blog Archives - Nangellini

Posted on February 7, 2021February 7, 2021 by Nancy

Kinesthetic vs. Visual Learning or Keep doing it ’til you See.

A wee bit of the snow dyeing process

I guess I have always considered myself a visual learner, primarily. I know we all learn visually, auditorily AND kinesthetically but lately it has become clear that I learn by DOING. and Doing and doing…

Iterations.

This weekend I dyed. Not just good ol’ dye and water and fabric(+chemicals and stuff), but SNOW and more SNOW and that whole “trickle down” theory we have heard about for years. Well this is what it is really about. The snow (or ice if you are in Miami or Summertime someplace) melts. (Not smelts, as my hands really want to type, which is a fish and I am not sure how good-eating it is, but you can always use it for bait.)

Yes it MELTS and trickles down which creates complex and chaotic and interesting results. To coax the water and dye into some form of order and design, you can arrange the fabric and garments by folding simple or intricate patterns, by scrunching the fabric into folds and mountains and valleys, and by twisting lengths of fabric, scarves and cowls into rope-like pieces that in turn, twist up upon themselves. These and more manipulations create fascinating and symmetrical variations and oft-times repeating patterns.

Here are some examples:

This weekend’s batch was some test swatches, some finished cowls and some pieces of fabric 2-5 yards long.

Some of the swatches are here:

I considered over-dyeing some of the lighter results, but actually like the discernible foreground and background as I perceive it. I know as I continue to design and make* garments and accessories, I will ice/snow dye again and achieve different and more intentional and (somewhat) consistent results.

Ultimately the visual parts of my brain determine what I learn through the process but I must keep doing this again and again to really witness the the effects of the changes… and the knowledge is cumulative…after a certain threshold, something kicks in and sorts all the data on my behalf and interpolates it into usable impulses and ideas. The result is–I learn, I make more and (one hopes) I evolve.

* make = sew or have sewn, in the case of the cowls above, my dear friend Cheryl and I have been collaborating and she has sewn these into being! I am grateful to work with friends on manifesting gorgeous creations!

Below, some of the finished pieces of my weekend foray into ice dyeing. More definitely to come.

Posted on December 18, 2020December 18, 2020 by Nancy

More Turquoise (and Cerulean)

I am taking a weaving class Understanding Overshot with Janet Dawson (https://weavingwithjanetdawson.thinkific.com/) and I need more turquoise for the warp as well as the tabby weft (this project takes 2 wefts, one for tabby/background and one thicker for the pattern. Lots. Well, I had lots of 8/2 rayon and 10/2 cotton dyed already, but not really enough of any color. I had 3,000 yards of turquoise in 3 shades so I figured that was plenty if I did a gradient…until I remembered I like to make long warps. The class only requires 5 yards but I wanted to do 10 of course.

Long story short, I wound and dyed some more turquoise but as I got started I realized I was not certain it was in fact turquoise and not cerulean blue. I did both, as well as some bronze and a shade of brown the name of which I cannot remember. The top of jar had “Great Color” written in Sharpie (??)

I did the yarn in all the blue shades and two pieces of rayon/synthetic blend fabric, one was Devore velvet (acid etched) with rayon velvet on nylon, I believe, potentially to be sewn into infinity scarves later. Additionally I grabbed two big hanks of natural cotton, plied light and dark shades, just for kicks.

Just wanted to shoot the fabric draped. These have not been sewn at all yet, but I was eager to see how the dye took to the fabric and how they would work out. I ironed them a bit to dry the fabric, but hey may be a skosh lighter when fully dry.

In other news, I finally photographed some shawls here and knit a few fun hats! I cannot stop creating, but getting them photographed and listed is the big challenge!

All the Flowers Handspun Yarn

$28.00

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Harvest Rusty Violets Handspun Yarn

$38.00

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Product on sale

Pinky Delight Handspun Beret

Original price was: $81.00.Current price is: $64.00.

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Product on sale

Ruby Jewels Wrap Shawl

Original price was: $255.00.Current price is: $125.00.

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More to come soon, in the mean time, do something you love today! Make some colorful fun!

Happy Whatever you Celebrate & Lots of Love to you,

Share some love today!

