studio. Come on in!

Ok, you've walked through the door, and are standing in the center of the room looking back at it. Behind the door is tucked the ironing board, along with a broom, rolls of craft paper, driftwood sticks from Canada trips, a reed mat for rolling felt rugs, and walking staffs. The walking staffs are more for squishing scorpions than they are for walking. Scorpions may be a natural part of the ecosystem...but they don't belong on my walls. Turn a bit to your right...

This is my storage wall. My husband built this custom set of shelves. Fabric rolls on the left, tools on top, two shelves full of weaving yarn, pull out baskets for smaller items, and large bins down below for fabric and such. The white table pulls out, and folds out into my cutting/crafting table.

Turn a bit more to the right...

And here is my computer wall.

Up to the left my shuttle collection is displayed on the wall. Fiber tools can be works of art in and of themselves. I like to look at them, and then pull them down off the wall to use them when needed. Functional art.

Here's my computer desk, where I spend entirely too many of my waking hours. And my fish tank, and my lunch. (That is home made egg lemon soup, from home made chicken stock. Yum!)

To the right is a second desk. My bead stash is tucked away in those bins in back. In front is my antique sock knitting machine, with the next set of sock yarn all wound on the bobbins there, ready to go.

Above my computer desk are shelves full of research books. I've run out of shelf space. Too many books? Nah! Not enough shelves!!

Turn to the right again, and this is my loom wall.

Tucked behind the loom is my rack of sock yarn, waiting to be cranked into nice warm wool socks.

But my pride and joy is that loom. I got it at a garage sale for $20 (it is worth much more than that), and that find started this whole path I'm on. Above the loom is a window that looks out on my herb and flower garden, shaded from the AZ summer sun by my hand woven curtains.

One more turn around...

...and we're at my sewing and large item storage wall.

My sewing machine is tucked in the corner there.

Up above are shelves and shelves of old friends. This is my science fiction and fantasy collection. They probably belong elsewhere in the house, so I could make room for more research books and storage for finished product. But...they're mine.

This is my large item tangle of storage. In that pile there is a dobby loom, a warping mill, a standing inkle loom, a serger, a clock reel, a spinning wheel, a heater, and bags and bags of fiber to be spun. There is usually an easel tucked behind there too, but I pulled it out for my next project already.

And of course, smack dab in the middle of the floor, on top of my hand made felt rug, there is always an animal or four keeping me company.

Thanks for stopping by!

Silk ties back from the dry cleaners

2011-07-20T00:21:00.000-07:00

The first batch of hand painted silk ties is back from the dry cleaners!

I managed to get these four photographed and up in the Etsy shop, at tangibledaydreams.etsy.com . I've got three more here waiting to be processed, and hopefully I can get those up tomorrow. The second batch of 18 ties is still at the dry cleaners. I get to pick those up on Friday, so look for them to magically appear in the shop sometime next week.

I wish I wore ties now. I'm really tickled by the way these turned out.

More silk ties, and being linked to by Interweave Press

2011-07-15T00:58:00.000-07:00

Huh. A bit of meta blog stuff here for a moment... I use http://sitemeter.com/ to keep track of statistics for this blog, mostly because I'm kind of curious about such things. I know that not everyone who pokes their nose in here leaves comments, so I like to look at the foot prints instead. Well, recently there was a sudden surge of folks looking at an old post I made about the Medieval box loom that I picked up at last year's Estrella War.
( http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2010/02/medieval-box-loom.html ). Turns out it was linked to in Interweave Press's July 13 issue of 'Weaving Today'. ( http://e1.interweave.com/dm?id=236E95069D8B4FD0A721392A3AF9E7B4C30092B14F2F2183 . )

So cool! I'm kind of bemused over here. No, strike that. I'm very bemused over here. I subscribe to their 'Handwoven' magazine, and get 'Weaving Today' sent to my email. I just hadn't had time to read this particular issue closely, and click through on all the links. Seems other folks did!

In other news, I'm back in the studio painting some more ties. I did some more of the cool squiggle pattern ones...

And then also tried some stripes.

Yes, they're all actually the same 3" width. They look different because I was taking the picture at a weird angle, trying to get around the ironing board. That is set up so I can iron and heat set these babies once they dry for awhile, but it is kind of in the way in the mean time.

I personally like the squiggles better, but the stripes are cool enough that I may do some more of those as well, just to add variety to the options.

What do you think?

D&D dice D20 choker

2011-07-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

This post is just me bragging about my daughter Michelle. See the necklace I'm wearing there in the picture? She's been making these 'Gamer Girl' chokers, and I swapped her one for some of my hand spun yarn. It is made of Diet Coke pop tabs and one of my D20 dice. The die is caged in elastic, and can be popped out to use if I roll a critical hit in our role playing campaign. The design is her original one.

She's got a more elaborate version too, that has an entire set of D&D dice hanging from it.

Yes, my daughter is awesome.

Hand painted silk ties

2011-07-06T22:51:00.000-07:00

Last time I made a post about hand painting silk ties (http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/06/silk-ties-product-development.html) I was trying to decide which method of dyeing was going to work the best. On the one hand, I could deconstruct the tie, dye it, iron it, and sew it back together. This had the benefit of keeping the interfacing dry, but it was difficult to line the fabric back up correctly after dyeing. On the other hand, I could just dye the tie whole. However, the edges were a little wavy with this method.

