Turning waste to potential

It has been a while since my last posting. The reason for this can be summed up in two words:

Grad. School.

With so much reading and synthesizing of ideas to be done, things in the studio are getting a little bit dusty. A temporary cotton shortage hasn't helped any. However, though things may be slow moving, they are moving.

I've got a warp all wound, waiting for its weft to come off backorder before turning into a [hopefully] grand quartet of quilted weaving. The cotton yarn I want should be available mid-December, just in time for winter break, so I'm hoping to get a lot of work done on these pieces at that time.

In the meantime, I've been working on ways to more permanently mount my soft pieces and make use of my weaving waste. I've gotten in touch with the art department at my grad school. Although they have no fibers shop for me to peer longingly into, they do have a sculpture shop, complete with a shop tech willing to help me out with some plywood-cutting needs. It is difficult, at the moment, to figure out specs and the practicalities of plywood moving without a car while keeping up with schoolwork, but with some care, I think I can get it done, and end up with some lovely, clean results. More on that as it develops.

I've also been working with my yarn waste, trying to transform it from waste to valuable material again. One of the only things I don't love about weaving is the unavoidable waste of so much yarn. I can never bring myself to throw the pieces away. Recently, I began the process of sorting them out and tying them end to end. I plan to use these pieced-together former-waste yarns as both warp and weft in little patchworked-yarn weavings. The idea of finding a use for what would otherwise be waste pleases me greatly, as do the notions of rescue and conservation brought to my mind by the yet-to-be-made cloths. Behold, what once was waste and now is full of potential again:

Shears for hair

My obsession with shears is ongoing.

For a while there, I was without a printer. Since the printer is a vital tool in my pattern-making process, this seemed like it might slow me down quite a bit. Instead, I turned to the images I've been working with so intently for a while now. I began stitching this one pair of little shears over and over again, packing them tightly on the cloth in alternating rows. As my collection grew, I wondered what to do with them. They weren't artfully arranged as a solid piece, but as individual pieces, and needed to come apart- but how, and afterward, for what?

I pinned them to the wall, imagining changing concentric circles and patterns as the collection grew. I stitched one to a pin and wore it as a brooch. For a friend fond of hair accessories, I attached one to a bobby pin, as seen above. What I'm finding in these potential uses is a great sense of satisfaction. Finding an actual function for these little pieces, beyond fixed, decorative, wall adornment, being able to place the bits on my body and wear them unobtrusively, seeing that they are not limited the way a much larger piece may be, is great. I plan to explore this further.

Wreath #2

101 inches

Here it is, 101 inches of 30" wide cotton plaid.


It's 101" instead of my intended 112" because at around 1am, my bobbin winder decided that it didn't want to move. Apparently turning is the last thing it ever wants to do again, which is highly unfortunate, as turning is its main purpose. Since winding bobbins by hand is a rather dreary task, I reevaluated the requirements of my intentions and decided that 101" was just fine.

Things I watched while working on this yardage: Dollhouse, Spongebob Squarepants, Rocko's Modern Life, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and My Name is Earl.

Next up, a bit of patterning for the dress I will make out of it.

1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 1, 2.

I've been a bit distracted from the studio lately, with grad school coming up soon. (I begin in only a few weeks!) As such, I've given myself a break from ideas that require a whole lot of my brain, and focused on ones that involve mostly rhythm and counting.


This is the plaid I mentioned a few weeks back, finally on the loom. I think 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 1, 2, and repeat while watching cartoons. It's a good time.
I've been toying with different pattern ideas for a dress I would like to make with this cloth when it comes off the loom. Something with simple construction- a couple darts in a bodice with straps, a subtly gathered skirt, a couple patch pockets. I'm going to be careful with my patterning, because when the dress is done, I would like to have enough remnant for a self portrait of me in the dress made of the cloth on the cloth. That sort of echoing will make me smile.

In other news!

• I am looking into various types of power saws. I have decided on a way to present my work that I think I will be most pleased by, that will be clean and portable. The one hang up is my current inability to slice through plywood as easily as I can tear cloth. So, for the first time in my life, a power tool seems to be a necessity. Looking into it!
• Images of shears are still filling my walls. The more I use them, the more they seem to become a part of me. I will get back to this another day.
• Any moment now, Inside 12 opens. While I do wish I could be there, I am excited for everyone who is, and hoping it all goes well.

1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 1, 2. 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 1, 2. 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 1, 2.

A Lesson

If ever you think there is a chance that you will want to recreate an element of something you make- heck, even if you don't think you will, just on the off chance that you will change your mind- save your notes. Save your original measurements. Write them down in your sketch book, not on disposable pattern scraps. Or if you do write them on scraps, transfer them over. Preserve these things.

Learn from my mistakes. Careful documentation is how you can avoid such activities as digging through your studio trash (full of identical paper scraps, tea labels, and tape bits) at 4am for those tiny notes you're sure you must have written somewhere, or looking up forgotten lessons of how to discern a diameter from a circumference to figure out what on earth your original preshrunk measurements were. For the love of 4am inspiration- write down that original diameter.


In other news- look! I have a show coming up!


