Taking a quick break from work.

-Alan's war standard has finally achieved hemmed status as of last night. I had started out attempting to hand sew it, but I took out those stitches and just did it on the machine since a) some others were machine sewn b) you won't be able to tell at 28 feet, and c) it's the screwed up one anyway, so I'll contemplate hand sewing the second one. It is ironed, hemmed, ties sewn on, and folded and ready to go back to war.

-I went through my fabric stash to see what I had that would make a good pink Roman outfit. Sadly I don't have the perfect shade of pink, but I found some cotton/linen blend fabric that should do and is pink, if not PINK!

-I did a little bit more fingerloop braiding last night while watching MASH on TV Land.

-I've got a killer headache and desperately want a nap, but this afternoon is hands on with Wimba for the faculty attending the Summer Institute, so must take more IBU, put on the happy face and go back to work.

-Have to run by the chiropractor, Michael's, grocery store, and perhaps contemplate packing garb and accessories tonight. I'm thinking more and more that I want to head back Thursday night.

The one thing I remember about my dream last night was that I decided my hair was too heavy and so I had it chopped off to a very short bob. I remember liking not having to deal with the weight of a ponytail and enjoying the breezes on my neck. Since I don't visualize well, I remember the feel rather than how I think it looked.
I woke up with the same amount of hair as I went to sleep with (more or less) and didn't really want to do anything with it this morning. Perhaps I should buy a bob wig to play with...

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I finished re-painting Alan's war standard this weekend, and it has been heat set (within an inch of its life), rinsed and is hanging up to dry in the hall bath. (BTW, to my guests, my sincere apologies to you all for the state of that bathroom. We don't use it much, so on first glance it was fine, but now I am appalled at my lack of hospitality and beg you all for forgiveness. Apparently I only notice these things when on my knees rinsing out the banner in the tub.) It rinsed well, but the bleed parts I had carefully ironed around so as not to heat set were actually heat set when I tossed it in the dryer for a bit. Duh! So, um, yeah, there are still the bled parts on the banner, but hopefully at 20 feet up you won't be able to tell. sigh.

Onto the hemming portion next.

But in between banner phases, I was able to catch up on some sewing. Listen, I had started hand sewing a 16th cent. high-necked smock in April 2007 before Landing Days and entered it and its pieces into the Crown A&S display that Valharic and Arielle requested of fighters and consorts. I even posted some in progress pictures up on Flickr back in May '07 or something. I've been toting this thing almost everywhere to work on it, but since I always take more than one project, it has been ignored in lieu of knitting or embroidery or, well, almost anything but it. It isn't even finished but is already stained from taking in places, that I hope I can get out in the laundry. Well I started taking it to practice on Tuesdays as my thing to work on, as knitting with wool outdoors in the 90's was a bit much. Finally, this weekend, I finished the last long seam, attached the cuffs, and am half way done hemming it. Over a year later I hope to be able to wear it at Pennsic. :)

I took a picture of the evil green bleeding that stopped me in my tracks last time. -Step back

Step forward- So I decided to redo the resist last night, only I was having trouble with the resist (I think I needed to clean the nib and bottle top more thoroughly) so only got most of the way done. I got the key elements outlined, so that hopefully the next fill attempts will remain in their fences.
Step back- Sadly the resist was spooging out of the top, so I had to wrap it in a paper-towel to prevent the spooged resist from falling on the banner (as it did in a few cases before I caught on...)
Step forward- I did get the worst of the faded gouttes re-outlined, so those are fine, but I'll need a little more resist to finish the rest of the gouttes, if I want to redo them all. Step back.

After a break to scrounge something for dinner and watch the re-play of Wednesday night's Season 5 Project Runway first episode, I knuckled down to painting.

Hooray for new resist, color goes on well but does not bleed past the barrier- step forward.
I managed to re-fill Spike on the fly, and also to fill in the bottom of the border. Yay. Ran out of blue paint so will have to steal more from Theo to finish the border. Step back.
I move onto other colors and decide to re-fill in the yellow elements. Filled in the dolphins, castle, shell, and crown (again, after re-resisting to brighten it up.) Step forward.
Stretch back as I'm working over the 4x12' frame, and the standard poles/masts are stacked up between the sawhorses at the top of the banner so I have to contort a bit to reach the top elements. Step back.
Finally grab up the red to re-do Spike's eye, and those gouttes with a new border and the olive-eye. Step Forward.
Hooray, and pause for the night to go to bed.

Will need to get more blue and possibly more resist tonight or tomorrow from Theo/Roland so I can finally finish and then move onto the ironing for 4 hours, heat setting in the drier, and then the tense rinse and hang to dry. Oh, and then comes the hemming. Wait a minute, whose idea was this?


I'd much rather be doing this at the moment...

Kirsten very kindly helped me lace Alan's banner onto the frame in the garage on Sunday before leaving. So I swung by Theo's place to pick up a few silk painting supplies hoping to get started on the repairs to Alan's banner.

