Tuesday, September 30, 2008

I've Been Busy

It's true what the title says. I have been busy! And have been loving it! Here's what I've been doing:


Worked further on the commercial silkscreen assignment. Went back into both of them. Actually, I did again on Monday, but I don't have those pictures yet. Sorry!


I loved this one at this point. Then, I did another layer of a medium brown on top, and it's too much... I'll have to do it again! Actually, my teacher, Sue, thinks I should do a series of these panels. I love working with this fabric and this color range, so that'll be fun!



This yellow is 95% rayon knit fabric. It's gorgeous. I love the oatmeal and purple on there! Except the purple turned out more reddish since it wasn't a very opaque ink.

First few rows of my second woven scarf! Hooray! The warp is a cream 2-ply linen/cotton/rayon blend and the weft is 100% rayon single ply. Love it!

I went to Joann today with my friends Laura and I got lots more of the 100% rayon fabric. I think I'm going to print more scarves and put a few on Etsy. Any suggestions anyone?




For my Fiber major class, I'm working with the idea of a militia or guerilla activist group. To get me started, I'm making a bunch of fabric seed packets. I chose a white 100% linen fabric. It's beautiful. These photos don't do it justice. It's translucent, but it has a weight in your hands. I think the seeds look beautiful in it too! I'm going to be printing (inkjet or silkscreen or both) on them like on a paper packet. Much simpler, since it is fabric and my design options are more limited. I'm excited. This is my first prototype and I loved making it. It's handsewn. Love.




Thanks for stopping by! I love hearing from you all. My blog and Flickr have really turned into support groups for me and I am so motivated this semester. Thanks!!!

Brittany

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Friday, September 26, 2008

I Won I Won!!!

Oh my gosh. I just won another blog contest. Beware friends, I'm taking over!!! It's from one of my favorites: Broadway Paper. I won a card that says "Work Blows" and has a blowfish on the cover. I told Tracie about Eric's mom, who's worked at the same place since she was 19 and has a jerk boss. Tracie picked me so I could give the card to her!!! She's going to absolutely love it. She has a really great sense of humor. I can't wait to see her face :)



I finished my scarf today! I'm really excited. I didn't get a chance to take pictures of the whole thing off the loom (as soon as I got home, Eric and I saw Kung Fu Panda at the Penn Theatre in Plymouth), but I will take some tomorrow :) I have some here and on Flickr of it still on the loom. I'm really happy with my colors and my striping. I also worked purely intuitively on this one. I really enjoy that way of working. The only thing is... I think I wove it too tightly. I picked a 15 dent reed (for thinner thread) because my warp is pretty thin. But, I wove with Lamb's Pride worsted weight, which is thicker. So.... the Lamb's Pride doesn't feel all fluffy and soft like it should. I'm hoping it'll soften when I wash it? Crosses fingers.


Actually.... I'm feeling way too tired to edit and upload my pictures... I will tomorrow after work. Expect to see them around noon. I'm sorry!!

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Thursday 9.25

Thursday. I was very tired today. Very tired. I made progress on my Major Studio project (involves guerilla activities, tell you more when I have it figured out a bit more), then had a pretty good time in my Fairy Tale class. But was very tired all day. I got home and saw Eric for about 40 minutes, then my friend Meaghan came over and we watched Evil Dead II. Crazy movie. I'm so tired.




Weaving tomorrow. I can't tell you how excited I am.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Sarah Palin

My mommy forwarded this to me. She got it from one of her friends. I'm passing it on to my friends.



Eve Ensler, the American feminist and playwright, (author of The Vagina Monologues) wrote the following about Sarah Palin:

Drill, Drill, Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?.

color color color


These are the colors I've chosen for my scarf. I love them! I still haven't figured out my striping sequence though. The yellow will have the least amount in the scarf. For little surprise accents!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

More Printing II

So, here are the pictures I promised you:






I'm now wearing all of my fabric as scarves. This one's pretty comfy.

A Few Inspiring Articles

I get the NY Times headlines sent to my email every morning. Sometimes I open it, sometimes I don't. Today I did. And found a couple articles that actually made me happy. Imagine that. Happiness in the news. Here they are, I also grabbed a few flickr photos. Links to them on the bottom.




Monday, September 22, 2008

More Printing!

I silkscreened some more fabric with the text and octopus thing images today. We had to use commercially patterned fabric. I found some cool linen-blend fabric that's loosely woven and stretchy. It's really weird fabric, but nice and interesting. Both pieces are oatmeal colored and one has dark brown stripes on it. I'll take some pictures tomorrow, since it's too dark right now. Just was excited and wanted to share.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Last Post for the Day... I Promise






New silkscreen.

Second Weaving: Scarf for me!

These are my warp colors. So soothing.

Thursday 9.18

Over lunch, I had to brainstorm for my class, so Eric and I went to my favorite place to relax in Detroit: The DIA's Kresge Court. It's the actual courtyard of a French castle that was moved and built into the DIA. I love it. There's a big glass ceiling and the clouds were moving by really quickly. Beautiful.

