Potomac Fiber Arts Gallery

February Gallery Show: Songs in One’s Head—part 3

2012-02-27T06:29:00.001-05:00

The theme for the February 2012 show is “Songs in One’s Head. Artists were asked to create work based on the titles and phrases from songs that they love.

Roz Houseknecht’s “Singing in the Rain”, a nuno felted shawl, was selected for recognition. The Jurors stated that the shawl danced with color. And what an appropriate description since the song was made famous by Gene Kelly’s famous dance with an umbrella on a rainy day.

Roz’s chosen technique, nuno or laminated felt, happens when wool fibers dive through the cloth which is then moistened with warm soapy water and gently rolled in bubble plastic. When the fibers begin to hold the patchwork pieces together, the puckering starts and the cloth and fibers felt together.

Roz provided some insight about her techniques through a picture story board. She selects a fabric and lays many fibers over the fabric. This fabric had umbrellas in the pattern so, she replicated those shapes with the fibers.

In the picture below, you can see the completed layout of side one of the shawl with a piece of plastic covering the wet fibers. The fibers are agitated so that they bond and blend well.

Here is a close up of the fibers after felting and shrinking which causes the puckering texture.

The completed shawl is reversible and the two sides are distinctly different. One side shows the umbrella pattern and the other shows a more abstract pattern. To truly appreciate the technique and finish of the shawl, go to the gallery and see it.

Technorati Tags: Houseknecht,nuno,felting,songs

Unlocking the Block–Part 2

2012-02-25T11:29:00.001-05:00

When you just can’t get going and nothing new comes to mind or when you hit a road block in a project, sometimes you just need to step back in order to step forward. Or like my mother used to say when I was little, “for heaven’s sake, keep still”. Now, my mother was usually telling me this while I was wiggling around in church but, this phrase is pretty powerful when considered during unproductive times. Stillness can lead to breakthroughs.

Eileen Doughty shares the following:

“When I have a block, I let it go for a few days to percolate somewhere deep in my head. Eventually, I reach a moment where I am in a quiet place and pose the problem as a question to myself. My mind is open enough to hear the answer at this point. It seems maturing as an artist is being able to hear the answer, whatever it may be. The quiet place can be while falling asleep, taking a walk, but most often seems to be while taking a shower (Sort of a sensory deprivation chamber?) If it is a really big problem, it helps to go out to a museum or look at art books; it jars something loose and helps me get going again.”

A quiet place. Does the mind need a quiet place in order to help move past an issue? Perhaps so. With so much coming at you via the internet and social media, sometimes the mind needs a break from all of the overload. How often have you been sitting, just sitting there, not doing much and an idea has popped into your mind? Perhaps while stuck in traffic, you’ve been struck by a new color to try or motif that might work.

Go to your favorite park and sit. Take yourself on a date and watch the boats sail along the river. Make a pot of tea, play some quiet music and stare out of a window. You don’t have to go very far to find a space to just be. And, keep a notepad and pen handy for those moments of quiet. An idea is certainly on its way. Just wait and listen.

Gallery Show: Songs in One’s Head—part 2

2012-02-22T06:22:00.001-05:00

The theme for the February 2012 show is “Songs in One’s Head”. Artists were asked to create work based on the titles and phrases from songs that they love.

Another artist that was selected to receive recognition for her work in this show was Lynn Hoffman.

Lynn received recognition for a body of work that includes “On the Street Where You Live” (above), “Industrial District 2” and “Yellow Submarine”. Her fiber technique is fabric collage which involves

the use of hundreds of small bits of fabric meticulously formed into images and then stitched. This creative style involves hours of carefully placing each piece in order to achieve the color balance, structure and hard edges that form the shapes of her work.

In addition to fabric collage, Lynn also enjoys beadwork, crochet, dyeing, felting and quilting.

Technorati Tags: Lynn Hoffman,fabric collage,songs

February Gallery Show: Songs in One’s Head

2012-02-18T08:28:00.001-05:00

The theme for the February 2012 show is, “Songs in One’s Head”. Artists were asked to create work based on the titles and phrases from songs that they love.
One of the three artists who received recognition for her work in this show was Anna Yakubovskaya.
Anna’s piece, “Firebird”, is a painted silk scarf of intricate detail. The jury team commented that this piece brought to mind the passion and reverie from Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite”.

When asked about her inspiration for the creation, Anna replied that the firebird is a common character in Russian fairy tales. In her silk painting, she often finds inspiration in Russian folk art. Its naïve simplicity and bright colors always bring pleasure to the eyes and joy to the heart.

Technorati Tags: Yakubovskaya,silk painting,songs

Unlocking The Block- Part 1

2012-02-16T21:14:00.001-05:00

The creativity is flowing. You’re cutting, you’re dyeing and embellishing. Photos have been transferred and yarn selected. The to-do list is long but, you’re scratching things off as you reach your goals. There aren’t enough hours in the day to finish all that you want to do. What a great feeling.

But, what happens when nothing happens? You hit the wall and there are no ideas. Nothing seems to work. Your huge pile of fabric has lost its inspiration. The new paints you just received seem dull. No sketches hit your journal and your studio seems hollow. You’re blocked!! It’s happened to many artists. For some, these spells last for a few hours but for others, weeks and weeks drag on and …still nothing. What do you do? How can you get past this?

Sometimes the remedy is something that can be handled right away.

Tired? Get more sleep. The quickest way to slow the flow of ideas is by trying to work while sleep deprived.

Out of Shape? Move around more. Many artists find that time spent on a brisk walk in a nearby park or breathing through a yoga pose clears and unclutters the thought processes.

Think you’re alone? You’re not. Call an artist friend and share your anguish. After all, misery loves company and a piece of chocolate.

Try a few techniques that Joanne Bast has used when she needs to refresh the artist within:

1. Take photos during your travels. Thinking of places you’ve been, especially if it’s another culture with different art emphasis, often sparks ideas. Joanne was actually sending her ideas from Ho Chi Minh City.

2. Search out calls for exhibits. Sometimes the titles of the exhibits will give you an idea even if you’re too late to enter that show.

3. Current events also yield ideas that can be expressed in art pieces.

4. Think of old movies, particularly old musicals, and/or browse catalogues of clothing or dancewear for figure positions and color combinations.

5. Root through your stash of materials, beads and yarns and group things that look good together.

6. Collage papers, patterns, etc. until something catches your eye.

Try one or all of these and see where they take you. There are more ideas coming from others. Stay tuned.

Technorati Tags: creative block,Joanne Bast

Design decisions

2012-01-26T22:19:00.000-05:00

The fiber art in our gallery is one-of-a-kind. Thought goes into creating each piece. Eileen Doughty shared the decision process that went into making the silk paper earrings that won a jurors' recognition in our show this month.

Eileen said, "I was very pleased to receive jurors' recognition for my silk paper earrings, along with Janet and Ann. Though my earrings are obviously smaller and less complex, the process still requires many steps and many artistic decisions. Like all of our gallery's fiber art, these are definitely not mass-produced.

"Like Janet, I learned to make silk paper from the master - Robin Russo. I buy her dyed tussah in a variety of hues. I choose which colors to combine into a paper, and add embellishments such as specialty threads or dried flower petals.

silk paper

"Deciding to make a set of earrings for our "Wondrous, Lustrous Silk" show, I chose a paper I'd made previously, in dark orange and blue (complementary colors), embellished with a shiny blue thread and copper gilding chips. Next I had to think about what the finished object would look like. I opted for a 3D shape: cones. And to make it twice as fun, two stacked cones. Cutting scrap typing paper into sample cones let me play a bit in order to decide how big to make them, and how much of a bell opening to have. When satisfied with my test, I used that paper as pattern for cutting into the silk paper. The next decision was where on the silk paper to cut, in order to make the most of the variations in its color and embellishment.

"Looking at the silk cut-outs, I thought it needed just a little more interest, and decided to free-motion machine stitch copper thread on the bottom edges. The cones were stitched closed by hand, and strung on a fine wire with some beads to space them and allow them some movement. One copper bead is added at the top. The ear wires are copper, to mesh with the color scheme."

Eileen uses silk paper for other jewelry, such as the necklaces shown below:

Silk Squares

peach necklace

Eileen concludes, "Next time you see some hand-made fiber art, take a moment to think about all the steps and decisions that went into making it. We love what we make and we hope it shows!"

Ann Liddle's Silk Vest

2012-01-19T10:02:00.000-05:00

Another piece the judges of Wondrous, Lustrous Silk chose to highlight was described as "Ann Liddle's subtly luscious hand-dyed silk vest." I asked Ann to tell us about her vest, her other work designing garments, and some of the other fiber media she uses.

Ann said "I was delighted to get a juror's choice award this show for my vest. It's hand-dyed silk dupioni with machine-stitched china silk. I added the machine stitching to the orange china silk to help it blend more with the reds in the hand-dyed silk. I also created the pattern by draping it on a dress form. I often make patterns but usually use the flat paper pattern method. This time I cut up a few pieces of cotton knit and worked it out on the dress form – then made a paper pattern. My next task will be to add sleeves – maybe I'll try draping that too.

"I've been sewing since I got out of college and bought my own machine. My mother had taught me some but I didn't take to is until I was on my own. Then I never stopped! I sewed many of my work and casual clothes – suits, pant suits (once they were allowed!!), dresses, jackets, evening dresses, even coats. About 15 years ago, I decided to stop using commercial patterns and make my own. I'm self-taught – thanks to books and Vogue patterns. But since I don't usually make fitted clothing, the pattern process is not too complicated. Using Vogue patterns for years gave me a very good grounding on how to put things together and how to make all those annoying parts you need to make a garment – facings, cuffs, plackets, collars, etc. Really, Vogue patterns were an excellent education.

"In addition to clothing, I also make sculptures and do other types of fiber art. I especially enjoy working in three dimensions. Maybe that comes from my interest in clothes. I use many different media and techniques for sculpture, including papier mache, crochet, and knitting.

Shapes and Shadows
hand stitched on painted canvas, wood, wire

Vase with Red Stripe

papier mache, painted

"It is fun to take a technique, such as crochet, that is not usually used for sculpture and make it work.

The Conversation

crocheted wool, stiffened, painted, wood base

"In fact, that is my main pleasure in all the clothing or other art that I do – getting an idea and making it work. I love to figure things out."

I hope you've enjoyed this brief tour of Ann Liddle's art. Next time, we'll discuss Eileen Doughty's design process for her jurors' recognition earrings.

Wondrous, Lustrous Silk

2012-01-12T18:25:00.001-05:00

A new show opened in our gallery on Monday. The theme is Wondrous, Lustrous Silk. The jurors always select three pieces to highlight. One of those chosen was Janet Barnard's silk paper clutch purse.

Janet says, "I became acquainted with silk paper making when, in 2003, I attended a silk paper workshop at Creative Strands, taught by Robin Russo. The process was simple and the resulting “paper” was more like heavy fabric, which I felt increased its uses over that of regular paper.

"The process begins with silk top of noil, bombyx, or tussah, either natural or dyed. I dye my own top using the same method as silk fabric, thereby having access to an infinite number of shades. The top is then pulled apart and layered on netting, first in one direction, then at a 90 degree angle. This gives the paper added strength and prevents sections from peeling away or splitting. At this point, embellishments of any type may be added to the surface – string, glitter, leaves etc. A top layer of netting is added to keep everything in place.

