I'm a weaver, traveler, and generally adventurous person. Here I have shared some of my many interests - handweaving, other fiber arts, and adventure travel all over the world. I hope you enjoy perusing the site! If you are curious about anything, drop me a line at !
Reborn in Fire: Phoenix Rising is the first in a series of pieces examining death and rebirth through the reborn phoenix.
My Celtic Braid Cape, inspired by a year spent working in an unheated garage! I wanted a luscious, yummy fabric to keep me warm on cold winter days. (Published in Handwoven, Jan/Feb 2013.)
For this project, I envisioned a long coat with autumn leaves “falling” over a background that also shaded through autumn colors. The swooping curves and leaf patterning evoke an autumn sunset.
Kodachrome was my response to the Handwoven Garment Challenge issued in early 2011. A fiesta of color, it was also my response to spending a year weaving and sewing an all-white wedding dress!
Finished up at the old job yesterday afternoon, exit interview complete. I’m free! For the next five days, I have no work obligations whatsoever.
So now it’s time to start playing! Today I plan to play with soy wax on dry fabric (pretreated with soda ash). I’ve divided 15 yards of fabric into 1-yard pieces and scoured the pieces; I’ve also mixed up nearly a gallon of print paste (a dye thickener). I plan to start by playing with plain soy wax on fabric, followed in short order by mixing dyes into the soy wax, a la Jane Dunnewold and Lisa Kerpoe’s book, Vibrant Color, which will color the fabric as well as providing a resist to further colors. I will probably also make soy wax crayons at the same time, and experiment with crayon rubbings, drawing with the crayons, and other ways of messing around with soy wax.
Tools I plan to use include stamps (home-carved of course), tjanting tools (a tool used to “write” on fabric with wax), and my tjap, which is an elaborate copper stamp designed for use with wax. They are expensive but beautiful tools – I bought mine on an impulse from Dharma Trading Company a few years back, but have yet to use it. (Surely a crime!) I have been dying to play with it for a few years now, but never found the time. Well, today’s the day!
But first I’m going to sew up a new muslin for the Phoenix Rising foundation garment. The sun isn’t up yet, so I won’t be able to see well enough to work outside. I should really have gone back to sleep, but I was way too excited!
Photos later, of course!
