Category Archives: weaving

Weaving Connections

Posted on August 2, 2016 | Leave a comment

Today is Tuesday, August 2nd, and Convergence, the biggest gathering of weavers in the US,with lots of attendees from overseas as well, began over the weekend. Facebook is full of posts from the many participants. Do I feel left out? Well…..maybe… just a little.

My tiny part of the world had its own weaving weekend though. On the hottest Saturday of the summer (so far!) members of Area 4 of the Handweavers’ Guild of Connecticut had a beautiful display and did demonstrations of weaving and spinning at the Historical Society during Old Lyme’s 30th annual Old Lyme Festival. It was steaming hot, but we all had a great time. We heard that we were the most popular event at the festival, and I have to admit that I’ve never seen such a crowd at any of my past demonstrations in New Jersey. Although the historical society headquarters are not yet air conditioned (supposedly next summer it will be), I wonder if being in an historic grange building with lots of fans (that would be rotating, air circulating fans–not enthusiast fans!) was still more enticing to the hordes than being outside in the 90-degree sun. Or maybe we just really were a compelling option for visitors.

The local online newspaper, The LimeLine, covered our event and got a shot of our group working on the behemoth, 9-ft Clemens loom. I think this may be the moment when Jody (in the b&w stripes) began the tedious process of mending broken warp threads. She generously allowed visitors to try a bit weaving at the loom, and there was an incident of over zealousness that led to some broken warps.

These photos of our exhibit are pretty pedestrian. I’ll just whine and say that I was very busy spinning! It’s not a real excuse, but I hope you’ll accept it. This is just part of a display of our members’ work.

Stephanie has a business making rugs and blankets of all sorts and teaching classes in both techniques. She brought a loom to demonstrate weaving and had a lovely array of rugs for sale. Right next to her is a rack of her indigo dyed shibori silk scarves.

I know there are lots of better photos taken by others, but I haven’t see them yet, so these will have to suffice for now. It was a very worthwhile event. The folks who run the festival said we were the most popular participant, and they hope we will continue to be involved in the future. And knowing this building will be air conditioned next year makes us all think, oh yeah, we’ll do it!

The next day a few of us drove together up to Kingstown, Rhode Island, to take a look at the extensive weaving stash of our dear friend, Kathi Spangler, who passed away a few weeks ago. She has been on my mind so much this summer. When I went to see Kate Barber’s exhibition in Providence, I realized we were so close to the convention center where the last Convergence was held. When I left the gallery where Kate’s work was on display, the first corner I walked to had the building where ATA housed our tapestry exhibition two years ago. Kathi wanted to make sure that visitors to Providence would know they had reached a building with a weaving exhibit inside, so she filled all the large main floor windows with works by Rhode Island weavers. It was quite dramatic and such an undertaking to gather all the woven items and display them so creatively. I had a strong sense of her presence as I stood at that corner remembering the scene from two years ago.

At Kathi’s house, Susan, Sandy, and I spent a couple of hours looking through Kathi’s handwoven fabrics. Some things were finished items, like hand towels, scarves and shawls, and table runners. I was intrigued with several lengths of fabrics woven for samples of techniques. This one in particular caught my attention.

Sharon and Jan who had organized all of Kathi’s stash and who were on hand to let friends in to look through Kathi’s treasures, said this piece was called the ‘chicken project.’ Boy, I am SO curious about that. What comes to mind is that the color of golden yellow is rather like a baby chick. Sometime I’ll have to ask Jan how this project got its name.

I took a wonderful table runner in natural linen with a bit of overshot in red at each end. I found two more runners in the same pattern with forest green at both ends that I took for Jody. Kathi had a lot of beautiful sample pieces, and I wonder how many of them became finished projects. The red runner underneath the overshot runner has Christmas trees in huck lace. It just needs hemming.

I was so moved to see that she had finished her wonderful jacket from Sarah Fortin’s workshop. Jan and Sharon had thought to put it on a dress form for visitors to see. Why didn’t I photograph it? Of course, it turned out beautifully, and I hope Kathi wore it a few times before she got too sick.

Speaking of yardage, I am very close to finishing my JOY project. I rewarded myself with about an hour of weaving today after working on Archie’s book. It is really stunning fabric, and I will cherish it even if it never turns into a garment. Those JOY women, Diane and Cathy, have really created something wonderful with their line of handpainted tencel, and using these yarns as both warp and weft is amazingly dramatic! Weaving it has been very therapeutic, as weaving should be.

I neglected to mention what I’m dreaming up for my next project! Sharon has shared with me all the details that her Rhode Guild has discovered about weaving and constructing an origami top based on Virginia West’s examinations of garments constructed from narrow widths of cloth used diagonally. I have an assortment of fine silks that I will soon make into a warp. Photos to come.

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Posted in weaving

8S Advancing Lace Yardage Using JOY Almaza

Posted on July 26, 2016 | Leave a comment

This is an advancing lace structure on a plain weave ground that I found in the Greater Baltimore Weaving Guild’s book Sixty Scarves for 60 Years. The pattern was designed by Carol Bodin, and it is called “Raku.”

Warp:
JOY “Almaza”
Length: 6 yards, 35 epi, 16: wide= 560 ends + 8 ends for selvedges. Total 568 ends

Click on this image for a bigger version:

I threaded right to left and had 2 floating selvedges on the right side, then ended with threading 1,2,3,4 and two floating selvedges. That used the 8 extra threads I assigned for the selvedges.

