Story Quilted Vest with Daryl Lancaster

Its been a very busy month and I will have to write a couple blog entries to catch up!  I will start with the most recent...

Our Fiber Guild of the Savannahs hosted Daryl Lancaster for a 2 1/2 day workshop (Vested Interest) and morning presentation on Color Inspiration.  I was disappointed when only 12 signed up, but even more frustrated when 4 dropped out at the last minute.  Daryl is a fantastic workshop provider and I had taken this class and one on jacket construction with her through the Hudson Mohawk Handweavers Guild several years ago when we lived in Albany, so I knew she would be great.

As I was hosting her at our place, I picked her up at 11:30 from the airport and we spent the afternoon exploring Savannah.  We shared a wonderful pan seared perch for lunch at the Pink House and then explored the Gabriel Dawe exhibit's last day at Gutstein Gallery and then on to Blick so she could see our guild show there.  We treated ourselves to some Leopold's ice cream before I wound our way back to my condo stopping at ShopSCAD, passing Forsythe Park's fountain and then a quick spin through Bonaventure Cemetery which is minutes from home.

visiting our Show and Sale at Blick  - with a branch of our Oatland Mightly Oak Fiber Art Installation

Daryl started the first day of the workshop (April 19) by fitting each and every one of us individually to "muslin" (actually scrap fabric) vests and showing us how to alter them to fit our body type.  We then traced her pattern for the different types on red dotted fabric paper... "A" for no boobs, and "B" to boobs... with colored dots for each size... making the alterations as needed.  I needed more length at the hem, some give and take on the side seam and some additional at the back neckline.  It was interesting to learn (relearn) that in order to make things join at the center front you have to alter at the side seam.  That seems counterintuitive, but Daryl explained you must always keep your lines parallel and perpendicular to the floor.

Once we had cut out bindable interfacing we were ready to lay our fabric pieces out on the gridded cardboard foundation in designs we liked.  She warned us to use large fabric pieces which would cut down the time of piecing and then adding the bias "bridges" to cover the pieces once them were ironed on and bonded to the interfacing.

We took time out Saturday morning for a very informative Color Inspiration presentation where Daryl explained how she wraps yarns around 3 folded index cards in different proportions.  She often uses photographs and magazine pictures from which to pull colors. She talked of the importance of adding just a little bit of a colors complement (ie yellow, purple) so that it creates energy.  (Funny... my brother Jeff the artist had just made that suggestion to me during a Skype conversation!)

I have been working on adding the finishing touches to my vest - Indigo Memories that is made of piece of indigo based fabrics from my trips to Japan.  Some were from one of my daughter Kristin's host father Mr. Tanaka who had a kimono store and shared samples of fabric with me, some were from my trip with the Japan Fulbright group of teachers and were given to me by the grandmother (Obanson) of the family I stayed with one weekend, and some were from the 100 Yen Store in Tokyo (Dollar Store).  Each one holds a memory... and that's what its all about...  I hope to wear it to our guild's Opening Reception for our annual show and sale tomorrow night at Blick.

My Indigo Memories Vest in progress

The Joy of Nuno

Erica and Nel with their finished nuno scarves

What happens when you mix silk chiffon fabric and wool roving and add embellishments of novelty yarns, ribbon, silks and other fibers?   NUNO felt!  This flexible felting technique was developed in 1994 by American turned Australian Polly Stirling and her assistant Sachiko Kotaka . (Polly is the sister of Robin Blakney Carlson who first taught me the language and delight of nuno.)   Polly wanted to create a lightweight fabric suitable for the tropical Australian climate using wisps of wool embedded (felted) into a lightweight base fabric like silk or cotton gauze.
The past couple weeks I have taught workshops on Beginning Nuno Felting for our Fiber Guild of the Savannahs Taste of.. (the fiber arts) workshops.  I was so psyched after teaching!  I had forgotten how much I missed it. Sure... working at the SCAD galleries allows me some teaching time... sharing what I know about our different artists and their work... but a small class of 6 to 8 who are interested in what they are learning and having the opportunity to help them discover a new process and unleash their creativity is invigorating.

