Baby Steps… but still getting there. I have another wall finished in the “art supply” room. The chartreuse wall. A very bright spot of color, the rest will all be light aqua. I have a couple more boxes sorted… progress.

I finally got brave and after letting my last paint layer on the “Grapes” silks cure for a week +, then heat setting the crud out of them and letting them cure for another week - I washed them!

Success, much better color retention and much more the look I was going for. The resist is washed out too and worked very well.

Cloth 2 with it’s sharper look.

And the detail.

I’m quite pleased with them. Now to decide what is next. More paint? Some quilting or stitching? Hummm….

I’ve mentioned my knitting project - the “Mermaid” sweater. A kit and pattern by Hanne Falkenberg and how I swapped out her yarns for ones that are a bit softer. I finally have enough knit to show you all three colors. The rows are long as it is knit from side to side and the edge you are seeing is the I-cord front, left edge (gold) and the beginnings of the shawl collar (navy and purple). The yarn is Elsebeth Lavold’s Silky Wool and I’m very pleased so far. Granted, I still have a long way to go but it will be a joy!

And now I’m off to fix dinner; herb marinated game hen - with herbs from my indoor herb garden.

Planted 4 weeks ago today. Yes, this is such a cool toy I succumbed and got a 2nd one for salad greens, I planted it yesterday. Who needs the grocery store?

Deb H

Is that not just the most dramatic title ever? Yea, the playwright daughter is not the only drama queen in the household

I’m simply referring to the fact that as I empty stuff out of my art room to paint another wall, the studio and office have become so choked I cannot navigate in them. I’ve had to be diligent about a path to the computer! But, it has to get worse before it gets better, right? I have (in my defense) filled up two large garbage bags with old disks and paperwork that is about 15 years out of date and ideas and fiber articles that had me saying - out loud - “what was I thinking!?!” Some things are just not worth keeping, I keep telling myself that as I still have several more boxes to sort through. But progress is being made, if very slowly and the light of dawn will glow again. What is my point? An over abundance of clutter can stifle creativity. Trust me on this.

I just finished teaching a sock class (Toe-Up, Two at a Time on One Needle) and I always knit a pair of socks along with the class for demo purposes and to make myself feel less guilty about not making myself do the same homework I make my students do. Since I already have a pair of Cat Bordhi socks on the needle and have started my Hanne Falkenberg “Mermaid” sweater, I was not over-eager to start another pair so they are in super chunky yarn. But then I blew the whole “quick and dirty” thing by doing them in a lace pattern. A bit odd, but dear daughter loves them! I start another class next week, dear hubby will get some slippers too as I have a bit more of this unknown chunky yarn that was given to me. I think I’ll skip the lace on his.

As to my Mermaid Sweater, the color way I ordered was Apple Green and Turquoise. A lovely color combination and I adore it. I just don’t adore the yarn, sorry Hanne! It’s a bit scratchy and breaks too easily. I have replaced it with Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool in navy, purple and bronze, I’m hoping it will look as good in real life as it does in my head. When I have it a bit further on, I’ll post a pix.

Since I can’t even get in my sewing studio, I have started to wind a warp with the merino I dyed in the Palindrome method.

It seems to be working and the color sections are (more or less) lining up. Cool!

And because this silly herb garden tickles me so much, here is a picture of my garden, three weeks after planting. And yes Mom, I harvested some last night as I grilled orange roughy with some fresh basil, chives and cilantro, among other things - very tasty!

Back to winding my warp.

Deb H

My wonderful hubby is a bit hard on his socks. So, how to darn a gaping hole in a hand knit sock? There are several ways; you can actually darn it, or you can reknit the section - picking up stitches on each side until you replaced that little square that used to contain the hole. The later was my intent.

After several tries,

and not being satisfied with the lumpy edges that would fall under foot… I found the perfect solution! (Thanks Joan!)

OK, so I didn’t have any matching yarn left (I used it up in hand warmers, lesson learned) and had to get creative. On the “I did something right” side of things, I managed to save a heel before the hole appeared. It was just starting to thin so I grabbed some yarn the same weight and did duplicate stitch over the thinning area. This seams to be the best time and way to fix a hole.

My repairs will work, and knitting a new toe is easier than darning. Of course, I knit these with a 100% merino yarn. Nice and soft but not the toughest wearing choice for socks. The green repair yarn is 50% nylon. The toes will last longer than the cuffs! At least he has his house slippers/winter boot socks back and I didn’t have to knit a new pair from scratch. BTW, they were from a yarn I hand painted, they were worth saving.

So! Why have I bored you with sock repair? Mostly because I haven’t done anything “artsy” this week and it was colorful. Speaking of color, I did finish painting one wall of the art room (art store room). This looks ever so much better. The walls are light aqua, the closet doors are bright chartreuse and the trim is a medium teal. It looks great! It only took me two weeks to get one wall done but I have gotten some sorting and organizing done along the way. The other three walls will be much easier as they have no doors or windows to trim. Yes, this room was the master bedroom in the original 3-bedroom cottage that used to be this big house. Who designs a master bedroom with no windows?!?!? On the up-side, I can store my fabrics and yarns in here with no worries for sun damage!

