Meet Curly!

Yes, I'm naming everything. I think it's important, that you name the things you create. It says that you value them, that you think what you're doing is important. In fact, I always wonder about art that's labeled "Untitled." It makes me think the person who created it didn't really have anything invested in it. That's OK: for them, it could be just about the process, rather than the finished work. For me, the stuff I make is about the process of making stuff, too. But it also means something to me--I get attached to it, somewhere during the time I'm working on it. If I don't, then there's no point finishing it: if I don't care anything about it, it's just an exercise, and I could be spending my time doing something else.

So I'm naming stuff. I've always named stuff: cars, computers, imaginary friends, and now I'm making an effort to name everything I work on. If I don't care enough about it to name it, then I should probably just move on.

 And this is Curly:

It began as a dusty sage-ish green sweater, Pure brand. It says "Pure Handknit" on the label. 100% cotton, very heavy and nubby. I tossed it in a dye bath to get this color, which is *not* optimal. But here's the deal: I hardly ever dye a load of white stuff. Almost always, I'm overdyeing something that's already some color. This is fun for me: figuring out what color to add to something to get another color I like. To do that, you sometimes have to really study the garment to figure out what underlying colors make up what color it is now. Like khaki: is it a gray khaki? Greenish? Tan? A greenish khaki can be a fabulous chartreuse, but a grayish khaki won't, although it can sometimes go a deep, dusty purple. Tan can become rust or golden, depending on how dark it is to start. You have to really look at it and think about what the transparent dyes will do to it.

For the load into which I added this sweater, I had 4 other pieces: two Bryn Walker fleece shrugs that were a kind of muted apple green and two t-shirts I bought for The EGE, one short-sleeved and one long-sleeved, that were a neon yellow-lime, too close to yellow to be the color he likes. If I'd dyed them by themselves, I would have used golden yellow and a little bright green. If I'd dyed the shrugs by themselves, it would have been golden yellow and a little avocado. If this sweater had been by itself, I would have used golden yellow and chartreuse. But because I wanted to do just one load, I had to compromise to push all 5 pieces to a better color, but with none of them optimal. But I do love a challenge, and although nothing is The Perfect Shade of Green, they were all vastly improved.

I used felt for Curly. Some of it I bought, long ago, and some used to be wool clothing from Goodwill (the purple was, I think, a jacket). I wash/full it all in hot water in the machine and then keep it cut and sorted in two big bins: bright colors and dull colors.

The funny thing is that the day I started working on Curly, I stopped by the consignment store here to say "hi," and found another Pure Handknit sweater, this one a brick red cardigan, for about $5. It's in the wash now; I can't wait to figure out something cool to do with it. I really love a heavy, nubby cotton sweater.

 For a long time, I thought the challenge was to figure out a way to put realistic images on fabric. I did a ton of photo transfers, some of them really successful, others not so much, with plenty of serious failures. Recently, though, I realized--OK, I admit it: from browsing on Pinterest and taking note of what catches my eye--that I don't really like that realistic look. It reminds me way too much of those quilts made up of photos on fabric, all printed out and sewn together. I hate those (it's just me; they're perfectly nice quilts). So I'm noticing what kinds of images make me happy, and I'm figuring out how to do stuff with those. Right now I'm fascinated by trying to capture emotion--joy, whimsy, amusement--using really simple shapes with minimal detail. I plan to do more stuff like this because I've started a large project--a Jumpron that will take about a bazillion years--and I plan to plug in regular, shorter, faster projects like this to break the monotony as I work on the more involved one. That's the plan, anyway. And lord knows I've got enough plain garments waiting for embellishment to keep me busy until I die. (I almost typed "dye.") I've got several blank boleros that are begging for applique and beading, and I've sorted various projects into huge plastic zipper bags. I want to be able to grab a bag and work on what's in it--I think I can sort and label them by complexity: quick-and-easy (snort), medium, long-and-time-consuming (like heavily beaded stuff). I'm thinking of this because every once in a while--once every couple months--I wake up in the morning, fix a cup of coffee, and realize I have about 5 minutes of stitching before the current project is finished. It truly is a moment of panic: I have nothing to work on while I wake up. I'm not one of those people who wakes up, leaps out of bed, and starts doing quadratic equations. I'm one of those plodders who stumbles in, gets a cup of coffee, and needs to have something lying there, ready and waiting, that doesn't demand I *do* anything to get started. I can stitch. I can bead. But I'm not about to start something new that requires, you know, actual *thought.* First thing when I wake up? No way. I want to pick up the needle and do something mindless while I wake up. Hence the current organizing of projects.

 I liked doing this purple part, below. I don't know why; it was satisfying.

 And there you go: Curly.

Thanks for coming by! XO