Tagged

In September, I was sickened by the look of my homemade tags having faded while my pieces sat in galleries, so I got new tags. They look almost the same as my old ones, because I wasn't looking to rebrand, and I like my logo and the simple look of my tags. What I did change, (besides having it printed professionally so they don't fade over time or wash away with water), was to double the width so I can fold it in half, and if the spirit moves, write a wee bit about the piece, the material, or the inspiration, inside; if I'm feeling particularly inspired, I could even insert pages to make a wee booklet. I didn't set out to copy The August One's tags, but it's the same format, only shorter and fatter, i.e. the equivalent of two standard business cards. Half of these have my contact address at the back for when I sell directly; half without for galleries.

The color of the logo itself, I changed a little bit. Way back, sometime between 2003 and 2005, when I decided I would like to sell my work, I needed something to write care instructions on and I made up this design and printed on printable business cards. Initially I had pale blue-yellow warps and dark gray letters, and I love it. Over the years we went through three ink jet printers, I think, and with every printer, and every ink manufacturer, the colors printed differently requiring modification to the files.  One time, when we had a faulty printer, (which the manufacturer eventually replaced,) the yellow came out soft orange, and I liked it so much I changed the file to orange. And the letters became just black.

I changed it back to the original yellow this time, partly because I wanted to go back to where it all started, partly because in the test print the yellow sample looked so much better than the orange, and partly because I think of my yellow/gold warp cotton pieces as my "signature" pieces if I was ever to have such a thing.  I was astounded by the details that show up in the professionally printed version; if I look close enough, I can even read the numbers and the threading and such. And the logo was kept the exact same size as before.

I considered Moo cards, and other less expensive Internet options, but in the end I went local, in a small part because I want to support local businesses where I can, but mostly because I am a control freak and I wanted to see exactly how it was going to turn out before I went ahead and ordered some number of these cards. In the end, a young chap named Ryan was in charge of my order, and at first I even wondered if he was out of high school, but this young man had an uncanny ability to pick out what I wanted when I mumbled and changed my mind and generally droned on thinking out loud. Amazing.

They came out less than 36 cents a piece, and though I don't know what I was expecting, it doesn't sound too bad, either.

One of these days I need to weave this draft.  It was one of many I made up while I was trying to get used to weaving software in preparation for Bonnie Inouye's workshop in 2002, and based on tulips, which is one of my sister's favorite flowers.  If I were to weave it, however, I'd change warps separating the tulips back to pale green of some description.

Hardly Exemplary, Or, More Booboos

I had to stand at an angle to be able to show you the "pebbles". I finished the second sample, and it's not looking good.

I discovered loads of reading mistakes from my lift plan in the first, blue, sample, and I wasn't confident with the second, yellow, one. I kept amending the plan; the double lines indicate a change in the lifting pattern, and I amended up to six lines this afternoon.

Plus, because warp ends kept breaking at the left side in the blue example, I beat the wefts not as firmly with the yellow sample, making the color areas not as saturated as the blue sample.

Hardly an exemplary sample to attach on my Sketchbook page; I kept the warp ends in the heddles in case I want to weave a third, more respectable sample for the page.

* * * * *

I could really use some success right about now, and by success I don't mean anything big, but just something to turn out right.  I've been working diligently and consistently, I have beautiful yarns and equipment, and some of my plans aren't that bad, but the execution has been sucky at best. I'm not sick, I'm not down; just exasperated and in need for some validation or vindication to stay being a weaver, I guess.

Today I also withdrew from India Flint's eco dye workshop.

Two weeks ago I have a lovely long lunch with Jo Kinross the organizer, and she was do encouraging and inspiring I was all ready to jump right in.  Among other things, we talked about what we want to get out of making things, and in my case it's to make something that I can be happy and satisfied with.  And it hasn't happened for a while.

In the first instance, this was a financial decision; both our cars are old, ('89 and '94) and at the twice-yearly maintenance last week, both needed some bits and bobs replaced.  I'd been sitting on an email to Jo for three days but I finally sent it today, and in retrospect it feels like the right decision; I need to concentrate on weaving because I can't stand this dry spell with nothing nice to show for.

But Jo, Colleen, a few others and I are planning on an Indigo Dye evening in the near future, so it's not like the dye workshop morphed into greasy car parts I will never see.  Not entirely.