I had an idea though. I needed to see if the dyes were going to stand up to the dry cleaning process, so I sent the tie that I had dyed in one piece to the cleaners. When it came back, the colors were as intense as they started out, so the dye passed the cleaning test. Also, the dry cleaning process evened out the edges of the tie, to the point that nobody else could tell that there had been an issue.

I decided that the extra $2.50 for dry cleaning a tie was definitely better than taking my time to deconstruct and re-sew the danged things. I don't like hand sewing, you see. I just want to play with the colors!

So, I got two dozen more scarf blanks. Yesterday I started dyeing. I'm pleased with the way they're coming out so far!

I have several more to make, and they all will need to be ironed and dry cleaned. But look for them in the Etsy shop (tangibledaydreams.etsy.com) in a few weeks.

Making a Viking leather slipper

2011-06-30T18:25:00.000-07:00

I think being in between major projects is dangerous for me. Because there I am at about 1 AM, wandering through the internet, and I run across a site like this one: http://housebarra.com/EP/ep02/11shoe02.html . It has a pattern for a Viking era pair of shoes, made from a single piece of leather. The original that it is based off of is evidently in the Museum Of Cultural History at Novgorod. And I think, "Hey! Cool!! Period shoes. I bet I could do that. I think I even have the materials pretty much on hand..." And next thing you know, I'm cutting away, making myself a pair of leather slippers for the first time.

Here's what I was up to...

I printed out the pattern from the web site, and blew it up on the copy machine until it looked pretty close to my foot size.

Then I used a scrap of soap to trace the pattern onto my leather. What kind of leather? Um...thick enough to wear well, but still thin enough to be flexible. It just happened to be in my stash, so I really have no clue.

I cut out two pieces of leather.

I used an awl to poke needle holes in the zig-zag part that will be the front of the shoe, according to the pattern. I used spare pizza box (I've got teenagers) under the leather so I didn't poke holes in my desk, too. And then I went to bed because, well, 3 AM already.

Fast forward to this afternoon. I used that scrap of soap (I really do like it better than tailor's chalk) to mark the location of the lacing slits.

I used the awl poke starter holes, about 3/16 (I eyeballed it) away from the edge of the leather.

And then I used an exacto knife to cut the slits, large enough for my lacing to poke through.

Ok, back to the toe. I used waxed linen, and laced through the holes in the zig-zag...

...and then cinched that up to form the front of the shoe.

Then I sewed the seam from the toe down the top of the foot.

The toe looked like this when I was done.

Then I worked on the heel. I folded the shoe in half, and sewed up the heel...

...stopping about an inch from the top.

Now, I cut about 6' of leather lacing, and put the mid point of it back up at the toe seam.

Each tail was woven in and out down the sides to the heel.

I found it easier to use a very thin pair of needle nose pliers to poke the lace through the slits.

Once I got the lacing all in place, I put it on and pulled on the lacings. It cinched up like a draw-string bag around my foot.

I decided that I wanted an insole, to add a little more protection from the ground. Luckily, I happened to have a scrap or two of my handspun/handwoven wool fabric left from the tunic project (http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/06/historic-hand-spun-hand-woven-tunic.html). I washed the fabric on hot to felt it up as much as possible, and then stepped on it and cut around my foot.

There. Two insoles. I zig-zagged around the edges with my sewing machine, just to make sure they wouldn't ravel.

Then I inserted the insole into the slipper.

It still felt a little bit like a bag wrapped around my foot, so I put it on, laced it up, and dunked my whole foot into the sink. I'm currently letting the slipper dry on my foot, so it will mold itself better to my body.

But, not bad! (Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a good picture of your own foot, though??)

So far, I'm pleased with the results. I'll need to actually wear it around and see how comfortable it is, but it looks like it should be a nice light weight indoor shoe.

Um...I guess I had better make the second shoe now. Back to work!

Historic hand spun, hand woven tunic based on the Bocksten Bog Man's outfit

2011-06-25T21:27:00.000-07:00

I'm part of the Society for Creative Anachronism, a group that studies the Middle Ages and Renaissance by doing it. I displayed this costume at an event we had today. It is finally done! It has been a long time in the making.

First, I spun the yarn for the over tunic:
http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2010/12/wet-finishing-singles-hand-spun-yarn.html

I dyed the dark blue weft yarn with indigo at the Griffin Dyeworks Retreat:
http://lissamc.livejournal.com/275345.html

I wove the fabric:
http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/01/estrella-weaving-project-warp-is.html
http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/01/progress-on-warping-up-estrella-weaving.html
http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/01/estrella-project-actually-weaving-now.html

And fulled the fabric:
http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/02/fulling-and-finishing-estrella-weaving.html

I sewed the under and over tunics based on the Bocksten Bog Man tunic. (The under tunic is linen.)
http://www.kostym.cz/Anglicky/1_Originaly/01_Goticke/I_01_31.htm
I used these directions among others for inspiration:
http://www.virtue.to/articles/tunic_worksheet.html

The trim at the neckline is a finger loop braid:
http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/02/tutorial-basic-finger-loop-braiding.html

And the belt is finger woven:
http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/06/tutorial-finger-weaving-beginners.html

It is done!! And it is surprisingly comfortable to wear. The full skirt swirls out beautifuly when I spin around. And it will be wonderfully warm when I go to outdoor winter events with the group.

This one, I'm proud of.