As for the sorting and organizing; I spent three entire days sorting and organizing my beads. It was scary, now it’s functional. I may even do some beading again someday.

And just for grins, I have to show you pictures of my indoor herb garden. I showed you the gizmo (Aerogarden) in January. But I failed to keep you all up with this totally cool way to have fresh herbs all year round and right above the kitchen sink! The January planting grew to an over abundance (I was giving herbs away) until they all started to bolt and bloom (about 3 months). I replanted two weeks ago today. Last Thursday I took a picture for posterity.

And today is the two week mark. Pretty cool, huh?

We can’t plant outside here for another 4 weeks so this gives me a bit of spring earlier than I normally get

Deb H

Let’s just get this out of the way; I’m bummed that the Yarn Harlot was in A2 last week and I missed her (A2 is Ann Arbor, MI for the non local folks). In my defense, I was teaching a sock knitting class in Lake Orion. I know Stephanie would consider that a valid excuse

It’s been a very busy week but I still managed to put another layer of color on my grape vines pieces. The first one (Cloth 1, as it’s now known), is below.

The colors are a bit intense, not the soft water color look I had originally envisioned. I did this on purpose because I’m assuming I will loose color again. Not as much this time (I hope) as I’m taking measures to avoid it. My first correction was to not dilute my paints so much. I’m sure I had them diluted to the point where I had very little binder left. The manufacturer recommends not diluting more than 50% and I know I was way past that. Here is Cloth 2, it is starting to look a lot like Cloth 1, hummmmm.

The next steps I’m taking to avoid a huge amount of wash-out this go ’round is to let it cure longer between heat setting and washing, like a week before I heat set and a week after! In case you can’t see it, I added the gel-glue resist lines back in. This project is certainly a learning experience. I’m Blogging about it too, that means if I have a dismal failure, it’s a public one. What was I thinking?!?

So, what have I been busy doing all week? I taught a class at my spinning group on printing with silk screens. Don’t ask me why spinners want to silk screen but, there you have it, at least it went well and they seemed to enjoy it. I also did a lesson for my art group that met last night on Abstracting an Image. This was a challenge as I have no formal art training, just what I could pick up in the occasional CC class, fiber workshop (a lot of those!) and through books (a lot of those too) and the Internet. After several days research, I had a pretty good presentation. It was a small showing as we had the first warm and sunny day in 6 months yesterday but, the experience of putting the lesson together taught me so much I certainly can’t complain. I was fascinated by the process and it’s so much less scary for me now. I recently finished an online class of which I have mentioned in my last two posts. This class was an excellent choice for this time in my artistic journey. The instructor had us doing this in the class and she succinctly described the process as “reduce the image to it’s simplest form” and then gave ideas on how to do that. After further investigation and practicing the techniques I picked up in several places, I found the computer and Adobe Photoshop to be the fastest way to accomplish this. I t may seem like cheating and it would feel like it if I was going to use the simplified image as it. But by the time it is interpreted into another medium by hand (fabric or paint), I simply consider it a short cut. I’m sure there are those who would disagree. Too bad, it’s my tool of choice! All I can say is it’s a darn shame I did not have, nor could I find, a photo of grape vines on a stucco wall. No short cuts on this project. Sigh. And because you need a photo after getting through all that text here is a detail shot of Cloth 1. You can clearly see the resist lines now.

Ack, it looks pink!

Deb H

I’ve taken up the challenge by LynnH of Colorjoy! to knit spring into existence by picking something with very spring colors and thinking warm, sunny, colorful, new growth thoughts while I knit My project is a pair of socks called “A Riot of Tulips” because that is what the colorway looks like to me.

It’s just a start but so far, the cuff is linen stitch and I’m using the Sky Architecture sock pattern from Cat Bordhi’s new book; New Pathways for Sock Knitters, book one. Yes, I’ve started another pair of socks - hey - I like socks!

I must be painting Spring into Existence as well. I just realized that my colors I picked for painting the art room are very spring like!Pale aqua for 3 walls, bright chartreuse for one wall and all the doors, trimmed in medium dark aqua. But, I have to say… it’s always at this point when I wonder why I thought I wanted to take this on - I really do hate painting! As I progress ( a little bit each week, I can only force myself to work on it for short periods of time), it will be worth it. The best part is getting rid of the nauseating wall paper trim (See upper far left of photo). I just can’t handle the cutesy pink flowers in blue baskets - ugh. It’s not my fault, they came with the house!

The next saga of my “Grape Vines on Stucco” has not gone excellently. Oy.

I added lots more color. I was actually kind of happy with it, even if it is a bit too yellow.

It’s still wet here but you can see the resist is working nicely. I let it cure and heat set it. BTW, I’m using Setasilk, Transparent Setacolor, and Lumiere fabric paints.

I decided to try a less “wet” painting technique and started a second painted silk cloth (both are about 22″ x 26″). This also has resist lines (much softer) and potential.

The background is hard to see but is much less yellow. I used a spray bottle and some diluted warm brown. It looks a bit like tea dyeing. After curing and heat setting, I couldn’t stand it and wanted to see how the resist was working. I washed them.

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Whoa! Where did all my color go?!? I guess I need to be a little more patient when it comes to the curing and heat setting.

OK, back to the paint table - at least the yellow washed out

Deb H