Thingstaken

Natural Fabric Stuffers

http://www.crochetmemories.com/crochet8.php

http://craftingagreenworld.com/2011/07/21/diy-natural-fabric-stiffeners/4/

Oh and they might sell this at Joanne's:

Aleene's® Fabric Stiffener and Draping Liquid 16 oz

This unique product shapes and stiffens fabrics and trims. Thinnable and tintable, use it to stiffen crochet doilies, fabric, lace, ribbons, cheesecloth, and appliques. When dry, it’s water-resistant and easy to paint. Recommended for: Bows, laces, ribbons, trims, doilies, appliques, costumes and fabric.How to use Aleene's® Fabric Stiffener and Draping Liquid
1. Wear gloves to keep hands clean.
2. Use a bowl or bag large enough for your fabric.
3. Pour enough liquid into the bowl to cover fabric.
4. Work liquid into fabric until saturated.
5. Holding fabric over bowl, squeeze out excess liquid.
6. To make a shape, choose a form over which you can drape your saturated fabric. Balloons, bowls, cups, and balls work well. Cover form with protective wrap.
7. While shaping over the form, continue removing excess stiffener.
8. As fabric dries, gently loosen from form.
9. Use a damp cloth for cleanup.
10. While considered permanent, humidity may affect dry time and stiffness
11. Always test for best results.

Tips & Techniques
1.You can tint the stiffener by mixing in a water-based acrylic paint until the desired color is achieved.
2. To thin the stiffener, add up to 50 percent water depending on the type of fabric and stiffness required.
3. Use on ribbons, trims, cheesecloth, doilies, lace, burlap, gauze or any weight fabric.

the quiet american: American Noose series

i'm reworking a project for a class. this was the original output.

heres a picture a rough copy. (its sideways if you can tell)

materials used: cherry wood, fabric, glass, photographs

i was thinking about time and space and relationships to place.

i was also listening to NPR while working with this model.

----- now i've sort of pulled a lot of my ideas together and am thinking about a Patriotic Noose obsession still using some of the ideas i have here but cleaning things up a bit.

i'm moving slowly away from the aesthetics of trying to perfect my ideas and just processing things through. i feel this is a better healthier processing i tink.

How The Color Grows

Hello Folks from the 4th Dimension!


Hope ya'll are having a festive and convival fall quarter. You know what I've learned recently?
That there is never a shortage of ideas. You just never know when they're gonna pop up. Herman Melville wrote once about ideas "they are not down in any map; true places never are."


Welp. I aim to manifest these places.


This post is about my next installation project.


I would like to translate my abstract drawings into three dimensional form.


The Abstract is a space where all kinds of memories abound. And I'm always asking about memory. For example: What the hell does it mean to remember? What does it mean to forget?


Here are some pictures from the early stages of this project. Please offer commentary if you'd like:

• The first two pictures are some drawings I'd like to translate.

• The last three pictures are of the current fabrics, visions, space, and forms I'm working with.

(Everything is at the early phallic looking stage right now.... that's probably because I'm interested in exploring What it means to be a Queer Asian Woman/The hypersexualization of male and female forms...)


(I am really inspired by an art friend JP Neang. And also Shirin Neshat. And Chiharu Shiota. And of course the fabulous Amy Hemmens.)

processes

i would like to learn how to screen print and/or silk screen

or that photo cyanotype thingty

and transfer renaissance humanist paintings onto tights or stockings!!!

Pieter Bruegel

Love Letter #1: There is Beauty in the Handmade

To the Good People of the Earth,

HEY THERE! I hope ya'll are having a festive and convival summer. With the Summer-filled surrogation to Fall and the Halloween holiday quickly ascending upon us, I find myself reminiscing to mind the many blessings and bestowments of the past. I suppose having matriculated to my twenty-third year has provided me with a depth of insight which I am only beginning to excavate. This project "Wolf Moon" is a handmade and vintage endeavor about special memories, family, animals, traveling, and folklore. Have you ever taken an old and discarded object, and used it to prove how amazing the world is?

That is how I feel about fabric. I am pleased as punch when I am surrounded by simple things that have a lot to say. Toilet Paper. My Grandpa's Glasses. Old Sweaters. Cups of Water. Shadows. (All these things represent timelessness, antiquity and sustainability.) There is beauty in the Handmade

Since the month of May I have been reconstructing and deconstructing old raggedy sweaters over and over. It gets annoying alot, making sewing mistakes, sewing up the seams, pulling out the seam. But I pick up that Godforsaken Needle and try again. To those who have been handpicked for this project: Your role is important and necessary. You are the purveyors of folkore. As role models, you will wear the clothes and be placed in an environment that speaks of the past (in a present sort of way). You will embody things within places that are suppose to be lost. For example, the Zapatista Movement, the Filipinos Struggle for Self-Determination and Democracy, the struggle for human rights and dignity; the Palestinians struggle for Equality, Peace, Land, Freedom. You will embody the Animal Spirits that watch over us and guide us. You will represent indigenous cultures on the brink of extinction. New deadline for this photog thingy. Sept 10th. I will have already sketched out the sets for the photoshoots by then. This project will also be in the Summer 2012 Zine I'm gleaning together as we speak. The Zine will also be called Wolf Moon and be devoted to lost or forgotten things and also found objects.

Ruminations are particularly profound when one begins to notice:

every piece plays a

unique role in the fabric of

humanity.

So until around September 10th, here is my pledge to ya'll readersp: you can count on me to be truthful and certifiable in giving honest-to-goodness scoop in two weeks. I will need to be taking your measurements and such before then.

Isulong,, ,,, ,,,The Awkward Pedestrian :)