Silk Ties: product development

2011-06-23T22:22:00.000-07:00

I've been working with my prototype silk ties again, trying to find the best method of dyeing them. I'm using silk tie blanks from Dharma Trading Company, and their Setasilk silk paints. (See this entry: http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/06/silk-ties-attempt-numbers-2-and-3.html)

The tie on the left was disassembled prior to dyeing, and the interfacing was taken out. Then, after dyeing, I sewed it back together. The silk is cut on the bias, and it stretched a bit out of shape in the whole process, so I had a hard time getting the ends to line back up again.

The tie on the right was dyed all together, which made it easier to get the pattern in the right place. However, the edges ended up kind of wavy in the dyeing process.

I wanted to make sure that the dyes could stand up to cleaning, so I sent the blue tie to the dry cleaners. The picture above is taken after it got back. If you look at both ties, you can see that there isn't any noticeable fading of color intensity after cleaning. And on the plus side, most of the waviness seems to have evened itself back out.

I'm going to have my husband test drive both ties, to see which method of dyeing gives the most wearable result. But right now, I'm leaning toward dyeing them all together, and then running each one through the dry cleaners before putting them up in the Etsy shop. I've almost got a salable product!

Tutorial: Finger Weaving, Beginner's Diagonal Weave

2011-06-18T23:59:00.000-07:00

I was wandering around the internet the other night, and came across various pages that mentioned finger weaving. It is a method of weaving/braiding that doesn't need a loom, which intrigued me. I wanted to make a belt for a costume I am putting together, so I decided to give it a try. I used the instructions here: http://www.nativetech.org/finger/beltinstr.html , and the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtBME0YFrLk to get me going, and then just played it by ear from there. I'm not sure if what I did is the 'right' way to do this, but it worked. I have a book or two on order that should give me some more pointers.

So, here's what I did:

I figured out how long I wanted to make my belt, and measured threads 4x that long. I'm using some super bulky 'Cozy Wool' yarn to learn on, and measured 4 light and 4 dark threads. I lined up the ends, and folded the yarn in half to find the middle point, then looped that middle point around a handy desk drawer handle with a lark's head knot. Then I tied a stick to the handle, and wrapped the yarn around the stick, alternating colors.

Then I separated the colors out into upper and lower threads. The color of the right most thread is the lower threads. The space in between the colors is the 'shed', where the active weaving yarn goes through.

Here's the start of the first repeat: I held the yarn in my left hand, with my index finger separating the two colors into a shed. I picked up the right most thread with my right hand.

The right most thread went through the shed, and out the left side. I'm holding the yarn in my right hand now, again with my index finger in the shed. My left hand is pulling the weft (the active weaving yarn) all the way through and out the other side. This yarn gets parked up separately to the left for a moment while I change the shed and...and...Huh. The weaving takes two hands. The camera takes a hand. Can I take pictures with my feet? Heh. Nope. Hold on...

Ah ha! I knew I had teenagers for a reason. I wove a bit while my daughter got down here, then handed her the camera. Ok, back up a little bit. I'm going to take it from the beginning of the repeat again. I've picked up the right most thread in my right hand, while holding the shed open with my left.

The weaving thread goes through the shed, and out the other side, while my right hand is holding the bundle of warp threads.

Now, I need to change the shed. I'm going to transfer the warp yarn in order from my right hand to my left hand. The threads that were on the bottom go on the top, and the threads that were on top go to the bottom. My index fingers are keeping the opening for the shed.

Like this.

Keep working my way across, making sure to take each thread in order.

Once I get the shed changed, I separate out the two colors and tug gently to tighten up the previous stitch.

Then I hold the bundle in my right hand again, and tug gently on that last weft thread. This tightens everything back into place and keeps the edges even.

The previous weft thread gets added to the bundle in my hand, becoming a warp thread again.

We're back to the beginning. I pick up the right most warp thread...

And turn it into a weft thread, pulling it through the shed. At this point, I sometimes use my fingers to comb out the un-woven threads that are hanging there, to clean out any tangles.

Now, you're back to changing the shed. The sequence is: weave the right most thread through the shed to the left side, comb out the tangles in the dangling warp threads, change the shed, and tighten things up.

When I needed to stop, I separated out the top and the bottom groups of yarn, and chained them up crochet style. Each bundle got looped over the hanging stick, and the active weft thread got draped over separately. That made it easier to find my place when I went back at it.

Here's my finished belt. Not bad for a beginning piece!! I just knotted the ends to make fringe to finish it off.

I made the front page of Etsy!

2011-06-14T22:50:00.000-07:00

A set of my juggling balls was included in a circus themed treasury on the Etsy shop. That treasury made the front page of Etsy. I made the front page!!! Yes, I'm excited. This is the first time that has happened for me.

I am so doing the Happy Artist Dance over here! (That involves lots of silly jumping around, wiggles, and squees of joy.)

Silk ties: using Setasilk instead of Dye-na-flow

2011-06-12T01:35:00.000-07:00

Back in May, I made an attempt to hand paint a silk tie from Dharma Trading Company. I used their Dye-na-flow silk paints, and was only somewhat pleased with the result.

I was going for the dramatic organic shapes that I had been getting on my silk scarves, but this type of silk paint didn't seem to react as well to the salt technique. So, the next time I ordered scarf blanks I decided to try out a different type of silk paint. It came in, and today I've been giving it a try.

Here is the Setasilk that I decided to try, as well as the tie blank, the silk salt, and my sumi brush and watercolor tray.

For this try, I first spritzed down the back of the tie with water, so the colors would run together. Then I painted the back of the tie.