As you can see there are little huck interlacements on a plain weave ground.

Here is the warp.

The weft is Almaza in a different colorway.

I wove 3 1/2 yards of the lace pattern and 1 1/2 yards of plain weave for fabric to make a jacket.

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Posted in weaving

Weaving and Dreaming

Posted on July 25, 2016 | 1 comment

I’m dreaming about my next project as I zoom along on the current one. There are always surprises, and this yardage has had its share. Last fall I decided to make the warp a yard longer than I’d figured when I bought the materials. Yeah, so, it should not have been a surprise when I ran out of warp and had to fudge a second warp out of a solid grey to blend into this handpainted warp.

Then, for some reason, I neglected to make the mental leap to realizing that if my warp is now a yard longer than planned I might not have enough weft! That only occurred to me after I started weaving, about 2 weeks ago. Really, I amaze myself sometimes.

So I’ve spent this morning thinking about what I might use as weft for the rest of this yardage. I have not yet run out of handpainted JOY weft, but it was time to decide if I should switch to a solid color now so I had enough yardage that is clearly different to make a significant part of my garment–like sleeves or front bands.

I spent some time this morning digging through bins stacked pretty high, looking for a bin of tencel. Luckily most of these bins are clear so I can what’s in them. But wouldn’t you know the bins at the bottom of my various stacks are not clear so I had to unload everything to check out what is in those bins at the bottom of each stack. No luck in finding any tencel. I have lots of tencel, but at the moment I have no idea where it is!

So I moved on to looking at color cards for tencel, and found that there is no coral shade that comes even close to what I want. That led me down the rabbit hole of looking through my silk bins and silk color cards. I have the perfect shade of coral that I’d love to use, but not nearly enough of it! So I called Treenway and have placed an order for two 1000-yard skeins of a loely coral color #27. Those skeins will not arrive for almost three weeks. Sigh…Does this happen to you? Please say it does!

Fast forward to the end of the day. I wove another half yard today, in plain weave now, with the handpainted weft. Just moments ago, when I advanced the warp, I saw that I am only about a yard away from the end. That means I will have 5 yards of fabric instead of 6. The mistakes just pile up faster than I can keep track of them! I could swear I made a 7 yard warp and that’s why I ran out of materials. I have no idea what happened last fall, and I don’t know where my notes are! I hope this sounds familiar to you. Now I think I need to call Treenway and cut my order in half!

Luckily there have been some marvelous experiences lately to balance the derangement going on in my weaving. While others are busy heading off to Milwaukee for Convergence, I have gotten to enjoy some inspiring events much closer to home.

First is an exhibit in Providence that will be closing soon. I wish I’d seen it sooner so I could have spread the word earlier. I believe it closes this weekend. There is a small gallery called The Reading Room of the AS220 gallery, on Matthewson St. where Kate Barber has a wonderful exhibit of her recent work, called “Forward Folding.”

This postcard image is a detail of one her works on display, and it is stunning. Her exhibit is in an intimate setting with beautiful lighting. I stayed longer than I would have imagined to view her 22 pieces. There was such zen in the room I could not tear myself away. Kate is doing wonderful things with shibori on the loom which she uses to create crimped cloth. Some of the works are also dyed and embroidered.

There is a wonderful mascot at the gallery who watches for visitors and then greets you at the entrance. I’ve now forgotten her name. She is so calm that I almost mistook her for a ceramic dog!

Across the river, in Old Lyme, my local area weaving guild members are hard at work getting ready for the annual town festival where some of us will demonstrate various textile techniques. The big Clemens loom is ready for demonstrating the weaving of a traditional Canadian rag coverlet bed covering. Jody will the be first weaver, although she needs three helpers to do this. This is her coverlet that will be woven first. It will be 9 ft. wide by 9 ft. long. It’s a big undertaking!

This Saturday, July 30, Jody and her crew will be weaving on this behemoth loom, and others in our guild will be demonstrating various textile techniques. I plan to bring my spinning wheel to spin some lovely tussah silk sliver that a Connecticut woman who calls herself HoneyBuns prepares and dyes. I am spinning a wonderful colorway of rosey coral and gold.

Yesterday Jody and I went to see a wonderful film about an exhibition that is currently traveling through Europe. It was a stunning film and almost made up for the fact that I won’t get to see this exhibition in person. The exhibition is called “Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse,” and the film has the same name. The Royal Academy of Art put this exhibit together. It was quite moving, and I enjoyed sharing it with Jody and two other weavers from my local guild who also attended.

There were scenes of the exhibition itself, including a large room where Monet’s waterlily triptych has been displayed together for the first time ever, since each of the three pieces is owned by different museums. There is current footage of the gardens where each of the artists painted a century ago, and there are wonderful old photographs of the artists. The best image was Renoir’s portrait of Monet in the garden at Giverny, doing a painting of his own. I did not know that this portrait is owned by the Wadsworth Atheneum, so sometime in the future I will be able to view it in person!

Here is a short excerpt from the film:

Here is one more video with the curator discussing Monet’s Agapanthus triptych.

To all of you heading off to Convergence, have a wonderful time! I’ll be thinking of you and what I’m missing. Meanwhile, I am enjoying the down time of being at home in the studio. Maybe I’ll soon get to start the next project I’m dreaming of–I didn’t even tell you what it is!

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Posted in gardening, inspiration, weaving

Knitting to the Rescue!

