Wool Felt Applique Pillow

Mock up of pillow, first in the series

Experiments with Acid Dye + Wool

Today I dyed a piece of felted wool that I had bought for my pillow prototype. I have worked with fiber reactive dyes before but never with acid dyes. It was fairly easy, just boiling water and some vinegar. All I have to do now is get my hands on a steamer, any leads anyone? I made thickne which is sitting in the fridge, thickening as I type and tomorrow I am going to try my hand at printing with acid dye.

Sweet Home Alabama

I am back from my road trip to Alabama and Tennessee. This was just what I needed! I drove down with Aimee her two cats (Pepper and Carmine) and Dog (Bixie) to Albertsville, Al where Aimee grew up and owns a house. We spent out time shopping, eats grits, biscuits, BBQ pulled pork, and sweet tea, and hanging out by the lake. Here are a few photos from the trip, all of them can be seen here

Vacation!

I am taking a little trip down to Alabama and Tennessee with Aimee. We will be staying at her house in Alabama. Hoping to get lots of relaxation time in! Over the weekend I'll be visiting my sister in Knoxville. I have never really been to the south besides Florida so I am excited for a change of scenery and pace for a few days. Be back in Brooklyn late sunday night!

Almost Ready to Print

I have almost everything to begin silk screening. I tried silk screening with the jaquard textile paint today and wasn't quite satisfied with the results. I was going to try to mix a batch of the procion dye but realized that I was missing one thing, not to mention that I should probably go out and buy a scale. Even though I have a studio space in the ID building it is nowhere near adequate for silkscreening fabric AT ALL and it set up for well industrial design related projects of course. I have access to the silkscreening facilities but they too are not nearly large enough to do repeats. Right now I am really missing those wonderful fabric printing tables in Copenhagen. If I had my own studio I would be building my own printing table asap!

Jillian Ditner

I have a soft spot for libraries since my mother was a children's librarian and these prints by Jillian Ditner are just lovely. If I had some money lying around I would buy all three in a heart beat!

Let the job search begin!

I started sending out my resume for full time jobs about a week ago, which is exciting but nervewracking all at the same time. I had an interview on Thursday for an entry level textile position at a company in midtown. It was honestly the fastest interview I have ever had in my life, I sat down and felt like I was putting my jacket on 5 minutes later. I am not expecting a call back from them, but I went straight from the interview to an get some amazing Korean food in Koreatown a treat for myself which made up for it.
I had another interview this morning at another home furnishing company in midtown in the same building but one floor down. It was for a temporary internship/assistant position to the tableware designer. This one went much smoother thankfully! I should be hearing back at the end of the week if I got it or not. Even if I don't get it or any of the jobs that I have been applying for it is putting my mind at ease that I have my resume floating around and I feel like I am one step ahead, which is all that counts for the time being right? May can't come soon enough, or can it?

Screen printing!

I have been itching to do some printing ever since I got back from Denmark in August and I think that the time has finally arrived!! I am working on various patterns that I am going to be using for pillows that I am working on in my studio. I have been doing the research to prepare and it is very daunting! Space is an issue here in Brooklyn, as is the fact that I don't have access to the wonderful kitchen that I had in denmark full of huge sinks, oversized boilers, a steamer and an ironing machine! I have ideas for printing large quantities of fabric and turning them into lovely pillows but I am not so sure if my ideas are a bit too lofty at the moment since Pratt doesn't quite have the facilities to print 10 feet of fabric. I think that I am going to start small, but I am still excited to get printing none the less!