Wednesday Snapshot

The purple warp came off yesterday; the mohair-mix-weft piece was done last week, but I had about a meter left, so I wove some merino fabric yesterday. I say I never weave anything for myself, but I stand corrected: these warp-end fabrics, though I've never used them to make anything yet, are just for me. And I wonder if I could make up a patchwork Happi for myself; maybe hand-stitched.  Maybe next autumn.

Unfortunately there was yet another dye lot change on the merino/mohair weft cone, so not a very nice look; the overall colors change from blue-ish purple to very-violet about one-third the way. But really, I'm finished with this yarn source, even if they sell the best merino I've come across in New Zealand.  Enough said.

Two warps are waiting to be wound: one is Ben's Happi Blues; I've been wondering if I should go ahead and weave this in a 2/1 and 1/2 twill, or in Summer & Winter, so it will be wound, but not threaded until I make up my mind. If I'm particularly patient, I might even sample both.

The other is my pleasure weaving, the mainly-purple Summer & Winter in random threading, lifting and weft colors.

Speaking of Summer & Winter, at the end of the session on Monday, Ali said to read about Summer & Winter some more.  She asked if I had a book on the structure, and I said no, but I have books on structures, like Black and Alderman.

Before I went to bed, though, I wanted to check; knowing now what Summer & Winter looks like, I wondered if a book I had forever fits the description.  And it was.  Sullivan's book, I fell in love with the heart on the cover when I saw the advert in Handwoven, and I had it for almost as long as I can remember.  I was a tad disappointed at the other pictures inside, but just looking at the cover used to make me happy.

I haven't started reading this yet, but flipping through it, I came across something I had been wondering about this last week.  I wondered if instead of using four warps to make one unit of pattern, (1-P-2-P), I could use just two, (1-P1-2-P2), and yes, she says I can, and there is even a name for it.  And there are few other ways to tie in non-conventional ways, too.  She even mentions Barrett and Smith book, which, yes, I also happen to have; this was from Halcyon Yarns website.  Don't ask.

I'm all set to delve deeper, and maybe pick up the correct jargon.  Or mix them up even more.
  

On the sample loom, I'm weaving the same Robot Pebble 1 draft with yellow wefts from the bottom of the draft, so the finished piece looks exactly like the drawdown and the grid picture.  I thought it might be nice to add a few pieces of fabric in my neglected Sketchbook Project.

Not Getting Easier...

I had a session with Ali today.

I was able to show her a badly woven sample of this draft, which took me all day today to weave... badly.

We went over how I worked on my problem and how I arrived at this draft, by backtracking, using the Fiberworks PCW software's sketchpad and draft conversion capabilities.  The most difficult part was to try to explain what it is I know I don't know but would like to know, though she seemed to have understood what I meant.  The best that I can describe "it" is, I'd like to know how shafts behave in Summer & Winter so I can construct a draft, rather than draft shapes on a grid, put it through the software conversion, and confirm my shaft count.  In other words, I'm back to where I was in July (not August) in my un-knowing-ness.

We brainstormed options; here are what I can remember, or what I understood; there were more good ideas but I was so flustered I couldn't find the words to write them down.  

* On cloudy days like these, weave with contrasting wefts so I can see.
* Don't worry about the final product but just work with the designs.
* Examine the software's use of shafts and especially the treadling; there may be ways I could economize and make my lifting life easier.  I had blind faith that the software takes into consideration maximum economy, but she wants me to check, which I think is a good thing.
* Difference scale: how changing scale will affect the appearance of the shapes, how different fibers will yield different results from same drafts; most importantly, how to enlarge a design without sacrificing shafts for details.  We arrived at no conclusions on this one. 
* Do I really need to sacrifice a shaft for the negative space?  Try designing not the pebbles, but the negative space.
* Try different sizes and different degrees of detail.  Also, try small variations, e.g. changing the width of the main part of the shape.  This kind of trick will increase the variety without using up shafts.  
* Go back to the original sheet and remember why I liked this bit on a whole sheet of random mark-making.  Then design something that emphasizes what I liked about it.
* It's OK to request a session when I'm stuck and don't have anything to show her; in fact, this is exactly when I need to see her, I guess.  

