weaving – Page 4

Internet Shopping

November 8, 2017 | Leave a Comment

Boy, have I had fun shopping in cyberspace lately. Remember the old days when the ‘modern’ thing to do was ‘let your fingers do the walking?’ This is lightyears beyond that!

Internet shopping is hardly new, but the wealth of websites devoted to weaving/spinning/lace making/sewing….etc…etc has expanded into a galaxy of wonderful places to shop!

A couple of posts back, pre-christening dress dilemma, I wrote that I had ordered a tape loom on etsy. Well, it arrived! And it was beautifully packaged so that opening the box was like a well choreographed dance. I enjoyed every moment of unpacking this treasure! I hope I can get a warp on it, and figure out how to get it to Pandora, now that she sailed away with Bob–OR rather, Bob sailed away with her.

The woman who made this loom and all the accessories that go with it calls herself HandyWOman. What an attention to detail! My loom has images of England and Scotland branded (?)/burnished (?) into it on all sides, inside and out! The accompanying bag (sold separately) is so well made– it shows the kind of sewing expertise that I am trying to attain in my classes! Just take a look!

Here is the box with the first bit unpacked. She made the drawstring bag that holds some small items you’ll see shortly!

I enjoyed the unpacking process and had to document it! The rigid heddle is embellished with a Tudor rose.

The set came with this little Scottie dog comb–adorable!

Everything unpacked and displayed on the kitchen table! I wish I’d gotten a better shot of the London skyline on the side of the loom that is being blocked by the instruction papers.

You need to see a closeup of the tote bag that holds all the pieces with plenty of extra room for other stuff. Note that HandyWOman’s logo has been machine embroidered on the top of the bag. What a great touch! I’m finding it hard to believe that she can be such a good wood worker as well as such an accomplished seamstress.

I can’t wait to try weaving on it!

Going back a couple of weeks now: my lace group made a trip to the Windham Textile and History Museum in Willimantic. My friend Mary descends from some mill workers and foremen, so she has particular interest in this time period. She was searching the internet for some mill related information and found the clothing designer Carolyn Denham (of Merchant and Mills) who makes timeless yet modern clothing with a nod to the mill workers of years ago. I couldn’t resist ordering this pattern, and today I found it in the mailbox! There’s no time to make it now, but hopefully I can tackle it in the spring when I return. In fact, I hope Mary makes it while I’m away so she can give me pointers on the process!

Last week I went to an extra sewing class on a day I don’t usually go. There were students there I hadn’t met before, and lots of projects to sigh over. One woman is making her granddaughter a quilt out of large and small panels of woodland animals drawn in a wonderfully graphic style. I love the owl and the fox and think that Tori would love them too! So, of course, I had to go hunting for them, letting my fingers do the walking so to speak, across the keyboard rather than the phone dial of old….and they were easy to find! They also arrived in my mailbox today! (The panels are from fashionable fabrics)

There are actually four animals in this set. I’m smitten with the owl and the fox so that’s what I’ve photographed. There are also a bear and a bunny. I bought the coordinating fabrics at the top of the photo at a local fabric store in Glastonbury called Close to Home. I’d never been there before, but I will be going back in the future. I just love the addition of that kiwi green and hope Tori will too.

The arrival of these treats could not have come at a more opportune time! It’s post-christening dress trauma and just in time to plan things to work on when I return home in the spring!

So Late….So Little!

October 3, 2017 | Leave a Comment

There is only week left to see this exhibit! That’s bordering on cruel and unusual treatment for me to write about this so close to the end. Sorry! I loved the exhibit and just didn’t get to my computer in time. Two weavers, Norma Smayda and Jan Doyle, have a beautiful display of work at Hera Gallery in Wakefield, Rhode Island. It’s a women-founded, artist-run, non-profit endeavor that started over 40 years ago.

Norma’s and Jan’s work hang well together, with Jan’s signature large, mantle-type coats in each corner of the room, while Norma’s undulating wall hangings flowed across two long walls. Jan works in a traditional Finnish double weave, and she had some smaller pieces on the walls along with her impressive coats. Here is Jan standing in front of one of her garments.

Up close…look at all that work. I can’t imagine how long it would take to weave this. It is stunning!

Here is another one of Jan’s coats/mantles wtih a self portrait on the wall nearby. Now that’s a double weave masterpiece!

Norma has been working with an ondule reed for several years now, and she has experimented with various weave structures while also writing a book about this.

Norma’s book should be available in November.

