Silk Organza Project : Tie-dyed Silk Dupioni Organza

I began project to dye Silk organza in earnest, and started to tie-dye to get some suitable patterns  for it. Acutally I've been tie-dyeing in various colors with Silk organza, but It was just for my works. (go to the page about it). So, I only dyed with colors and size what I wanted. But once I have made up my mind to show this unique and special silk, I need to find  suitable patterns more seriously.



If you already read about my previous posting,  you would know that the organza I'm using is Silk Dupioni Organza. For first-time visitors, the simplest explanation is that this fabric is vintage organza silk. It's quite different from most other organza, because Silk Dupioni is created from the threads of double cocoons. 

It has Natural irregular texture, irregular slubs and different thickness parts, which are caused by double cocoons, and It makes this silk more vintage. (If you click the words 'Silk Dupioni Organza', you can get more information in detail.)

I realized something through this project. This silk organza can be not only fabric but also Craft Art Supplies. From now, I would like to say from crafter point why it can be useful material. 

First : This Silk Dupioni Organza is stiffer than most other organza, so is usually easy to sew. Because it has irregular slubs and different thickness parts, which gives it a crisp and stiff quality. This features can give the final product a crisp and formal appearance. So I can say that this is suitable see-through fabric for patchwork and quilting art.

Second : This Silk Organza could work like as if Silk paper which has natural patterns and special texture. Especially texture is different from most fabric, it's crisp and stiff like paper. So it tends to take creases well like folded paper, and  after ironing it tends to resist wrinkles like unfolded paper.

Third : This Organza is affected by light beautifully more than most other see-through fabric. Because it's also 100% silk, so silk's sheen is added. Further, subtle slubs make it more gorgeous. By the nature of  translucence, it's suitable for lamp cover. I took some pictures to see how it looks as lamp cover using incandescent lamp. While turn on the lamp, the patterns disappear and it function as a lighting cover well. And when turn off, the original color and patterns were seen perfectly, it looks better than pictures.

I got some ideas from those features, and I made cute mini cards with tie-dyed silk organza. I wanted to try to make see-through cards, because this fabric has huge advantage as the crafts materials - It's perfectly acceptable for both sides to be used and seen. (I mean both sides are same perfectly). So I cut and remove inside pieces, and then put small pieces of patterned silk between the papers, namely the silks was sandwiched between the papers.

Phew...It's too tough for me to explain everything in English.. I hope you understand what I'm saying even if there're some mistakes. Lastly, what I want to say in this post is that if you're fiber Artist or crafters,  you will be able to use this unique fabric to your art works better than me.

Making an Etsy shop

I began making an 'Etsy shop' to show and sell my hand dyed silk fabric. It is a  huge challenge for me, because my English is not yet at the level to run an online shopping mall in English. Actually..even though my speaking in English is also not good yet, I'm not nervous when speaking English. Because of travel experiences. BUT writing in English makes me more nervous...hum..so, I'm doing my best now- using translate, getting help from some friends, studying English. If some sentences are awkward, please understand. :)

Goods on sale in Etsy is Hand dyed and painted silk fabric which is one of  Korean traditional fabrics. Actually I have a big dream, so I quit my job and I started to prepare my own business. I want to show and introduce beautiful Korean traditional silk to everyone who are textile crafters or designers. Because I could know through travel that even if most of people who I met on my journey liked and were interested in my silk, It's very hard to see Korean beautiful silk abroad. They said "So beautiful, I've never seen silk like that before".

But It doesn't mean that running Etsy shop is my business. I want to go abroad to introduce Korean traditional fabric designed by me directly, and  work using that. I mean I want to paint and make something what my customers want abroad. For doing this, I'm currently developing some products using my unique silk. I have received support from the Korean government a little to do my small business. They offer a joint office, and I'm working hard there for my dream.

