Fiber Artisans of San Jose – Page 6 – Sharing the thread of life

April 19, 2015 – Resist Dyeing

We met in Phyllis’s back yard. Sandy prepared the indigo pot, making sure the chemical balance was working well to produce this natural blue dye.

Frank had knitted a bag that he was going to felt. But before it was felted, he wanted to dye it in the indigo bath.

The bag and strap were tied in areas where he wanted it to resist the dye.

Although the dye appeared to be weak, he dipped all pieces four times and got a beautiful dark blue that did not crack off when washed and rinsed in vinegar.

Next he will felt it and we will see the results next month.

Preparing the indigo pat — Sandy prepares the dye bath

September 28, 2014 – Dye Day

On September 24th, the group met with the intent to do wax resist on fabric and then dyeing the fabric with indigo. Below is a beautiful example, created by our member Phyllis Karsten with a simple white kitchen towel and a potato masher.

August 24, 2014 – Indigo Dye Summer Meeting

We had a wonderful indigo dye day today. Frank Mikulastic and Sandra Kupper had items to dye. We have been experimenting with shibori folding techniques and tried some new ideas today.

Frank started with white cotton fabric. He folded the fabric in the long direction and then folded it into a triangle bundle. He then wrapped rubber bands around the outside to hold it together in the dye bath.

He dipped it into the dye bath 5-6 times and the fabric got darker with each dip into the indigo. (With indigo, the best way to get a darkly dyed fabric is to do multiple dips, not with stronger dye.)

Sandy wrapped her fabric around a pvc pipe and tied it with string then dip dyed it about 3 times for a fantastic looking diagonal stripe.

She also dyed socks and a t-shirt – both had been unsuccessfully dyed once before with procion type dyes. Both items dyed beautifully this time.

Sharolene’s Spinning, Knitting and Weaving

I majored in fine art in college and studied color extensively. Water colored landscapes and flowers cover the walls of my home. This study of color has helped me in many ways throughout the years and has followed me into fiber arts. In 2004, a friend of mine got me interested in spinning. Not long after that, I bought a spinning wheel and the rest is history, as they say. Today I have 5 spinning wheels of different sizes, 4 looms and an attic full of fiber. I have a blog on Google’s blogger website (although I don’t keep it up regularly). If you’d like to see some of my past work, you can go here. (I shortened it here with TinyUrl). http://tinyurl.com/pvkogg6

Some photos of my recent work are here:

Frank’s sock

We in Fiber Artisans have had sharing workshops to learn how we each warp a loom. One very neat trick learned was how Frank keeps his pattern and heddles straight and double checks for mistakes along the way. He counts out how many heddles he needs for a pattern, wraps all the others with his long sock. After weaving the pattern he double checks for any threading errors. If you do not use all your heddles or have some left over you know right then you have made an error. Easy to correct as you go along.

2015 CNCH Scarves

CNCH Area Five is responsible for the conference next year. As part of Area Five Fiber Artisans has taken on the task of weaving the scarves for all the teachers and volunteers. We are doing the colors from Monterey Bay Ocean that were chosen for the CNCH 2015 colors. Here are some of the first pictures of the fiber and scarves.

Six of our weavers have agreed to weave an 8 yard warp for a total of 6 scarves when they are finished. They each have 72 ends of Ocean Blue Tensil, 44 ends of Aqua, 28 ends of Jade and 6 of Jasper. The weft is either Blue or Aqua, they may place their colors where ever they choose. Each scarf will have a jelly fish placed on it in what ever manner the weaver chooses. Embroidered, felted, Theo Moorman technique. Innovation is the name of the game.

knit – dye – felt

Knit a bag and 16 yards of I-cord (for the strap

Fold the bag height into 4ths. Then fold bag width into 3rds. Clamp center with 2 dowls

Dye in indigo.

Wad strap and grab tightly. Dip into indigo 3 or 40 times. Dip folded bag 3 or 4 times.

Unfold bag.

Soak in vinegar water for 12 hours

Felt in washing machine in very hot water for 15 minutes

Felted straps

Add the straps

Felted bags.

Our 2014 Bag Project

For the Conference of Northern California Handweavers in 2014 we wove bags. Everyone contributed some of their yarn. Some was handspun, some dyed with indigo, some with a special meaning to the member. A loom was warped with a section from each of these yarns and members each wove a section of the warp with the weft of their choice. Each then chose how to finish the bag.

striped warp on the loom — We started with a warp made up of yarns, mostly handspun, that we had dyed earlier with madder and indigo. Each of us is represented by one stripe in the bag.

photo of a woven section on the loom — Each of us used our own weft to weave a section long enough to make a bag.

Because of the differences in the elasticity of the warp yarns, the back of the loom became a mess. We hung weights on the loom to keep tension on the yarns.

Some of the yarns were two ply, and some singles. We kept the singles controlled by lashing them to the madder stripes (using some medical tools).

Sharolene's bag with lining — Sharolene’s bag lining

Too much fun! We are all set to get started on our next group project.

Cotton Ikat Jacket

I consider this my most spectacular project – also it is one of the best pieces of weaving I’ve done. The third place ribbon from the CNCH judges at the Marin fashion show got it wrong. their comment was that it didn’t hang straight.

Well, it was not intended to be a up-tight western style jacket. It was patterned after a Japanese style that is OK to hang loosely.

And, I didn’t want to have shoulder pads in the jacket as they would either be inside the lining, which would mean that I’d have to open up the lining if the pads deteriorated. I didn’t like the appearance of pads tacked to the outside of the lining. I solved that problem by putting shoulder pads in the blouse that I made to go with the jacket. The judges didn’t know that. Next time I will be certain to add a note to my entry – A little learning opportunity on entering items.

I usually wear the jacket with blouses that have no shoulder pads. It hangs loosely with the expected informal hem line, but looks just great!.

Our Projects

We have a group project every year and each of us creates a wide range of individual projects. Our current project is ikat dyeing. The directions can be found here. You can see our monthly updates below.

Note: Occasionally we have a program that is only open to members or guests who have pre-registered.