Dyeing Tencel Fabric

Apparently acid fabric dyes are not the best to use as a dye for synthetic fabrics like Tencel, according to several searches.  Acid dyes are taken up best by natural protein fibres like silk or feathers or wool. What most dyers use on synthetic fibres is a product called Procion MX.  But what I had on hand was my trusty Jacquards.  No worries, I plunged ahead using Jacquard acid dyes.  What was the worst that could happen?  Obviously I thought it was worth the risk.  The kitchen wouldn't blow up, right?

This link will lead you to a natural dyer of cotton and linen scarves, all with edges left unraveling for that couture effect.  She is French and sells her scarves for a dear price.  And they are pretty.  Go have a look.

Taking inspiration from her naturally dyed scarves, I played with a few colors on Tencel yesterday with interesting results.  Each scarf was dyed with three different compatible colors and set with steam (2 hours steaming in rice steamer), then dried and pressed.  Here are two pictures of the peachy tones and the greenish teal hues.

My husband was unimpressed and said I should hem the edges of the scarves.  What does he know.  He would not wear a scarf beautifully draped around his neck at any cost.

On to other things. I ordered a new scanner yesterday and am supposed to get it tomorrow.  The intention is to scan all the photos in all the albums collecting dust in the closet.  Once scanned, I will upload them to the heavens and see if Google asks for money for all that storage space. We shall see.  I started this scanning process a few days ago, and is it ever slow on the old clunker.  Maybe the new scanner will be miraculous and save loads of time.

You Don't Know What You Don't Know

Daughter Julie who has had a shunt (since birth) for taking fluid build up/pressure off her brain is again having headaches.  Always worrisome since neurosurgery is no walk in the park for her.  It starts off the same way each time she needs a shunt revision, generally caused from protein building up in the tubing leading from the brain to the heart (or lungs, or abdominal cavity or wherever it happens to be placed from the last revision).  The headaches are intermittent, since the blockage in the tube can often be dislodged almost spontaneously, and with no apparent reason for the build up to be cleared by her body's defenses.  But at some point, perhaps a day or two after a shunt headache begins, sometimes after a week or ten days of intermittent headaches, the blockage will not pass down the tubing, allowing for the CSF to be shunted off.  She has had so many revisions and hospitalizations that we have lost count: over 100 at least.  CT scans are always taken, and the results of these scans, to this point after her entire life, have always shown "no appreciable difference in the suture line", although the build up can be so tremendous that she will be in a coma-like state. Mind you, I am not using medical terminology, because by this point you would have almost certainly given up on reading this post.

Julie and Muggsy, 2008

And for over five years, she has been mostly doing fine with this particular shunt and tubing.  And her breast cancer seems to be at bay.  She has a husband who is very supportive, a dog she dearly loves, and aides and nurses and doctors she schedules responsibly.  She is lucky in so many ways, and has stayed out of long term care facilities for most of her life.

The last time I posted about her shunt problems was the time I went to Charlotte, NC to be with her at the Carolinas Medical Center.  You can read more posts about her at these links:

• 2008
• 2008
• 2008
• 2011
• 2011

Like my SIL Charlotte says, "you don't know what you don't know".  And we don't know why or how the time comes for a revision, but it will likely be sooner than later.  But it is a concern, of course. Your prayers and concern are appreciated.

Regularly scheduled arts and crafts will resume shortly.

Cornbread, Cardigans and Canines

A few days ago, I shared some cornbread with a friend.  The recipe had absolutely no flour in its list of ingredients, so I figured it would be good for her "no gluten whatsoever" current diet plan.  Warning her that it would be very filling and loaded with calories because of the butter and cheese involved in its makeup, she willingly took it. Click for recipe.

The next day she e-mailed me and said something like "thanks for the cornbread...very light and delicious." Thought that was hilarious as she obviously had not even taken a bite of that dense cornbread.

On to my cardigan knitting, the Delancey Cardigan found here. It has stripes that point downwards with a chevron stripe motif which makes it a flattering style.  Thinking I had memorized the pattern well enough to continue knitting on and on, I later found out (and too late!) that I had missed a "slip two, knit one" at the beginning of the side, so had to rip out an hour's worth of work.

It actually could have been worse, since when knitting the Delancey I was watching the latest episode of "Downton Abbey", not really paying much attention to the knitting.  Friend Jan said the Brits were a bit up in arms about that episode with Anna Bates being victimized.  You can see an interview with Anna (Joanne Froggat) at this link as both she and writer Julian Fellowes discuss the episode. It's a wonder I got even a stitch made since the episode caught me in its emotional and visual grasp.

