Crafting – albedo too

a collusion of ideas, Collision: the work begins, Crafting Art, journal: lessons to learn, Not so ordinaries, UnknOwn Sister

Bear with me please

Posted on October 22, 2025October 22, 2025 by arlee

Still been a hell of a year and 8 months, but i promise i am getting my ass in gear finally. After this amount of time and all the sadness and anger, i ~~“caved”~~ finally signed myself up for counselling, not talking to a friend counselling but the real deal with a therapist. Probably should have done 40 or more years ago. Whatever. I’m in. Part of this is a combination of fear, anger and grief and part a dread of dementia. (Which i DO NOT have, but worry about anyways. I have made it clear to those who care that if that happens, i will not stick around to live through it. My decision.)

Anyways, i promised back in July to give teasers of fabrics for what i’m doing. It begins:

Above, from top: all cottons, Vermeer print layer 1, Gold striped pale coral underlayer, terra cotta jacquard pants.

Below: raspberry linen and Boho style gridded rayon–one top combined, one pants or skirt combined.

Below, Crushed grapes print Ankhara cotton with loud striped Ankhara cotton, pinny and pants!

Below, Glacier themed 20s flapper frock with ramie, stencilling and cracked ice lace.

Below, floofy top of some sort, full and fluffy, cottons, lime green linen (which will be coupled with apple green waffle cotton) for pants.

Below, combining plaids in colour, scale and feel for fun and funky tops, cottons.

A small collection below of cotton co-ordinates that can be mixed and mixed (HA, thought i was going to say mixed and matched, didncha?)

And there will be a line/collection/series of more feminine patterned items as well: lilies of the valley, roses, tulips, irises, wild flowers in cottons, rayon, cotton rayon blends and silk.

And laces and embroidered tulles and eyelet synthetics, rayons and cottons, because of all the fabrics i bought, my inner FouFou self took over and indulged herself in all the fripperies she could get her greedy little hoofies on!

I actually did one of my first social media “stories” for FB and IG but alas, the visual part got pretty much covered with the “caption” and even i wasn’t impressed with myself. Have to try that again, and may post it here as well if i can remember how.

And a retirement of sorts after 15 years: i sold all of my natural dyes and assorted accoutrements that went with (pots, tools, gloves, etc etc etc) because i decided that if it had been sitting for almost 3 years in my studio and not being used, it would be better to get to someone who would love it. I have plans still to sell my dye books and HALF of my white dyeables. I’ve kept my Procion as i have plans for it. I will also at some point have the remainders of my naturally dyed fabrics for sale, economical small packs to tempt and tease. I originally had planned to do all this art wear WITH naturals but soon realized care of them and the bitching that would ensue (because no one listens to/reads the instructions) made it a foolish proposition. I’m not in this to fight anybody or try to solve problems caused by casual ignorance.

Part of posting all this is that i agreed to the therapist suggestion of setting achievable goals for myself. The above planned garments won’t all happen with a week or even a month, mostly because i have 11tybajillion other ideas as well. If i set myself on the track though, that’s my first step, and yeah Me. My BIG goal is to make enough coin to go to Europe next year, or maybe South America with my son. It’s also time to travel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Onward and upward. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Crafting Art, FybreSpace the shop, Natural Dyes

THREE days left for discounts!

Posted on June 15, 2021June 19, 2021 by arlee

My fabrics and threads are all naturally dyed, with historically accurate products and processes. The soft and supple natural fibres i use are perfect for hand stitching in applique, as embroidery bases, for cloth weaving, Boro, piecing and small projects like cushion panels, bags, inserts for clothing, wall art, textile jewellry and 3D forms.

THREE days (including today) left for SALE in shop. ENDS June 17/21.

Please read the sale listing for information on how to apply discount codes for each category. If you can’t make it work, discount will be refunded from your invoice. As always, any extra shipping will be refunded, whether from multiple purchases, or a single item. ———> The shop is HERE. <——— 🙂

FybreSpace will be closed from June 18th until July 9th, for a much needed break. That means NO purchasing allowed at all until i come back, because i figure no one will want to wait 3 weeks for something to be shipped to them!

Summer is here and i need some summer

Have a great one, you Lovely Blossoms!

All listings available will be shown instead as “Coming Soon” as of June 18, and go live again on the 10th, so keep yer eyes peeled!

Contextural Fibre Arts Co-operative, Crafting Art, FybreSpace the shop, Studio Realities

i’m hearing bells

Posted on November 10, 2020November 10, 2020 by arlee

As mentioned in a previous post, i decided this year to participate for the second time with a local collective, Contextural Fibre Arts Co-operative. I did reasonably well the first time i joined in (2012) with ONE week to get stuff together! (I used the machine a lot then, and the majority of what i had was small very inexpensive textile art pins 🙂 ) This year i thought i was smart by signing up on the 11th of October for a Nov 21st date, but time got a wee bit lagged and dragged, and now i’m in the throes of panic *but* working the ol’ hoofies to the bone !

