Woven Shibori

I've had Catherine Ellis' book "Woven Shibori" for quite a while now, but I'm just getting around to giving it a bit of a whirl:

My first attempt, on the loom, a simple four shaft monk's belt pattern in 20/2 silk and a tencel pattern thread, just so I can get the hang of the dying process, see how it works. Once it is off the loom, the idea is to pull the purple threads really right to create pleats so the dye won't penetrate to the folded areas.

I did experiment with a blank t-shirt and some nui (stitched) shibori, though! Dyed it chartreuse first, and then did a second dye bath with a deeper loden green after stitching just a simple pattern across the shirt. And it worked! I'm ticked! (And just so easily amused, lol).

With all this playing with dye going on, Bella thought it would be fun to paint a shirt for herself. So, I gave her some textile paints and away she went! It's a field of flowers and a sunset, with a little reflection of the sun in the pond on the right, she says. And the field got a little dug up, hence the brown. She's all about the process when she paints, it's interesting... Half the time she'll make a really intricate picture and then paint right over it.

I think regardless how the woven shibori comes out, I'll definitely be doing more stitched shibori. All sorts of ideas floating around in my head - lots of fun!

We're off to Stowe, Vermont, for a long ski weekend, leaving tomorrow evening! Bella will be skiing on her 5th birthday, how fun!

25 Random Things About Me Meme

So, lovely Ms. Shannon of Sunrise Lodge Fiber Studio tagged me with this meme - and I'm actually going to do it for once! It's harder than I thought it would be to come up with 25 random things. :)

1. I didn't learn to ski until I was about 24. And I didn't learn to snowboard until I was 31!

2. I've been weaving for almost 8 years... (is that really random? probably not, oh well!)

3. I didn't drink coffee until I was in law school. Carlos got me addicted to espresso, evil man.

4. Carlos and I lived in Texas for five years. Talk about a fish out of water!

5. I lived in Mexico City for six weeks one summer.

6. I love to cook. And bake bread

7. I don't have a favorite color. Apparently, I'm hopelessly indecisive.

8. My laptop is purple. :) So is my mouse.

9. In no particular order, I absolutely loved visiting London, Madrid, Florence, Avignon, Edinburgh, Bath, Munich, Sienna and Rome. But Paris is at the top of my "absolutely MUST return" list. Followed by Barcelona, and then Venice.

10. In the summer, I grow tomatoes and zucchini in my front yard.

11. I REALLY need a haircut.

12. I loathe clothes shopping. Booooring. Unless it's for the kids or shoes. Then it's fun!

13. We have two adopted kitty cats. Meow.

14. I drove through Yellowstone Park in 1988 when the forest fires were raging.

15. I'm a complete nerd.

16. I have really big feet.

17. I always wanted red hair to go with my freckles and fair skin and green eyes. Bella got the gorgeous hair! :)

18. I have four older brothers, 3 nephews, 6 nieces, 2 great-nephews, 1 great-niece and another great niece or nephew on the way (hello to pregnant niece Timothea in England!). I was a great-aunt before I had kids of my own!

19. My snowboard cost more than my wedding gown. (Carlos thinks I shouldn't tell people this, but I find it quite funny and very fitting.)

20. We closed on our house on my 35th birthday. Some present!

21. I learned to knit while driving across the country during college (see #14).

22. I play piano. Badly. I also play flute. Well. :)

23. I read voraciously. (And I really do talk like that. Gah.)

24. I love Dwell magazine.

25. I'm trying to think of something else that's just about me. I keep wanting to talk about the kids or Carlos! Oh. Got one. I was a cheerleader in high school. Yikes.

OK, I'm off to tag my niece Timothea! :) I probably can't find 25 people to tag that haven't already been tagged, so I'm not even going to try... Though if you comment here, I'll tag you! :)

Waaaaay Behind

Gah. So much, once again, for doing it all. I haven't posted in ages. I haven't visited other people's blogs in ages, either! Thank you so much to everybody who's been commenting on my blog regardless of my lameness, I promise I will make the rounds soon to catch up with everybody.

I don't even really have much of an excuse for it - the legal work has been on hold for a little while, so it's just life as normal around here. Sold a couple of scarves at Open Studios last week, that's always nice. I've also been experimenting with these little guys:

Little fibery beads! They're about an inch long, woven with 20/2 silk and that yummy Dragon Tale's variegated rayon. Making them stick has been a challenge, but I think I have it figured out. Though my brain might just be addled from the glue fumes, I'm not sure.

Purple ones, too!

And a bracelet that I made - one of my first attempts at actually making jewelry. I'm terrible. LOL. But I can completely see why people get addicted to it, it's so much fun!

I'm also conducting a little experiment... With the new-ish batch uploading at Etsy, views are a bit slower in coming. So I listed the berry colored beads on both Etsy and Artfire at approximately the same time, I'm curious to see where I get more views! (My money is still on Etsy, but this will be interesting.) I'm terrible about promoting, so we'll see.

