Category Archives: weaving

Weaving Adventures

Posted on December 3, 2013 | 4 comments

I’ve neglected mentioning some of the events that have inspired me this fall.  First would be the 18th century tapestry series titled “Weaving the Myth of Psyche” on display at the Wadsworth Atheneum.

There are some stunning images in these tapestries.  Look at this donkey….

And the spinner….

And Cupid’s wing….isn’t that something? I am going to have some fun with this image!

The museum asked for some guild members to demonstrate tapestry that day, and three of us participated.  Here one guild member is luring in the children with her spinning.

A couple of weeks later, the state guild meeting featured the boundweave work of Rebecca Arkenberg, called “Tales from the Loom.”  Her boundweave figures are whimsical and creative, and it is obvious she is having a great time combining boundweave with a sense of humor.  She said that people often can’t see what she is portraying, and she’s learned to let that go and just enjoy herself.  What terrific advice!

Rebecca has a great knack for reducing world wide cultural images to the barest essentials.

This one is particularly fun!  Navajo women, rugs, and Churro sheep!

And how about bunnies with angora tails sitting in rows of carrots and beets?

Cat and mouse….

A highlander in kilt!

The Scarlet Letter….

I had so much fun at this guild meeting and came away buoyed with ideas for returning to my own boundweave project that has been neglected for some time now!

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Posted in spinning, tapestry, weaving

Knitting is Catching Fire!

Posted on November 27, 2013 | 4 comments

Oops!  See note at end the end of this post for why this post is badly titled!

Bob and I went to the movies last night.  It was an escape from the very sad and very stressful time we are going through, which involves a loved one’s serious health condition.  Bob has been not-so-patiently awaiting the release of the second “Hunger Games” movie so we dashed out to see it last night on his return from the daily hospital visit. I was mildly intrigued, but definitely looking forward to an evening’s distraction…

No one warned me there would be KNITTING!  The whole first segment of the movie held me captive, and I was craning forward in my theater seat to get a better look at the unusual knitted designs that Katniss wore!  It was a visual feast!  I swear there were three knitting garments, but I must be wrong…

….because these garments are already all over the internet, and there are only two:

 

This garment does not look knitted to me.  It made me think of nalbinding or some other rather ancient technique that predates what we call knitting today.  I’m intrigued!  I’d love to see the real garment.

Then there was this lovely cowl in luscious shades of berries/trees/water.  There is something really interesting going on in the stitch pattern. I tried to magnify this image to get a better look, but it just got a bit blurry! Hmmmmm….

Okay….enough about Katniss!  Here are a few things I’ve been working on lately.  Mostly, I have to say that I’ve been curled up in a fetal position for several weeks now….sleeping too much….

My English friend, Lesley, just finished this sweater in a deep garnet merino wool. I bet it is breathtaking!  I was so intrigued that I had to have one too…. in medium blue cotton (Cascade’s Ultra Pima in color #3772).  I have finished the cables around the neckline, and now I’ve put it aside…..it’s a lot of plain stockinette for the rest of the body….sigh…. I do love the way the longest cable comes down below the garter stitch area, which you can see on the right side in the photo.  What a beautiful design!

And I’m spinning my first “Tsarina of Tsocks” kit called “Kitri.”  The body of the sock is a lovely claret red merino/silk blend.  I’m doing a test spin for a 4-ply by topping off a few bobbins with the tsarina fiber so I can ply just a short amount to check my knitting gauge.

A couple of weeks ago Bob set up my large Shannock tapestry loom.  I’m ready to start two tapestries and need to decide which one comes first!  The full size Flax Spinner or “Into the Night,” which is a new cartoon I recently made…

Isn’t she an impressive loom? Cartoons are draped on the treadle bar, including a really old cartoon that I never wove.  In the foreground you can see an umbrella swift with a skein of silk draped on it.  I just finished using that silk to make a warp for my next painted warp project.  It will be a small wall hanging based on an image Bob took while we were in the Bahamas.  If all goes well, maybe I will bring it with me in January and hang it on the wall of our main salon.

And speaking of making cartoons…. I borrowed an opaque projector from an old friend.  It’s quite a relic from the 50s and makes quite a roar when I turned it on.  In fact, it blew a fuse, so I haven’t actually gotten to use it yet.  Here’s Bob setting it up for me.

So, I guess I’m doing more than just sleeping my days away, and I’m glad I wrote this.  It helped me see that I am progressing on work….just at a snail’s pace… and that (in reality) is not much slower than I normally work.

NOTE:  It has been 10 months since I posted this, and clearly interest in the Katniss fashions from “Catching Fire” is still running high!  Many thanks to Kristin from dreamspunfiber.com who sent some links to the two designs I wrote about.  It turns out neither one was knitted!  They are both woven! …and the green cowl is a beauty in what looks like deflected double weave! Although that makes my post title inaccurate, I am quite thrilled to learn these garments were woven.  You can take a closer look here and here.