"I wet the top with a mixture of soapy water to break the surface tension, as the silk can be difficult to soak through. Using a paint brush, I saturate the silk with a mixture of Artist’s Medium and water, which binds the silk together. I hang it to dry, peel off the netting, and it’s ready to go. I’ve used my paper to cover hand-made boxes, for jewelry, cards, sculptures, and now purses."

Here's a sculpture that Janet made using silk paper:

It includes cocoons as an embellishment. These are not dyed; this is their natural color.

Janet has also used silk paper for collages. Here is an example, "Complete This Series."

Next week, we'll feature another artist who works in silk paper.

Local Continuing Education Opportunities

2012-01-09T16:01:00.000-05:00

This is Floris Flam, the gallery blog editor for January. The following material was written by Betty Ford, one of our gallery's art quilters, and discusses a workshop she took on fabric painting.

We've discussed how our gallery members travel to attend workshops to improve their technical and design skills and to master new techniques. Sometimes we have the opportunity to learn without leaving town. The Washington area is rich in learning opportunities for fiber artists such as the Art League School in Alexandria, VA.

Recently, gallery member Betty Ford learned new fabric painting techniques from gallery member Julie Booth at a series of classes sponsored by the Art League. It consisted of seven weekly classes at which Julie presented various techniques where the students had time to experiment and learn by doing and to produce a large number of exciting samples. Here is the report of a happy student.

"The class began with our creating painted background fabrics using Pebeo SetaColor — fabrics on which we could layer other surface design techniques. These backgrounds were created in a number of ways, some resulting in pieces that were quite plain:

while others were more complex:

On these and other backgrounds we stamped, using stamps we carved ourselves or made by other processes. Stamps also included natural materials such as leaves.

"Julie, recipient of the Potomac Fiber Arts Guild’s 2011 Margaret M. Conant grant, has spent the year studying and experimenting with “kitchen” resists. She shared a number of these techniques with us . Below is my fabric made using a flour paste resist on a pale blue background that I painted in the class.

"This fabric was made by using rubber bands as resists then adding paint to the bunched up fabric. To me this piece has a very gardenlike appearance so I will probably make it into a whole-cloth quilt.

"Our entire class agreed that making gelatin plate monoprints was exciting and produced some of the most useful pieces. This is a completed small quilt using one of these prints.

"Of course, for a quilter, seeing this work in a finished piece is the major satisfaction for all the fun of painting fabric. The little quilt below was made by the “wipe-up” technique — dribbling paint on mylar then doing as the name suggests.

Betty concludes, "Excellent class!" I think that, seeing Betty's photos of both her fabrics and her finished work, you'll agree.

Happy Holidaysay, fiberart

2011-12-28T20:48:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone has had a happy holiday season and is preparing for a momentous new year. As artists, our work never ceases. Once one show is juried, the preparation for the next begins. Our next jury day at the Potomac Fiberarts Gallery is January 9 and will feature silk, lustrous silk. Have a great new year's celebration and think silk! Joanne

More on Artists Community Service

2011-12-21T20:25:00.000-05:00

Continuing on in the Saga os the Soles, members of the Potomac Fiberarts Guild Felting Study Group felted innersoles to warm the feet of the homeless and otherwise needy.

Hand felling new felt to be cut into inner soles for shoes:

More cutting:

Organizing the soles by size:

82 pairs of soles, ready to go:

The delivery was today to the Homeless Center in Rockville, MD. Happy Holidays to all. Joanne

Artists Community Service Continued

2011-12-20T01:25:00.001-05:00

My felting study group (a subgroup of the Potomac Fiberarts Guild) decided for our December meeting to apply ourselves to a community service project. We all decided that we had failed felted projects such as purses, wall hangings, etc that just didn't come out right but would be perfect for cutting up into innersoles that would provide warmth for the feet of the homeless or otherwise needy people. So we organized shoe patterns in various sizes and began by cutting up items that we had already felted. We continued by making more felt from odds and ends of wool to provide more felt for soles. We ended up with over 80 pairs of warm wool innersoles to be distributed by local charities.

Cutting soles out of previously felted failed projects:

Laying out wool for new felt:

A quick trip through the needlefelting machine:

Wetting down the wool:

Rolling for wet felting:

Wetting and rolling the needlefelted piece:

Unrolling and rolling in the opposite direction:

Some help from the rolling machine:

The Saga of the Soles will continue with the next post. So long for now, Joanne

Artists Community Service

2011-12-19T11:42:00.000-05:00

On Dec 15, 2011 the Potomac Fiber Arts Guild Felting Study group gathered at a member's home to create felted soles for the homeless. Most of the members of the study group are also members of the Potomac FiberArt Gallery. Nine women worked for nine hours, using already felted fabrics (basically failed projects they donated to recycle into insoles) as well as creating new fabrics. We had a cutting table where three women cut patterns and soles; a layout table where fibers were added to wool batts; another station had two women creating needled fabric using the FeltLoom, which were then felted in the rolling machine, fulled by hand, dried, then ultimately cut into more insoles. By the end of the evening, 82 pairs of wool insoles were made. On Wednesday, Dec 21, 2011, these soles will be delivered for distribution to the homeless. The wonderful women of our felting study group who shared their talents to provide a bit of warmth to the souls of mankind left tired, but with happy hearts, knowing that we gave our time to provide a little bit of joy to the less fortunate in this season of giving. I will follow with photos. Happy Holidays to All!! Joanne

and again: Continuing Education for Artists

2011-11-30T21:11:00.000-05:00

I have only touched on the available opportunities for continuing education for artists. The Washington/Baltimore area is loaded with Museums. In addition to inspiring exhibits, many have classes. The Smithsonian and the Renwick are leaders in the field. Area colleges, art schools community and art centers also have adult education opportunities. There are nationally known craft schools such as Arrowmont, Pilchuck, Split Rock, Peters Valley, Penland and Haystack to name just a few. There are annual regional and national gatherings that offer classes and vendors to help keep up with new products and techniques such as Sheep and Wool Festivals, Surface Design Conferences, Bead Expos, and Felters Flings. Many of our members have attended sessions at such craft schools and/or events.

There are also specialty guilds such as weavers guilds, beading guilds, embroidery guilds, etc that many of us belong to as well as on line groups to discuss processes and problems. The opportunities to grow as an artist are endless, but nobody makes us do it. As artists we have chosen to be self directed, which can also allow us to be lazy or not. This is Joanne Bast signing off as your blogger for November and passing the baton on to the next in line for your December sessions.

More Continuing Education for Artists

2011-11-29T02:37:00.000-05:00

All members of the Potomac Fiberarts Gallery are also members of the Potomac Fiberarts Guild (however, not all members of the guild choose to be members of the gallery). The Guild meets once a month and usually has a speaker/program that often includes a workshop. The topics vary from month to month and include the whole range of fiber techniques. In addition, we have several study groups which also meet separately from the whole guild at varying schedules and locations that focus on more narrow fiber techniques. Examples of study groups are clothing, felting, color, design, dying, knitting, weaving at several levels, fiber techniques in metal and more. Sometimes study group members alternate presenting programs, sometimes we follow a published workbook, sometimes we critique each other, sometimes we take field trips and sometimes we hire outside teachers. It is up to ourselves to keep up with our chosen craft and the Potomac Fiberarts Guild is one way that we do this. In some cases, new work that we show in the gallery comes directly out of such new learning experiences.

Some workshop examples:

Learning about silk:

Clothing from Handwoven Fabrics:

Basketry:

Felted garments:

Felted Hats:

A color study in machine embroidery:

There are also many guild in the midatlantic area that relate to more specific areas of fiberart. Baltimore and Washington DC have guilds that specialize in weaving, beads, knitting and crocheting and many more. State guilds such as the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen have craft guilds that offer classes not only in art forms but in business practices for artists as well. Local areas such as townships and counties have art societies. All of these provide opportunities for artists to improve themselves and keep up with their art forms. But in all, it is the initiative of the artist to partake of these and to drive to excel in what we do. For now, Joanne

Is Not Gold; Holiday Show

2011-11-21T19:16:00.000-05:00

To continue with the treasures that abound in the Potomac Fiberarts Gallery this month, here are the jewelry cases:

We have an array of bracelets in felt, beads, fabric, and wire.

And a bounty of necklaces:

The small item wall; earrings,brooches, barrettes and more:

Hand Made Cards for special notes.

Eyeglass cases,

And hand dyed yarns for that special project or for gifting as is.

Hand made books for journaling or sketching or just making notes as well as pillows, bowls and much more.

I find my days working in the gallery like sitting in Aladdin's Cave. I almost never come home without bringing a purchase with me that I just can't resist. Happy Thanksgiving. Joanne

All That Glitters; Holiday Show

2011-11-17T12:20:00.000-05:00

Monday the Potamac Fiberarts Gallery juried in our Holiday Show "All That Glitters---Is Not Gold". The variety of fiber and fiber technique with alternative materials is stunning. Here is a short overview of gifting items available, all hand made in the local DC/MD/VA/PA area.

First an overview of our treasures:

A multitude of Scarves and Garments just waiting to be touched:

The Hat wall, knitted, crocheted, fulled and felted, ready to warm winter heads:

Gloves and Purses:

And wall art to enliven your living spaces:

Plus critters to make you smile:

Come on down and come on in. For November, Joanne

Life of an Artist

2011-11-06T21:26:00.000-05:00

Hello, I am Joanne Bast, beader, felter, knitter and embroiderer, back as your blogger for the month of November. I thought I would discuss a little bit about what it is to be an artist. While there are artists who design and have others produce their work, the members of the Potomac Fiberarts Gallery are individual artists who work for themselves and by themselves, designing and carrying out the creation of our items. We are our own bosses and our only employees.

You may think that working for yourself is liberating. While it does have a certain amount of freedom, it also requires a great deal of self determination. Working at your own pace can easily lead to not working at all. When there is no one but yourself to tell you when and what to do, you must set your own deadlines and have the strength to adhere to them. An individual artist must decide what to make, how and when to make it, how and where to market it, evaluate it and make changes, and keep appropriate tax and inventory records.

Involved in this process is the need to keep up with the chosen artistic medium. Many professions have mandatory continuing education. Artists are again on their own with respect to keeping up with advances in their chosen area. We do this by subscribing to magazines on various techniques and media, by belonging to organizations and/or guilds of artists, by attending more or less formal meetings, retreats, classes or workshops to further our interests and expertises. The Potomac Fiberarts Guild is one organization that allows artists working in various forms of fiber art to meet and learn from each other and from outside teachers. We meet once a month and often bring in nationally known speakers and instructors to present programs and workshops. This year we will have programs on many differing aspects of fiber art.

Back in June, Mickey Kunkle blogged on attending the annual Bead and Button Show in Milwaukee. This is only one of many organizations with national seminars that include classes, lectures, vendors and other experiences. Just this past weekend, I attended a less formal retreat of fiberartists called NeedleArts Adventures in Ocean City, MD. This was a gathering of people interested in creative fiber work where we shared information and critiqued each other's work without designated teachers. I've included some photos of the retreat showing some round table discussions and some working shots. Boy do fiberartists cart a lots of baggage around. As a bonus, I've also included a spectacular sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean. What could be more inspiring? Joanne

Fissures, Fossils and Fragments - 3

2011-10-31T23:04:00.002-04:00

Finally, the judges gave special recognition to a set of three bead-covered rocks by Joanne Bast.

Joanne says:

“The pieces of mine that were recognized this month were beaded rocks. One of the technical issues with stitching non wearable beadwork is how to present the finished creation. Most beadwork needs some kind of support but standard frames usually don't work. By stitching the beadwork over a rock, the support is encased and when the stitching is done, the presentation is done as well.

