katazome – Page 3

August 28, 2012 by Tien Chiu

Of cone-winding and katazome

Those with long memories may recall that Sandra Rude’s husband Mike was kind enough to make me an adapter so I could wind cones on my double-ended electric bobbin winder. However, he doesn’t do it commercially, and the adapter only works with one cone size, so when I saw the Magical Moons adapters – which handle multiple cone sizes in the same adapter – I just had to try it. And it works!

Here is a photo of the adapters:

The ends of the cone fit inside the grooves, like so:

Because there are many different sizes of groove (three, I think) it can adapt to most sizes of cones. I tried it out on the blue plastic cones that I have a zillion of, and it works great! I tried some of my other cones on it, and it seems to fit most sizes, though I’ve only actually used it with the blue plastic cones.

So, if you’ve been wanting to wind cones on your double-ended electric bobbin winder but weren’t lucky enough to know a woodworker, this is your chance. You can buy them in the Magical Moons Etsy shop – http://www.etsy.com/listing/98682339/cone-winder-adapter-for-the-bobbin .

I should add that I had a minor problem with my adapter, stemming from the fact that one of my AVL bobbin-winder cones is damaged (I bought it that way used). I mentioned this to the folks at Magical Moons, and they were nice enough to send me out another set that fixed the problem. So I am very impressed by their customer service as well.

Now, the katazome part: I have finished the katazome on the warp, a long process that required me to stencil on dye, let it react, then cover it with katazome paste, and apply more dye – three times! I washed it out yesterday, and wove up the first three motifs this morning.

Here is what the dyed warp looks like:

I don’t yet have photos of the woven cloth, but plan to finish weaving this evening and apply dyes tomorrow. Because the edges are substantially distorted (as tends to happen in painted/ikat warps of any type) it probably doesn’t make sense to stencil on images, so I’ll just paint them with thickened acid dyes (with or without katazome paste) let dry, and then steam them.

All of which means that the Celtic Braid Coat is not yet done – the katazome experiments are just so much more exciting that I will likely finish them first! But that should only take a day or two, as I’m making rapid progress.

August 15, 2012 by Tien Chiu

Katazome and stenciling on warps

This morning, I watched Elda Kohls’ video Ikat on the Loom , which details how to stencil on a warp that is under tension on the loom. Her description of the process and tools is very clear and detailed, and inspired me to try it out. I mixed up some thin fabric paint, applied it through a commercially purchased stencil, wove it in a 3/1 twill, and came up with this:

sample stenciled using "Ikat on the Loom" techniques — sample stenciled using “Ikat on the Loom” techniques

It came out pretty well – the images are clear and the scumbly bits in the background add some nice visual texture. (Please politely ignore the floats – I’m not sure what was causing them, will troubleshoot next time. I was trying to weave my sample at lunchtime and was a bit rushed!)

And I have an intriguing design I made in my Inspired to Design class, which is just begging to be made into a stencil:

image just begging to be made into a katazome design!

Of course, I have scheduled a dye play day with some friends for Sunday, and was planning to make my yearly batch of fruitcake on Saturday. Not to mention the Celtic Braid Coat! which is still sitting lonely, waiting for its bound buttonholes. So much to do, so little time!

August 8, 2012 by Tien Chiu

Katazome + cross-dyeing – oh, the possibilities!

As I prepare to wrap up the Celtic Braid Coat, I’m thinking about my next project. I think I’m going to do katazome on warps and mix it up with cross-dyeing.

Here, at least in theory, is how it works:

Starting with a white warp in a cellulose fiber (cotton, rayon, linen, etc.):

First, you apply the resist to the warp:

undyed warp with resist applied (orange square)

Next the warp is dyed with a red-to-yellow color gradient, and the resist washed out:

warp painted in red to orange color gradient - after washout — warp painted in red to orange color gradient – after washout

Where the resist was, you have white; the rest of it is in the dyed color gradient.

Now, the fabric is woven using a lime green weft:

…and a circular patch of resist is applied:

woven fabric with a circular patch of resist applied

Now the cloth is dyed with acid dyes in a blue to green gradient. This will dye the protein weft but not the cotton warp; the result, after washout, should look like this:

woven fabric, dyed with acid dyes in blue to green color gradient, resist washed out

The boundary lines will not be so neat in real life, of course, as the edges will “feather” during weaving. But I think it’s an interesting technique with a lot of potential.