Soon my work will be better traveled that I am! I wish I could go see the show myself, but since hopping over to South Korea for a few days is rather implausible right now, I'm taking satisfaction in knowing that friends will be there, with their own work, able to see the whole show for me. I'm sure it'll all be marvelous. I'm also fairly certain that my next show (when it comes about) will be much easier to get to, so I'll just be patient and keep making work.

Yarn Yardage

At this precise moment, I have one thousand, eight hundred and seventy two yards of cotton yarn dying in a tea bath.
One thousand, eight hundred, and seventy two yards. 1,872.
It's a bit incredible that that is only half of what I expect to use in this project.
When I am done I shall have over 3 yards of 30" wide plaid cloth. Of course, that's quite a few steps away, but still.
When you break it into actual yards like that, I am always astounded by how much I use for just one piece of cloth. It doesn't seem like nearly that much in person, at any stage of the process.

Keeping Count

In the last few weeks, I have embroidered 21 pairs of shears.

Tonight, I begin working on a tri-shear hybrid.

When that is done, I have 9 more planned.

Shears, shears, shears. There is so much I want to work on, but first I have to get these shears out of my mind for a while. So, shears, shears, shears.

Weaving woes

I don't weave as often as I used to. One reason for this is simply that I am not under the same pressure to produce that I felt while in school. Another big reason is that I have developed a tendency to weave a large amount of cloth for multiple pieces at once, as opposed to weaving the cloth for each piece individually. Because of this, my familiarity with the routine has lessened.

Recently, I have noticed a change in my cloth. I am not sure when it came about- when I began working exclusively on my smaller loom, when I took a break to move my studio across the country, when I switched yarn brands- who knows. What I do know is that my cloth is not as dense as it used to be.

I used to produce a very tight, dense weave which was most pleasant to work with. At some point, my standard cloth became looser. Flimsier. The weft no longer squeezes in securely to the warp. This cloth is not so pleasant to work with.

My problem is that, not knowing why this change has occurred, I don't know how to fix it. I use the same EPI, same reed, same yarn size as I did when I was making the tighter cloth. I am hoping that the reason for this looser cloth is not the loom itself, for that's a pretty difficult element to change. My fingers are crossed that there is an easy-to-fix reason, like tension, or the way I have been tying up the treadles. I rather wish I could pop back to school, ask a couple questions, get some advice. Since I can't, I'll just have to keep trying to figure it out, and hope I don't end up with too much of this looser, less-satisfying stuff.

Shear obsession

Lately I have been obsessed with shears. I cannot get them out of my mind's eye. I'm thinking about cutting, cutting ties, cutting strands, cutting off. Cutting cleanly, cutting swiftly, cutting efficiently, cutting roughly. Thinking about the sound a nice sharp pair of blades make when slicing through something. Thinking about the emotional connotations, about the metaphorical suggestions. Thinking about the shears as a representational image for life events.

As a result, I have piles of pictures of shears around my studio desk. They are stacked to the side, pinned to the wall, stuck to the shelves with bits of tape. They are printed on paper, drawn out on tracing paper, stitched into cloth. I am at a point with them where I am struggling to finish a single project (I mean really finish- not finish embroidering an image, that is no problem, but finish off edges, prepare for hanging) before beginning the next one.

At the moment, this is bad, because I really do need to get some pieces solidly complete- but every time I glance anywhere, there they are, these images, cutting through life and history, making changes, amendments, edits, improvements. Trimming, paring, cutting clean. Taking down the pictures would do no good, because the inspiration is still there in my mind. Shears, shears, shears.

Efficiency Experiment

Experiment with printing, part one: so far so good.

February Look

When I am embroidering an image through paper, the thing I long most to do is tear it off. I will stitch small segments, ordering my directions so as to allow me to tear more and more, without waiting for any completion to satisfy the desire to rip that paper off the cloth. With that in mind, I would like to share with you: the largest piece I have ever completed without tearing any of it at all until completion.


Ok, it's only about 2 1/4" x 3 1/2", but still. That's self-control right there.

I've had a lot going on this past month. I moved my studio, for one thing. It's only a difference of a few yards, but the difference in how much light comes pouring in, and how much room I have to move around in, and how much safer I feel about my supplies potentially crashing down in an earthquake is huge. It's a good change. I'm preparing for a show I'll be participating in this summer, and for submitting to a few others, which is all rather exciting and productivity-inspiring. I've got new ideas running around my head and desk, mingling with techniques and themes I've had going for a while now, and that feels great. I think I'm on the verge of some highly enjoyable experiments.
Of course, the problem with experiments is that I don't always know where I will go with a piece. That one above, for example. I've been playing with transparency and layering, which is lovely fun- but now that the time has come for attaching layers, I find I can't decide how to do it. I suspect my experiment will be completed only through more experimentation. This isn't a bad thing, but I do worry about the delicacy of my layers holding up through trial. I hope I don't spoil any.
Ah well. Sometimes, that's just how it goes!

A peek for you

A peek at the first of the completed trio, and a statement about the making of them:


Not only have I formed a callus on my thumb from all the quilting these pieces have involved, I have formed a crater within said callus from the repetitive prodding of the needle eye. Ah, craft, such an elegant occupation!