Booties!

While I was at Haystack (read: best place in the world) I spent a rainy day indoors with my professor, Janet Kawada, learning to felt boots! The fleece wasn't merino, so it took some muscle, but after about 5 hours of rolling and unrolling them in bamboo mats, they came out tight and fit great! I embroidered some scenes from Haystack (the woods, the sea) on the extra long tongues I made, and added leather soles to keep the bottoms from getting ratty. I hope you like them!

thanks to Amy for photographing them at the Haystack Show in the Student Life Gallery at MassArt!

Face in a Hole

Hey world!
I thought today I would bring you a not art taste of my life, through the recent face-ina-holes I've come across! Enjoy!

Weaving!!

Yesterday was my 3rd weaving class, and we finally had the looms set up and ready to go! We learned a bunch of patterns, and I was totally pumped. It reinforced several things I knew about myself:
1. I have a really hard time limiting my color palette (but really, why limit when there are so many colors out there?!)
2. I like repetitive counting/ movements (I miss math class, weird right?)
3. When I don't understand something right away, a little panic takes over, but then I do some problem solving and everything is fine.

I really think that weaving is going to be important in my life. I keep thinking up all sorts of interesting things I could do, once I have control of the medium.
My Grandmother recently gifted to me a 4 harness floor loom, and I am so thrilled to have the tools to continue once this class ends! Thanks Gramma!


Here, look at all these rainbow samples!!







WOOHOO

Let It Begin!

Today was our first meeting for Junior year in Fibers!!
I am so excited to start making work.
Tomorrow morning, I have my first class, weaving!! Yay!

Today we got to choose our studios for the year. I'm happy to be sharing with two friends, and also that the walls are pink.

Here it is, fresh and ready to be covered with soft things.

Home on the Range.

Well I'm home!

It was a wild couple of weeks, touring through National Parks with my mom and CJ, and our lovebird, Buddy.
We saw some seriously beautiful sights... here are a couple to give you an idea...





Soo awesome.

You can really see where the SW artists get their color schemes and inspiration, the zig zags, lines and shades of the rock formations were art in their own right.

In other news, it seems that the medium of tapestry has been worn out, before I even get started... Isn't this hilarious?!



The other awesome thing we did was go to a rodeo... it was so surreal, but I really enjoyed the culture.
It's nice to be home now though! Phew!
xoxo
Cady

HGA Convergence

Howdy Pard'ners!
I'm in AZ with my family, writing from day 2 of my introduction to The West. I just completed my week at the Handweaver's Guild of America's Conference, "Convergence 2010" in Albuquerque NM.

It was an awesome experience!!
Aside from a 8 hour trip that turned into a 20 hour aerial tour of the USA (Ithaca Ny to Detroit to Atlanta to Albuquerque UGH), there were no snags :)

The first couple days were spent preparing for the conference to get into full swing... we had Student Assistant meetings, and helped design and hang a few of the exhibits. The one I worked on the most was "Small Expressions", which involved little things made by very talented people. It was cool to see the care with which these items are shipped and handled, and taught me a lot about hanging shows!

The rest of my time was spent assisting in classes, which I also got to participate in! Two days were in "Exploring Surface Design Techniques" with Teresa Ruch. We did a lot of experimentation with bleach and other discharge dyes, and then used fiber reactive dyes and other cool techniques to make some seriously beautiful samples.


The second class I took was "Cut It Up: Refashioning Knits" with Sandy Scrivano. I took two sweaters, and collaged them together into one that I will actually be able to wear! She showed us a lot about how to deal with stretchy knits while sewing, and how to be experimental with patterning.

It was great to be surrounded by so many ladies who love fibers! I can't wait to take weaving next semester, because now I'm super inspired.

Here's a picture from the Painted Desert today, I was so blown away!!

Lady Embroideries

I can't stop making these girls.

I'm Excited!

Because my mom just brought back from Florida... my Grandmother's old spinning wheel!! She brought it home in parts, which was pretty daunting, but after a lot of fiddling around, I got it put together... The only thing that I'm confused about now is where/how to put a tension string on it. It spins like a dream, but the spindle doesn't suck the yarn in to wrap around the bobbin.