When I flipped the tie over to do the front, some of the dye from the back had run around the edges.

I spritzed the front with water, and painted it. Since the Dye-na-flow gave disappointing results with the silk salt, I really salted this one down. I also noticed that there were some lines where the dye from the back had come around front, so I added more salt to those parts to try to blend them in.

Boy, does this dye react with the salt!! Much more so than I expected. Kind of a cool effect, but a little over the top.

Also, those lines at the edge of the tie never blended in. Hmmm...

So, I tried it again. This time I spritzed the front of the tie with water before doing the back, so the paint wouldn't hit a dry edge as it came around. I also used much less salt.

The results were much, much better. I ironed the tie to heat set the paint by sandwiching the tie between a pressing cloth. Each section was ironed for 3 minutes.

Ah ha! That was the result I was going for!! Vivid colors, blending together, with the salt pulling the paint into interesting, organic shapes. I'd call this a success...but...

...there is still a problem. Even after ironing the heck out if it, the tie won't lie down flat. The edges have gone wavy. I'm suspecting that the issue is that interfacing didn't like getting soaked in the painting process.

So, attempt #4 is going to involve deconstructing the tie before the painting process, and then sewing it back together again afterward.

I'll get this yet! Has anyone else experimented with painting silk ties with the salt technique? Any pointers? Am I on the right track?

EDIT: Taking it apart, dying, ironing, and re-sewing seems to work. I'll make another blog post on that once I see how this tie fares at the dry cleaners.

EDIT 2: Dry cleaning the ties seems to solve the wavy issues I was having, without having to deconstruct the tie. Success!

Silk Scarves, Etsy, and planning the next project.

2011-06-10T22:39:00.000-07:00

There! All of the hand painted silk scarves I've been working on recently have been made, photographed, listed (http://tangibledaydreams.etsy.com), and packaged away until they can find good homes to go to. In the process, I finally stocked the Etsy shop with over 100 hand made items. Go me! I read early on that 100 items is supposed to be some sort of 'magic number', where you start showing up better in the search engines and such. Supposedly, sales tend to pick up once you reach that milestone. So I set that as a goal for myself quite awhile ago, and have finally reached it. Imagine me doing the Artist's Happy Dance over here. The sales would be nice, but what is really cool is to finally reach the goal. That was a lot of work!

So, now the scarf project is done for awhile. What is next? Hmmm...

I have a half a dozen silk tie blanks, and a new type of silk dye to experiment with. This one is heat set instead of steam set, because the ties are dry clean only.

I have a new type of yarn to try on my triangle loom. I'm still searching for just the perfect blend of thickness, softness, and affordability for shawl yarn. Maybe this time I've got it?

I've got a stash of sock yarn that needs to be cranked up on the antique sock knitting machine.

I'm thinking of weaving up some cotton napkin sets. I want to wind the warp chains, then do some space dyeing like I did for the shawls awhile back. (A few of the shawls are left, so you can peek at one of them here to see the effect I'm thinking of: http://www.etsy.com/listing/26536037/lantana-blossom-hand-dyed-and-woven)

I've got a couple of Viking wire woven necklaces part way done. Two of them need clasps, and one is still in the weaving stage.

I've got a whole shed full of gourds, and have already bought accent pieces and waxed linen for the teneriffe weaving.

There is a stash of soft, cuddly wool roving waiting for me to spin it into something useful.

I've been thinking of making another felt rug. I made one for the Estrella arts competition a few years back, and have it on the floor of my studio. The dogs and cats consistently jockey for sprawling room on it.

So...what should I start next??

Washing and Ironing Hand Painted Silk Scarves

2011-06-07T00:43:00.000-07:00

I was busy today doing the washing and the ironing. Sounds awfully domestic, doesn't it? Except, what I was doing was the finishing work on the batch of hand painted silk scarves that I've been working on. They've been pre-washed, then dyed, then steamed. One last bit of work, and they are all set to go.

When the scarves come out of the steamer, they are kind of cracky-crinkly (Yes, that is the technical term. At least it is now.), and still have bits of salt on them. They're pretty, but don't have that lovely flowing and shining texture that you expect from silk.

So, the next step is to wash the scarves. I put them into lingerie bags to keep them from tangling too badly in the wash. (I learned that one the hard way.) I don't put more than 3 or 4 scarves in a bag, and try to put like colors together on the off chance that the dyes run into each other.

This stuff helps keep the excess dyes from transferring to the silk. You can also use Synthropol. I put in about 1/4 cup for the wash load. The washer is on hot, and is set to the delicate cycle.

You can see how quickly the excess dye that didn't bond to the silk ends up in the wash water.

I wash the scarves twice for good measure. However, this is the same point in the wash cycle as the previous picture. You can see that there is almost no excess dye in the water--which means no dye coming off onto your skin. This is a good thing!

This is why I put the scarves in the bags. They still managed to tangle themselves up! But untangling 3 or 4 scarves is simple compared to trying to figure out a wound up ball of 12. Trust me on this.

I want to avoid wrinkles setting themselves in the silk while I'm getting ready to do the ironing, so I hang up each scarf.

While the scarves are damp but not soaking wet, I iron them dry. You can see what a difference that makes!

The beautiful sheen and flowing hand of the silk finally shines through.