There were many moments when my eyes glazed over; I could feel the muscles rearranging and my attention fading.  I hate not having a clear idea of what I want to do and how I'll do it; it feels as if I took a big detour this last week but came back to where I was in July; I found a way to navigate around some of my problems, but I don't really see "progress".

Yeah yeah, process, journey, blah, blah.  But I did enjoy the sampling!

* * * * *

For 10 years and seven months, I used my Klik loom with the shafts color-coded but unnumbered, because the color coding is pretty, but the numbering, not so.  In my frustration of weaving the sample today, I hastily wrote the numbers on the shafts, which made the weaving a lot quicker and smoother, but I still think it's defacing a beautiful equipment.  No matter.  It's done.

EDIT: Ali's moved to Wellington, ending our mentor/ee relationship. But thanks for the time you've given me. 

Pebbles

Calmer bloggers might discuss one or two projects/subjects at a time, or at least use labels intelligently so readers can follow a subject/project easily; I am not one of them. So, this post picks up where I left off here in the main, but continues with Summer & Winter train of thought as well. (After working on this post for 4 days, I finally started a "Summer and Winter" label for my own convenience, but I found out I'm not allowed to use ampersand in labels!!)

The reason I'm interested in analogous (at least not blatantly colorful) Summer & Winter is to create the pebbles I've been euphemistically sitting on. I want to continue using Summer & Winter because Ali said the structure allows maximum use of however many shafts a loom has, and I've become somewhat familiar with this structure. And with appropriate yarn selection, it has proven to be not as fuddy-duddy, (or "mumsy" as Jill Alexander likes to say,) as I used to think.

I hit a wall in August, though, and I made half a dozen attempts in trying to understand the behavior of shafts, warp ends on same shafts, and treadling. I've been searching for a logic/rule, if it indeed exists, in making the most efficient use of the shafts in creating similar but unidentical shapes on a grid. If you don't understand how I describe things in words in this post, don't worry; I hope the pictures help.

Premise/Background:
* I plan to sample on a table loom, so I can ignore treadle numbers. I'll use my Klik which has 16 shafts.
* Summer & Winter takes up two shafts for tabby, leaving 14 for as pattern shafts. However, I don't want my pebbles stuck to each other, so an extra shaft is required for the negative space. In all I have 16-3=13 shafts for positive space/pattern/pebbles.
* For convenience, I used the alternating treadling in my examples; I can easily convert the draft to any of the other three should I so choose.
* I could have started with few, bigger, nicely rounded pebbles, but I opted for a group of crudely-shaped ones as my initial idea was to weave cute pebbles in a rough grid formation. In fact, I started my studies with squares, because they are the simples shapes on a grid, so uses the fewest shafts.

Regardless of the size of the squares or the space between them on the grid, if the positive and negative shapes are uniform, only four shafts are required: two shafts for the tabby, one for squares/pebbles and one for the negative space.

Because I was interested to see how each shaft behaves, I paid a lot of attention to the tie-up and treadling. Here, I can see Shafts 1 and 2 are used for tabby, 3 for negative space, and 4 for the square/pebble.

I then chipped away at the squares, creating patterns with some element of uniformity, converting each variation into weaving drafts. (A little more about my software appears at the bottom of the post.) I was surprised to see all four arrangement below can be woven on the same tie-up; only the threading and treading vary.

All four patterns can be woven using this tie-up: Shafts 1 and 2 are used to weave the tabby; 3 to create the chip in the squares; 4 to create the positive areas, and 5 to create the negative space. Treadles 1 and 2 are used to weave the tabby; 3 and 4 to create the rows that contains chips; 5 and 6 to create rows of squares without chips, and 7 and 8 to create the negative space.

After this, I created dozens of designs by chipping away at, and later also adding lumps to, some of the squares on a 5-squares-by-5-squares base, counting the shafts required, converting the drawing with the software to create drafts and verify the shaft count.

So far this is the only design which contains sufficient variety of shapes. I have a session with Ali on Monday, so while I hope to create more interesting, more rounded pebble patterns, I think I'll thread my loom and weave this over the weekend.

This requires 16 shafts, and 50 treadles if I had a wide enough loom; one repeat is 312 picks. Although weaving tabby on table looms drive me nuts, I think I can handle it.

