ikat

Ikat Tie-on

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Remember that ikat warp I dyed? Well here it is in all its glory! ikat-5 ikat-4

I attempted tying this warp to an existing warp already on the loom. I've done this only once before although had a terrible experience with it; I ended up taking off the old warp and just re-sleying my loom with the new warp. Mostly because I am not an great at knot tying. But of course, if at first you don't succeed...

ikat-1

ikat-2

ikat-3

I was pleasantly surprised it worked this time! I had a few knots come undone, but otherwise it went off without a hitch!

Dyeing to Exhaustion....

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So the one thing I lack at the studio is the ability to dye. I know - you've all just shook your head in disbelief and mumbled "Wha?!" to yourselves. When searching for a studio I found it to be like searching for an apartment in this city... but worse. Cut throat, exorbitantly expensive and tiring. Long story short: if there is water and a stove available in the space, it would be zoned as residential and not commercial. So I don't have, and wouldn't ever be able to find, the means to dye protein fiber in this city. (There is a slop sink in the hall way at least, so I can still dye cellulose fibers. Yay!) I have been taking Wednesdays to stay home and do errands, and often split my weekend at the studio. Wednesdays are also my dyeing days. A couple weeks ago I had the kind of day that really made it all worth it: I dyed to exhaustion. What I love about that word is that it not only describes how dyeing often leaves me after standing on my feet for hours on end, but the way I dye - only putting in enough dye to color the fiber to the shade I want thus leaving the dye pot exhausted. The water in the bath will become clear since the dye has been soaked up by the fiber and I feel better about not having to dump a whole bunch of unused dye down the sink and into the water system. Being made up of almost 60% water, I personally think highly of it and would rather not take this precious resource for granted.

Above is a warp I'm testing some resist knots on - it's essentially simple ikat. Below are pieces of felt getting ready to dye for e-readers I'll be sending off to Craftland soon. It doesn't look like much, but it resulted in 4 different dye pots! And of course waiting for water to boil on four different dye pots (and not all at the same time) required a lot of patience.... Stay tuned to see what came of it!

Stoppin' traffic

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I have a confession. My attempts at getting truly vibrant colors have been futile as of late. When I mean vibrant, I mean so vibrant that it makes your eyes hurt because the color looks like it's physically moving the medium it's in.

But recently it seems the tides have turned. And of course I didn't even mean to do it. Isn't that always the way? But this neon orange - I'm sorry, we should really call it traffic cone orange - looks pretty awesome.