Marsbarn Designs...

Support for the craftswoman in your life

Support is saying "How do we do this?"

Instead of "When will you do this?"
or "Where will you put it?"
or "What?! Are you thinking crazy, craft woman?"

Support is saying, "When and how do we get it?"
"Do you need money for it?"

Support is keeping the eye contact
and avoiding sarcasm or eye rolling.

Yesterday, I took an all day class at a local fiber festival
in weaving on a rigid heddle table loom.  I'd borrowed 
a loom from a friend, and came away wanting to buy
a loom of my own.  A slightly bigger loom, that can 
be expanded to fit 2 heddles if I want to get really 
fancy later on.

I love that Big E is so welcoming to my new ventures.
That he doesn't require me to give up one passion
for another. That he asks "How do we do it?", 
instead of "Why?" or "What?".  I am so thankful that
my wanting to try something new doesn't mean a 
fight or an argument or even a debate.  

Mmmmm... weaving goodness!  Hurray!

Planning for the holidays, this year's Workshop list

Yes, I am planning ahead.
Last year, I had several people say they wanted to
make things with me, but their schedules were full
by the time I got my flyer made. My plan is to
reissue the flyer at the end of October, closer to
class time. 

Click on the flyer to make it large enough to read.

the batiking round up

I've finished up the last of my summer batiking.  The
supplies are boxed up and put away, which does make
me a little sad.  I love doing this.  It's just so satisfying.

This year I played more with layering three colors 
together.  This fabric started with a turquoise base,
which after applying wax with a very rustic potato masher
(thanks Mom!), I dyed sky blue.

This photo shows the second layer of wax, prior to adding
the third color of dye.  

I am loving my medium grey dye.  It has a blue base
which accentuates the preexisting blue tones, and adds
contrast without making the finished fabric overly dark.

Here's the finished fabric with the wax removed.
You can see the dark grey blue in the background, as
well as the turquoise and the sky blue.  

To show the effect of the grey in a different color 
family, this fabric started out as amythest, wax was 
applied with a metal ball chain and then it was dyed
red.  I added more wax with the chain, and then 
dyed the fabric grey.

In the finished fabric above you can see how the blue
in the grey turned the red a deep purpley  color, which
accentuates the original amythest really well.

There was the temptation to dip everything in grey, 
but I resisted it, mostly. 

batiking with found objects

So, continuing with my sheet of corrugated cardboard,
I layered the second color (red) over the wax on the
base orange fabric. 

Then, I put a second layer of wax on using my wavy,
flexible cardboard.  Then, I added grey dye.  After the
wax was boiled off, this is my finished fabric. 

It's hard to see all of the layers in the photos.

The first color, orange, is the most prominent, with
the red leaving a more subtle layer.  I like how my
grey dye just deepens the red, instead of replacing it.

I'm really happy with the way this fabric turned out.
I like the movement the waves and streaks give the
fabric.

Edit:  I swapped out the finished fabric photos for ones
with a better sense of the true colors. 

Shades of William Carlos Williams

Sweet G: I ate a plum with my breakfast.

Me: That's okay.

Sweet G: I just wanted you to know.

Me: I wasn't saving it, and it wasn't in the ice box.  I'm glad you ate it."

Sweet G: It looked good, so I ate it.

(Count of three...)

Sweet G: Wait, are you referencing that poem?

Me: Maybe... aren't you?

Gifts with promise

I was once given kitchen cloths by a Japanese friend
who told me, very seriously, that they were kitchen
cloths, and meant to be used to clean and dry.  They
were not to be saved, altered, or sewn.  She did not
want to see them turned into a purse or a quilt or
anything else crazy.  Dishcloths, only.

But, my dear friend Ms T did not make me promise
anything when she gave me a present last week.
Which means, when I saw the corrugated cardboard
wrapped around the prezzie, I had plans! 

See how lovely and rippled it is along one side?
(It's standing up in the frying pan there, see?) 
Oh, so lovely!

Look at the lovely ripples and streaks it can make in
the batiking wax!  I've only gotten the first round of
dyeing and wax done, and I want to do another round
before I boil it off.  I don't have a final photo yet, but
I'm very excited about about this new shape. 

The actual prezzie was lovely, of course.. but like a 
small child on Christmas, I had more fun with the
wrapping. 

Mr Fuzzpants: He brings the full on fluff

Mr Fuzzypants and The Tank have decided, that since 
it is September (no matter that it is 90+ degrees out),
it is time to put on their winter coats.

All that fluff can be overwhelming... better take a nap.

Off and on to other things

School has begun, and we are off again.

It's been a whirlwind around here.  New teachers 
across the board, for both girls, new rules, and an old
schedule to return to.   I've been trying to return to my
"A" game of Getting Stuff Done.  I feel like I was a bit
lax this summer with the sewing and the making, but
I've ideas to make happen and perhaps (or perhaps not)
a craft fair or two to do.  We'll see.

It was a lovely summer, but I think it's time for some
new adventures.  

The danger of googling, and being glad you weren't Elizabeth Siddal.

"Florence has such a Pre Raphaelite look."
I say to Sweet G about Florence from Florence and the Machine.

We are watching her No Light, No Light video,
and Sweet G says, "What?"

So, I Google for images.
And Sweet G agrees, impressed by how much
Florence resembles the redhead in so many of
the paintings from that movement.

And then, I read that many of the same artists used
the same artist, Elizabeth Siddal.
I noticed that she died young, at 32.

So, I Google her.
Um. So it turns out she had an affair with Rossetti,
who eventually married her out of what may have
been pity.  Siddal ends up addicted to laudanum,
and eventually dies of an over dose. 

Very sad.  Rossetti, over come by guilt (he'd been
having an affair with a friend's wife and been a general
ass), puts his latest manuscript of poems in her casket.

Eight years later, Rossetti, now addicted to laudanum
and no longer as successful as an artist, convinces some
friends to dig up Siddal, in the dark of night, to recover
the manuscript.  Legend has it that her corpse was
wondrously preserved, but that her famous waist length
hair had continued to grow post-mortem so that it filled
the casket.  

So he publishes the poems (they are worm eaten *shudder*
but readable), but they don't sell well.  Apparently they
weren't as good as he remembered.  (Of course, if he'd
remembered the poems, he would have been able to
reconstruct them without digging up his very dead wife.)

All of this was too much information for Sweet G, who
retreated to her own writing.  I suppose this is the danger
of the internet world, you're looking for a reference photo
for your daughter, and you end up wondering about the
excess of hubris makes a person exhume his dead wife's
body so he could reclaim a manuscript of poems that
he couldn't accurately remember. I just cannot wrap
my brain around that one.  And how did he manage to 
convince his friends that this was a good idea?