Friday Fibers Roundup

June 9, 2017

This week’s Friday Fibers Roundup features a mix of new digital textiles, a weekend of dyeing with Rowland & Chinami Ricketts, and politically charged yarn-bombing.

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1) The Textile Society of America is now opening registration for Textiles Close Up: Bloomington Blues: Indigo in Indiana in Bloomington, Indiana on July 13th & 14th, 2017. The very hands-on workshop entails spending two days harvesting indigo and dyeing with Rowland & Chinami Ricketts.

2) Following her politically-charged, yarn-bombed billboard, fiber artist Olek has now started a project where she will be travelling across the US to create inspirational crocheted murals in reaction to her dismay with the results of the 2016 US election (via Creators).

3) “Undercover Art: Amish Quilts go Guerrilla in the Supermarket” features a slideshow of photos and blankets by Carson Davis Brown who uses grocery store items to create guerrilla installations, and is now utilizing Walmart’s blanket printing to transform the images yet again (via The Guardian).

4) “As Climate Change Brings More Storms, One Artist Is Printing With Rain” by Diana Budds examines the work of Aliki van der Kruijs, creator of Made By Rain, a textile whose print is a literal visualization of rainfall (via Fast Co Designs).

5) “Is British Fast Fashion Too Fast?” by Chavie Lieber looks at specific clothing companies and their environmental impact (via Racked).

6) This video shows a newly developed smart fabric that could replace your trackpad.

7) Madison Maxey and Ezgi Ucar are currently working on a prototype for germicide textiles. Inspired by a workshop from Project61 and Versalume, they are curious to see if they can create a textile that is able to kill germs.

8) “A Leather Jerkin Well Examined” by Beatrice Behlen, Senior Curator Fashion and Decorative Arts at the Museum of London, answers the question, “What is a jerkin”, as well as examines one from the museum’s collection.

9) Techtextil recently announced the 8 winners of the Textile Structures for new Building Competition—honoring the ideas of students and young professionals on building with textiles and textile-reinforced materials (via Materia).

10) On a funny note, research scientist Janelle Shane recently created a neural network that generates new color names from an existing pool of terms from Sherwin-Williams (via Ars Technica).