(This is my office, I'm sharing the office with someone. )

So, the reason  I decided to open Etsy shop is to show my hand-designed silk fabric before going abroad. I know that It would be difficult for me,, but I'm going to try. To open Etsy shop, I have to do a lot of things by myself, because I cannot afford to hire someone who help me. Not only making hand dyed and painted fabrics, my main works, but also 'Taking Pictures', 'Making Etsy shop pages in English', 'Blogging  to explain my silk for Etsy buyers'. And I need to study about systems of oversea delivery, way of packing safely and choosing some materials for selling. 

Oh my god, there are a lot of things to do than I thought.

(Photo studio is offered  as well, and It's one of the hardest things for me to take photos well.)

I'm just confident in making designed fabrics by hand, and the other things are still at the level of an amateur. Despite all the difficulties, however, I won't change my decision. I've been investing my time for my business now. So, before starting business in earnest, time and effort to make items will be reflected a very little bit in the price..cheaper than the other shop here. I really hope I can get many chances to show this beautiful silk to people.

Then, It's time to work!  See you at Etsy shop!

Make a window treatment with organza

This is a patchwork which can be used as a window treatment or a partition for ornamental purposes. When I was into a natural dyeing after studying about that, I had a fasciantion for colors of nature so did tried several things everytime I finished dyeing. The posting about the natural dyeing for these works is here.

I sometimes take pictures of works for in studio and I have a try it as a partition.(I'm using a joint office where the Korea goverment offers for small enterprise for young people, and it offers a photo studio as well) This work was originally designed to be a window treatment but also could be used as a partition. But the fabrics of it are see-through, as possible as see that my partner is working hard, so it's better used for decoration than for function. An untransparent partition can make feeling that a space is small but if the partition use see-through fabric, Silk Organza, then can make the atmosphere of the room coolly without looking small. 

Also, Silk Dupioni Organza's stiff feature can give final product a crisp and formal appearance so that the result has a neat impression rather than it is made with genaral silk. So the wall treatment or the lighting is suitable for the making of interior props.

I used the Silk Dupioni Organza for the main in the middle of the patchwork and also used Silk Organza for the rest part. You may can assort the difference between Silk Organza and Silk Dupioni Organza. Both of them are 100% silk but there is a delicate difference from which cocoon's tread is used. Silk Dupioni Organza is made from Douppioni, so it naturally has irregular slubs and layers from that. If you click 'Silk Dupioni Organza' on every posting, you can get some information about that silk.



There is a clear difference in pictures below. Silk Dupioni Organza has the biggest feature of Douppioni, slubs. It also has feature of net as can see weft and warp by visuality. On the other hand, the organza silk is see-through and has a soft and genaral feeling more from closely weaving. These two types of silk are the same good for dyeing well with natural materials.

It's really different feeling that hang the organza silk work only. Silk Dupioni Organza has stiff feeling like paper while Silk Organza has soft and warm feeling.



Silk Dupioni Organza is also kind of silk fabric. If the wall treatment or the rug is designed with Silk Dupioni Organza then it can be like silk more; the neat silk that is less soft feeling and not to be made small wrinkle. When it is on the wall or floor, the original color is shown best. The see-through feature is affected by a background color.

In the case of the window treatment or curtain which is well affected by light, the silk is displayed as a variety of color by the intensity and direction of the light. Also the biggest feature of the Silk Dupioni Organza, naturally irregular in texture, makes the silk look glassy sometimes. Because of that, the patchwork with the Silk Dupioni Organza can be more like stained glass.

So I recommend to use Silk Dupioni Organza for making lightings. The lighting is not on all the time, so the state of lights-out is also important. Silk Dupioni Organza has basic beauty of silk fabric, so it can be a part of interior with a pattern of a lighting-cover even when the lighting is out. Of course, it's faithful to the lighting beaurifully with a see-through feature. If you want to make a lighing with Silk Dupioni Organza, don't hesitate to contact me. I may send some. :)

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.