I use a stitch called right angle weave to cover the rocks because the basis of the stitch is a 4 (or multiple of 4) bead circle. This produces a fabric of beads that has no straight lines and stretches like bias in all directions, perfect for encasing irregularly shaped objects like rocks. I start with a piece of leather for the bottom, sew the first row of beads to the leather and then stitch bead to bead to enclose the rock form.

Motifs are done with a stitch called brick stitch which allows me to draw with lines of beads, shaping the lines by increasing and/or decreasing as well as changing bead sizes. Some of the pieces also have straight lines of brick stitching which I use to separate areas of color blocks done in the right angle weave. That way I can shade light to dark on one side of a line and dark to light or another color on the other.

In Sedona, AZ, I saw some petroglyphs (rock carvings) and pictographs (rock paintings) and thought what perfect images to bead onto rocks. I stitch the motifs first, position them on the rock temporarily with scotch tape and then bead the background up from the bottom attaching the motifs in place. The contrast of line vs. no line bead stitching also helps the motifs stand out from the background.

The result is little decorative sculptures that may be used (i.e., paperweights) or not. Not everything in life needs a purpose beyond giving pleasure to feel and look at.”

This will be my last post for the month. Next month will actually be Joanne’s turn, so I imagine you’ll learn more about beading.

I’ll be back in March to talk more about weaving and the March show.

- Larry Novak

Fissures, Fossils and Fragments - 2

2011-10-30T09:07:00.002-04:00

The second piece to receive artist’s recognition from the jurors in this month’s show is Ann Liddle’s necklace "Brown Rocks Fragments."

Here she describes her process and also, as luck would have it, she was working in the gallery when it was sold!

“I waited until about a week before the jurying to decide to make a theme piece. I had been making needled-felted jewelry and thought that technique would let me make something in the short time frame. I made a few simple sketches of different shapes. I tried to make needle-felted pieces that resembled rock fragments and to string them on the bias tubing so they would sort of jumble together for a necklace. For earlier necklaces, I had stitched the pieces to the tubing so they were stationary but I wanted this to have some movement. I did have some trouble figuring out how to create loops in the back of the pieces but after a little trial and error, I got something that worked and looked finished. l like the engineering aspect of making things as much as the artistic aspect. A few days after the jurying, I was gallery sitting and a woman came in, saw the necklace and said it would be perfect with a dress she was wearing to a wedding. She bought it and seemed happy - so I was too.”

Tomorrow will be my last post for this month and I’ll let the artist of the 3rd set of pieces the jurors recognized tell you about them. They, literally, really rock!

(Posted by Larry Novak)

Fissures, Fossils and Fragments - 1

2011-10-27T18:44:00.003-04:00

Ten times each year we take everything out of the gallery and have a day-long jury session to jury a new show into the gallery. Most months have a theme that our artists can use for inspiration. Not everything in the gallery needs to reflect the theme but many artists do make something using the theme.

This month, our theme is “Fissures, Fossils and Fragments.” At the end of the jury day, the two jurors pick three themed items for special artist’s recognition. Here is what the jurors said about this show:

“The theme, Fissures, Fossils and Fragments was interpreted in many different ways. Some were very realistic, others were subtle and more abstract. The theme appeared in a wide variety of media: surface design, fabric, jewelry, and woven patterns showing the most current trends in fiber art. First place was in laminated felt combining cotton fabric with wool roving. A needle felted necklace spoke of fragments interpreted in earthy tones with hand stitching. Rocks took third! The artist wove minuscule beads into fossils and fissures that literarily cover three small stones that become a statement on the theme.”

Roz Houseknecht’s laminated felt shawl, "African Landscape" is the first place item. Here it is being modeled:

And here is what Roz has to say about her process:

“ ‘African Landscape’ was my award piece for the most recent gallery jury. I love working with the combination of hand-dyed cotton and wool to create laminated felt. This process allows me to create a two-sided garment. I use strips of fabric which are joined with merino wool. The first side has a pattern in wool laid out and then all is wet with warm, soapy water. I flip the whole work over and apply a different pattern to the second side in the spaces between the the design on side one. At this point the fabric and wool are rolled gently in plastic bubble wrap to get the process of attaching the wool to the cloth started. After the fibers begin to adhere to the fabric, the project is plunged into hot water and "thrown" onto the work surface to force the fibers deeper into the cloth and begin the shrinking process. This is what created the wonderful texture of ridges, ripples and embedded shapes. The final step is to continue to roll the project until all the fibers are firmly attached and the fibers no longer want to separate or "pill". I find this method of cloth making very satisfying.”

And, finally, here it is in the gallery on one of our “ladder ladies” along with a few other beautiful pieces. Wouldn’t it look nice on you?

In the next post, I’ll talk about the second item to receive artist’s recognition in this show.

(Posted by Larry Novak)

Why (some of us) Use Computer-Driven Looms

2011-10-18T10:56:00.001-04:00

In my last two posts I hope I’ve convinced you that computer-driven looms are not miraculous labor-saving devices that produce woven textiles while you sit back and enjoy a margarita. So, why do we use them?

The reason is because of the design flexibility they give us. There are really two parts to this.

First, it allows us to have looms with more shafts. The more shafts we have the more intricate the designs we can weave. Looms have treadles (pedals) that look like the pedals on an organ. They control the lifting of the shafts and that produces the design. On manual looms it is typical to have two more treadles than shafts. A four-shaft loom would have six treadles, and eight-shaft loom would have ten, etc. Because there is a limit to how many treadles you can reach without falling off the bench, a practical limit to manual looms is about 16 shafts and 18 treadles. To get a loom with more than 16 shafts it almost has to be computer-driven.

The second part is the really interesting feature of computer-driven looms and the main reason we get more design flexibility. This involves math but it’s not hard math and if you’re not a mathematician (I am) you can just believe my numbers. As a simple example, on a four-shaft loom there are 14 different combinations in which you can lift those four shafts:

There are 4 ways to lift one shaft: 1, 2, 3, or 4
There are 6 ways to lift two shafts: 12, 13, 14, 23, 24 or 34
And, there are 4 ways to lift three shafts: 123, 124, 134, or 234

I said earlier that a four-shaft loom would normally have six treadles. Each treadle can be tied-up to any one of those 14 combinations. So, we can use six of the 14 combinations but not the other eight. With a computer-driven loom we can use all 14 since there are no treadles and the computer controls which shafts get lifted each time.

Now, with an eight-shaft loom, (here comes the math) there are 254 combinations and with a manual loom we can only use ten of them. On a 16 shaft loom there are 65,534 combinations and a manual loom can only use 18 of them. With a computer driven loom you can use any of the 65,534 at any time. (Practically speaking, a typical scarf, e.g., might only have 2,000 or so weft threads, so you couldn’t actually use all 65,534 but the point is that you could use any of them at any time, not just one of the 18 that would be available on a manual loom.)

You can see that the more shafts we have, the more limiting the manual loom becomes. The numbers go up dramatically and with 24, 32, or even 40-shaft looms the combinations are astronomical.

So, that’s why we do it. It takes a while to learn how to design with all this added flexibility but once you’ve figured it out it opens up some amazing design possibilities.

Yesterday was jury day and we now have a brand new show in the gallery. This month’s theme is Fissures, Fossils and Fragments and, as usual, the gallery is again full of wonderful pieces. In my next few posts, I’ll have photos and artists statements from the artists who received special recognition from the jurors.

(Posted by Larry Novak)

Compu-Dobby Myths

2011-10-11T15:48:00.001-04:00

In my last post, I talked about some misconceptions that people have concerning computer-driven, or compu-dobby looms. In this post I’ll compare weaving on a manual loom with weaving on a compu-dobby loom.

First, here are the steps we need to get the loom ready to weave:

On a Manual Loom	On a Compu-Dobby Loom
1. Design the fabric	1. Design the fabric
2. Wind the warp	2. Wind the warp
3. Put the warp on the loom	3. Put the warp on the loom
4. Thread the heddles	4. Thread the heddles
5. Sley the reed	5. Sley the reed
6. Tie on to front apron	6. Tie on to front apron
7. Tie up the treadles	7. Relax, you don’t need to tie up the treadles.

So, notice the difference? One small step. When you tie up the treadles (pedals) you control which shafts get lifted when you press the treadle. You don’t have to do this with a compu-dobby loom because, once you load your design into the software, the computer controls which shafts get lifted. So, you don’t have to crawl under the loom to tie up the treadles and you’ve saved a bit of wear and tear on your knees and back.

Now, how about the weaving:

On a Manual Loom	On a Compu-Dobby Loom
1. Wind some bobbins	1. Wind some bobbins
2. Press a treadle to open a shed	2. Press a treadle to open a shed (NOTE 1)
3. Throw the shuttle	3. Throw the shuttle
4. Beat the weft	4. Beat the weft
5. Press the next treadle	5. Press the next treadle (NOTE 1)

Gee! Almost no difference here. (NOTE 1): The only difference is that on a manual loom, you look at your design draft to see which treadle to press next and on the compu-dobby loom you just press the treadle and the computer (which has your design) lifts the correct shafts.

That’s it! You don’t have to crawl under the loom and you only have one treadle to press – everything else is the same.

Next time, I’ll show some detail about what we do gain by using the compu-dobby loom – great design flexibility.

(Posted by Larry Novak)

Computers in Weaving–Revisited

2011-10-04T09:32:00.002-04:00

In a post earlier this year, I talked a little about using computer software to design woven textiles. This month, I’d like to address some common misconceptions about using a computer-driven loom. Some people seem to think that if you use a computer-driven loom all you have to do is put a cone of yarn in front of the loom, turn on the computer and go watch TV while the loom weaves your scarf. Even weavers have a lot of misconceptions about this.

In fact, the computer does precious little. I’ll go into more detail in my next two posts, but the process of weaving on a manual loom and a computer-driven loom are almost identical except for one or two relatively minor differences. The advantage of the computer is not as a labor-saving device but that it allows you much greater flexibility in the kinds of textiles you can design. One could argue that using a computer-driven loom is more difficult than using a manual loom because of the wider range of design possibilities that it opens up for the weaver.

I heard a great analogy about this: if you wrote your Great American Novel using a word processor, would you say the computer did all the work?

So, next time, I’ll show the steps that weavers need to produce a textile and point out the small differences when using the two types of looms. The post after that I’ll show you why we have greater design potential with computer-driven looms and what that means for our designs.

(This month’s blog editor is Larry Novak)

Fibonacci lives on .....

2011-09-13T09:00:00.008-04:00

Our jurors selected three submissions as best reflecting the golden ratio.

Juror's statement: The theme for our current show is "There Goes Fibonacci". Fibonacci is a mathematical sequence that is found in nature. Some call it the golden ratio because it is aesthetically pleasing. We had many aesthetically pleasing submissions and chose three to highlight the theme: Fran Spaeder's wall quilt, "The Golden Spiral", Betty's Ford's wall quilt "Galaxy" and Ruth Blau's shawl "Fibonacci" woven on a network and mirrored.

... and here they are:

Ruth Blau interpreted the golden ratio in the design of her gorgeous shawl.

Betty Ford's wall quilt subtly incorporates the Fibonacci sequence in her pieced background.

Fran Spaeder recreates the notable Fibonacci spiral.