Of course, I was using my shrinky dink Downton Abbey knitting markers with the tv up loud and clearly empathizing with Mr. Bates.

I do have a few markers left from when I made them last year, so if you want two, I'll send you them postage paid.  Just leave a comment telling me your favorite actor from the series. Will draw from comments for the winner if there is more than one reader interested.

And the canines?  They are an expensive pair this month as BOTH had to have their annual check ups, vaccinations and dental cleanings.  We are not the first to think the IRS should give us a tax break on their medical expenses.

"We are cute and our teeth are clean."

Reading The Gravity of Birds, courtesy of sister Pam.  Sewing on a Vogue Pattern ( 8731).  What are you up to?

Painting Birds on Silk

This just finished, framed and placed in a dining area window today, suspended between two panels of glass in a record frame.  Joining in Paint Party Friday

 14" x 14"

Matthew 6:26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they? 

Silk painting originated in China, going back to 2600 BC. Long before paper was invented/made, silk was a medium on which to paint. Silk is durable, portable, and readily rolled for travel.

Several prior references on the how to paint on silk are described in this blog. Go here or here or here for more information and other displayed paintings.

A Honey of a Cowl

This fiber I'm working with now is ornery as a toddler overdue for a nap.  It is colorful, a pretty variegation of mixed colors, but stiff as a board.  Well maybe not quite as stiff as a board, but it definitely could stand up to a fist fight without a bruising.

My hands are getting a bit cramped from putting size 9 circular needles through it, making purl stitches and then slipped stitches, then going back to a row of knitting around on alternating rows.

But it is worth fussing with this 100 percent and slightly tamed wool from Scotland for several reasons of personal intrinsic value, the major one being that it was a souvenir from that glorious summer day last July when we Joyce James tourers visited the Woolshed on Orkney.  Women crofters from that southern Scottish island raise their own sheep for the fiber, then go through all the laborious processes of refining the wool until they can eventually dye it to their own specifications or individual liking. Only then are the skeins wound and marked, delivered to the Woolshed, and made ready for purchase.  In this case we tourists were the ones eager to snatch up wool rugs, jumpers, and those beautifully dyed skeins that were so artfully decorating straw baskets and stuffed into worn wooden shelving in that remote marketplace, a two room working craft producers' cooperative studio.

The one wool skein I brought home from the Woolshed has patiently waited for the perfect small project to make use of its properties (it contains 100 grams).  And so the Honey Cowl seemed fitting.  Honey Cowl, when completed, looks somewhat like a honeycomb with rows of purled stitches and slipped stitches simulating a honeycomb.

See its ridges?  Wye, they practically stand up to salute the eye of the beholder.  Perhaps it can be folded under a collar or over a turtleneck and secured with a scarf clip to tame its less than cuddly fiber characteristic.  Only seven more inches of honey comb stitching to go until it can be bound off.  Am going through lots of hand moisturizers on this cowl.

Mouse, Mice, Meece

How can you not think mice are cute?

Not the destructive type of mouse, that varmint type, that eat grain, sneak into your pantry and eat a hole in your Cheerios box ... but the type of mice as portrayed by Beatrix Potter and other whimsical artists.

Let your mind wander to sweet mice, funny mice, darling mice, like these

And even knitted mice!

This is a family of mice I knit from the book Knitted Cats and Kittens by Stratford.  An odd choice for knit?  Maybe.  But I think that one or two peeking out from the brim of a hat might give a chuckle.

 

 

Again linking to Fiber Arts Friday and Finished Objects Friday!

 I do think mice are very nice.



Good Bye to 2013

And good bye to, among others, all soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice of their lives for our freedom

Good bye to various actors, authors, poets, politicians, painters including

• Van Kliburn
• David Frost
• Scott Carpenter
• Yvonne Brills, scientist
• Nelson Mandela
• Margaret Thatcher
• Muriel Sievert
• Helen Thomas
• Ed Koch
• Joyce Brothers
• David Brubeck
• other actors, authors, poets, politicians, and painters

And goodbye to my friends and family

My father, Charles W.  McCarroll (1919-2013)



2012

                      My aunt Mary Howard Mays

1924-2013

Friend Mary Oman

1929-2013

Friend Maureen Keesler

1941-2013

Friend John Heniford, father of SIL Jack

1918-3013

Father of all,
we pray for those whom we love, but see no longer.
grant them your peace;
let light perpetual shine upon them;
and in your loving wisdom and almighty power
work in them the good purpose of your perfect will;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Methodist Worship Book, 1999 (p498)

Post Christmas Post

Time to bring down the ornaments after the Christmas holiday.  And don't you know Amazon and FedEx employees are about fed up with their jobs by today?

