It's That Time Again--HLSR

Yes, it's time for Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo!  For three weeks we will be donning our cowboy hats, slipping on our Levis and boots to skoot ourselves to the world's largest rodeo event.  During that period of three weeks, Contemporary Handweavers of Houston members will be on the grounds demonstrating.  My first stop of the day is Cowboy Church, held in Reliant Center, upstairs.  It's always an inspiring way to begin the day and week.  As I walk across the upstairs to hall A, which is seems miles away, you miss alot of the crowds on the lower level plus you see some of the 4H events taking place.  This Sunday it was Horticulture so I snapped a few photos of the table settings as the kids prepared to be judged. 



Natural Dye Day

It's DYE (yes, D-Y-E, not DIE) Day! We have looked forward to this day for some time. Our last dye day was six and half years ago. All the planets aligned just right for this February dyeing day--perfect weather, perfect time to pull some great colors from the dye pots.  Since my days as education curator on Louisiana plantation, I have loved to do natural dyes.  The plantation had indigo has their cash crop so I did lots of indigo dyeing, but along the way we did other natural dyes-- with natural dyes, you have somewhat of an idea what color you will pull, but there are variables--water, temperature, dye matter content, amount of material placed in dye bath, etc.

Sharla is preparing her skeins.  We had plenty of information at our finger tips and skeins of yarn (protein and cellulose fiber content).  Most everyone had wetted out their yarns before they arrived, which made the process less time consuming.  The first decision the participants needed to make was--how many skeins did you want to be mordanted.  Some natural dyes do not need a Mordants.  For our mordant we are using alum.

Scharine has her pole wrapped silk scarf in the madder  bath. 

This pot had brazilwood, which does not require a mordant.  You can mordant, which will give you a different color

A closer look at Scharine's pole wrapped silk scarf.  She wrapped tightly and then scrunched the silk down.

Here is Lisa and Scharine working around the Cochineal bath.  This was a popular dye pot!  Lots of lovely colors coming from this one little insect bath.

Barbara is working with another one of the pots to keep the temps down, just simmering, no boiling

We had several yellows from these baths--goldenrod, peach leaves, Osage orange, onion skins.  This pot has a strong bath of onion skins.

Just some of the sampling of colors that we pulled from the pots.

Kyla was overdyeing some of her fabrics along with her yarn

yes, we had an indigo pot!!  never can do dyeing without an indigo pot--love the blues but some overdyeing will get you purples and greens

The clothes line was filled with gorgeous colors!

Love these greens--yellow overdyed with indigo. 

A better view of natural dyes floating in the breeze

Great blues--even on silk and cotton shirts.

Another dye bath

Cochineal

Annatto seeds gave us some great oranges and golden colors

Lichen if you've got the right one, you'll get some purples and lavender colors

Indigo on cotton cloth

We had sandalwood, logwood, henna as well

I liked this shot with cochineal dyed scarf to the right, along with other colors

Gerry had a super color arrangement for her tapestry weavings

Barbara pulled these soft shades of yellow from the peach leaves dye bath.  Barbara supplied us with the peach leaves in the fall, which I boiled up and saved the dye bath (freezer is a good source to keep)  Think the family is glad all those dye baths are out of the freezer!

Here's the gang (photo courtesy of Barbara) --Marian, Barbara, Sharla, Gerry, Scharine, Lisa, Kyla--great troopers when it came to natural dyeing

A rigid heddle loom even made an appearance!  We are off to a good start for 2013,  Everyone had such a good time--they want to have another dye day next year.  Can I show you my hands??  I can never wear gloves, so I have multi colored hands and finger nails--okay, guess there will be some dishwashing in my future!

Hurrah! Meeting with Weavers/Spinners!

We are meeting with weavers/spinners FINALLY! We didn't have a meeting in January or early in February as regularly scheduled, so it was nice to have a call to a meeting, even if it is late in the month......................meeting with these gals is a good thing!

We look forward to sharing and showing, especially since we had seen each other since December.  This was Susan who was spinning this Icelandic wool.

She had chosen to knit her first accomplishment into this lovely shawl.

Penny presented her handspun  'bits and pieces' skeins, which she calls "artsy" yarns!  Lots of sparkle and glitz! 

Here is another one of Penny's skeins--super fun and funky!

Here is a knitted scarf that Penny produced with one of those fun skeins of handspun.

Why the camera doesn't like red?!!  anyway, cool shot up close.

Penny also had this lovely handwoven towel to present--it's cottonlin yarn set at 20 epi--just a nice soft feel. 

She also had this handwoven scarf--I especially liked the edge treatment.

Scharine had taken John Marshall workshop that was held in Houston recently and she brought her samples (we can't call them 'samples'!!)

Up close and personal

Another sample that Scharine produced--outstanding is all I can say!

Hemp fabric with indigo dye

This is Japanese bag pattern that Scharine uses to carry her 'goodies'!

Dottie, our hostess, showed off her 2012 Christmas cards--clever, clever!  Our WSW group had ikat study project through 2012 and Dottie was one of those who had finished her project.

Here is a photo of the yardage that Dottie used to make her ornaments for her cards--nice ikat patterning; just doesn't show up in the ornaments. 
I don't have a photo of Pat, but she presented her new Knee!  We are all thrilled that she is up and moving around so good only a month after surgery--way to go PAT!