“A bayberry candle burned to the socket, puts luck in the home, food in the larder, and gold in the pocket.”
At the National Heritage Museum, Kurt and I bought Bayberry candles to light on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. After burning our candles to the socket on Christmas Eve, we received word that Kurt was granted a month-long artist in residence position in Dinan, France! So this time next year, we’ll be spending December 2009 in France. Isn’t that fantastic?! I can hardly wait. I have exactly one year to learn French!!
So now we’re burning our second set of Bayberry candles. I wonder what great gift these will bring us…
Happy New Year. I wish you nothing but the best in 2009.
My best friend has been riding horses since she was a very little girl. She’s won many competitions in Dressage and once dreamt of being an Olympic champion. So when I saw a book entitled Elementary Equitation at the used book store, I immediately thought of her. It’s all about how to properly mount and sit on a horse. That’s it. Hundreds of pages of how to sit on a horse. A very…specific book to say the least, but one with so much charm I knew she’d like it. The only problem was that the cover was practically falling off and the spine had chunks falling off of it. So I bought it and rebound it in yellow leather.
For the end papers, I replaced the old, plain cream colored ones with marbled paper I bought a couple of years back at a book fair in Silver Spring, Maryland. It really made the book look a lot fancier than it did originally. I also added some raised bands along the spine, which it didn’t have before, but I’m sorry I forgot to take pictures of the spine before giving it to her!
Since the original cover did have an interesting image of a horse on it, my husband made a die of a horse out of copper that we heated up and used emboss a horse on the front cover. It wasn’t as sharp an image as I had hoped, but it was my first time using a homemade die. Now I know that making my own dies is a possibility and that’s very exciting.
Anyway, so this is what I was doing instead of the potato dextrin project. But now that I’m done with this book, I can get back to the scarf. Thank you for your patience!
Take a look at the book and let me know what you think!
I know I promised you progress on the potato dextrin piece, but I’m currently working on a Christmas present (which I’ll post after Christmas). Once I’m done with that, I’ll get back to the potato dextrin, I promise!
I have a very good friend in DC who is stunningly beautiful. Her color palette is cream, ecru, oatmeal, gold, and black. Simple, yet incredibly elegant. This year I’m giving her a silk organza shawl that is dyed first in bronze and then overdyed with black in a tortoise shell shibori pattern. It should go with virtually everything she has in the closet! :) I hope she can enjoy wearing it as much as I enjoyed making it. Merry Christmas!
The potato dextrin is starting to dry and crack. The areas where the dextrin was thicker, the cracks are more dramatic, while the areas where the dextrin was thinner, the cracks are finer. It’s still a bit soft to the touch, so I’ll wait another day and make the thickened dye and get started! Stay tuned.
Update: Just wanted to let you know that I decided to wait until Monday to make sure the potato dextrin is as dry as it is going to get. See you then!
You may remember that I started this scarf a while back. I finished tying it today and dipped the corners in red dye. This is the final result.
It looks nice, but the entire middle of the scarf is just plain pink.
Kind of boring, although it looks nice on.
I decided to use Potato Dextrin in the center of the scarf, which is a resist I haven’t used for quite some time. It’s a paste-like substance that you spread onto your fabric and leave it to dry. As it’s drying, it starts to crack and create these spidery veins. When you apply thickened dye, the dye only penetrates through the cracks, leaving fine veins of color. It’s really beautiful. Here I am applying the potato dextrin:
You have to pin the fabric tightly onto a foam board and place a towel underneath the fabric to absorb any extra liquid.
It’s a time consuming process, but if you’re patient it’s well worth it. This will be out drying for a day or two, depending on how humid it is. When it’s ready, it’ll be completely dry and brittle and have cracked enough to look cool. I’ll then make the thickened dye in the same shade of red as the corners and apply it. Stay tuned.
Kate Seidman is currently teaching a silk painting class over at the Y. I’ve been going for several weeks now and I’m really enjoying the challenge. I’ve never really worked with a paint brush before and feel quite clumsy with one, but I’m slowly warming up to it and find that I’m enjoying the class very much. It’s a good technique to learn and one I can easily combine with Shibori later on.
Today, Kate asked me to do a little Shibori presentation because the ladies in the class were not familiar with that dyeing technique. So I taught the gals how to pole wrap a silk scarf.
It was so much fun! They were so enthusiastic to learn this new dyeing technique, which was such a relief because there’s nothing worse than trying to cram unsolicited information down someone’s throat. I don’t get the opportunity to teach often, but when I do, I realize that I really like it. I should think of doing a workshop or something…
Anyway, we started off with a simple white scarf, which I pole wrapped, and the ladies chose a nice plum color to go with it. We ran out of time so I didn’t get to “unveil” the final product during class, but I promised the ladies I’d bring it back next week so they could see it. I’d like to redo this scarf, overdyeing it in another pattern or technique and maybe giving it some texture, so the students can see what else can be done with the fabric after it’s been pole wrapped. Hmm…so many possibilities. I’ll keep you posted on what I end up doing. Whiskey seems to like it well enough…
