sweetgeorgia

Inspi(red)*

Now that we’re pretty much exactly halfway through 2007 now, tell me, what’s the most inspiring thing you’ve seen or experienced in the past six months?

Maybe it’s because today is my loom’s one-year anniversary, I’m feeling all sentimental and wondering what I’ve been doing all year and what I’ll be doing on this day next year. Between now and next June, I’ll be attending a month of lectures and workshops at Maiwa’s symposium. So far, I’ve registered for Michelle Wipplinger’s Colour Institute II, Dabu Mud Printing, Ajrakh Blockprinting (including the masterclass) and the Working Traveller. I wonder if Charllotte will let me just pay rent and live at Maiwa East for the month of October… the place is already furnished.

Charllotte is also looking at arranging a Maiwa trip to India in February 2008 and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to participate in that. They’ll be travelling to a number of different villages where the dyeing and textiles are made for Maiwa. I’m not sure how long the trip is for, but if it’s only a couple weeks, I may choose to stay a few weeks longer on my own. Who knows.

Also, I’ve been looking at the Kawashima Textile School in Kyoto and possibly spending some time there weaving, dyeing and studying. This is the same school that Chisako Hisamatsu attended to get a more in-depth education in Kasuri (an ikat technique). You could live, weave, eat, sleep, and dye there for anywhere from a few days to a few years. Dreamy. Possible? Impossible? Who knows.

Where else can I go? Indonesia? Thailand? Sweden? Denmark? Hmm… My desire to live someplace warmer (seriously, I’m sitting next to my heater and it’s nearly JULY) has me thinking about the textile/fashion program at CCAC in California too (although San Francisco is not much warmer than Vancouver, bleh). Hmm…

My time in London was WAY too short and I’ll have to find my way back somehow. I didn’t, unfortunately, get to meet up with Amelia and her friends and would love to do that next time. There was a knitting exhibition at South Wimbledon that I missed because I was running around quite a bit (even though I was at Wimbledon for a couple days, grr) and of course the one day I picked to visit the V&A is the one day the textiles room was closed. What did I see…

The “New York Fashion Now” exhibition at the V&A. The DOBAG rug woven for the British Museum. Some of Preeti Gilani’s textile work… hand-dyed silk and Jacquard weaving. The room full of massive Mark Rothko paintings at the Tate Modern (I went to see this TWICE, I loved it so much). Helio Oiticica’s Body of Colour exhibition at the Tate Modern as well. And something I wish I had seen for real:

Ptolemy Mann completely floors me. I’m absolutely in love with her work. What are you absolutely in love with these days? What inspires you now?

Okay, never thought I’d name a post after a GAP product, but hey, it’s all good. One of the only things I bought in London was a product Red t-shirt… african cotton made in Lesotho. It would make Jen proud.

I’ll have the holidays, on the side

I’ve been avoiding holiday stuff in general these days. No tree this year, no sugar-loaded cookie baking, no crazed shopping excursions… I’m bypassing it all. Instead of gifts between friends this year, we are making donations to our favourite charities and foundations. For me, that will be the Maiwa Foundation and the Surfrider Foundation… We really don’t need anything except for our family and friends to be healthy and happy and to enjoy that with them. But I was more than tickled this morning when I found a photo from Meredith in my inbox:

She wrote:

Words cannot express… So I figured a picture would do. Just wanted to send a little thank you for making such beautiful yarn. I just received it today in the mail from Pick up Sticks here in Ontario and have been on pins and needles waiting for it!! I’m so excited it’s here!

I can’t wait until the holiday knitting is done because these two babies are for ME! Ha ha! Looks like I’m getting two pairs of luxurious socks for Christmas this year, huh? big grins

Thanks again, you do such beautiful work with yarns and dyes! All good things, Meredith

Well, I was downright touched. That’s all that I can hope for… that yarn, colours, and fibres bring you joy this holiday season.

Thank you, Meredith!

Reconsidering Natural

Reassess. Reconsider. Rediscover. You’ll note that I’m having difficulty writing full sentences right now. I still feel a little hungover from this weekend… I was quite fully and mercilessly drunk on the natural dyes and textiles from Maiwa’s Natural Dye workshop, led by Charllotte Kwon, owner and founder of Maiwa…

What I learned and received from the workshop was so much more than I had expected… and not just in terms of the fabulous reference binder of swatches, or the notes, or the technique (which is really just measure and cook)… It was really the appreciation of the work done by artisans everywhere, the understanding that the knowledge about these historic techniques absolutely must be preserved, and the overwhelming feeling of responsibility in everything we do… We dye, we spin, we weave. But how much and what kind of resources do we use? How much do we consume? How much do we waste? How can we change, adapt, improve our process so that we live more gently?