So, as you can see this mix of works made a striking exhibit.

Back at home, I’m nearing the end of the lace I’ve been making for little Tori’s christening dress. Bob and I will be visiting our son’s area later this week to participate in some of the events at the Annapolis boat show–in specific Bob will be presenting what he has put in place for the long distance sailors when they arrive in Antigua in November–so, after that, we will be spending most of the weekend with our family.

Today I made a mock up of three different sizes for the bodice so I can try them on Tori to see which size is the closest match for her. Hopefully, there won’t be too much to adjust! I dragged the ironing board over to my lace pillow to see what the lace (still attached to the pillow!) would look like. I am happy!

I tried out the narrow lace around the neck, and the wider lace for the bottom of the bodice and for the hem of the dress.

Here is the petal sleeve that comes with this pattern. I don’t know if Mom likes the sleeve yet. I think it is SO sweet!

My rather obscure title refers to how late I am in writing about the weaving exhibit and how tiny little Tori’s dress will be, whichever size ends up fitting her. It’s a challenge for me to sew on that small a scale! Hence, so late, so little! Off to Banksville Fabric on our way south tomorrow to hopefully find a beautiful white fabric for this dress, since the white linen I bought at Britex did not get chosen.

Nordic Tapestry in Washington Depot

August 24, 2017 | Leave a Comment

The day after the eclipse marked one month left until the vernal equinox. We are on the downward slope of summer. These next few weeks will hold the last of summer’s wealth….

Last weekend my friend Jody joined me in visiting the opening for the Nordic Tapestry exhibit in Washington Depot. What a lovely town that is, and the venue for this show of works was quite beautiful, which made a great backdrop for the wonderful tapestries. The artists are a group of students of Helena Hernmarck, mostly from Sweden, with one from Iceland and a couple from the US, who organized this event to honor Helena during her 75th year. What a great birthday present! ….and well deserved.

This is one of the Swedish weavers, Stina Fjelkner-Modig, standing in front of her “Poppies in a Wheat Field.” She has certainly done wonderful things with Hernmarck’s technique for creating texture.

This may be my favorite tapestry from the students’ exhibition. It is “Autumn” by Anneli Forsberg. Jody and I enjoyed talking to her about Sweden and working with Helena. It’s stunning, right?– with the same marvelous use of floats and thick bundles of weft.

A few other works of note…..

“Lighthouse.”

“Longing for Summer,” by Hugrun Runarsdottir

Two of the artists/weavers admiring the crocus. The artist for this tapestry is on the left.

Both exhibit spaces were on the green in Washington Depot. This is the building where the students’ exhibition was on display.

In the back is a lovely sunken garden where they served refreshments. By the time Jody and I found this spot the opening was over and the clean up had started.

At the other end of the green was the display of Helena’s work. I loved the setting and the way this building is open to the outdoors.

The last time I saw Helena, at her studio, this piece was newly finished. It is double woven with a layer of plastic strips on the back. When it is hung in a way that allows viewing on both sides, it has a luminous, transparent effect. The plastic on the back side creates a sparkling effect on the front. On the back side the effect of the woven plastic strips is very glossy and dazzling.

One of my all time favorite pieces is Helena’s “Anemones.” Her use of floats and big bundles of weft is what makes her dramatic use of focus and out of focus effects. Looks like I had trouble focusing on holding my camera straight!

Here’s a detail shot….

At the end of our visit, dear Jody got a photo of Helena and me together. I treasure this!

It was Jody who thought to take this fabulous photo of two of Helena’s works together.

This was the BIG event of my summer, and I’m looking forward to seeing another work of Helena’s at the “Plunge” exhibit in New Bedford, later this weekend!

Backtracking a little, I made contact with one of the award winners from the juried exhibit at NEWS. The basketmaker, Barbara Feldman Morse. I’m rather certain I saw another of her baskets awarded two years ago. Now this year she gilded the lily by also weaving a liner for her latest basket. Brilliant!

I had no way to contact any of the weavers whose works I admired, but I happened to stumble on Barbara on Facebook, so I tried contacting her through FB messenger. Well, it took a couple of weeks for her to see my message, but when we connected at last I found a most interesting woman!

Over the 40 years that I have been weaving and getting to know other weavers, I’ve often found that weavers lead fascinating lives. They are often gardeners, artists in tw0-dimensional techniques, like painting, and often good cooks too. Many weavers seem to love cats. It turns out that Barbara loves to cook and in particular she bakes madeleines! What wonderful little luxuries! She has published a cookbook on madeleines and her madeleines were sold at Ghiradelli’s Chocolate in San Fransciso, at local Starbucks, and they have been used in films. All that baking success is quite a feat on its own, but she is also a master weaver and accomplished basket maker. I am happy that I have crossed her path. You can read her here and also get a few madeleine recipes!