Ah, you say the shapes hardly look like the pebbles or dots I made in the first place? I couldn't agree with you more, but these are related to my attempts to break down the dots into small squares previously. As mentioned before, squares require the fewest shafts, and treadling is shorter than rectangles. Circles require a minimum of six shafts, and though I see cute, warped polka-dots in my future, I needed the simplest shapes to restart my investigation.

Thoughts:
* Because my software Fiberworks PCW allows me to make a pattern on grids, convert it into a profile draft, then further convert it into a draft of weave structures of my choice, all quite automagically, I am able to create drafts without really understanding how the shafts and warps behave, most importantly how certain shafts could be shared across the cloth. To avoid this, I worked on graph papers for a long time, getting nowhere. After using the software, creating many shapes and analyzing how the software converted them, I started to see vaguely how the conversion works, and I was able to count the shafts for some my cruder shapes, or convert my crudest shapes into a weaving draft.
* To count the shafts accurately is my next goal. In addition, I'd like to be be able to convert less crude shapes into a weaving draft; in other words, I would feel more comfortable if I knew exactly how the software analyzed my shapes and turned them into drafts. My final goal is to "recycle" shafts wisely so that I can make shapes that appear as if they require more shafts than I have. If you are hoping to weave something like this on a foot loom, I think this is where skeleton tie-up comes in.
* The software defaults uses a white warp, and the shapes are created with weft colors; it took me until late last night to realize this. When I think about it, I very often start out with a dark warp, and almost always create shapes with my warp (i.e. dark) yarns until I am comfortable with the draft. Then and only then actual colors, particularly of the weft, comes into play. It's just a habit I wasn't aware I picked up, but these little discrepancies and the resultant appearances of the drafts on the screen confused me until I noticed these little things.
* I'm only interested in weaving my pebbles in a normal, cloth-weaving fashion, as opposed to on a jacquard loom, (I would if I had the chance!) or using pick-up; this shows my penchant for cloth-weaving, as opposed to another types (art?) of weaving, and I'm happy about that.
* Uber Teacher Bonnie Inouye said if we don't like weaving with two shuttles, we could always turn drafts. This is definitely on my list to try.

Goodness Me, It's November Today

Like my name in the photo, an idea for analogous Summer & Winter weave with interesting shapes have been on my mind awhile, but I can't figure out the shapes part.  Since August, I've been waiting for some kind of a serendipitous revelation, because several attempts at systematically understanding it have failed.  I thought to bring out all my gold threads to see if I'll be inspired; these are mercerized cotton, silk, rayon and polyester.  Though they were pretty, nothing.

I'm sick of waiting now and it's November and I feel bad I've done nothing of substance this year, so come rain or shine, (and it's a beautiful Sunny Nelson day outside!) I'm going to "get it" today. 

That's my To Do for the day.

Saturday Daydreaming: Trying New Ways of Photographing Textiles

I've been getting some advice from a friend on the Isle of Man, Jane, about interesting ways of photographing textiles.  She has interesting ideas, some way too adventurous and out of my comfort zone, but others I just never thought of;  I'm starting my experiments with the latter category.

These are not such examples; I was just looking at the world through my sample, and boy, doesn't the world look lovely, all in my fav colors! 

Japan Pics 6 of ...: The Wall in Question

I've been wanting to experiment some more with fine Summer & Winter and colors because of something Baby Brother and Sister In Law commissioned in May 2008 soon after they started building their house: they wanted a huge piece hanging on a two-story wall in their house as a main attraction, much like something they saw in a bed-and-breakfast in Wanaka in 2005.

When I visited them earlier this year, in their almost-one-year-old house, my sister mentioned how she loved seeing the different ways scarves are displayed in exhibitions.  I was relieved the piece can be more pliable than a regular wall hanging. Oh, and by the way, says my own baby brother, "We want Ben's photos on the main wall, so... "  Sister-in-law chimes in, "Because a wall piece would have required such a big piece, and so much work for you...."  Even though they even organized the hanging that withstands a bit of weight.  Frankly, I wasn't sure if my commission was off, or if I were to consider another position, but one "possibility" they offered was a wall, behind a door, that's usually left open!

After the initial shock, I decided I was going to impose myself on them anyway, and started looking around for interesting spots.  The one I've been thinking about is the top of the stairs, behind a small recess.  You can see this from the kitchen, the living room, and the upstairs family room.  And because of the recess, I'm planning to make a piece much like a wider, longer shawl, so Sister-in-Law can experiment and change the tying/hanging style.  I'm particularly interested in the light that comes in from the narrow window on the right. 

