Checking in . . .

It seems like every time I post on this blog, I have to begin with an apology for having been absent for so long.  But, stuff happens and I guess keeping up with a blog ends up way, way down on the to-do list.  Absence, however, does not mean that I have been unproductive. I have traveled a bit this summer, having taken a wonderful week long workshop at Shakerag in Sewanee, Tennessee, with the most amazing Yoshiko Wada, shibori artist from Berkeley. My friend, Margie, traveled with me to Shakerag and we learned boro cloth, stitching, and how to do indigo the right way.  Prior to our workshop, we spent some time roaming around, ending up in Asheville, NC, for a couple of days. After a week at Shakerag, everyone ends up with sensory overload and with ideas swimming around in your head and upon arriving home, both Margie and I promptly got our personal indigo pots going.  

This is a piece of fabric that I over dyed in the Shakerag indigo pot.  I had earlier eco printed the fabric using eucalyptus leaves and marigolds and coreopsis from my backyard. I used a clamp resist so that the indigo didn't reach the clamped areas.

Once I got home and started my own indigo dyepot, I experimented with a clamp resist on some silk.

One of my projects at Shakerag involved using fabrics I brought from home that I had tea dyed and eco printed.  The vest that I started stitching on at Shakerag is still a work in progress but it seems to have morphed into a duster.

The Spring and Summer have been a time for further exploration of felting, something that I love to do -- creating fabric from raw fibers using my hands.  I have only scratched the surface of all the ideas I want to try, but I have had some real successes.

I have been working on a vest using newly felted pieces and adding some eco printed felt I made last summer. After piecing the vest, I began adding embellishments and handstitching, both on the front and back.  

And I have been working on felted scarves and shawls, hand knits and handspun yarn for my booth at Artistic License, which is right around the corner on Friday and Saturday, October 24th and 25th.  I plan on having a very colorful display.

And yesterday, after mulling it over for too many months to count, I pulled out one of my many piles of granny squares and forced myself to sit down and sew a bunch of them together.  I am sure that many of my friends who get that granny square obsession with their handspun yarn can completely relate to the enormously daunting task of stitching squares together. And I can report, Yay!!! I have a beautifully finished baby blanket today.  

No promises -- because I am way too distracted with fibery things -- but I am going to try to pull together all the pictures from our Shakerag workshop with Yoshiko Wada so that you can see just what a fabulous time is had at Shakerag.  Margie and I had already signed up for next year before this year's workshop was over.