Blogaversary Winner

Here is a photo of the Grab Bag being sent out to Nic, the poster who wrote so eloquently about tea, using various similes to relate tea to fiber. Tea just happens to be another of my passions.

It contains a silk, Dinky Dye's Nullabor; a cotton overdye, Needle Necessities' #100 in soft muted lavender; a bamboo, Rainbow Gallery's Mandarin M819 which is a dark olive green; a rayon, Rainbow Gallery's Neon Rays N79, a bright yellow gold; and a linen, Olde Willow Stitchery's Meetinghouse Rust.

I wanted to give away fiber to celebrate the blogaversary because I wanted to share my fascination with the ways different fibers "work" to create unique examples of textile art. I am engaged in a love affair with silks ... whether they be Waterlilies from Caron, Splendor from Rainbow Gallery, Belle Soie from Crescent Colours, or any of the others from Thread Gatherer, Dinky Dyes, HD or even the more humble YLI and Kreinik. I have a huge stash of cotton overdyes: GAST, WDW, Crescent, NN, Dinky Dyes and from some lesser known small dyers as well ... I do a lot of samplers and primitive/country/folk art pieces for which these fibers are perfect. Then there is bamboo ... a lovely fiber with the sheen and feel of a silk-wool blend that comes from a sustainable source. HHHHMMMM, rayon ... I do like the effect on certain projects but really dislike using it for so many reasons: it comes from a non-sustainable source, petroleum, and it is the most slippery, finicky fiber - hard to lay properly and a pain to secure on the underside of the work, it slips out of the needle without warning, it doesn't lay evenly [one tail is always markedly shorter than the other when using two strands] ... but one of my favorite designers of dragon charts, Dragon Dreams, uses quite a bit of it ... so I have come to terms with the stuff. Linen is another problematic fiber for me ... while from a sustainable source, it tends to feel a little coarser in the hand and tends to rub blisters on my fingers when I use it ... and yet, it has such a lovely soft sheen and when properly laid against the fabric, looks so very lovely. And then, there is a certain symmetry to be found in stitching with linen on linen. I hope Nic enjoys playing with these different fibers and finds a proper use for them all.