Since I have a 10/2 cotton warp already on the loom, this presents some excellent possibilities, as well as a way to use up a 15-yard cotton warp (what was I thinking?). At Bonnie Inouye’s recommendation, I’m going to weave up some “fabric” with a fine, sacrificial weft this week (one pick every inch or so) and resist/dye the resulting fabric – possibly this weekend, possibly later. I’m debating whether to keep the warp white before dyeing or whether to dye it with a “base coat”, probably yellow. Also debating what stencil pattern to carve – I’m thinking flames but am coming up with some intriguing possibilities (phoenix feathers!) in my design class.

This will all take some time, though, so it probably won’t happen until next week, assuming I can finish up the Celtic Braid Coat this week. (Possibly a tall order! We shall see.)

July 24, 2012 by Tien Chiu

Food for thought

I went to a workshop with Randy Darwall yesterday, and he suggested that I get formal art/design training if I were interested in making art-to-wear on the exhibition and museum circuit (which is quite different from the craft circuit). This matches more or less with my assessment: I can figure out (or get help with) the mechanics of making almost anything, but am much weaker on the design side: what to make and how to make sure it’s artistically well-designed. It was helpful to hear that from someone with experience in that arena, and he made a suggestion for a local mentor who could help me understand “the ropes” of art-to-wear – what skills I need to develop, what to look for, which exhibitions to enter, etc. I’ll follow up on that, of course.

Meanwhile, there is the design question. I’m thinking a local community college course (for now); the OCA course, as interesting as it sounds, isn’t focused on design, and because it focuses on two dimensional design in the context of textile work, I’m thinking that a focused class on design is probably better (and cheaper!). Of course, I need to figure out where to study – someplace that will be challenging and not too expensive. In retrospect, my previous class on two-dimensional design was helpful but not as thorough as I would have liked, so I would like to study three-dimensional design in a more rigorous manner. Which means figuring out a good school in which to study – not the easiest of tasks!

I also need to figure out what to study – design classes, obviously, but what else do I need to know? I don’t know, which means I need to find someone with formal art/design training who knows my work can make suggestions. I have a few ideas, but if y’all have suggestions, let me know, would you?

After the Randy Darwall workshop, I went over to Britex Fabrics, where I discovered that the three-cornered buttons would not fit through my buttonhole. However, these buttons fit:

I am not totally happy with these, though, because they have a slight shine to them, attracting attention. I think I will make another sample buttonhole and send it to Sharon, who has access to a buttonmaking machine, and ask her to make a suede-covered button that will fit.

(Pat suggested using nonfunctional buttons with snaps underneath. I will probably use at least one or two snaps to help hold the top of the garment, but it’s always struck me as somehow cheating to use faux buttons with snaps. I should probably just get over that, but I’d rather have functional buttons, if I’m to have buttons at all.)

Finally, I have washed out the katazome:

Obviously the flower katazome is more successful, largely because of its simplicity. The multicolored butterflies simply degenerate into mush. In retrospect, I should have used only two colors of butterfly, one red-orange (for the foreground butterflies) and one blue/green (for the background ones). That would have given dimensional depth (because red and orange advance while blue/green recede) instead of visual chaos.

If I were doing it over, I’d also use a colored background – the white is too prevalent and drains color from the piece. But whatever; it was a learning project, so I’m not overly concerned about results.

July 16, 2012 by Tien Chiu

Katazome workshop Day Two

Day two of the katazome workshop was slightly less jam-packed than the first day: mostly we pasted with our freshly-carved stencils, and painted on the fabrics we pasted yesterday.

Here is my butterfly stencil, painted with watercolor pigments in a soy milk base:

And here is my flower stencil, similarly (but much more simply) painted:

flower stencil, painted with watercolor pigments

The look, of course, is misleading: the tan parts where the paste resist was applied will (or should be) pure white once the resist is rinsed out. But that will be a week or two from now; the soy milk needs time to bind the pigment to the fabric, so I won’t be able to rinse it out until next weekend at earliest. (Proteins in the soy milk denature over time, binding to both fabric and pigment.)

We also pasted scarves with the stencils we cut yesterday. Most of the participants dyed theirs on the spot with Colorhues dyes (which are insta-set); I decided to take mine home, undyed, so I could experiment later with painting on fiber-reactive dyes.

Meanwhile, in Celtic Braid Coat-land, I have revised the pattern to a panel style, inserting a side panel so I can narrow both front and back pieces. I still need to sew up the muslin, which I will do as soon as Mike gets up. I do have time to fiddle, as my leather sewing materials are being shipped from New York City and heaven only knows when they will arrive. And the black leather piping I bought on eBay is still on its way as well. Until those arrive, I can’t do any sewing.

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