Dyed Scarves

I was going through my pictures and thought I would toss up a few pictures of two scarves that I dyed with thickened dyes. The picture to the left is a (almost) full length shot (don't mind the messy workroom behind the scarf).










The picture to the right is a detail shot of the scarf above.












The picture to the right is a detail shot of the scarf in the picture below.











This is the full length shot of the above detail.










Both scarves were dyed using thickened dye (fiber reactive dye with alginate). The scarves are silk charmeuse. I used a method called "canning" where by you take a small can the size of a small can of tomato paste and cut out both ends and put the can down on a piece of plastic and then pour the thickened dye into the top of the can. Then you drag the can onto your scarf and around your scarf in any manner you want and then drag it back onto the plastic (those are the thick lines you see). The dots on the second scarf were made with my finger dipped in thickened dye and rubbed in a circle on the scarf. I had a lot of fun making these scarves.

More Photos From Trunk Show

The Picture to the right was my mom's display of felted bags, hats, cobweb lace felt scarves, and jewelery. Mom also had felted art bags (small bags meant for wall decorations) for sale against a window backdrop, but I manged to miss taking a photo of that. That is what happens when I let the photo's become an after-thought.


Above is a picture of the nuno-felt scarves I made that were displayed on an antique quilt rack. I also had scarves hanging from a wall hook display to the left of the quilt rack. But again, I wasn't thinking enough about a photographic record and didn't think to take a picture of the scarves on the wall. I most likely forgot about them because that is where they are always displayed at the shop. Although I like the antique quilt rack, I think I need to come up with a better way to display my scarves. The wall display isn't quite right either. Maybe suspend something from the ceiling so that the scarves are more up at eye level? Hmmmmm... I will have to think on this further.

This is a picture of my mom's felt hat with a vintage silk scarf twirled into a rosette surrounded by one of my nuno-felted silk scarves. That we had matching colors was an unplanned but pleasant surprise. They look good together don't they?


That is it for photos for the moment. My next project is actually not scarves. I am thinking about making a nuno-felted wall hanging. I have a couple yards of silk I shibori dyed yellow and green. Maybe I will make use of that for a backing. I will post photos as I work through the project. Right now it is just in the thought stage.

Trunk Show

How did the Trunk Show go? Well, we didn't really sell anything, but we did get experience in giving short demos. We also got exposure through the shop's advertising. So, although it was not rewarding monetarily speaking, it was rewarding in other ways. We also got to meet some very interesting people (some of which we may have turned on to felting). And, we got some good feedback (feedback is always good to get, except when it's not...lol). Above is a picture of the shop we had the Trunk Show at. I will post some more pictures later.

Making Money To Continue Feeding My Fiber Art Addiction

~ So, I have been selling my Nuno Felt Scarves at a small shop in my area on and off for almost a year. A little after I learned how to make Nuno Felt I got my mom interested in felting. She has gotten quite adept at it over the past year. She makes hats, bags, and jewelery. She found out about the Streeterville Artisan Market from a fellow class-mate towards the end of last summer and we decided to apply for it. We got accepted as a vendor. So on November 7th and 8th we did our first Art/Craft Fair. And, we did well! At least I think so. We manged to make enough that we paid for our table, materials, and time. I am sure other vendors probably made more of a profit, but, for our first Fair I think we did well. I have to admit it took a lot of organizing (more than one would think). It also took a lot longer than I thought it would to build up a decent amount of stock. Up until this point I was only making scarves when the shop sold one and the shop never kept more than six scarves at a time. So I really didn't have much in the way of stock built up. Good thing we had a couple months to get things together. After my experience with the Streeterville Artisan Market I have a lot of respect for people who do this sort of thing full time. It might be interesting to go that direction eventually myself. But, for the moment, I am not giving up my other job.
~ This coming Saturday December 6th my mom and I are having a Trunk Show at the shop I have been selling my scarves at. If you happen to live in Chicago, IL and want to check us out the shop's name is Painted Light Photos at 1742 W. Balmoral Avenue. We will be there from 11am to 5pm doing periodic demos and hopefully selling our wares. Above I included a quick snapshot of our booth at the Streeterville Artisan Market (took me awhile to figure out how to attach the picture and I am not sure how you make it show up on the bottom, oh well this works. LOL). I will try an put up a post soon after the Trunk Show.

The dreaded First Entry

First entries in any kind of journal are always rough. You are breaking new ground. Possibly messing up that pristine page. But, if you don't take that chance nothing is accomplished. So, this is my blog. Here I will document my adventures with fiber and textile art (and maybe the occasional side-trip into the unknown, as I am known to steer off on tangents). The two main areas of fiber art I am exploring right now are felting and dying. I also do some collage work. I hope in the future to put up pictures. For right now it is enough for me that I finally got around to creating this blog.