sticking to the Piscean theme

Fish have been my totem for quite a while.  Thirty five years ago I appliqued and embroidered the back of my jeans jacket.

 About twenty years ago I took a weaving and dying workshop.  I dyed my yarns with indigos and greens, threaded the loom in a simple twill, and went to town!    I stenciled the fish in as I was weaving, doing three on the finished fabric, three on four warp threads, three on three warp threads, three on only two warp threads, and three on just one warp thread, so they appear to be swimming away from you and vanishing into the water.

 I added some little embroidered fish afterwards.  And I had great fun playing with different treadlings of the twill as I worked.

It started with a lot of dark threads in the warp,, and I kept cutting them out and replacing with light




 
 
 

And then, because I had time while the slow weavers were finishing up, I did a little shibori experimenting in the indigo vat.  Lordy how I enjoyed that class!

And now I go out into another new day.  Today, I'm going to buy some new clothes.  Everything in my closet has salad-dressing stains on the chest. (One of the trials of having a bosom.  When I was thin, all the salad dressing stains went into my lap and if I was smart, I already had a napkin there.)

Do you have a totem animal?