dyed threads

Those wooden stirrers that you get in cafes; the ones that have inbuilt disposability; replacing spoons, to stir our drinks. Those things....that I can't bear to chuck away...in case they come in for something!
Well......they've come in for something!
I save them, and then all the thread I use to wrap up my cloth bundles, or odd bits I drop into dye-baths, I wind around the wooden slats.
The more earthy tones I've got from the plant dye-pots I've done. The brighter colours came from when I was using dyes on the course last year. But the central 'yellow-y' colour comes from thread dyed in pomegranate. Very different result from the silk I dyed in pomegranate, which came out much more brown.

Ps; what's wrong with spoons?

fragments......

 One of the samples I'm working on. Tweed. Curtain fabric. Silk threads.

Silk fabrics. Spirals of threads. Muted colours. The gathering of the fabric as one layer is stitched to the other. Textures.

No print included in this one......

strings........

I popped some threads in the walnut dye-pot; the top one is silk, originally coloured pink. The dye hasn't penetrated all the way through to the bottom lengths of thread, so I've unravelled it some, to allow the dye to permeate further down. And popped it back into the walnut dye-pot.....though it is pretty exhausted now, and I'm dropping used tea-bags into what remains, to try and keep it going. We'll see.

And out of the mists of time....my ole guitar dragged down from the loft. Re-strung; ready to go. It's a shame I can't play it! But I have fun strumming, and filling the house with noise. My body reverberates after I've stopped strumming! The cats are fascinated. I haven't asked the neighbours!

maze for yorkshire; loose threads

A maze for Yorkshire; a bright red one. Made of MDF.

By the artist Richard Wood.

A maze for summer. Gone now, like the migrating birds.

Only here for the sunny, summer weather.

 But fun while it was here!

The maze; the Georgian building of the Orangery; the flags flapping beyond; and the backdrop of newbuild flats and offices.

A maze is not a labyrinth.

Why? Because you cannot get lost in a labyrinth; there is one way in, and one way out. It's unicursal. But a maze is something where you can take wrong turnings, and get lost. Ariadne didn't need to leave a trail of thread in the labyrinth to find her way back from the minotaur in Crete.

She would have if it was a maze. 

Even labyrinths and mazes lead to loose threads.



gifts

Sewing threads; 'pure silk' it says on the box.

Gifted to me by my friend Berenice.

 One of these rolls has been dropped into the sycamore dye-pot I've started. I'll see what changes that makes to the colour.

I don't often work with silk; so far I've used cotton/linen mixes of fabrics. I decided I wouldn't use new silk, but that second hand would be ok. So on that basis, I can use the silk gifted to me.

And above, is a selection of fabrics gifted to me by Lynn, who's on the same textiles course as me. A mix of natural and man-made fibres. Some cottons, linens, and a few bits of silk......once more, the type of silk I can use. I've got one of the silk pieces in my rust-dye-bath. A tin can, with fabric wrapped around it! The silk in the sycamore dye-pot comes from this collection.