Monday, September 18, 2006

Garments

Huh...I had no clue how few pictures of garments I have!! I really thought I had a fairly good record of most the garments I have made in last few years......I thought wrong. Well one of these days I'll get pics of what I have still hanging around here, and visit the places where some other items reside now. I did find these pics though: A front and back pic of a jacket made quiet a while ago. There are 18 different yarns in this garment and it was crocheted in one piece. OK, make that two pieces, I made the hood separately.

Oh wow...a paragraph!!! (now how the hell did that happen?!?)

Huh...did it again!!!!!

Oh I am soooo liking this!!!!!

Yes, I confess, it's the simple pleasures that really thrill me!!!!

More pics:



Look familiar?? Yep an utter ripoff..........



My first freeform garment:



This is the only pic I have of this vest. It zips up the front. I used a thrift store vest as the base. I have no idea how many different yarns are in this piece. To be honest, it is still a "work-in-process" but I have been wearing it for years. I wonder sometimes if this vest will ever be done. Every now and then I add a bit of surface work here and there, and lately I've been thinking about adding some beading...like I said it's still a work in process.

There you have it. See??? I said there weren't many. That is about all the garment pics I have that can be posted at this time. There are others, but I'm thinking about submitting the designs so they won't be showing up here for a while. There are other garments that are NOT my design that I've done but haven't taken any pics....maybe someday I will, but I really don't see the point of taking pics of all the socks, sweaters, scarves, hats, etc. that is all the same old stuff everyone else has done. And of course I have the obligatory closets full of unfinished garments and projects just as most people do. ;-)

Spaced bleach and splashed bleach


Here are few pics of my play days with bleach. The fibers used were 100% cotton, both recycled from thrift store sweaters.
"Spaced bleach"......Here is a 9yd. skein. The darker color is the original color, the other two sections were created by letting the bleach work it's magic. Obviously the lighter section had the bleach on/in it longer than the middle color. The next photo is a swatch worked up showing what kind of striping it worked out to be. Um, yeah sorry about the wonky stitching!















And this is the only pic of the "splashed-bleach" yarn I have. I'll post some pics of things I've made from it some other time. I call it "splashed bleach" cuz that's exactly what I did. Originally this yarn was once a dark navy, almost black cotton sweater. After making a huge skein from the freshly pulled sweater, I soaked the yarn in water, took the hank outside, laid it on the ground, and randomly splashed bleach straight from the bottle on it. The poor quality of this picture does not do justice to the depth and variety of color this yarn actually has. Perhaps when I get the garment photos up you'll be able to see and appreciate the multitude and depth of color this yarn now has. I'm LOVING it!!!

I can't wait to do this again with other recycled sweaters!!!

Did you notice something new??? Yep paragraphs!! YIPPEE!!! Still a little iffy on the placement of pics though.

A load of sari


As promised, here are some pics of what I did to deal with the often/sometimes not-so soft sari silk.
Yep, that's my dishwasher. I'm a lazy person at heart and the thought of simmering 18 skeins of sari silk on the stove just wasn't my cuppa. So I tied each hank multiple times and laid them in a single layer on the top rack of my dishwasher. I did NOT add any detergent...bleach and silk don't like each other very much. I let it go through a complete wash cycle then opened the door and let them cool in their own time. I did NOT let the drying cycle run. BTW the wine bottles (empty) are laying on top of the silk to hold the silk in place. I really had no clue what would happen, and considering all the high power spraying that goes on during a normal wash cycle, I was fearful of a opening the door to a huge tangled mess. As it was there weren't many problems. I would like to caution anyone that might be trying this on their own (is there really anyone else out there that would do this?!?) to be very mindful of where those spinning arms may be in your dishwasher! As carefully as I tied the hanks off and as mindful of their placement on the rack I was, there were some pieces that hung down a bit after they got wet. I shudder to thing what would have happened if one of the threads got wrapped around a spinning water-sprayer-thing. Now I have 18 scrumptiously soft silk hanks and I don't have to worry about them bleeding. I did use some of it already and made an E.Z. mobious vest but that was a mistake. All I can say about that was I got carried away in moment. The silk took several days to dry and I was just itching to make something the second I could use the stuff. The intelligence of the design is completely lost when you use recycled sari silk for that pattern, don't do it!!! For those wondering....yes there was a very slight pinkish color in some areas of my dishwasher, not a problem though. After I removed the hanks I ran an empty dishwasher through another wash cycle with detergent...no more pink!