thelmasmith

I finally cleared off the rest of the detritus from the six foot long work table that has my Juki set flush into the top. I’m looking for a 1960s vintage, sturdy, typing table with locking wheels. I need a task specific table for the Pfaff Smart 350. It’s a needle felt machine that is newly in the marketplace. Until today my only experiments were to darn my wool socks.

I decided to do some experiments. Yesterday I had torn eight inch widths of muslin, cotton flannel, cotton sateen, and a fairly heavy silk.  I decided to work both with hand dyed wool roving and with scraps of red matka silk. Here’s the sample with the cotton sateen face.

There is red-orange, black and a purple brown wool needle punched both as cobweb felt and as disciplined, controlled lines. The red matka silk was manipulated in the middle swath and just needle punched on the lower right. The dupioni silk was a scrap; half of it had fuseable web on the back.

The three layers took the felting well. I think if I decide how and when and were I’ll do this sort of work with a design rather than random testing I will either lay the face fabric on the flannel or just felt on the base fabric. The needle punch holes are quite apparent.

Here is the sample I laid up with a muslin base, cotton flannel, and a heavy silk.

Same materials, handle slightly differently. The purple silk ravelings took the punching nicely although they drew up a lot shorter than they started. Do click on the thumbnails as the needles I am using are too coarse and have damaged the fairly tightly woven silk face. I am in the process of ordering some size 42 triangular needles. I suppose while I am at it I should inquire about size 44, too. Back is as boring as the front.

I’m encouraged. Even though I damaged the silk sample the process shows a lot of hope. I’m particularly interested in the cobweb silk. If I can solve the fineness aspects of the needles I have some lovely space dyed roving here.

There is still almost the full width of the samples I made up. So I’ll lay them on top of the wool box. That way maybe I’ll be able to find them when I have more experiments in mind.

As an afterthought - here’s the task specific modification of an old typing table that holds the Bernina. It’s particularly useful as it’s the same height as all my card tables. I can extend it to side or back simply by wheeling it out away from the wall.

I’ve been spending the day procrastinating. I’m also processing a lot of personal information. Here are a few of the non coincidental coincidences I’ve experienced today.

Baba Yaga stands in my kitchen. She over sees my cooking. If I have eastern European genes I am not aware of them. However, here is a story of Yaga.

Do go to the top of that page after reading all about the ancient goddess. Then, take a look at what happens when you take an ancient goddess and put her in charge of a Sonoran kitchen.

Here she is supervising a quesadilla.

More importantly, go take a look at Yaga’s fabrics and designer clothing.

Another beautiful day in sonora.

I worked almost all day and finally came to the desk about three.  Got the winter clothes sorted out of the closet and put away.  Dumped out the donation bag of widows weeds for Valarie James Las Madres project and added some summer clothes and reconsidered and removed others.

Got black clothes washed, dry, hung up.  Same with whites including my towels.  Also a piece of the peruvian pima cotton sateen.  I have decided that the brown back on my fancy banana leaf pillows though beautiful is distracting.  So I’ve a piece of sateen in a green dye bath.

All the Left Turn Lane came back from the Pomona Downtown Art Center.  They had been there since December.  Since they were in the community conference room and the art center is associated with Pitzer etc.  I wonder if I can legitimately call it a solo exhibition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claremont_Colleges

Anyway, the dye board was set up in the garage and I got everything unpacked (bulk packing) and individually rerolled and wrapped and put away.  While I was at it and had the ends off the storage tubes I decided to get rid of some of the space wasters.

I did my best with the cat bat.  When that storage unit was in the house it had no ends and was tunnels for cats.

While I was at it I rolled all the rest of the sateen off the core and folded in by the yard.  There was ten yards before I had to get it back out of the closet and tear the pillow length.  I think it’s nine and a half now.

I’ve been rereading the paint and dye books.  The Tuckman & Janas Creative Silk Painting keeps talking only about “new” instant set dyes that need no steaming. They never mention a name or a brand; it is most frustrating.  The stretch or not stretch page is followed with a stretch with tape over stretcher boards.  Stabilize with freezer paper, loose stretch (over an open cardboard box), stabilize on adhesive boards, stabilize on a smooth flat surface.  Aaarrrgggg  -  they do mention the complete book of silk painting at only $27.  Since the book in my hand is more than ten years old I should be able to find it second hand.  Do I want it??

Kate Broughton’s textile dyeing makes references to acidic mediums and acid dyes almost as an afterthought.  It gives several different ways of working.  Including laying silk on washed, ironed, white canvas, doing the dye painting, letting everything dry thoroughtly, peeling the two apart, touching up the mirror image on the canvas, and steaming the whole shebang.  The particular artist then makes totes out of the canvas and I’m not quite sure what with the beautifully hand painted silk.

Another artist in the same book talks of acid dyes, wet in wet like watercolor.

Even dharma says very little of particular use.  There is something “everybody” knows that I’m not getting here.  I have dupont dyes, untouched.  Single sentences about water and alcohol.  Asides about vinegar or citric acid crystals.  Even the “recipes” from each artist’s paragraph may mention vinegar but no one ever says, “Do this with the vinegar.”

I’ve got to go fold white clothes.  Obviously I’m not going to start painting on silk in the next day or two.  However, I do have three quite large bunches of what I would call silk broadcloth folded up and in a marked container.  I have to figure this out sometime.

Textural Rhythms: Quilting the Jazz Tradition landed in my mail box. I’ve just begun reading the text having fallen into and through the images several times already.

Here’s a look at the work from another direction, Kyra, talks about how the book captivates her. Here’s Sonji Hunt’s lovely review of the opening reception.