Each student came up with something totally different.  Different colors, fibers, placement of design, embellishments...  they inspired ME to want to do more!
 

Taste of... Nuno Felters laying out their fibers on the 3mm silk chiffon fabric

Adding swirls of novelty yarn as embellishment.  Thin whisps of wool fiber 'glue' it to the base.

Swimming noodles, bubble wrap, netting, slightly soapy cool water... some of the tools for the felting process

Catie using the bubble wrap as a washboard to start the fulling process with warm water.

I decided the end of last year that I wanted 2013 to be the year of Nuno for me.  I discovered it about 6 years ago when we were living in Albany, NY.  I arranged for a group of the Hudson Mohawk Handweavers Guild to take a 3 day workshop with Robin Blakney Carlson at her studio in an old brick factory building in beautiful downtown galena Falls, NY.

She's felted and fulled and now to rinse...

Susan's nuno felted scarf ready to take how and dry and watch the magic happen!

I can't remember where I first saw a piece of nuno felting, but I do remember that it totally blew me away!  It shattered all my ideas of what felt was... or could be.  Felt to me had always been that stiff, dense stuff you get at JoAnn Fabrics for Xmas crafts that has gotten progressively more awful over the years the less it used natural fibers and started morphing into that nasty acrylic stuff.  Nuno was exotic, light as a whisper,  and full of exciting texture and colorful opportunities.  It was the complete opposite of boring!

I LOVE weaving... but there is something very freeing about creating nuno felt.  It's relatively fast (you can complete a scarf in 2 hours or less) and it encourages you to embrace what the fibers want to do.  You can design but the fibers and the way they adhere to each other with the light wisps of wool as glue... is amazing.  The end result is so different after the wool fibers migrate through the silk background... with the spidery effects of silk laid on the top... and sparkles of Angelina... and  dashes of color from novelty yarns and fabric... when you start shocking the fibers and they start to shrink... gradually more and more... rubbing, squeezing, dropping...  until the piece is 1/4 to 1/3 of its original size...  And then... when your piece dries and the empty areas pucker and rushing appears... it's magical!

I plan to do more... and eventually make nuno fabric for a summer top.

I will introduce my sm'ART (seeing and making ART) group (part of the Savannah Newcomers Club) to nuno next Oatland in early April. The ladies who took my class from the Landings (a wealthy community on an island just south  of Savannah) are interested in me coming out there for a nuno party with wine! (They know how to get the creative juices flowing!). Looks like 2013 is coming in NUNO!

Just look what Erica added to her nuno felted scarf... a coy fish dry needle felted into the nuno!

 

Thoughts and Prayers...

My thoughts and prayers for the continued recovery of the Japanese people on the 2nd anniversary of the horrendous earthquake and tidal wave that devastated so many on March 11, 2011.  300,000 people are still displaced and living with the memories of friends, family and neighbors who were lost. I think about them and send all the positive healing energies possible to help them continue their strength and resilience and accept nature's way of renewing itself.
http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=18699894&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com

Experiencing the Spectrum

I love my part-time job at SCAD in the Exhibitions Department. I spent an entire week helping Dallas-based Mexican-born Gabriel Dawe create Plexus 21, his site-specific fiber installation for SCAD's Gutstein Gallery. The exhibition titled Light Paradox opens February 18 and runs through April 11, 2013. 

Cones of color waiting to be wrapped from hook to hook...

 Warm colored reflection on the wall...

Plexus 21 is created using cones of rainbow hues of Gütermann polyester thread which is fed through a safety pin attached to the end of an expandable painting rod. Each strand of colored thread is attached to the wall around a hook and wound back to another hook on a column across the room.   It's like catching beams of light as we build the piece thread by thread.  

Plexus (warm) at the end of Day 3

It felt in so many ways like my early pre warping board days of winding a warp around chair legs. But this was so much more rhythmic and mesmerizing... and there is a lovely zipping sound the thread made as it raced through the magic wand to the next hook! It felt like action painting in thread! SCAD fibers students did most of the high ladder hooking while I hooked atbthe lower levels and counted out the numbers of the pattern Dawe meticulously created for his piece.  