Posted on August 23, 2020August 24, 2020 by Nancy

Recent Pieces

I started a shawl swatch to see how I liked my recent hand dyed yarns. One was a 3 strand novelty cotton combination and the second one here was 100% cellulose paper yarn. After a bit I realized the shawl was not going to work out so well, so I was playing with folding and arranging the piece into an embellishment, flower or something…It totally made me want to try hyperbolic crochet with the paper yarn. See below!

The result of the hyperbolic crochet edging play is shown here, basket is paper yarn carried with 3 strand novelty cotton yarn. I used a J hook for most of the basket. I switched to g for last couple rounds. Edging is just the paper yarn. Both yarns hand dyed by me.

I started edging with 3dc in each stitch around, about 3/4 of the way around the basket, and finished the round with 2sc in each remaining stitch. Then with a bigger hook (a K hook I believe) I did 2sc in each stitch of the ruffle. The last round was one hdc in each stitch around. IT ruffles quite a bit and I like having the open edge of it although I am not sure of the practical application of the opening, I am sure there is one!

I dyed 10/2 mercerized cotton, some cotton t-shirt yarn which was constructed as a knitted tube, a 3-strand combination of novelty cottons skeined together, and some paper yarn (100% cellulose). Oh and some silk, too!

Here are some pictures of the yarns.

Hats are my comfort food. I’ve said so for years. Here are two recent completions. Both were Noro wool/silk blend yarns. Red blend is entrelac, the blue shades one is a lace rib pattern I devised extemporaneously. The afterthought crochet flower makes me very happy!

Posted on August 2, 2020August 2, 2020 by Nancy

More Color & Magic!

This Red was so exciting on the muted warp colors. What a surprise!

Posted on June 27, 2020June 27, 2020 by Nancy

Re-design, Re-thread & We’re Off!

I mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to rework a section of the weaving between the repeats…well, I found a way that only required one repair (string) heddle to be created in each section, which still was a pain in the tuchas but I went with it. So I had 6 sections of 9 threads each which first I counted out, to make sure I was shifting the correct threads. Fortunately they were in batches of three, so I counted, recounted, found an error, recounted again…then I could move one…..

Satisfied now I had the right threads, I removed them from the heddles, trying desperately to keep them in order, I re-threaded 8 of them and made a repair heddle out of silk and threaded that one last.Then I re-threaded those into the reed.

Once I got started weaving with this lovely green silk, I decided I wanted a darker and deeper and richer shade, like some of the threads I tried in the sampler. I loved how the turquoise came out and also the deep violet and royal blues. I decided to over-dye the silk and some of my rayon cones. I spent a day and a half winding hanks off of many cones and had a dye day in between weaving…I do find its good for me to break things up and do different things each day.

Some Dye Day Pics

I thought I would get to everything but the cotton will get done another day. So be it. I also had 4 t-shirts I had tied up previously waiting to dye with this batch as well so my day was full.

Here is the overdyed silk getting incorporated into my work:

So this is the journey. I am getting faster at walking the treadles, using both feet in order, working the advancing point twill pattern. I still unweave to fix bits, and I still have to count from some starting point to figure out where I am in my pattern…I find a center, either a one or an eight and I count. There is no paper. I have no paper.

Just 1234323454345654 etc….with L and an R between each. I do know that evens go with R and odds go with L and from which side to throw so there’s that. I say all things considered I am making good progress.

🙂

Posted on June 15, 2020June 15, 2020 by Nancy

Corris Sampler

Voila! I have taken this piece off the loom. It is officially a sampler, with some errors and a lot of learning and many treadling patterns. Corris is a weaving structure which incorporates multiple colors and repeats of a pattern–offset and it creates a kind of iridescence which I simply adore!

I am going to re thread a few threads between the pattern repeats for subsequent pieces and keep on weaving.

Posted on June 13, 2020June 13, 2020 by Nancy

Wrapping My Head Around Corris

Some things are immediately captivating! Corris weave structure is one of those things. There is a kind of iridescence that forms in the interactions between the colors and it just makes me happy! Technically, Corris a complex weaving design structure devised by Margaret Coe and Amy Norris. There are classes available on line here E-Weave

I took the Corris Effect Part 1 – 8 Shafts class in January and worked with designing patterns for some time and then left it alone to marinate for a bit. When I returned to the software to play with designs again, I started over with re-watching the lessons, and re-designing the basic design line/starting point, and reworking every idea or revising it from the ground up. Suffice it to say this process took a while to get to a point where I felt I could move anywhere close to the loom. I also had to complete what was on the loom. The last piece of a painted parallel warp. I had stalled on completing it for fear of an empty loom and some sadness at completion of about 18 yards of pure joy weaving on this draft with these 10/2 mercerized cotton warps which I wound and dyed. I made several very satisfying scarves therein.

