uncommercial work

New Threads:

| ellenanneeddy

There’s nothing like new threads. You know I love thread. It’s the most important component in my art. I love my fabric but I am nuts over thread.

One of the things that is different for me now that I am no longer on the circuit, is that I don’t have to make threads that are commercially saleable. I’m not constrained by that so I can explore threads that can’t be reproduced in regular quantities for students. I’ve used # 8 pearl cotton because it came in dye hanks. I could easily dye it for myself but also for also for students who were in my class and needed access to the threads I worked with.

#10 pearl cotton

Now that I just in my studio working my own art, I have the freedom to work with things that can’t easily be put up for sale. This last dye load, I dyed up a load of thread that I’m so excited by. I’m looking forward to trying out my #10 pearl cotton.

You can’t dye thread wound in a ball. You can hank it off with a swift, but there’s no way to make even skeins without counting accurately. Those of you who know me know how likely that is.

8 and 10 pearl cotton

The smaller ball is #8 pearl. The larger on is #10 pearl. The larger the number the smaller the thread. The #10 still needs to be worked in the bobbin case, but it will give a finer grain stitching. I’ve started the first row on this frog in the #10 so you can see how it stitches up. I am so excited!

frog in #10 pearl cotton

Sometimes a change in materials changes our work immensely. Sometimes it makes a little change. Sometimes it changes nothing. There’s no way to know until you work with things. But the possibilities make me giddy.

Love Gifts: The Quilts You Make Only for Love

| ellenanneeddy
Don’ts Birthday Card

I’m not a good card person. It’s also not like I’m in an area where one can buy cool cards. The major shopping card centers here are the Walmart if you’re being fancy and the Dollar Tree if you’re not. It’s not a personalized collection, either way.

But birthdays are special and need celebration. And for the first time in my life I have someone who’s here consistently in my life. I’ve had wonderful adoptive family over the years, but they tend to ebb and flow at need. No complaints. Just an understanding that it is a mutable thing.

Silk flowers add to the textures!

So for Don’s 67th birthday, I did a piece of silly art, something I would never make for sale, but that is just about him. I don’t regularly use prints of any kind in professional work. But for this, they are too fun to resist.

He loves frogs, and my favorite birthday song is “Happy Bird Day, two Ewes.” And since it was frogs, the happy turned to hoppy.

I love fabric for many of the same reasons I feel limited in paper. Fabric is so much more sturdy. It forgives obscure and odd embroidery, and comes in metallics too. What’s not to love? And there’s all kinds of spaces for little hand written notes in between the lank spaces.

I hope you have someone who deserves special little cards. And I hope you have a space that lets you make what you dream to make for love.

Noncommercial Part 2: What Are You Going to Do with All that Dyed Thread?

| ellenanneeddy

If you’ve been following my posts, you know I did some thread experiments on dye day.

Experiments are always just that. Might work, could work, did work, did not work. All information.

But I worked with threads that are NOT workable in a commercial teaching setting, largely because of the way they’re put up in manufacture. The best way to dye thread is in (reasonably enough) a dyers hank. That means it’s in a flat loop, usually confined by a paper label or by twisting into a skein. Do all threads come that way?

  • Sashiko thread
  • #3 pearl cotton
  • #20 pearl cotton
  • Frizzle
Definitely the weird stuff. But good though.

No. No they don’t. But since I’m not producing for class or for travel I can fuddle around with the weird stuff. The trick is to get it in the end into a form where you can get it on the machine. Between a ball winder and a swift I can hank up anything I like. (See Noncommercial blog post.)

Here’s some of what I tried.

# 20 Pearl cotton, dyed and undyed
Well, even I know that won’t work. But look at the colors. The thread and fabric are dyed from the same shades.

# 20 pearl cotton fits in the needle as well as the bobbin! Since the cone didn’t feed onto the machine I filled a bobbin for thread from the top.

I love the Frizzle I dyed!

Look at it as branches for a tree. I have the cotton string I dyed here too, but the frizzle definitely wins.

Do I love the new threads I dyed!
They are to dye for!

Will I experiment with new threads? Well there’s all that thread that didn’t arrive in time for dye day…. Stay tuned!

Noncommercial: You Can’t Sell and Experiment

| ellenanneeddy

One of the nicest things about my new studio is that it’s set to produce supplies for just myself. For years I’ve dyed pearl cotton. It’s beautiful and as a mercerized cotton, the colors are spectacular. But if I wanted to sell it to students I had to standardize it. I never could take the time to try different kinds of threads that didn’t come in a dyer’s hank.

Why? What’s the difference? A dyer’s hank is simply a looped ring of thread. It’s easy to dye it evenly. A twisted ball is much easier to handle, but it can’t be dyed evenly. You can move one to the other. It just takes to stinking long to do it commercially. And it’s hard to make every skein even in yardage.

Hanked Thread

So now that I’m not making thread for the general public, I can really experiment with threads that aren’t in dyer’s hanks: Sashiki thread, cotton boucle, several sizes of weaver’s pearl cotton, cotton hemp, and cotton yarn. It’s a bit heady. I’ve been stuck with one cotton thick thread. But the world is wide.

In light of that, I bought two thread wranglers and I’m wondering where they’ve been all my life. These are tools weavers, knitters and spinners know well. But not every quilter works with them. Unless you need to deal with thread. Lots and lots of thread.

Swift and ball winder

I’ve worked with a swift before, but this is lighter weight and much less bulky. This is my first time with a ball winder. I’m in LOVE!.

My 27 yard hanks of pearl cotton wind into a ball like these.

  • dye hank
  • index card lable
  • yarn ball

The swift holds the hank, while the ball winder winds it into a tidy little pull skein ball. I’ve slipped a bit of cardboard through the hole to keep it from unraveling.

Later this week, I’ll be dyeing thread and fabric for the first time in the studio. I’ll keep you updated on how the new winding tools work with that.