Cats like Orange color? or she wants to be a model for my fabrics?

Look at the cat sitthing over there! Her name is Bighee. (She has a Korean name)



Bighee is my younger sister's cat. My sister asked me to take care of Bighee on her behalf when she need to go somewhere for work. Actually I was too busy to visit her house, so I didn't go there for a few months even though  I've always missed Bighee. So I readily agreed to see her and then I took my fabric panels to hang on her windows. After hanging panels, I realized that my see-through fabric matches her house's windows well, so I started taking some pictures... At the moment Bighee leapt on to the desk.  :o  It was so cute!

She showed a lively interest in my fabric. Do you know  whether cats can distinguish colors or not? I have no idea, but she started at colors definitely.. especially bright color like yellow and orange. She liked orange color.  Cats Like Orange Color???? I really wonder! 

Anyway, She stayed there for a long time. After a long while of looking, she started to explore the window panels in earnest.   See, smell and taste..

She was so CUTE, I thought her white fur matches my fabric's colors well,  umm..she could be a good model for my works in the future. :) 

Next time, I'll bring my 600D  her house to take some pictures of my model! see you soon!

Start Hand dyeing Silk Organza project - Silk Dupioni Organza

I had been lost in natural dyeing and Batik for a while, and had a Batik class for children also. Even though Korean traditional silk has been my most favorite fabric, I couldn't use it well. I think it has a quite restricted application. It is used to make Hanbok, the Korean traditional clothes, or patchwork props as mostly dyed in one color. Many craftmen, of course, make beautiful works with this fabric. But for me, the traditional silk is always an object of study so as to design the fabric by dyeing and painting.

It was stressful to try several tests with this Silk Organza, because Silk Organza is not fabric for painting freely. So whenever I got stress, I did dyeing and painting on cotten 'freely' using Batik technique to the stress out.  From repeating this process, I suddenly got an idea.

Batik is a adaptable dyeing technique for most of fabrics, so it is commonly using handmade fabric design. The Batik is like painting on canvas for application of variety colors and the posibility of detailed expressions, so it hardly has 'limitation' in fabric design. But Organza has a handicap, see-thought feature, so suitable patterns or paintings are limited. If an artist comes across Batik, he or she would make works of art but they couldn't paint what they want on Organza. The Organza project was began from here. I'm starting to find some suitable patterns and drawing for Silk Organza.

Especially, Silk Dupioni Organza what I use is stiff, so it's easier to make patterns and painting than other Organza. Of course it's not dense as much as to make delicate expressions but if making 'suitable' pattern is succeeded then getting hand dyed fabric is possible and the fabric can express things that cotton can't. (If you want to know about Silk Dupioni Organza, click the words 'Silk Dupioni Organza'.) That is to say, this project that using Korean Oraganza for making some patterns was began from this idea. I'm trying to apply several patterns and paintings on Silk Dupioni Organza and you can see the postings about the attempts in future.

My first project of Organza dyeing is 'Gradation dyeing' of color. The color gradation doesn't require special skill. The way what you are thinking now! That's it. Move fabric up and down for soaking into dyeing solution to be done gradually, then the time of staying into the solution and the changing of concentration makes gradation. Silk Dupioni Organza suits to make gradation expression. When the cotton is used for gradation dyeing, the fabric is too thick to be elaborate but Organza is so thin as to do it. And what's more, Silk Dupioni Organza's feature, the naturally irregular in texture feature; slubs and stairs from double cocoon, makes vintage and modern feeling.

(below picture)This fabric Silk Dupioni is also Organza which is woven to make dense slubs so that these emphasize the vintage feature. When I dye this fabric, I particularly concern myself with making paints. Because this fabric looks so natural, there's no need to explain that this is natural silk, thus the fabric doesn't match with unnatural color.

I do whole process with my 'hand', so nothing is passed my hand in every step that is from making dyeing solutions for getting colors which is well matched with Organza to doing dyeing, color fixing and sewing for finishing work. My wish is that skillful craftmen make fabulous interior props such as lighting, curtain and furniture using my fabric. :)

Blogging and English makes me crazy!