What's a girl to do?

In other news, I also got a pair of hand carders and a new (old) drop spindle. Fibers tools galore!!

Here's something I doodled in photoshop while watching The Bachelorette.

NYC!

I just got home from a glamorous week with my best friend Lily in NYC!
We did all kinds of neat things such as:

- going to the all-hipster breeding ground the Brooklyn Flea market (click) , which had a vintage leather purse I was drooling over but resisted (kudos Cady!)

- seeing WICKED the musical, which I had already memorized from a early high-school obsession, but had never seen! I sobbed throughout most of it, but it was amazing!

- hearing Annie and the Beekeepers in Bryant Park, for free (click)

here they are jamming out. Super adorable (especially the bass player, just sayin'.)

- going to the New York City Ballet! It was the first professional ballet I've ever seen, and I was so blown away. The best part in my opinion was a half modern/ half classical dance, in which 4 dancers in all white tried to sway each other into their respective mediums. It was comical, but also so beautiful.

And then during the day when Lily had to work at her internships (she's fabulous like that) I went on my own adventures!

I got to go to the:

- Guggenheim, which had an exhibit called "Haunted" which was as good as it sounds

- The Natural History Museum. It was my first visit, and aside from being a little creeped out by all the dead animals, I loved it. I especially liked the exhibits about other people and cultures. Look at this amazing crocheted girl from Africa, and this crazy embroidery from the Middle East!



And look at this coat. It's woven from strips of animal skins, which is something I've never seen before. I'm curious to try something like this in weaving next semester - maybe repurposing old fur coats?


and lastly I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which I've visited before, but I wanted to get immersed in everything. I again decided that my favorite time period is the late 1800s, with Renoir and Degas, and all their beautiful ladies. Also I got to see the "American Woman" costume exhibit. If you can get over there, check it out! It was set up like Disney World, and the outfits were drool-worthy!

I had a great week, but I'm happy to be back in Ithaca... Time to get back in the saddle and get some quality horse time in! Yeehaw!

<3 Cady

Cutie House

My family just completed our move into our new house - 2 houses away from our old house! This "new" house is actually the house I grew up in, but when I was in 5th grade we moved to the bigger house at 711. Now that our family is little again, we sold the big house and moved back into 707. I'm happy to be back (even if it is teeny tiny!)
I made some bunting to celebrate the new house, and am going to leave it up outside for a couple weeks. It's made entirely of felt, so I assume it will hold up pretty well in the weather.
woohoo!



Can you see my mom in the window there? Click it to make it bigger, as always!

Yarn!

I learned how to dye raw wool yesterday, and also how to dye yarn. It was similar to how I learned to dye fabric this year in school, but we used acid dyes, which need to stay hot for the duration of their dyeing.

We used a big pot, boiled water, added a cup of vinegar and half a bottle of turquoise dye, and then dyed about half a pound of raw wool and two small skeins we spun up. One skein was of alpaca, and one was of wool.

Here is the one I spun, of mostly alpaca, with a little bit of wool mixed in:


The alpaca didn't take the dye as well as the wool, but it was still a very nice color, and I'm excited that I can make colored yarns now! I'm looking forwards to being gifted my grandmother's antique spinning wheel, so that I can do it at home :) Next time my mom visits her, she is going to mail it back to me!

Here's a close-up of the turquoise alpaca (this is only my second time on the spinning wheel, so it's still a little lumpy, but getting better!!)

you can tell the little cutie alpaca was kind of a creamy white - some of the yarn is more yellow or green than other parts!

Summer in Ithaca

I'm back in my hometown, Ithaca, for the summer! I've been having a lot of adventures, several of which have been fiber related!

After emailing everyone in a 20 mile radius, I found a farm that needed help shearing their alpaca. I went out for the day to Indian Chimney Farm (click) and the showed me how to tie down and shear their three alpaca.

