Hat For A Towering Intellect

As you can see, the silk neckties have worked their way into my hats. It was time to revisit the Hat For A Towering Intellect with the improved skill set I've developed. This is really fun! I used to give each hat a title and a fun story tag back when they were at Zoe & Floyd, the much missed gallery that used to be in Seymour CT. But doing shows and general business led me to drop that. I think it's time to return to tagging the hats and to the level of carefree craziness I had at that time. There's an odd synergy between playful and serious. That's what I'm going for.

Upcycling Silk Neckties

Who can resist the luxurious color and pattern of silk neckties? Not me. A while back I started making some scarves out of them and now they have worked their way into my hats. The silk can be very slippery to cut and sew accurately so I had to come up with some tricks to tame it. Light weight iron on interfacing is a big help when you need to maintain a crisp shape. Many projects use the neckties intact but if you take them apart you'll have lots more to work with. Think of them as a fabric source. Because they are cut on the bias, neckties make great bias tape for edging things. The down side is that the grain is usually distorted from the weight of the wider ends. It's sneaky - you can draw a circle on the fabric and it will be a circle. As soon as it's cut out it turns into an oval. The worst offenders are the narrower sections in the center of the tie. The ends are much less apt to distort. Oh, and save the long silk thread that was hand sewn up the back - it usually pulls out in one piece and is great for hand sewing. I normally don't bother with polyester ties, especially the printed designs. They melt when ironed, snag easily leaving a white line through the pattern and are a general bother to sew. But if you find a woven polyester or acetate tie in a great pattern, it can be worth trying. Just be very cautious when ironing. That crazy green zig zag tie was worth the extra trouble and it worked into a cool hat. I also finally bit the bullet and am lining all my new hats so anyone can wear them. It makes for a better product and I just wasn't getting around to trying anything with non wool sweaters. Still, there are so many pretty ramie/cotton sweaters in the thrift shops that I may end up using them, just not for hats. The cut edges would need to be well finished.

Bath Day

Lucy's Diary: What a miserable day! Mom made me take a bath! I hate getting wet and to make it even more worse, dinner was fifteen min. late! You better believe that Dad will hear of this when he gets home!

My Hats on The Big C!

A while back I rented some of my hats to the producers of the Showtime series, The Big C. These are screen shots from their website. The ep. is 7, How Bazaar. This opportunity came about through Elm City Handmade. It was nothing I ever thought about doing but I thought, why not? We thought that the program would be airing in Sept. which is why I just went looking for it. But it may have run in the spring. We don't have Showtime so I really don't know. If you're a fan of the show, could you let me know? It's probably just as well that I didn't know what they had in mind but it only looks like my hats are getting run over! Except for one squished styrofoam stand and one hat that needed to be washed because they dropped it in a puddle, everything came home intact. Would I do it again? Yes!

Experiments in Color

I'm working on expanding my use of color by doing some small acrylic sketches.

Oh, Yeah! Polymer Clay is Fun!

Last week I taught a bunch of polymer classes. It's been while because I've been busy with paintings and fiber projects. There was a point at which I kinda burned out on the clay and drifted away to felting sweaters and making hats. I'm not thinking of getting back into the big vessel projects that I used to do. Nope, I'm having too much fun making jewelry! Some of it is for myself and some will end up in my Etsy shop. I just read an excellent book,The Blood of Flowers. (http://www.amazon.com/The-Blood-Flowers-A-Novel/dp/0316065765)The protagonist is a young woman living in Iran during the 1600's. She and her mother leave their small village after the death of her father. Taken in by her father's half brother, they work as servants. Her talent at designing carpets and her determination to make a better life for herself and her mother kept me reading well past bedtime. The book inspired the paisley pin and pendant. As a funny side note, I learned that the Farsi word for a European trader was farangi, which the writers of Star Trek Next Generation changed to Ferengi. And I thought they just made that up!

New Painting

< Two 8"x10" paintings for the Summer Greene opening. I'm currently working on a 16"x20" of my three Japanese kokeshi dolls.