Posted on June 27, 2016 | 11 comments

It’s sad for me to report that my looms are in the same condition as when I arrived home. Life has gotten in the way of my plans…

While I was determining the most pleasing way to thread the pattern for the JOY (Just Our Yarn) yardage project, I had my semi-annual visit to the dermatologist and discovered that a worrisome spot on my arm had become melanoma. I noticed this spot had changed to something of concern back in January, but I could not get to a doctor then since we had already sailed away to tropical waters.

Still, the news was a bit shocking to me. I was already beyond Stage 1, so removal of lymph nodes was mandatory on top of removal of the offending spot which ended up being much bigger than what shows on the skin. It’s all behind me now. I got a consultation with a surgeon at Smilow Hospital at Yale, and the surgery was only a week later. Whew! Two weeks later I got the news that my lymph nodes are clear and that the surgeon got clear borders around the malignant cells.

Yet I’m still not weaving…. The long cut on my arm and the smaller incision in my underarm severed quite a few nerves, and regaining use of my arm is going to take longer than I imagined. That’s a small price to pay for getting rid of the melanoma, and I can certainly knit and also do bobbin lace. And every day I am doing arm motions to improve my dexterity. Very strangely, I have all kinds of odd sensations in my arm all the way down to my hand: burning, stinging, numbness. It’s very strange.

Meanwhile, back to talking about weaving. Diane and Cathy from Just Our Yarns gave a program to the Connecticut weaving guild last November, in which they demonstrated using two completely different handpainted yarns for warp and weft. One of the slides showed a scarf woven with a warp of one of their skeins painted from the cool side of the color wheel–mostly blues and purples. The weft was a brilliant contrast of oranges, yellows and peaches. You cannot always purchase colorways that you see and like in JOY yarns since they do not repeat any of their handpainted designs exactly. But I found two contrasting handpainted that should give a similar effect.

I chose a twill weave structure called “Raku” by Carol Bodin from the book Sixy Scarves for Sixty Years from the Weavers’ Guild of Greater Baltimore. Here is a partial view of my plan.

The long warp and weft floats should show off the color contrast of the warp and weft nicely. My warp is mostly muted greys, purples and blues, while my weft is a blend of peaches and creams. The sett will be 35 epi so those floats won’t be too long.

Now, the BIG question: Should I flip the threading at the center of the warp and have the second half of the threading lean the opposite way? Should I flip every other repeat of the sequence?? Should I just thread the whole thing in one direction and cut the fabric and turn it as needed for whatever I end up making?

I’ve favored each of these ideas at different times, and at the moment I’ve come full circle back to leaving the threading alone. It would certainly help if I already knew what I will make with the finished fabric. Typical of me, I have focused on the intrigue of working with this yarn rather than what I might do with fabric. The warp is 17″ wide on the loom and I plan to weave 5 yards.

Meanwhile, as I ponder what to do about that threading, I’ve been knitting and doing some Idrija lace on a bolster pillow. I don’t even have to prop up my right arm on pillows anymore in order to knit, so I’m definitely improving. This baby blanket is moving along nicely. Interestingly, after looking at innumerable lace patterns, I ended up choosing a Eugen Buegler pattern. He has designed lace patterns for many years and you can see many of his designs at the link above and on ravelry, as well as in numerous books by XRX. He designed the first lace shawl I ever knitted, over 20 years ago. I actually went to the local knitting store as I felt myself coming down with the flu in order to make sure that I had something to knit while I would be stuck in bed. I still have that shawl…. in butterscotch colored, fine merino yarn from Grignasco.

But back to knitting for little baby Ozzie. Here is the baby blanket as shown on Ravlery. It is called “Lace Plumes Baby Blanket” and is available as a downloadable pattern from Fiber Trends. Thank you, Eugen! I’m using “Sublime Baby Cashmere” which I ordered from Jimmy Bean’s Wool.

I’m now further along than this photo shows because I work on it almost every evening, and then I realize that evening is not a good time for getting a photo.

Next up will be this adorable sweater from Little French Knits on Etsy. It’s a bit feminine, but, since I am so smitten with this little gem, I am clinging to the fact that, should our little bundle of joy be a boy, they have traditionally dressed in rather delicate clothes as newborns. This is just too lovely to pass on. Oui?

I have not yet shown a photo of the first sweater I made for our future little one. The pattern is a design by Sephanie Pearl McPhee called Nouveau-ne. It is delicate and fun to knit without being overly feminine. I used Plymouth Yarns “Perlina” which is 100% merino which I bought at my LYS, Saybrook Yarns. The pattern has a matching bonnet style hat that I have finished but did not photograph yet. There are also booties which I have not yet started.

I have little limpet shells from the Bahamas that I will use as buttons instead of what I’ve shown here. I lent my stash of limpets to a friend, and as soon as I get them back I’ll pick out the tiniest ones for buttons on this sweater. I think it will be wonderful to have a little embellishment from our travels on our grandchild’s first sweater. Aren’t I clever??

And I turned my attention back to the little Idrija lace ‘doodah’ that I started at the lace retreat back in May. This little organic shape reminds me of a fiddle head fern or some kind of sea creature. I’ve decided to make this two more times in a combination of blue and green.

Second fiddlehead doodah in progress. As you can see, the piece is woven upside down. On the next version I will make the central ‘squiggle’ in green and the side ‘squiggles’ in blue. Then I plan to attach them to one of my summer tops. Hopefully soon!