I'm in the process of taking pictures of the scarves, so I can get them listed in the Etsy shop. I tried it today, but only got through a half dozen scarves before I gave up. These are lovely, light weight scarves that dance and billow in the slightest breath of a breeze...and today was windy. Boy, it was hard to get pictures when the danged scarves wouldn't stay put!

http://www.etsy.com/listing/75523547/hand-painted-silk-scarf-blue-green

http://www.etsy.com/listing/75524777/hand-painted-silk-scarf-brown-black-rust

http://www.etsy.com/listing/75525954/hand-painted-silk-scarf-black-grey-with

http://www.etsy.com/listing/75534638/hand-painted-silk-scarf-sea-and-olive

http://www.etsy.com/listing/75534996/hand-painted-silk-scarf-pink-orange

From here on out, I hand wash the scarves in cool water, and iron them dry again.

You can see the earlier parts of this project in these two posts:

Painting: http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/03/tutorial-silk-scarf-painting.html

Steaming: http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2011/03/tutorial-steaming-silk-scarves.html

Two useful links, and pictures from around Arizona

2011-06-06T01:29:00.000-07:00

First, I wanted to share a couple of cool links I found. The first one is to a pattern generator for inkle weaving. I'll be using this next time I plan a band!

http://www.carolingianrealm.info/PatternGenerator.php

The second link is to a site to help with practicing your figure drawing when you don't have access to a model. I'm usually the one up on the stand modeling, so it is nice to have this gadget so I can get behind the easel for awhile.

http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/figuredrawing.php

And now, pictures! It was our 22nd wedding anniversary this weekend, so Eric & I took off just the two of us for some time to reconnect. We spent part of our time wandering around the area between Phoenix and Flagstaff, Arizona. Of course, I had to take pictures. Here's a sampling. It doesn't look like the stereotypical desert Arizona scene, does it? Not a cactus in sight.

Wildflowers by Lake Mary:

Ashurst Lake:

Oak Creek Canyon:

Oak Creek:

Steaming silk scarves, and smart alec family and friends

2011-06-01T01:10:00.000-07:00

I've been painting silk scarves over the past few weeks. This afternoon I had just enough time to roll them up and steam them before I left for work. So, I got to work, laying them out in the craft paper.

I managed to roll up all 24 scarves, and still beat the 6" diameter limit. Any bigger around than 6", and I'm told the steam can't penetrate well.

So I hung them up in my hand made steamer (turkey fryer and stove pipe), and made a mental note to come back in three hours to turn the steamer off. Yes, I check it frequently also, to make sure it hasn't run dry. But I knew I'd be a bit distracted getting ready for modeling for a life drawing class tonight, so I wanted to make sure to turn it off.

I'm pretty much on FaceBook all the time, both personally and for the crafting side of my life. (That one is http://www.facebook.com/TangibleDaydreams -- feel free to drop on by.) So, I mentioned on my personal FaceBook that I had the scarves going, and that I needed to remember to take them off in a few hours.

Silly me.

2 minutes later, my 16 year old son trots down the stairs, and reminds me to turn the steamer off in three hours. Smart alec son. This amuses me, so I dash off a comment to my original FaceBook post.

Silly, silly me. I not only have a smart alec son, but my friends and the rest of my family are just as bad.

Countless FaceBook comments and wall posts, phone calls, text messages, emails, in person reminders, post-it notes, and the creation of a FaceBook Event later, I did in fact remember to turn off the steamer before I left for work. I lost track of how many people got in on the silliness.

Don't tell any of them...but I'm glad I'm surrounded with people who know how to have light-spirited fun!

Inkle bands, silk painting, and hospital visits

2011-05-26T02:31:00.000-07:00

It has been a bit of a crazy time here the past week. My husband ended up back in the hospital for a spell, to zap some various infections. So my focus has been a little scattered. However, I did manage to finish up the band I had on the inkle loom. If you recall, this was woven of leftover hand dyed sock yarn. I lined up the color repeats on the loom, so the band shifted from one color to the next with a nice feathering. The result is quite a bit different from the usual rigid patterns that you get with inkle weaving. I've got another band on the loom right now, but I wasn't really paying attention with that one and the width of the band varies. (I did much of it with me in the hospital.) I really need to practice even tension more, so I can get even selvedges without thinking about it. Anyway, here's how the first one turned out.

I've also managed to get 2 dozen silk scarves dyed over the past two weeks.

The last one is currently drying on the frame. I need to let them sit and cure at least 24 hours, so hopefully I can get to steam setting them on Friday. Then I'll let them sit and cure again over the weekend. I'll probably get to washing and ironing them on Monday. That means I can take pictures and list them for the Etsy shop (tangibledaydreams.etsy.com) over the course of next week.

Assuming nobody else ends up in the hospital.

Ahem. And nobody will end up in the hospital. Right? Right. Glad we cleared that up.

Sock yarn on the inkle loom, and silk painting ties

2011-05-17T01:45:00.000-07:00

I got in my next order of silk scarf blanks from Dharma Trading company the other day. Today I got around to pre-washing them. I now have two dozen bits of possibility hanging in my studio window, just waiting for me to pull out the colors. It is going to be a fun several weeks getting those painted up! I ordered some earth toned dyes this time, to expand the look of the scarves. We'll see how those work up.

I also picked up a couple of silk tie blanks. They can't be used with the Tinfix dyes I use for the scarves, since the ties are dry clean only and can't be steamed. But I had some older Dye-na-flow dyes that are heat set, so I decided to give those a try. It worked fairly well, but the Dye-na-flow didn't react very well to the watercolor technique of using coarse salt on the drying silk. I get some speckling, but not the cool organic shapes that I get on the scarves.

