January TIF and more knitting . . .

I finished my Take if Further Design Challenge piece. I used simple stitches and a variety of overdyed threads, some stone beads, and ribbon to stitch the spirit bear and flow visualization lines on a piece of silk dupioni. I still need to add backing to the piece. I think that I will make all the pieces the same size so that they could be made into a book. I used the theme from the challenge and chose my father as the person I admired. He is featured in the "Collectors Corner Column" in the Heard Museum Shop News. He shares his love of dogs and contemporary Native American Art in the article. You can see more TIF Challenge pieces on the Take it Further Challenge blog or in the Flickr group.

I also won the first contest I entered on the Knit the Classics Blog with my pocket for Belinda. I enjoyed reading Belinda and had fun making the Mermaid's Tail Evening Bag. Now I am working on a prayer shawl for the knitting ministry at church. I finished the knitting and now have to crochet 57 little scallops on the edge. I think it may take me as long to complete the crochet border as it did to knit the rest of the shawl. I am using Lion Brand Homespun in Color 329, Waterfall, and a Lion Brand Pattern for an easy triangle shawl. The color is beautiful and the shawl is very soft. However, the yarn seems to snag easily.

Take it further challenge --January

The January Take it Further Challenge is to create a piece of fiber art about someone I look up to and admire. I immediately chose my father as my subject. My mother has Alzheimer's Disease and he continues to take care of her at home. He is devoted to her but also makes time for himself and his passions -- playing tennis and collecting Native American art.

He spent his professional life studying turbulent flow and mixing phenomena. I helped with some of his flow visualization studies in his lab. The collection of pictures on the right are from the eFluids Gallery of Images. They are similar to some of the flow visualization experiments that he worked on. I love the patterns that the eddies form along the boundary layer between two different materials.

His other passion is Native American art. He has collected artwork for more than 40 years and donated much of his pottery collection to the Heard Museum. Pieces from the Neil and Sarah Berman collection have been included in museum exhibits around the world. He has been a friend to many artists over the years and currently volunteers at the Heard Museum. He enjoys collecting fetishes and has given us a number of them. The Zuni associate the white bear with healing. The bears come in various shapes as shown in the pictures on the left. Many of them have life lines made out of colored stone and carry bundles of gifts.

I am planning on combining a medicine bear with one of the flow visualization patterns in my TIF challenge piece. I have not decided whether I will include the pattern inside the bear or surround a white bear with one of the patterns. I also have not decided what colors to use. I don't think that I will use blue or green for my father -- he is color blind and can't see them. I have thought about adobe or sandstone colors from the desert or tennis ball yellow.