So, this year with the premise in mind that NO ONE is doing what i do, especially exclusively with natural dyes, here’s the various views of studio doings lately:

I have Organized Piles with Notes for slated work, fabrics picked out, some solid design sketches and some still in my head, labels, an inventory sheet, display ideas and display items, and am treating the whole as a Job. Yes, art can be a job, an enjoyable one, but the key IS discipline. Line it up, get her going then Go. Do.

I will have new work to show and sell, and promise the happy drool will be off my face (Well, the happy will still be, but i promise no drool.) ALL Covid protocols will be in place to keep you safe, from masks and sanitizing, to distancing and contact trace info, limited numbers allowed in and (unfortunately) only one day this time to see the vast array our group has to offer in the way of unique textile arts and crafts, from wearables to gifties to Art. If you are in Calgary, or its environs–hey Alberta!—please share and spread the word!

Crafting Art, Natural Dyes, Probably talking to just myself

playtime

Posted on March 26, 2020June 16, 2020 by arlee

A long time ago, i used to play a lot in my studio. That usually resulted in 4 posts a day (!!!!!), because everything was exciting then: textile arts and mixed media were hot in the blog world, as we were all new to the internet and the windows it opened for creativity. There was MORE feedback then: people didn’t just “like” something and then flit to the next page. There were CONVERSATIONS, friendships made, active sharing and promoting of each other, and well, it just wasn’t facebook/instagram preciousness and staging.

I always enjoyed making Little Things, and at the time, it was part of a viable business as well. There were at least a hundred Yule Ghouls that flew out of my BC studio, innumerable really inexpensive wallets, the ubiquitous christmas stockings, penguin ornaments and artsy bags of all sizes. I stopped most of that when i moved to Edmonton in 2003: the market there was completely different, a lot less explorative, a dearth of innovation, and funky individuality was not cared for much…..it was crushing, as an artist and as a small business.

That coloured things for many years. I got rid of a lot of finished product simply by donating it to the Sally Ann, and once in awhile, even in such a large city, see one of the very creative bags i made, slung over someone’s shoulder. But i know they paid peanuts for it, thrift stores generally not in the biz of charging shitloadarmandleg prices, and so won’t make them again AS part of the bread and butter part of my studio. I also didn’t see the sense of having PILES and BOXES full of Things that wouldn’t see the light of day again.

BUT, i am involved with Contextural again, and there is a Christmas Sale, so let’s just think about that. Stocking up, protyping, testing, MAKING.

Anyways, blah blahdy blah. I made a pile yesterday of recent naturally dyed linens (my new favourite fabric):

I admit to just sitting and staring at it, inspired by the colours and the feel, but not sure where to go. Then i espied an unfinished project and what the heck. I gots lots of those 🙂 Combine!!!! I’m “Goin’ Minoan”, ha.

It’s a start.

Crafting, Indigo Dreams, Jam Day, journal: lessons to learn, Moons, Studio Realities

laughing at myself

Posted on January 4, 2020June 16, 2020 by arlee

First project of the year, a little test for scale, motifs, use, this needle book is for me.

5×4″, indigo, madder, cochineal, tansy, osage, sandalwood, quebracho rojo, linen, cotton, silk, naturally dyed “*orts”, beads. I won’t show you the inside: apparently some 4 year old snuck into the studio and worked that part! 🙂

I had grand plans for this little work, thinking i could make multiples and offer them in my shop, enticing people with price and portability. HA! If i actually charged what that *should* be, no one would pay the price. A common problem many makers have, either inadvertently, or deliberately, is actually pricing the true value/worth an object has cost in terms of time, skill, design and materials, assembly, and in my case, the dyeing of cloth and threads, and hopefully a small markup for profit. This Thing took the same amount of time and work as one of my larger moon pieces! Would *you* buy a $100 needle book? Nope, me neither.

At least i know my new indigo vat is working though and i *did* cull some ideas for other work from the making and thinking time!

*Orts are the left over short ends of threads (or teeny weeny scraps of fabric) used in other projects.

Crafting Art, journal: lessons to learn, Natural Dyes, Probably talking to just myself, Redux projects

sort of a recap

Posted on December 19, 2019June 16, 2020 by arlee

These are why i believe natural dyes in textile arts are important to me and to others with this passion, no matter their “technique” or Practice. Ixchel Suarez had asked about this in a post on FB, in a natural dye group, about the importance of natural dyes to tapestry, *almost* intimating that it was the one use of the medium/material where it was so important, but i know there are other embroiderers, knitters, weavers of all the sorts, twiners, basket makers, rug hookers, book makers, fabric designers etc. who also use exclusively natural dyes. I can’t imagine using commercially dyed threads on anything now! There are nuances to natural colour that can never be replicated in synthetic dyes, and everything always “goes together”.

I know a lot of people can’t tell the difference between synthetic and natural dyes, just to look at them. I’m at a point though myself that when i look at photos of other natural dyers work, i can usually tell what dye they used, whether it’s tried and true historically accurate natural dyes, or “food waste” S**T. Really, i can. Really! There’s something warm and poetic about madder in all its antique hues, indigo and finding beauty in the palest to darkest, no “wrong” blue as a result, clear as the golds and leaf russets of osage, the aureate luminosity of rhubarb root (as prosaic as that one sounds…), the terra cotta nobility of cochineal and cutch, the royal richness of purples from lac, cochineal and logwood. SIGH.

