There Are Angels

There Are Angels
Colored Pencil Drawing

Monday, May 24, 2010

Painted Yarns



Here are two balls of hand painted yarn. yes, I painted them myself. The process was simple. I first unwound the balls of store bought, cotton yarn onto a skein winder, then I tied the skeins so they wouldn't come tangled. I dunked them in plain water, applied the textile paint & allowed it to sit for a while so the yarn would absorb the paint. Then, I laid them out in the sun to dry. Once dry I zapped the yarns in the microwave for 3 minutes each. Next, I rewound the skeins back into balls. The longest part was waiting for the yarn to dry. It takes a hot sunny day for best results. The paints make the yarns a bit stiffer than dyes do because the paint sits on top of the fibers instead of becoming part of the fiber like dye would. I found a source for natural, plain yarns to dye or paint. I'll probably do this again.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

A Shawl


Aside from some practice pieces, this is my first official woven project. It's a 24" wide shawl in wool yarn. Its about 5 foot long. It should have been a little longer, the target length was 6 foot. I'm still working on getting the right length to things. But, it does go around the shoulders nicely.
The photo below shows the detail. It uses a pick up stick design of 2 up & 2 down. It was fairly simple to accomplish & took about 4-6 hours to weave.

More to come, Stay tuned . . .