Inspiration and Frustration

I'm really busy these days. I'm still remodeling a house, and even though I'm not doing much of the physical labor, it's still nearly a full-time job (it's fun, though--better than a dollhouse!). I'm still working on my jeans circle quilt (a bit more than one-third done with the main stitching now). And I'm doing the mom thing (dropping off, picking up, helping with homework, volunteering at the schools...). Some days I'm lucky just to get a shower!

Today was a little different. I took a carload of kids on a shopping/exploring field trip up to Japantown in San Francisco.


We hit the Pika Pika photo shop, where the kids all crammed into a single photo booth for a goofy group picture, Kinokuniya Stationery and Gift, where I got some cool origami paper (but not as much as I wanted!), and Ichiban Kan, where I got some small plastic boxes and sticky notes, and most of the kids got various trinkets. We also went to the Soko Hardware store across the street, where I got a single-burner electric stove (doesn't everyone need one of those for heating batik wax?), and some of the kids got things like ceramics and paper lanterns. But my best treasures came from the Kinokuniya Bookstore, where I found two gorgeous shibori books for my reference collection.

I got Shibori for Textile Artists by Janice Gunner and Shibori by Yoshiko Wada. I had previously checked out the hardback copy of the Wada book from my local library (multiple times!), so I know it's good, and getting it in paperback was an easy choice. I hadn't seen the Gunner book before, but it looked interesting, so I got it. I looked at it later after I got home, and it's even nicer than I had thought initially.

So now I've got lots of fresh inspiration in my hot little hands, and not much time right now to go act on it! Shibori can be quite time consuming, too, especially for the stitch resist type (the simple shirt below took me a few hours to stitch).


Ah, such sweet frustration!

Sewing Circles

Yet another update on my jeans circle quilt:

I'm now about one-sixth of the way through sewing the main zigzag stitching that holds the tie-dye fabric and the batting and the circles all together.


I'm finding that it's pretty much impossible for me to sew the arcs smoothly as I try to muscle all the fabric through my little sewing machine. I'm using a zigzag stitch length that is spaced a little apart (that is, not a satin stitch). Partly, I prefer the look, and partly I want to speed up the sewing just a bit over the nearly-infinite time it would take for nearly zero-length stitches! But that carefully-chosen stitch length is meaningless. The feed dogs (those toothy things underneath the needle) are nearly useless for pulling the heavy quilt through and I can't keep an even feeding tension myself with the big pieces rolled up in my lap or spread out on the kitchen table.


I mentioned the sheer magnitude of the pinning for this quilt in a previous post, but now that I'm actually doing it, I'm finding that it's even worse: as I'm forcing the quilt around and through the sewing machine, I keep impaling myself on them! I have prick marks all the way up to my elbows. "Suffering for beauty", indeed!

But here is how it looks so far.

Here is how the back looks:


For those of you who might be curious, here is what I chose to do for the batting. I have two different types of polyester batting, with one layer of each. Why make more work for myself? By the time I had decided I didn't like the single layer of the first one, I had already bought a whole quilt's worth of it, so I figured I may as well use it and just add more. Compared to everything else, the difference in work required was pretty small, fortunately.


Well, back to work!

Just White, Please

I'm deep in the middle of a house remodel. Once again I'm awestruck by the myriad of big and little choices one makes even for a "minor" change.

For example, I'm replacing the handles on the kitchen cabinets. Happily, the size of the handle is fixed, since the existing handles have screw holes 3 inches apart (the centers). Phew, one big decision out of the way! But now, do I want the chrome, bronze, stainless, brushed nickel, wrought iron, or plastic finish? Modern, traditional, funky? What design out of hundreds, even thousands of possibilities? How much do I want to pay? And how many stores do I visit to find just the right ones? And will they have enough of the prized handles of choice in stock, or will I have to order them and wait?

The whole house is ripe with promise and infinite possibilities. We're doing two bathrooms and three bedrooms, along with "minor" changes such as new carpeting throughout the rest of the house. Some of those possibilities can be reined in a bit by a few factors. Money is always the biggest factor, of course. Existing architecture plays a part, since the house is a "Mid-Century Modern" house lovingly known as an "Eichler" (the developer's name was Joseph Eichler). It's got post-and-beam construction and floor-to-ceiling glass. This is the San Francisco Bay area, and the house was built to luxuriate in warm California weather well before the energy crisis. It's got straight clean lines, not suited to Victorian frippery or Colonial whatsits. Let's just say that a Mondrian painting would look right at home here, or maybe a minimalist Zen garden. Anyway, that cuts out a lot of choices right there--unfortunately many of the choices currently in style for bathroom vanities!