I finished this final scarf:

Final Woven Piece of Painted Parallel Warp, Undulating Twill

Also this whole experience of scarf making left me wanting larger pieces again so everything I was designing now had upwards of 600 threads. Scarves were about 9′, new Corris projects about 20″ !!

So back to the drawing board I go, Fiberworks Silver to be exact. Margaret Coe’s class explains how to utilize the software to get the correct effect but there is still much to be gleaned from trial and error and my own design esthetic and combinations of all of the above. I learn through iterations….

So. I iterate.

and again

and again.

Then I decide it is time to take the plunge and start to commit to a design, and then I see some inspirational images that send me back to redesigning.

This and a discussion with the teacher regarding color shifting and reflections. Not the kind of new age reflections of how this project is a metaphor for my life and how can I move forward with both creating art and creating peace and ease and joy in my life…that will be another post.

Simply reflecting portions of the pattern so that what was once the first of three colors is now second, or in my case second AND third. so I commit to a three repeat design and accept that it will be bigger and take longer to thread and I allow for it to take all the time it takes to make this warp and dress this loom. It will be what it is. It will take the time it takes

Winding warp of 3 colors of 8/2 rayon. 630 threads 25 yards long

This took about three days (6/2-6/4) [Side note: I did take a lot of breaks, snacks, and distractions.] and the whole time I was wondering if my threads would sick together too much to wind onto the back beam once threaded in the heddles. (Spoiler: they DID!)

After winding all this, I took them to the loom and realized I needed to dismantle parts of the loom to add more heddles to a few shafts. Out comes the screwdriver and friends. I removed the top of the loom, redistributed heddles, reassembled. I switched the reed, removed the brake, the reed and beater bar (which holds the reed) and laid them aside. I began the long and arduous task of threading heddles. This took 4 days to complete, 6/6-6/9. [Also, lots of breaks and distractions!]

I have no photos of winding it on the back beam, That was a mess. Some groups of three were problematic, some of them were actually braided together. Winding on the back beam took 2 and half days and that is with not much away-from-loom time. I don’t care. I wanted to get 98% of my 25 yards safely wound on and packed with the contractor paper between and I did it alone and slowly. Front of loom, back of loom, front of loom, back of loom. So it went. It takes the time it takes. I am growing as a person. I love to play with this giant LeClerc!

I threaded the reed. Three threads per dent in 10 dent reed. With three colors in the warp, this was much easier than my last warp! 30 epi for 8/2 rayon according to the teacher, so I went with it! Seems to be working thus far.

Turns out I had one threading error which I fixed after a few inches of weaving. I also have a design area that I am iffy about between the repeats, at the edges of them as it were…may redesign, may not. I have to try several patterns first and see how it reads in each pattern. Plus each pattern I try with and without tabby pics between. Initially I planned to use tabby through out all of this project and made my tie-up to walk the treadles (new for me) so I made treadles 9 and 10 the tabby. Boy does that take some getting used to! For years I had 1 and 10 my tabby treadles and was so on auto-pilot for that. Cellular memory and everything. But I can learn new things! I can adapt, especially to something more efficient.

So off I go, here’s a visual account of my exploration. Click the pic for a larger version

I tried advancing point twill variations, undulating twill, network, mostly with tabby, some without.

Currently wove about 52″. I’ll probably stop at 80″ and make this a shawl for me. More to come!

Posted on April 30, 2020May 3, 2020 by Nancy

Productivity and Sleep

I have been making art. Yes. But also now sleeping until way later than I intend and staying up later as well. That might account for the sleeping later. I have recently read/heard that we should not awake with a to-do list or base our thoughts on worth, self-worth or value on what we have accomplished, made, completed, etc.

So I awake today and I think, instead of what will I do today, what projects can I complete, start, devise….Instead, today I think “How would I like to feel today?” And I start a list.
I like lists.

