Playing..........

Today I did a little playing that is part of the surface design program I'm presenting in November. Always a fun activity.

I took a black silk scarf (pre-washed) and put painter's tape on it in a grid and then pulled out the Shiva Paintstiks and stencil brushes.

Here are the ends of the scarf once finished - color looks different on them but it's really not, just a camera/lighting snafu.

Here's a piece of wool felt I stenciled gingko leaves on using the Shiva Paintstiks. I'm thinking I'll put this wool under the embroidery machine and stitch very simple line drawn gingko leaves all over it - maybe in metallic thread. This will eventually become part of a tote bag.......I think.......plans may change...........

I had another black silk scarf that I had washed.......gingko leaves landed on it too, this time a different stencil.......

I used Jacquard Lumiere Textile paints and these two foam stamps when embellishing cardstock. This will get further embellishment with Shiva Paintstiks and possibly foiling. These are a test run to see how they'd do cut into strips to be bookmarks. I always like to have something for everyone to go with the presentation handout so am thinking of bookmarks. It has to be something simple and relatively quick to make. Will get back to these sometime next week.......

A bit of this and that......

Today I got the fringe twisted on the recently woven handspun yarn shawl. For some reason I can't get a good representation of the colors - it's much prettier than my photo looks.....and so yummy feeling.

I moved on to stenciling on two ice dyed silk scarves. Very simple, understated. A dragonfly on each end.

A sand dollar and starfish on each end of this scarf. I used Shiva Paintstiks, which I love, but they need a week to cure, then the paint gets set further by ironing. This looks much prettier in person.

The AVL is now ready to tie on the front beam - more gingko scarves to come. When I thread the heddles on the 40 harnesses I let the loom raise the next shaft so there's never an error in threading..........but when I reached harness 39 & 40 it refused to raise them. I was hoping there wasn't a major issue.....as there are too many of those in life this month......I shut it all down and restarted it, worked just fine for the rest of the heddle threading job....phew.

And a big failure this morning. I silkscreened three black chenille scarves with discharge paste. Two with gingkos, one with abstract designs. After the discharge paste dried I got the iron out to steam  the silkscreening which will pull the dye out. Nothing happened, nada, absolutely nothing. Sometimes depending on how a fiber is dyed it may not be effective but this is the same Silk City chenille I've used before so I know it works. Then I started wondering if there's a shelf life to discharge paste - I've had this gallon for a long time, and I'm down to the last cup. I did have a newer container, although not terribly new but it's never been opened so I got a little bundle of the chenille yarn to give it a try. It discharged. So, at some point I'll be re-silkscreening those scarves with the new container of discharge paste. So, yes, it has a shelf life. When I get in the mood to tackle this again I'll post photos.

Fun in the studio.....

Trying to keep myself very busy today....too much on my mind so trying not to dwell on things I can't control. So, after blocking the knitting and crocheting this morning it was to the studio to decorate some frames. I bought these 3 notecards at a quilt shop in Coos Bay, OR, they were 5"x5". I immediately thought of framing them for the beach cottage, or the 'villa' as my friend Diane from Idaho calls it.....she won't call it a villa once she sees it! I found these nice black frames at Michael's with plans on decorating them. I pulled out the Shiva Paintstiks and went to town. I masked off an 1/8" on the inside and outside of the frame to keep a small black border then started applying color followed by white using stencils. I love the way they turned out. Now they sit and cure for around a week. I thought the next thing on the agenda today would be weaving that scarf warp of the loom but even with the window open and fan on the Citrasolve I used to clean my stencil brushes created fumes I just can't tolerate so no more working in the studio today. Hmm, that means I could either spin or knit, or clean house but that's just not happening today!