But what I've really been thinking about is color. I'm in love with color, and lots of it (yes, the tie-dye obsession is kind of a hint). But when it comes to a house interior, well, I tend to gravitate towards white. White walls, maybe with a darker carpet that won't show so much of the dirt (gotta be practical, after all). White walls make a wonderful backdrop for the adornments of color that I put up on those walls.

I have friends who have a house they have painted all sorts of wonderful rich luscious colors, and I love it, but I can't do it myself. For one thing, while I know it doesn't have to be, I tend to view paint as permanent, rather than something I can change when the whim takes me (mostly because it would be yet another project I'd never finish). For me, paint is a commitment. Also, if I give in to painting different rooms different colors, it opens up an even bigger infinity of choices to make, and I become paralyzed and unable to choose anything. And what if I choose and I'm wrong? I'm committed to that color for life. Actually, my friends painted their livingroom a color that turned out to be more of a butter yellow than they had expected. They decided they hated it, and then they painted it again to a more pleasing gold color. I'm in awe that they could do that--I can't.

So I choose white. The contractor asks what color I want the windows: white. Well, actually it's almond. The sink? White. Well, actually it's biscuit. The bathtub? White. Well, actually it's... oh, Kohler says the tub is white. But their white looks a little more blue than the white of the white vanity top I see. And paint? Kelly-Moore alone has an entire brochure just of their "white" paint colors, and it only includes their "popular" whites! Do I want warm whites? Cool whites? Neutral whites? Bright whites? Dark whites?

Maybe I should head for bed and dream of a world that comes in just black and white. But would that be midnight black? Stormy black? Black hole black? Black black? "We're not kidding, we really mean it, this is black" black?

Ooooh, my head hurts.

Of Bottles and Brushes

My tie-dyeing squirt bottles often get scummy inside, especially if I've left dye in them for long periods (weeks to months) or used thickener, which gets moldy after a while. Mmmm, yum. I've never been happy with those spindly baby bottle brushes for cleaning them, and a toothbrush often can't get to those scummy spots.

However, I have a bag of old toothbrushes (I just hate throwing things away!), a candle, and some needle-nosed pliers, so it's time to make what I need.


I heat the neck or head of the toothbrush gently over the candle flame. I have to be careful not to get the bristles in the flame, or they will shrivel up and become useless. Occasionally the brush might catch on fire. If it does, I just blow it out quickly and keep working. I'm not worrying about prizes for beauty on this job!

Once the handle plastic has become soft, I grab the head and do the bending with the needle-nosed pliers. I hold the head in the desired position until the plastic has cooled enough to hold its shape.


I modified several brushes to fit different parts of the insides of my squeeze bottles. Here are the resulting brushes. They come in very handy!


If you try this, be sure to work in a safe, well-ventilated area (I did it on the stove with the hood fan turned on full) and remember to wear your eye protection!

Tie-Dye Classes, Take Two

The new Mountain View-Los Altos Adult Education Fall class catalog is now out: http://www.mvlaae.net/catalog/index.html The classes will be at Mountain View High School, and you can register online.

I have two tie-dye classes in the catalog, "Classic American" and "Stitch Resist and Shibori" (descriptions below). I had been planning to teach these over the summer, but the classes were both canceled due to low enrollment by the enrollment deadline. It seems that quite a few classes, not just mine, were canceled for the same reason. One coordinator I talked to thought it was partly due to the recent downturn in the economy coupled with the recent high gas prices. It makes sense: if you are having a hard time making ends meet for the necessities, it's a lot harder to justify going out and taking a "fun" class--and you're probably spending that extra time making more money if you can. Fun is important, but so is eating!

So we'll see if the Fall classes get a chance to take flight. I hope so, and I've been preparing more class materials and examples for them (like the clamped shibori T-shirt below). And if it doesn't happen this Fall? Maybe Spring. Or Summer. I'm patient. And I can always use at least some of my examples for teaching my first graders and summer camp groups!