And summer marches on …. Bob and I participated in a “Conquer the Current” paddle on the Connecticut River last weekend. He did the conquering and I kept cool and out of the sun by holding my umbrella. Bob rowed 9 miles down the river! We put in at the Haddam Bridge (think Goodspeed Opera House), and ended at the Connecticut River Museum, in Essex, where the museum staff treated all participants to a wonderful Sunday brunch on the grounds of the museum–even me–who didn’t do a thing!

The gardens I see along my walks are just beginning to show signs of slowing down, but are always still a wonderful part of any venture outside. It was a hazy August day-after-eclipse that I took these.

The eclipse seemed to have an oddly productive effect on me. Before it started I dug out some linen fabric that I had eco-dyed last summer, unsuccessfully. Actually, I eco-dyed it twice and still did not get a pleasing outcome. So on eclipse morning I brewed up some French marigold flowers that have been stashed in my freezer from last year’s garden. I simmered the linen fabric for about an hour, then let it cool in the dye bath for the rest of the day.

This photo is about as hazy as my garden shots above. The color is actually darker and quite interesting. The fern prints from eco-dyeing that barely showed up now stand out considerably more! Win, win!

First the marigolds, so you can see the color of the flowers.

And here’s what I got…although darker than this photo.

After the eclipse I brewed up a batch of peach jam. That’s a lot of productivity for me in one day….. it had to be some lunar/solar energy vibes.

It’s been a good week in my little world. I hope it’s been good for you too!

Summertime Weaving and other Arts

July 30, 2017 | Leave a Comment

This is the summer of regional weaving conferences all over the US, and I enjoyed a day trip to Northampton, Massachusetts a couple of weeks ago to visit the exhibits and vendor hall of NEWS, the New England Weaving Seminar. This is always a great way to rekindle and rejuvenate my love of weaving. There are so many weavers, even just in New England, who are doing inspiring things!

One of our Connecticut guild members, and a good friend from my local weavers’ group, has made a fabulous doll this year. This is not her first miniature figure, and she is definitely honing her skills as time passes! In her travels she acquired a porcelain doll head of a Japanese male. She and her husband began sculpting hands and feet out of polymer clay to go with the head. Then they began the daunting task of making a soft-sculpture, pose-able body for the figure. And then came the weaving! This fellow has a full set of traditional Japanese undergarments in white, all handwoven! His kimono is a dark indigo plain weave, and his obi is also handwoven–even the thongs on his handmade shoes are woven!–in the same pattern as his obi. It’s an amazing piece, and I’m so glad it got such a prominent place in the gallery. Being in the front window you could easily view from all sides.

The lighting is challenging for getting a photo that shows the details of his woven garments. He is holding an origami crane, also made by Sally. Really, isn’t he fabulous?? I doubt the judges knew what to make of this! And I wonder if they opened up his kimono to see his handwoven undergarments.

The guild exhibits were quite good this year. The space was light and large so that each guild table could be seen well from multiple directions.

Maybe it was not the most creative use of space, but the displays themselves were quite inspired. Very enjoyable. This is the display for the Weavers’ Guild of Boston.

It was a wonderful day for me, and far too short. By the time I caught up with friends and had a dash through the vendor booths it was past time to head home.

My favorite place in the vendor hall is upstairs, where Vav Stuga and Pro Chem share a space. I always find way more than I meant to buy in these two booths. This year Pro Chem had a deep basket full of stamps for printing fabric, and Vav Stuga had a bundle of past Vav Magazine calendars at a discount. Who could resist either of those? Not me!

There was a new vendor this year, Lofty Fibers from New Hampshire. On top of selling some wonderful linens and the Jaggerspun wool/silk blends, they have developed a small gadget called a “Tempo Treadle” that keeps track of your treadling sequence and will alert you if you make a mistake. Isn’t that a handy thing to have? I would like to have one for my AVL mechanical dobby, which has a very bad habit of not lifting all the shafts that are pegged or lifting one too many. It’s a mysterious –and pervasive– problem, and I would love to have an alarm system for this! Barry said he’ll look into making one for AVLs.