That's a commercial sized wine cooler Baby Brother bought on the Internet, from memory.  They are both wine connoisseurs; and yes, it's full! Their house looks bland in these photos, but in fact they have many interesting textiles and art piece she collected over the years that in fact it's quite colorful yet restful.

The entire wall to the left of The Wall is glass, the bottom part being folding doors leading to a deck, but everywhere else there long, narrow windows, which, during the winter nights gave cozy, lovely protected feel, but during the day, gave me claustrophobic shivers.  I had to take a walk to the nearby train station/shopping center once or twice.  Baby Brother and Sister In Law are in their late 30's and early 40's, both working long hours and they like to go out on weekends so I guess the house fits them well now.  They do have plans to build a more relaxing, open home when they start considering retirement.  And my Sister In Law being a sensible, cautious, intelligent type, I'm confident somehow they'll manage it.  If my brother doesn't keep buying more cars and commercial-size wine coolers on the Internet, that is.

Family, eh!  (And he's my favorite sibling!)

Colors

Ever since I made the gold warp a couple of days ago I've had a purple warp dangling in front of my mind's eye, to be woven in the style of my P2P piece; I had to make it and get it out of my head. Pre-made warps often return to take chunks out of my mind's behind, but at least this one can go on to either of the table looms right away, in between weaving the purple piece on the big loom. I've also been contemplating analogous Summer & Winter, but that's for another post. (And what's with Amazon delaying my XRX Summer & Winter book delivery time and time again? It's been pushed back and I'm now scheduled to receive it between after Christmas and February! I inquired and got a sincere apology, but no explanation.)

Making a warp like this is takes time; with breaks, this took me around four and a half hours for 288 ends. But it is a right-brain, self-indulgent, another-worldly time.  I need to be vigilant in cutting and tying threads as often as my patience can stand, because I like the frequent color changes in the warp; I also find two beautiful colors looking ugly next to each other and then I have to swap.

Looking at the P2P piece, I imagined I had far more 2/20 cottons than these, but this is the lot. Seeing this has been a good reminder that weaving is really not about the colors of individual yarns, but color interaction on the cloth.  And I used about 3/4 of these.

In my mind's eye, I look like this while I work. Seriously; shorter, not as pretty, and almost always in my PJs or old clothes. But, yes.

Here are sections of my P2P piece I was looking at the other night, which prompted me to make a mostly-purple warp.

When I was weaving the P2P piece, from time to time when I wasn't struggling with the horrible tension, I felt I was getting closer to what The August One taught me. I made the warp spontaneously, (i.e. no plans but selecting colors and numbers on the spot; if you're new to my blog, you've no idea how uncharacteristic that is for me,) I threaded more or less randomly, I picked the pattern wefts spontaneously, (but not randomly, as I did observe the changes, the harmony, the contrasts,) but considered the effect of the tabby weft colors.  It was a most hedonistic experience in an unfamiliar way.

* * * * * 

Which leads to an interesting thing that happened yesterday.

I have a sister who is seven years my junior; any which way you can compare us, we came out opposites, physically, emotionally, in our preferences and life experiences.  In fact for a long time she thought she was adopted because she was so different from our parents, our brother, or me.  For one thing she had such good teeth she went to the dentist for the first time when she was pregnant at 29, while the rest of us are goldmines for the industry.  Needless to say, we were never close. 

For the last 14 years she's been a stay-at-home mother, though for the last few Mom felt she should engage in either employment or hobby to make room for her boys to do some growing up on their own; I thought she was becoming a martyr, not helping but causing some of the behavioral problems her older boy had.  But then I don't have kids, so it's easy for me to criticize.

She used to be a very interesting human being, athletic, funny in an understated way, which is unique in a family of four verbose others competing to be the funniest. She had tons of friends, and whatever she took up, tennis, any musical instrument into which one blows, knitting, Ikebana floral art, or French, she seemed to pick up quickly and become rather good painlessly. 

