New Year's Eve Update- Lillstreet closed

Hello everyone,

A quick update to Saturday's open studio-  Lillstreet offices will be closed, therefore open studio has been cancelled.  Open studio will resume on Monday, January 2nd.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Happy New Year,
Textile Department

New Magazine- Fiber Art Now

Hello everyone!

I just wanted to share a new publication with everyone that will hopefully fill the void that FiberArts Magazine left in my heart.  Frances Krueger-Jackson, one of our esteemed monitors, showed me this magazine this evening.  I hope to get a subscription going for our Textile Department, to add to our library.

Click here to find out more about Fiber Art Now.

Happy New Year!
Camille

creative new years resolution

it's that time of year again.....a time to reinvent yourself. go ahead and give yourself with the gift of creativity.....winter classes start january 9th and the textiles department has a laundry list of awesome classes to help with your reinvention :) go check them out and make a resolution to sign up!

Subversive Cross Stitch

The story of Major Alexis Casdagli, who was imprisoned by the Nazis from 1941 to 1945. To pass the time, he began stitching on scraps of canvas and bits of thread. The most outstanding piece is a seemingly innocent sampler with a border design - but the dots and dashes are actually Morse code that spell out "God Save the King" and "Fuck Hitler".




Read more here about his life and how his son continues the tradition of cross stitching today.

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2011/12/subversive_finds.html

HOLIDAY HOURS AT LILLSTREET

Happy Holidays !

First Time Screenprint on Fabric

We hope that everyone is enjoying the holiday season, even if the weather doesn't quite feel like winter.  We wish all our students, monitors and teachers the best and look forward to the new year ahead!  Hope to see everyone back in the studio this January.... 

Remember Early Winter students enjoy open studio access through January 8th.  Returning students can still register for weekly open studio through the 8th as well.  There will be no open studio the first week of classes, with Winter 2012 open studio returning January 16th.


Below are the Textile Department's holiday open studio hours.  

Saturday, December 24th -closed

Sunday, December 25th -closed

Saturday, December 31st - 10am-1pm

Sunday, January 1st- closed

Raggedy London and Beyond

Well I never heard much about Estonia. Actually it's a Northern European country that my friend recently travelled to and bought this jacket at a little shop named Hula. I was impressed with the craftsmanship so I took some photos to share with you. It's made of a thin wool blend and the facings are a rich red polished cotton stretchy fabric. I like how they piped the inside seams with red bias tape. And the reverse fabric is the opposite of the right side. I went to their website;

http://www.hula.ee/esileht/01/

and here's their rap: This fashion boutique is a project by students from the Academy of the Arts. Creating the brand in 2002, HULA was originally a fashion label before dabbling in home textiles, interior design, accessories and graphics. Today HULA is a highly innovative lifestyle brand, bucking prevailing trends and mass production to create unique products for young-minded people who value individuality and smart detailed craftsmanship. Visit their shop to outfit yourself with a style you won't find anywhere else and become a born-again hipster.

(Well maybe hipster by Estonian standards.)

My friend, visiting me from the UK, told me about Raggedy London so I went to their website

http://raggedyrags.blogspot.com/2010/08/raggedy-london-alternative-fashion-week.html

Here's the dress she got from them. They specialize in upcycling second hand garments and piecing them together in unexpected ways. Since I love recycling clothing the whole idea appealed to me very much. I like how they didn't serge any of the seams. Instead they seem to be topstitched somehow with a less obvious decorative machine stitch. The result was a kind of wavy "lettuce edge" look. The hem is assymetric and it looks to me like only 2 or 3 sweaters were used for this particular creation. So many great ideas out there! Happy Holidays.

Sewing Housewares Class

We just wrapped up Sewing Housewares. Students had a chance to design and make a home fabric- good of their design. We learned a variety of techniques to be used in construction and finishing, including zippers, mitered corners, quilt binding, button holes and the french seam. Students were busy in class and at home coming up with ideas for new things they could sew. As a special treat on the last class free motion embroidery was introduced. This technique allows you to draw with the sewing machine using a special foot which allows you to move the fabric and make stitches in any direction. Students were very excited about this and were encouraged to practice on their machine at home.

Ellen working on her baby quilt

Ellen's festive fingers have mastered quilt binding!

Ellen used printed flannel that looked like a quilt. Now that she has mastered how to put a quilt together she wants to learn the fun part, piecing! I think her next class has been decided.

Susan discussing which textiles class to take next

Susan's first time free motion embroidery

Ellen's free motion Christmas tree

Felted Ornaments and Small Sculpture workshop

We had really fun for the four hour workshop (12/9)!  Even though all students were first time to apply wool rovings, they made various beads, stocking ornaments, and little containers.  Felt making has a lot of potential uses for art making.  I developed it combinning with silk when I was looking for my new work several yrs ago.  I also found that it works well with stitching.  It is easy to make a 3D shape.  Hope my students who have taken felting classes will continue to discover your own ways. (Akemi Nakano Cohn)

New! Yarn Painting!

New Yarn Painting class will begin Jan. 19^th.

Instead of Huichol painting, which used beeswax as a glue to hold yarns on wood panels, this class will use hot glue on a canvas or three-dimensional surface. Students who want to create larger projects are encouraged to enroll in both sessions.

Above is an example of traditional Huichol yarn painting.

Yarn Painting – Huichol (Detail)
Late 20th century, wool yarn and beeswax

Many stories from Huichol folklore are portrayed in yarn paintings. Yarn paintings are created when softened wax is spread evenly over a wood board. The artist then presses strands of colored yarn into the wax. Over 60 different colors of yarn could be used in any one yarn painting.

Update- Today's Open Studio 6-9pm

Hello everyone,

Due to an unexpected emergency, open studio will be limited from 6-9pm today.  There will be no open studio from 1-6pm.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

-Lillstreet Textile Department

Adult Winter Camp- Starts Next Week!

Re-inventing Yourself at Lillstreet- The Sequel

My long awaited website finally launched in October.  Not being someone easily schooled in website development, it was indeed a challenge.  But, it's now up and running and orders have been coming in.  Hooray!

Next challenge is to learn dye printing so I can add more items to my line, such as scarves.  Once creativity is tapped, it seems there are always more things to learn.  I'm so lucky I'm part of Lillstreet so I can realize my ideas.

http://www.serb.me/

Save $$$- REGISTER BY DEC 19TH FOR LILLSTREET WINTER TEXTILE CLASSES

Block Printing on Fabric

Just a friendly reminder that Lillstreet Art Center's early registration discount ends this upcoming Monday, December 19th.  Haven't found the perfect gift?  Register a friend or family member by the end of Monday to get a $10 or $20 discount on the class!  If you become a member, receive an additional $5 to $10 discount on the class.  

Membership is an amazing opportunity to receive discounts on classes throughout the year, as well as discounts at more than several local retailers in the city.  Members also have the opportunity to exhibit and sell their artwork in the gallery during the annual Student Member Show.  I would love to see more representation from our textile students this coming year in the member show!

Digital Print for Fabric

Repeat Patterns for Fabric

Classes start the week of 

January 9th and February 13

powerpoint

i thought i would post a tip for making images for your screen from digital files. while photoshop is the best place to go for adjusting images, i know it's not a program everyone has. that's where powerpoint come in.....i am guessing more people have that installed on their computers than photoshop.

i've been making a bunch of slide presentations for school and found some interesting image effects in the toolbar. it seems to be a good way to adjust contrast/brightness and add a dot pattern to make it more graphic.

below is an image i manipulated. i first went into image effects under color adjustment and adjusted the exposure to up the contrant. i then went back into image effects under halftone effect and added a dot screen. you can safe the newly altered image. the overall effect can turn a detailed photo into a graphic image that should work for screenprinting.

happy printing :)

REMINDER: OPEN STUDIO FROM 2-6PM TOMORROW DUE TO WORKSHOP

Hello everyone,

Just a friendly reminder that tomorrow's open studio, December 11th, will be limited from 2-6pm (normally 10-6pm).  

