Another Year of Creativity

It's my first post of the Year 2009, and also an anniversary of sorts, so maybe it's time to reflect a little. Don't worry, it won't hurt...

It has been just over a year since I started a leave of absence from my unusually-long high-tech career at Oracle. I've been there since January 15, 1989 (wow, 20 years ago), and I just needed a (long) break.

I've been very busy in the intervening year, and I haven't been a bit bored. Some projects have been very successful, others less so.

Kid Rooms and Craft Room

I spent quite a while rearranging the contents of several rooms in my house so that my two daughters could each have their own bedrooms. My older daughter got the "new" room with a new loft bed and desk combo so she could study uninterrupted by her darling sibling, and my younger daughter got a new desk in her room and free run of both bunks in the existing bed set. Meanwhile, I would take the contents of my two old craft/storage rooms and combine them into one carefully-planned ultra-functional hobby workroom with built-in shelves and workbench (the Broder line from IKEA).

Eight months or so later, the verdict is decidedly mixed. The girls like having their own rooms, but I'm not having much luck getting them to go do their homework there. They'd rather be working with me or their dad at the kitchen table or sprawled across the living room. In fact, if my older daughter disappears into her room, it's usually because she's hiding in there reading her latest non-homework-related book, and I have to go pry it away from her!

As for my sleek new craft room? The Broder shelving on one side is stunning, and no earthquake is knocking it down without bringing down the walls too! I installed lots of other shelves, cabinets, and drawer units as well. But I haven't been able to get past those basic little laws of physics: I really can't get the contents of two full rooms to all fit in the space of one! Not only is that new room FULL, but so are the hallways and other spaces around the house that were meant to serve as staging areas while I moved stuff around. On the good side, we're all getting very good at sliding sideways through the hallways! In the meantime, my stuff has expanded as I've picked up more hobbies...

The Blog

I started this blog just about a year ago as part of my leave-of-absence plans. Since then, I've written about 50 entries (almost one a week) in this blog, plus quite a few entries in my blog on Turkey (I keep meaning to get back and write more about that!) and my random-topic blog.

Writing has been a major part of my Oracle career over the years, and one of my Oracle colleagues noted with amusement that "a writer just has to write" (or something like that) when he heard about my non-work blogging (yes, I even did a little blogging for Oracle some time ago).

I've been using my blog partly as a way to ramble on without boring people around me to tears. "Mom, haven't you talked about recycling blue jeans enough for today?" The nice thing about blog articles is that if they bore you, you can skip to the next one! It's harder to tell your darling wife or best friend that you really don't care all that much about discharge dyeing, and would she please hush up for a while?

The blog is certainly useful as a reference work, both for me and others. If somebody wants to know how I did some project with the elementary school or the middle school, I can give them the URL, and they can come back to me if they have further questions. It helps both sides. For me, it serves as a reminder of how I did something before. It's useful to have a place to "dump my brain" so I don't have to worry about remembering details in my head a couple years later.

I hadn't expected that my dog Lacey would be such an important part of my blog. She's a smart little dog, though, and it didn't take her long to figure that when the camera came out, posing cutely was a good way of getting attention and treats! Yes, yes, you'll get your Lacey pictures at the end of this article...

The Rental House Remodeling Project

I spent pretty much all Summer and Fall remodeling my rental house (with the help of a really good contractor) for my father-in-law. I was pretty happy with how that project came out, including the fireplace cover.

The Jeans Circle Quilt from Some-Very-Warm-Place-Far-Below-My-Feet

I've written about the jeans circle quilt multiple times already, and it looks like I will have to write updates about it a couple more times before it's finished. I'm still working on it, but I stab myself with all those pins so frequently that it provides pretty strong negative reinforcement! I tend to let my fingers heal before I try tackling it again. It's also so big that it takes a lot of physical effort to muscle it through the machine. It's in three long pieces (queen sized), but if I ever do one of these again I'd do it in much smaller blocks.

I don't usually make New Year's resolutions, but I am making one this year: I will finish my jeans circle quilt (at least by the end of 2010). Sometimes it's all in how you word them.

Tie-Dye

Interestingly, I haven't done much tie-dye of my own lately, though I've helped hundreds of other people do tie-dye over the year, and I expect to keep doing that. Beyond individual projects like the couch and the silk scarf dress, there are really only so many tie-dyed t-shirts, socks and such that one family can wear! I'm not into serious production so much as I'm into experimentation, so selling at craft fairs or similar isn't really of interest. Etsy and eBay aren't really good outlets for tie-dye, though perhaps I didn't try hard enough to build a market there.

I was really excited to get my own page on the Featured Artists section of Dharma's website several months ago. That section is a terrific source to both give and receive inspiration for what one can do with textiles and color!

Teaching and running tie-dye events have been great, though. I did tie-dye at an elementary school and a middle school, two summer camps and family camp, some small parties and some private lessons, and a corporate activity for a group at Google. I already have plans for more events this coming year.

Leather Is the Latest Hobby

I wrote recently that I've started doing leather tooling. Besides collecting a multitude of tools and supplies that are joining the tie-dye stuff spilling out of the craft room, I've been making belts since my last post. I'm now working on my third belt (I'll write up the belts when I finish the current belt). My kids are enjoying doing this hobby with me, and my older daughter especially is getting quite good at it. "Quality Time With Family" is a good justification for an expensive new hobby, right?

Lacey Resolves to Keep Appearing in My Blog

Lacey is cute, and she knows it. It's her key to survival, since she gets places she shouldn't and sheds on everything! I'm currently trying to sort all of my white stuff for tie-dye since I'm back to trying to fit everything in my craft room. I made the mistake of putting a big bin of soft, fluffy, clean white towels (that I'm intending to tie-dye eventually) on the couch. I later found her nestled in right on top!


