Sunday, July 23, 2023

Inspiration

I like to visit art museums and galleries to get ideas I can steal. We went to the Garrett Museum of Art Friday night, to see their current exhibit, "Women Take the Walls". The works by Susan Hensel were made with "digital embroidery".

Chromatic Wave I

When I saw the following piece, I thought to myself, I can do something like that with my imperfect inkle bands. The question is, Will I?

Seed Pods

Seed Pods, detail

Dyeing: I tried sun dyeing - put 400g of sunflower heads (before seeds had formed) into a glass container, covered them with tap water, and left it all in the sun for a couple of days. (I forgot the part about boiling the water before pouring it over the flowers.) The results just look murky. I'll ask about sun dyeing and dyeing with sunflowers at the natural dyeing workshop next weekend.

Before sunbathing

Knitting: I did rip back about 50 rows to fix the buttonhole problem. Then I performed the increase row too soon, so had to back out of that as well. Now I have scrap yarn in both the buttonhole band and where the increases occur, to remind me.
Spinning: It doesn't take long to forget how to do something: I tried my hand at core spinning "art yarn" again, but I seem to have lost my touch.
Weaving: The inkle band is off the loom, but I am not very happy with it, so it may be used to suspend a houseplant. This was also a case of forgetting - after a few days of not weaving, I struggled with my technique for maintaining straight selvages.

My schedule seems to be opening up a bit, so I am finding more time for fiber arts. I'm also trying to physically rearrange a few things to make my work spaces more conducive to, well, actually working. I'm never organized enough.

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