Elemental Eggs

Confession: I'm a total nerd. One of my favorite shows is Avatar: the Last Airbender. I'm also into resist dyeing. So egg dyeing this year got a bit...creative ;)

Recently, I've seen several tutorials on making masking tape stencils. that artist woman has a good tutorial, though I tend to sketch directly onto the wax paper and then put my tape on top of it. However, with my method, you have to be very careful about mirroring (you'll see why in a second). I never thought about using masking tape on eggs because I usually dye by soaking or boiling them. Then I saw Melissa's post on No. 2 Pencil about making super bright (though not water-fast) eggs by rolling them in vinegar, then pouring on food coloring. It sounded like a great technique to try with the masking tape, and if they didn't turn out perfect, then I could still eat them!

Wet eggs with tape on

Unfortunately, I accidentally put the tape on the wrong side of the wax paper, so the designs are reversed. Impossible to tell with the Earth Kingdom coin, and it's not very noticeable with the Air Nomad swirls or Fire Nation flame, but the poor Water Tribe wave and moon...

The wrinkles in the tape made for a cool batik look, in my opinion. Though if you want crisp lines, I recommend a resist that can be painted on or using very small pieces of tape.

I also recommend wearing gloves!

The dye took a few days to scrub off completely...

All in all, a delicious, nerdy, artistic project using local, free-range, cage-free eggs!

Passive Solar Fabric Dyeing

Passive Solar Dyeing

The weather this week has been very unusual for the Midwest. It's barely gone below 90° F at night, and, with humidity, the highs have been greater than 101° F (32° C and 38° C, respectively). I decided to capture some of this free energy by dyeing linen thread using passive solar heat. Like a slightly toxic, colorful version of sun tea, if you will.

The dark blue enamel makes it hard to tell that the dye is wine red.

The setup is very simple. You just need direct sunlight, a dye container, and a clear or dark colored cover. Anything you will never use for food in the future and don't mind being stained will work as a dye pot, and a piece of glass, clear plastic, or even trash bags will work as the cover. I used my trusty enameled dye pot and a clear bin I had lying around.

Capture the summer heat to dye yarn or fabric.

I wound my linen thread into a skein and loosely tied it with some blue warp scraps. Then I plopped the skein in the premixed Rit dye and put the cover on top to concentrate the sunlight and to keep mosquitoes and thirsty critters out. I left the skein in the dye bath all day and overnight, moving it to keep it in direct sunlight, and stirring every few hours.

Here's what it looked like after rinsing.

Not a perfect coverage, but good enough for the project I have in mind. Dyeing it outside definitely helped me keep the inside of my house cool! Next time I'll pre-soak the skein, tie it looser, and stir it more often and see if that helps get the color more even.

Quite a successful experiment in saving energy and making the killer heat useful!

Extreme Spinning: Alien Seed Pod Thread

A while back, I received a mysterious package from my good friend Katie the Ninja (visit her blog Okra of Doom for daring adventures of the gardening kind). The phrase, “Hana, you will never guess what's in this,” adorned the outside.

The mysterious package and contents, along with my trusty Navajo spindle.

 

She was right! Inside was a letter, a comic, and a large ball of fluffy softness. It was like the essence of smooth silk and fluffy kittens. You can almost imagine it purring. Which is why I was slightly alarmed when I read her letter and discovered that the fluff had been extricated from a alien seed pod found growing on a tree in California. The tree has gray bark with green veins and thick, bendy limbs. Any information on it, oh internet wanderer, would be appreciated.

The discovery of the alien seed pod fluff, by Katie.

The fibers of this fluff are quite short. I don't know if I can spin this....

 

However, despite my reservations (what if aliens show up demanding their seed pod padding back?) she had sent it to me to see if the fluff could be spun, and I rose to the challenge.

My trusty spindle ready for action.

Quick hand twisted roving. I may need to borrow the neighbor's wool combs...

It attaches easily to the leader thread, a good sign.

And we have thread! Alien thread...

And it could! It can be spun!

Happy Birthday, Katie!

Easy DIY Light Box for $15 or Less

or How to Build Your Own Tracing Table in Seven Easy Steps!

Step 1: Want to own a light box (also know as a tracing table and not to be confused with a soft box).

Step 2: Realize that light boxes cost anywhere from $50 to $200. If you can afford it, skip the rest of the steps and go buy a light box.

Step 3: Decide to build your own. If you have wood or metal working tools, experience (or the courage) with working with wiring, and perhaps some soldering skills, find a good tutorial on the web and go build your own. It will probably cost more than $15 but hopefully less than $200.

Step 4: Hunt in thrift stores until you find a glass topped table. It will probably be around $10.

Step 5: Aim a lamp so that the light shines through the glass towards your eyes. A desk lamp with a bendy neck works best. You may already have one on your desk! If not, hunt one up in a thrift store for $5.

Step 6: Optional. In order to not shine a bright light directly into your eyes, you may want to frost the glass using a special spray paint or use etching paste. Warning: both are toxic and the etching paste can seriously burn you. Follow all safety instructions. You can also glue or tape vellum (pricey), tracing paper (somewhat pricey), or parchment/baking paper (cheap and in every grocery store) t 0o the side of the glass you are not tracing on. If you want to be very frugal, just make sure you keep what you are tracing directly over the light.

Step 7: Trace to your heart's content!


Important Safety Information and Disclaimer (aka Use Your Common Sense):

The table you purchase may not be at optimal drawing height. Either raise the table so that it is or take frequent breaks (around every 15 to 30 minutes). Repetitive motion injuries are no joke, long lasting, and quite painful. Also, the table you buy will probably be topped with glass. Use common sense and don't put excessive pressure on it or play slap down card games. Follow this tutorial at your own risk!

Winter Picnic: Plarn Placemats

Today there was snow! And I finished my plarn placemats (which are up for sale on Etsy). These combined in an awesome winter photoshoot. Not that I'm a professional photographer by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm trying to use natural lighting and color theory. Thank you, Pink Lady Apples, for being both colorful and delicious.

Technical information:
Plain weave
Warp: Royal Blue Cotton Rug Warp
Weft: white plarn ("yarn" made from plastic bags)
Pics per inch: 10 ppi for the 1' blue warp stripes; 5 ppi for the middle
Size: 12.5" x 17 " (18" including fringe)
Number: 4 placemats
Each end has a half inch solid cotton header and footer.
Finished by knotting the ends to make the fringe.
Loom: Kromski Harp Rigid Heddle loom (30 " wide)

(In plain English,  the skinny blue threads are the warp, or what goes on the loom first. The weft is the thicker white yarn and is added while weaving. PPI means how many warp threads there are per inch.)

Lessons learned:

•  Leave more warp free for fringe than two inches. Two inches is really hard to knot.
• For plarn, 10 ppi would be good for emphasizing the warp but can look messy when the knots in the plarn disrupt the pattern. 5 ppi is perfect: flexible enough to shrug off the knots.
• I miss the beater on harness looms, but I had a wide toothed comb that I beat trouble spots with, and it worked out.
• Might make the header and footer only 1/4" next time. The cotton weft takes a lot longer to weave with than plarn.