So the past month has been taken up with the excitement of a first grandchild and the fears of having cancer–cancer that managed to progress past stage 1 before I got diagnosed. It’s been an emotional roller coaster, and as usual, handwork– mostly knitting– has saved the day. It took a full month to get diagnosed, have an initial consult with a surgeon, have the surgery, and get the pathology reports. Waiting may not be the hardest part of being sick, but it’s certainly not easy. Making these little projects and dreaming about future projects is what kept me sane during those long weeks.

Today I stumbled on this book of animal themed pom-poms made by a Japanese woman. She has captured the essence of each animal. After making each pom-pom with a mix of colors to imitate the animal’s fur, she adds details with needle felting. I looked for the book online, hoping to order it, but so far I only found it on Japanese Amazon with no ability to order from the US. I shall try harder.

And here’s a video of the author making a bear and teaching others the technique.

Just another little idea for Baby Ozzie to tuck away. I hope I can find the book!

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Posted in bobbin lace, books, knitting, Lace, weaving

Adriana, Nancy, Dazmira, Hidalgo!

Posted on April 25, 2016 | 3 comments

Everyone turns out on Sundays in Havana. The weather is always fine, so why not? I found more women crowded around Adriana late Sunday morning., and we had another session of exciting talk about handwork.

Since Adriana’s table was not covered in other people’s work in need of her advice, she showed us the progress she has made on her lace blouse. She is more than half finished. Very soon I became too involved in conversations to take any photos, so I’m glad Bob took a lot!

Look at the wonderful work these women are doing. A beautiful bobbin lace (bolillo) piece.

Tatted sleeves, anyone? I would never have thought of it! This is tatting with pearl beads, and is a stunning piece. In black and white it would make the most elegant eveningwear, attached to a silk tunic. The tatting was perfectly done. Doesn’t it look fabulous on Adriana? She did not make it, but since she was wearing the perfect green tank top she had to model it!

I happened to wear one of my Turkish scarves, which all the women loved. They asked to take photographs of it because they want to try their hands at crocheting this type of edging with fun, dangly flowers. I bet they’ll have it figured out in no time!

Dazmira has her own booth nearby Adriana, where she displays her crocheted blouses, little girls’ dresses, handbags and hats. She buys large containers of the pull-tabs from beer bottles for $1 CUC (about $1.15 US) with which she embellishes many of her handbags and hats. She also crochets with plastic shopping bags and old video tapes. You can find her on Facebook as Dazmira. I’ll post a link when I get home.

As is typical in Cuba, you cannot give a gift without getting something in return, though this has taken almost two months for me to realize. I think this is what caused some awkwardness when I gave away some spools of tatting thread to the teacher at the Women’s Federation in Santiago. Here, though, it was wonderful to see Adriana’s face light up with the spools of lace thread I brought for her. She showed me a baby’s outfit she made with this type of fine cotton. She took the pattern for a handkerchief edging (perfect square opening in the center for the neckline) and adapted it to make the bodice of a little boy’s one-piece suit. I got weak in the knees when I saw the lace bodice on this outfit, but I could not bring myself to buy it. I don’t have any grandchildren yet, and I don’t want to jinx it!

Instead I bought two beautiful pieces of tape lace and a small Torchon centerpiece.

Adriana gave me a pair of tatted earrings done in navy and pale blue with fire polished crystals! I treasure them!

I don’t remember this woman’s name, but she turns out a lot of elaborate tatted projects. She made the interesting green and white beaded sleeves, and here she is modeling (against her will) a lacy tatted hat that has not been starched yet. It will be such a frivolous and fun accessory when it’s finished.

The materials available in Cuba dictate the projects these women make. Most of the cotton threads are thicker than we are familiar with for doing tatting or bobbin lace. If I’d known so many of these women tat, I would have brought much more of that. Ah, well. The tatting projects and bobbin lace projects are done with cotton that is considerably thicker than what we use in the US. Some of it looks like cotton floss, but even thicker—almost like a 12 strand floss. I can see it is NOT easy to work with in tatting because it splits so easily. Still, these women manage very well.

Adriana believes that they can now receive mail from the US. Boy, I hope so. I will send them more fine threads to work with. They oohed and ahhed over the threads I brought with me, and of course you can fit a lot of thread in a small package. The problem will be with mail service between the US and Cuba, and hopefully Adriana is right that things have already changed.

Internet in Cuba is challenging since it is rationed, so although there is plenty of information online these women cannot access it. I bet it will be at least a month before I settle back into taking internet access for granted when I get home. It’s been highly frustrating here!

There were two handwoven scarves on Adriana’s display. When I questioned her about them she told me they had been woven by a man. I made all kinds of motions to describe a rigid heddle loom, and she was nodding her head through my whole pantomime, so I think that’s what was used to weave these scarves.

Adriana is very interested in having instructions to make a simple floor loom, so I will be on the lookout for that when I get back home. I have not found any handweaving in Cuba, and she confirmed that herself. She did not know the word for handwoven in Spanish, nor the word for ‘loom.’ She was calling it the ‘machina por maya,’ the machine for fabric, until I wrote down the word ‘loom’ for her in her notebook.

Hidalgo joined us again, and Adriana teased him that he already knows so much about handwork he should start crocheting himself! And that’s when I learned that he paints, and sculpts and does woodworking in his free time. The people who have booths on the Paseo del Prada are very interesting, and I know I would enjoy getting to know them better! I hope we can stay connected through email…we have all exchanged email addresses.