I hope you'll visit the Gallery this month to see these beautiful artworks.
Ann Graham

A new season

2011-09-02T10:03:00.004-04:00

Daylight is getting a bit shorter, the nights a little cooler - autumn can't be far away. The Gallery's parent group - the Potomac Fiber Arts Guild is starting it's 67th season as the oldest fiber guild in the Washington area. The Gallery will be juring in - on September 12th - art work that incorporates aspects of the Fibonacci number sequence.

Fibonacci was an Italian mathematician, born to a merchant family that lived in Northern Africa. In traveling with his father for trade, he became aware of how difficult and cumbersome Roman numerals were for efficient trading purposes. He studied the Hindu-Arabic numerical system and published his book Book of Abacus or Book of Calculation, and thereby popularized Hindu-Arabic numerals in Europe.

In the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, each number is the sum of the previous two numbers, starting with 0 and 1. This sequence begins 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987 and so on .... His work includes the Golden Section, and Fibonacci spiral. Artists have used the Fibonacci number sequence in their work for centuries. Click on the title of this post to see additional information.

I'll be reporting back on September 13th on how our Gallery members have interpreted Fibonacci for themselves! Better yet, stop by the Gallery (105 N. Union St., Old Town Alexandria, VA) and see for yourself!

Ann Graham

We're everywhere

2011-08-23T14:03:00.001-04:00

When we travel fiber people are on the lookout for what kindred souls are doing with their skills and stashes of yarn.

Talk about the big bucks (or not) we make at our art

2011-08-22T20:15:00.001-04:00

I wanted to add those who didn't get their information to me before my last post and add some fun quotes.

This from Janet Barnard:
I started as a typesetter and eventually became the Art Director for the same printing/advertising company. Those were the days when cut and paste actually meant just that.

Joan Hutten
Right out of college I became a flight attendant with Amercian Airlines
making $495 per month plus expenses. I would need a big raise to net that awesome salary now.

What if we're still doing it ? I'm a violinist and teacher. I played in the Richmond (VA) Symphony for 13 years and currently play in the National Gallery Orchestra among other gigs along the East Coast. I also specialize in historical violin performance practice (i.e. baroque violin). When gallery visitors are watching me at work with my beads, I tell them my my day job is as a freelance violinist (from one highly unstable source of income to another, haha). Also, everyone always asks me how I can see all those tiny beads, and I tell them that beads are the same size as notes, but come in much prettier colors

Carol Holmes

A college professor, I taught English Literature. In my college as in most colleges, the English Department got the worst offices, the smallest number of supplies, the least amount of attention. So, when I took up fiber art in retirement, it was no surprise to me that I was once again at the bottom: in the art world, oil painting and sculpture is at the top and fiber art is often not even recognized. However, I have had a most fulfilling life practicing both of my vocations.

Merle Thompson

I was a Washington Intern in the 1980s way before Monica Lewinski made it a bad idea.
For twenty years I taught social studies and am a School Counselor.
I have knit since the age of six and my colorful knitting patterns influence the design of my art quilts.

Alice Lee Timmins

And last but not least, Larry Novaks comment sums it up for most of us

I was a systems engineer and software project manager, mostly for scientific
and engineering applications. There's not much humorous about my cut in pay
as a weaver but the more than commensurate cut in stress is well worth it.

Larry

Who we are

2011-08-16T13:17:00.001-04:00

It is a pretty well known fact that artists aren't making much money for the hours we put into our work. We have to love what we do or we'd go back to what we did before because it no doubt was more lucrative than making art. The following is a list of what some of our members did before they started making art. Come see us in Studio 18 in the Torpedo Factory Art Center and see if you can relate the former (and sometimes current) jobs with the Art.

Zita Simitus--Chief Psychologist of the Army

Joanne Bast--taught zoology, biology, botany, human anatomy and physiology at the college level.

Carol Bodin--computer systems designer

Mickey Kunkle--mortgage loan officer

Jeanne Bohlen--physics major who ended up in a number of libraries--public, for profit business, non profit organizations.

Lynda Prioleau--still working as a meeting and conference planner

Cindy Grisdela--financial journalist

Eileeen Doughty--cartographer supervising a number of people some of whom were deaf so she had to learn sign language

Claudia Levy--reporter and editor at Washington Post

Betty Ladd--computer programmer (now office manager at architecture firm)

Ruth Blau--technical writer/editor

Merle Thompson--professor of English Literature

Clara Graves--freelance graphic designer

Roz Houseknecht--swim instructor both then and part-time now

Kay Collins--art teacher, business owner, sex education counselor, and lots more-- very varied jobs

Fran Spaeder--30+ years at the CIA in information technology

Larry Novak--systems engineer and software project manager--scientific and engineering applications

Anne Sanderoff-Walker--registered x-ray technologist and used CT scans when they were fairly new

Diane Mularz--currently employed as software systems engineer

Debra Lee--managed programs to integrate technology with business systems

Conferences and why we go to them

2011-08-14T14:37:00.002-04:00

As artists we spend a lot of time alone in our studios. We all love what we do but the reality is that much of our time is spent by ourselves. As humans we also like to spend time with like minded individuals and groups. This is where conferences come into the picture. Equate going to a conference to being in the best play group in the world where you get candy all the time and no one takes your crayons. You get to talk all day about what interests you the most and no one is bored by your conversations. Then there is the aspect that all of your new found friends are full of ideas and want to hear your ideas. What could be more fun than that. You come home full of new ideas and way more plans than any sane person could carry out in a reasonable time. But some of those ideas become reality and that's the best part of all.

Here are two pictures that Floris Flam took when she attended the Quilt/Surface design symposium. The first is the design that Floris chose when the teacher said that each person should choose a neutral three or four letter word and the second is what happened to the letters "CITY" when they were modified by the hand and mind of the artist.

Many of the chosen fabrics were hand dyed by Floris and some of them were done by a technique using oatmeal as a resist. More about that later.

Spring Cleaning

2011-08-10T15:55:00.001-04:00

As you can imagine with more than 60 members, organization can be a problem. Thayer aspect would be bad enough but Potomac Fiber Gallery exists in a space far more suited to a bowling alley--11.5 feet wide and 44 feet long. Couple this with the need for extreme flexibility in display equipment and you have the makings of a mess.

Over the years, two days a year were set aside for reorganization and cleaning. After the gallery re-do (forced on us by a flood) the carpet was replaced by faux wood flooring which didn't need a yearly shampoo and a day to dry. That didn't mean that equipment would be put away where it belongs though. So every year in February, you'll hear the cleaning crew saying things like, "so that's where that (insert object) got itself to. Then there is the inevitable dust that being a fiber gallery brings and that needs attention beyond the daily sweeping and dusting. Was a good time had by all? You be the judge

Fiber Arts in the Online Era

2011-07-25T10:09:00.004-04:00

I have been a knitter and sewer for most of my life and a spinner and weaver for a little over 20 years. During the last 15 or so years, I have watched with amazement as the Internet has changed my life as a fiber artist. I want to share some of my favorite sources of information with you. Some you may already know of. Some may be new to you. I hope that at least one tip you read here sends you off in a direction that you hadn’t anticipated.

Let’s start where I started: e-lists, sometimes called “listservs.” The ones I know best are on Yahoo Groups.

In the Search field, type in whatever your fiber interest might be, knitting, weaving, quilting, surface design, dyeing, etc. Yahoo will generate pages of e-lists related to your search criterion. For example, I just typed in Crochet. Yahoo returned 11 pages of possible e-lists that I could join (with many e-lists per page) that focus on crochet in general or some more narrow aspect of crochet.

If you don’t want to wade through the mass of information that Yahoo Groups generates, here’s a shortcut. A fiber arts lover named Ron Parker, a transplanted Minnesotan who now lives in Sweden, maintains what he calls his List of Fiber-Related Lists.

Ron’s list is arranged alphabetically and has everything from AlternativeQuiltList to WeLuvKnitting, and many, many groups in between. As you can see in the screen shot above, you can click on the name of the list or the name of the “list owner” for more information. Ron’s list is a huge resource for dyers, quilters, felt-makers, knitters, weavers. . .anyone who has an interest in a fiber art and wants to communicate with people with similar interests around the world.

Now let’s move on to the biggies. First up is Ravelry. Ravelry is a social networking site for mainly knitters and spinners, but there are groups and forums for weavers, crocheters, dyers, etc.

The above photo (photo credit: Ravelry website) is the Ravelry booth at TNNA, a huge trade show in the US for fiber-related vendors (yarn, books, dyes, etc.). Slate, the online magazine, recently published an excellent article on Ravelry. Slate is owned by The Washington Post, and the same article appeared in that newspaper as well.

One of the things that sets Ravelry apart from simple e-lists (though there are many groups/forums on Ravelry that function in pretty much the same way as e-lists) is that it allows individual users to enter their yarns, books, completed knitted items, patterns, etc., into a personal database. For those who have on-the-go Internet access (e.g., with a smartphone), this means that you can tap into your personal database of yarns that you already own when you’re in a yarn shop trying to decide what pattern might work with your yarns, whether you need yet another set of needles to work with the yarns you have, or whether that cone of 8/2 turquoise Tencel has enough yarn left on it for you to use it for a warp for some scarves.

Next up and similar to Ravelry, but designed for weavers, is Weavolution.

Weavolution also has discussion groups, pages of drafts that you can use in your weaving, lists of yarns, etc. An innovation that Weavolution began perhaps a year or so ago and that seems to be thriving is online classes, called “Cyber-Fiber.” The class instructors are some of the top weavers, designers, and others in their particular niche of the craft. Participants sign up for the class, and then participate via webcams and microphones. What a treat! Sit at your computer in your pajamas and learn how to dress your loom back to front with Daryl Lancaster as your teacher.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention the late Ralph Griswold and his On-Line Digital Archive of Documents on Weaving and Related Topics. Before his untimely death a few years ago, Professor Griswold, who believed deeply in making information freely available to anyone who wished to use it, took on the immense task of scanning every weaving publication (books, magazines, monographs, etc.) that was either in the public domain or for which he could obtain copyright permission to post to the Internet. This means that whole books, many of them rare and old, are available as free downloads in PDF format from the website.

The contents Professor Griswold’s website are mirrored on another wonderful site for weavers, Kris Bruland’s Handweaving.net. The reason for the mirrored website is that no one is quite sure whether the University of Arizona will continue indefinitely to host Professor Griswold’s material. If the Griswold site is removed by the university, weavers will still have access to the information on Bruland’s website.

There are many other delights on Bruland’s site, however. For example, Bruland, a computer programmer, wrote a program that allowed him to generate drafts for everything in one of the great (and possibly most confusing) tomes in the weaver’s literature: G.H. Oelsner’s Handbook of Weaves. Rather than struggling to understand Oelsner’s cryptic methods of presenting drafts, weavers need only plug in the number of the draft from Oelsner’s book, and Bruland’s website will give you a draft viewed as contemporary drafts are generally written.

This is only a small sampling of the many online resources that have become available to fiber artists in recent years. There are hundreds more. Many museums have extensive photos of their collections online and listings of materials held in their libraries. Many longtime handcraft magazine publishers, for example Interweave Press, are dipping their toes into the sometimes chilly waters of online, downloadable magazines.

As Calvin said to Hobbes in the final of Bill Waterson’s great comic strip, “It’s a magical world, ol’ buddy. . .let’s go exploring!”

by July blog editor Ruth Blau

Spinning a Good Yarn

2011-07-14T09:39:00.002-04:00

For many people not close to the world of textiles or textile production, the assumption is probably that hand spinning of yarns went out when the industrial revolution brought in mechanized spinning. But for some of us who live in the textile world, hand spinning can be something we do somewhere between fairly often and daily.

