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.

Making Door Treatment with silk

Making Door Treatment with Natural Dyed Silk
Material : Silk Dupioni Organza, sappanwood

Last winter, I was been in Hawaii and came back left there a work made with my special silk. I actually planned a travel for three weeks, but when I got there, my mind was changed to stay there longer, for three months which means that I had more time for travelling relaxedly. Luckily, I got a room to my fancy at my first visit in Hawaii. The owner of the house which I rent was so friendly to me and offered many helps, so  I wanted to give a present to her. Fortunately, a few my special silk (Silk Dupioni Organza) were in my travelling bag and I could make a pretty door treatment and present her a gift.

The house where I stayed had a hall connected with kitchen and the window treatment was fitted on a door of the hall. I was impressed that my silk organza was matched nicely with Hawaiian sunshine. When the light is given evenly on inside and outside of Dupioni Organza, the original colors of work become lighter than usual by a glassy feature and the silk looks like stained glass. This picture below was taken inside the brightly lit hall on a very shinny day.



But when it was seen from outside in the darkness with the light inside on only, then it showed  more deeper colors perfectly. That is, if the silk get some light from behind, the colors can be most beautiful.

This Silk Dupioni Organza is affected from the light like other Organza fabric but it has glossy feature more than chemical fabric like polyester, so it has much quality. And what's more, it is glassy because of the Silk Duppioni feature, the slub pattern on the silk and the different tread thickness of the fabric. The biggest feature of this silk makes a variety of color at everytime.



I did patchwork with red silk dyed sappanwood and undyed Silk Dupioni Organza. It looked more glassy from different thickness of yarn in the middle of the fabric. This feature can not be seen from other silk organza, also can not be compared with polyester.

These days I'm dyeing gradations of colors on Silk Dupioni Organza. That's kind of hard work because I have to move the fabric incessantly for making gradation. I'm writing this page during the breaking time in the middle of the work.

MISSING HAWAII.

Patchwork with naturally dyed silk - Gardenia, Sappan wood

I was hooked on natural dyeing last year. I prefer real natural material dyeing rather than dyeing with powder. Silk is dyed well when vegetability materials are used. If you want to do successful dye with materials such as onion skin, mugwort then you should dye silk. Because treads from silk cocoons like vegetable. The picture below is the work used Silk Organza that were dyed with gardenia and sappan wood. Here is more information about this patchwork.

The processes of dyeing with gardenia and sappan wood are quite simple but they make so gorgeous color. If you can get gardenia and sappan wood then why don't you try to do dyeing silk through the way below?

Dyeing using Gardenia

1. Keep gardenia soaked in water for half the day and then boil it. Simmer it another 30 mins after it has  boiled.(Boiling term can be modulated by the dyeing materials' condition. It means that if the coloring looks enough then boil it for just 10 mins more).

2. Prepare Alum. I don't like using chemical fixative, so usually use a bit mild burnt alum which is sold at Oriental medical clinic.(They sell burnt alum which is edible.) Dissolve the burnt alum(5% of the fabric weight) completely in 50degrees water and put the silk in it. Keep the silk like that with kneading sometimes for 20 mins.(the liquid not thrown away after that)

3. Prepare dyeing solution. Shift well the boiled gardenia. The solution temperature needs to be 60 degrees.(That's suitable for silk) Put finished step 2's silk into the solution and dye it about 30 mins. If you knead the fabric well at this time the coloring would be better.

4. Put the dyed fabric into step 2(Alum water) for fixing color and knead it for 15 mins.

5. Rinse the silk with water and dry it in shade. The picture below is the result of dyeing Silk Dupioni Organza with gardenia.

Dyeing using Sappan wood

Sappan wood is a plant growing in the tropical regions and the red-yellow wood part is used for reddish dyestuff. The terms of keeping steeped sappan wood in water depends on the state of the wood before dyeing. Generally soak it about 3~4 hours then extract dyeing solution but it should be in water the day before dyeing if the wood is in so dried state. Using the alkali water(ph8~9) for dyeing deep red color. I didn't use the alkali for changing the color, just used for extract deep red coloring.  The process of below is about intense red dyeing using sappan wood.
  
1. Soak the sappan wood in water for 3~4 hours before dyeing.

2. Prepare water which is alkali(ph8~9) and put the soaked sappan wood in water and boil it. 

I used 'Natural Lime Powder' instead 'Casutic Soda' for making alkali water. (At the moment in Korea, people are dyeing naturally as traditional ways with Natural Lime Powder and avoiding using chemical fixatives more and more..) The sappan wood is helpful to be extracted the solution when it's boiled in alkali water.

3. Shift well dyeing solution of  sappan wood and do the step 2 once again. That is, use the extracte sappan wood again and mix the solutions from fitst and second step. It will be dyeing solution.