In the end we discussed the value of handwork. When I said that not many women do handwork in the US, and that when they see it for sale many women are shocked at the price we ask for handwovens, lace, knitting…etc. These Cuban women agreed. They said young women in Cuba want inexpensive, manufactured garments. We agreed that in both the US and in Cuba women who do handwork are the biggest supporters of textile handwork! We buy from each other! In the photo below, from left to right: me, Adriana, Nancy, and Dazmira.

Later in the day, near the restaurant we enjoyed on Mercederes we found a small gallery of woodcut prints. A group of artists were working together, sharing a printing press that had been donated by Unicef. The gallery itself was part of a beautiful historic building.

We ended the day with an early dinner at an outside café called Dominica, where the music was more intoxicating than the mojitos! First a band of men playing xylophone, bongos, guitar, saxophone and string bass, followed by a ‘girl band’ playing keyboard, saxophone, bongos and string bass, with a wonderful female lead singer. Beyond mariachis there are some other interesting percussive instruments, including a hollowed out gourd that has grooves incised along one side. You play it by rubbing a stick across the grooves, and it adds a wonderful rhythmic nuance to bongos and mariachis. I don’t know what it’s called—maybe it’s just called what it is!—a gourd. I love the rhythms of Cuban music— samba and bossa nova. Fantastic! You cannot sit still to this music, which must by why Cubans, and many tourists, are always dancing!

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Posted in crochet, Lace, travel, weaving

Exciting Stuff

Posted on February 22, 2016 | Leave a comment

We are leaving the safe confines of Over Yonder Cay later this morning. I’m excited and more than a little nervous about what lies ahead. The winds are still challenging, so for some of this week we will be looking for another good hiding place to stay safe. Rather soon we will be headed out in the Atlantic to Great Exuma — specifically to a large settlement called Georgetown where we can get good provisions for our last 6 – 8 weeks of sailing. From Georgetown we will either leave for Cuba or we’ll sail east to Long Island and leave from there.

This map shows a bit more than you need to know. Can you find the tiny Great Exuma and Long Island in the Bahamas chain? You can click on the map to ‘bigify.’ We’ll sail down past Crooked Island and Mayaguana and Grand Inagua without stopping, and then go through the Windward Passage between the eastern tip of Cuba and the western tip of Haiti.

We’ll sail past Guantanamo on the eastern most tip of the southern coast of Cuba–well offshore as the Coast Guard requires. Then we’ll make landfall at Santiago de Cuba. The trip from Long Island will be around 350 miles and will take us about 3 days. It’s important that we arrive at Santiago de Cuba in daylight, and I hope that we can also go through the Windward Passage during daylight. That is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. So, yes, I am very worried about that! Am I scared? Like you cannot believe! I’ve been repressing this part of our trip for months now, and now I must face the fact that it’s almost time to do it.

So, farewell to lovely Over Yonder. Here’s Bob standing on one of the greens overlooking the Atlantic. We’re not golfers, but all the greens were wonderful to visit, just for the views!

And here’s the pavilion at the ocean side beach we visited a couple of times. Can you tell how windy it is? A couple of times we brought our books to read, but the view is just so arresting it was hard to read. And with the wind howling it was hard to read through watery eyes!

And here are the wind generators–the sight that makes Over Yonder Cay so easily recognizable, with the main house in the background.

These pavilions built for meditation and yoga practice are new since we last visited here. There are several of them, all from India–just another wonderful part of the Over Yonder setting that makes it so hard to leave.

It will be sobering to return to the real life of sailing and looking for shelter!

I thought this would also be farewell to easy internet and cell coverage. I’ve spoken to both kids now– to our older son who is in Amsterdam on business and who will spend this week in Paris and Geneva as well. And to our younger son in San Francisco. I’ve written a lot of emails. But now Bob has pointed out to me that as long as there is a cell tower on a nearby island (and they are on almost all the islands now), we’ll be able to use the not-so-smart phone we got for the Bahamas as a hot spot. Whew! I’m not off the grid yet! Whew!

This morning I got an email from the friend who is weaving a lunch bag to coordinate with my sheep mug. This was a guild project that started a couple of years ago. In case you don’t remember my mug, I’ll remind you! My younger son gave it to me a fews years ago.

And here is the warp that my friend Susan has created to go with my sheep mug! The stripe colors she has chosen are all the colors that the mugs come in–isn’t that a great idea? It’s fabulous, and yes!!!! I’m excited! Susan has promised to send more photos as the weaving progresses, so I’m also excited about being able to watch this fabric grow and turn into a lunch bag!

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Posted in sailing, travel, weaving

Sericulture in Connecticut and a Workshop with Sarah

Posted on October 27, 2015 | Leave a comment

That title is a mouthful. Initially, I just liked the sound of “Sericulture in Connecticut,” but I could not write about that when I’d also just spent a fabulous three days sewing with Sarah Fortin! Some week! I guess if all weeks were as educational and productive I’d be wiped out all the time. Who knew there was a silk industry in Connecticut? I did not. I certainly knew that China and other Asian countries have had silk production since the dawn of time. And I knew that by the Renaissance, European countries wanted to grow their own silk worms so they could stop buying costly silk from China that involved the long and treacherous journey on the silk roads. Well, it turns out that the English wanted to see if silk could be successfully cultivated in the American colonies. The experiment started in the area from Virginia to Georgia, around 1650. This is the same period in which the English experimented growing indigo in the southern colonies as well. A century later the southern colonies were focused on cotton and tobacco, and an experimental silk culture had started in Mansfield, an area east of Hartford. This was a cottage industry in which farmers were encouraged to plant black mulberry trees in their orchards, and their wives raised the silkworms and learned to reel the silk. The program was presented by Ann Galonska from the Mansfield Historical Society. She has been researching the silk industry in this part of Connecticut for a number of years and she also decided to try her own hand at raising silk worms. She was able to feed the caterpillars on the leaves from the few remaining black mulberry trees in the area.

