disorganized collections

April 4, 2009


April 3
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I guess they are not exactly disorganized, more jumbled up. It is a very fine distinction, I know!

I realized that a bunch of my ideas required holes, so I spent a happy several hours drilling holes in shells (the pink ones are fast, the yellow ones are slower) and little fimo pieces (hand drill, very fast).

There will be an actual project type object tomorrow.

lots of things

April 1, 2009


April 1
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I want to feel rich. In money, I'm not, very. I mean, I can't afford a horse of my own, which is my current standard for extra money in my life. In other things I am.

In digging through my collection of beads found these diamonds I'd made from polymer clay (Fimo, Sculpey, odd mixtures) while thinking about the Queen of Diamonds. So I pulled them out and hooked them together using green wire. I am rich in red diamonds.

I am rich in other things too. You'll see them over the month. Mostly in sets of things. I'm thinking about making something over and over, getting good at it. Or to see the variations that come from building things with my hands.

And I know it is April first, but for fooling, I got nothing. Sorry. I love the theory, but I never get the actual implementation done very well. My favorite set of Fools has to be the crazy food from Family Fun Magazine. They have "spagetti and meatballs" that is frosting and red food color and lumps of cupcake, with coconut for grated cheese. There were other fun ones, like tiny foods, and backwards foods (so supper looked like dessert and dessert looked like supper), but none of it happened today.

Happy April one, regardless.

nine patch, more or less

March 31, 2009


March 31
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

5 felt circles from a gift bag, 4 felt circles from a piece of felted wool jersey (it is purpler than it looks – I'm having color troubles) some black embellished circles and 4 acid green mother of pearl dangles.

ETA (Edited to add) the circles are about 2", so the whole object is roughly six inches on a side. The connections are satin stitch on the sewing machine with my (new! gorgeous!) purple variegated thread.

It looks nine-patchy, right?

March 30

March 31, 2009


March 30
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

A collection of experiments, all stitched together –

The black felt was an old piece of wet felting from a workshop that was old enough to be used for something else, so I experimented with acid dye (instead of just using food coloring and vinegar) to get a nice deep black. It was no harder than using the food coloring!

The white felt was to see how hard it was to make a thin, fine piece of wet felted material. I have made several pieces of dry felted material with the machine, and they are nice but profoundly perforated. Plus I wanted to incorporate rayon threads for !shiny! and the embellisher was not working well for that part, so I slapped this piece together. It went quicker than I remember, I think because I was working small and thin. The shiny came out more discreet than I was hoping for, but clearly present. While it was drying, I noticed I still had my washers from a series of rust dyeing projects, so I laid a row of them along the edge and got a series of lovely rusty donut shapes.

The end result was free machine stitched together in between two layers of soluble stabilizer. The stabilizer is stitched into the project and then rinses out. Theoretically. It takes a lot of rinsing, and until it is gone it acts more like starch and stiffens the project substantially.

One more March felting piece, and then April! I think I need to return to my 4″ squares for April, I’m losing focus…

haircut

March 27, 2009


haircut
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I realized recently that the last real haircut I had was during the Clinton administration.

In a fit of spring fever (64 fahrenheits, low 20s for the rest of the world) walking around town in my shirtsleeves, I checked myself into a Salon purely on account of the green on the walls. It was the same brilliant green I’ve been staring at all spring. The color of the beads on the past triptych. The lady was great. Although I think she liked my haircut better than I did. I remain dubious, although it is nice to have it short for spring.

True, this is only peripherally fiber related, except I have this huge hank of my hair I was staring at wondering if it felted. So I will address it with the machine tonight and report tomorrow. I suppose it must do something interesting or all those dredlocks wouldn’t work properly. Maybe I can put beads on it.

sleeping (with the ) fish?

March 25, 2009


March 25
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I was inspired by Tracerapotts's picture on Flickr (go look now – I love it).  I used some of the left over felt I made using the embellisher and cut it into pieces. The orange face was a nest of orange dyed yarn felted aggressively, made separately and applied. I needed it after some over-aggressive felting left a giant orange and black hole where the face should be. It isn't quite done yet, but I am not sure how hard to pursue the idea that really came from someone else.