Aaaah, very comfy. She's quite a princess. I wonder if she would notice if I put a pea underneath some of those layers of towels?


"Don't even think about it!"


"Do I really have to get up?"


Oh well, I'll have to wash the towels again anyhow after I dye them.


"Happy New Year, and May It Be Full of Treats!"

Inspiration All Around

Inspiration is often an elusive beast. I can sometimes go for months without doing very much tie-dye, just because I don't feel inspired by anything new to try out. And then there are other times when I'll be tying and/or dyeing every day or two, because I just can't wait to see the next set of results.


I get a lot of inspiration from other people, as many artists do. My friend with the tie-dyed couch has been a great inspiration lately, partly because of what he has been trying out himself with his own tie-dye (he's big on marbles), and partly because of his sheer "no matter what, it's gonna turn out great!" joie-de-tie-dye. I wish he could bottle that stuff!

Another friend gets inspiration for her oil paintings, and moral support to just keep working at it, from groups of other artists online (see her blog for more inspiration). The Internet has really made it easier to find support and inspiration from far-flung places--you don't have to host a salon in Paris anymore.

When you need an inspirational boost, books and videos can really be useful. Both the video "The Art of Tie-Dye" with Michael Fowler, and the video "Learn How to Tie Dye: Complete 3 Volume Set" with Tom and Martine, show some really inspirational pieces, even if you don't want to just follow their "cookbook" steps. The "Tie Dye, Back By Popular Demand" book by Virginia Gleser is an inspirational starting point too. Dharma provides even more inspiration on their website with their "Featured Artists" section.

But for complete "this is why I do it" inspiration, kids are the best. My daughters enjoy wearing tie-dye, and are quite happy to suggest what they'd like to add to their wardrobes! One of them likes to dye her own, and both of them are always happy to "adopt" shirts, sheets and other tie-dyed treasures that emerge from my work area in the garage.

First graders, Girl Scout troops, and other groups of kids are also good. The abundant energy and the wild abandon with which kids dye their pieces just charges the entire atmosphere. It's hard not to absorb their enthusiasm and want to dive in to do a few more pieces of my own.


While it's a lot of work, some of the volunteers (including me) who do the annual first-grade tie-dye project with the local school almost fight over getting to take the shirts home to wash en masse. Getting to look at all those wild shirts at once really gets the creative juices going.


But that's enough for now. I've got to go get my next batch in the wash...

Tie-Dyeing the Furniture, Part 2

In a comment on my Tie-Dyeing the Furniture post, Anonymous said...

Oh wow I just love the furniture! I was pondering the possibility of tie-dying my two couches (that don't match...) and it gave me great hope to see yours! Now if I can just have the patience to try it myself.

Thanks!

After I did my couches, I went looking for others on the internet. I was surprised to find only a couple, and they were quite different from what I had done. I liked these ones by Wahmpee, and this one from Dye-abolical Designs. These are very different styles, so you can get a better idea of what you might like.

Really, patience isn't the main requirement, so much as the promise to yourself to really go for it and to like whatever you end up with! It's a bit of an investment, since those slipcovers range in price from $60 and up. That's not counting dyes, which can add up, especially for the really dark colors like navy that require extra dye powder per amount of water. But as long as you like what you end up with, or are willing to cheerfully throw away your investment if you really don't like it, it's well worth the effort. For my house, it makes a huge and positive change!

One tip: do some tie-dye on cheap cotton t-shirts first, with the pattern, dyes and colors you plan to use for the slipcovers. You can drape them over your furniture like swatches. You may find that you want to change the colors or pattern before doing the real thing. And hey, you can wear the shirts, or you can give them away if you hate them!

It also helps a lot to have a friend or two join you. It makes the folding and dyeing go much faster (and it's more fun, of course!), and they can help muscle the stuff around as well--it's really heavy when wet, and the slipcovers are quite large and awkward to fold.

Patience actually is helpful for a couple things: 1) letting it sit wet in the dye overnight, and 2) for ironing the slipcovers when they are washed out and finished! It's a lot to iron, but they just don't look very good until they are ironed. It's cotton, after all, and ironing makes a big difference.

If you are serious about getting the look, but don't want to do it yourself, Wahmpee does custom work, or I can. But where's the fun in having someone else do it if you can do it yourself?

Hm, I wonder how my couches would look in brown swirls to match my dog's brown t-shirt? Another project!

Tie-Dyeing the Furniture

Tie-dyeing the Couch!

Recently I met someone from Google who is actually more into tie-dye than I am (my close friends all gasped when they heard that). He has a huge wardrobe of tie-dye, but had never actually tried it himself before doing it at a group activity I ran at Google. And then he was off and running...

He later told me that he wanted to tie-dye his IKEA couch! It's a big L-shaped couch, and he got a white cotton slipcover for it (the great thing about IKEA couches is the availability of slipcovers).

We got together at my place to work on it. It took about 4 hours to tie (separate pieces for each cushion plus the body), another 4 hours to dye, and another 4 hours to wash out. We went through nearly 2 gallons of dye!

It's hard to see from the picture of the whole couch, but each seat cushion is a spiral. The couch looks even more fabulous in person than it does in the picture!

More Furniture!

This used to be an ugly orange chair left over from an old housemate

I liked his results so much that I got off-the-shelf slipcovers from Sure-Fit for my own sofa, loveseat, and chair. Like the first couch, this took about 4 hours to tie, 4 hours to dye, and 4+ hours to wash. This project also took about 2 gallons of dye. Now I finally have matching furniture, and I love them!

The back also continues the pattern: