Why didn’t I do this sooner? By necessity, a vast amount of my textile art stash is stuffed in boxes. As a result, I often forget about what I cannot see. This morning, I went through my box of funky yarns and reacquainted myself with all of the wonderful colors and textures, and what they could add to my collages. So, I spent a good bit of time freeing them from their hideaway and cut one or two yards of each one. Next, I hung the pieces on a vintage mini drying rack so that I have a sampling of my yarns easily accessible and ready to use.
These yarns are great for building up texture, outlining shapes, weaving, and making yarn “lace.” Here, I am machine couching a line of eyelash yarn to an artist trading card using a zigzag stitch.
Using water soluble stabilizer, a thick “lace” can be made by sewing yarns in a grid pattern, than soak away the stabilizer and use the resulting openwork as an embellishment piece. One of these days, I’d like to make some woven strips on a tabletop rigid heddle loom that I have. I’ve used pin looms to create funky yarn squares that go into my fabric collages. Now that I have more time, I should dig out that loom and start something with it. Check back later this week to see if I stick to this goal, or uncover something else…