Light WARM side... Yellow to Violet Palette... 

Dark WARM side... Violet to Yellow Pallette...

Light COOL side - Yellow Green to Marine Blue Palette...

Dark COOL side - Marine Blue to Yellow Green Palette...

 

The artist checking the hooks and threads the end of Day 4.

The mixture of colors when the Warm is seen through the Cool...

The artist and SCAD preparator Chris Hayes walked back and forth about 14 miles a day guiding the thread to the hooks each of the five days spent creating the 2 interacting constructions - one in warm colored hues and one in cool colors. 

We finished the installation in the gallery Friday evening Feb. 15 at 6;15pm after 5 days (40+ hours) of winding 80.77 MILES of thread! It was exhilarating! 

The spectrum of colors dance and change as you walk through the gallery.

At the end of each Plexus installation... and this is the 21st... Dawe has careful instructions to remove the thread carefully from the hooks.  The tension in the threads is released. The loose threads are gathered up and returned to the artist who encases them in a clear Plexiglass 12 inch cube which he displays at the next show.. He calls them Relics. The Relic from Plexus 3 is displayed on the pedestal. This piece is magical... it makes color come alive and you can interact with it. An excellent article describing the piece... http://hyperallergic.com/65579/a-dazzling-architectural-rainbow-with-political-and-social-history/ 

Cones of thread after completion of the installation.

Artist Gabriel Dawe with wand and Chris Hayes from of our SCAD Exhibition Department in the midst of the installation of Dawes piece in Gutstein Gallery.

Gabriel's "score" to follow on the left for both pieces of Plexus 21 and my handwritten notes to call out numbers to hook to the students...

What an honor it was to work on this magical piece! The artist was calm and patient throughout the installation and a joy to work for.  Now I will have fun sharing what I know with visitors to the gallery!  I am blessed... aren't I?

Watch this excellent video I found where the artist clearly explains his intent.  It is extremely comprehensive including examples of his early work, his Relics, and time lapse videos of his installation and take-down.  Well worth the 12 minutes to watch it!
http://vimeo.com/31383293

Videos of our process from my iPhone... 

Winter Mountain Fiber Fix

I attended the Winter Retreat in Asheville, NC held by Friends and Fiberworks yarn shop at the Biltmore Mall Saturday, January 19. They offered a variety of workshops and had several vendors in a unique setting... a mall! Actually the empty stores were perfect places to hold small workshops. The organizers even arranged for rooms at very reasonable rates at the adjacent Comfort Suites which included an excellent breakfast!

A Mokume Bark Felt workshop with well-known felter fiber artist Chad Alice Hagen of Asheville was just the ticket... Chad was leaving the next day to take a bookmaking workshop at Arrowmount where she often teaches. She is often on the teaching schedule at John Campbell.

Mokume is a Japanese shibori technique which creates a bark-like texture and look on the needle felted wool fabric. The seven participants felted, stitched and resist dyed the pre-dyed wool batts and created beautiful scarves. I was delighted with the scarf I created and I'm looking forward to doing more. I've deemed 2013 the Year of Exploration on Felt!

A quick reunion with Esther Rogers, who came to Savannah give us an art yarn spinning workshop a couple years ago, was a delight! Esther hopes to come back to Savannah this spring to do a workshop at Jen's Frayed Knot. A shopping spree at Friends and Fiberworks to get some novelty yarns for the Taste of Nuno Felting workshop I'm teaching in March for the Fiber Guild of the Savannahs was very productive.

Sunday, after the workshop, was time to explore southern North Carolina's fiber arts heritage. A drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway to the Folk Arts Center was lovely and the work in the center was so inspiring! Weavings from traditional mats to fine tailored and funky textured clothing filled the shop and galleries. All of the work of the Southern Highlands Craft Guild: pottery, woodwork, quilting, glass, leather, was exceptional.

