Back to work, Granny

Sigh.  The dear ones have gone back to their home nest.  It will be my turn to travel next.  I miss them.

 This morning I unwrapped my arashi pole (Glennis' shibori class).

Here it is on the counter with a little bobbin made with a twig from the apple tree.  The thread I used to wrap the silk on the pole is buttonhole twist; you can see it on the bobbin.  This bobbin idea came from Deb G.

Here is my arashi after I ironed it.  My goal is to create a pattern like water and then to make a lap cloth:

with several to many of these (above) sewn together.  I'm practicing Jude's piecing method.  The silk is tricky to manage because it is slippery.  On this piece I used starch, then I tried a fabric interfacing and that worked well, but the silk no longer felt like silk...more like cotton.  I have a couple of other ideas to explore.

She has a heart

What a week this has been!

The heart was part of my shibori experimenting, and I thought I should put it on her sleeve, because well, because that was the sort of week it was.

 

I wish the photo showed the rain streaks a little better. I need to learn more about my camera.

A portrait

...of myself, walking in the rain, with a head-cold.

The shibori class is so interesting...for part of lesson 2, I made:

The square on the right was the lesson, then I made the strip on the left to use as a border on the self-portrait. There is much to learn.  

 

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Tea tin and shibori class

This little tea tin has been in my kitchen cabinet for years.  Just the other day, when I was pondering how to think about the new homecloth (see last post), I noticed it anew.  It is such a simple happy representation. I have become all discombobulated trying to decide if I want to portray my home from the point of view of history, from the front or the back, from the inside out, or even should I look at it as if from a satellite.  Now, when I become all perplexed with all these questions, I go look at the tea tin.  It helps that there is tea inside it.

And!  I'm taking the Online Shibori class from Glennis Dolce through Joggles.com and these are my first results. It's very exciting.  Although I've not done much dyeing, I'm having sensations of deja vu.