Hand Dye Day

One thing I did manage to do yesterday was to drop in to the Neighbourhood House and get this pic of the Sussex Banner:


I made it a few years ago to celebrate the diversity, energy and warmth I see there. It's relevant to me today for a couple of reasons

• we've just launched the "Quilters at Sussex" blog and this quilted banner is next in the history of quilts that belong to the house itself--after the Carers Wall Hangings that have already been featured on the blog.
• It's made from my hand-dyed cotton fabrics. I'm planning to teach another Hand Dye workshop in a few weeks and one of my tasks today is to do a bit more promotion for it.

Also on my "to do" list for today is a bit more cleaning up at home, since my dyeing materials, buckets, bits of fabric and yarn, etc, etc, etc, seem to be slowly invading more and more of my house.

Bad News, Good News!

Today wasn't much of a textile day for me. Here's part of the reason why:
I've been helping a friend to get ready for his driving test. Today was the day of the test and despite the most careful preparation including an extra service and new tyres for my car, it broke down last night. The indicators and hazard lights just died. The breakdown service couldn't fix it, so I booked a mobile mechanic for first thing this morning and a taxi to get myself back to the car. "First thing in the morning" is way too early for me these days! After checking the fuses and pulling the centre out of my dashboard. The mechanic came out with this: That little bit on the left is the contact and it's supposed to be in the middle of the part on the right. I'm told the whole thing is called a "flash can"--it's less than two inches across, but obviously vital. I took the pic on the car roof to commemorate the occasion since it cost a fair bit of trouble and lost sleep. I must say, I quite like the effect on my blue paint with the tree reflected in it as well. The car was fixed before 9 am and here's the good news:In case you live somewhere where the rules are different, That red P means, " I got my licence and I'm allowed to drive on my own." Then again, I think the smile tells the story.

Slowly, slowly

I only had half an hour to devote to the Damask weaving yesterday. In that time I managed to get two lines of the design done. That's 8 picks! There are four more lines until I reach the half way mark. I've got a feeling this is going to take a while . . .

Damask Design

I've been looking at ideas for my damask pick-up design: I used cross-stitch patterns as my starting point, since the woven design is based on a small square. But I only have a single tone on tone shading option for my weaving, whereas most cross-stitch patterns use a variety of colours. So I was looking for something that didn't rely too heavily on colour contrasts to build up the picture.

I started with the Rose design--I was thinking of traditional damask patterns. After losing count several times just in the process of transferring my design to graph paper, and realising that the rose would absolutely fill the design space of 48 x 60 squares, I decided to try something else.

The bird is more original. I used a cross-stitch pattern to get me started with the body and head, but then went a bit crazy on the tail plumage. I may yet need to simplify that a little. I also like the fact that the bird really emphasises the asymmetrical aspect. It's not often I get to be way off centre with my weaving, so I may as well revel in it.

Damask

This is the damask pick-up exercise we're currently working on in the Weaving Certificate class: The paper pattern has a red tick next to each line, starting at the bottom. That's because this design is worked line by line. Each little square on the pattern represents four threads of warp and four threads of weft. I have to use a pick-up stick to lift the threads shaded in on the pattern as I weave them. When we started this exercise Gerlinde gave out a sheet of instructions--it took a whole page to explain how to weave each set of four weft picks. Then she gave us a strong verbal instruction to go with the written ones: "don't talk to anyone until you've finished all four picks!" You can imagine, the room was very quiet as we picked up threads and counted and checked and wove.

I didn't expect to like this exercise. The precision of counting and the risk of picking up the wrong threads or losing my place was more than a little daunting. But as I got warmed up, the rhythm of the four repeated lines started to form in my mind and the picture started to form under my fingers. Then I was smiling as I stepped back to see the emerging design.

Our next challenge is to do a design of our own. It's a chance to go off and be creative, and because it's pick-up the design can even be asymmetrical. I've been working on some ideas, but first I need to go back to the discipline and rhythm of counting until I've finished this one.

Counting Carefully-again

Weaving class all day yesterday.

We're working on a damask pick up design--details to come. But for now I want to share the work that Alison came in with.

Do you remember my "counting carefully" pic? We were given a brocade exercise to do, and I wasn't too excited about it. It was exacting in the extreme. I managed two little rows of figures. Here's Alison's effort: The first two rows are the compulsory exercise--that's all I did. Then there are Alison's own design:

• a fence


• kangaroos in the back paddock


• lucerne crop


• llamas or alpacas


• tractor sheds


• tractors


• houses


• sheep
  
• another fence


• and red flowering gums in front

It just goes to show how different techniques appeal to different personalities. She must have spent hours working out all these designs and she was smiling broadly about it.

Opportunity

Here's the package I prepared for the Olive Grove Studios yesterday:I picked out

• a simple scarf and hat made from hand-dyed wool and silk,
• one of my crazy-knit scarves: bright orange made from rovings with all sorts of extra bits
• one of my big knit scarves in bright green and white
• one of my crochet wool berets with pigtails
• my blue spring scarf--made from a fine single with crochet twirls
• my black and bright crochet scarf--made from crochet circles in fine wool
• and just to mix it up a bit more, my twisted wire jewelry tree prototype

I dropped off the package in the morning and had a bit of a chat about how the co-op works. Now I just have to let my work speak for itself at the meeting. I should hear back within a few days.

Dropping off the package and walking away felt quite strange--like auditioning for a part and not being there for my own performance!