It was hard to leave... but on to Black Mountain for a walk around Lake Eden home of famous Black Mountain College (someday I plan to write the sequel to Woven: a Bauhaus Memoir where my alter ego Anna Werke winds up at Black Mountain College with the Albers -- so trips to the Asheville area must include stops at the college sites in Black Mountain) We then went into the town of Black Mountain for a visit to Nice Threads Fiber Gallery behind the red door... for more inspiration! (There are a great deal of talented fiber artists in this part of the world!) I picked up some yummy wool and bamboo top to spin and some colorful locks before heading back to Savannah.

What a wonderful weekend in the mountains with my hubby -- and a fiber fix, too!

BLESSED

Well... There ya have it...I feel blessed! My oldest daughter Kristin and I had a nice chat about the word after she proclaimed that she felt "blessed". I told her that word was used a lot in the South and I wasn't sure how I felt about it. I kind of feel a bit pretentious when I use it... But by her definition it's much more than "lucky" or "fortunate" and definitely has a spiritual component to it... And by that definition yes... I too, FEEL BLESSED!

I've been rather silent for months now. A lot has happened... Some great... Some not so great, but... I AM truly blessed: I have a sexy husband who continually makes me feel loved, four fantastic children with four amazing significant others, four adorable grandchildren, a wonderful family, supportive and nurturing friends, my fiber art which enriches my soul, a summer home on our sailboat on Lake Champlain, our beloved new city of Savannah that fills me with joy as I am able to walk the beaches at Tybee and under the spreading live oaks dripping with Spanish moss downtown, and my bike rides on windy trails through tall Southern pines and Palmettos.... and this is only part of what makes me feel blessed!

Last April I had news that rocked my world for a bit... But I refused to let negative thoughts rule the day. What I thought was a sore on my tongue due to biting it.. turned out to be squamous cancer on the left side of my tongue. Several doctor visits later we decided on a course of action... Quoting my rather young but very competent radiologist ... I decided to have my wonderfully talented ENT surgeon "whack it off"... and if necessary, Dr Doogie Howser would "mop it up later" if necessary. Surgery was scheduled for May 5... A mere 3 weeks from the discovery by biopsy of the cancer. I'm happy to report that I'm healed! Dr R was able to cut off enough of the side of my tongue that the edges were cancer free.. And so far so good... No recurrence!... And no radiation needed, which made last summer on the lake glorious! Taste has returned and numbness is almost gone... And LIFE IS GOOD. I am BLESSED!

I hope that the 2013 brings you and your family and friends many blessings. I will do my best to be more prudent in updating by blog. I'll add some collages I made of my Christmas knitting projects... 2 stuffed animals, 2 fingerless arm war,wars, 3 pairs of socks, 2 fair isle hats and a long cozy cowl.I've also been busy weaving... But more about that in a future post.

HAPPY NEW YEAR Y'ALL!!!

The adventurer has returned...

I don't think I mentioned it before I left but I travelled to Dubai, yes... Dubai, on Feb 4th to see my oldest son Erik and meet his lady friend, Pune. It's really nice of him to locate in such an exotic and interesting part of the world, isn't it? I of course wanted to see where he lived and learn a bit more about what he does... And meet Pune, so a trip was in order... No matter where he lived. But Dubai!!!!

It was a very long plane trip... But I was ready with my compression hose ( which worked!) and lots of stuff to keep me busy on the journey because I knew I wouldn't sleep. I did manage to relax and rest though, despite a seat that would not recline! I left Savannah at 5pm and Atlanta at 9pm and got it at 8pm Dubai time, so that was about 11am Savannah time ( they are 9 hours ahead!). That's 14 hours in the air... Dinner at 10:30pm... Breakfast and then later a light snack. I watched 3 movies!!! Lots of choices on Delta.

How great it was to see Erik and meet Pune when they picked me up at the airport! Their apartment in the Index Tower designed by Sir Norman Foster was stunning. You enter through an exceptionally tall doorway to the lights of downtown Dubai stretching out before you from the floor to ceiling windows! I was stunned! After a lovely chicken cutlet dinner I gave Pune the shawl I had woven for her and Erik the Rem Koolhaas book. She said that the shawl was perfect for Dubai and I later learned that it was.









The next morning... You can see the Arabia Gulf and the World islands from their windows!