I have now done another seven or eight batches of dye samples, producing some GLORIOUS colors. Here is some of the eye candy:
Believe it or not, I am rapidly nearing the end of the 400 skeins I had wound originally! Fortunately, I already sent off enough yarn to make another 500 skeins or so, and they should be coming back this week. Ginny is also doing a yeoman’s job of winding the skeins onto bobbins, so I’m feeling pretty good about the samples I’m making.
Later, once I have the bobbins back, I intend to study them and try to correlate the results I’m seeing with principles of color mixing, to see if I can predict the result of mixing colors A and B. Karren Brito (in her book Shibori) has a very intriguing passage on the Munsell color system and how she uses it in mixing dyes; I want to mess around with it and see if I can figure out how to mix a given color reliably. I will probably never have to do color-matching, but if I want a lovely bottle green, I’d like to know how to mix it up instead of having to dye a thousand-color palette to find it.
And, the bookmark factory is humming along. Here we are at the 20-bookmark point:
To make things neater, I pull one warp thread right to either side of an eternity knot, which marks the line for cutting later. Then I fuse the coat fabric to the dress fabric using Heat n Bond Ultra Hold, a strong fusible adhesive. This stiffens the fabric some, but as it’s a bookmark, that’s not a problem. After it’s fused, I then cut carefully along the lines of the pulled threads, and cut the bookmark “head” and “tail”. It takes some time, but it’s still a lot quicker than trying to sew them all myself!
B. and I have finally settled the wedding details that were stressing me out: the ceremony structure and our honeymoon location. We now know which friends we will be asking to speak at our wedding – and, we will be honeymooning in…drum roll please….VANCOUVER!
Now I just have to figure out some cool places to visit in Vancouver…if you have an idea, please email me or leave a comment, I’d love to know!
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Visit Granville Island in Vancouver! Several galleries, working art studios, an art supply store, a silk weaving studio/store, and Maiwa plus a lively farmers market, great food choices, fantastic views…heaven! It’s not really an Island – you can drive or walk there. There is a very nice hotel there also.
Stephanie S.
the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia is wonderful. Great collection, marvellous architecture and setting and has recently been refurbished.
If you would like to meet any weavers, e-mail me and perhaps we could set up a gathering.
Elizabeth