My Fiber U Saturday With Photos

  I just wasn't able to make it in time for T today, especially to really visit everyone so decided not to link up this week for that reason.

  We are up at the lake house today will sleep over tonight and head back Wednesday afternoon. Hubs has another follow up appointment in Springfield Mo with the cardiac surgeon that heads the team for his heart valve procedure on Thursday morning. Springfield is about a 3 hour drive now from the lake house.
  I had planned on once we got moved in to search out cardiac doctors in Jefferson City area Missouri (an hour away) but nature had it's own plans.
  He is really tiring out super fast now, can hardly do anything at all-so I will be sure to let the surgeon know this in hopes to get him moved up sooner-although I know they have a wait list for this procedure.

  Just a heads up on why I am not on the computer much these days. I do miss all of my art friends especially.

   Since I was going to be getting home late Saturday after classes-and needed to pick up a few groceries too I suggested that Hubs sleep over on Saturday (at lake house)-he said he ended up sleeping allot all weekend before heading home late Sunday.

     I had a really fun day!
I was determined NOT to buy anything as I have a little room already packed full of fiber supplies-I was tempted of course to pick up more alpaca but I was good and walked right by haha  I love spinning alpaca as much as I do bison fibers.

   My first class was a saori weaving inspired class to make a bracelet.  The teacher was a retired art teacher, allot of fun to interact with. She spent time and thought putting together a bag full of fun. A beading loom, little wooden fork to "beat" the woven fibers in, a clasp for the finished bracelet, piece of leather to glue to the back of the bracelet and a piece of a rubbery type material to set our little looms on to so it wouldn't slip on us, plastic needles, and loads of fibers, beads, and old jewelry to choose from. A short printed introduction.
   My only complaint for this class-no guidance or instructions on different types of weaves etc. She did demonstrate a bead idea for weaving in, and showed one tapestry weave on her saori loom-that was it. She had allot of books out on the tables for inspiration.
   This was a 3 hour class, we all knew how to weave already-otherwise that would have been an issue, and no one finished. She told us she would be available on Sunday to help us finish our bracelets. I assumed the printed material she gave us would have included that-nope.  I went online to get ideas but didn't see anything on how she was making this. Didn't feel like driving back on Sunday-we were still near 100 f temperatures that day too. Soooo I just made it up haha.
     I had heard her telling someone on what to do to finish it-but decided to just let the bracelet be what it was to be.
    I ended up not weaving my bracelet long enough-so I just knotted the warp strings as far as I could. Then I got the idea to tie a loop to put a bead through on each side to pull it together-never got around to putting some leather on the back-I may still do that. I wove mine wider than the clasp was. She also had several packs of warp threads to choose from-I chose a thicker thread than most did.
   I am wearing it now as I type this up and I really like it.

My camera was up at the lake house and I decided not to take Hub's camera, he uses it for his business so didn't want to take any chances losing it or something. So I took these photos today at the lake house.

 This is a photo of the bag and the back of the loom, you bring the warp thread from the front in those grooves on top, wrap around that button on back, wind around again and will end up at the other button-keep going til you have the amount of threads you want

 Oh and that metal piece in this photo-fits into the holes in the front of the loom-which will curve the loom and make the warp threads tight-pretty clever-this was designed for beading but the teacher decided perfect for weaving-I think she is right-this was fun to work with.

In the little bag on the right-she also included that little cardboard piece to help with weaving, and she was selling that little plastic heddle that she had made up for this loom. Works like a rigid heddle loom if you are familiar with those-and similiar to that disaster of last year. I bought it as I think I can do more 2 harness type weaves with it on this little loom. 

   That class I took last year was just soooo bad-I met a lady at lunch that brought that up too-and she was the only one in that class that had figured it out.

When I got home I didn't like the thicker textured yarns I was using so took that all out-I had chosen just enough yarns to finish what I was weaving. Those were her beads as well. I went with the more earthy colors.