Furthermore, those of us who continue the tradition of hand spinning do not have to spin on creaky, antique wheels. While some very old wheels are still in excellent condition (or can be brought back into fine working order), there are many contemporary wheels to choose from.

A spinning wheel typically has one or two foot treadles, a large drive wheel, and a flyer, which contains the bobbin onto which the yarn is spun. However, this is also a spinning “wheel.”

While electric spinners have been around for many years, the HansenCrafts miniSpinner, pictured at right, is a new addition to the market. It takes advantage of modern technology in terms of circuit boards and other electronics in its design and operation.

A more traditional type of spinning wheel that still has a contemporary look is this wheel (below, left), made by Gordon Lendrum of Ontario, Canada. Mr. Lendrum himself doesn’t have a website, but you can find his wheels at numerous sites that sell spinning supplies, such as Carolina Homespun or Paradise Fibers.

Other modern wheels might have a more traditional look, even though it’s a contemporary wheel. Here’s one (below, right) made by the Polish wheel manufacturer, Kromski.

Like Lendrum wheels, Kromskis can be found at many reputable sellers of spinning equipment, including The Woolery, the Yarn Barn, and many others. Note that the Lendrum wheel is a double-treadle, and the Kromski is a single-treadle.

What’s the point in spinning your own yarns when you can go to a local yarn shop or go online and purchase yarn? Some of us spin so we can create specialized yarns to use in in our own weaving or knitting. Below left is a lovely, rustic scarf that gallery member Joan Hutten wove using her own hand spun yarns

Gallery member Jeanne Bohlen likes to make colorful, highly textured necklaces with her hand spun yarn. Here’s a photo (below right) of one of them:

Gayle Roehm, a gallery member whose creativity with yarn knows no bounds, uses her handspun yarns in her knitting. Here’s her handspun, hand-knitted interpretation of Audrey II (below, left) from The Little Shop of Horrors.

Finally, a number of members simply sell skeins of their handspun yarns in the gallery so that you, our customers, can use them in your own wonderful knitted, woven, crocheted, or felted creations. The skeins shown below at the right are by gallery members Heidi Moyer and Ruth Blau.

by July blog editor Ruth Blau

Children’s Touching Basket

2011-07-07T08:10:00.002-04:00

A fiber gallery is a very tempting place for children (for adults, too, but that’s a different story). Small kids who come in with a parent (or other adult) are suddenly surrounded by a kaleidoscope of colors and untold numbers of textures that just invite little fingers to touch.

But that’s the problem. Those little fingers. We love ‘em, but they are often sticky from the latest lollipop, cookie, or frozen treat. We don’t want to be the ogres who keep saying, “Please, don’t touch that, sweetie.” Nor do we want the adults who are with the kids to have to police them every time they reach for a nice, soft rayon chenille scarf.

The solution? Our Children’s Touching Basket.

Many gallery members have contributed lovely pieces of cloth to the basket, and as soon as a small child comes into the gallery, we direct the young visitors to the basket. If the gallery member who is on site at the time isn’t otherwise occupied with customers, he or she will generally talk with the child about all the wonderful fabrics in the touching basket—a crinkly piece of shibori silk, a shiny piece of taffeta, a brightly-colored handwoven cloth, a soft felted cloth—telling the child how it’s made or what it’s used for.

In addition to the fabrics, we also keep an outline of a quilt pattern in the basket.

Children are welcome to take a copy of this quilt outline home with them so that they can color in their own pretty quilt.

Parents are happy to have their kids entertained (and educated about textiles!), and we’re happy to provide the kids with a productive way to keep sticky fingers off the delicate textiles in our gallery.

Come visit us in Studio 18 in the Torpedo Factory Art Center. Oh, and bring the kids, too!

by July blog editor Ruth Blau

Rhythm & Blues

2011-07-01T08:14:00.004-04:00

Our gallery has 10 different shows per year, each show having a theme. The theme for the show that runs from June 20 to August 2 is “Rhythm & Blues.” The reason that we have this theme for this show at this time is also the title of one of the focus areas of the Smithsonian’s Festival of Folklife, which takes place on the National Mall in Washington, DC, in late June and early July.

As usual, gallery artists may interpret the theme in any way they wish. Not surprisingly, we had many submissions that focused on the musical aspect of this theme. But equally, we had many members who took the color blue and ran with it. Either approach (or any other) is acceptable in the gallery.

The judges for this show were Anne Sanderoff-Walker and Carol Holmes, both members of the gallery’s Jury Committee. Here is their judges’ statement on the show:

“There were many interpretations of the Rhythm and Blues theme, represented by a wide variety of techniques, colors, and textures. High notes were hit by Anne Buchal with her collection of applique musicians, Paige Garber with her felted wall piece, "Jazz," and Patti Koreski with her painted silk ruana, "Rhythm and Blues".”

The above three wonderful wall hangings are by Anne Buchal, and are called (top to bottom), “O is for Ornette,” “R is for Rollins,” and “I is for Idol.” Here’s what Anne writes of these three pieces:

“These small wall hangings were originally a group of five that were created for a show that our group, FINE (Fiber In Nearly Everything), had at one time. Julie Booth asked us to make an ‘alphabet’ that spelled the name of the show: ‘Color Riffs.’ We drew straws and got our letters. When I later realized that I had something that fit our theme for June, I got them ready and brought them in. They were fun to do.”

Below is another wall hanging, this one a felted work by Paige Garber, entitled “Jazz".:

In the spirit of improvisation that is at the heart of jazz, Paige says of this piece that she “used some blue-green hand dyed wool as background and then I laid down silk fabric cut-out shapes and threads to create motion and repetition. It was all improvised spontaneously, and then wet felted.”

Finally, there is this lovely silk hand-painted ruana by Patti Koreski, entitled “Rhythm and Blues.”

These are only three of the many works of fiber art submitted for jurying into our Rhythm & Blues show. Visit our gallery in Studio 18 in the Torpedo Factory Art Center to see the whole show. And be sure to visit the Smithsonian’s Folklife Festival for a different taste of Rhythm & Blues.

by July blog editor Ruth Blau

Last Bead and Button Post

2011-06-29T15:06:00.001-04:00

While many of us who use fiber techniques when we do beadwork, there was an artist and teacher at the Bead and Button Show who uses a loom to create masterworks of beading. I was fortunate to take a class from Judy Walker in small bead looming. I loved it and loved her clever "paper clip" loom which eliminates the need for lots and lots of sewing in of warp threads. Judy had some of her work with her and allowed me to take pictures. These are amazing pieces. All of them were done on a traditional bead loom with lots of thread to cope with afterward. The sizes were about 18" x 24" except for the "rose window" which was about 20" square. The red rug has 47, 695 beads according to Judy and she should know since she would have picked them up one by one. This type of beadwork is definitely not for the impatient and faint of heart!

You can look for some loomed beadwork in the gallery in the future but not in this size or complexity! This type of exposure to new ideas and techniques is why many of us go to conferences.

A new "cloth"

2011-06-28T09:20:00.001-04:00

There is more than one way to view/ use "cloth". This is a pin that my good friend Irene made in a class she took from Marilyn Moore. I believe that Marilyn started her art journey as a basket maker. I became aware of her work a few years ago at the Smithsonian Craft show--one of the most prestigious in the country. She makes and teaches jewelry and containers using woven metal cloth.

The "cloth" is colored using a torch instead of dyes but after that it is handled the same way as fabric--sewing (wire not thread), shaping (pliers not starch like liquids), etc. By thinking way outside the "fiber" box our members can come up with some very creative ideas of what constitutes "fiber and fiber techniques".

This is a piece of woven metal mesh (very fine weave) colored by gently heating with a creme brûlée type torch. It was then shaped, hemmed and embellished with pearls and crystals. A pretty pin in the making.

Location:Bead and Button Milwaukee WI

More from Bead and Button

2011-06-26T09:39:00.001-04:00

I clicked on the wrong button while posting so now I'll try to upload a couple more pictures taken at the show. this is a picture of an award winning piece of bead work. It is called off-loom bead weaving when done like this. Each bead is picked up individually and sewn into the next bead in a pattern (though it can also be done randomly). Pretty amazing to see. This is a life size piece

Reminds me of crocheted doilies like my Grandmother used to make.

This is a vendor who sells the frames (and yarn and beads) to make knitted purses. This was all the rage around the turn of the last century. The purses are elegant and not for the faint of heart knitter. It involves stringing hundred of beads and knitting with very small thread on very thin needles. But isn't the result worth it. Gorgeous.

More from Bead and Button

2011-06-26T09:29:00.001-04:00

This has been my month to blog and since I was going to be in Milwaukee at the Bead and Button show, I decided to blog about the cross over in media. It has amazed me that in the seven years, I've attended this show (the largest consumer bead show in the world) that so many of the things a fiber oriented artist is drawn to have appeared at what used to be a mostly bead show. It was easy to get lots of pictures but I forgot to take pictures of the beads for the most part.

Felting at a "Bead Show"

2011-06-16T11:38:00.001-04:00

A contemporary glass bead maker I've known for many years has branched off into felting. She had many lovely vessels at the Bead and Button Show in early June in Milwaukee.

She has also put together kits to tempt the beaders in the crowd to move on over to the fiber side of the world.

For many of us in the gallery, attending a conference is a way to learn new techniques in our chosen medium but also a way to open our minds to new and different techniques.

For the rest of this month, I'm going to include some more pictures of the fiber and fiber techniques I saw at the Bead and Button show. This show (billed as the largest consumer bead show in the world) has changed dramatically over the seven years I have attended it. And the plus side is that once a year I get to eat at Madors restaurant a quaint, old and delicious way to end a great week in Milwaukee.

Woven Wire cloth

2011-06-08T20:10:00.001-04:00

Today a class was held in creating a pendant using woven wire cloth. The cloth was made of copper so it can be colored by torch firing rather than dying as fabric would be. The colors resemble Raku in pottery. The piece was assembled using fagotting and buttonhole stitch. The "sewing" thread was very fine copper wire. The result resembles a cornucopia embellished with pearls. Because it is a wire cloth, the shape is firm without any necessity for sub-structure or stiffening.

Because of the fiber techniques used in construction, this is the type of object that can be including in our gallery.

Location:Bead and Button Show

Basketry technique with wire

2011-06-06T22:30:00.001-04:00

Many of our members go to conferences to network and take classes in new but still fiber related techniques. Over the years our members have migrated from strictly using fiber to using other media in a fiber way. This is why visitors will see beading, wire, thread, paper, painted canvas, etc in the gallery. Members crochet and knit with wire as well as thread for example.

Today at the Bead and Button conference was a perfect example of using a non-fiber material in a fiber technique. The class was using wire for a basketry focal piece for a necklace. Whether using reed or wire for your end result, it is still basketry, using an age old process.

Location:Bead and Button Milwaukee

Mixed Media at what used to be strictly a bead show

2011-06-03T17:31:00.001-04:00

I'll be blogging this week from Milwaukee Wisconsin where for 10 years Bead and Button Magazine has held the largest consumer bead show in the world. It is a week plus of classes, networking, and shopping. Plenty of shopping. It is also a place where it is permissible to look at a fellow passengers chest while riding the elevators or wandering the show floor to see what wonderful piece of jewelry they are wearing. Why should this matter to a fiber gallery? The composition of what is displayed in the gallery began to change a few years back when it was brought to the attention of the membership that there were more than a few fiber techniques being used to make jewelry.

