Ends & Picks » Classes

Bobbin Lace

Melissa — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 01:38:38 +0000

This fall I took a six week class at the Textile Center to learn the basics of bobbin lace. Bobbin lace is technically a type of weaving, but it is done with pairs of bobbins and pins instead of the traditional warp, weft & shuttles.

The Snake was our first project and used 7 pairs of bobbins.

Check out those beady eyes!

Our next two projects were exploring the half stitch and the cloth stitch.

Our last project was some delicate nursery lace.

I really enjoyed this class once I got used to the new techniques needed in bobbin lace. I have some great ideas I’d like to try out once I get through the frantic Christmas knitting on my needles right now…

And now for something completely different…

Melissa — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 20:18:00 +0000

This past summer, rhymeswithfun and I signed up to take a beginning pottery class together.

It definitely took me a few weeks to get the feel of working with clay, but it was definitely fun to do something outside of my normal realm of fiber-y comfort.

I ended up with nine finished pieces and although most would be perfect for holding rusty screws in the garage, I think a few turned out okay.

All in all, a great learning experience and definitely something I would try again!

Woven Shibori

Melissa — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 03:42:58 +0000

Throughout the month of May, my friend Elisa and I spent our Saturdays at the Weaver’s Guild taking a wonderful class on woven shibori taught by Traudi Bestler. Woven shibori was developed by Catharine Ellis and it was her book, Woven Shibori, that we worked from throughout the class.

The first two days of class we planned, calculated, wound, warped and started weaving our projects. It was WONDERFUL being back in a weaving studio and even though I was pretty rusty with all my preliminary yardage calculations (as exhibited by the extra long warp I ended up with – oops!)

The third class we spent in the Dye Lab and since I ended up with two pieces of fabric, I decided to immersion dye one and hand paint the other. The fourth class we all came together for show and tell!

Unfortunately, the yarn Elisa and I wove with had a much higher twist than our classmates so we didn’t get the high contrast that others got.

Even so, I’m quite pleased with the results!

Silk Fusion

Melissa — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 02:24:06 +0000

Back in April I took yet another class at the Textile Center, this time taught by Susan Stein on silk fusion (also known as silk paper, but silk fusion sounds cooler, doesn’t it?)

Silk fusion is created from silk roving and a textile medium and is limitless in possibilities. I enjoyed layering in ribbons, metallic threads and Angelina fibers for some extra sparkle!

My last bit of silk fusion was an experiment to see if I could intentionally create open spaces.

While I find the colors rather garish, the technique itself is rather interesting and definitely deserves some more tinkering with for future projects. Maybe a sun catcher or lamp shade to show more layering?

Long Overdue

Melissa — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 02:23:59 +0000

These last few months have just FLOWN by and I am so behind on so many posts. So without further ado, here are some long overdue photos of the awesome weekend workshop I took at the Textile Center back in March, entitled Artful Knit: A Sculptural Approach to Knitting taught by Adrienne Sloane.

Adrienne started off our weekend of sculptural knitting by challenging us to knit with materials we wouldn’t normally knit with. We were tasked to experiment and see what craziness we could come up with. I played with wire, ribbon, fabric strips and woven tape threaded through felt circles. It was quite a liberating experience!

I also played around a bit with “finger knitting” which I hadn’t done in YEARS. I’m hoping to finger-knit a bit more ribbon yarn and then knit that into a bigger knitting piece for some cool knitted-knitting texture.

I think my favorite part of the class was all the discussions we had on how to knit different shapes, holes, bumps, bobbles, loops and pockets.

Some of my technique samplers turned out looking a bit like the Loch Ness monster, don’t you think?

All in all it was a FANTASTIC weekend. Thank you so much Adrienne for being so inspiring and teaching such a wonderful class!

Crochet Revisited

Melissa — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:36:08 +0000

The Madre went above and beyond this past Christmas and gifted me several awesome knitterly gifts, including a beautiful set of 10″ Straight Harmony knitting needles.

I quickly decided that the polyester case they arrived in did not do them justice and they needed some sort of fantastic vessel to display their rock star qualities. Enter my crazy idea to attempt another crochet project with a big pretty ball of Noro Big Kureyon that’s been kicking around in my stash for who knows how long.

I quickly realized that whatever it was I thought I learned how to do over Christmas (rav link) was not what one would call ‘normal crochet’. This latest attempt (rav link) ended up being a free form conglomeration of crochet-like stitches that sort of looked like I intended. (Actually, I’m sure they’re some sort of valid crochet stitches but they’re definitely not the basic sc, dc, and tc stitches the original pattern I attempted called for…)

Enter the ever awesome Crafty Planet to the rescue! This past weekend I took the first of three beginning crochet classes which will hopefully set me on the right crochet path once and for all. We’re working on a market bag which so far looks pretty cool although not exactly to the ‘looks like a bag’ stage yet.

Maybe I stand a chance at tackling this crochet thing yet!?!