I tested the silk paint up against a resist line in the spare area on the tail. All looked fine. So I refilled in the olive. Didn't flow like I was expecting it (perhaps based on the different texture of the washed silk crepe) and I spooged a bit outside the line for a minor bleed over. Sigh, not great, but no big. I then went and grabbed a damp sponge and worked on the green blocks above and below the motto, which turned out fine, and the falcon's eye and fleur, which was not too bad. So I decided to move onto the bottom front corner. I think I dampened the silk too much, and the resist lines weren't complete as I've now got bleed through to the white border in two areas, and also on the falcon's leg. booh. So I decided to switch to the yellow. Did the coronet, and it initially looked good, so I moved onto the shell. In two places the shell also spooged a bit outside the border, but not as disastrous with the yellow into the green, but the coronet bled a bit leaving the falcon with a slightly patchy yellow neck. Great, ring around the collar.

sigh.
I knew when I was defeated, so I stopped there.
I also forgot to grab the finer nibs to the resist bottles last night, so will have to call the Roland to run by and grab a couple of those. Then I am resigned to having to reapply all of the resist to the banner before proceeding further.

The trials of going first.

I've now uploaded my pictures from our silk painting war standard workshop.


While we are still in the learning process, here are a few tips:

• Get the silk stretched taut on a frame. When you think it is tight, pull it tighter.
• Don't bother with using hair spray as a pre-treatment for stop-flow. It works too well and makes cutting in harder.
• Work small test pieces, and then work a larger test piece to get a better idea of any mottling and/or fading in the rinse-out stage.
• Plan your design out and, unless drawing freehand, make a template for each element, but allow for some flexibility when actual layout time comes, as things may look better another way once you get to scale.
• When using a paper template for tracing the resist lines, don't pin the template lines too close to the silk as it may cause problems with the resist application.
• The black resist is easier to check after application to ensure that all lines meet to create a dam for the color. The clear resist is mostly useful if you plan on a design with interior detail on a white background. Using an up-light from below will help with checking the clear resist application.
• Make sure that your resist lines meet to create a separate area for each new color. This is doubly important when skipping the flow-stop (hairspray) step as mistakes will spread quickly.
• Be careful with application, don't hurry and don't spill. A paper towel under the paint-cup helps control drips.
• Use a large (1-2" wide) brush for applying color in larger areas, but be careful of possible splatter. The special high quality silk painting brushes are worth it.
• If using the heat-set dyes, iron for far longer than you think you should, and heat set in the dryer for a few minutes on high before attempting a rinse.
• Rinse carefully.

A couple of things we still have yet to try:

• Apparently there is a fixative that you can add to the dye to set it without heat. It does only allow the dye to last 6 hours, so will involve more waste, but could save you hours of ironing.
• Theoretically the resist is not water based so shouldn't have washed out in the rinse, but we'll do a test area to see if we need to re-apply the resist before re-applying the dye.
• If the silk is damp then the dye will dry slower and should prevent the lines between our cut in areas and the large fill areas. We plan to try a sponge for this for even application of water before applying the dye.

And one last cautionary tip.
Don't leave your camera unattended around silly drunks and be unprepared for the unexpected pictures you find at download time.

Corby's pictures from the weekend pretty well illustrate why my back is still killing me today. (I have some photos of my own I need to get off the camera and onto Flickr.) What he didn't capture was the standing up and leaning over the 4x12' frame to paint the bits in the middle. My back is actually sore to the touch, so much so that lumbar support comes as a surprise, and I wore a simple dress today to avoid having a waistline on pants to touch my lower back. Roland was nice enough to give me a back rub, which helped loosen the muscles, but the nerves are still shot. The next day Alan tried to rub my back and only got winces from me, sadly.

But as a group we accomplished frames designed and assembled for stretching the silk on, designs and tracings of elements, four frames with silk stretched on them for standards, seven mast-like poles for flying the completed standards in camp at Pennsic, the best method for laying out the design for drawing on the resist lines and how to visually lay them out, preferred methods and the cost of using hairspray on the grand scale for a stop-flow, the joy (and pain) of skipping the stop-flow step, and two hours of ironing only to still suffer some major color loss in the rinse stage. Alan's was the first standard worked on and taught us a bunch. I'll have to re-stretch it on the frame this week and see if I can re-do the worst of the color loss. But even with the fading, we could see great potential. I have a design I adore for my own standard, but doubt I'll get to it before Pennsic and hope to have one for me next year.

We also had a great time with friends. Corby proved master of the kitchen and fed us well. We got to spend some time with Tom, Heather, Icepick and Adam on Friday, as well as Dave and Kymber on Saturday and Sunday. Elspet and Brian came down to be part of the learning and design process, even if they didn't get to make standards for themselves. But they worked like house elves for the time they were here and their efforts are greatly appreciated. Blue and Green leaders were the main thrust behind this project that started with an idea out of Corby's brain at the end of war last year. I merely helped when and where I could.

It will be a glorious site in the Vair and Ermine encampment this year, and my back should heal soon. I hope.