Earlier this year, she started to go to a pottery class.  She claims she's only imitating examples at this stage, but having a mother who often shopped interesting practical pieces, and a mother-in-law who invested a husband's fortune collecting art and art studio pieces, Sister knows more about ceramics than she realizes.  Yesterday, for the first time, we had an invigorating discussion about "making".  Of particular interest to both of us were the spontaneity allowed in pottery, (in contrast to weaving; she is our mother's daughter, after all, so she knows the mechanics of weaving,) vs. the predictability one can build into a weaving practice, (i.e. extensive sampling,) vs. the accidental nature of what happens in a kiln.  Fascinating stuff.  We also talked about were we get inspirations, and also of "deceptive" work; she knows a potter who creates very thin pieces that sounds like metal, and I talked about some of my "gold" cotton and pale blue/teal pieces reflecting light like metal.  For the first time in a long, long time, I can't wait to talk to her again. 

* * * * *

Speaking of colors, this is from the American NPR website, of tree barks.  I love these so much I wrote to them asking if I could print them out just so I can have them on my wall.  I don't want to steal, but perhaps they're not used to being asked, because I haven't heard back.

Gold, Silver, Blue and Gold Again

Every time I think about Japanese textiles, I have a mental picture of me digging my grave in the middle of a sunny day, passers-by smiling, laughing or smirking. Every time, I think, OK, this is the last time I post something about  it. But it doesn't work. Even within my deep lapsed-Japanese-ness, I seem to be interested in knowing the "rules" of Japanese textiles, a bit, just so I don't break them, or can break them intentionally. 

With that in mind, I do believe one's life experiences, exposure, and a general cultural/ethnic/geographical background influences one's taste.  A little.  I don't think it dictates individual preference to the extent every member of prefer the same thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is an instinctive/intuitive/subconscious/unconscious/gut feeling for something looking "right" in certain contexts.  And like many things we grow up with, it can't be explained in words, but "you know it if you know it".  Kind of.

And with that in mind, Silver Ratio appears more appropriate for Ben's Happi to me.  I also associate Golden Ratio or Fibonacci with movement because it's a staple in Randy Darwall's workshop on weaving scarves with "dynamic proportions".  Besides, Ben tends to sit around and tune out in a Happi jacket, so I don't want anything dynamic.  The universal width of the stripes also gives the static feel.

So here is the warp.

It has five colors, not four, but the two darkest look so close.  The second darkest and the second lightest feel different to the other three; the dye is far more saturated and the yarn harder and skinnier.  All the writing, on the cone and on their website, indicates all five are of the same size, so I'm hoping and praying they'll wash flat.  Because if this ends up in a sheer-sucker style stripe, Ben probably won't go near it.

Colors shift, from left to right, A-B-C-D-E-D-C-B-A-B-C-D-E.  I thought of swapping them around a little bit to create an irregular shift, but the yarns that feel thinner and harder (B and D) were evenly distributed in this arrangement so I stuck with the plan.

I'm operating in a different mode with this project.  Usually when I use a yarn for the first time, I experiment with setts and wet finishing to my heart's content and choose the best hand.  Because I weave mostly scarves, shawls and kitchen towels, a wee bit of change in the width of the cloth as a result of reslaying doesn't bother me.  But this warp is going to be garment fabric, and I need between 28 and 30cm of width and I feel a tad reckless not sampling before deciding on some of the numbers. 

The formula recommended I use between 17 to 18EPI, but I made the warp with the intention to weave this at 21EPI, because I'm using denim cottons, and I want it to be on the slightly stiff side at the start. I'll sample with different warps, but what I have in mind is a strange cotton made of five strands of two-ply threads in natural with a little bit of navy.  If I twist them between my finger slightly, they come up to about the size of a 2/17 wool. I am hoping the combination of these warps, sett and weft will create a hard-wearing fabric, but I've left leeway with the pick and the weft, and the length of weft repeats will be considered after sampling as well. 

Ben wants my usual shiny-gold-warp cotton fabric in ornate Rococo (??) look for the facing and lining.  I am wondering if I need a new drafts with shorter weft repeats, and a design that is horizontally symmetrical so the two sides of the front match.   I've also contemplated using either of the recently acquired silks, but they are too thick, and I have one last semi-serious problem.

The warp yarns' dye came off as I handled the yarns, almost as much as my hand-dyed indigo yarns.  After the fabric comes off the loom, I might have to put it through a washing cycle using warm or even hot water.  So over the years, the yellow cotton fabric will be dyed blue, too, and may start to look a little sad.  So, no Swiss silks there.