Interestingly, Ann told us that silk worms put on 80% of weight during the last week of their caterpillar cycle. They go through so many mulberry leaves that she has to replenish the leaves multiple times a day.

Ann brought silk cocoons, silk worm eggs, a silk worm preserved in a jar (formaldehyde?), and various samples of different silk preparations. She showed slides of the various silk mills that cropped up in the area. Hanks Silk Mill ws the first mill in the US, established in 1810. As time went by more mills were established: Chaffee Silk Mill and Mansfield Silk Company, until by 1869, there were eight mills in the area. She showed bills where farmer were paid for the silk they delivered, as well as ledgers of bartering with silk as payment for household goods.

She showed an adverstisement from 1834, urging farmers to buy mulberry trees to add to their orchards: 100 black mulberry trees for $3 – 5. Hard to imagine, even given the cost of things back then. By the end of that decade the same 100 trees cost $500. And that is even harder to imagine! Silk was a profitable industry in this area for a couple of decades, but the decline began when people started buying saplings of the white mulberry tree, which was known to be preferable to black mulberry. Ann said these trees survived the first couple of winters in Connecticut which happened to be mild, but when a more typical New Engalnd winter ensued the white mulberries were not hardy enough to survive. And most of the farmers had cut down their black mulberry trees in order to plant the white version. While raising silk worms swiftly declined at this point, the mills hung on well into the 20th century using imported silk. You can find more information, along with early 20th c. photos of some of the mills at the historical society’s website. And there are tours of the mills at certain times of the year. Now that would be a treat!

Much of last week I spent at a workshop with Sarah Fortin, learning to sew a garment from handwoven fabric. This is far from my forte (ha ha!)–so far that I would say I am completely inept at making a flattering garment. So to cut into precious handwoven fabric for a likely-to-fail attempt at making a jacket made me pretty uncertain about taking this workshop. I brought a nice selection of commercial fabrcis to choose from: a length of Harris Tweed, two lengths of wool melton, and a selection of other wool crepes and one chenille that I thought might work up as something interesting. Somehow, in the tote bag of fabrics I also included a very precious length of wool fabric that Rabbit Goody wove, and that I bought from her as a remnant, about 20 years ago. This piece of yardage was far more precious to me than any of my own handwoven fabric, and I cannot explain why I took it with me to the workshop!

Naturally, when I showed Sarah my fabric choices, I began listing all the reasons why I would not consider cutting into the Rabbit Goody fabric. And naturally, Sarah listed all the reasons why I should. In the long run, Sarah (with enthusiastic support from the rest of the workshoppers) won this debate.

I have to say it was not easy to cut into that beautiful fabric. The sewing was enjoyable and ate up most of the workshop time. When I reached the last seam in assembling the jacekt I suddenly got very anxious. I knew it would be time to try it on. It still had a lot work to do–all the embellisments I’d planned as well as all the finishing for the sleeves and the hem and attaching a front band. But it was at this point, when all the pattern pieces were together, that I could try on the jacket, and I did not want to do it! Sarah came with me to a more private area where the others could not watch, and I put it on. I was very shocked to find that I loved it! ….and that it fit so well. Whew! All credit for this goes to Sarah, of course, for helping me size the pattern before cutting it out. And of course she was right– better to enjoy this fabric as a garment– the very reason I bought it in the first place, rather than hiding it away in my stash.

Everyone made a successful jacket during our workshop. Marjie, who is likely our most accomplished seamstress, finished her jacket first. The pattern she used is called the ‘swing’ jacket. Look how pleased both Marjie and Sarah are with the outcome! The rest of us are are sighing over this and hoping ours will turn out as well!

Last day of class, more people are approaching the finishing! This is Jody’s jacket, a wonderful fabric woven on a warp at Vavstuga. The coloris quite off–it’s actually a great mixture of two greens and brown. Jody made the same pattern I did, called the “bias sleeve” jacket. I think Jody’s jacket is the most successful combination of weave structure and garment design. It’s a beauty and it looks fabulous on her!

One more finished swing jacket with terrific color placement!

Some of us will be getting together again this week to continue to work on our finishing. I’m now a bit confused about my sleeve finish and how to put on the front band. I’m hoping some of the more experienced sewers (that would ALL of them!) can give me some pointers. Also, Sarah has offered to answer any questions so I think I will email her. I’d better get to it!

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Past Wedding, Full Forward on Inspiration!

Posted on August 11, 2015 | 1 comment

First a moment of shamless personal happiness: our older son was married over the weekend in Baltimore. It was a glorious event! I enjoyed every detail of it starting with our private time with the almost newly weds when we arrived on Wednesday evening last week, right through to the after-wedding-Sunday-brunch. It was a small wedding, but the honored guests came from as far as San Francisco and Denver and Florida, to as close as right down the street. It was a congregation of close knit friends and relatives. It couldn’t have been better!