There was a wonderful 3-woman exhibit of works by Norma Smayda, Jan Doyle, and Antonia Kormos. All three women are Rhode Island weavers, although my small area group in Connecticut claims Tony too, as well a number of other Rhode Island residents who regularly come our meetings. Tony is in her 90s and still doing fabulous work in many complex weaves as well as bobbin lace.

Changing gears a bit, but still celebrating inspiring works of art, the next photo is of a gift that Bob and I recently gave each other. Back in June we celebrated our 40th anniversary. Pretty amazing to both of us! We enjoy looking at art together, although we are not wealthy enough to actually as much art as we’d like. We count ourselves lucky to have some accomplished artistic friends….because of that we heard of an artistic exchange between the US and Russia, where a group of Russian painters came to the US last spring to paint plein aire along the coast of Maine. Bob and I sailed coastal Maine for 16 years before we started sailing in the Caribbean for our winters, so images of Maine bring back some wonderful memories of summer travels during our increasingly long marriage (I mean that in a good way!).

One artist in particular captured one of our best memories with this depiction of a lobster pound near Stonington, Maine. Almost every summer we would stop and anchor near Stonington, just off from Billings Marina. We’d take our dinghy ashore and walk into town, which included walking right by this very spot. It’s the still water of the pond that just undoes me. It looks wonderful close up and at any distance. We have hung this in a spot where we can view it from close up as well as all the way to the other side of the house, and we love it from all the vantage points.

The artist is Olga Karpacheva, and she has an impressive background of achievements in Russia. She has work in five Russian museums, and I found images of her work online that make me think she has special ties to the Volga River. She is also well known for her work in restoring art.

But this is the best thing I found about her online! –a photo of her painting the piece we bought! She is on the left. What a thrill for me to see this!

The summer offers a couple more exciting venues for seeing artwork, both woven and not woven. Here is my list!

I regret not posting this before the opening….but it’s still on, so try to get there! It was quite a thrill to reconnect with Helena after six or seven years. Her students included about a dozen Swedish weavers, one Icelandic, and two US weavers. No one lives near Washington Depot, so it was impressive that these students organized the event from so far, and almost all of them managed to get to the opening. The exhibit has been at two venues in Sweden before coming to New England, and the students organized these exhibitions as a tribute to Helena. What a wonderful event, and I’m so glad I was able to attend.

It was there that I learned of this exhibition, currently at the New Bedford Art Museum.

The couple who own Brown/Grotta were at the tapestry opening. They are quite excited by their current show of works which you can read about here. As luck would have it, Bob and I are visiting the New Bedford area in a few days, so it will be easy to add this to our itinerary. Yes, I feel lucky!

And I also met a pastel artist at the Nordic exhibition who shows work annually at the Lyme Art Association during their annual pastel exhibition. It’s interesting that I’ve seen this woman’s work for several years before now getting to meet her. The opening for the Nordic Tapestry Group was a convergence of how interwoven our artwork and relationships are. Lucky, indeed!

Summer Weaving

July 13, 2017 | 1 Comment

Summer is a time when my weaving projects must take priority since that’s when I’m home to work! Yet summer offers SO many wonderful distractions! The garden, family and friends visiting, lots of conferences to attend. I want to kick back and enjoy the season, but I also feel the pressure to make as much progress as possible before I leave home again.

These are the scenes that greet me each day on my walk along the Connecticut River, although the peonies and iris have shifted to roses, and now the roses are being overtaken by hydrangea.

It’s been a banner year for roses in my own garden. I have to give all the credit to Bob since he has fertilized every time I’ve asked, and he’s also used some kind of eco-friendly spray when the gypsy moths fell out of the trees on to the rose bushes.

We have a granite wall that is about 100′ long and planted in pink and yellow roses, interspersed with lavender, daisies, and boxwoods.

I’m going to back up a bit and reminisce about the trip I took to Tennessee to attend the Southeast Fiber Festival back in April. Back in April? Time flies! I took three weeks to drive down to Gatlinburg and back. It was a perfect mix of relaxation and adventure. After spending Easter weekend with my new granddaughter and her parents, I continued south to meet my good friend and tapestry weaver AnnaByrd to make the rest of the trip together. We had a wonderful 500 mile drive through the Shenandoah Valley and into the Smoky Mountains. Both going and returning we stopped in New Market, Virginia, and enjoyed lunch in a cafe at the civil war museum there. We were both taking a 3-day class with Jon Eric Riis on Coptic tapestry techniques.

