Out & About

24 April, 2012

American Craft Council & What I saw

beckarahn2012-04-24T08:12:41-05:00Out & About|1 Comment

I had the pleasure of being a demonstrator all weekend at the American Craft Council Show in St Paul. The Craft Council recently relocated from NYC to Minneapolis as their headquarters and I know some of their staff and have visited their library several times. The ACC puts on 4 huge shows a year: St Paul, Baltimore, Atlanta and San Francisco. In addition to the 250+ artists at the show, they also invited 5 arts groups to come and do live demonstrations in an open studio area. Textile Center had artists demonstrating digital fabric design, shibori dyes, nuno and needle felting and katazome (Japanese stencil resist dye).

Cuff bracelet by Connie Verrusio

I bought this fantastic bracelet from my next-door-neighbor booth, Connie Verrusio. She doesn’t have a website, but this is a great article about her from a few years ago. Her jewelry was so cool! I also loved the chunky bracelets made from wooden letterpress letters.

Andy's still life "tongs with eggs in pyrex bowl"

Then we met Jonathan and Julia from MoonSpoon. We completely monopolized Jonathan for 20 minutes talking about laser cutters and being complete geeks. He uses lasers and more traditional woodworking to make really functional and unique kitchen gadgets. He showed us a couple of really clever designs that he has figured out that make the most of both techniques. It was fascinating to talk to him and his passion for what he does is absolutely infectious. I also love that he works pretty much only in cherry, which is my very favorite wood.

14 March, 2012

What’s up with “Springing forward” anyway? (aka why am I still awake?)

beckarahn2012-03-14T00:48:12-05:00Out & About|1 Comment

the grandfather clock at my grandparents' house

Spotted on an office building while walking in London

27 February, 2012

A Visit to a Woolen Mill

beckarahn2012-02-27T21:53:10-06:00Out & About, Weaving, Felting & FIbers|Comments Off on A Visit to a Woolen Mill

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to be invited along on a tour of a working woolen mill. The Faribault Woolen Mill was opened in 1865 and has been in nearly continuous operation since then. You can learn a little more about it, if you are curious, at the website. The mill was closed for a while and the building flooded but it just recently re-opened with enthusiastic new management. The people I met and talked to while I was there are passionate about what they do and really excited about all of the new things that are happening. The whole building had a positive feeling. They aren’t really open for public tours yet, so I was really delighted to have been invited along.

We started our tour in the basement of the building where the wool comes in and is processed. I was amazed that they are actually able to do everything from dyeing to spinning to weaving all in the same building. They are currently buying wool that is cleaned and baled, but eventually hope to have the machines back up and running that can process raw fleeces so they will really be back to doing every step. They have a large dye area where the wool is custom dyed either in their “signature” colors or in custom colors for special orders.

This is one of the bales of wool being pulled apart. They start out as about 3 foot cubes that weigh 900 lbs. They say that a blanket takes about 6 lbs, so that’s 150 blankets out of one cube. That’s some densely packed wool! They told us that right now they are working with merino, romney and ramboulliet because those have the right length fibers for their equipment.

This is the start of one of the spinning machines. The wool travels through a series of about 3-4 carders and comes out the other end as tiny beautiful even pencil roving, wound on big rolls. Each roll is about 10 inches in diameter and is made up of about 30 individual strands.

These then move over to the spinning machine to put the twist in and make it in to yarn. These end up being about the weight of size 8 perle cotton. You can see the large rolls on the very top and the roving is spun and then wound on to more bobbins at the bottom.

Finally, it makes its way over to the large looms. This one was working away at flag blankets while we watched.

There are several more steps to finishing, fulling, making fringe, adding labels etc that we didn’t tour this time, but I am hoping to see on another trip. I was completely enthralled through the whole tour. We also learned about how they are developing ingeo fiber, made from corn, that they are combining with the wool. Ingeo has all kinds of great properties that really compliment wool, so they are excited about the possibilities for that. I came right home and ordered two blankets from their online shop and I am completely in love.

26 November, 2011

16 Ways to Annoy the People Sitting Near You at the Symphony, as accompanied by Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 1

beckarahn2011-11-26T14:00:12-06:00Out & About|4 Comments

1. Talk.

2. Clicky pen. Clicky click clicky click.

3. Rattle paper. (You need the paper so you can take notes with the clicky pen.)

4. Roll your program into a tube. Unroll it. Do it again.

5. Try styling your hair in to a ponytail. Comb through it with your fingers and smooth it out a bunch.

6. Now roll your hair around the clicky pen like it’s a curling iron.

7. Eat pretzels.

8. Put your feet up on the railing in front of you and reposition the rattly paper and clicky pen.

9. Yawn. Yawn largely, using your entire body and stretching your arms above your head.

10. Apply fragrant hand lotion.

11. Sneak cookies and cocoa in to the theater. Dip your cookie into the cocoa and slurp it off.

12. Then, slurp your cocoa to make sure you get the last bit in the cup.

13. Scratch yourself.

14. Dig for the crinkly plastic water bottle in your purse and make sure to move your car keys several times.

15. Clean your fingernails with the clicky pen.

16. Bounce. Bounce both of your knees and your fingers in time to the music. Or not. Random is fun too.

12 November, 2011

Eye Spy

beckarahn2011-11-12T00:04:28-06:00Embroidery, Gallery Exhibitions, Out & About, Sewing & Design, Spoonflower & Fabric Design|1 Comment

“Eye Spy”, digitally printed fabric and hand embroidery. Cotton fabric, rayon & silk thread. 8″ x 8″.

I made this piece to donate to a fundraiser for the art center in the city where I grew up. They have an anonymous auction every year where artists donate pieces but you don’t know which artist belongs to which piece until the end. So I had to wait until after the event to show this off. The owl is one of the education owls for the U of MN Raptor Center program. He was very photogenic. The “eyes” design I drew digitally and the “feathers” are a pencil sketch that I scanned. Printed at Spoonflower. I then went in and embroidered feathers on top in shiny silk and rayon threads, so it has a little depth and shimmer. You may recognize the design from a skirt I made a while back; I liked it so well I decided to play around with using it in other formats.

14 September, 2011

Blogworthy

beckarahn2011-09-14T20:38:07-05:00Out & About|1 Comment

Finally I have some things to blog about. I hate to say it, but I really have just been doing work stuff for the last week or so and there just hasn’t been anything fun to talk about here.

This is a hat I knit for my Aunt. She’s doing the glamorous shave-your-head-for-the-chemo thing and I thought she needed something stylish for fall to help her kick the cancer in the a**. It’s Foliage from Knitty and the yarn is superwash wool Mini Mochi in a colorway called Spice Islands (or something like that). I have knit this pattern two or three times now and I love it every time. The lace pattern opens up when you put it on and it’s just pretty. I added the flower. I just felt like it needed one.

This is a scene from the state fair. I just want you to appreciate the throngs of people. Ugh.

Andy and I went to get ice cream, listen to a friend whose band was playing (they were awesome) and see a little art. I had a piece in the Textile Center’s display. Andy loves that he captured my reflection in this picture. The rainbowy grid piece is mine. It’s called “Intersect” and it is handdyed and embroidered.