Crafting Chaos

Green Man progress

I sewed some leaves onto the Green Man canvas.

Prana loves the Green Man. He acts like it’s half cat bad/half cat toy. He just noms on the leaves so I let him get away with it. I figure he’s helping me to felt the fleece down when he makes biscuits on it.

Oh man, I need to make a bunch more leaves! I have about forty more to add today.

A close up:

But it’s turning out like my vision so that’s good.

2 comments January 30th, 2010

Merce Mitchell progress pics

Merce sent me progress pics for Beyond The Fringe.

She’s got a great fiber studio.

I like the curlie-ques she puts into her felt.

Add comment January 26th, 2010

Flaming Womb

I added flames around the womb for my Mother piece. These are dyed mohair locks that I got at last year’s Wool Fest.

You know those flaming hearts that are sometimes in religious paintings? I find them both repulsive and fascinating. Those paintings inspired my flaming womb.

There is so much anger and resentment between my mother and I. I’ve also had anger and resentment toward my own womb. My periods have always been painful. This piece is part of my healing. I want to release the anger and the resentment and the pain so I’m pouring it into this art.

I’ve also added scars. The meaning is twofold. The scars represent my relationship to my mother-we are both emotionally scarred from it. While researching Endometriosis I learned that the womb can develop scar tissue. I don’t know if I have scar tissue but I probably do. My mother certainly does because she had a hysterectomy. The scars are black because the wounds are toxic. The stitches over the scars are blood because the blood heals the wound.

December’s period was the worst I’ve ever had-fourteen days total of bleeding. The second half was spotting but still-it freaked me out. I took it as a wake up call and changed my diet. I’m on a low fat, low dairy, low sugar, low caffeine, high fiber diet. Cutting back on coffee is by far the hardest sacrifice.

But this month’s period was way better. Five days of normal period, four days of spotting. I felt relieved at my improvement. After more research I suspected I had a Progesterone deficiency. I started taking wild yam pills and cream. So far I haven’t noticed much difference. But my hands are now warm which is new; I’ve always had cold hands.

The mother piece hasn’t been worked on this year. The Beyond The Fringe artists can only have two pieces of art in this year’s show. I need to make time to work on it again soon. It just feels like I should.

2 comments January 24th, 2010

Abigail Z progress pics

Abigail Z send me progress pics for her Merce piece which will be in this year’s Beyond The Fringe.

I was at her house the other day and got to see it in person. It looks great!

I especially like the little flower poofs.

3 comments January 23rd, 2010

Leaves, leaves, leaves

I used up all of my green bulky handspun yarn to make these leaves:

Hand felting over sixty leaves is no easy task! I didn’t realize one of my gloves had a small hole. In addition to sore arms I also got a blister on my finger. See, I’m suffering for my art! hehe

When I laid out the leaves to dry I blocked them in various ways. Some curl inwards; others have their tips curling up. I think that makes them look more realistic.

Next up is my interpretation of rhododendron leaves. Thebes and I saw rhododendrons many times when we were hiking the Appalachian Trail and they were by far our favorite flower. Since this is acrylic yarn these won’t be blocked. I went with garter stitch to hold the shape.

I have over twenty of these.

Now I’m working on Juniper leaves. I’m making small lengths of I-cord and them sewing them together randomly. This yarn came from the yarn sale at the Harwood Museum. Abbey blogged about that here. It’s wool of some sort.

When bunched up together they look more like Juniper leaves to me. After they’re done I’ll be making Pinon leaves.

3 comments January 20th, 2010

Knit dog bed

Remember the crochet dog bed?

It was going along fine at first. But then it started to get lumpy. I tried to compensate by adding an extra stitch here and there but it kept getting worse. Maybe I could have fixed it. Instead I said fuck it and frogged the whole thing while in a sour mood.

Then I cast on fifty stitches and started knitting.

It’s nice and flat. But it’s hard to knit because the fabric yarn is so thick.

