It’s Déjà Vu all over again!

Saturday is the big Déjà Vu show in Columbus Indiana. It celebrates recycled materials in art and features area artists that use reclaimed and recycled materials. You’ll find me there from 10-4 at the Yes Cinema at the corner of Fourth and Jackson. I even worked up the courage to call in to ‘Ask the Mayor’ on WFIU and invite Columbus Mayor Fred Armstrong to visit the show—it’s about ten minutes in on this recording. The show’s organizer, Marilyn Brackney, has done a bunch to promote the show so it should be a fun and busy event. Buy local and recycled, I say. And it’s a good excuse to come and see my new scarves and wreaths for the season!

Speaking of scarves, last December I participated in a workshop organized by Pam Kinnaman of Wee Sheep and run by Patti Hodge. They’re both winners in the 2009 Hoosier Hills Fiber arts contest and good people to know. Patti taught me to make lattice felted scarves, and of course I got into the wet felting process—it’s fun. I made a bright red scarf with black silk and hand dyed nylon fibers that I bought at the Fiber Event in Greencastle. It’s really soft and pretty and happy, and I ended up wearing it all last winter. I decided I’d like to try to make my own scarves, but sometimes it takes a while to get started on a project. I carry it around in my head and eventually it comes out! Last summer, on one of my treks to Sheep Street in Morgantown, I bought several pounds of merino wool roving in black, white, red and periwinkle. I tucked it away, but I’ve been collecting funky remnant yarns for the project, which is waaaay different than my usual yarn collection for weavings. OK, not so much. But I still have fun doing it! I finally decided that this week was the time to launch my scarf project. I got my hands on an old pool noodle and cut it to wrap the wet roving. Don’t tell my kids I cut it! Last spring I ordered a bunch of mosquito netting on-line, and even though I didn’t know I’d need it for scarves I knew I’d need it. I installed both extra leaves into the dining room table and made it the design and wet felting area. I cleared off the kitchen island and that became my wet felting studio. Then I laid out some complicated designs, applied my wet-felting knowledge from last year (and added a few tricks and shortcuts of my own, and started rolling. And rolled and rolled and rolled! I used this wonderful olive oil glycerin soap so the skin on my hands is soft and smooth. Oh, and it worked beautifully on the wool too.

To summarize my weeklong adventure, some of my designs turned out really well (come to the show!), while others were just part of the learning process. Some of the materials I experimented with didn’t felt well. I tried incorporating my felted balls (link), which didn’t stick very well, and various fabric scraps, which sometimes really enhanced the design. All in all I have nineteen new scarves. I was a little concerned about whether or not I could show them at the recycled art show, since some of the wool was new. So I asked the sheep, who assured me it was recycled.

Until next week…

Oh and one more big event coming up next weekend...the Fiber Art Show...Nov 13, 5pm - 9pm & Nov 14, 10am - 5 pm at the First United Church, 2420 E. 3rd Street Bloomington, IN. If you don't make it to Columbus, I hope to see you in Bloomington. I'm sure Mayor Kruzan will be there!

Fall Fun with Fibers

I had some great treasure hunts this week that took me all over the county. I started out driving my son Jacob to his doctor in Bedford to get a flu shot, which took me through some beautiful fall foliage in southern Indiana. To be out in the warm fall weather early in the week after being cooped up last week was terrific. Closer to home, a little internet sleuthing turned up a clever artist with a proprietary process for creating felt balls without a lot of effort. This really appealed to me since I’ve been making small fiber balls by wrapping threads, which is pretty tedious. I spent the money to learn the secret—if you’re interested, check out her work here. Knowledge is power, and I set off to scour Bloomington for the secret ingredients I needed. After a little bit of experimenting I’ve learned to create wonderful felt balls in a range of sizes. The little ones are really cute, especially the red ones!

One of the joys of any treasure hunt is finding kindred spirits in secret places. They’re not always on the same quest, but the goal is the same. At Opportunity House I ran into Lisa, the owner of LolaRue and Company , a place to create crafts. She said she often stops in at Opp House to poke around a little before opening her shop in the morning. We both get inspiration there, and Lisa calls it her therapy before she starts work in the morning. I also had a nice stop at the Thrift Shop, a consignment shop run by the Zeta Chapter of Psi Iota Xi sorority. Part of the fun for me is interacting with the people who run the stores—I get to chitty chatty with them, and they always seem interested to know what I’m going to do with my basket of mismatched yarns and odd treasures. What I get isn’t always what I see, like the beige sweater I found that ended up converted to felt balls in a happy leaf green color. And of course once the dye pots came out, watch out yarns! I didn’t have much green boucle left, which I use to make crocheted leaf clumps. I had some textured turquoise, but the color was all done. When the fiber stopped flying I had 7 skeins of green yarn, plus the white wool I dyed to exhaust the dye pot. The exact final color isn’t too important to me, as long as it’s green.

The rest of my week was less of a treasure hunt, but I did some prospecting for treasure. I worked on the demographic analysis, show summaries and the final report for the Fourth Street Festival. I used some of that information to write a grant proposal to expand the advertising reach for the festival next year—I guess that’s treasure hunting too. I’m gearing up for the Déjà Vu art show coming up in Columbus, Indiana on Saturday, November 7. Keep your eyes open for the posters around town sporting my sunflowers and Cappi Phillip’s heavy metal chicken, which I think is a very cool piece. Then you can drive to Columbus for a great day of classic Indiana Architecture and modern Indiana art!

Until next week…