At the same time, the "strictly beads" world was finding that people wanted to know about such things as knitting and crocheting with wire, and making felt into jewelry. This has led to many more classes in these mediums such as a class by world class jeweler Michael David Sturlin in crocheting his signature style of chain. Can't wait to try my hand at this technique.

Location:Milwaukee Wisconsin

Julie Booth's "Little Sister"

2011-05-27T16:15:00.013-04:00

The theme of our current show at the Potomac Fiber Arts Gallery is work inspired by The Crone of Crazy, an art quilt by Pamela Allen. One of the Jurors' Recognitions was awarded to a cloth figure by Julie Booth, "Little Sister," shown here:

I asked Julie about her process for designing and making these figures. She told me that she has been creating cloth figures and fiber sculptures since 1994. In 1996, she started to move away from her more traditional “folk art” style to create more stylized figures based on simple shapes. Julie has always loved the colors and textures of indigenous crafts of many countries, in particular the carved animal sculptures of Oaxaca, Mexico and the fabrics and masks of Africa. As a result, many of her works incorporate both “human” and “animal” characteristics, often blurring the line between the two.

All of Julie’s fabrics are hand printed. She carves many of her print blocks from linoleum-like products, including Speedball Speedy Carve and Speedy Stamp and Staedtler Mastercarve. In addition, she likes to create blocks from recycled materials and materials that can be found in craft stores, including Styrofoam, layered cardboard, hot glue, craft foam, and moldable foam. Julie prints these blocks on solid colored cotton fabrics using Pebeo Setacolor fabric paints. She enjoys printing different block patterns and designs on top of each other for more interesting, layered effects. More recently, Julie has started with white cotton or silk and hand painted her own background fabrics before printing. Julie won the 2010 Potomac Fiber Arts Guild Margaret M. Conant Grant for a project to study the use of ordinary and inexpensive materials found in most homes as resists in art projects. Her new knowledge, which she will present to Guild members, will add even more possibilities to her printed fabrics. Here is a group of Julie's fabrics:

Julie’s figures are made up of combinations of simple stuffed shapes that are sewn together to create an interesting form. Julie’s designs often start as thumbnail sketches which she’s doodled on scraps of paper. When a sketch “speaks” to her, she will first draw a full-scale rough sketch which she then refines and breaks down into the simple shapes that will make up the piece. The next stage is to make a muslin “dummy”, machine sewing and stuffing the shapes, then hand sewing them together.

Once the design is set, Julie will create pattern pieces from quilter’s template plastic. She uses these to trace and cut out the patterns from her block printed fabrics. After the simple shapes are stuffed and sewn together, Julie further hand embellishes them with appliqué, stitching, and bead embroidery. For many of her pieces, Julie creates polymer clay faces using either “faux” stone techniques or an embossing technique which she developed.

Julie used polymer clay faces in "Friends are Angels" and Warrior:

Each of Julie's figures has its own personality. It is always interesting to see what the current show brings.

Felted flowers

2011-05-23T17:28:00.007-04:00

Felted flowers are popular in our gallery. Several of our member artists make these, each in their own style. Most often these are created as pins, but the flowers sometimes are on a necklace

or even used to create an elegant hat.

There are many ways to get different effects in making flowers, and each of the gallery's feltmakers uses more than one layout method, but they all involve warm soapy water to wet the wool and encourage the felting process after layout, and, of course, agitation.

"Felting" actually involves two processes: felting is when the wool holds together and fulling is when it hardens and can be shaped. Paige Garber, one of our feltmakers, says that "most of us don't push the fulling too much as we want the flowers to be soft and somewhat translucent, though that is not a hard and fast rule."

Here are photos of some of the steps Roz Houseknecht went through to make this ruffle flower:

Roz begins by creating the leaves from loose wool fibers (usually merino) that have been hand-dyed. Each layer is wet with a soap solution and then covered with plastic that has a hole cut out of the center. Because there is a hole in the plastic all layers will attach in the center. There are 3 layers of petals, some covered with silk fibers. The top layer has a stamen attached. The entire package is rolled in bubble wrap, rotating every 100 rolls. The final step is to check all the felting and continue to full each layer individually by hand. At the end, the flower is rinsed in clear water, shaped, and allowed to dry.

Here's a leaf, the first step in Roz's flower:

Roz has added the bottom layer of flower petals in the photo below:

In the next photo, she has added the stamen:

This is what the bundle of fibers looks like when the wet fibers are being rolled in bubble wrap to felt them:

Here's the flower after several layers of petals have been added:

And this is how it looks after more petals have been felted:

Here are two more flowers by Roz in our current show at the gallery:

Paige Garber, another of our gallery's feltmakers, generally likes to put flower beads in the middle of her flowers. Most also have silk roving inlay to provide some sheen. Here are two of Paige's flowers:

Grace Mahanes often uses seed beads in her flowers:

Paige says that "the beauty of flowers is that they take so many colors and forms, it is hard to get bored with designing them." It's also always fascinating to see what our artists have come up with. Our display of flowers changes with every show. Please drop by the gallery to see our current garden of felted flowers.

Artistic Growth

2011-05-13T12:48:00.011-04:00

Our members must demonstrate mastery of at least one fiber technique––knitting, weaving, quilting, etc.––to be juried into the Gallery. Sometimes members may want to learn something new, whether as a change of pace from their primary area or as an expansion of something they already do. This new road helps us grow as artists and broadens the range of work available in our Gallery. Today I'll showcase three members who have taken this artistic journey.

Anne Sanderoff-Walker is a weaver, but recently she has added felted, embroidered pins to her repertoire. When I asked what led her to this new endeavor, Anne said:

Every once in a while I take a workshop that is totally different from my primary art form, which is weaving. The Potomac Fiber Arts Guild’s February three-day workshop was on hand dyeing, stitching and beading on felt, making pins and books. I find that learning new techniques helps me tap into unexplored reserves of creativity. I have recently been exploring dyeing and I was looking forward to expanding this exploration with the added dimension of felting. Chad Alice Hagen, the instructor of the workshop, encouraged us to make one decision at a time as we stitched patterns onto the hand dyed felt, adding buttons and beads as the whim struck. This is drastically different from the planning and executing of my woven pieces which require color and structure decisions to be made very early in the creative process. I have always enjoyed hand work and the embellishment of my new pins has brought me back to a loved technique. The addition of this new fashion accessory line to my work has also provided pieces at a lower price point, providing the opportunity for customers to make a differently affordable purchase of my art.

Below are photos of three of Anne's pins:

Anne's work shows the wide range of color, texture, and composition she can achieve with this technique.

Another member who has taken this road to artistic growth is Roz Houseknecht. Here is an example of Roz's felted shibori scarves:

Roz says that "combining textile techniques has always been intriguing to me. For several years I have been dyeing silk using a variety of shibori techniques."

Shibori is a resist process that creates patterns in cloth by blocking the flow of dye to certain areas of the cloth. For example, if one clamps rectangular blocks of plexiglass to both sides of a folded length of fabric, a pattern of repeating rectangles will result because the dye hasn't reach those areas, but has colored the rest of the fabric. You can see this in the center scarf above, where the first dye bath of paler blue forms rectangles outlined by the purple applied after the fabric has been clamped. Another shibori technique that Roz uses involves wrapping the fabric around a length of PVC pipe, tightly wrapping string in a spiral up the length of the pipe, then compressing the cloth so that the cord blocks access to the dye. This results in a more linear pattern of light and dark area. You can see this in the closeup below.

Roz makes the surface complex by using 2 different tying methods. "I clamp or wrap the silk and put it in a dye bath. After I rinse the project and dry it, I then tie or clamp the silk in a different way and drop it in a second color. This multi step process adds depth and interest to the surface. After the cloth is dyed, I add fine merino wool to the silk to highlight different sections of the cloth. The felting process adds additional texture when the wool shrinks and silk pleats."

Another process that Roz has been working on with felt is to collage onto the silk with shapes that have been pre-felted, creating a complex surface pattern. Below is an example of a garment Roz made that uses this technique:

A third Gallery member who has developed a new body of work is Janet Stollnitz, another of our master weavers. Here's how Janet describes her journey:

What is old is new. A number of years ago I took workshops in both wet- and needle-felting. Although I enjoyed the results of the wet felting, I was more intrigued by the details created using needle-felting techniques. In the needle-felting workshop we created heads; each head had a unique personality. The next step was to create a body. My enjoyment was in making the heads, not a full body sculpture. That ended my needle-felting endeavors. However, seeing the various pins produced by Gallery members reminded me that I had enjoyed making heads, especially the faces––face pins!

Each face is created individually starting with a basic background followed by a nose and ears. With the addition of the eyes and the mouth, the personality appears. Some hair-- many seem to have a “bad hair day” --and of course, beaded earrings complete most pieces.

The base or background starts with a hamburger roll sized mound of carded wool fleece. Using a needle that is specially designed for needle-felting, the fleece is pierced repeatedly to form the desired shape and density. The nose and ears are shaped separately using the felting needle and attached to the base shape. All facial features, such as eyes, eyebrows, and lips, also are made of carded wool fleece and applied using the felting needle. Curly, wool locks are most often used for hair. The beaded earrings are attached using a needle and thread.

I hope you've enjoyed learning about these artistic journeys as much as I did. Our new show will be juried on Monday. Please visit the Gallery to see the latest places our artistic paths have led.

Floris

Hand knits at the Gallery

2011-05-07T16:53:00.018-04:00

Knitted clothing and accessories can be bought many places, in department stores, in boutiques, and in galleries such as ours. What makes a knitted item gallery-worthy?

First, all knitted items in our gallery are hand-knit using original designs. Beyond that, one thing that often distinguishes knitted items at our gallery is the fiber used. For example, Joan Hutten's scarf is knitted of wild silk and cotton.

This detail shot shows the knitting pattern Joan used for her variegated yarn. Often the yarn in our wearables is hand-spun or hand-dyed.

Debra M. Lee is one of the Gallery's master knitters. One of her specialties is knitted tote bags made using recycled cotton canvas tote bags as the lining. These use quality yarns of natural fibers. In the examples shown below, the Journey and Chameleon and Praying Mantis bags use wool or wool and soy yarns, while the Blooming Flowers bag uses cotton, bamboo, silk, and linen yarns. Each lining is customized with a zippered top and interior pockets. The knitted fabric is reinforced with fused non-woven interfacing to help retain its shape and promote wear.

Here are the front and back of Debra's Chameleon and Praying Mantis tote bag:

The image on The Journey, below, is embroidered using the duplicate stitch technique.

Our final example of Debra's work is Blooming Flowers, where Debra knitted the bag in a geometric pattern, then added separately knitted and crocheted flowers.

Photos by George McLennan

When asked how her bags differ from commercially produced tote bags, Debra says:

• My hand-knits are my attempt to change the grandmotherly, dowdy perception of knitting as a craft and help bring it into modern, contemporary fashion and art.

• My bags take a small step toward reducing our carbon footprint by recycling mass produced canvas totes.

• I incorporate the principles of design and color through the use of color yarns and imagery that are not easily mass produced. The images on the Journey and Chameleon and Praying Mantis bags are hand-embroidered, for example.

• Each hand-knit is a project with a unique vision.

Of course, knitting need not be restricted to functional items. One example is Gayle Roehm's knitted interpretation of a Fabergé egg, Spring Flowers Egg:

Photo by Miriam Rosenthal, ThirdEyePhotography

This is but a taste of the range of knitted items that may be seen in our gallery. Please stop in to see what our members are showing this time.

