Whoa, Fiber Jedi! The Syth Lord Vi Ral-ILL Ness has been clawing at the Outer Rim of Immune System Funky C. In a suprise move by rebel White Blood Cell leader Mom, the entire galaxy was shut down for a day of rest. The complete picture is scary beyond all reason, but here are the highlights:

System Funky C exploring new orbital heating unit:



















Note the use of formerly blogged hand spun yarn and her sisters. A kid mohair was thrown in just for kicks. Very Funky. Very C. Matching Wonder Woman cuffs in progress.

Back up heating units brought into battle ready position:


















Scratchy orange sport weight socks knit by the departed, but still much loved Grandma Tanguay. Bless her for these on a day such as today.

The blue thing is my fav' winter nighty. Curse it not, for I loves it. And you'll have to excuse the well scaled, hairy legs. Nobody's shavin' nothin' until the Ides of March at least.

The orbital heating unit appears to work even on Sattelites:

The Blues

I love winter....the beauty of snow, the activity at my bird feeder. But I detest the accompanying blues. I try every day to just not be a loser. It seems my success rate is much lower in winter.

Sigh

Knowing my yarn was feeling the same way, I decided she needed sisters:














Behold the Brown Sheep yarn. Color: true royal. Content: silk, wool, mohair.

In other knitting news, my shawl is off the needles! Hurray!:













But! Before I can block it, I have to take care of this:













Boooo! Down with cleaning! This, my padded dye table, perfect for blocking yarn projects, is not currently padded. It's been unpadded since summer when a dye project went awry and soaked the padding with purple dye. Everything's washed and ready, but I can't seem to bring myself to repad it. I've had it almost clean several times, but doggoneit! it's such a big, open horizontal surface. Everytime I come home, it begs to hold my purse, coat, fast food wrappers.

Why do I do this?!? It's maddening and yet I can't seem to get over it. I need this table to work. There is a truckload of fabric that needs to be made. My shawl wants to be blocked and worn before June. There is some underlying insanity that prevents me from tackling this....fear of success....physical barriers as a symbol of emotional barriers.... Shall I go on? It's madness and I mean to conquer it. Wish me well.

Starting and Finishing

Behold and Marvel!! Finished projects!
I, Funky C, bring you.....The Yarn:









Hand dyed silk/Merino roving by Lisa Souza. Hand spun by MOI...la,la,la over about two weeks. There's 180 yards. I steamed it to set the twist...no good reason, that's just what I do. Then I felted it ...just a wee bit.... in the kitchen sink with a potato masher. It seemed the right thing to do. Does it count as 'done' if it's not knit into anything? I'm thinking of combining it with something deep periwinkle and making a hat.

The Dye Project:

















This sat half done for...oh...half the year. I finally got it all glued down and into page protectors. For the record, the mx dyes this time around were turquoise mx-g, yellow mx 8-G, and red mx-5B. In the next picture, a comparison view with the previous dye sample project, you can see the difference in mottling and color intensity. I learned a ton this time about how to get rich, consistant colors:

















It feels good to finish. But the REAL work is just beginning. As some of you know, I've been struggling with an image for my local library:

















It was suggested to me that this looks like a giant floral arrangement...meaning it's pretty, but that's about it. Where's the meaning? I took this to heart, agreed, and in a flash of inspiration while sitting in the libarary came up with this:










It's raw, but it's a good concept. The idea is to show a leaf and a page slowly merging together and through each other over six panels....three per wall. I may throw in the added idea of the leaf going through seasonal changes across the panels. My thought process involves leaves marking the passage of time and the written word transcending time....not too concrete yet, but that will come with the making of the image. I need to sketch more, flesh out the image fully. And, oy, the fabric that needs to be made! I may have to give up sleep for a few months. That'll be pretty.

Wa's Up?

So, I've been busy. First, the yarn:



















Here, I'm attempting to spin a silk/merino roving into a kind of thick-n-thin wackiness. You'd think wacky would be easy for me. Turns out, with spinning, it's hard to not spin 'normal' once you get 'normal' down. Who knew? The roving is from Lisa Souza, color Mardi Gras. Waaay too yummy. I'll be buying more.

Next, my current lace knit:
















This is the Swallowtail Shawl from fall '06 Interweave Knits The yarn: my finest handspun to date! Once again, Lisa Souza roving: Blue Faced Leicester. Not sure which colorway.

So much for knitting. That's my hobby, you know. Everything else is my 'job'.

I've been fooling around with this image:






















This is a sketch I scratched into a flour paste silk screen. Somehow, she keeps asking to be more than just a screen. Having scanned the image onto my computer, she was just waiting for the magic touches of Lucienne (my pen tablet pen, whom I love with fierce devotion).























Where does this stuff come from?!? Somewhere in the twilight of my mind, these images lurk and I'm always amazed by them. I've been talking online with a friend about what medium she wants to be. I'm so afraid of the amount of time she will require in fiber. The thought of even beginning overwhelms me. But begin I must (at the prompting of said friend).

Lucienne helped me boil the image down to the most basic terms:






















I'm doing all this drawing in Photoshop Elements. The red lines were added as a seperate layer. Before I met technology, this was all done with tracing paper and Sharpies. In Photoshop, I was able to convert the red lines to black and then print them seperately. This will become my fabric 'background'. The rest of the image will be built on top of it, though I'm not sure how.

Here you can see the background pattern, the drawing, and a bunch of pattern pieces traced on tracing paper. The background remains intact to use as a reference. All the drawn segments are numbered so I can fit this back together like a puzzle.

















I really have no idea what will happen next. Maybe some fabric auditions. Intuition tells me that I'll be dying fabrics for this project. There's so much about making art that terrifies me...I can't put it all into words. Trying to break it down into baby steps keeps some of the fear at bay. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out.