Finally a real whole day in the studio…

It has been awhile since I’ve had a completely uninterrupted day in the studio, I can’t really even count January because I was so busy prepping for the California adventure.  Assuming you’ve read my previous few posts, you would know that I was 3000 miles away from my studio for the entire month of February.  And so I’ve finished catching up with the post travel/away from my poor house for a month.  It is respectable once again, and I can focus on actually accomplishing something creative.  This is when it gets dicey because I’ve got so many fingers in the proverbial fireplace…

I wear many hats as a textile/fiber artist, and I represent many different communities in my work.  If I had to describe myself in one short sentence, I’d say my first real love is garment construction and that all other roads lead to that.  When I weave, I’m almost always weaving yardage to make a garment.  When I’m sewing, I’m almost always making a garment.  When I knit, I’m really trying to make something to wear, though my knitting skills are still a bit rusty.  And when I felt something, which isn’t very often, it would of course be something I can turn into a garment.

One of my readers remarked in a comment awhile ago, on where I actually put all these garments, and where would I wear them all.  I admit, both are problems.  I’d like to say in the perfect world, that for every garment that comes in, one goes out, and that does help to keep the closet manageable, but not completely.  Once my handwoven garments have run the rounds of exhibits, they just sort of collect dust, at least the substantial ones.  They are usually too large to drag along to teaching venues, I prefer to take vests since more can fit in the suitcases. And I can assure you, other than the occasional trip to the theater, I don’t have much of a social life and rarely get to actually wear most of this stuff.  I work mostly in my pajamas in the studio.  But really, having a fantastic wardrobe isn’t why I do this.

There is something really challenging and fascinating about creating something for the body.  Especially my own.  Being able to see dimensionally, in the round and in the interior all at the same time, is a spacial skill that has taken years to perfect.  Getting the fit right is great on paper, but the mood and give of the fabric still commands adjustments no matter how skilled I am.  And styling a garment is lots of fun, that’s the part where I stand in the closet in the morning and say, “What can I put with this?”  But even then, garment construction especially with cloth from the hands, is a journey.  A long one.  Full of detours and frustration and satisfaction and joy.  I’m happiest when I am creating a garment.  How it turns out is really not the goal.  The goal is to push the envelope and see where the garment leads me.  And it is the journey that keeps me coming back for more. And once in awhile I really nail it!  See below…

And so on this first day back in the studio in nearly two months, I decided to dive into multiple projects to satisfy all my readers and of course me.  I had gone on the furious bender back at the end of last year, to get all of my looms warped so I would have something to return to, and the first one I decided to tackle was the mohair yardage.  If I can unload two bobbins a day, about 28″, I’ll have the yardage off in a couple weeks.  It is slow going, because the mohair is sticky, but not impossible.  I dance the treadles back and forth to separate the shed and eventually they clear.  And when I’ve woven a few inches, I tighten up the tension and brush up the pile with a sweater comb before advancing the cloth. Of course this will eventually become a garment. 🙂

I found this gorgeous cashmere knit yardage on my shelf when I was rooting around for something else.  I had forgotten it was there.  I have this vague recollection that my best buddy Candiss Cole gave it to me, but I can’t be completely sure.  Since Candiss reads this blog, I’m sure she will report in with all the details.  Anyway, I’m really enjoying this particular Vogue pattern, three different tops all with princess seams, still perfecting the size, because a 12 is too big on a really stretchy knit, and a 10 is too small on a knit with low stretch.  This cashmere is really really stretchy so I’m going to make a 10.  I wish you could feel how incredibly soft this feels, it is the color of oatmeal and I want to wear it before the season ends.

For those whom I stayed with in California, you know about my sweater from hell issues.  And thanks Carol, for showing me that it makes more sense to knit the fronts and the sleeves side by side instead of one at a time.  Duh, talk about a head slap… The three patterns on the front panels have different repeats and with my low intermediate knitting skills, I found the fronts painfully challenging.  But I charged ahead and am so far, really happy with what I’m getting.  And I adore the color, hand dyed Araucania Nature Wool. The pattern is from Berroco.  I am of course a fan of set in sleeves, even though they are a pain in the butt to put together.

I actually finished another pair of socks while on the trip.  I have a lot of hand knit socks in my closet… The yarn is Regia Random Stripe.

And I really really wanted to get moving on my felted coat.  A few days after arriving in California in February, a couple of the members of Black Sheep Guild took me on a field trip to Thai Silks where I found some discontinued colors of silk chiffon.  I had purchased 2.5 pounds of hand-dyed Corriedale Finn Rambouillet Cross Wool Top (one of her crazy balls) from Lisa Merian of Spinners Hill at the NY Sheep and Wool Festival a few years ago.  I had my son send a cell phone photo of the large ball while I was standing in Thai Silks, so I could match it roughly to one of the discontinued colors, since I was planning to back the felt with chiffon.

What I really needed to do here was of course sample, and then do a lot of calculations.  I’m good with loom calculations. I’m great with sewing calculations.  I’m terrible with wool/grams/grams per square inch and calculating percentages of shrinkage.  But I charged on, undaunted and if all goes according to my calculations, I should have more than enough wool.  The chiffon is questionable.  That will be close.

The sample came out fantastic.  It is exactly what I was going for.  Three layers of wool over the chiffon, with accents of a silk hanky, and 40% shrinkage.  Based on those numbers I did a lot of erasing and head scratching and think I came up with what I actually need to lay out this felt, one panel at a time.  I’m making a variation of my workshop jacket since I don’t have a sample of a felted “Daryl Jacket” and I have felters who take my workshops.  I’ve actually taught jacket construction at felting conferences.  So here is the sample and when you turn it over you get quite a surprise.  I’m going to try to work on a panel every couple of days because of the shear physicality of rolling felt for a coat.  I don’t have a rolling machine and will be getting quite the workout!

And in other news, I came home on Saturday after a field trip to upstate NY with some music friends (more about that in another blog post) to find a priority mail box addressed to me.  I opened it and squealed in delight as I discovered that all three of my entries received awards in the Fiber Celebration 2013 exhibit sponsored by the Northern Colorado Weavers Guild held at the Loveland Museum Gallery in Loveland Colorado.  The juror was Catherine Ellis. (Love love love the inkle band ribbons!)

My coat “Wildfires” won third place in the wearables division, my yardage “Pacific Sunset” won second place in the wearables division, and my “LA Attitudes” dress won the Harrisville Designs Award for a Wearable Garment.  Which got me a gift certificate to Harrisville.  Though I thought it was mildly amusing that Harrisville is a woolen mill and I mostly work in hand-dyed rayons and cotton.  I almost never weave with wool, excepting the yardage above, which was only to clear my stash of mohair I’ve been sitting on for nearly 30 years.  To make more room for rayons and cottons… 🙂

It was a really good day…

Stay tuned…