Becka's Project Journal

One minute documentaries

2008-07-03T09:06:00.000-05:00

Be sure to check out the "One Minute Documentaries" by Andy and Rachel.

Embroidery Tutorial : Running Stitch

2008-06-26T19:23:00.003-05:00

Things that rock.

2008-06-26T18:53:00.002-05:00

The society that doesn't value handwork is wrong. The magazine article that suggests you are less than human because you prefer an evening with your cat and spinning wheel to dinner at a noisy new restaurant is wrong. The company that doesn't believe you can enjoy a knitting circle and also chair a board meeting is wrong.

This is from Franklin Habit (see below). I think I like Franklin.

1,000 Knitters is a long-term photography project undertaken by Chicago photographer (and knitter) Franklin Habit, who blogs at The Panopticon. The goal is to celebrate through portraiture a creative community whose members have historically been either overlooked or sentimentalized, and whose work is often undervalued.

In the series, self-identified knitters are photographed singly while at work on the same wool scarf.

The first knitter cast on in May, 2007. As of June 14, 2008, 928 knitters have taken part.

The final format of the work is yet to be determined. Possibilities include a book and/or a gallery exhibition. Showings of the work-in-progress will likely take place online.

2. My summer camp this week wrote me a note on the white board, because I won't be there tomorrow. It says "Thanks Becka! You Rock!" with some accompanying artwork. (This isn't even a class I taught, I just checked them in and dug out cool and funky materials for them.) When your class is taught by a "sassy art goddess" I think some of it must rub off.

geekery

2008-06-26T09:24:00.002-05:00

That last little post was from my class on Tuesday night. We were talking about "Intro to Website Design" - how to put together a nice looking and functional website. I posted as a demonstration of how easy it is to update some kinds of websites.

My sister Rachel arrives on the scene here tomorrow for a visit. Gotta clear off a bed, which is covered in photo equipment. But it should be a fun time.

The official start of summer camp season was yesterday. We created some zipper bags, much to the amazement of some parents. I love when that happens.

hi there

2008-06-24T19:48:00.001-05:00

This is from Technology Tuesdays!

Marbled

2008-06-21T22:53:00.004-05:00

Friday, I spent the day learning to marble on fabric and paper. A very thin layer of acrylic paint is floated on top of a layer of carageenan. You drop the paint with an eye dropper and then pull long combs through it to create the patterns. I had a great time in class - it was so much fun to just be a student for a change.

These are scans of fabric pieces that I did. The fabric is alot easier than the paper and I got better results, but the alum (mordant) in the fabric contaminates your carageenan tank and the way to get it back in balance is to do a couple of pieces of paper in between your fabric pieces. I mostly cut up my paper pieces in to small bits to use as thank you cards.

Meme

2008-06-18T09:30:00.002-05:00

1. Becka'sButterflies, 2. Pasta Flower, 3. Departure, 4. pea boat, 5. Gene Kelly, 6. quench your bokeh thirst, 7. English Countryside, 8. mocha coffee soft cream, 9. The Photographer, 10. March 30 - My Story, 11. Apple Juggling by tongue, 12. Paddlefish Silhouette

The Questions:
1. What is your first name? Becka
2. What is your favorite food? pasta
3. What high school did you go to? Stevens
4. What is your favorite color? lime green
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Gene Kelly
6. Favorite drink? iced tea
7. Dream vacation? English Countryside
8. Favorite dessert? coffee ice cream
9. What you want to be when you grow up? an artist
10. What do you love most in life? creativity
11. One Word to describe you. prestidigitation
12. Your Flickr name. paddlefish

If you'd like to do it too here's what you do:
Open three windows. One with the list of questions, another open to Flickr and ready to do an image search, and a third to Big Huge Labs' Mosaic Maker (create a mosaic with 4 columns and 3 rows). Answer the first question, put your answer in the search field on Flickr and choose one of the images from the first page to represent your answer. Click on the photo then copy and paste the url into the #1 spot on the Mosaic Maker. Do that for all 12 questions, then click create and post the results to your blog!

Things that caught my eye today...

2008-06-17T18:46:00.001-05:00

Pretty things. That's all.

Vacation!

2008-06-16T20:31:00.008-05:00

I have been away from blogging, not because I was really on vacation, but because of...

...aka the Shibori Symposium. Many fantastic artists from all over the country descended upon my art center in a frenzy of shibori goodness. As Overseer-of-all-Things-Shibori, my presence was greatly in demand.

Just before that happened, I found a fabulous sheet at a thrift store and whipped up this dress, while Andy was kayaking with a friend...

...I wore it to the opening reception for the shibori show. The bonus of making a dress from a sheet is that it cost me all of $1 and it is a nice poly/cotton wrinkle free blend, so no ironing. But just before I made that dress, I worked on this shirt...

