Monday, January 17, 2011

Resist Results


As promised, I'm going to show you results from the oatmeal resists that I began a few days ago.  I love them all, but for different reasons....sounds like our children, doesn't it?

  
These are all done on silk crepe de chine scarves, so will go up for sale in the gift shop at the Quinlan Art Center.  I think that the one above and the next one will receive further embellishing.


  
The oatmeal resist is really quite dramatic, don't you think?  I particularly like how it allows both layers of dye to have equal time.


This is my favorite:

It's very subtle here, and almost disappointing, but I love its depth.  I had prepared a flour paste screen before we left for the condo the other day, and was able to do some etching in it this morning:




I couldn't help but be reminded of our view of the parking deck just below our condo in all of the frozen ice and snow:





do you see the "Hi Ben" written in the white stuff?  As I etched the lines in the flour paste resist, I felt like I was cross country skiing through some very thick snow.


I then screened a very small amount of gold paint over the screen and onto the silk scarf:




I'm sure that seems very elementary to most of you, but it was exciting to me...and really made the scarf!


I am slowly but surely getting the hang of continental or German knitting, and I LOVE it!  The only reason that I forced myself to learn this was so that I could then learn to do stranded knitting.  Below is my very first piece:




This will be a headband, after I have sewn the edges together.  The main color, a lovely chocolate brown, is knit with the yarn held in my left hand, while the chartreuse yarn is held in my right.  Since I used to do a lot of counted cross stitch, following the graph/chart was not a problem....but keeping track of the yarns was, unless I was really paying attention.  I am enamored with this technique, as it is very popular in the area of Sweden where my maternal grandmother Augusta, was born.  I feel a kinship and draw to it.  It is difficult to describe.  I know that she knit in the continental style, but I'm not sure if she ever did any stranded knitting.  She could do everything else, so she probably did!  My next project will be mittens.  And since our winters seem to be getting colder and colder each year, the mittens are a good project!


And here's our boy, so relaxed and happy that we are home with him after several evenings 'out':




PEACE

4 comments:

Jeannie said...

Judy, beautiful results. I love the meandering effects with the oatmeal and the gold screening on the scarf is gorgeous.

Teodo said...

Fantastic results. I don't know which is my favorite.....perhaps the second, it's seems the sky before a tempest. Perhaps because all are fantastic.
ciao ciao

Carol said...

Oh, I'm in love with the gold on the purple. Two of my favourite colours, very elegantly combined.

I'm impressed with your knitting. My mother and grandmother, both Viennese, tried and failed to teach me to knit the continental way. I was a very stubborn child and wanted to do it my way, which leaves me with a clunky knitting style that used to put their teeth on edge to watch, and now makes me regret my childish silliness.

Big hug to the adorable Barker. Woof! OXOX

Russ Little said...

The gold lines from the flour paste screen are not "elementary." I think the design shows a very natural, organic hand and of course there's the "less is more" quality. I love it.

Russ