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Posted in Fine Craft, knitting, weaving

Try This at Home

Posted on September 4, 2013 | 4 comments

Well, I have managed to use synthetic dyes completely unsupervised in my own house.  It’s taken me at least 20 years to get up the nerve and confidence to do this.  I know….  there has never been a logical reason for this, but it’s been a huge hurdle for me to attempt this at home!

I sectioned off about 1/2″ of warp at both selvedges to paint a solid color with the burnt orange.  And then I sectioned off an inch to paint in a pseudo-ikat effect.  Each of these sections was wrapped in it’s own bit of cling wrap to prevent any co-mingling of colors.  Finally, I painted the main, center section.

After a curing period of about 6 hours wrapped in plastic, I uncovered the warp to let it dry.  The far end of the warp is now suspended off the table for better air circulation.

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Posted in dyeing, weaving

Project Hiatus…

Posted on September 2, 2013 | Leave a comment

Life, again.  You never know when life is going to take over and make all your plans seem positively ridiculous…..as impermanent as a shadow in fading light.

So Bob and I have been at a standstill for the past few weeks.  He’s behind on getting Pandora ready for its next season of long distance sailing, and I’m behind in using my precious land time to fulfill my own projects.

In honor of Labor Day we are having a quiet day at home (it’s raining so there is no pressure to be out at a picnic or parade this year).  I am returning to my silk warp from the NEWS conference.  I have prepared my folding table and loom with drop cloths to protect everything from dye, and I have been looking at my MX dye charts from decades ago…  Unfortunately, today is not serving up the best light for choosing colors.  Hence, I’m taking a break here to document this project!

What is left of my warp is not long enough for a scarf.  I would have bet money on this being the case, so all along I’ve imagined this last piece being a narrow wall hanging.  My design choices are limited by the threading I’ve already established which is an advancing twill.  I can weave it in sharp advancing points or in undulating advancing hills.  I want to try separating out an inch of warp at each side for an ikat-effect black and white block design to frame the main design in the center.

Now I will begin mixing colors.  I am considering several reds, from a cool cherry red to burgundy to a plum type of red/purple and a deep dull orange in the pumpkin range.  I also want black, and I’ve got the ‘new’ black….hoping it is deep and true as advertised!

And here is a gift from my not so friendly weaving cohort that greeted me on my morning walk.  She also waited out the onslaught of life (in the form of a violent thunderstorm and heavy rains last night) before creating her glorious web sometime early this morning.  I hope I will be as successful!

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Posted in dyeing, family, weaving

Putting Inspiration to Use

Posted on June 29, 2013 | Leave a comment

Today I am working on the warping assignment for my upcoming class at NEWS (New England Weavers’ Seminar).  The class is called “Freedom of Expression,” and it will be taught by Sarah Saulson from Syracuse, NY.

Here is the class description from the NEWS catalogue:
“In this dyeing and weaving workshop, we will have lots of spontaneous fun painting warps with fiber reactive dyes, after the loom is warped. This wonderful technique allows weavers to work with color and pattern in a loose, free, expressive way, creating large-scale abstract forms and opens the door to a variety of surface pattern techniques, including stamping and stenciling. We will paint enough warp to explore the possibilities of the technique, and for a scarf. We will learn how to mix our own colors working from primary colors/hues.”

The class materials include bringing an image to serve as the cartoon, or at least as the inspiration, for our warp painting.  I am having trouble narrowing down my images to one or two.

I have been taking lots of photos of my garden recently, but I would NEVER think roses should be my design inspiration.  All that pink and green would surely set my teeth on edge….far too cloyingly sweet for a  handwoven fabric! Then I happened to see this fabric on Cally Booker’s blog.  Just goes to show that I should never say ‘never.’

Here are some of the images that I may try to explore in dyeing a warp.

A Kasuri dyed panel that I’ve had for years

A large painted plate

Several wood block prints, including the nasturtiums I’ve been playing around with for a tapestry design

It might be quite nice to have bright blue and dull blue/green mixed with saturated oranges and golds.  But what would I use for weft??

The purples, greens and golds in this image really appeal to me.


Clearly, I’m intrigued with the possibility of combining blues with a range of orange/golds.

My warp is a natural colored silk from my stash.  It is has a beautiful sheen and a slight slub, and it is somewhat finer that 20/2 silk.  I am hoping that 30 epi will be a good sett for it.  If not, well….. I may have an unfortunate experience. There is not time to sample!….and I realize that is a BIG risk.

I was not able to get good lighting in my studio when I took this photo.  The silk is not this golden.

I am taking a break at the half way point in making the warp.  Now I can get back to it.