Surface Stitchery/Embroidery #6

2011-04-28T15:50:00.009-04:00

Machine embroidery has an additional possibility. Stitching may be done on a water soluble stabilizer background. When the embroidery is finished, the stabilizer is dissolved away and only thread remains. The final piece can be entirely of thread or can be part thread areas and part fabric areas. In order to do this type of machine embroidery, the background stabilizer must be stiff enough to hold up to the stitching or be suspended taut in an embroidery hoop. The stabilizing fabric comes from different companies, in different thicknesses and with different dissolving directions. Some are adhesive, allowing the placement of fabric pieces and/or yarns. Lines of stitching must cross each other so that the threads make a web that will hold up when the stabilizer is removed. Single lines of stitching as well as stitches all in a single direction will fall apart when the background is dissolved.

Joanne Bast combines recycled sweater pieces with various novelty fabrics and areas of freeform machine stitching to create scarves. A layer of thick stabilizer is cut to scarf length and width and laid out flat. Cut pieces of recycled sweater and other fabrics are positioned on the stabilizer leaving gaps to be filled with stitching. Another piece of stabilizer is positioned on top and all layers are pinned together. The use of a double layer of the stiffer variety of stabilizer allows the scarf to be stitched without hooping.

Each bar of stitchery must be stitched both up and down as well as back and forth so that it will remain intact when the stabilizer is dissolved. In this case a square grid is created, but diagonals, circles or and allover pattern of stitches could be done as well.

When the fabric pieces are secured and all the open areas have thread grids, a silk yarn hand dyed by one of our other members is stitched on top using a regular patterned stitch first on one side and then on the other.The stitched scarf is submerged in water and soaked then rinsed.

Finished scarf:

Stretching thinner stabilizer in an embroidery hoop allows for creation of an entirely thread piece. This is an iris stitched by Joanne Bast. Stitching must be done in all directions, back and forth, up and down and diagonally. Only after this base ifs formed are the design lines added on top. Note that if the bobbin thread color is changed to match the top thread, the resultant piece is the same on both sides.

By not entirely removing the stabilizer, thread creations remain slightly stiff and can be shaped while wet. They will hold these shapes when dried. Eileen Doughty stitches and shapes thread leaves which can be used a shallow bowls to hold small items such as business cards.

Heasoon Rhee also stitches and shapes vessels of thread using a dissolvable stabilizer base. Novelty and metallic threads add sparkle.

Jewelry by Eileen Doughty is also machine stitched on stabilizer that is dissolved away. The resultant earrings are very light and wearable.

Embroidery in many ways can be used to embellish, enhance and entirely create works of art for the home and person. With Mother's Day fast approaching, perhaps one of these embroidered items of fiber art will be just the perfect gift. I will now pass the blogging hat on to Floris Flam who will enlighten, entertain and entice for the month of May. Joanne

Surface Stitchery/Embroidery #5

2011-04-25T21:45:00.011-04:00

Embroidery has been seen to embellish fiber/fabric works by adding line and/or pattern. An additional way that embroidery can enhance fiberart is by creating texture.

In hand embroidery, texture may result from directional stitching as well as lumpy stitches such as those that produce loops or knots. Couching can also be used to hold down textured threads like thick and thin yarns, bouchles, eyelash yarns. Couching may be done by hand or machine. A third possibility is to use stitches to attach three dimensional objects such as beads, buttons, wads of fabric or found objects.

In machine embroidery, the stitches are formed by two threads looping together within the fabric--one from the spool on the top and one from the bobbin below. In a normal sewing line, the tensions of the top and bottom threads are balanced such that only the top thread is visible on the surface of the fabric and only the bobbin thread is visible on the back side. If the tension is not balanced, loops and nubs of thread can be produced either on the top surface (tighten top and or loosen bobbin tension) or on the bottom (loosen top and/or tighten bobbin tension). Either top or bottom can become the "right" side of the finished piece. In addition, thicker threads may be wound on the bobbin so that sewing may be done with threads too heavy to pass through the eye of the needle. In this case, the bottom will become the "right" side and the design must be stitched from the "wrong" side.

Julie Booth uses directional hand stitching to add texture to the lips and eyes of her totem dolls.

Direction of stitching also figures in the machine embroidery "Three Apples" buy Joanne Bast to differentiate the texture of the painted windows from the cement sill and the apple skins.

When the background strata is thick, stitching lines compress areas and puff out others as in the wet felted wool wall hanging "scaling the Great Wall" by Joanne Bast or the needle felted bracelets by Paige Garber.

Hand stitched seed beads, sequins, buttons, wire curlicues, carved stone flowers and/or fresh water pearls embellish felted brooches by Zita Simutis, Anne Sanderoff-Walker, Paige Garber, and Joanne Bast.

Olena Lar, one of our newest members stitches beads and stones onto a leather slave bracelet ring combination.

A textured evening bag by Beverly Baker combines couching and beading.

Ann Liddle and Eileen Doughty leave thread ends to texture necklaces of felt and paper.

Machine couching of a thick and thin yarn embellishes a purse by Dorothy Miller.

All over couching of a textured thread in a wall hanging by Fran Spader.

Couching only a few of the painted squares on Janet Barnard's scarf emphasizes shapes.

Anna Ebersole stitches bits of fabric and threads to form a 3Dimensional wall piece "Dragonflies".

Joanne Bast stitches leaf veins on a barrette using perle cotton in the bobbin from the wrong side and then turns the piece over to add the freeform stitching from the right side.

Eileen Doughty contrasts the texturing of freeform machine stitching with the straight stitching of the tree trunks in a blue satin bag and a Washington city scene.

Joanne Bast uses loose bobbin tension to pull loops of thread up from the bobbin to texture barrettes and to add dimension to the flowers in the window boxes of the machine embroidery "Red Window".

Mother's Day is fast approaching. Come on in and see the variety of fiber work available in the Potomac Fiber Arts Gallery for gift giving. Hand made items become heirlooms to be treasured by generations and not duplicated. April is coming to an end and I will soon be turning the blog posting over to Floris Flam. I hope to blog once more before the week is out. Until then, Joanne

Surface Stitchery/Embroidery #4

2011-04-22T15:26:00.014-04:00

One does not have to use combinations of thin straight lines to produce pattern in embroidery. Embroidery books are full of a multiplicity of hand embroidery stitches that can be used to produce patterns. Stitches exist that have threads that loop and cross leading to a wide variety of patterns.

Many sewing machines are also programed with a selection of decorative stitches. This is a selection of stitch patterns that can be found on an older model mechanical machine followed by examples of these stitches sewn out. Stitches can be further affected by changing the stitch width and or length.

Current electronic machines have 20, 30, 50 or more screens of possible stitches. Some produce patterned lines, some individual motifs and some an all over patterning.

By overlaying stitch pattern lines over stitch pattern lines, a surface pattern can be created.

The following are examples of pins, barrettes and earrings by Joanne Bast that use overlapping preprogrammed machine stitches to form an overall pattern.

Pattern stitches are preprogramed into the machines and when selected, stitch out using the ordinary sewing set up which involves an attachment called a presser foot which pushes the fabric to be stitched down onto a set of teeth called feed dogs. The feed dogs surge forward and are what moves the fabric so that the stitches do not end up all on top of each other.

Feed dogs:

Presser foot and feed dogs:

Sewing machines can also be used in a free form manner by dropping these feed dogs. When the feed dogs are not in play, the fabric does not move automatically, but can be moved by hand forward, backward, side to side, diagonally, back and forth or in circles. An open presser foot called a darning foot is often used in producing freeform machine embroidery.

Feed dogs retracted:

Darning foot with retracted feed dogs:

Freeform stitching:

Freeform machine embroidery may be done in an open fashion so that the fabric shows through or may be stitched so compactly that the stitching entirely covers the underlying fabric and forms a thread painting as in picture below "I'm So Sorry" by Joanne Bast.

Have a Happy Holiday weekend. Joanne

Surface Stitchery/Embroidery #3

2011-04-18T23:26:00.013-04:00

In many cases stitching over the surface of fiber work with a threaded needle either by hand or by sewing machine may be used to add or enhance pattern as well as the previously discussed line.

In the wall quilt "Dandelions", Betty Ford uses lines closely spaced enough to read as an air flow or wind pattern.

Betty also embellishes fabric sections of the wall hanging "Orchard" with a pattern of closely spaced lines.

Patterns can be made of angular rows of stitching as in Floris FLam's business card case or Judy Gula's Brooch.

Serpentine lines convey an all over organic pattern to wall hangings by Cindy Grisdela and Floris Flam as well as eyeglass cases by Paige Garber and a brooch and barrettes by Joanne Bast.

Words and letters may also be used to form an all over pattern as in Anna Ebersole's Ebb Flow.

The above samples are all of embroidery done on the sewing machine, but pattern may be added by hand as well. Betty Ladd used cross stitching to pattern a quilt within a quilt.

Pattern may also be expressed by specific motifs as in the embroidered flowers and leaves on the knitted and fulled wool hats by Joanne Bast.

Surface stitching or embroidery can be used to embellish fiber works not only by emphasizing and decorating lines but also be adding pattern. The Potomac Fiberart Gallery members are pleased to offer such a wide variety of decorative, wearable and useful items to the public. Joanne

New Gallery Show: Opposites Attract

2011-04-15T22:50:00.010-04:00

Monday April 11 a new show was installed in the Potomac Fiberarts Gallery in the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, VA. The theme is Opposites Attract--or do they?

Not all new work must be theme related, but theme related items are eligible for awards.

Annabel Ebersole and Carol Holmes, member jurors for April stated:

Opposites attract! What a wonderful bounty of creative responses to this theme. It was difficult to choose among the many gorgeous black and white pieces, as well as pieces that highlighted circles and squares, lines and curves, soft and hard, smooth and textured, shiny and matte.

We selected Dorothy Miller’s Thai silk purse in black and white which also highlighted floral and linear and curved vs. angular. Zita Simutis’ felted and stitched piece with squares and circles of heishi beads with offset layout of the stitching pattern added visual interest. Joanne Bast’s two felted rocks with their wooly texture contrasted by brick stitch beadwork of a lizard and turtle exemplified the theme.

Dorothy Miller's purse, available for $65: Dorothy states I had pieces of silk left over from a formal blouse I designed and made ( could send a picture of the blouse). The pieces seemed to cry for use in the black and white theme. I played with the fabric pieces until I drew a design I liked. The beads on the zipper are from an old necklace a friend gave me. This theme gave me chance to recycle.

Zita Simutis's felted wall piece "Standout" , $165:

Zita's thought process:

This is the process I used to create “Standout”. Hand felted some
white wool. Dyed it with a light color. Dyed it again using Japanese
resist techniques with a darker color. Dyed it one more time and was
surprised about what actually happened to the felt with the layers of
dye. I always am. Colors changed, patterns changed with each dye bath.
Thought, turned it around. Pinned the felt piece on the wall. Looked
at it once in a while for over a year. Thought again about what I
wanted to do with the piece. Cut it up into little pieces to make
pins? Turn it into wall art? Wall art, definitely. Combine it with
other pieces? That is what I did. Several hand dyed felt pieces were
sewn together with tiny stitches. And then I embroidered, added some
beads – why not do one in a different color, and it was done. Magical
fiber art processes, thinking, and many tiny decisions over time
turned it into a little work of art called “Standout”. I loved making
it and I am honored that the jurors liked it too. Thanks to the
incredible Chad Alice Hagen for the inspiration.