The Dye-na-flow needs to be ironed for about 3 minutes to heat set the dyes. That is 3 minutes per section. It took me about a half hour to completely iron the tie front and back.

However, the results look kind of cool. I think this needs some more experimentation. Dharma has another brand of heat set silk paints called Setasilk. Those paints reportedly respond well to the salt technique. I think next time I make an order I'll get a batch of those, and another handful of ties to play with.

What do you think? My guys all said they would wear something like this. They would need to be priced between $35 and $40 to cover everything involved. Also, what size ties do you or your menfolk wear? 2"? 3"? 4"?

On another note, I got the sock yarn band off of my inkle loom. This is woven of Regia Galaxy sock yarn. I still need some work on the evenness of my selvedge edges, but that will come with more practice. I tossed it in the wash and then the dryer, and ironed it smooth afterward. I lost about a foot of length in the washing process. Overall, I'm happy with the way this turned out. I like the variegated effect.

However, I was curious...what would happen if I lined up the repeats for the color variegation? I found that with commercial sock yarns the repeats were really too long for my little inkle loom. I'll have to try that trick on my bigger floor loom later on. However, I did have some sock yarn that I hand dyed awhile ago. In fact, it was left over from this project: http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2009/11/tutorial-dyeing-sock-yarn.html . The repeats were almost short enough to line up on the loom. I knotted the extra, and I was set to go.
Doesn't that look lovely?
I started weaving and, sure enough, the gradual variegation is coming through nicely in the weaving process. This particular sock yarn is a little stretchier than the Regia, but I'm able to compensate for that by holding on to the warp by the heddles while I tamp things down into place with the shuttle. I'm looking forward to seeing how this one turns out. I think it will be lovely.

Poetry: Creative Process

2011-05-14T13:54:00.000-07:00

This is really my favorite part of the whole thing...

Creative Process

An idea sparks
and whirls round and around in my head.
Cool! I wonder if...
Examine it. Poke at it.
Drag out the books and do the research.
Nope, that won't work.
But, maybe if I...
Pull it and stretch it
and read some more
until rough outlines take mind form.
Hmmm...that might do.
Dig for pencil and paper. Sketch.
Fiddle with color,
proportion, swapping out elements
until the image feels solid.
Oh! I see it! Yes.
Now, make calculations
and hammer out details.
Ok. First this, and this, and then I...

Time for the alchemy
of thought stream into matter.
The best of the work
is done, and only the action
remains.

Melissa McCollum
11/05/06

Socks on my Creelman Brothers machine, and sock yarn on the inkle loom

2011-05-11T23:47:00.000-07:00

I recently put in an order to Dharma Trading Company for some more silk scarf blanks, and some earth tone dyes. This time I also ordered two blank silk ties, to try painting them as well. I had such fun with the last set of scarves that I really want to keep going with them.

While I'm waiting for the order to come in though, I dusted off my Creelman Brothers circular sock knitting machine. I had a friend order a set of socks for her husband's birthday present. I snapped a picture of them in progress, about the time that I was ready to turn the heel. (That is why half of the needles are lifted up out of play.)

I'm happy with the way that they turned out. These are men's size 10 socks, out of Serenity sock weight yarn. It is 50% superwash merino wool, 25% bamboo, and 25% nylon, which makes for a snuggly soft but still strong sock. And they are machine washable, too.

I was pleased enough with how those turned out that I figured I'd make another pair out of the same yarn this evening. I wound up a different colorway, and got started.

The first sock turned out beautifully. The second one was perfect...up until I wasn't paying attention on the Last Two Rows. I screwed up, fixed the mistake, and then screwed up even bigger. So I ripped the whole sock back out into ball form, and set it aside until my head clears. I'll make that second sock tomorrow. Sometimes you just have to step AWAY from the machine.

I did figure out what to do with the partial skeins of yarn that are left over after I make the socks, though. I've been balling the tail ends back up and saving them. I've got a small basket full of small balls of sock yarns now. In fact, the basket is overflowing and ending up on the floor. So I got an idea, and put a batch of sock yarn on my inkle loom to see how it would work up. I usually use cotton crochet thread for my inkle bands, so this was a new experiment for me.

The yarn is a little grabby, so I need to be careful to get the sheds open well. But it is easy to keep tension, and the variegated sock yarn works up into a lovely band.

I think these will make lovely belts, especially for my historical recreation hobby. Maybe camera or guitar straps? Hmm...and I bet I could make stripes of different sock yarns to add to the patterning.

What would you use bands like this for?

Link to Coppergate book, and a gratuitous picture

2011-05-10T02:58:00.001-07:00

This blog post is mostly to jot down a link so I can find it again in the future. A friend pointed out to me that the York Archaeological Trust had some free downloads available, including "Textile Production at 16-22 Coppergate" by Penelope Walton Rogers (1997). It is a wonderful scholarly resource for Medieval textile information. You can find the link here:

http://www.yorkarchaeology.co.uk/resources/pubs_archive.htm

I bookmarked the page, and now I'm going to have to go buy a ream of paper because I want this one in tangible form, for when the download disappears again.

But just so this post isn't entirely full of text, here's a picture I took on my hike in the White Tanks this evening:

That is a barrel cactus in the foreground, a teddy bear cholla in the midground, and a saguaro in the background. Cactus are weird! Beautifully sculptural...but weird.