This would be a prettier bracelet with a smoother finish-you are to knot that first row when you take it off the loom-glue well-dry-then glue on the leather backing-and put the clasp on. I had chosen heavier yarn so don't know if this would have worked out as well-I have larger knots.
     I may add some little beads to all those strings-it is actually fun and comfortable to wear. (reminds me of my hippie days back in the 60's ha ha)

My next class-a four hour class-was with the dye teacher I had last year. She is an amazing instructor; so knowledgeable, organized and so worth the money. She makes use of every minute in her classes.

This was an introduction to indigo and weld dyeing.  I have always been a bit intimidated by an indigo dye bath-they sound so complex and a bit scary to me. Not so!!  I will be excited to try this on my own now.

The class was actually a bit large as this was a very hands on dye class, but she managed it all well. I think there were at least 14 of us.

We all had samples to dye, and socks to dye shibori style-that was so fun. The one problem was she said she was ill when she was packing up her car and left one burner in the garage that didn't make it into the car. She lives in Oklahoma a state next to Missouri.
     So that was an issue for controlling the temperature-she had two indigo pots going- one on the burner and one off-so if you were dipping your samples in a too cool pot needed to wait til got exchanged with the one on the burner and warmed back up. also with so many students the dye baths would get exhausted so she would add more dye to the batch-heat it back up-skim-and re dye.

I learned so much though, and this was a very fun class. I had met a husband and wife that took her dye class last year so it was great to meet up with them again.  They drive 6 hours to this event and take classes both Saturday and Sunday.

She also had set up little samples of wool-cotton-linen-silk so we could see the difference in fibers for the dye take up. Wool and silk are the best for indigo.

We also did a woad pot and we had the four little fabric samples-and we could choose to dye our socks either in indigo or woad.  The woad is a plant material one can grow but it is very very invasive-and I was not impressed with the color-I got prettier colors with my ice and fresh indigo leaves than the woad.

It was just as well that I didn't have my camera-we were wearing gloves the whole time and really not much time for photos during class.

This is all of the dyed pieces  (sorry that green lower left corner is an applique in a  table cloth)

all photos will enlarge to full size-just click on them:

 The idea for these samples-all were on a brass safety pin-(brass does not rust-I need some of these lol) we dipped for about a minute-pulled out-waited 10 minutes-took one skein off and dipped again-repeat-I am happy with the colors-but they did not turn out as they should-the second and third skein were dipped in too cool of a dye bath-and the timing was off on these samples too-but I learned how to do it and loved working the indigo dye pot
  One needs to remember not to add more oxygen to the dye pot-don't let dyed material coming out of the bath-drip into the pot or squeeze-a big NO NO as it adds oxygen back in to the dye pot. Many of us got reminded of this.

I was playing like our Elizabeth would have-these strings were used to tie our socks for the shibori look-instead of throwing away I saved mine and my two friends threads-I should have collected the rest that were tossed. This was heavy button hole thread  The real light ones were from woad

wool left-top linen-then silk-bottom cotton

top left wool-then silk-below cotton-bottom left linen

Aren't these socks just way too fun!! I love them. She got them from Dharma trading where she found the highest % of cotton for better dye results  She had these large plastic drainage poles that she cut to size-we tied on a sock on each end of the tube-scrunched the socks down as much as we wanted-dyed.

Everything needs to sit a few days or more-and then rinse with a vinegar-water solution til clear.

I asked the dye teacher if she would be back next year-she plans on it.

We haven't brought up our commercial coffee pot yet-as we are still living in both places still. I have other ways to make coffee though-french press, pour over, vintage percolator.  I love my pour over.  We had friends stay over and they were all quite impressed-the flavor of the coffee is exceptional too

Til next time.

UPDATE: I snagged some photos from class-that was posted on the fiber U group on facebook first one is me-I took everything out except for the center and started over-I just messaged the teacher too and she gave me the instructions for how she finished the bracelets with leather back and clasp
  PS I never show myself online so this may be the last haha

Just found another photo me on the left in blue shirt I lost 4 more pounds so my jeans are finally a bit baggy-yay