4. Prepare water for color-fixing with alum. Dissolve alum(5% of the fabric weight)  completely in 50 degrees water and put the silk in it. Keep the silk like that with kneading  sometimes for 20 mins.
(keep the alum water for another step) This part makes the fabric coloring effectively. The sappan wood come out well for dyeing but the fastness of original color is not as good as gardenia so shouldn't skip this step.

5. Neutralize the prepared dyeing solution of step 3 using vinegar or citric acid.(ph7)  

I needed perfectly red color so I neutralized the alkali dyeing solution before dyeing.

For your information, if you dye with alkali state of water then you can get violet series but the fastness of color is worse than reddish color.

6. Put the fabric into the solution and dye it. 

The water was about 50 degrees and dyeing time took an hour. The high temperature needs short time to dye and the low one needs more. I did it with low temerature for reducing the risk from dyeing that silk might have. If the fabric has stains when you dye then the low temperature and long time can be one of the key.

7. The dyed fabric needs to be soaked in water(step.4) for color-fixing. About 15 mins with kneading needed.

8. Rinse and dry it in shade.

Tip!

For coloring an orange, do dye the fabric by gardenia first and then dye it by sappan wood again. In that case, that's okay with the gardenia dyeing through the way of above. But the sappan wood dyeing needs to be check the color during the dyeing and should be dyed 5 mins more after getting color you want, then the proper color comes out.


Silk patchwork

Patchwork with Silk Dupioni Organza vs. General silk

I make patchwork things with not only Silk Dupioni Organza but also regular silk. Both of them are 100% silks from cocoons but they have noticeable difference about hand feeling and gloss. Silk Dupioni tends to resist wrinkles, so enhance the usability of the finished fabric. Also because of this feature, it is ironed well and sew easier than regular silk. Silk Dupioni Organza is more crispy and stiff than Silk Dupioni, so it can give the final product a crisp and formal appearance. Therefore when it is made up of interior props, the works look neat, flawless.

On the other hand, the cloth silk has feeling of hand made work, soft and warm. The below photos are the wall clock done patchwork with regular silk (for cloth or scarf) and the color swatch book made of Silk Dupioni Organza.



The regular silk was soft and slippery unlike cotton or linen so it was difficult to do sewing. I used a thin silk(usually used for scarf) and did my endeavor not to make crumples on the fabric doing sewing and ironing repeatedly. But it still had a few.  From the brilliant coloring and the gloss, the silk made warm feeling.  Ah! All silks used for this clock were dyed naturally using natural dye. The light purple and blue colors came from Lithospermum root, the light pink from a Safflower, the yellow from Marigold and the pink was from Sappan wood. I like natural dyeing and I know how to do it but still doing it is so exhausted. Because the process would take a long time without chemical fixative which I don't want to use. I guess using chemical fixative is worse than chemical dyeing for the environment. Because doing natural dyeing needs pretty much amount of natyral dye and chemical fixatives. Especially chemical materials like copper sulphate give demage for the environment but it is still using for natural dyeing in many places. For now, the traditional ways of dyeing is getting more and more in Korea rather than using chemical fixative. I'm thinking that opening the blog about natural dyeing later as well.  I seem to be straying from main subject of this posting.. :)  Anyway, what I want to say in here is all  100% silk is dyed well with vegetables,  so  all silks used for this clock were dyed using natural dye.

This is the front of a book with Silk Dupioni Organza patchwork. It's also done by natural dye with marron, gardenia and indigo leaf. As I said already, I've learnt and studied natural dyeing. This book is a natural dyeing color swatch book contained cotton, silk, linen and also Korean hemp, Korean ramie fabric are included. These fabrics are dyed with same materials showing coloring level through a variety of fabrics. I chose a portfolio book suited the swatch book and decorated the front cover with the Silk Dupioni Organza, my favorite, so it looks more tidy than when it was done with general cloth silk.

If it is observed more detailedly the Silk Dupioni Organza is transparent, crispy and less gloss unlike the general silk is more like fabric and glossy.  The cloth silk is consisted of tight treads without a gap even though it's very thin fabric. But the Silk Dupioni Organza is made up of cross stripes so it's transparent by gaps of fabric. It makes different feeling from background's color, and that's why the Silk Dupioni Organza is suitable for lightings.

General silk

Silk Dupioni Organza

I mainly do fabric dyeing and also do the pattern dyeing, painting. I usually work with silk, and  nowadays  I design Silk Dupioni Organza by hand. The sewing is just my hobby for pleasure. If you do a patchwork -like quilt- profecionally, you may make things better than me. Are you a textile crafter? and Are you interested in this silk Organza? If you want to try making somethings then why don't you send me an e-mail? If it's not so big work, I'd be glad to send some this silk for your experience. :)  euntextile@gmail.com