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Interesting goodiesThe McKinsey Quarterly is a collection of articles which examine highly effective approaches to pricing, including ways to price new products, solutions, and services, as well as new tools to help plug price leaks. It may be of some help to some of you: www.mckinseyquarterly.com/se.asp?seid=19ARTS AMBASSADORSOn this link you'll find a guide to setting up an arts ambassador's programme in arts organisations and using arts ambassadors as an effective tool for audience and market development. It explores good working relationships and time investments that may lead to positive changes in an organisation www.fuel4arts.com/content/view.asp?id=2751AUSTRALIAN SPAM ACT 2003Are you interested in how the Australian government plans to deal with spamsters? The new Australian Spam Act bans the sending of unsolicited commercial electronic messages; messages should only be sent to addresses when it is known that the person responsible for that address has consented to receive it. The Act covers email, SMS, MMS, and iM and bans the use of electronic harvesting software. For more info, check out the Government site http://www.noie.gov.au/publications/NOIE/spamPaula Burch : best dyeing site on the internetPaula's site www.pburch.net/dyeing/ is the quintessential location to find everything you need about dyeing fabric - if you haven't had a good squizz here before, check it out now. Allow plenty of time!166 colours from THREE?? You've got to be joking!Dyeing 166 colours from 3 primaries - read the blurb in the Members' section of the site http://www.amazon.ofoto.com/. To read more about how this was achieved, scroll down for more information.Storing rolls of silkOn one of my online groups recently, there was a discussion on how to store rolls of silk - here are a couple of suggestions.Keep the silk rolled; it's best not to keep it in plastic because of condensation so you can wrap it in lengths of fabric, like batiks, which I've bought for no other purpose. Wrap the outside of the silk roll in acid free tissue, then an outer cloth. If you have silk off the roll, it's best to hang it and again cover it as the light will affect it eventually. Always wash silk blanks before using to help remove the folds. I suspect some of the scarves may have been folded for years before we get to use them. [thanks Isabella! - www.isabellawhitworth.co.uk] R e a l l y w i d e silkLooking for really wide silk? 108inch wide shantung silk can be found at Phoenix Textiles in the USA www.fabric.com Another link : http://store.yahoo.com/phoenixtextiles/ Fantastic! |
more stuffCheck out www.handprint.com - move your mouse over each of the images, and check the status bar at the bottom of your browser window to see where the link will lead you. There is a reference which is very good, arguing for using paints close together on the color wheel to minimize dullness in mixing, unless you WANT dullness. This ties to watercolor on this link www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/color5.html. The argument is that the color wheel or palette advocated by Wilcox causes too many dull colors and is too limited.Is black really BLACK?Experiment #1If you haven't already done it, but are fascinated to see what your black powder dye is made up of, mix a tiny bit with some salt and then sprinkle some of the mixture onto a small piece of wet fabric. Be prepared! You might just see green, blue, purple, red ... and don't forget to wear your face mask (for whenever you mix up powder dyes, as the particles migrate so easily!).Experiment #2I recently read on a group online that there is another way to see what your powder dye is made up of. Find a disposable white plastic plate, and put a wee bit of water on it. Very carefully sprinkle the tiniest bit of powdered dye on top of the water. Each colour grain which forms part of that mixture is made of of will separate - how extraordinary, a veritable rainbow! As we know how to make purple, we won't be surprised to discover purple dye will clearly show both blue and red grains. Again, experiment with black using this second technique.Silk supplier in Australia - Marion GorrCheck out www.beautifulsilks.com, an Australian silk website. Marion Gorr supplies silk scarves and by-the-metre silk of all descriptions, give her a call or send an email. I've just purchased some silk chiffon which I am very happy with, in fact I've painted it already, steamed it last night, and am sewing it up at the moment!French seams - a tip when sewingWhen sewing French seams, try doing the first seam with a small zigzag stich [so it has a little bit of give]. Press with an iron to set the stiches. Trim it with a rotary cutter (a great investment, available at all good sewing stores), with the pinking blade (you can use regular pinking shears) to trim the seam allowance. Press the seam closed then sew as you normally would sew a French seam. You should find you will have no trouble at all when sewing curves (under arms etc, and necks).Exhibition in Belgium Sept 2005I applied to be part of an exhibition in Belgium next year, but missed out by days. Check out the link, and if you're going to be in the area, put it in your diary now: www.tournai.be/fr/officiel/index.php?page=209US Members : Where to find check book coversIn Australia we don't have cheque (check) book covers like our US neighbours, so if you're in the US and you'd like to handpaint some inserts, these are quite popular, according to my online friends who paint them. You can find them at this store: www.americankelco.com |
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166 colours from THREE?? You've got to be joking!Dyeing 166 colours from 3 primaries - read the blurb in the Members' section of the site http://www.amazon.ofoto.com/. This information from Candi (thanks Candi!), from one of the online groups I read:" Regarding color wheel dyeing: I've just completed the closest thing I can come to an ultimate color wheel - in fact 2 of them. It includes not only a 10-step progression between 3 pure primaries, but includes all the combinations when you combine all 3 in one mix. I saw the idea for this from someone on this list and it's been percolating in the back of my mind ever since. I used 3 single color primaries, making 1 cup of each, 5g dye/cup urea water. This allowed me to dye 5” swatches of 66 different hues. Each swatch will get 10 mls of total dye - and there are 66 ways to combine yellow, blue & red. What helped me keep my sanity were computer generated labels. I labeled 66 specimen cups (aka urine collection cups, they hold about 110 mls) with labels that don’t run in water (I get these at work - don’t know if regular Avery labels would work in this step, you could just write on your little containers with a waterproof marker). The numbers on the labels indicate how many mls of each primary to put in the cup (to be very accurate here I used syringes that have come with medicines for my little guys). After I got my dye distributed, I went back and put 5” swatches of PFD fabric in them. I allowed a few minutes for the dyes to diffuse through the cloth, then added 2 tablespoons (not too accurate here) of soda ash (9 T/gallon). After a half an hour, I gave them some time in the microwave (~ 2 min for 15 little cups at a time) and let them sit overnight. The next day, I washed them out by rinsing individual squares then putting them back in their original cups to soak. After a couple of times rinsing and soaking, my soaking water was very clear. Then, I spread out newspaper and paper towels and laid the squares out to dry - putting the labeled cup right on top of each square. Then I ironed them with a sheet of Avery labels printed with the recipes right next to me and as soon as one was ironed it got its corresponding label. Although this was time consuming, it was not overly so. And now I have 132 (because I’ve done this twice with two sets of primaries) swatches that show me what’s going on with a set of primaries, and gives me an idea of how 3 primaries work when there all combined. To scale up and dye in LWI, I would multiply each number of mls by 5 for a quarter of a yard and by 20 for a full yard. I ironed all my swatches onto a piece of fabric (with some Wonder Under fusible backing) and brought it to my quilt guild to introduce dyeing to all the ladies there. In about an hour, I had 80 ladies pick their favorite color and dye a fat quarter of it! Again, I've included all 66 combinations below (email info@australiansilkworm for the list) - you could copy this and paste it into word and make a template for labels. If you'd like to see some photos of the process in my beautiful basement studio, as well as the finished result in my quilt studio, click on the link below: http://www.amazon.ofoto.com/ My Brights primaries are: yellow MX-8G turquoise MX-G red MX-5B My Naturals primaries are: yellow MX-GR blue MX-G red MX-8G " |
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