Today is Saturday and I'm in my office ALONE because of blog problems. I feel lonely. I'm using a joint office where government offers for young people who's preparing business,, like art work design. The young people here work hard during the week but usually don't work on Saturday. They enjoy weekend.. yes they're young..they need time to enjoy... But I've come here every Saturday since last month. :(  I'm starting to feel lonely...It's okay if I have to do something for my work like dyeing, drawing, sewing....... but.. today..! I'm in here to solve some problems about blogging.. I have to work with computer!!! :(

I am very confused and feel difficult to be blogger.. It's about not only English but also Managing blog. I thought only English will be my problem when I decided to make google blog in English... I wrote some posts in English even if I'm not good at English. I can use dictionary and google to translate and sometimes my friend helped me.

What happened next was problems. After publishing posts, I edited contents and titles of posts a lot. A lot! and even changed posts order and post URL over a long period of time. The problem is that I didn't know how it is going to affect google search engine..

It was only when I tried googling to make sure my posts going to be found well that I knew how silly I was! They're pointing out OLD URL!!! Oh, my god,,, Sometimes I exchanged each posts.. I mean I've just exchanged  titles and contents not post URL..to change order. It's too hard for me to explain in English, so I made this image..:) As below, I copied A post's contents and pasted to B post, and then I copied B post's contents and  pasted to A post. Just only contents. But post URL didn't changed. 'A post' still have B's URL. I didn't know I can choose posting DATE...whew..

It may not be very big problem, but the fact is I found it by googling. I even don't know if that problem is big or not. If I hadn't found about my mistakes I could feel easy.  From that moment, I started web surfing to find about Search Engine.... oh my god... too complicated. And I knew that I've made so many mistakes. I changed post URL long after post had been published. And I exchanged some post contents not post URL. Sometimes I made Duplicate contents for backup.

For a few days I've been considering how to resolve that. I don't know about SEO and I can't know. I'm just a person who have to do everything by myself. I can't afford to hire someone for do this... :( So, after little studying (?) about google, I decided to do something.

First, I fetched the new post.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.kr/2011/08/submit-urls-to-google-with-fetch-as.html

Second, I used redirects..

https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/2472689?hl=en 

and lastly, I made simple html for 'Page Not Found - 404” error'.

I don't know about HTML and googling well, and 'also' I'm not good at English. I just want to show my gorgeous unique silk to you. whew.. so I'm doing my best.. 

Anyway, although Blogging and English makes me crazy, I'll keep on posting! 

Silk Dupioni Organza with Light

These are a small Window treatment and a Mobile which are maded with Silk Dupioni Organza. 

I think these are good examples to explain that how the Dupioni Organza  is affected by the light.

The mobile which could be cute under the lighting was completed by making with leftover pieces of cloths. Sewing Silk Dupioni Organza is easier than general silk and harder than cotton or linen. But if you do it with ironing then it may be easier to get better finished work than what you expect. This is a tip for people who has hobby doing sewing like me. In case you are a profecianal textile crafter who is adept at silk sewing then there's no difficulty.

As you know, stitching along the margins is quite difficult, and I took advantage of  the weakness for making the mobile. Silk Dupioni Organza is stiff, so when it is tried to make thin margin it makes big curves not small crease(which can be seen on general silk). That is I made the margin thin to make curve so that look solid.

In the dark, only with the light from back, the Silk Dupioni Organza has no more original color and the outlines become cleared by see-through feature of the fabric.

 

Silk Dupioni Organza show the original colors when the light is given evenly from front and back.(left) If the light shine only in front then the bright colors come out.(right)

Like this, the light affect the Silk Dupioni Organza a lot. Also it's natural dyed well because it's 100% silk so the silk dyed by natural color will be more beautiful it becomes a mobile. The mobile can be fully made with 100% silk. Because It needs only small pieces of cloths. 

The Window treatment by patchwork with Silk Dupioni Organza is next. It looks general fabric as the picture shows.



I made it as a Window treatment to point a window. The picture below shows well a variety features of Silk Dupioni Organza. First of all, the illegular thickness of treads from cocoons make illegular surface and color. Second feature is that it's 100% silk so it shiny differently with nylon or polyester. The last  feature is this fabric is affected by light very much more than other Organza. The lower part shows the original color with small light effect but the up part's color is almost disappear by the big, strong light.

