Monday, March 30, 2009

Resisting winter, welcoming spring [MFM]


Wow, is it really the end of Month Two already? It seems only fitting to end the month with an update on those lovely scarves from Guest Scarf #1. Remember them? My mother, Sue Willingham, had woven them out of warps that another weaver, Terri Fletcher, had wound years before and Terri was then going to take those scarves and overdye them.

Well, that's happened now and Terri, bless 'er, sent along some pictures of the finished products -- and what a surprise they turned out to be! Mom no doubt said "resist dyeing" but I persisted in hearing "space dyeing" even so - we Tauruses are stubborn like that.1 So here's me imagining all over colour with perhaps some gradations or swooshy blending... when what they actually are bold geometrics!

Like zigzags:

Winter Resist, by Sue Willingham and Terri Fletcher, 2009

and circles:

Spring Resist, by Sue Willingham and Terri Fletcher, 2009

and squares:

Fall Resist, by Sue Willingham and Terri Fletcher, 2009


Wow! I love the geometrics and the way that Terri used colour to conjure the seasons. I'm curious if the shapes also signify the seasons somehow. Mom, do you know?

I can't get over the changes in colour from the original scarf shots. Take Fall Resist, for instance. Unless my eyes deceive me, it used to look like this before its transformation:


(Mom, can you confirm?) And now it's all oranges and rusts and the resisted areas actually look more like discharge dyeing than the reverse. Wowza wowza! I soooo wish I had time enough for all the stuff I'd like to try, 'cause dyeing is just The. Business.

Here's a glimpse into how Terri worked her magic (also shown above):


Those must be the same discs she used in Spring Resist but that looks like another scarf in the hopper to me. Boy oh boy, I sure do wish I could see these babies in the flesh. All you Seattle and Vashon weavers, I envy you! If any of you catch a peek at the illusive Summer Resist, let me know!

I must say, it's lovely to have some Spring in my inbox, if not out my window. Yesterday was all sunshine and blue skies and walkies in the park, so today's heavy snowfall warning seems a bit of a cruel joke. 15-25 cm of snow? C'mon, really? I love snow, I really do, but I am SO ready for the budding trees and chickadees we saw yesterday rather than the whiteout I see outside right now...

Oh well, not to worry - I've got those bright springy blues and greens and browns I kept mentioning a while back all wound for tomorrow's scarfawarp!


1. Yep, I'm a Taurus. AND I was born in the Year of the Ox, so I've got stubborn and willful coming and going. ;) My mother and husband deserve your respect and sympathy! I don't usually put much stock in astrological stuff but an awful lot of this actually sounds pretty accurate. I never knew that Taurus is evidently the "Sign of the Producer or Builder." I quite like that!

3 comments:

Life Looms Large said...

That over-dyeing is really cool. I would have thought it was discharge dyeing as well, if you hadn't said otherwise.

I have much to learn about dyeing!!

Sue

PS: My sympathies about your snow. It makes me appreciate our cold drizzle more!

Anonymous said...

That is really different dyeing!! What a very cool idea. As for cool - ugh!! Snow!! I love it too, but not at the end of March! I want my seeds to be going into the ground now! We had frost the other night, though. Rare enough in this part of the UK at this time of year; snow would paralyse us utterly.

Annie MacHale said...

Thanks for re-visiting these scarves.
What a surprise. I would have never thought to do that! That's what's neat about having artists communities on the internet- you can see so many new and interesting ways to create. I read some of the Taurus stuff and I think the negative traits are over-stated. (Taurus is my rising sign, so I have some of those traits, according to my mother, who was an astrologer.)