Spin-Off

As this third annual color issue has developed, I’ve often had artist-educator Josef Albers on my mind. Albers has had a profound impact on how I think about and use color in my fiber life and beyond. His writings on what he describes as the “relativity and instability of color” urge us to see the interdependence of color, how colors interact when placed together. Have you ever had a plan for a project that seemed like a grand idea … until you got started? In the introduction to his book Interaction of Color, Albers explains that this resource “does not follow an academic conception of ‘theory and practice.’ It reverses this order and places practice before theory, which, after all, is the conclusion of practice.” This is everything! Albers is encouraging…

Editor’s Note: Berna wrote a great article for Spin Off Winter 2023 about her experience re-creating and reenvisioning a precious scrap of ancient woven fabric discovered in Austria’s Hallstatt salt mines. She sent us this update about her work since writing the article. MY OBSESSION WITH WEAVING FABRICS inspired by the Hallstatt Iron Age fragment has developed to the point that I’ve actually now handspun and woven four of them. While my original shawl was with you at Spin Off, I used the zanshiori technique to tie all the thrums together and weave another shawl with similar stripe and twill patterns. I then realized that my original shawl didn’t have the double stripe in the weft, so I spun more green and purple and wove a third shawl. But that one didn’t…

I’M A VERY CLUTTERED PERSON by nature and this reached a tipping point last summer when I adopted two kittens. When I saw the article about the card covers (“The Handy Dandy Denim Card Cover” by Susan Bradshaw) in Spin Off Fall 2022, it was obviously a sign to solve two problems at once: use up the scraps of old jeans in my fabric collection and have a way to keep my carders tidy! The jeans weren’t exactly hardwearing, so instead of using them as the sole source of fabric, I decided to line them with other fabric scraps. I’m not the best at sewing, but with my mother’s help (who’s an excellent seamstress), we adapted the instructions into a lined pattern. I used her sewing machine to speed up the…

THE DESIGN FOR THIS TAPESTRY is based on a photo I took of a lichen (Graphis scripta) growing on a tree trunk. The tapestry measures 21 × 30 inches, but the lichen was only an inch or two across. I’ve become fascinated by lichens in the last few years, since I’ve been living on the edge of Dartmoor in Devon, southwest England; here they are plentiful and come in an amazing variety of forms and patterns. I’ve also done paintings and other artwork inspired by them. The tapestry is made of local wool: black from Hebridean-cross sheep from a nearby farm, where they have many rare breeds, and white from a friend of a friend’s pet sheep. I don’t have my own spinning wheel, but I go to a spinning and…

Pattern and designer Flax from Tin Can Knits. Fiber Three Waters Farm Out of the Spotlight and Radiant Greens on Polwarth/silk. Fiber/preparation Combed top. Wheel system/spindle Ashford Elizabeth 1 in double drive. Ratio 15:1. Drafting method Short-forward draw, worsted. Singles direction Z-twist. Singles wraps per inch 30. Ply wraps per inch 14. Yards per pound 1,330. Total yardage 2,000 yards. Yardage used 1,188 yards. Yarn classification/weight Light worsted. Needles Prym Ergonomics Size 8 (5 mm). Finished size XXL. This sweater tested my planning and organization from the very start, and I loved every challenging stitch of it! Handpainted combed top is fun to spin. The progression of bold colors keeps the spin interesting, and there are so many gorgeous colorways to explore. However, I don’t always enjoy how the colors look after knitting the fabric. For this project, I wanted to create a sweater from…

THIS IS A GORGEOUS BOOK, cover to cover, and a must-have for anyone whose work focuses on color. The photographs and graphics are vivid and beautifully presented, spilling out to cover the entire page. This is not a how-to dye book but rather an incredible journey through the fascinating world of color—a journey that is not limited to a North American or European scope but is a worldwide view. This is an important approach because colors and palettes were mostly geographically specific in the days before synthetic dyes. We are surrounded by color—it has shaped our world in so many ways. Deep Color takes a deep dive into the history of color and how it has affected our world. From the European Venus of Willendorf to the Māori legend of the…