It says that if the light only from back side make the colors on the fabric are faded and the outline is emphasized. But if the light comes from both front and back side to the fabric then the original colors come out. The colors can be changed by the amount and the side of the light.

The Silk Dupioni Organza shows delicate changing colors and it's more sensitive to the light than other see-through fabrics. The reason is that the silk's glitter is sensitive to the light as well. If you have a silk scarf then you can try it illuminates to the light moving back and forth. You may can see the color difference from that.

Wall clock and Passport case-DIY

Process of Natural dyeing and Patchwork - Wall clock and Passport case
Material : 100% silk (Dupioni Organza)
                gardenia seeds, indigo leaf, dried indigo leaf powder

The Silk Dupioni Organza that I use is very good to do natural dyeing. It is woven by cocoons 100% so the result of  dyeing with most of vegetables is pretty nicer than cotton or wool. When I was doing work, my friend gave me Indigo Leaf so I decided to do natural dyeing with that pushing the work I was doing back. Then the color came out satisfactorily so I started making a passport case and a clock.The passport case is made by Silk used Indigo Leaf and Dried Indigo Lear Powder, and Gardenia seed silk was added for the clock. Silk Dupioni Organza have different feel with existing fabric in comparison bacause it has feeling like paper.



Process of Indigo Leaf Dyeing

The process of dyeing wasn't taken photo, so here I descript cover for it.      
1. Wash the Indigo Leaf for removing soil.

2. Grind it.
3. Prepare three vats of cold water. Would be better colder
    and colder.
4. Put step2 to a net and soak it to one of vats. Knead the
    net while  it's in the water to extract dyeing solution.
5. Put the squeezed net into the second vat of cold water
    and squeeze the net again.
6. Do the same work in the third water once again.
7. Mix the water(dyeing solution) of three vats.
8. Spread a fabric well, put it into water by step7
    and knead the fabric for 25 mins.
9. Prepare ice water for putting the dyed fabric into there.
    The fabric should be rinsed.
10. Squize the fabric softly and dry it in a cool place.

Process of Indigo leaf powder Dyeing

I have dyed using of Indian Indigo Leaf Powder

1. A few days ago of dyeing, powder should be dissolved in water(ph11).
    I used Natural Lime Powder instead Casutic Soda.
2. Skim off foam if the water of step1 have it and warm the water temperature up to 40 degrees.
3. Put Hydrosulphide into a little water and dissolve it.
4. Put the water of step3 into step2's water and leave it (do not stir) for an hour.
    Then it comes out like light green color.
5. Soak a fabric in water step4 and knead it for 10 minutes in water.
    The fabric must be soaked deeply to prevent stain as the fabric meet air.
6. Squeeze the fabric gently and spread it out in shade.
7. When it is dried, put the dyed fabric in water for 1~2days to remove alkali completely.


Process of Gardenia Dyeing
Check a linked page about Gardenia Dyeing Process. go to the page about Gardenia Dyeing 

The Indigo leaf dyeing was more interesting for me than Indigo powder dyeing because I usually don't like using chemical fixative for natural dye. For dyeing with Indigo leaf, don't need to use chemical fixative. If you want to dye with Indigo powder using natural dyestuff perfectly, the process will be much more complicated.


Finally Making is started!
I started making clock with Silk Dupioni Organza which was given from the process of dyeing above. Actually the clock was designed for hand dyeing(chemical) but I was curious that how comes it out with Silk Dupioni Organza by natural dyeing. So I chose three materials as close with chemical dyeing as possible but the dyeing work was much harder and longer than what I expected.

I used a clock case and hands of a clock which are good at patchwork fabric,

and fixed clock movement. I did hand sewing like a photo below to make it exquisitely.

The nails were used for the dial of a clock. As I already mentioned, Silk Dupioni Organza which is stiff and crisp looks simple and modern but it is quite harder than cotton to sew by hand or machine.

Last step was covering the clock with a glass case.

The other one was making a passport case. When I was thinking about what I can do with remaining fabrics from the clock making, my passport jumped to my eyes. Silk Dupioni Organza is a see-through fabric so the passport can be seen. It doesn't need to be covered off at an immigration checkpoint.

I did work with dyed silk, blue color(Indigo Leaf) and deep blue color(Indigo Powder).