OK, off to get some weaving done. Or maybe some cleaning. My house is a complete wreck, as usual... Time to print out my Fly Lady - inspired cleaning task list and get to it!

City and Skiing

I'm way behind on posting, so these pictures are actually about *last* weekend! This is where my weekend started...

Just off the T (subway) at Park Street, the Boston Common is to the left, the Freedom Trail is right under my feet, and that's the Massachusetts State House and Beacon Hill straight ahead.




View across Boston Common towards Back Bay.

View looking out over the Financial District of Boston. Back when I was a full time lawyer, I worked in that smaller-ish skyscraper in the middle (with the pyramid shaped top) - back when I bought my first loom, actually, and taught myself to weave.


Ms. B on Sunday, a very different sort of day. I forget how little she is sometimes, pictures like this remind me she's still only 4!

Bella and Conall.


Yup, the bunny slope is officially way to easy for her. (She slalomed those little green whiskers without even thinking about it.) Think we'll be hitting the chair lift tomorrow!


See you on the slopes!

Busy Week - And a Return to the Dark Side?

Phew, crazy week, or so it feels, though I'm not quite sure why. I had a birthday (we won't talk about how old I am), managed to take some pictures of some scarves this morning (and have several more waiting to be photographed):


(Mixed twill scarf, using Dragon Tales scrumptious variegated yarn, sett at 24 epi, IIRC). I just got it listed in my Etsy shop.

And I delivered two custom scarves, including this one:


for my friend Bob, a fellow artist on the fourth floor at WAS. It's 50% cashmere, 50% bamboo with a hem-stitched fringe and it's a scarflette, not full size. I loved weaving this piece! (Still loving working with that cashmere!) More to come from this warp...

Bob is a silver smith - and his jewelry is *gorgeous* - and he repairs handmade flutes, too! A weird little bit of coincidence, there, because I was a very serious flutist when I was younger, and my teacher repaired flutes, too. I even got to play one of James Galway's flutes when my teacher was repairing it. Amazing instrument. I won't comment on Galway's tonal quality. (It sucks.) (Apparently, I couldn't help myself, lol.)

And I also spent Saturday and Sunday in Boston! On the 33rd floor at One Beacon Street, right next to the Common and State House. The views are *amazing* I cannot believe I forgot my camera both days, oy. I love the city, and it was really fun to be in there again. To work.

Uh-oh. That's the Return to the Dark Side part. A former colleague of mine (yes, lawyer) is working on a case involving a *huge* amount of document production - which means the documents need to be reviewed (for relevancy and privilege), which means he needed lots of help... I actually never mind this kind of work - document review, drafting motions, etc. - it was the arguing with opposing council that I loathed (and which you do a lot more of as you get more senior). So, I'm hoping to get in 30 -40 hours on this case, we'll see how it goes, discovery can be a bit of a moving target as the parties involved negotiate what to produce. But, if I do get in about that much - hey, that's studio rent for the rest of the year + some yarn, too! (Or a ski trip!) I'm heading in again this evening for four hours or so...

Winter Weekend in Chelmsford

It snowed again this weekend, and I took a walk to do a little grocery shopping (we were out of coffee, a huge tragedy in our house)...

Side street near our house.

Fishbones! Love this restaurant in the middle of Chelmsford.

One of the older buildings in town (1726-ish, IIRC) - it's offices for lawyers now.


Episcopal church a couple doors down from our house - I could hear the organ playing during the morning service as I walked by, very nice.

Our cozy little house. (Love my buddlea on the right of the frame. Very worried about the crab-apple tree in our front yard, it was very unhappy this year!)

Bella and I making the most of our little yard by cross-country skiing all around it (and into the front yard, too, our neighbors are probably thinking - there they go again, crazy people!). With all the new snow, we didn't make it up to Pat's to ski this weekend, so it was good to get Bella out on her little cross-country skis - and she had a blast!

Me, being goofy. I love winter!

That's all, nothing newsworthy, just a nice winter weekend in New England...

Front Page! Whoop!

Wow, it's been a while since I've been on Etsy's front page, so I'm pretty tickled...

There's my green Ms and Os scarf in the third row - that thing has been featured *everywhere*!

Thank you to awesome Etsy seller ChelseaEBird for creating this treasury. Isn't her work gorgeous? I am in awe of silver smiths. And I really like this piece:


(Click on the photo to go right to the listing in her Etsy shop.)

My featured scarf didn't sell, but I did sell a different scarf:

It will be making it's way to its new home in Canada tomorrow! (Post office is closed today - and Priority Mail will get a rate hike as of tomorrow - and I haven't changed my shipping rates yet, whoopsie, think I'll go do that right now...)