Joanne Bast's beadwork animals ($135 for the turtle and $250 for the lizard) are organic forms constructed out of hard glass bead elements seated on softly felted rocks. I am fascinated by the ability to actually draw with brick stitched beadwork. Making the living elements out of hard inorganic glass and the nonliving base out of soft organic wool provided an interesting reversal.

Many of our fiberartist members interpreted opposites attract as black and white.

Floris Flam quilted a black, white and red wall hanging titled "BlackHole" which hangs next to Anna Yakubouskaya's dyed a silk panel/scarf called "Night Butterflies".

Black and white scarves by JanetBarnard, Roz Hopuseknecht and Jannet Stollnitz hand below.

Details of "Black Hole" and "Night Butterfly":

Black and white purses are also in abundance.

Merle Thompson's tote bag.

A black and white summer hat by Bev Baker:

Fossil Series, wire work in fiber techniques by Marla Rudnick.A Black and white jacket by Merle Thompson:

Beadwork necklace in black and white by Elida De Sousa Moore, peyote stitched with glass and resin beads:

Cindy Grisdela pillow:

Ann Liddle's hand made paper wall sculpture "Phases of the Moon" hangs above "Time Travel", a wall quilt by Cindy Grisdela.

Eileen Doughty stitched paper necklace contrasts squares and circles.

Jewelry items be Joanne Bast, Emma Bednar, Eileen Doughty, Barbara Rushworth and Roz Houseknecht contrast hard and soft, black and white, square and round, night and day, line and pattern.

Opposites Attract sure provided an interesting array of fiber items in addition to a vast array of additional artistic fiber pieces to tempt the eye and wallet. Joanne

Surface Stitchery/Embroidery #2

2011-04-10T19:29:00.008-04:00

Continuing on with a discussion of how line in embroidery can serve to embellish textiles, Cindy Griselda has hand stitched multiple lines in running stitch that parallel, cross and conflict with the fabric pieces in her wall quilt.

Joanne Bast has used multiple parallel hand couched running stitches in the wales of corduroy to entirely form the design of trees in "Porch, Pines and Potted Plant" on a piece of plain fabric.

Straight rows of parallel stitching done on the sewing machine provide additional interest in a Cindy Grisdela pillow.

In the fabric pictures "Lavender in Provence" and "Maryland from Above", Betty Ford has machined repeating areas of straight stitching following the hand dyed fabric shapes to enhance her landscapes.
Fran Spader's wall quilt has several areas of repeating lines, some straight and some in circles following the shapes of the fabric inlays.

Floris Flam's fabric collage also uses machined straight stitching. But here, the rows cross fabric blocks tying them together into a larger visual piece.

Stitching need not be in straight or even curved rows. The eyeglass cases by Elida de Sousa Moore below show machine stitching in an organic all over manner. Sewing machines also have built in pattern stitches that may be used as lines of embroidery as in the barrette by Joanne Bast.

Surface Stitchery/Embroidery #1

2011-04-06T00:39:00.017-04:00

Hello, This is Joanne Bast, back as blogger for the month of April. I see that the vast variety of fiber techniques to be found in the Fiberart Gallery at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, VA discussed so for have spanned the gamut from weaving and spinning to quilting to silk painting to beadwork to fabric collage. I would like to continue on with an explanation of surface stitchery otherwise known as embroidery. My old college dictionary defines to embroider as to ornament, to embellish, to add fanciful details to. Stitchery has long been used to beautify items from the common every day functional to the strictly ornamental.

Embroidery is usually considered as work done with a threaded needle. In the embellishment of items, one way that embroidery can be used is to add or emphasize line. Embroidery may be done by hand or with the needle of a sewing machine.

Julie Booth hand stitches fabric pieces onto one of her totem figures with decorative thread in such a way that visible stitching outlines each piece.

Two of Julie's Totem Figures.

Lines can follow and enhance the patterns of the base fabric. Using a sewing machine, Eileen Doughty outlines the motifs that she has printed onto her fabric journal covers, purse and fabric boxes.

Floris Flam stitches rows of parallel lines to emphasize the landscape effect of her wall quilt "Blue Hills".

In Betty Ford's "Red and Yellow Grasses", stitched lines follow the growth of the fabric strips to give a linear and waving feeling.

Ruth Blau uses lines of machine embroidery in contrast to the edges of fabric patches to embellish her hand woven tote bag.

The elements of a felted necklace by Ann Liddle are stitched using different line configurations.

Dorothy Miller uses a wide machined zig zag satin stitch to give a stained glass effect to her pieced evening bag.

Hand and machine stitching need not be mutually exclusive. In the pink bag below, Dorothy uses machine satin stitch to outline the large fabric color blocks and a running hand stitch to emphasize the small circles.

Sewing machines also often have built in pattern stitches that can also be used to separate and outline areas of design.

Floris Flam has satin stitch outlined the edges of petals as well as used finer stitched lines to develop internal structure in her fabric bowls.

Couching is a method of embroidery where one thread (usually either too thick to pass through the fabric or too dear to waste any on the back side) is held in place by overstitching with a thinner thread. Merle Thompson has used couching to add linear interest to a satin purse.

There are many ways in which embroidery may be used to add linear decorations to fiber work. In future posts this month, I will continue to explore embroidery as a fiber embellishment technique. Monday April 11 is also our next jury day. By the end of business on Monday, the gallery will be filled with all new goodies. Stop in and enjoy. Joanne

Computers in Weaving

2011-03-30T12:19:00.001-04:00

Most weavers these days use computers in one way or another. Almost all of us use them to do our designs. While there are project-related articles in weaving magazines, the weavers in our gallery all use original designs for the pieces they put in the gallery. Before computers, these used to be done using pencils and graph paper, usually accompanied by lots of language not found in a standard weaving glossary. It was a very tedious and error-prone process.

The designs we use for weaving are called drafts. This is what a typical weaving draft looks like:

Even though this pattern looks complicated, the draft is actually a fairly simple one. Without going into a lot of detail, three of the parts look like graph paper with some squares filled in. These are at the top, at the right, and in the upper right corner. Using weaving software, the weaver fills in these three parts and chooses the colors of the threads and the software fills in the large design in the center, showing what the woven fabric will look like.

Before computers, the designer would also have to fill in the large central part of the draft by hand. This was a complicated process involving figuring out the connections among the other three parts of the draft to determine what color to put in each of the squares in the central area.

Today, there are a variety of weaving software packages available, all of which do pretty much the same thing and allow us great flexibility to produce designs and to fairly quickly change them to see what effect the changes have on the fabric. That means we can spend less time fussing with pencils and graph paper and more time at the loom producing our work.

Five of us from the gallery share blogging responsibilities, each taking a month. Today is the last day for me until, I guess, August. Maybe then, I’ll talk more about some other uses of computers in weaving.

Bye for now. – Larry

Guest Blogger Makes a Tote Bag

2011-03-28T21:14:00.002-04:00

Today, as a guest blogger, we have one of our gallery’s artists, Merle Thompson, who designs and sew garments. She says:

“Having recently finished a jacket on commission, I found myself with many strips of fabric remaining. Before I put it all away, I decided to create a tote bag for the current show’s Asian theme.

“I used the traditional log cabin quilting pattern. However, I used the random sized strips that I had already cut. For the Asian theme I chose a square featuring a Japanese lady.

“For log cabin piecing, you sew one strip at a time, beginning on one side and working around, enlarging the square as you go until you have the desired size. I sewed the strips to a flannel backing to give some body. Because the tote bag size is oblong, I didn’t make complete squares but just added strip lengths as needed.

“A traditional log cabin pattern would usually use two tones of fabric, working a pattern between lights and darks. As you can see, I abandoned that idea also, using random colors in my general gray and pink palette.

“To finish the bag, I added an additional pellon lining for more body, a heavy cotton lining with pockets and a pieced handle from more of my left-over strips.” [Sorry for the small photo of the completed bag].

Thanks, Merle, for submitting the description of your work. It not only shows your creative process but your thrift in reusing left overs from another project.

Juror’s Recognition #3

2011-03-21T20:56:00.002-04:00

The third piece in this month’s show to get juror’s recognition is Janet Barnard’s wonderful top made from a kimono.

Here’s what Janet says about her process:

“Every so often, a Japanese cultural group has a fundraiser selling used kimonos, which is where I most recently have gotten my supply. When I am in the processing of reconstructing a kimono into another garment, I try to allow the painted artwork to remain the focal point. The paintings, by nature, are delicate and flowing, so the garment cannot be too heavy, nor have lots of seam lines to distract the eye.

“With a more sheer silk, the inside must look as finished as the outside so the lines of the garment aren’t compromised by unsightly seams. Since kimonos have no hardware keeping them closed, I try to minimize the number and types of closures I use. It often takes many hours of simply looking at the paintings before I actually come up with an idea. But they look beautiful just hanging in my studio.”

Juror’s Recognition #2

2011-03-18T11:16:00.002-04:00

Another piece that received Jurors' Recognition this month is Floris Flam’s art quilt, Through a Japanese Window.

Here’s what Floris says about her inspiration and process:

“ I started Through a Japanese Window in a workshop with Roberta Horton where the focus was on the improvisational use of large pieces of ethnic fabric. I brought mostly Japanese fabrics to the class, though I added some coordinating prints and solids from my stash. I came away from the workshop with several large pieces of fabric pinned together, but it took some time to decide how to fill in the rest. I wanted to stay with the asymmetric balance one often finds in Japanese art and kept trying ideas on my design wall until I was happy with the result.

“The wall hanging is machine-pieced and the butterfly and circular shapes machine appliqued. One example of problem-solving that pleased me is that the motifs in the lower left weren't strong enough for the design on their own, so I appliqued them to purple circles, which I appliqued to the quilt. Similarly, the flat piping above the right side of the bottom border lent a needed linear element and visual weight to that section of the quilt, helping to balance the bowl of flowers and the butterfly at the upper left. I machine quilted using traditional Japanese sashiko patterns in several of the large areas and free motion quilted following the lines of the print in other areas.”

In another few days I’ll post about the third piece that won Juror’s Recognition this month.

This Month’s Juror’s Recognition #1

2011-03-15T21:01:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was jury day at the gallery and a whole new show was hung. The jurors awarded Juror’s Recognition to three pieces in the new show. Over the next few days I’ll post the other two artist’s description of their inspiration and process.

Today, Paige Garber, one of the award winners explains her quilted wall hanging Red Happiness.

“My inspiration for the Red Happiness quilt wall hanging was, as you might guess a Japanese wood block face, which I bought at a yard sale. At the time I had a collection of red scraps of cotton fabric, and really it was just an extemporaneous exercise in framing the face with all these fun red strips, many of which had an oriental theme to them.
In fact most of my work is done on figuring out a next step and doing it and then figuring out the next. Rarely do I plan an entire composite before embarking on a project.”

The Loss of a Giant

2011-03-07T13:10:00.002-05:00

I should start my month blogging about weaving in our gallery but I’m so saddened by the sudden death of a true giant in the weaving community, James Koehler. He was just in our area the week before his death, teaching a workshop and giving a presentation at the Weavers Guild of Greater Baltimore. He had been ill for a number of months with an illness that was difficult to diagnose but he thought he was now on the mend. That turned out, unfortunately, not to be true.

James was an extraordinary tapestry artist, a former monk, and a wonderful teacher and mentor. Even though the artists in our gallery don’t usually submit tapestry pieces, a number of us took workshops from James and were influenced by his incredible work and his ability to teach both technique and color sense. He recently published a book on his tapestry art and was hoping to publish a book on technique.

You can see more of his work and read more about him on his web site: http://jameskoehler.com/