We invited our very oldest friends–two couples we’ve known since long before either Rob or Chris were born–Chris and Pat and LeaAnn and Garrett– and a dear friend, Craig, who has been more than an uncle to our boys….and my sister Sheryl and her family–Carl, Madison and Chloe. It was perfect!

Elevator selfies are certainly the rage now!

The wedding party was large for so small a wedding– 6 bride’s maids, 6 groom’s men,
1 groom’s dog, 3 flower girls, and 2 ringbearers. The groom’s dog may have stolen the show. After walking down the aisle with the groom, he then gave the groom a ‘high-5’ moments before the bridesmaids entered.

He lay down peacefully between the bride and groom when the vows began.

When he began to make nesting movements with the bride’s beautiful wedding dress, he made no fuss at being moved in front of the groomsmen. Just look at all those Chuck Taylors!

He got to spend a few moments at the reception before he was sent up to the bridal suite to to relax with a very attentive friend.

Here are more moments from the day… I loved every minutes of it!

Photo ops in the beautiful Hotel Monaco in Baltimore.

The best man and the mother of the groom–moi!

I am shamelessly proud of these two young men–the groom and his best man brother!

The finale of the ceremony!

That wonderful moment for any mother of the groom!

The very best moments of this weekend aren’t documented with photographs. It was spending some wonderful time with both our sons, our new daugher in law, our friends, my sister and her family. It was finding two very sweet handwritten notes from my son thanking us for so much, acknowledging what a wonderful relationship we’ve had over the years behind us and the years to come. This note arrived with a gift just moments before I left our room to go down to the ceremony. It just doesn’t get any better!

With a little help from my friends (there’s always a Beatle theme when our family is together) Bob and I hosted a brunch for the newly weds on Sunday morning at their new house in the suburbs of Baltimore. If not for Pat and Jeremy, and of course Bob, the brunch would not have been nearly as buttoned down as it was! I guess we were way too busy hosting to get any photos.

I am so indebted to our old friends and my sister’s family for making such a long trek to be part of this event. Being with them put the frosting on the cake and the cherry on top!

Now back at home I am relishing the all the memories and enjoying looking through all the candid photos taken by friends. We’ll have the photographer’s images shortly.

I have turned my attentions back to the tapestry presentation I’ll be giving in early September to the weavers’ guild in Rhode Island, to working on what I’ve lovingly called the “Archie Project” for the past ….. years. I refuse to admit how long this project is taking!

Bob and I took inventory of his stash of dowels in the workshop to determine what he might need to buy in order to make a backstrap for loom for me. It looks like we have everything needed! I might be weaving by early next week.

This morning LeaAnn sent me links to a wonderful illustrator and writer who lives in Wales — Jackie Morris. My imagination took off while reading her blog. On Saturday, while we were celebrating a wedding, she wrote this:

The summer is always busy. It’s hard to find the silence required for clear thought. George MacKay Brown talked of writing poetry as ‘the interrogation of silence.’ I know not everyone needs it to work, to think, but I do.
…I become more fascinated by silence as I grow older. But finding silence is different to being silent. When you choose to stop speaking you unnerve people. They fill the silence, the space you leave. They interpret your silence in their own way.

At the end of her post she invited people to comment on how they achieve the silence they need to think and work, or to respond that they do not need to find this silence.

I agree whole heartedly with her description about needing inner silence and attempting to find it. There is no one place where I find mine. Sometimes it is easy to retreat to a wonderful silent place, and sometimes, no matter where I go I cannot get to it. I’m certain it has more to do with the state of my mind than the features or faults of any physical place. It all comes down to me. I just have to learn to be still and let it come.

As a weaver I often find that being at one of my looms is the best place for me to be silent and reap the benefits of where silence can lead. It doesn’t always work, but it is almost foolproof. On a floor loom or at a spinning wheel there is a rhythm of mechanical music that takes me deep into my inner self where there is a vast landscape of something like silence.

In tapestry I almost silently lift each warp thread by hand to create an image, and in that case it is my own deep thinking about the image that draws me away from the world, from any other noise but that deep music inside me. These are the reasons I return to weaving again and again.

After all the busy-ness of this summer–the SSCA extravaganza, visiting friends, the biennial weaving conference, and the wedding–it’s time to find that silence and get some good work done.

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Posted in family, inspiration, tapestry, weaving

A New Direction…

Posted on August 2, 2015 | 1 comment

It’s less than a week until my son’s wedding! I have finished my projects, but I’m still deep in lists– lists for everything we need to bring to the wedding– a list of what I need for myself as well as what I’ve promsied to supply for the ceremony…..lists for meals before the wedding, and a list for what I need to host the wedding brunch at my son’s new house the day after the wedding.

Meanwhile, I can’t help thinking about weaving projects. I’ve gotten precious little weaving done on the small tapestry I started onboard late winter this year. What I have done on it has been quite fun–lots of swirling water and the beginnings of the tentacles of a Portuguese Man of War. Very soon I will have my first attempt at pulling the warp around the loom so I can continue weaving up the warp. I’m more than a little anxious about this, but once I’ve done it I hope it becomes something I can count on doing. It will allow me to have smaller looms on board if I use this kind of warp. Check out my new attempts at holding my cartoon in place–a small, very powerful magnet. These little magnets will jump right out of your hands to fly together they are so strong. And a very large paper clip. Neither is a good solution, but I muddle on.