A little catch up: lunch with the ladies in an uptown restaurant on Monday.

We lost Maureen, one of our original set of coffee/lunch cancer support group members, to breast cancer in November.  She really did not want to leave us.  We mourned her passing, prayed for her family, and are trying to reconfigure our group without her.   But we gained her daughter and daughter-in-law as new friends in a younger generation.  We toasted Maureen and remembered her with fondness and love.

Linking with Tami for a Finished Object Friday and with Fiber Arts Friday is the Derecho Shawl (the small size is a big shawl).

 

Forget that dopey facial expression and concentrate on the shawl.  Pattern and details here.

 link

Click on the link/picture above to see what others are up to this Friday.

 

A thought to ponder:

See you Monday!

Pausing in Advent for Madonna and Child

Never having been much of a collector over the years, and with that being said, I do admit to having a few Christmas collections;  most years I search out at least one box of assemblages for seasonal display.  One collections is of angels, another is of Christmas ornaments, and the third is pictures and icons of the Madonna and Child.

At last count, I had 24 religious icons. Some are Romantic era pictures, and some are replicas from the Byzantine period.  Most have come from different countries, where I searched them out among coffee bars and trinket shops. It gives my heart a thrill to find one, purchase it, and carefully pack it up to carry home where it is then carefully nestled along with the other icons, awaiting their retrieval for living room display (in lieu of a tree) in the Advent Season.

Here are a few Madonna and Child icons/pictures in our cadre:

Do you have a collection of objects that you enjoy viewing and displaying?  If so, I would really like for you to comment.  And show me what you collect.

linked here:

The Madonna and Child has been a common topic of art throughout the centuries but they were most influential in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance time periods. Paintings of the Madonna and Child have been dated back to before the sixth century and have continued to appear throughout the ages even to the present day. Despite how old and how popular of a subject the Madonna and Child is, artists manage to show a great deal of variety and originality over the years.

Sequins and Seed Beads and Styrofoam Ornaments

Ten years ago, I came across a magazine article that gave a tutorial on making ornamental holiday balls to use either as gifts, tree ornaments, or to group together in bowls for light reflection. These sequined balls look especially nice with candles placed close to the sequin and beaded balls, because the light plays off the surfaces and gives a soft, glowing effect.

 

In total, I have made about 20 of these sparkly ornaments, all in different sizes. 

Supplies:

• Styrofoam balls in various sizes
• 8 mm sized sequins
• more clear plastic beads that come in one size at the craft stores, in packs of 100
• 3/4 inch sequins (silver is preferred)
• Beads with a hole big enough to fit on the pin and small enough that it won't slide past the head of the pin (size 9)
• Ribbon, optional for hanging

Directions

1) Spray different sized Styrofoam balls with acrylic paint (silver or gold being the preferred color for Christmas, ensuring a base of color which will show behind the sequins);

2) after the paint is not quite dry on the Styrofoam, generously sprinkle silver or translucent glitter on the ball;

3) place a (silver) sequin on the ball, thread a seed bead through a size 9 dressmaker's pin, and then thread on a plastic bead

4) stick the threaded pin onto the sequin, holding all together, almost like a shish-ka-bob

5) repeat so that just a little of the glittery paint peeks between the sequins

Here are a few of the sparkling sequin and bead balls which we display each holiday season

Try making a few, they are fun to put together and will last forever if you carefully pack them away.

Christmas Exchange

Betty (the Woodfairy) suggested a fairy or angel - fairy ornament exchange this season.  I was all over that one, boring this blog to the outer reaches of the blogosphere for a week or so with pictures of a tree fairy made to exchange with PomPom. 

Boy, did I ever reap the better part of that exchange!  PomPom sent not only an ornament, handmade and sweet, but a book and a card, all wrapped up so Christmassy that I did not want to even open it.  But I did.  Here is what she sent:

Darling girls, stuffed and embellished with heart buttons galore.

 The girls are holding flower bouquets.

And PomPom sent a sweet book Mollie Makes Christmas, with loads of Christmas crafts explained.

 

 Cute baby booties patterns, complete with beads.

Happy, happy !

 

 

Mercy says WOOF! (that means "Merry Christmas" and "see my scarf")

 

Thanks to Betty for suggesting the exchange, and to PomPom for all the goodies!  I hung the ornament on the outside wreath for sharing views with the neighbors.

 

Stefan Lochner (1442-1451