Blue Thursday

This week, I finally received the abaca paper yarn AND abaca paper I ordered, from Australia, and England, respectively.  What's so special about abaca?  It's made from a relative of the edible banana plant, and has very strong fibers.  This what your tea bag paper is made from.

The yarn comes in skeins.  It is extremely fine, much finer that I would ever be able to cut for paper cord. 

I dyed part of one skein-

I also dyed the abaca paper, (which only comes in white) painted on gold swishes, and used a sharpie for the quote. This will get folded and cut up later for more paper cord.

Some ceramic dishes I made came out of the kiln, so I added some gold touches and glaze.  I really liked the areas of crazing.  Each dish is only about 3-4" across.  I think I'm going to start selling these little guys.

Dracena draco, banana fiber, and basswood or linden fiber

During my winter break from school, I started working on something new.  I was inspired by this beautiful fairy dress. I wish I knew who the artist was.  Unfortunately, nothing showed up on a google search.

 

I started off by preparing some dracena draco leaves by boiling them in a water and glycerin solution.  Hopefully, that will keep the orange tips from breaking off.  I twined the bodice with more dracena draco strips and banana fiber strips.

When I got near the waist, I started adding some inner basswood bark pieces vertically, to fill out the skirt, and twined with it.  It's a very messy fiber for twining, and I was getting frustrated with the slowness.  

For more info on collecting and retting basswood: http://http.wightman.ca/~mark.whitcombe/basswood_twining.html 

I pretty much followed the same method, but soaked my bark in large plastic containers for a month and longer.  The author shows how to make cordage with the basswood fiber, also.

Another good resource is http://ryukyutextile.com/kasuri/linden.html#29

Mari Yamaguchi Newell shows the Japanese method for making basswood/linden string, which is much more labor intensive.

 I settled for in between, since I am a beginning spinner.  I shredded the inner basswood into 1/4" wide lengths, and tied them together to make very long weavers.  In many places, you can see where I left the knots exposed.   This was much easier to work with, so I continued twining, and then went to an open weave for the lower portion.  

On the spinning wheel

Twining with basswood cordage

Now I need a title.  I'm thinking of something w/ flame and dress.  Any suggestions?