It was also made by hand sewing, the fabrics were very thin and slippery so sewing was not easy. Even though the sewing is not good but the silk is well mended fabric. So when the work is done, you can see the cover is better than you thought before it was finished.

I, who likes travel, has two passports. :) The name of a country on front can be seen like below so it doesn't have problem with the cover when you pass the Immigration.

I mostly dye and draw on silk, (these days especially Dupioni Organza), but I make variety things by sewing to be refreshed from time to time. I could get totally different works from silk because it's stiff or paperlike feature compare with cotton patchwork like quilt.  

Pattern dyeing with Silk Organza

The tulle fabrics such as organza, chiffon, etc are usually dyed to one color rather than pattern dye. The nylon chiffon has no choice but to use machine-made color or pattern. The hand dyeing is not easy so Tie-dye has difficulty using whitish nylon color. If you want to try Tie-dye with chiffon, you'd better use 100% silk chiffon or organza. 

I tried several pattern dyeing with Silk Dupioni Organza. Mostly I've made crinkle pattern with thread and used also wax to try the technique of batik. Arashi shibori(a pole-wrapping technique) was used as well. You might guess that Silk Dupioni Organza is harder to do Tie-dye than cotton or silk chiffon because it's stiff but it becomes soft when it gets wet so pattern dyeing is not a big deal. In addition, it's see-through fabric made by thicker cocoon thread than chiffon's. That makes a better outcome of dyeing.

The crinkle pattern used thread.

The crinkle pattern used wax. It looks soft when the thread used but lacks elaborate expression owing to the big patterns. The cracking pattern comes well out when wax used, but the process is complicated. You want to know the way? Click here to see how to use wax.

It is also cracking pattern by wax. I've dyed it with two colors, generally dyeing with gardenia first and then cracking with sappan wood.

The feature of the Silk Dupioni Organza, showing different color by the light is unchanged after pattern dyeing.

This is another dyeing work by wax painted with a brush coloring in parts. If you are interested in the loose fiber dyeing, you would know that the difficulty of maintaining the fastness of color by painting not dyeing. That is to say the making patterns need to be made by dyeing rather than drawing. Do you want to get the expression of brushstrokes? Then the dyeing is worth trying. This one will be posted later.

Arashi shibori(a pole-wrapping technique) dyeing using long and round PET bottle. The wet Silk Dupioni Organza is not stiff so it can be wrapped easily.

I was not easy taking photos of the process while I was dyeing. My hands were dirty and wet but washed and dried them over and over again all along the process to hold the camera. That was annoyed me doing work smoothly. But I will try get more pictures of the work for my blog.

I'm in gradation dyeing test these days. The gradation work needs time at least more than twice compared with ordinary dyeing and have to keep an eye throughout the work. But the result looks much softer than one colored dye so I'm putting my concentration on it. You may look forward to seeing the posting of gradation dyeing.



Make Lamp with branches - Collaboration

It is a lighting made by a sculptor, done patchwork used natural dyed Silk Dupioni Organza. The sculptor is interested in dead branches therefore this work was done using them. She, the sculptor, had seen my natural dyed silk by chance and then suggested me that made a work together. I gave him my patchwork which might harmonize with dead branches well so he made the lighting with wood. The Silk Dupioni Organza was very good to make the lightings because it is naturally irregular in texture so makes more gorgeous with light.



The sculptor tried to bring the dead branches to life covered natural silk on it. The colors from natural material matched well with the branches. The Silk Dupioni Organza what I used was also 100% natural silk. Thus, all of materials except a part of light were given from nature.

Patchwork pattern was expressed well reminding of another dead branches in order that the sculptor's intention .

The feature of the Silk Dupioni Organza

is showing variety of appearance
by the location and the intensity
of the light.
Of course, all kinds of see-through fabrics
have the same feature of it,
but the Silk Dupioni Organza can't be
compared with artificial silk organza.
Because it is silky naturally with glossy
effect. From it, the beautiful changing color
has created.

She insisted fabrics dyed 100% natural materials without chemical changes and that was an excellent choice to reborn the dead branches as the lighting.



I found out that how important is the finished product not only concerns for dyeing and pattern. Bringing to this work, I'm considering of collaborations with more craft artists, lighting & interior and curtain designers who have attention to my fabric.