garments – Page 2 – Weave Story

March ended with 2 days of felting at the Michigan Fiber Festival Symposium in Kalamazoo, MI. I did 2 workshops with Suzanne Higgs.

Day 1 – Dyeing Habotia Silk & Nuno Felting

1) We started by dyeing 5mm habotia silk with Jacquard Acid Dyes. Mine began with three dye passes using yellow, hot pink and burgundy. This came out kind of “interesting”….. and Suzanne suggested over dyeing it. Why not!! We mixed up a combination of more hot pink than I used the first time, red-orange and a touch of black. It looked like a black mess but once it was rinsed out = VERY nice!!

2) Next we laid out the silk leaving bunched up sections that will give texture.
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3) Then laid out thin layers of wool over the silk and gently rubbed using soapy water to felt the wool to the silk.
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4) I LOVED the end result = looks like tree bark!! I have just enough to make a vest.
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Been a busy set of weeks since my last posting!!

‘Heron’ was accepted for the AAFG show in the gallery at the Village Theater at Cherry Hill, Canton, MI. The show run March 1-26, 2013.

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March 8-10, I spent a fabulous 3 days in a dye workshop with Jane Dunnewold. Jane is a wonderful artist and teacher! Using fiber reactive MX dyes, we printed on silk, cotton, linen, and rayon fabric using stencils, thermofax screen printing, paint brushes, stamps and more!!

I spent the last day working on a parasol. Using stencil, thermofax screen printing and paint brushes on a commercial cotton umbrella blank I created ‘Butterfly Sunshade’ Parasol. Using the brushes to ‘paint’ the dyes created the textured ‘watercolor’ effect. UV block sun protection fabric treatment provides 30+ UPF.

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Over the past 2 weeks, I made 2 new garments from yardage I wove last summer. The jacket and vest (along with the dyed parasol) have been accepted for the runway at the AAFG’s annual Fiber Feast Fashion Show on April 13th.

Woven in plain weave @24epi. The warp is 5/2 spaced dyed mercerized perle cotton (‘Prairie’ from Valley Cottons) with a 1″ stripe of 5/2 black perle cotton. The weft is 10/2 perle cotton. The woven fabric reminds me of the dark chestnut coat and stripes on the hindquarters and upper legs, the Okapi of central Africa.