My Energy skirt is in the hallway for a crafts show! I should wear it when it comes down.

Thursday night, I went over the Chelsea's for a while. I love seeing her and it doesn't happen enough. Grace was sleepy but had an energy spurt when I got there. I showed her how to feel the texture of my weaving. She used this newly acquired skill to 1.) pet her baby and 2.) crinkle the leaves I wove into it and then laugh like it was funniest thing in the world! She also is getting better at coloring now. She loves it. She just went over there on her own and sat down and colored. Chelsea says she's a very serious artist.

All in all, I had a pretty great Thursday! Sorry I didn't post this earlier, but I really wanted to show you my pictures and talk about it :)

Friday, September 19, 2008

Good Morning








P.S. Barnaby Carnegie was back tonight.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Barnaby Carnegie


So. There's a kitty hanging out around our apartment. We met him a few days ago and he likes us. We're pretty sure he's a stray. The only thing is, his tail was injured and when we met him, it was bandaged. So, is he a stray? He was outside in the heavy rain on Sunday and last night when it was cold out, so that's why we think he doesn't have a home. Some other people in my building left some milk out for him tonight, which he didn't seem to like. Which is probably good, since it might make him sick. We just put some of Arty's food out and he scarfed it up! I've named him Barnaby Carnegie. Our new friend.

Tactile Feast

This is my favorite section. Delicious thick and thin color grown organic cotton.






I worked purely as I went, not planning anything after I put the warp onto the loom. I enjoyed it much. Changing color/fiber as I felt like it. Great!

Sunday, September 14, 2008

I Heart Weaving!

When I get home from work at around 11 tonight, I'll post some pictures of my finished weaving! Hooray!

Friday, September 5, 2008

Warp Mill . Beam . Heddle . Pedal

I learned how to set up a loom today! And started weaving. I love it. The whole process is perfect to me. It's very methodical and particular. Kind of like knitting. A lot of repetition. Lots of it. Our first piece is a sampler, so I'm trying all different weaves and a few different kinds of yarns.

Also, she wants us to experiment with non-traditional materials. As one might guess, I plan on weaving in some natural materials. I collected some black walnut leaf twigs today! They're beautiful. I put them in a little short vase and they look great against my blue wall. I think I'll just collect more for my weaving and keep these ones! I also want to try grass, branches with leaves on them still, newspaper and some other stuff.


My loom. It faces out the window.

The heddles have been threaded. One strand at a time. For all 120 strands of yarn.

My weaving! It's only somewhere around 2 inches, but it was fun. We spend all class setting up. It's a 6 hour class. I finished setting up and weaving this after class ended at 4.

My weaving close up. The paper towels are used to get rid of the separation between groups of yarn that were tied on together. See how it spreads out after a while?

Lovely. This yarn is rayon. The fabric will be so nice.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Birthday . School . Inspiration

I got a haircut. My friend Laura cut it! She is a senior at the Aveda Institute in Ann Arbor. It was fun, I got a good cut, got to hang out with my friend and it was only $16!

My sister Erika's birthday was this past weekend. We spend the weekend at my family's cottage, which was so nice. As a placeholder gift (the one I'm making isn't done yet), we got her some crazy candy. Pet rat, pet tarantula, etc... Yeah, they're full of bad stuff. It was fun though!

....................................

Well, it's back to school time. I had my first day of class today! My major studio class will be an independent study, but the class is grounded around the idea of the story and storytelling. Which is great because after that I have an english class about the Fairy Tale! I already have an inkling of my final project for that class. We have to write our own fairy tale and "illustrate" it with any medium. I'll put out my ideas as they become more concrete. Basically, I'm thinking fabric book with embroidery and beading as illustration (stories are about embellishment) and a fairy tale that includes animal characters and is about environmental or animal issues somehow. Poaching? Human-caused exctinction? Global warming? Hmmm... We'll see.

I'm excited.

Tomorrow, I have weaving. Oh, am I happy about that!

Also, Eric and I are going to the Plymouth Fall carnival tomorrow! Yay!

The Scary State Fair

I went to the Michigan State Fair last Friday. I only went for the animals (Eric hates carnival rides) and wasn't too disappointed. The fair itself is in a really bad part of Detroit and is so very depressing to go to and leave from. Unfortunately, my camera died before we got to the Miracle of Life barn. There were baby sheep, piglets (two hours old!) and baby quails, chickens and ducks. How cute! I also couldn't get any pictures of the bunnies or chickens or doves. They were pretty outrageous!


This guy was doing a show and these two kids were so cute! Earlier in the show, he stuck the piglet up the boy's shirt! Ha!

I liked this pig. She was pretty cool. Look at her eyes. You know, pigs are pretty intelligent.

The horses were all getting groomed and dressed up for their competitions. Did you know they spray-paint their hooves black? Ew.

The winning Clydesdale horse pair. That is the derby queen. She was given to the winner and got to ride out of the coliseum with him and wave her hand. Pageant style. I laughed.

So many cows!!! I don't really like this kind...

Wall o' wool!