Fiber Color Theory Buellwood March Meeting 2017

Fiber Color Wheel

 The Buellwood Weavers and Fiber Artist Guild had another great meeting on March 20, 2017. As usual we had another enthusiastic Show and Tell by our members. This was followed by a great hands on presentation of Color Theory by Phyllis. We are so happy to have new members joining our guild and bringing excitement and new ideas for our fiber guild. Although everyone cannot make all meetings we are now having a nice turn out each month.

Anita found a handmade lace doily at a local second hand shop

and all these lovely colors the result of the Coreopsis?

  Dawn shows us Madder Red vs Dawn's red from dried Coreopsis Major dried flowers. One quart of dried flowers died (I believe?) 1400 yards of worsted weight wool yarn. The deepest color being a red close to Madder Red.
Then a bag of Rose colored yarn that was dyed with Lichen and the rose ball in the front was a dye bath created by soaking Buck-horn Bark for 2 weeks with an ammonia thickener.
The brown bag was dyed with lichen.
Although I did try to take notes and pay attention at the meeting in March, there was a lot going on. Dawn please correct me if this is wrong. I will better versed at these natural dyes after I take Dawn's natural dye class this summer at the Porkies Folk School. 

Rose bag of yarn

lichen dye

dried Coreopsis flowers

Dawn also dyed and knit this hat for a fellow artist who's calling card is next to the hat. She sure did a nice job of matching the colors of the artwork on the card.

Clare is our expert knitter, who is also learning to weave. Clare brought in her Icelandic yarn she purchased on her travels to Iceland. these fragile yarns are called Plates.

 Plötulopi (plotulopi = unspun plates) can be worked one, two or more ply at a time, depending on how bulky a yarn you want. Gently wind the required number of strands together into a ball by taking the end from the centre and the end from the outside of the plate, or plates.

 Clare is also experimenting with weaving bracelets this winter and will bring in a number to share with us in April.

Iceland Plates of yarn

Clare's bracelet

Karen has been knitting and brought in a lovely scarf she is knitting with a hand paint yarn and she shared the double yarn over scarf pattern with those of us who wanted a copy. She also brought a woven basket of dogwood and cotton cord. Note the base she is using these days for her baskets.

 















Katie Jo shared an antique spinning wheel she found with the guild. She would very much like to find out more about this wheel. Being small it was suggested it might be a salesman sample wheel.
If you might know the history of this wheel please comment on the blog below.

It was especially nice to see Debra making a guild meeting. She brought in a shawl and hat she has been knitting. Although I know she has some weaving on her loom at home!


 Kathy brought in some weaving she has been doing. The blue table runner is beautiful, then to finish off the warp she used two very different weft yarns to complete the warp. What a different result she got with the same warp.

Also she is taking Clare's knitting class and has made a few beanie caps for gifts. A beginner project but very nice work Kathy.

same warp as runner but a whole new look.

caps knit by Kathy

 Phyllis has been weaving off the warps her students left on the loom with weft from another students weaving project. This is an undulating twill warp on an 8-shaft loom with saturated colors in the weft.

She also showed us a felted piece that she is planning on gathering with a strong tread and then redyeing. Her felted pieces will be on display at Art Start at Nicolet College in Rhinelander WI for the month of April.

 

cotton resist dyed bag.

The large bag Phyllis brought to show was dyed with thickened MX dyes on cotton. She used a cornmeal resist that is 6 parts water to one part cornmeal along with tape resist. Once the cornmeal is dry she scarped away the cornmeal and applied the dye with a thickener and let set up for 24 hours.

Color Theory

Phyllis did a nice Color Theory presentation for our Guild. Which was very understandable and it was followed by some hands on activities for our members to help show how color works.

Fiber color wheel

Fiber arranged by value

She had us create a color wheel with the yarn samples we brought in. Surprising how we quickly arranged the yarn into a color wheel.

Then we rearranged the yarn into a value wheel. Last of all she showed the group how to create a sample card of colors that we would like to put together in our fiber art.

wrapping our colors on a card

up coming workshops:

Karen and Dawn will be teaching at the Porkies Folk School this coming summer , Karen on Friday, August 18th and Dawn on Saturday July 22th.

Karen will also be teaching at Siever's  on Washington Island, WI July 12 2017 a lovely ,Birch Pouch Basket' Workshop.

upcoming meetings:

 Join the Buellwood Weavers and Fiber Guild for our next meeting on Monday April 17th at noon at Gloria Dei church in Hancock MI,

Show and tell and a presentation by Karen on Coiling with plant materials. 

Our May 15th meeting will the presentation of our 'Buellwood Best Fiber Challenge'. Be sure to bring in a completed piece of Fiber for our examination and presentation of a 'Viewers Choice Award'. I hope you all are working on your entries and will participate in this learning experience.

Maybe we can even find a place to exhibit our work.

John and Clare will have work in the Finlandia Student Art Exhibit  at the Finnish American Heritage Center until April 18th.