A.I.R. 2008

The Friday Edition. On Saturday.

I was rather tired yesterday after finishing my residency. And I had a few more things to do, hence the late update.

Amber had to leave on Thursday afternoon to go to a music festival in Nova Scotia so I was at the residency by myself yesterday. Despite the pouring rain, there were a fair number of people that wandered through. Again it was a mix of the truly curious who asked a lot of questions and were fascinated by the demonstrations and those that peeked in the door and scurried away.

Because I was by myself, I rearranged the space to suit myself better. I put the two tables end to end so that I could paint warps all day. I also did a bit of spinning and weaving as demonstrations.
This was the last warp that I made up. It is silk noil. Three scarves worth. I steamed it when I got home last night because I didn't have quite enough time to finish it before I left.


Here is one of my silk warps being painted. I lay down a trail of stretch wrap and put the pre-soaked warp on it. This is enough for two scarves and two purses. Then I apply the dye, let it sit for a bit, soak up the excess water, wrap the stretch wrap around it and roll it up like a jelly roll. I then put it in my pot and steam it for an hour. It has to cool to room temperature before I rinse it out and hang it to dry. Speaking of drying, nothing dried yesterday. Everything that I had out needs to be hung in the sun today so it doesn't start to mildew. Even all of my finished pieces. The humidity was so high yesterday that everything feels damp even though it wasn't in the rain. Ick.
Here are my dyes ready to go on the last warp. I had my dyes all premixed and I just added some citric acid solution to the dyes and applied it straight to the yarn. I didn't get any pictures of me applying dyes because I had my gloves on and they were spotted with dyes. No so good for the camera.

Here are my dyed warps. I like the green, purple, orange, and half of the last warp, but the other half of the last warp just looks muddy to me. The blue on that warp turned out really pretty, so I just may end up dunking the ugly half in turquoise and hoping for the best. Maybe I'll end up with blue mud.

My last warp still needs to be rinsed out. It didn't finish steaming until after 7:30 or so and has needed the night to cool down. I'll let you know how it tuns out.
All packed up and ready to go. Thankfully there was a tent setup for the edventures participants and I was able to wait for the cab out of the rain. I was equally thankful that there was a beer waiting for me at home.

Good bye residency, I hope to do it again next year.