With No Hesitation

Our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary was in June 2006. We went to Victoria. Partly because it's a beautiful city and partly because I was teaching a workshop at Quilting In The Trees, a yearly event put on by the Victoria quilting guild. Barb was one of my students. She's a retired chemist. When I mentioned that I hadn't gotten past the first module of the City & Guilds program because I didn't want to dye fabric, she offered to help. A few weekends later, I invited her to my studio, we finished the assignment, and have been friends ever since.

At the time, I was doing what needed to be done to complete the module with no intention of learning about or dyeing my own fabric. I could buy hand dyed fabric. That seemed like a better option. I equated dyeing fabric with cooking. I made a big mess in the "kitchen" and results were not guaranteed.

The next year, I hired Liz Berg, an art quilter, to teach a private workshop on design in my studio. When I juggled the figures, it was less expensive to have Liz come here than it was to fly to California, eat out, and stay in a hotel. Plus, this way, I could learn exactly what I wanted to learn. I'm a huge advocate of self directed learning so a private workshop was right up my alley.

The supply list included half yard pieces of ten gradations of a twenty-four step color wheel. That's a LOT of fabric, 240 pieces, 120 yards. A friend at the time was a fabric dyer. My intention was to purchase the fabrics from her only she became very ill and was unable to fill the order. I couldn't find anyone else willing to take on this type of dyeing project on such short notice which meant that in order to move forward with the workshop, I had to learn how to dye fabric myself. I was forced in to it; I learned so much.




I knew nothing about which fabrics to buy and made a semi-educated guess buying what they called Chinese cotton from a wholesaler back east. I guessed wrong. When it arrived, it was coated with chemicals so strong that I had to store it in bags outside and wash it as quickly as possible. It was a bad beginning. I know a lot more now about choosing the base fabric.

There's a correlation with fashion sewing as I mentioned in a post earlier this week. As I sew up, play, and design with fabric - read practice and experiment - I'm learning which ones I prefer both to sew and to wear, which suit my lifestyle and my fashion personality. We can only learn through trial and error. We don't emerge from the womb fully enabled, fully knowledgeable.




I started out mixing each color in plastic, ziplock bags. You can imagine how wibbly, wobbly, messy they were. Eventually, I bought these bulk food containers from a local grocery store. I have HUNDREDS of them. They're so fabulous that when Liz was up teaching, she bought a whole bunch to take home with her. The rigid shape, lids, and stackability make it possible to dye a lot of fabric at one time. No matter what you're doing, the right tools make all the difference.




One of the things I hated about dyeing fabric was rinsing and rinsing and rinsing out the dyes. Not only did it use up a lot of hot water, it was really hard on my hands and back and took forever. From one of my blog readers, I learned about Synthrapol, a product that stops the excess dye in the water from absorbing into other fabrics. Above, you can see the gradations of one color. I went on to wash everything from pale yellow to dark purple in one load with no problems, cutting down on washing and drying time and on water usage. I now use Synthrapol for washing fashion fabrics together. Taking a risk taught me what was possible.




My first piles of fabric were very pale. You can see the gradation of color but it's not that wonderful, not a rich color that attracts the hand and has you gliding over and petting it. That's the type of fabric I was used to buying. That was the type of fabric I wanted to create even though I had about two minutes experience. How human - wanting to start at the top without learning the steps along the way.




One reason I avoided dyeing fabric was because I was sick of the color wheel. Almost every occupation I've pursued has involved the study of color. Enough. BUT... it came in handy when I started double dipping the fabrics. Nancy Crow, a big name in textile art, routinely dyes her fabrics more than once to get the rich, intense colors that I wanted.

The delight of overdyeing was the freedom it brought. Since the fabrics were already pale and ugly, I had nothing to lose by overdyeing them and found myself cheerfully dumping colors together. What if... I overdyed that pale yellow fabric with blue... with red... with grey. You learn a lot about color by playing. More risk taking equals more learning. The fabrics inside the cupboard are single dyed, the ones above left are double dyed, and the ones above right...