The most amazing thing I have learned about myself from Dr. Mazloomi’s writing:

“Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life’s difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph. This triumph is music.”

Now I know why my series, The Blues, is languishing. It has finished itself. I have found that triumph of new hope. I want to thank Dr. Mazloomi for putting it in words for me. I really needed to see that in print so that I could see into my own spirit.

You can get the catalog here. Keep an eye on Dr. Mazloomi’s website for information about the travels of this exhibition. Be sure to see it when it comes within a day’s drive. The catalog is spectacular; the exhibition is even better.

I also received my copy of Threads of Faith. This is another magnificent catalog with lots of text. The traveling exhibition has closed but the book will transport you there.

Many thanks to Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi for permission to use her copyrighted dust jacket images of the book.

Today I’m basting the turn under on the Debian spiral. About one third done I decided to sit down and take a break. I thought that I could sit in my easy chair and do this task. UM. no.

I’m standing at the ironing board with surgical tweezers, a pressing cloth to make sure the fusible reinforcements do not get on the iron, scissors, ivory silk thread and a number eleven straw needle. The trifocals go on and off depending on the demands on my vision.

A close up of the inside and outside corners.

Then a look at Mr. Lincoln and Peace. Early spring mornings in Sonora are the best.

Today’s work on the small Debian quilt was slow. I worried until I went to sleep last night about how I was going to assure accurate placement of the logos detached parts. So, this morning I put the big, pattern copy on the copier and put transparencies in the tray. It will work.

There is one problem with transparencies. You must not let them stack up in the print tray. Senora Rosita Gordita is sitting on the evidence.

A nice bit of evidence, too, The Epoch Times. I picked it up at the Seventeenth Street Market. It says, “began as a weekly Chinese newspaper, Da Ji Yuan, for Chinese people living outside of China.

The English edition launched in September 2003 on the web and in print in 2004 in New York. It is currently published in eleven cities, and in ten languages in thirty countries.

I’ve been telling my friend and website administrator, the Spider, that I would make use of the debian logo he sent me more than a year ago. Debian is the open source software that is the basis for Ubuntu, and myriad other open source software systems. Here is the logo as I received it.

The smaller of two enlargements, getting parallel lines marked so that straight of grain can be maintained. There is one almost twice as large that will go on an ivory background and will have the debian of the logo added at the bottom to balance the design.

The red silk for the logo, itself, fresh from the washer and dryer.

The silk in a macro image. It appears to be hand spun and hand loomed but I do not know if that is true. Look at the interesting weave that shows before ironing. As I got it ironed I let it flow into my old leather armchair. Next time I looked that way Little Smoke Cat had made herself at home. I hung the silk on the coat hook on the workroom door.

The beginnings of placing the image on the batted quilt ground prior to beginning appliqué.

The placement of the mirror image, freezer paper, pattern on the ironed silk.

The rough cut pattern adhered to the silk. The pattern is mirror image and on the back.

The right side of the silk logo. It is still rough cut with the freezer paper on the back.

The pattern with almost all the freezer paper cut away. Bridges of paper remain to hold detached bits of silk to appliqué in place.

This is the point where I need to turn the extra under. In fact it will be pressed over the back of the freezer paper in as many places as possible. The silk is prone to raveling. It is too late this afternoon for me to decide whether to add fine fuse to the points and sharp turns to help control the raveling.

FineFuse is a tool that is a mixed blessing. It is probably the softest of the synthetic fuseables and no longer on the market. As soft as it is I question whether I want to use it with a fine straw needle and silk thread. So, I’m shipping this blog and thinking the situation over.

The biggest sigh on this lovely spring day. Finally I am beginning to see tangible results. I’m beginning to feel that I can actually conquer my workroom sufficiently. I am beginning to lay out books that I want to reread.

Take a look at the used up, worn out, side of the dye board. If you click on the image you will see the warts and scars from seven years work. It has been balanced on edge on the wagon and banished to it’s alternate place. It lives, now, clamped to the quilt storage system in the garage.

The closets are tidy. Everything is sorted and labeled. I no longer have to dig through all sorts of extraneous materials to find what I have in mind.

Now comes the well, almost part. Take one step down into the sewing portion of my workroom. The ironing board has been put away. The extra card tables that come out to hold up big pieces of fabric for stitching have been put away. The well, almost, part is the sewing surface itself. As other spaces have gotten clean and tidy this space has collected things that need more thought.

The bookcase remains dizastical. My husbands word; it is a hybrid of disaster and fantastic. Work on this space has been put on hold. I need to make decisions on which books to keep. There are a lot of out of print books that have been read once and shelved. Eventually, I will list each one on the website. That too, is on hold.

The rest of the spring cleaning will wait for next week.

It was looking so good. But I had to dump the three laundry baskets that had not been touched for years. The fabrics need sorted out by kind and type, evaluated, and either kept in inventory or sent on to other good homes.

Then I dumped the baskets.

The dark mass at the left is actually a pile of what I call “rag rug silks.” These are very rough silks that are woven out of either waste and/or the broken cocoons of silk moths that have survived.

So, global warming and goofy weather being what it is, summer has come to Sonora temporarily. With it has come a stuffed up head, and all the symptoms of inhaling too much very fine dust.

The sort out is waiting.

The spring cleaning continues. The closets are looking better.

The left hand closet is better but the junkyard at the top is still a concern. The Hoffman Bali Batiques have been sorted roughly by color and tidied. More and more boxes are going to Los Hijos de la Vida. I’ll be giving you a hot link for this organization another day.

The dyeboard is actually almost clean. Progress comes at a price. Tomorrow you will see the price.