I haven’t done any dyeing since before we moved to our new home, too much going on, too many other projects, but i’m starting to run out of threads especially. I’m planning for 2020 (i can’t believe that at all, that it’s going to BE 2020), and trying to figure out a schedule of sorts with flexibility for making the materials i use, and then making from/with *that* making 🙂 The best i can figure is to devote a week every 2 months (as needed, because surely i won’t have to do it EVERY month) to the dyeing, a week for paperwork, putzing and planning, and two for making. That still isn’t written in stone of course: part of this whole thing is the spontaneity generated by excitement, discovery, tangent, possibility!

I’m not making Grand Art right now (with the exception maybe of the patient Samara, and hopefully others like her), but i am making art that other people enjoy, and that *I* enjoy making. I see all these together and i get excited all over again, knowing that i, me did this from “scratch”–i may not have grown the sheep or cotton plant or moth cocoon, or woven or spun the cloth and thread, but i still “made” these fabrics and fibres, i coloured them and that’s pretty damn satisfying.

Would i be as rapturous if it was the “old days” and i was using commercially bought, commercially made, commercially dyed materials? Not sure, don’t care: i am where i am, and where i need to be now, now.

I also have in mind to if not REPLICATE, but to redux, remake, re-interpret a few older works in natural dyes:

Too, there are also old techniques i favoured, themes i loved, and mediums, and i’m testing some for the use of natural dyes in them. So many ideas! Piles, heaps, hills, masses, oodles and multitudes, stacks and torrents! Good thing it’s not 2020 yet 🙂

Crafting, Days of Honey, Deliberation--do something you don't do--or haven't in awhile, embrilting, FybreSpace the shop, Indigo Dreams, Madder, Natural Dyes, osage, quebracho rojo, tansy

studio time finally, and a shop update

Posted on November 22, 2019June 16, 2020 by arlee

This past week i have said to hell with unpacking boxes, shuffling furniture around and organizing things in our new home. I finally got down into the studio and had fun!

Digging through the silk velvet scraps for the elf mentioned in a previous post, had me wondering what to do with all the dinky teeny itsy bits. If you love velvet and other luxe fabrics, you get that–no small left behind! 🙂 And when they’re naturally dyed, they are even more precious!

And yes, they DO come as PAIRS 🙂 Hmm, might be cute Christmas ornaments as well!

This weekend however, the two of us will be descending to the depths, and getting laundry appliances moved around, a laundry sink and water filter hooked up, tools settled into shelves, and the last of my studio stuff IN the studio, out of boxes, bags and piles. Once that is done, i plan on setting myself a schedule of sorts to get work done, the serious stuff (Samara, poor Samara!), and some more fun things as well.

a collusion of ideas, Crafting, Deliberation--do something you don't do--or haven't in awhile, Natural Dyes

elves? hell YEAH

Posted on November 15, 2019June 16, 2020 by arlee

My Mojo has been a Nogo for awhile. If you’re read previous posts lately, you’ll know why! I’ve diddled about with bits and pieces, but nothing really exciting, or terribly productive happened, small projects that will get done, but not honestly that i feel terribly interested in.

This morning i buckled down. I’ve wanted to do elves again for the last four years or so; i say “again” as they were a bread and butter item i made in the 90’s. All were very glitzy, and had green “skin”, so a late friend i miss still had dubbed them the “Yule Ghouls”. I made and sold probably 4 or 5 dozen of them, named Ruby, Amethyst, Sapphire, Emerald, etc etc etc all depending on the main shiny fabric i used (ha, i LOVED the glitz synthetics in those days) but alas along the way, i lost the original pattern. I have a few lousy photos of them, but they’re so lousy i won’t dig them out.

Of course, me being me, i thought i could immediately jump in and start pumping them out. No pattern though. Sooooooooooooo, brushing off basic skills again, i made a mockup in some cheap cotton, made some notes, adapted my pattern and started the first prototype.

It took 4 and a half hours from first pattern and the cotton test subject (right in photo below) to the first prototype (left). Still needs arms and legs, and the embellishments, but i’d say my Mojo is now a Gogo 🙂

He’s a little shy at the moment. “Mockup says my ears are too big, my nose looks like a squashed potato, and how am i going to get anywhere with no arms or legs?” (Note: snarky Mockup has only one of each so he can only go in circles, i guess.)

“He’s just jealous ’cause Mom loves me better, even if he was here first.”

Arms, legs and facial features are coming up next, beading, hand embroidery etc–though i will keep it simple. The velvets, silk and lace i used are of course naturally dyed with quebracho rojo, madder and sandalwood. I was fortunate too that late MIL had bags and bags of stuffing, gawdz knows why though as she did nothing “crafty”. Finished size will be approximately 15″ head to toe.