Sublime Stitching, my favorite place to get embroidery patterns, has issued a challenge: tiny monograms. There aren’t many rules, but you can see the contest here: little pillow
I woke up yesterday with a cold, which kind of snuck up on me. So I decided to make a pot of tea, put on my bathrobe and stitch a tiny monogram. Here is my monogrammed pillow.
It is silk dupioni fabric embroidered with silk thread. The monogram is 5/8″ tall, the pillow is about 1 1/2″.
After the discharge paste dries, then you iron it on the silk setting with as much steam as you can get. It shows up pretty quickly. (But smells like warm old tuna) The stencil, I think, is beautiful. The discharge results are pretty good. It didn’t take out as much color as I was hoping. This was my first project, so I really didn’t know what to expect. I also don’t know how this scarf was dyed or even for sure what the fiber content/finsih is (the tag says 100% wool). You can see it well in the photo, but the weave is very open and kind of transparent, so I folded it up on itself to get a good picture. You can see if I put it up against white…
it nearly disappears. It is gorgeous but totally subtle. I am going to add some more to this scarf (although I am not sure what yet). Next experiment is to try it on some scraps of my handdyed cotton.
It was a weekend for an experiment. I bought a nice merino wool scarf at a holiday sale. It is plain peacock blue, which is a lovely color, but it seemed to need a little something. I thought about shibori dyeing it, but I am a little over shibori right now. So I went and got a bottle of discharge paste. What’s that? It’s like bleach in that it will take the color out of almost any natural fiber, but it is not as nasty to work with. Bleach will also liquify wool and silk, which is not usually an effect you want. I have heard about discharge paste, but never used it, so here goes the experiment.
I first cut a freezer paper stencil of a dragon. (love dragons) I was inspired by a medieval dingbats font. I redrew this guy and simplified him a bit to make a better stencil.
Here’s the stencil partly cut. I folded my paper in half and cut two at once so I would get a mirror image.
Then I ironed it on to the scarf. (If you want a good tutorial about freezer paper stencil, just google. There are a bunch). Next I painted on my discharge paste. It is roughly the consistency of egg whites and smells like old tuna. (No kidding.) Not seriously objectionable, but not so charming, shall we say?
The key is to make sure it soaks in to the fibers. This picture has it all painted on (although you can’t tell). The magic doesn’t happen until after it has dried and you iron it.
So, stay tuned for tomorrow for the results!
Hello Spoonflower visitors! My fabric design “Wild West” is in the Spoonflower fabric contest this week. Visit the blog, vote for your favorite, and the winning fabric will be available by the yard in the Spoonflower etsy shop.
I am also running a special in my etsy shop in celebration. Go check it out!
Erik and his Aunties.
Uncle Andy reads Erik a story.
“Who are you strange people?”
On the two very coldest days all year, I cleaned out my Textile Mobile. The Textile Mobile is the big 1981 retired dairy delivery truck that is the symbol of our outreach programs at the Textile Center. It is a beast, but it has been my beast for many years now. This summer it died. We held on for a while, debated about fixing its many broken bits and finally decided that it was time to retire it. I kept meaning to clean it out and send it on its way, but with one thing and another it never happened. Then out of the blue, we got an offer from someone wanting to buy it and haul it away. So, in the -30 degree wind chills, some kind souls on my staff and I emptied it out and got it ready to go. I don’t even want to think about how cold we were. We blew kisses to it and waved goodbye as it was towed out of the lot this morning.