Silk Scarves

2011-05-05T23:26:00.000-07:00

If you've been following along, you know that I've been making silk painted scarves recently. I finished up washing and ironing the dozen scarves early this week...and 4 of them are already sold. Man, that was fast! I haven't even got them listed in the shop yet. It is very very flattering to get such a response to my work. Everyone who sees them kind of oohs and ahhs, and then starts to pick their favorite. And then, once they pick their favorite, they are tempted to buy it from me. I'm charging $30 per scarf, and evidently that is well within impulse buy range.

These are the eight scarves that are left. The 3 other blue ones I did got snapped up first. Yes, people like blue! I'd make another order to Dharma Trading Company for more scarf blanks, but they are out of stock for a few weeks. Dang it. These are such fun to do, because I love playing with the color combinations, and seeing what organic shapes I get. And with this response, I could afford to make another order and play some more. Luckily, Dharma has a way to be notified when an out of stock item gets in, and I've put myself on that list.

My husband is taking these back in to work with him tomorrow, because one of the ladies who bought one is thinking of another. And then, I've got an SCA event (Medieval historical recreation--we're holding a coronation and then some tournaments) this weekend. I'll probably bring the scarves with me, just because. And then finally on Monday I should be able to list what is left in the Etsy shop.

I think I just created a new line of products for myself. Imagine me doing the happy artist dance over here!

Poetry: We Want a Simple Action Flick

2011-05-03T01:57:00.000-07:00

In November, I did a poem a day challenge, which I really enjoyed. But I haven't written much since then. So now that the school year is drawing to a close I'm going to try adding a weekly poem into my rotation here. I'll label them as poetry in the title, so you can easily skip them as you choose. (Or, I suppose, look for just the poetry if that floats your boat too.) (Hey, it could happen!)

***************

We Want a Simple Action Flick

...And then in the thrilling climactic scene
the Good Guys, in a heroic
blaze of muscles and deadly firepower
finally take the Bad Guy down
with a decisive one-two tap to the head.
Cut to scenes of jubilant crowds,
and then a brief denouement
of a shrouded body
tipped into a vast ocean.
Roll credits.
Movie over.

But...

Life is not
made of Hollywood magic,
no matter how much we wish it were.
Good and Evil
aren't so easily scripted.
Meandering plot lines
get hopelessly entangled,
and instead of credits
all I see
are the words

...to be continued...

Melissa McCollum
5/2/2011

What has been going in the studio this week

2011-05-01T17:26:00.000-07:00

Just a bit of a round up of what I've been up to in the studio for the past week.

These juggling balls are my best sellers in the Etsy shop, and I was out of purple ones. So I made 4 more sets, and got them listed. These are made of wool roving that I wet felt around a golf ball core. The golf ball gives the balls a great heft for throwing and catching, and the wool felt coating is textured enough that the balls don't slip out of the hand as easily. Besides, they are fun to make.

I've had a couple of request recently for custom wool socks, so I fired up my antique sock knitting machine again. With it, I can make a pair of socks in just a few hours...as long as I don't make any mistakes. This pair took a little longer than that, because I was out of practice. I need to spend more time on the machine!

And Friday I steamed the silk painted scarves that I was working on all last week. The steaming process sets the dye. Now the scarves are hanging for a few days, and then I'll wash and iron them. These will be up in the shop hopefully this coming week. I've got a few more days of life drawing modeling for the semester, so studio time will have to work around that.

Next up is another pair of commissioned socks. After that? Hmmmm...still deciding. I'd eventually like to end up with a full page (24 items) in each category in my Etsy shop. I've only got that in the 'felt' category. I need 4 items in 'beadwork and jewelry', 9 more in 'hand woven', 14 in 'hand spun' yarn, 19 'gourds', 17 more pairs of 'socks', and 12 more 'silk painted scarves'. That is a whole lot of work ahead of me! The question is which category gets priority. Any ideas?

Silk painting with complementary colors of dye: blue and orange

2011-04-26T18:40:00.000-07:00

I'm still working with the silk scarves, and having great fun playing with the color combinations. I've done a bunch so far where the dye colors I choose are right next to each other on the color wheel. That makes for a lovely scarf, and is a pretty safe bet.

But I took color theory class awhile ago, and I recalled that if you use colors that are across from each other on the color wheel you can get some neat earth tones. I decided to give it a try, and picked out the two blues I had, and the orange to go with it.

I used the two blues full strength, and then mixed each of them half and half with the orange. Then I painted swirls of color. I dripped a couple of times by mistake...so I dripped all over the scarf and called it on purpose. Then I put salt on the scarf, and let it dry. The salt pulled the dye into intricate, organic shapes. And as the dye was pulled, it separated in interesting ways.

As I was taking the salt off the dry scarf, I dripped water on it. Since the dye isn't steam set yet, that changed the pattern. Oops. So, once again I turned a mistake into a design feature, and spritzed the whole thing with water droplets.

The result of my experimentation? A very intricate patterning, that reminds me of an deep sea wonderland.

These are such fun to do! I think that completes the dozen I was working on. Now I need to let the dye set up for a day, and then I can steam set them. And then get them up in the shop, so hopefully folks will buy them. That would mean that I could get some more scarf blanks, and play some more! (I can only wear so many scarves myself, after all...)

Silk scarves and salt

2011-04-25T21:42:00.000-07:00

Eric: "You're a-salting that silk scarf!!"