The dark guy in this photo is Paco - even though shearing doesn't hurt the animals one bit (in fact, it keeps them from overheating!) he insisted on screaming and spitting the whole time. The other two just laid there calmly, but Paco was crazy!
The way it works, is the alpaca's front and back feet are tied to a long pole on the ground while they lay on their side stretched out. My job was to keep a hand on their heads so they couldn't thrash their heads around trying to see what was going on, for fear of them hurting their necks. I also got to try shaving some of the wool, and learned to clip toenails!
Kim and Chris at the farm let me take home some fiber to play with.

Which I then took on my next mission: learning to spin!
My mom's friend Jean, her friend Kathy and I got together and learned how to wash the wool, card it so all the fibers are going in one direction, and to start spinning the fiber on a wheel!
It took me a little while to catch on, but by the time I went home, I was able to make some pretty yarn (without too many lumpies :)

Next up, I'm heading out to Kathy's house to learn to dye wool before spinning it.

Aside from my alpaca adventures, I've been horseback riding with my friend Alicia. Here are her pretty (goofy) horses from the winter:


Also I just got back from visiting a few friends in Maine:

which was lovely and woodsy.

and finally, I've been playing a lot of mandolin, finding people and places around town to make tunes. Monday nights on the commons is a free and open contra dance and jam, so if you're in the area, swing by!

I know that was a long post! I'll let you know when some art making takes place :)
xoxo
Cady

"business" card!

I never really learned to use Illustrator or Photoshop, so I've been trying to teach myself the basics lately. Tonight I made myself a business card! I'm going to print some of these up, because (drumroll please) I won the Student Assistant Grant to attend CONVERGENCE 2010 in Albuquerque!

For those of you who don't know, Convergence is a giant event hosted by the Handweaver's Guild of America. It's a weeklong giant fiber-fest, which is perfect for me!!

The grant means that they will fly me there and put me up in a hotel, and that I will get free admission to the Convergence event, in exchange for assisting with two classes! It's a super good deal, because that means I get to learn what the classes are teaching as well! One class is surface design, which is covering some techniques I've never done, and the other class is about re-fashioning old clothes, which I've been doing forever, but hopefully they will also have some more legit methods than my usual "try on and pin" ways.

I'm very excited to go, and will be sure to post pictures when I'm back! (I have a little while to wait though, it's not until mid-July!)

Folk folk

After I finished all my assignments for surface design, I decided to make some screens I could use for fun! This shirt is the result of one of the screens - these are the Folk folk - my imaginary adorable band. I also printed a bunch of coral fabric to make into quilted pillows down the road (which I'm planning to sell! Watch out!)

Ceramics

Can I just say - I love ceramics. I had an amazing semester in a hand-building class, and while my pieces are far from perfect, I think that they're pretty adorable. You know - in a kinda-lumpy-but-still-functional kind of way. I made a ton, but here are a few of the favs.


This one is a baby tea cup set - the glaze made it look like bones.

This guys is a little cutie house butter dish, which is part of my final project focusing on the little blue house. More to come.

A set of ice cream bowls.

This vase was put in the Raku kiln - it involves pulling the piece out of the kiln at the highest temperature, when the glaze is like honey liquid, then slamming it into a trash barrel full of newspapers. The whole mess catches on fire and the smoke reacts with the glaze to make it metallic!!

Felt Growth

Here's my latest project: Wrapping felt to look like it's growing. These are the little wall hangings that are happening, and I like them a lot! I'm going to keep experimenting with this method.

Party Hat!

This is my final hat for my millinery class! I designed it based on 1920s style socialite hats, as seen in the film "Bright Young Things" which has a fabulous extravagant party scene where everything is silver in the first scene. It's made out of silver dupioni silk, lined in white dupioni silk, and the brim is covered in lace I painted, with silver sequin accents! I'm pretty excited about hat making, and I don't think this will be the last of the hats you see from me!





ps - I've been getting so many readers lately from all over!! Thanks for the interest! Please feel free to comment and say hello!

Dreams Fabrics!

For my final project in Surface Design, I am making a set of pillow cases, on which the imagery is based on dreams I've had lately. So all these things are from different dreams. But I'm not telling you the stories just yet!!






I haven't washed out the dye yet, so cross your fingers it all goes as planned, and doesn't get all freaky streaky on me!! Please Santa please!