It’s Produce Week!

At least the current crop of colors I’m working through make me think of the produce aisle at the grocery store!  Today’s color is eggplant.  It looks like it is going to be a rich red-violet.  I’m so thrilled with the consistency and bright colors I’m getting on both the silk and the rayons/tencel.  I looked back over the last ten days at what has come from my daily dye adventures as I work through sampling all the MX Fiber Reactive Dye colors in my cabinet.  And know that I haven’t made a dent, but the drawers are filling with gorgeous yarn.  (Actually the recently vacated drawers in the dressers in the newly renovated guest room are filling with yarn, but don’t tell my husband.  At least I’m not Lily Chin who keeps her overflow yarn stash in the oven…)

Anyway, yesterday’s color, which is now drying was Watermelon, and Sunday’s color was Tangerine.  Both are clear rich vibrant colors and I’m thrilled to have sampled them.  It is making the cold November day with its dropping leaves and biting winds very cheery in my studio!  Ott-Lites and drying bright colors will get you through any seasonal affective disorder.

I’m focusing on getting the big loom warped, because largely it is a question of space.  I don’t have any. (hence the storage of newly dyed yarns in the guest room, along with all my fleeces and felting supplies.  Fortunately

no guests are scheduled to stay at my house until May)  When I’m threading the large loom, the back beam is down on the floor and it takes up any floor space available, so to walk in and out of my studio, I have to climb over the loom.  Hey, it is what I have, so I’ve learned to adjust and work quick.  Except this particular warp is going on painfully slow.  I normally don’t care how long something takes, it is about the process, but not havingany room in the studio is cramping my style not to mention the large bruises on my thighs from bumping into sectional spikes and loom cranks.  And there is no way I can vacuum (not that I have a burning desire anyway, but it sounds like a good excuse) while I have pools of braided warps lying all over the floor.  I had a housekeeper once try to vacuum my studio while I was warping a loom and she sucked the warp chain right up into the vacuum.  It wasn’t pretty.

Still, the warp is gorgeous.  I keep running around the back and squealing with delight at how pretty each turn of the crank is, if this warp weaves up half as gorgeous I’m going to thoroughly enjoy what ever comes out of the yardage.

And yes, it is produce week, besides the fact that I’m picking the colors named after foods for my daily dyepots, I recently joined a veggie coop in my area and my first produce delivery is tomorrow.  Sidebar:  When my kids were little, I ran a food cooperative, we bought bulk organic foods from a Natural Foods Distributor, I handled all the computer work, which was done in very early versions of Excel on tractor feed paper, and every two weeks we had a HUGE tractor trailer back down our little dead end lane, and drop off cases of organic produce, which I would sort, with one child zooming around the garage on some plastic thing with wheels, and the other, a baby on my back in a sling, dividing up the kale and the bok choy and the organic eggplant and carrots into twelve baskets which would be picked up by the coop members.  I was home mostly back then, and I really learned to cook vegetables.  I love the whole idea of being given something and being told I had to find a creative way to use it, probably that’s why I love the odd Project Runway challenges, “Make a dress out of car parts, or Make a dress out of plant materials, etc.”  I use to buy Treasure boxes of yarn from Silk City Fibers and from Webs, way back in the 80’s.  The price was good and you never know what you’re doing to get.  I have a lot of light pink cones of cottons still hanging around my studio and now that I’m getting to be a pro at dyeing, you bet I’m going to start doing some overdyeing.  Anyway, having a drawer full of fresh produce first of all increases your produce consumption, and it keeps you in the kitchen instead of eating out.  For me that is a win win situation.  This basket only comes once a month, and since there are fewer and fewer people to cook for in my house, with my husband gone so much to Saudi Arabia, and my son and the bottom feeders doing their own thing (why is there a pizza box in my oven and how long has it been there?), I’m guessing I’ll be freezing some of this stuff to last for the month.

Anyway, I think my love of working with what is in front of me, like the piles of remnants I just bought from Elfriede’s and Waechter’s Silk Shop makes me much more creative.  Even when I weave, I don’t have a plan for what the fabric will be.  I just like to weave and then it becomes a new raw material.  I never know what a fabric will be, I just like having a stash to draw from when I want to be creative, which is most of the time.  Creativity can come in the kitchen, using a green vegetable you have never heard of, it can come in the studio, picking out yarns or fabrics and seeing what you want to make from them, it can even come in the morning when you are getting dressed.  I try to put together combinations of my clothes I’ve never tried before.  OK, enough musings…

Back to beaming…

Oh, and if you live in the United Sates don’t forget to vote today!