Classic Katazome: Rice Resist & Natural Dyes

Convergence 2008 Tampa Florida

Here are some photos from John Marshall's workshop in Katazome, rice resist and natural dye techniques. So many topics have been discussed during the workshop that pictures really tell a thousand words.

A laturgical piece, the colors and shading of the pigments to create a delicate dimentional quality.

Some of the equipment used in the process; mixing the rice resist and the ceramic dishes for the pigments. A bowel of soy beans plumped and reading to make soy milk.

The two bowls with the golden liquid are the rice resist ready to use.

Stencils to be used with resist process.

Applying the rice resist to the stencil.

These are a few of the things we did on the first day in class.

Natural Dyes & Cotton Production

September in Missouri ~ Weekends of Fun

Chautauqua at Chillicothe
Natural Dyes; yarns and dye materials are displayed to show what can be done with plants and little bugs. Many of the plants are found in Missouri. Goldenrod, Osage Orange being but a few. Indigo, Cochineal and logwood come from far away.

The shawl at the foot of the display was dyed with Osage orange and indigo. All the wool was grown and spun in Missouri. Madder roots are in the round basic.

This demonstration was for Chautauqua at Chillicothe , Missouri, a two day even. An ancient arts area is setup and fiber guild memories from Fiber Gals in Chillicothe, Osage Spinners and Weavers in the Kansas City area and University of Missouri Extension.
Five thousand people walked through the park during the two day even; buying crafts, eating caramel corn and have pocket tacos. Pocket tacos are made with an open small bag of corn chips covered with taco meat, lettuce, tomato and cheese. Then add hot sauce! A real treat.
















Cotton Production at the Kansas City Community Garden
Each fall the community garden holds children's day. This educational experience allows parents and grandparents to bring children to the gardens and hunt for bugs, look at all the flowers and help set butterflies free.
This year all the flowers were blooming, the vegtable garden had many fall offerings. The cotton plants came in several colors, white, brown and green.
Jerry and I took natural colored cotton, spinning wheels and a loom to show out to process and spin cotton fibers.

Summer in Southwest Missouri

Well here I am in the airport in Chicago! Can you tell that it is a hot afternoon and I have all the technology plugged in! Checking e-mail answering the phone and waiting, not to patiently for a plane.

I have just returned from TNNA in Columbus, Ohio. I took five classes in four days and checked out all the new yarns and gadgets available for the fall.

Simply Shetland is carrying Opel sock yarn and what great new colors are coming later this year. Our first shipment arrived yesterday(J. Wray & Co.); cotton/wool/nylon blend in some great colors; wool/nylon blend also in great color combinations. I started a pair of socks last evening in a gold, brown and green color way. I am using number 2.5 mm needles from Lantern Moon, they are so smooth and feel just great in the hand.

There are many great colors coming from Simply Shetland this year, a new silk and Shetland blind that comes in soft muted colors and drapes just beautifully. We will see this in the fall as well. We will have it at J. Wray & Co. as soon as it is shipped.

I am currently working on the rectangle loom (Hillcreek Fiber Studios) to create a new jacket design. What a great tool for plain weave fabric. The yarn is a hand spun silk and wool blend is shades of green and blue. I am designing as I go, so it will be a surprise when i finish!

Soar 2006 Lake Tahoe California

Soar 2006 ~ What a Great Week!

Here is a view of Lake Tahoe Saturday morning. The lake was crystal clear as you can see. We drove the 72 mile trip around the lake to see all the wonderful mountain vistas. The snow capped mountains, little villages and hiking trails made exploring a delight.



Registration at Grandlibakken - Thanks for all the hard work the staff and Interweave Press provides to make this great event possible!

Breakfast at Grandlibakken Resort. Instructors and students ready to start their workshops.

A trip to To Old Scatness, a collaboration between Shetland Amenity Trust and Bradford University giving insight into life in Britain's most northerly island group.

The archeology dig is at the very southerly tip of the Shetland Islands. Old Scatness Broch is situated beside the airport and on the North Sea. The sight has revealed part of a 19th century crofting settlement, 17th century midden deposits, a Pictish building with rooms formed by stone piers surrounding a central space, much like spokes of a wheel. The Broch, an imposing Iron Age round tower found only in Scotland and the Northern and Western
Isles, was built as defense and a status symbol for the elite.

Our introduction to the sight was a demonstration of life in a Bronze Age home. Here you see drop spindles made of soap stone and wool dyed with plants indigenous to the Shetlands and a frame with card weaving.

The warp weighted loom with its pickup sticks to create the sheds. Both the warp and weft are singles created on the drop spindle.
Skeins of singles are used as shuttles to lay in the weft.

Round rocks (I am assuming soap stone) are used as weights for the warp. I found it very interesting the resemblance to the Navajo looms of our Southwest.

Note the pickup sticks for the warp and the wooden bars that hold the pickup sticks in place. The weaving is done from top to bottom. A shed stick is hanging on the loom. The weaver is seated on a sheep skin as she weaves her cloth.

Card weaving was also shown with leather cards and rock weights to keep the warp under tension.

Square Loom goes Rectangle!

Early morning at Hillcreek Fiber Studio's tent at Maryland Sheep and Wool Show.
Here is the square loom in a rectangular configuration. A teal and cranberry diagonal plaid was being woven. Notice that you work from both sides of the rectangle when weaving in this format. It makes for fast completion of a project. Many design possiblities; plain weave, twill, lace....mmm
There are many great uses for this shape; shawls, sleeves in a coat, front panels in a jacket etc. Carol Leigh has a new fact sheet on how to work in the rectangle configuration

What an exciting weekend. I taught an energized warp class at J Wray & Co's Little Yarn Barn. We used over-twisted singles in alpaca, wool, cotton and silk to create sample scarves. The picture shows one of the scarves in a soapy bath. You can see the warp and weft starting to move. There are more shots of the class on my website: http://bartlettfarm.com/weavingclass.htm

I enjoyed working with this technique. The only problem is keeping the warp under tension while putting it on the loom. We used short warps for the class, I think that this made it easier to thread the loom. Also using the kite stick method of winding the warp off of the warp board helped keep everything under tension.

I had several enlightening moments of clarity after we finished workshop. Types of fiber to use and set of the warp to create the energized movement in the work made for unlimited choices. I think I will try these scarves again with a wider set and some synthetic fibers. Also maybe some copper wire... hmmmmmm.