Class Descriptions

Tie-Dye I, Classic American Tie-Dye!

Do you want to make your own unique holiday gifts? Tie-dye isn't just for summer anymore! Come to class and learn classic American tie-dye folds and designs and make your own wearable works of art! IMPORTANT: bring white, 100% cotton articles to dye - t-shirts, white cotton turtlenecks, tote bags, socks, bandanas, etc. - washed with NO fabric softener or dryer sheets. In addition Sara will have a limited number of white items available for purchase. Wear clothing that can get stained and bring an apron. Materials fee $28 payable at first class meeting. Register online or use form on inside back cover before 10/1

200207 W 10/8-10/15 2wks 6:00-9:00PM MVHS/109 $51*

Tie-Dye II, Stitch Resist and Shibori

Join this advanced class to learn how to do stitch-resist and shibori tie-dye to make your own wearable works of art! IMPORTANT: bring white, 100% cotton articles to dye - t-shirts, turtlenecks, tote bags, socks, bandanas, etc. - washed with NO fabric softener or dryer sheets. In addition Sara will have a limited number of white items available for purchase. Wear clothing that can get stained and bring a apron. Materials fee $28 payable at first class meeting. Register before 10/29

200208 W 11/5-11/12 2wks 6:00-9:00PM MVHS/109 $51*

Progress in Various Directions...

Well, the jeans circle quilt still isn't done, but Lacey is pleased to point out that I've now got all the colored pieces arranged to my liking. It took several days, partly because I wanted to let it rest (kind of like bread dough) for a day or so and then look at it again and rearrange a few pieces. I did that process a few times until I was happy with it (or sick of it, anyhow!).


If you look in the upper right corner of the picture, you can see the baby fence I put around the quilt to keep Lacey off it. It was totally useless; the moment I opened it to go in (I'm too short to climb over easily), she was right there in the middle of the quilt, waiting to have her picture taken!

Now I'm slowly pinning in the batting pieces as I watch the Olympics on TV (one of my current distractions).

One of my other distractions recently has been playing with shibori itajime dyeing (Japanese tie-dyeing with clamps or objects clamped to material). I did a fair amount of shibori work, including stitch resist, binding, and clamping, when I first started doing tie-dye, and off and on ever since. I love the possibilities it provides, and I especially love the surprises that result from folding and clipping the fabric in various ways.

Here are a few of the experimental "play" pieces I did a few days ago. With the shooting star and the butterfly I'm experimenting with using shibori in a more representational manner.


By the way, if you are interested in any of the baby rompers, I've got them in my Etsy shop at http://amethistle.etsy.com. Much as they liked these, my own kids outgrew such things ages ago, and I'm working through my stash of white blanks. Sorry, my husband has already nabbed the big T-shirt!

When Is One Color More than One Color?

One of the things about Procion dyes for tie-dye is that they are usually made up of other colors of dye. Sometimes they separate or bleed into their component colors, producing an outer halo effect at the edges of the dyed area (similar to chromatography experiments I did in school). Not all colors do this, and the ones that do separate don't do it all the time.

Most professional tie-dyers use thickener with their dyes. This especially applies to the dyers that mass produce tie-dye for wholesale and silkscreening. The thickener primarily keeps the dyes from spreading too fast, and it prevents them from blending much with the adjoining colors, but it also stops the separation or bleeding.

In fact, one way I can easily spot a "store-bought" shirt is by looking at how much bleeding or blending the shirt has. If there isn't any, it's probably store-bought. The other thing I look for is the density of color. Store-bought shirts usually have very little or no white on them--it's all perfectly colored.

It's useful to create a color sampler with the colors of dye you're using (as Dharma says, "test, test, TEST!"). If you do it without thickener, you can get an idea of what separates and what doesn't. Here on my test T-shirt (T-shirts are cheap!), I found that a mixture of fuchsia and lemon yellow gave a great yellow halo, and chocolate brown bled bluish, for example.

Once you know the bleeding properties of a color or mixture, you can plan to use that feature to good effect. My favorite bleeding colors are the purples, such as Dharma's "blue violet", which usually produce a pretty blue edge. Here I've colored this entire shibori shirt in blue violet. I didn't add any blue, but the blue seeped under the clamps I used to create the resist pattern and gave me that beautiful halo effect. This is one of my favorite shirt designs.

Happy experimenting!