I would like to feel:

Happy
Enthusiastic
Joyful
Laughter
immersed in my creating process
eager

And then I begin to consider where I feel those things most…for me its with math and art, where math and art come together, color and pattern, fractals, iterations, permutations, quilt blocks, weaving patters and all the possible variations within a given set of parameters, grouping yarns with various colors and textures that I want to use together, grouping fibers and wool for carding…..and I get UP. Later than I imagined I would but so be it.

I got up Feeling Good!

And here is the real epiphany. Still somewhat in judgement about the time I finally got out of bed, I texted a friend:
“Still making things. And sleeping. A lot.”

And the reply, simply: “Good.”

And I thought, that’s it? Good?
Huh! And I paused. And I considered maybe it actually is Good. Maybe I needed to sleep as long as I slept and I was honoring my own internal guidance and getting exactly what I needed to start a new day well rested and feeling good.

This thought alone is better for my health and well being than beating myself up!

Why are we so inclined to berate ourselves and disallow getting exactly what we need when we need it.

What if we are doing it perfectly and simply don’t realize it. AND…we can continue to improve and follow what’s our next highest thought. [My typo “Next hightest thought” is actually pretty good!]

What is Your Next High-Test Thought?

Posted on April 16, 2020June 29, 2020 by Nancy

Mask Making

Edited to add: These are now available here https://nangellini.com/product/cotton-mask-with-ties/

Currently prepping batiks and cotton prints and making masks to order.

Please be patient as I am not the fastest sewist as yet. Pictures of finished masks are below.

The link to order the masks directly is here: https://nangellini.com/product/cotton-mask-with-ties/ You can choose which color fabric during the order process.

I have more colors of cotton and I plan to make some embellished masks with fancy fabrics and appliques too. Stay tuned for that.

This is green and red Batik cotton fabric, lined with kale cotton fabric, both 100% cotton, and the ties are cotton/Lycra heavy jersey rolled, some call it t-shirt yarn. I find it much more comfortable than the elastic behind the ears variety.

More completed masks. Each mask is made with two distinct fabrics so you know which side to wear inside next to your face if you take it off and put it back on. These should all be washed between uses. They are all washable and dryable.

Posted on March 17, 2020March 17, 2020 by Nancy

On Feeling Good

I stayed home today but I worked. I worked on the website for my job. I worked on my own website, listing items, photographing new yarn. I cooked a little. I tidied up very little. But I feel like I accomplished a lot.

I made a to-do list the other day and have been marking percentages of items not yet completed and slashing through the ones I completed. That feels good to me. (I had forgotten how much I enjoy crossing things off my list with a pen and paper.) I rewrote the list with the unfinished tasks and added a couple new items. I like discovering new things that inspire me & adding them to the list.

I cleaned a couple shelves of the fridge with bleach wipes and discarded old and unknown items. I found sauerkraut that a friend made and gave us a couple years ago. Its really quite good! (I guess fermenting Does make it last longer!) I know none of this is exciting but I use it all to raise my energy, to make me feel good. I thrive on small accomplishments.

I am an optimist. I always try to look at the upside of things and I am certain the Universe is unfolding exactly as it should. Sometimes I need a reminder of this, too. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed and a gross sense of anxiety about the world and where we are, but this sequestering and quarantining and shutting down can be a godsend if we choose to view it as such.

I am thrilled to finally get nangellini.com off the ground and I am so excited to have a drum carder again to process fiber and I just started dying wool and I’m carding and spinning batts again, and knitting and crocheting things and I have two unfinished pieces on two looms to finish up and I’m looking forward to resleying the table loom a little wider and doing some free form weaving with my hand spun and hand dyed yarns and Breathe, yes take a breath! ….I have some time to do ~~all~~ some of these things and sleep a little later and move some stuck energy in several areas of my creative process…and maybe get on the elliptical for more than one day in a row! If my energy sounds a bit frenetic, now you understand why. There is a lot going on in my brain… not to mention moments where I’m thinking about treadling sequences for weaving or combinations of colors for warping with varying effects, or ….

I know I am not getting everything done today, but I am choosing (consciously) to feel good about what I did get done. I am choosing to find ways to support myself in getting more done with my time off and being efficient and perhaps slightly more focused than the day before. Most of all I am catching myself when I start to beat myself up about not doing it perfectly.

What are you feeling good about today?

“I can choose peace instead of this.” A Course in Miracles