... with the help of Dolores the Dummy. She is new to me but has "seen a few seams" if you know what I mean. She isn't pretty but she is amazingly helpful. (Dolores was named by my friend Nancy, who had her over for a visit before she came to me.) It took me about 5 weeks to make the shirt - not because it was hard, but because I only had the opportunity to work on it for 45 minutes at a time for that long.
And finally, somewhere in there, Andy and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary. I took him to see "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Guthrie (totally fantastic) and he bought me these charmingly silly shoes as a present.

I can just see them with black tights and cute skirts this fall. Love it! (apologies for crummy pictures. I just didn't feel like photo styling today.)

My latest etsy purchase

2008-06-03T22:30:00.002-05:00

Back when I worked at a summer childrens' theater, we did a production of the Three Billy Goats Gruff. Because I had a friend (through my dad) who was from Romania, we had her translate the goats' dialogue in to Romanian. The troll spoke English. It has always been one of my favorite shows. It was silly, but so fun. The story has a happy ending where they all order vegetarian pizza. We built a huge bridge set piece that we could walk over. We spent a few minutes at the beginning of the show teaching the audience a bunch of the Romanian words (iarba is grass!) and they helped the troll figure out what was happening. I got to be the "Great Big Billy Goat", which if you know me is pretty comical all by itself.

So when I saw this "O Capra Mititika" (Little Billy Goat), I HAD to have him. He is crafted by Mark at MNSCeramics.etsy.com. ( I also have a verdegris colored rhinocerous by Mark and my sister has a pair of bears)

New!

2008-05-26T20:40:00.003-05:00

Spent a little while in the "cupboard under the stairs" (aka enamel studio) working on some new designs. Sewing machine, mad scientist, trout and groovy vinyl.

choices...

2008-05-21T08:34:00.003-05:00

I have narrowed it down... Which ones do you like best? I already have a pair of brown and a pair of black, so I am looking for some color.

Ho Hum

2008-05-19T18:05:00.002-05:00

I started Sunday with a list of things to be accomplished.
- buy new sandals
- get new capri pants
- find electric tea kettle
- get fabric for special project
- prototype new finger puppet design

I accomplished exactly zero of those things, but not for a lack of trying!

Sandals - not only didn't find any, but didn't even find any I wanted to try on. Pathetic. I don't like thong style with things between my toes or super high heels, but otherwise I am pretty easy to please. Time to check out zappos.com

Capris - This season the colors seems to be white, pale pink, khaki, taupe, black and screaming raspberry. I don't wear any of those colors. Hello sewing machine.

Tea Kettle - Chintzy plastic or badly designed stainless. Still looking.

Fabric - Favorite store which used to carry cute retro prints no longer carries them. Project demands 30's reproduction fabric. Reprodepot, here I come.

Prototype - Great idea to save myself lots of time. Prototyping involved bonding paper to silk screen in a manner which was not as designed. Operator error. Sigh.

On the other hand, Andy had a fantastic kayak adventure with a friend and then this morning went and took pretty artsy shots of my flowers which are finally blooming!

I see you there with your camera

2008-05-08T07:57:00.001-05:00

Santana is good for the soul.

2008-05-07T18:58:00.001-05:00

House Finches

2008-05-05T18:48:00.002-05:00

Andy snapped some cute bird photos a weekend or so ago. We regularly have house finches that nest on the light fixture over our front porch. We don't go in and out the front door very often, so always let them stay (and make a mess on the porch). It is so cute to hear the little birdy noises over the front door.

Bravo!

2008-05-01T17:37:00.002-05:00

Weaving a coaster
An absolutely lovely tutorial featuring the weaving project I did at family day at the Sun Valley Center. What a nice compliment! Thank you!

Hi there!

2008-04-29T18:25:00.002-05:00

Before the time creeps by any farther, I do want to give a shout out to the lovely Cassi of Bella Dia. I met her while I was in Idaho. The fantastic ladies who organized everything for me to come out there, had a look around my web links and realized that they had their very own neighborhood fiber artist! Cassi and her gorgeous kids (and sister and family) came to my family day weaving project. It was lovely to meet all of you. (I am a big fan of Cassi's embroidered houses!)

sneak peaks!

2008-04-23T16:01:00.008-05:00

Here's a sneak peak at some new enamels! I just found a source for some thinner copper that I can easily make in to my own shapes! Tra La! Coming soon to my etsy shop.

