Fiber Art Attack

The other day I organized thread. More than 200 spools of thread are now neatly on the wall inside my closet, arranged as a color palette, which is what The Artist always recommends when you have a rainbow of something.

I didn't use to have so much thread, but the other week when I was at my dad's house for Spring Break, I found my paternal grandmother's sewing machine and all her colorful spools. Some are so old they're wood. She had about 18 spools of various shades of yellow green and another six of rusty brown. I didn't have any. Oddly, or maybe not so much, these were also the colors of paint I found in another box in the same storage unit.

Having all the thread displayed--as much as inside a closet is "displayed"--encourages me to use it. I am planning to enter several pieces of fiber art in a show in August at Sixth Street Gallery, here in America's Vancouver.

One of the pieces I'm working on is the urn for my mom's ashes. I have gotten so far as to draft the pattern pieces and will buy the phototransfer fabric on Friday when I can use my 50% off JoAnn's coupon. Some of the images have been scanned already. Last night I also hunted up a crewel embroidery piece that she did, but never framed. I long to use it in this work, but can't bring myself to cut it apart. I think I'll scan it, print it on the phototransfer fabric, and use that as a guide to reproduce the stitchery.

I'd like another piece for the art show and can't decide what it should be. I'd like it to be for sale, since the urn obviously is not. I'm interested in trying to "scrumble," which is another word for freeform crochet and knitting. But I don't crochet. And the hours I spent trying last week in a hotel in Denver didn't get me anywhere. Fortunately The Star has a friend at school who crochets, so I'm hoping to get a lesson from her. I can knit just about anything, but this crochet thing has me in knots. Literally.

We'll see what gets accomplished between now and July 7, when my application for the art show is due. Prior to then, I have business trips to Chicago, San Francisco, LA and Honolulu. Easy to knit on the road, but hard to sew.