Akemi will be teaching a Felted Ornament and Small Sculpture Workshop from 10-2pm in the print studio.  There are 2 spots left, so if you are thinking about joining, click here to register  before it's too late.

Giving Creativity

'Tis the season for giving, so thought I'd share the fruits of the creativity of the Repeats and Patterns class artists extraordinaire. It's exciting to see the development of design ideas over the weeks in the course, and the unique points of view of each students body of work. I'm sure either you, or someone dear to you, would love to lure out the inner designer/artist and now is the time to do it! Give the gift of creativity by signing up for the Winter term of Repeats and Patterns, or by buying gift certificates for those on your holiday gift list. Just take a look at what can be in store fro you . . .

I'm looking forward to seeing you all January 10th on the first day of class and

Happy Holidays to you all!

eak

Historical Freeform Registration

Greetings all! My name is Liz and I'm the new textiles monitor. I recently graduated from RISD in Printmaking and am well excited to join the Lillstreet team!


A while ago, I visited the textile storage at the RISD museum and got my hands on some yardage of William Morris' 'Larkspur.' This particular piece was blockprinted by Morris and Company in 1875. What makes this piece so special is that the original selvage remains. Looking closely, you can see that there are seemingly random dots printed along the edge of the block.


If we examine the repeat very closely, its clear these dots go throughout the yardage, fitting almost perfectly under the repeat. They are hard to see, but that's kind of the point. These little dots have allowed a loose registration to be built right into the image.

After parsing out the motif that makes up the repeat, you can tell the top right corner of the block has dots on the edge.


These scant eight dots allowed the master printer to print the fabric from the bottom left corner outward with no measurement required. With a little planing ahead of time and a hair dryer, you can do the exact same thing with your screens. Its just enough registration that your image will line up close enough without touching a ruler or Nora's awesome quadrant marker. Just remember to give your dots a big landing zone in your repeat. You'll have less of a headache if you allow some forgiveness and wiggleroom in your registration!

This is just one of a million different ways to register your screens. I'm sure each member of the faculty has a different favorite method you can learn in any of the textile printing classes. Happy Printing, everyone!

-Liz - liz.kozik.net/

Origami Shibori on Silk Pillows

We all had a wonderful time.  All of us were very productive.  Acid dyes are easy to use and colors are very bright on silk.  We folded silk fabric like "origami" paper folding to make a resist.  Shibori always leaves 30% mistery.  In Shibori process, we predict 70% of design at the beginning, and there is a space to get a surprise.  Depending on what kind of silk, how folded, speed of dye (it sounds strange, but each dye has different speed to penetrate to the fabric).  Here are some images we did within three hours.  Amazing!!!  Students' work: photo by Akemi Cohn

Holiday Workshop at Lillstreet! Suface Design: Applique and Trim

This past Saturday Lillstreet held free workshops! Surface Design: Applique and Trim in the sewing room invited guests to make a monogrammed felt ornament or sachet. People chose a color for their letter, background and trim. After cutting out the letter it was stitched onto thebackground using the blanket stitch. Guests could then choose if they wanted to make a lavender sachet or a stuffed ornament, or both. They stitched the front and back together with the blanket, whip or stem stitch. Someone monogrammed both sides of their ornament and one person even did the half crossed blanket stitch without any direction! We had a great turnout and two kids even did some sewing. It was a great way to spend the afternoon and I hope the opportunity comes again soon!

"S" with button hole stitch and stem stich

"I" with blanket stitch and running stitch

"S" with blanket stitch, running stitch and pom pom trim