And I’ve been planning my next floor loom project. It’s so hard to choose what to weave when I have so little time at home and so many ideas. I think I will weave yardage in Plaited Huck (same structure as my recent linen tote bag). This time I will make a warp of tussah silk in natural (sort of a pale oat color–not shown in the photo because the cone is the size of a small loom) with random stripes of several silks from SanJo that are also cool natural colors, but matt–no sheen like the tussah. One is smooth, another is boucle and the third has wonderful dark flecks in it. The weft will be golden tussah, in the center of the photos. It will become yardage for a top I hope to make…

But here’s my NEW DIRECTION–all caps because I am very excited about this! At this time of year for the past 3 years— the threshold of late summer–I have become rather anxious and a bit cranky (might be an understatement) that my weaving time at home is rapidly diminshing. This year I have even less to show for myself than previous years… sigh…

Yesterday morning I was looking at some messages on Ravelry and then clicking on various links to other things. Isn’t that the recipe for suddenly losing half a day? Following various links on Ravelry, a site for knitters, I stumbled on Laverne Waddington’s website about backstrap weaving. Here is the first photo that caught my attention.

Are these not WONDERFUL??? A little voice is saying to me: Are these not exactly what you’ve been wanting to weave??? Book covers and handbags. The little voice again: That’s why you’ve woven and sewn two tote bags in the past year. That’s why you took a class on making paper forms for handmade books…..you can do this….YOU can do this on a boat!

Look how Laverne personalized these book covers with the initials of the lucky friends who will receive them!

There are lots of small bags on Laverne’s site too, and lots of simply beautiful pick up designs. Go take a look!

Oh, be still my heart! I think backstrap weaving might be a wonderful new direction for me. It will fit on the boat. It will satisfy my need to weave somewhat complex cloth. It will allow me to continue my new interest in making book covers and handbags. It is taking all my willpower not to make a loom right now… I must stay focused on the wedding for 8 more days, then I can come home and get started!

Funny how things come to you when you need them. I’ve known of Laverne for a number of years now. She and I are in a number of the same online groups. I see her stuff on these groups now and then and marvel at her beautiful weaving. It just never occurred to me until now that this type of weaving may be the perfect solution to weaving onboard.

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Posted in family, weaving

It’s summer and I’m thinking about Linen…

Posted on July 20, 2015 | Leave a comment

There was a recent post on Facebook that linked to a May 16th article in the New York Times about the two brothers from Pennsylvania who wrote The Big Book for Flax. Most anyone who attended Maryland Sheep and Wool festival a few years ago saw them there, selling their beautiful coffee table book about linen when it was first published.

The article points out the hardships these two men have faced in trying to build a commune where members would work together to live off the land, including growing flax and spinning and weaving it to make their own clothing. Their lifestyle is modeled off the colonial Moravian communities that settled in this part of Pennsylvania a couple of centuries ago.

I’ve never been certain how well flax grows in the US. I know Sara von Tresckow has good success in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Her website boasts a flaxcam, although I did not see live video of flax growing!–truly like watching grass grow! Instead there is an interesting photo essay of the whole seed to harvest process. Sara spins and weaves with her homegrown flax. I loved her solution to the volatile weather that the midwest gets each summer. She cordons off her fields with baling twine to help keep the plants vertical during a blow or a thunderstorm. Now that’s an attention to detail and a labor of love!

Last year I met a woman from New Hampshire who demonstrated flax preparation at the Bushnell Farm in Old Saybrook as part of an annual historic festival of ‘life on the farm’ in our area of the Connecticut River Valley. Gina Gerhard brought locally grown flax from New Hampshire along with all her tools for demonstrating the whole process from harvest to stricks that are ready to spin. I described the whole process last year in this blog post.

Still, I can’t help thinking that flax is easier to grow in northern Europe where the weather is more reliable, where the light is gentler for softly bleaching the fibers to that perfect silver.

Linen is such beautiful fabric that I have always wanted to spin it. I have made a few attempts in the past and have enjoyed it. I have a few spools of wetspun linen waiting to be plied and then utilized in some way. I have a lovely image of myself in a simple handwoven jacket–where I also am a perfect size 6. It’s always fun to dream….

Last week at NEWS I saw some beautiful linen stricks at the VavStuga booth and couldn’t resist buying one. It has that beautiful color that I associate with flax from Belgium or Netherlands. Now I wish I’d bought two–or three! I can’t do much with 4 oz!

Then today I stumbled on a link to a beautifully done vimeo video on current European flax processing. After seeing so many demonstrations and videos of traditional techniques for retting, breaking, scutching and combing flax it was very interesting to see the same processes done by machine. It still appears to be a low impact way of using a natural product–far less environmentally challenging than most cotton. Check it out.

And there is a sequel that includes some high tech applications for using linen in the automotive industry, for sports items such as bicycles and surf boards, and even for fishing rods! There is exciting information in this video about quite innovative uses for linen and flax fibers, and yet the mechanics of processing flax are fairly basic compared to other high tech fibers. Fascinating!

There is about 25 minutes of video here, and all my words. I think I’d better stop for now!

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Posted in spinning, weaving

Category Archives: weaving

Weaving Connections

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Weaving and Dreaming

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Adriana, Nancy, Dazmira, Hidalgo!

Exciting Stuff

Sericulture in Connecticut and a Workshop with Sarah

Past Wedding, Full Forward on Inspiration!

A New Direction…

It’s summer and I’m thinking about Linen…

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