(I have been dreaming about these for months!)

worlds largest textile garage sale

2008-04-21T18:23:00.002-05:00

Our big fundraiser at work is a ginormous garage sale. Tables piled 3 ft high with fabric and yarn and 1000's of tools, gizmos, ufo's patterns and more - all fabric related. It's like Brigadoon - we bring it all in and set it up one day and the next day it's gone. Sounds like fun, huh? So that's why it's been quiet around here. Because just after I got back from ID, then we jumped right in to garage sale mode. We had rotten weather for the drop-off days, but it still turned out great. I got myself a $5 dress form (named Dolores). I spent the weekend fixing her up with some duct tape and darts and now she matches my measurements. I also got a treasure trove of vintage fabric scraps. I am not a fan of little scraps. Never enough to do something with. But this was a bundle with a couple of larger pieces of vintage yardage and a bunch of scraps. Knowing that if I put them in to my fabric bin, I would never do anything with them, I did a little flurry of quilting on Saturday and transformed scraps in to doll quilts. I love them. I posted a few of them to my etsy shop (check them out!) I can just imagine something like this having been a greatly treasured possession when I was a little girl, and I hope someone else will too.

beautiful students

2008-04-18T09:05:00.002-05:00

Some more beautiful work by my students in Idaho.

Returned!

2008-04-14T19:46:00.003-05:00

I came home from Idaho and jumped right in to the "World's Largest Textile Garage Sale" (more about that later.)

Here's where I stayed:

This is the house where Ezra Pound was born. I stayed upstairs in a resident artist suite. Totally cool.

Here's a sweet little bird by one of the students in my felting class.

I am going to have to cut this short because blogger is having image issues and won't let me upload any more. So, more later...

4 down and 1 to go

2008-04-06T10:21:00.002-05:00

I got to sleep in a little bit this morning. Waiting for the coffee to brew right now.

I have finished up with adults and teen classes and just have family day left this afternoon. We have been having a ball. The felting class totally loved needle felting in to wool fabric. We had pictures of pigs and horses and a picasso=esque wool painting. We all tried our hands at birds and they decided that 3-d needle felting was a bit harder.

Then Friday was shibori. The water here is really hard and did some interesting things to our dyes. The soda ash (fixer) crystallized when the water hit it and became hard lumps in the bottom of the cup. Much stirring. The colors in the silk also shifted dramatically. I will show pictures, but my green and purple scarf is rust and yellow!

Teens class had 4 kids at the beginning of the week, 10 kids by Friday and ended up with 20 kids in my room. They were some of the nicest kids I have had the pleasure to teach and we had a ball.

Yesterday was embroidery and I have to applaud my class for their patience. 6 hours is a long time for sitting and stitching. We got through a lot of stuff and had the chance to play a bit with some felted beads and angelina fiber too.

Today, I slept in and I am watching a few little flakes of snow out my window. Doing a little sight seeing today, teaching a family day weaving class and then I leave tomorrow morning early.

Hello from Hailey

2008-04-03T19:26:00.002-05:00

(I didn't bring the camera cable, so you will have to use your imaginations on this one!)

I have arrived in Idaho. It is beautifully sunny and warm enough to go walking without a heavy jacket - pure bliss. I taught wet and dry felting today. The day flew by and the students were all fantastic! (Hello students!) We made beads, sushi, flat inlay pieces, needle felted surface embellishment and a flock of needle felted birds. Plus we did a little bit of koolaid dyed wool just for fun.

I have to say that I would come back and teach here any time. The house and classroom are great.

Shibori dyes tomorrow. I am off to put the scarves in the laundry now. Photos when I get back.

Shibori Baby!

2008-03-31T18:43:00.002-05:00

Look what I found:

Teens can learn two fun Japanese crafts in one evening at this unusual workshop offered by the Sun Valley Center for the Arts.

Becka Rahn, Education Director at the Textile Center of Minnesota, will show you how to use shibori, a traditional form of tie dye, to design and dye your own bandanna. She’ll demonstrate four or five traditional patterns that you can combine as you wish to create your own one-of-a-kind wearable art.

While the dyes set, you’ll learn kumihimo, the art of making an eight-stranded braid used to accessorize a kimono or decorate a samurai sword. Warning: Kumihimo is highly addictive—make a bracelet or two and you’ll be totally hooked!

Guest instructor Becka Rahn is a self proclaimed jack-of-all-trades when it comes to textile art. She has taught classes in everything from felting to tie dye to beginning tatting (that’s lace-making, not tattooing!). Becka has taught at the Textile Center of Minnesota for more than four years, making art with everyone from toddlers to grandmas. In her spare time, she specializes in creating puppets and whimsical embroidered pieces. You can see more of Beckas work at www.beckarahn.com.

Teen Workshops are designed to be fun, creative, artistic activities just for teens. All Teen Workshops are done in partnership with Yak!

Thank you Sun Valley Online! If you are visiting from there, I hope to see you in one of my classes!