Feb
28

Another bobbin lace bookmark using Christine Springett’s snake design, made for a friend. The colours are brighter than the photo shows. I send these bookmarks in sleeves even though I usually use my own ones without them. The snakes do tend to twist if they are used without a sleeve, which is a bit of a nuisance, so I leave it for the recipients to chooose.

Feb
26
Filed Under (Dyeing, Fibre and textile crafts) by jennyk on 26-02-2010

The dyeing from Sunday’s Procion MX workshop did not dry till Tuesday, and it has taken me until today to remember about it in daylight and get a photo.  In the morning, we had done the dyeing for the samples, and our teacher Debbie had demonstrated some techniques for multi-colour dyeing.  In the afternoon, we got the chance to try whichever we wanted, and this is what I did:

On the left is a hank of dip-dyed superwash merino/nylon sock yarn.  It was just an afterthought when I found I had a little time left at the end of the afternoon.  It didn’t work out quite as planned, as the pink was stronger than I had intended and the yarn ‘grabbed’ the dye very quickly so there wasn’t enough left to give the gentle transition between the colours.  I might overdye the almost-white sections with more pink but I’ll probably just leave them as they are.

The  middle item is a sock blank, as explained here.  Again, the colours didn’t work out quite as I planned, but I am happy with it.  It will probably become socks for me.  [Edited to add: each row of the blank contains approximately 44-45" of yarn.]

The two pieces of printed cotton were just an experiment to see how the colours worked over existing patterning.  The standard 1% dye solution was not strong enough so I had use too much.  It still didn’t give the depth of colour I wanted and the colours on the larger piece merged together too much.  I need some more experimentation with that.

I have been distracted this week, but I do have another project started.  I probably will not have a picture of that until at least Sunday, even though it is only a small project.

Feb
22
Filed Under (Fibre and textile crafts) by jennyk on 22-02-2010

Just to prove I did make something today (Sunday, though technically it is Monday here now), here are some dye pots cooling on the porch during the dyeing workshop today – two of them were mine:

These hanks were just for cutting up for colour sample cards later in the day. We did more interesting dyeing in the afternoon (painting and dip-dyeing), but my samples are still wet, so I will not get photos of those until tomorrow or Tuesday.

Feb
20
Filed Under (Fibre and textile crafts, Quilting/Patchwork, Sewing) by jennyk on 20-02-2010

Today I went to my first guild meeting since last summer, so I didn’t have time to make much, just these swap cards using fabric scraps left over from recent sewing swaps:

The talk today was on the history of dyeing.  Tomorrow, the speaker will be teaching a workshop using Procion MX dyes, so my samples from that should be my Thing-a-Day.

Feb
19

Here are the last 2 blocks, for 2 different partners this time.  BTW, all the blocks really are square – the problem is my photography, not my cutting skills.

Feb
17

Yesterday’s blocks …

Feb
16

I am in two swaps for string quilt blocks, one for blocks with the strips parallel to two sides and the other for random diagonal strips.  Both require us to send one block each to four partners, and three of my partners are the same for both swaps.   The swaps are receiver’s choice of colours, but two of my partners chose similar colour schemes, so I worked on their blocks together yesterday.  It was too late to take a photo of their four blocks when I finished, so I took it today.

Feb
10
Filed Under (Bookbinding, Fibre and textile crafts) by jennyk on 10-02-2010

I’ve made the smaller mini-journal which I mentioned yesterday. It’s 1″ by 1″ (the minimum size for the swap), with 5 2-sheet signatures.

Feb
10
Filed Under (Bookbinding, Fibre and textile crafts) by jennyk on 10-02-2010

Another small journal, this time for the swap-bot “The Coptic Stitch” group “Size Challenge #1″ swap.  The journals must be no bigger than 3″ in either direction.  This one is 3″ by 2.3″.  I’m going to make a much smaller one for my partner, but that will be too small to be usable, so I thought it would be nice to make her one that is only just inside the size limit too.

This book has 5 signatures, each 5 sheets of 90gsm paper.  The cover is a Japanese paper called Ukigumo, which is waterproof and can be heat-fused to the background surface.  The spine is Tyvek lined with mull fabric.  The sewing thread is Gutermanns Sulky Cotton 12.  The inside papers for the covers were cut from a Rococo chocolate bar wrapper.

  

Feb
05
Filed Under (Bookbinding, Fibre and textile crafts) by jennyk on 05-02-2010

Well, I did almost finish this yesterday, but the last stage was the Coptic binding, and I decided I needed to wait for the glue smell from the covers to go away before I tackled that.

This journal is for a Colour Challenge swap in the swap-bot Coptic Stitch group (which covers all handbinding of books, not just Coptic stitch).  This time, the colour is red, so this journal has my favourite red ginburi momigami paper on the cover (very textured, with flecks of gold and silver foil), red lokta paper for the inner cover and red 18/3 linen for sewing.

The cover boards are covered with white Tyvek, which gives slight texture and sheen as well as being durable, with 3 colours of the ginburi momigami paper.  The  journal has 9 signatures, each with 4 sheets of 130gsm A4 short-grain book paper, and the whole book is 6″ by 8.5″ by about 0.8″.

It will be up to the new owner to decide which is the front and which is the back, but I prefer it as in the first picture.  You can click on the pictures for bigger images which show the textures better.