... are triple dyed. By making time, having the supplies necessary, taking risks, and allowing myself to make mistakes, in a very short time I went from a fear of dyeing to triple dyeing with confidence. These are my beginnner fabrics. I went on to dye nicer base fabrics with richer more intense colors and to paint and over-dye textile art pieces. Learning to dye opened tremendous opportunities. AND... when you experience a freedom like that... it starts to ooze into other areas of your life. Returning to fashion sewing a year ago, it shows up constantly by allowing me to let go of the results, enjoy the process, and let a wearable garment be a bonus. YES YES

Liz introduced me to the 3 in 1 Color Tool developed by Joen Wolfram. This is one of the BEST color tools hands down. On the front, it shows the the tints, tones, and shades of each color and on the back different color schemes linking them to the appropriate card number. Using any shade of the colors in that scheme will produce an interesting art piece, or garment, or decor, or jewelry combination, or... or... or...




Ladders 3 is one of the quick studies made in the workshop. It uses a triadic color scheme. Liz is particularly fond of triadic color schemes - three colors forming a triangle on the color wheel - and based many of the assignments on working with them. Along with my favourite shade of lime green, the two other colors in this triadic scheme are blue and red. Red is one of the colors I really don't like and tolerate only in a blue based form. The more blue, the closer to burgundy, the better. How strange that we often learn more from what we don't want to do, don't like, than from what we want to do, do like.

No matter what I have done - writing quilting books, producing patterns, teaching workshops, creating fashions - it's been important to realize the value of the things that I do not like. The accent color that will give this piece or that garment just the right touch of aliveness and interest may very well be found straight across the color wheel in the section that I'm not that fond of. The thing that I really don't want may be exactly the thing that I do want. Life is so like that.

When I work with T & T patterns, it's with no hesitation. I've let go of the results and embraced the process, the experience of trying this and trying that and seeing what happens. Because of this willingness to fail, I've experienced increasing success. I'm learning, growing, developing both my sewing and my design skills - and in parallel my life skills.

It occurred to me last weekend that the same lesson needs to transfer to my cooking. Not that that idea hasn't occurred to me before but it occurred in a very real and doable way. ALL of the people who cooked for me did not see my allergies as a negative. Instead, they saw it as a challenge, something to play and have a little fun with. It's as if they asked themselves could I, given this set of parameters, create a meal that was interesting and appetizing? YES - they could. I ate a lot of wonderful gluten/dairy/corn/soy free foods and came home not only with some ideas but a sense of this is possible, I can do this.

At one time, I sewed geometric quilts constructed with well matched intersections and perfect points and evolved to free form art pieces begun with no end in mind and no matching lines. At one time, I purchased commercial prints and evolved to fabrics dyed by others and then to fabrics dyed by myself. At one time, I followed the pattern. Now I adapt it. I can evolve from I don't cook to I enjoying cooking. I can transfer that what if question from art to fashion to food.

It's going to be a journey for me and for my family. They have extremely unadventurous taste buds though that's not entirely their fault. What I can cook, I cook very well however, I also grew up in an unadventurous taste bud family. We ate basic meat, potato, and vegetable meals with salt and pepper seasoning. Vegetables were corn, peas, carrots, boiled. I don't think I even knew what curry was for years after I was married. Spicy was non existent. Sweet and sour was something radically different.

Rhinestones & Telephones started Adventures in Domestic Goddessing a few weeks ago. She's working through her collection of cookbooks, creating meal plans for each week, and experimenting with new recipes. Her invitation to join in was somewhat seductive only I was leaving for the Ron Collins workshop and not sure how the whole plan would work with my allergies. Yesterday, I picked up two of the cookbooks she's using and looked through them for suitable or adaptable recipes. There weren't enough recipes to be worth the price so I'll return these books, pull out my Gluten Free Vegan ones, and give it some more thought.

I'm also going to be following the recipe blog of my friend Lorrie. She made an absolutely yummy meal for me when I visited last week. Yesterday, I called her for a little "what to do with this chicken" advice. The results were pretty good. They need a little fine tuning BUT... I can do this.

As with art, as with finding our style, one thing that often holds us back is "what will people think". In my case, it's knowing that my family doesn't like these particular foods. I've decided as much as I am able to let that go. If they don't like what I'm cooking, they are free to cook themselves. I think that's an attitude that women need in many areas of their lives. Wish me well. It's an adventure. I know it won't be nearly as easy as it sounds.

Talk Monday - Myrna

Grateful - my daughter and son-in-law are halfway through a successful move. Hopefully the finish is fabulous and they get unpacked with a little time to rest over the weekend before starting work on Monday.