The Pick Up Stick in Dyemaking Cloth
Craving to get into dyeing again I tried to marry my current bamboo sampling with shibori. All my shafts were taken up with this luscious pattern from Thrilling Twills. So why not hand pick up the shibori threads. It doesn’t have to be exact and it’s another opportunity to use this nice pick up stick I found locally.
Picking up a monks belt style of line is easy but it’s also possible to create quite freeform patterns.
I want to see how the shibori looks on a fancy twill, although for the finished textile I will pre-paint the warp as well. This is a fine bamboo warp and a silk weft sett at 65epi. I was really surprised at how incredibly soft the bamboo wove up. Much softer than I could of imagined with a very silky handle.
I’m still working on the new blog here so there may still be things askew etc. The whole upgrade thing is such a scary deal! I run this blog with WordPress but fluctuate between “upgrading is a necessity to do regularly” to “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it”. Usually the whole page disappears in the upgrade process and I have to struggle to get it back from the ‘somewhere’.
Sometimes I ask myself why I have a blog and other times I just think that it’s so worthwhile because I have connected with the fibre and weaving world and met lots of weavers (via email) which has been so rewarding.
This week I left my day job and I’m excited that I’ll be able to dye and weave much more resulting in more blog entries on my adventures in the studio – at least this is the plan! Also latter in the year I will be delighting all weave readers with photos of the one million handlooms and their weavers living in Bhutan. It’s a textile tour so I will have to take millions of photos.
congrats on leaving your day job Kaz. I am very glad you have a blog.
That looks wonderful. I can’t tell you how important your blog has been in my short weaving life so far!! Remember how exciting it was the discovery of you as a real person at the jacquard workshop? You have also inspired me to start a weaving blog. Will let you know when that is up and running!!
I am just delighted that you will be blogging more! I had never thought of using pickup for on-loom shibori–now that you are doing it it seems so obvious! Though I can’t imagine picking up sucsh fine threads. I guess you will actually be overdyeing? Or bleaching? It might be interesting to try with the crackle. Actually, I’m using only four of my eight shafts, so I wouldn’t even have to use a pickup stick! The mind boggles………..
Your blog has been so inspiring to me as I journey toward the day when I can quit my day job and devote more time to my weaving. Please keep blogging!
Wow, so many exciting things coming up! I can’t wait to read about them.
Don’t you dare get rid of this blog, you’ll stunt my weaving growth LOL.. I thought that the shibori pickup was done with a pickup stick, since I weave on the RH and don’t have any experience on a bigger loom, thats how I though it was done, Good for you.
I love to read all the weaving, knitting blogs I’ve learned so much and have so many projects and ideas from them, it’s a great learning tool for us baby weavers, knitters. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience I appreciate it. Oh congrats on the job release, I pray for such a day!
heya kaz,
Very cool! Can’t wait to see where you take it.
Oh man-o-shevitz — to upgrade or not to upgrade wordpress, for sure. I have an older version, and it’s a pain to upload to my server, and then fritz around with my database. The last time I tried it, I lost my entire blog. Prior to that — in 2005/2006 my blog at blogger was hijacked, turned into Chinese and weird ads put on it — it’s still floating out there somewhere as Warped but not Twisted. So needless to say, I don’t want another blog to vaporize. I’m tired of building them — too much time with the digital take away my fiber time.
I admire your intrepid blogginess when it comes to upgrading.
And YAY!! No more day job!!! I can so relate! I love it that I can spend every day in my studio now.
Create, create, create!
Jane