another sky line study

As I was getting off the freeway from one of my Appalachian road trips this weekend, I saw this flock of migrating birds on the power lines, rolled down my window and took a few pictures. Here's one:

Fig Leaf Loincloth and yarn p0rn

Yesterday was the first opportunity I had to get over to Loops (here's the website). I've wanted to go to this yarn store since they opened in the spring, but never seemed to get around to it.

I got this lovely yarn in the picture below to finish off my fig leaf project – part of the Wardrobe for Paradis series. It was supposed to be the strategically placed focal point of the Bird’s Nest Dress, but the fig leaf has separated itself from the dress and morphed into a garment all its own – a loin cloth.


The yellow-green yarn is 100% bamboo. This stuff is luxurious. Silky and almost hemp-like. It's beautiful. The pink stuff in the left background is a silk / wool blend -- extremely soft and silky. Both are imported from Japan and carried by Habu textiles based in NYC. Check them out; they even have a silk covered stainless steel yarn. Wow wee. Both the yarns I bought have just the right amount of sheen for what I need in this piece.

Process notes and photos are in the previous post.

Fig Leaf / free-weaving process

I used my own free-weaving process that I sort of make up as I go along. I've laid out the steps I went through below. (Forgive the poor quality of the pics.)

I first drew a cartoon on cardboard from a composite of found photo images – the cardboard cartoon was both loom and a loose color / value guide

Then I cut around the cartoon

Next, I stitched in the main structures (in this case veining) with strong cotton yarn sewn directly to the cardboard

And then stitched it to another piece of slightly larger cardboard and outlined the whole leaf with heavy wool yarn that I secured with thread

I trimmed the base cardboard and cut notches in the edges to hold loose threads… then began free-weaving

I just kept filling in more areas and changing threads often

At this point, I’ve woven to the density I want. This is weeks worth of work for something not much bigger than my extended hand, but is exactly what I want as far as size and structure

…the back side with all the loose threads tucked in their respective notches… and here you can see the source of cardboard – a pizza box from The Red Onion, a fine mom and pop pizzeria with great pizza.

Then I separated the two cardboards with the seam ripper

The two pieces of cardboard

This is the tricky part: I had to cut away the structural yarns from the original cartoon being careful not to pull them out of the weaving

The freed form… looks like a sea creature

I wove the ends back into the weaving as I would with a tapestry… and again, a very long process… only half-way done at this point

The front side