Maybe I’ll frog this too and just sew Sieben a bed. Thankfully he already has a comfy dog bed so he’s not waiting for this one.

4 comments January 12th, 2010

Woven canvas

I finished my woven canvas and took it off the loom.

Most of the yarn is my handspun. The bright blue variegated yarn is leftover yarn from my Water goddess.

It’s six feet long and fourteen inches wide. I can’t believe it’s taken me since September just to weave the canvas. The show is in March-I’m feeling the deadline!

This piece is tentatively called Spinning Into Creation. The Goddess stretches her arms and galaxies, planets, moons and stars form.

I’m going to have parts of it coming off the canvas. I think that’s a cool effect.

Add comment January 7th, 2010

Beyond The Fringe 2010

Beyond The Fringe
A fine fiber art exhibition

Venue
The Stables Gallery
133 Paseo del Pueblo Norte
Taos, NM 87571
(575)758-2052

March 26, 2010 through April 1, 2010
Opening Reception: March 26, 2010, 5-8pm

Pictures, interviews and coverage of the event can be found under the category Beyond The Fringe. Pictures of the artwork can be seen here.

There will be workshops happening during the week.
Beyond the Fringe Workshops

Concept
Invited artists have been asked to create pieces for the exhibit “Beyond the Fringe”. Work submitted is to be fine fiber artwork that is non-functional, non-wearable, weaving, felt, knit, crochet, cloth, embroidery,and quilt in a two or three dimensional form.

Contact curator Merce Mitchell at mercemitchellathotmaildotcom for more information.

Artists

Violette Alby
Linda Berger
Linda Michel-Cassidy
Connie Fernandez
Lois Fernandez
Kimberly Hamill
Carolyn Hinske
Jana Greiner
Twilight Kallisti
Mary K. Lyon
Merce Mitchell
Nina Silfverberg
Faith Welsh
Karen Wittwer
Abigail Z

7 comments January 5th, 2010

Grant’s Chicken Hat

Grant’s Chicken Hat is done and ready to be shipped out.

When I first saw a picture of this I knew I had to make it for Grant. I think he’ll love it.

He’s a big guy so this hat is tailored to his head. He came to visit this past summer and I took several head measurements. Shaping the top was a pain and took me at least five times to get right.

Lots of knitters on Ravelry commented about the chicken legs being difficult to make. Lighted Window’s revision was recommended and I followed her directions for the legs. I stuffed them with some stuffing from my stash. The claws are I-cord.

I made braided ties for the closure.

This hat was not fun to knit. There was lots of cursing and two rounds of time out. But the end product is hilarious and makes the process worth it.

Pattern: Chicken Viking Hat
Source: Aloha Media, Lighted Window
Yarn: Knit Picks Swish DK, 1.5 skeins of Nutmeg, 1 skein of Persimmon Heather, both superwash
Needles: 4.0 mm
Size: custom
Modifications: several, see above
Started: November 2009
Finished: December 2009

1 comment January 4th, 2010

Sweater progress

The body of Thebes sweater is finished and I’ve moved onto the sleeves.

This Malabrigo yarn has been a real bitch. It’s super soft and a joy to knit. But this one dye lot is wildly variegated. The bottom ribbing part of the sweater was knit with two balls. The top part in stockinette was knit with a third ball. It looked like a different color:

I was pretty pissed and put the sweater in time out. Thebes assured me it didn’t bother him and he’d wear the sweater anyway. But I couldn’t let it go. I frogged the stockinette part. Then I did two rows of the more greenish/blueish yarn and then two rows of the blueish/greenish yarn. I went back and forth that way until the top was done.

It looks a lot better but again, what a pain. I’m not sure I’ll work with Malabrigo again. At first I was concerned about the zigzags of color on the main body. When Thebes tried it on it looked fine so I’m leaving it as is.

I bought ten bags of this colorway and about half are a different color than the other. And yet I’ve triple checked and they’re all the same dye lot. Gah!?!

I’m working the sleeves in the same fashion. So far they’re turning out fine.

2 comments January 3rd, 2010