



I USED to get and see comments to my posts. Now I don’t. I want this website to be interactive…not just what I post!!!!
So……how do I enable ‘comments’ on this my WordPress-generated website?
I swear that trying to figure out how to use social media is at least a part time job…time that I just don’t have right now.
If someone can help me (you can’t leave your suggestion in comments–hah!), please email me at: k.bovard@yahoo.om
This is the red thread color-bleed that I encountered while trying to block my solid apple design. Since this was one of 5 different designs in my ‘Spokane Beauty Apple‘ series, I was concerned about what would happen when I blocked other designs in which an area of white tatting was incorporated into a design with areas of red thread (as seen in the second photo).
Color-bleeding happens when fibers get wet and dye leaches out into the water.
In general, there are several reasons why color-bleed can happen:
Red dyes in general are not more prone to bleeding than similar dyes of other colors. The problem is that red-dyed fibers are often dyed with a kind of dye called ‘direct dye’. Direct dye, whatever its color, tends to bleed in every wash, unless the fibers have been treated with a special cationic dye fixative. Using only cool water for washing will help, because higher temperatures decrease the ability of direct dye to remain associated with fabric. Avoid direct dye, as well as all-purpose dye, which contains direct dye. Instead, use a fiber reactive dye.
For us as tatters, the why of color-bleed is really of no concern–the damage to the thread is done. The issue is how can we control the color-bleeding? How do we avoid color bleed from one area of a tatted piece into a different color region? (eg. My apple examples above.)
One of the ‘OTHER’ lace types that I study/teach/make is Teneriffe Lace. Another name for this lace type is Sol Lace. Sol is the Spanish word for ‘sun’. This is a good descriptive name because many of the traditional motifs are round & have radiating threads (warp threads) upon which a design is stitched with a needle. Thus it is a form of ‘needlelace’. To create the lace the warp threads are laid down in a overlapping, radiating fashion on some form of a ‘loom’. There are many forms of looms. In my Teneriffe Lace classes, we use a plastic canvas shape which is cheap and (usually) readily available (Hobby Lobby, Walmart). There are many different antique looms from the past. Some looms are more cumbersome to use because they entail having to use a needle to manipulate many (think several) yards of thread in dozens of maneuvers to lay down the warp threads, all the while hoping that you have enough thread cut from the ball to work continuously.
The loom that The ShuttleSmith is recreating is a unique loom in that the warp thread can be laid down continuously from the ball of thread source. This makes the warping step fast. Another benefit of this loom is that it is reusable. It is used by Brazilian lacemakers today. I found reference to this style of loom in an antique German publication/book.
So I tried to recreate this style of loom in plastic for myself by using a 3-D printer. I called upon my newly-graduated son (in mechanical engineering) to create ‘CAD’ programs for several sizes of Teneriffe Lace looms to my specifications. The following photos show my teneriffe loom design being 3-D printed for the first time at my local library. Most libraries today have a ‘maker space’ of some form, many with 3-D printers. I paid a nominal fee to have my prototype loom printed. It did take about an hour to print but was fascinating to watch.
I just thought I would share some thread antique thread cabinets that I found in an antique store in my hometown of Wisner, Nebraska (population ca. 1200 people). The local antique dealer has a great gig going on because many of the locals (mostly farmers) let him go into their homes and barns to ‘pick’ (think ‘cherry-pick’) their antiques. My own family is one of them that ‘invited’ him into our lives to rid of us of our ‘junk’ that he turns into ‘antiques’.
I was passing through town recently to or from visiting my family/parents and stopped in to find these beauties. I haven’t bought one yet. I’m still waiting for the perfect one from a thread company that I know and love.
I have been taking inventory of my thread stash & have a bunch of patterns ready, HOPING that I will get quarantined! However, it is just wishful thinking that I would get two weeks to tat. I work full-time in healthcare and in healthcare it’s like “…we ride at dawn, bitches!”. There is no ‘working from home’, at least not for those of us actively providing technical services. I am the lead of two clinical (think diagnostic) specialized laboratories at the Nebraska Medical Center. My main, active job is as an Electron Microscopy Technologist working with human kidney & muscle specimens with the end goal to get to the proper disease diagnosis which then leads to the proper treatment for the patient.
Check out this website in which the author has several articles under the title of ‘Adventures in Time & Lace‘ that highlight various artists and artworks that are formed by lace. LACE as ART! Yes!
https://www.mrxstitch.com/category/3d-textiles/lace/
Yes, this is the type of content that I had wanted to write about. But Mr. X has done such a great job that I am merely going to point everyone to ‘his’ site. Do check it out.
I found a reference to a Polish dish called Fuczki–a sauerkraut dumpling that I have never seen before. Since I like sauerkraut (dad is German, mother is Czech) I googled it looking for a recipe. Then I found myself on a website called Culture.pl in which I was reading about the foods of 10 regions of Poland. At the bottom on the page was a link to “How Polish Women Reclaimed Folk Art by Giving it an Urban Twist” which I followed. The first part of the article was about folk painting. The part I found extremely interesting was towards the bottom of the article under the subtitle of ‘Illegal City Decor’. It included images of buildings in which a lace pattern was painted on. Many of you will recognize this style of lace art as seen on the internet before. But now I have an artist’s name: ‘NeSpoon’ and I learned that according to this Polish site that her work is considered ‘Illegal City Decor’….what we call graffiti. I shall have to do more research on this ‘artist’!!!
https://culture.pl/en/article/how-polish-women-reclaimed-folk-art-by-giving-it-an-urban-twist