All this, combined with the October 2006 “Green City” issue of Vancouver Magazine, the launch of the “OneDayVancouver.ca”, and a million other tiny, niggling questions and contradictions in my head, have just been overwhelming to say the least.

What can I say? I got more than I paid for… and definitely in a good way.

Maiwa’s Introduction to Dyes

This past weekend was spent like every weekend… elbow-deep in dye. But this time, it was with Maiwa’s “Introduction to Dyes” workshop led by Anne Babchuk at Maiwa East. For three days, we explored a variety of different dyes and dye application techniques from Procion and Washfast Acid dyes to the new-to-me Vat dyes.

We spent Friday evening looking at some gorgeous and intricately detailed textiles, many of them incorporating resist techniques — shibori, bandhani, batik, and block printing… Shibori (Japan) and Bandhani (India) are just other names for ‘tie-dye’ but the method in which the fabric is tied or folded and clamped can create some facinating patterns and textures.

Saturday was spent immersion dyeing cotton, silk and devoré velvet swatches in Procion MX. While the swatches were setting, we also learned some fold/clamp/resist/tie-dye techniques using plain old cotton fabric and Procion.

Our little group of three people dyed our pot a colour called “Dark Earth” — a mix of Yellow, Navy, and Scarlet — which was supposed to be an earthy, mossy green colour. The interesting result was that the silk swatches didn’t seem to take up very much of the Navy colour and turned out a rust colour! You can see the devoré velvet samples have rust backgrounds and dark green “foliage” — that’s because the fabric is silk-backed and the velvet pile is rayon! Interesting…

On Sunday, we switched from cellulose fibres to protein fibres and dyed silk and wool using Washfast Acid dyes — both immersion and handpainting on skeins. The group that wanted to dye a yellow ochre colour somehow got a gorgeous grassy green colour… probably too much turquoise!

But you can see from the photo above that one of the fabric swatches turned out a pale, pale shade. That would be silk-backed rayon satin… So the backside is a deep green but the “right side” of the fabric is pale green because rayon, being a cellulose fibre, doesn’t dye with acid dyes. You can also see the fluffy pile of 100% nylon that dyed a beige/brown colour in the same pot.

On Sunday afternoon, we started using vat dyes. These are facinating… they discharge dye (remove colour) from the fabric and then deposit a new colour onto the fabric. Also, the final colour does not develop until the dye is exposed to oxygen and allowed to oxidize. So when you are looking at a “red” vat dye bath, it actually looks murky green. Then when you remove dyed items and put them into a cool water bath, the colour starts to develop into red… like magic.

So in the photo above, the swatch that is predominately red is actually our Procion-dyed cotton in “Dark Earth” — we did a rough accordian fold on the fabric, tied it in a couple places with ikat tape (I love this stuff) and then dropped it in the red vat dye bath. In places where the fabric was exposed to the dye bath, the green colour was removed and red was deposited. The opposite happened in the other swatch — it was originally dyed a cranberry red using Procion and then dropped in a green/turquoise vat dye bath. It results in an effect which just seems impossible!

And finally, check out what else went into the vat… a pole-wrapped (arashi shibori) silk scarf. Again, this was silk that was dyed in Procion, tied to a pole to create little accordian folds and then dropped in the vat dye. Since I’m going back to Maiwa East in two weeks for the natural dye class, I left my scarf there to dry. Once it’s dry, the silk will retain the texture of the accordian folds… I’m really looking forward to seeing how this turns out. Eeee!

The class was a wonderful overview to all things chemically dyed. Processes like vat dyeing, I normally wouldn’t undertake on my own since it involves lye (have you seen Fight Club?) and thiourea dioxide (really smelly)… in fact, we all wore respirators with organic filters for the afternoon session. So the workshop is a great way to experiment and see what you enjoy the most. In fact, coming out of this workshop, all I want to do is play with the woven shibori techniques a la Catherine Ellis…

And while I was dyeing this weekend, a big box of my handpainted yarns winged their way to The Sweet Sheep…