The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

We all know what time it is? Christmas....BREAK! Ok maybe I'm a little excited, but the knowledge of having the next two weeks off from school is a pretty nice feeling.  Even though I will be traveling home for part of it, it's still nice to have a little bit of time for myself before I go.

I have had a good amount of time lately to tackle some projects, and I wanted to do a quick post about all of them.  Many of them were started yesterday, my official day off for the holidays, but some have been ongoing.

The December socks are on the needles and taking their sweet time.  The pattern is Lowry Crossing by one of my LYS owners, Petra, and the yarn is from Kimerie's Knit Knacks that I purchased last month.  I love the way these look, but the cables are really tedious and thus slowing me down.  

This will be pair 12 for me and I gotta say, it's been a trip.  I'll do a recap at the end of this pair of each one I've done this year.  Safe to say, I'm worn out and definitely need a sock sabbatical. 

Handmade gifts are also happening again this year, in the form of these cute woven coasters.  I have been spinning mini-skeins on my drop spindle from a grab bag of fiber and then weaving those minis on my small wood loom to make the awesome coasters.  It's been really fun seeing the random stripes and designs my handspun is making!

With my day off yesterday I was able to start on a bunch of things, including a new colorway in my yarn.  Based off the painting "Early Snow Flowers", the colors on this are very warm, considering the name.  Why did I name that painting the way I did? Lol.  But seriously, this is a nice change for me, although the red dye is a little potent. 

On the subject of starts, I also managed to begin the 3rd painting in my triptych.  While I can't get all three in a row on my easel, I am able to at least get the two.  The one on the right - the new one - will be very pink.  I like that I could hang them all separate if I wanted, but that they are also a continuous work. Merging from red to pink, this has been a fun challenge. 

Playing with pink, I also have this "spa cloth" started yesterday that I am going to gift to my future sister-in-law for Christmas.  I'm planning to make two of these, each with Cascade Ultra Pima. I've had a couple of cloths made in pima cotton for a few years now and they hold up so well.  I highly recommend it!  For this gift I am planning to also gift her a bar of soap from my favorite soap maker - RAH soap. She does some amazing scents and varieties and I always have a very positive experience buying from here. 

And finally I decided to do some playing with my dyes.  I had a bunch of end pieces from winding skeins to sell and made some 10g minis.  I laid them all out, grabbed the squirt bottles that already had dye in them and just went to town.  While I'm not selling these (they're for something else), I am thinking of doing this again with larger skeins and calling it "paint water" - as in whatever dye is left in my bottles after a dye session.  Always changing and always fun.

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I hope everyone has a fabulous holiday.  Whether traveling or staying home, make sure you give yourself time for yourself and your craft, as well as family.  Self care in today's world is really important, and sometimes we miss out on that during the holidays.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays!

~Lisa

Fiber Art Defined

What is "Fiber Art" anyway? I'm sure we all have our own definition.  Those who do simple scarves with knitting or crochet could be considered fiber artists, but in the eyes of the "professionals", maybe they aren't as much.  And those professionals can be loosely defined as well, as people who choose to create something fancier, more unique or just plain crazy that one wouldn't be likely to wear to Walmart. 

A good definition of Fiber Art that I found is: 

"Fiber art refers to fine art whose material consists of natural or synthetic fiber and other components, such as fabric or yarn. It focuses on the materials and on the manual labor on the part of the artist as part of the works' significance, and prioritizes aesthetic value over utility."

Where am I going with this? Well, I've always considered myself a fiber artist, despite the fact that my paintings have no physical fiber in them.  It can be argued that my scarves, shawls, etc are all fiber art, but I wouldn't put those in a gallery show.  My paintings, however, depict images of knitted forms and are created by looking at a still life created from the actual knitted forms, so shouldn't they be fiber art?  

I've never really worried about this until now, and I haven't had much opportunity to display my works in a fiber art show.  But as of late it's been on my mind a lot, as a local gallery in town is hosting a juried fiber show and, to quote a good friend, "A fiber art show in Downtown Bryan without Lisa Urban in it is just wrong".  

I've experimented a lot the past few months with what I want to do to enter this show, as my normal oil paintings just won't cut it. I've tried attaching knitted thread to create "clouds" on top of my paintings.  I've tried physically knitting a panel and oil painting on it.  I've tried sewing threads in certain spots of a painting.  None are convincing enough for me.  I was about to give up when I had the honor to teaching a "kids fiber arts" camp a couple weeks back.  Teaching the kids some techniques gave me an idea.

I was teaching the kids to weave one day on small, cardboard looms and the next thing I knew I was joining in on my own little wooden one.  Using handspun yarn scraps, I created a few small coasters. I got to thinking that they'd be cool to sell at the shop I work in, and considered making more.

But then something clicked and I realized I had a solution to my fiber art problem.

Little woven canvases! I have a ton of this old rug warp and linen yarn that a friend gave me.  I never thought I'd use it, in fact I debated donating it or selling it at one point.  I'm so glad I didn't!

Using scrap sock yarn as the warp, I'm weaving with the linen (I think it's linen) yarn to create little squares on my little wooden loom. 

Once the squares are created, the ends are woven in and a small coat of primer is applied to the front side.  I am then using gouache to paint a small version of my knitted landscapes directly onto the surface.  the result is a surreal, woven painting.  I showed this to several people and they all agreed this is a clever, cute way to create 'fiber art' that is unique to me. 

The four blank ones above are going to be my next ones, with the color scheme of the painting matching the yarn I used to warp.  The final projects are then mounted on a black square of mat board and placed in a simple frame.   Along with the local show, there are a few other shows I think I may enter if I can pull this idea off.

What do you think? What is fiber art to you? How fun is this idea? 

~Lisa

Short, Busy Weeks

It's been one of those weeks.  The kind that seem super busy yet nothing really gets done.  Yea, those.

This week should have been more eventful, what with all the Halloween/Work/Life things going on. But alas, it was not so much. And thus a quickie update.

The best place to start is by letting everyone know that I FINALLY updated my Etsy shop with the abstract watercolors I made last month for a local art fair.  While not knitting themed, they were fun to do and experiment with.  Check them out if you want a cheap, original piece of art!

On the topic of art fairs, I am doing a holiday market in two weeks. I have decided not to focus so much on art as on knitting stuff for this one and am busily preparing lots of winter headbands, hats and such.  It may be Texas, but people still need these things for the (brief) cold snap we will get later. 

I decided to give the cute wooden lap loom a try and have begun playing with color and design.  I am also learning how tight to pull to keep things from sinking in.  I have no idea what I will actually make with these besides random squares, but it's still fun!

Our local poetry group, Mic Check, started a workshop at a local high school this past Monday, while not a stellar poet like many of the others, I decided to volunteer some time. Man, the kids were amazing! We gave them the prompt of writing about being misunderstood or ignored.  The above was my response.

Weekly Inspirations:

Art: The (former) President of Mic Check, the amazing Madi Mae Parker is currently touring the lower states.  Her show, One Thousand Promises, is amazing, She and her partner, Franchesca, performed at Mic Check last week and blew the lid off it!
Food: I am planning to get back into the less sugar diet again this week. Sugar makes me depressed.  First plan of attack! Stop eating this amazing gelato - Talenti. 
Knitting: A fellow member of my knitting group has some real talent for designing simple, FREE patterns.  You should check them out!
Life: Halloween came and went. I went to a party last night, that was fun.  I also traveled to Austin recently for a school tour - I'll talk on that next week.  Seems like there is inspiration everywhere these days, I just need to find it.

Hope everyone has a great start to a new month!

~Lisa