Daniel: "It's ok...it's already dyed."

You see the things I need to put up with here at my studio? Good thing my sister gave me a bag of 'editorial pillows' to throw at pun offenders. (Little bean bags, but filled with dead nylon stockings. You can whip them across the room pretty accurately, but they don't sting when they hit.)

Anyway, I've been working up a batch of silk scarves this week. I got the blanks from Dharma Trading Company, and have been dying them up in a rainbow of colors using French Sennelier TinFix dyes. I paint down swirls of color, and then put salt on the scarves while they dry. The salt pulls the dye into all sorts of wonderfully intricate and organic shapes.

I've got a half a dozen dyed up, and have another half dozen to go. Hopefully I can get them painted tomorrow and Wednesday. I'll let them sit for 24 hours, and then steam set the dye on Friday. That will give me the weekend to wash and iron them, and they can get up in the Etsy shop next week, at $30 each.

Anyone have any favorite color combinations that they'd like to see? I'm having such great fun with these! Even with the puns from the peanut gallery.

Easter Eggs

2011-04-24T16:58:00.001-07:00

Happy Easter! Yes, we all had a good time dyeing the eggs this afternoon. That is just food coloring, but we used wax and rubber bands as resists, soaked it in dye baths or dripped food coloring directly onto the egg, and used salt afterwards as it was drying. Fun effects.

Michelle, modeling two of my triloom shawls

2011-04-17T02:16:00.000-07:00

We took a road trip up to Flagstaff, AZ today. That is where my daughter is attending college, and her theater show was this evening. So we made a day of it, hunting for housing for her for next year in the afternoon, and seeing a delightfully fluffy romp of a show in the evening.

While I was up there, I took advantage of having my model on hand to take a couple of pictures of my newest shawls. Isn't she wonderful? These two shawls will be up in the Etsy shop this coming week, as soon as I finish with pictures and listing. They're woven on my triloom, of Lion brand 'Homepsun' yarn.

Poetry: Cotton Candy Men

2011-04-16T00:54:00.000-07:00

Cotton Candy Men

Note to self:
Artists and actors
and gypsy musicians
are sooo very tasty...
They're a heated carnival midnight
full of light and excitement
lost in sensation.
Savor them
as they melt on your tongue
in a spun sugar moment
one step removed from reality...
And then go home.
Because a steady diet
of cotton candy
will only give you indigestion.

Melissa McCollum
3/31/10

*****************

I write poetry fairly regularly, and share it here now and again. A conversation I had today reminded me of this one that I wrote last year. Yes, I have a soft spot for those lovely, sparkly personalities. 'Cotton Candy' is now my personal shorthand for them.

Hohokam Indian Petroglyphs

2011-04-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

My sweetie has been getting cabin fever recently, since he's been cooped up recovering from fixing his leg. However, the weather was awesome yesterday, he was feeling stronger, and we knew there was the handicap accessible Black Rock Trail at the White Tanks Park about a half hour drive from us. So we grabbed some chicken for a picnic dinner, and headed out for a lovely sunset stroll after his work.

I'm originally from the midwest USA, so the spiky texture of the plants out here is always kind of odd to my eyes. But there is definitely beauty when you know to look for it.

The Hohokam Indians lived in this region from about 500-1100 AD, and they left petroglyphs scattered behind them. Actually, some of the glyphs in the park are suspected to be up to 10,000 years old. I use some of the symbols in my gourd work, taking inspiration from my adopted home. So I took some time to carefully clamber around the rocks, not touching the images (the oils from my hands could damage them) but capturing them in picture for future reference.

It was getting dark by the time we made it around our little loop. There was a slight chill in the air, and all you could hear was the whisper of the wind and the occasional bird call.

I really appreciate having this peaceful refuge so close to home. And by the evidence left on the rocks, people have been enjoying this pocket of beauty long down through the ages.

Obsession (A poem about beading)

2011-03-30T00:57:00.000-07:00

Several years back I wrote a poem about beading. I submitted it to the 'Beadfairies' site online, and it was published there. I kind of forgot about it after awhile. But yesterday I was doing an idle Google search on my name, and found that the poem had been quoted on two web sites that I'd never heard of. Which makes me go 'hmmmmm...' on the one hand, with copyright and all that. On the other, I'm kind of tickled that folks liked my writing enough to pass it on. I really enjoy writing poetry, but I do it more for my own pleasure. It bemuses me (in a good way) when folks connect to my words enough to take something out of them for their own.

Anyway, I figured I'd reclaim my poem, and share it here again.

******************

Obsession

Cramped back cracks as I crinkle
into bed. Needle pricked
fingers gather soothing sheets,
and aching neck nestles deep
into 3 AM pillow. Light switch click,
itchy eyes finally close...
...and phantom bugles flash
cobalt behind twilight eyes.
Freshwater pearls shimmer,
swimming through my veins
as Delicas dance my spine.
Cool garnets slide memory
smooth through fingertips
twitching for pointed precision
as the beads stalk me deep
through the night...

By Melissa McCollum

*********************

And with that, I ought to get myself off to bed. I was weaving today instead of beading. Do you think I'll dream of cloud-soft fibers and interlacing patterns...?

Weaving Sunbeams

2011-03-28T18:29:00.001-07:00

I love weaving in my studio in the late afternoon, when the setting sun streams through my open windows. I feel like I'm playing with soft strands of pure light...

I do so love my job!