In spite of the terrible destruction in Gatlinburg by last autumn’s fires, Arrowmont is still a stunning place. There is plenty of evidence of the chaotic and destroying force of fire, but I was relieved to see that there was still plenty untouched. This view is not the direction of the fire came from.

A view of the main building from the dining hall. The dining arrangement is the best I’ve had at a conference. I wish I’d photographed the dining room. It is cafeteria style, and the food is excellent. You sit at real wooden dining tables that have real chairs. Although there are a lot of tables in this large room, it feels quite like gathering in a home situation because the food is excellent and so obviously prepared with care, and the setting is so comfortably home like. Well done!

My few photos from this trip are not memorable, but the memories they conjure for me are too good not to use. Here is Jon during his keynote address for the conference.

The slides of his work covered most of his weaving career. I had no idea he’d been weaving for 50 years–how can he be old enough to have had such a long career? I have always loved his Icarus tapestries, and I no idea just how many works he’s done over the years. Look at this assemblage of pears! I know, it’s a bad photo– what can you expect of a photo of a projected slide during the presentation?

AnnByrd took this photo of Jon and me together, and it’s a great memory for me, even though blurry. Some day the memory of the workshop will become like this photo….a bit out of focus–but hopefully not too soon.

On display in the instructors’ exhibit were a series of partial faces that Riis wove entirely in metallic yarns. I don’t know HOW he got such a beautiful surface with such challenging materials. On the last day, after this work was crated, he unpacked a few and let us pass them around. Look at the curve of the chin–and the shading!

There are 20 partial faces in this series that hang together in a grid. The piece is called “Diaglogue.” You can see it here.

About 10 days after I returned home from this adventure, I was off to the Cape with a couple of lace making friends. We were headed to the Sacred Hearts Retreat Center in Wareham, Massachusetts, for the annual weekend retreat of the New England Lace Guild. It’s a wonderful setting near the beach, all our meals are served to us family style at big tables in a large dining room. We have private rooms and shared baths, and we can stay up all night making lace if we like, go for walks, take classes, and even buy stuff from the Van Scivers who always come. For the past two years I’ve opted not to take a class, and instead, filled my days sitting in the sunroom with a couple of my own projects that needed uninterrupted attention. There are plenty of other lace makers who do the same.

I spent the weekend working on this project while also keeping track of the eagle cam that was following the eaglet Spirit, on the Anacostia River, just off the Potomac in Washington, DC. You can just see Spirit at the edge of the nest (upper right) on my computer screen.

Here is one of the two classrooms….. since the center is in a large Georgian house, the rooms are generous and furnished from decades past.

Back at home, with the summer unfolding, we’ve celebrated our 40th anniversary, and been treated to a long weekend with both our sons and daughter in law, along with cherished new granddaughter Tori and a few good friends. I’m working on a couple of floor loom projects and two tapestries.

One tapestry is the line of text that our son Christopher asked me to weave. As of this week, I am 20% done. It seems like an insane thing to weave, and even Archie tried to dissuade me from this project, in spite of having woven quite a lot of text himself. Yet I find it both relaxing and challenging. Chris made the font and then hand manipulated the spacing of letters for my cartoon. I am not making any marks on the warp, since I’ve found that I have more success working from a cartoon when I let the cartoon be an idea of the weaving, rather than trying to actually follow the cartoon slavishly.

And here is the work in progress on the design I created in Riis’s Coptic workshop. The workshop was titled “Unraveling Coptic Weaving,” and we were to bring family photos to reinterpret in a Coptic style. I balked at that idea and brought a lot of other images that intrigued me more–Minoan dancers, Greek vase paintings, and one of the bas relief religious figures from the facade of St. John the Divine Cathedral in NYC. Anyway, after playing with those compelling ideas, I settled back on the idea of a family member…..dear little Tori.

The warp is sett at 16 epi, which is considerably finer than the finest sett I’ve ever used before — 12 epi. Between the fine sett and the neutral color of the warp thread, I am struggling to see what I’m doing! Still, when I pick the right threads, the weaving is also compelling.

It was a good challenge for me to draw this cartoon. Tori will be surrounded by clouds with hearts in the corners….schmaltzy for sure, but I hope to balance that a bit by using some tertiary colors. Each cloud and each heart is somewhat different from each other….the only way I can do it. We’ll see.

This morning I measured the lace that I started at the retreat. It’s also for Tori. I just photographed it after I put away the measuring tape. It is now a whopping 32″ long!

So I’d better get back to work on these projects so I can get some of them finished before the season changes!