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Time Warps

Posted on May 18, 2013 | Leave a comment

“Time Warps: Textiles from Today’s Weavers.”  What a catchy title for the biennial exhibition of works by the Connecticut Guild of Handweavers.

I’ve been looking forward to seeing this exhibition since I got the first announcement back in March.  Nothing like cutting it close, since I am going on the last day it is on view!  Whew!

This is from the Connecticut Historical Society’s event page on their website:

Time Warps: Textiles from Today’s Weavers

April 20, 2013 – May 17, 2013

This juried exhibit of handwoven goods displays the work of contemporary weavers who use both historical and modern techniques and designs. The Biennial Show organized by the Handweavers’ Guild of Connecticut includes articles of clothing (scarves, shawls, jackets), decorative pieces (wall hangings), and household items (table runners, rugs, towels, blankets). The work is produced by members of the Handweavers’ Guild of Connecticut, an organization of handweavers, spinners and fiber artists from all levels of experience who are dedicated to the education, preservation, and promotion of handweaving and spinning.

Inline image 1

What they don’t mention is that Nancy Hoskins was one of the two jurors for this show.  And what a wonderful surprise to see two of her pieces hanging in the show, both Byzantine portraits done in samitum.

There were two rooms of woven items, everything from tailored clothing, wall hangings, rugs, shawls, table linens, even a couple of wonderful soft sculptures.  This is what greeted me when I entered the first room.

The rugs are particularly well displayed in these elevated cases on the floor.  The items on the walls are displayed coming out of frames, which is a great idea, but would have been considerably better if the frames had been chosen to match the width of the items.  Some of the shawls are ‘crumpled up’ in the frames, and I think that looks messy.

There are some wonderfully creative works on display.  The two wonderful soft sculptures are Penelope sitting on a stool, holding her shuttles, with wild, jet black hair sticking straight out from her head and wrapped in yarn to make little pigtails.  (I would love to show you, but I really can’t without permission!)  The other wonderful soft sculpture is a felted owl standing on a perch.  He is beyond description!

I was so inspired by the work in this exhibit!  I’m not sure you can imagine what it felt like to walk through two rooms full of handwovens when I’ve been in such a very different living situation for almost 9 months.  All that intense color and texture and fiber.  It was a rush!

And tomorrow I will go to the last guild meeting of the year (my first and last this year).  Bring it on!

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Thoughts of Home

Posted on April 16, 2013 | Leave a comment

It is truly springtime in southern New England now, and I’m feeling a bit homesick.  I heard that the peepers are calling at night, and the forsythia and daffodils are in bloom!

Bob happened to get the New York Times on Sunday, and saw this editorial, “The Rural Life: A Box of Sheep,” by Verlyn Klinkenborg, which he sent to me.  It put me in mind of springtime all across the continental US.

Klinkenborg wrote: I set the box on the kitchen table, opened it with a knife and folded back the newspaper inside. The scent of sheep rose like a genie from a bottle — a genie who used a lot of lanolin. This was the fleece from a Cheviot sheep, sheared only a few days earlier.

I can see that flock of sheep, moving out into the fields now, at least during the mild days, feeding on the lush new greens of spring.  The ewes are lambing so there are frolicking little wooly creatures in those fields as well.  I remember the little lambs that Susan and I held in our arms at Kinderhook Farm in New York state. In my new little part of the world on the Connecticut River, I have seen a nearby sheep farm and an alpaca farm.  I can’t wait to visit!

I’ll be arriving home in time to visit the Connecticut Weavers’ Guild biennial exhibition in Hartford.  There will be one more guild meeting for me to attend before the summer hiatus, and you cannot imagine how excited I am to reconnect with weavers!  In July I’ll be going to the New England Weavers’ Seminar.  My landlubber life is starting to call to me!

Meanwhile, life here is still quite fascinating.  On our last day in Little Harbor we visited the smallest blue hole I’ve ever seen! The water around the hole was barely ankle deep, yet in the hole we could see yellow tangs, parrotfish, sargent majors, and some varieties we don’t yet know!

We spent some time with Bret and Kristin and saw the pieces coming out of their plaster shells.

On our last morning in Little Harbor we took a walk along a residential road.  One property had quite an elaborate tropical garden.

The weather is decidedly different now, and we’re not sure if it’s because we are now in the Abacos or because it’s now April….or both!  We’ve had some terrific squalls that brought lots of rain, the first we’ve had in almost four months.  On our walk we found some orchids that we think are Epidendrums that are just now setting buds.  I guess the wet season will be here soon….and then the hurricanes!

We have spent two days in Marsh Harbor, provisioning, doing laundry, and  Bob found a barber!…his first haircut since December!  He is thrilled, but I thought his longer hair was quite cute! While Marsh Harbor did not inspire us to take photographs, I am thrilled beyond words to now have onboard two avocados, several tomatoes, and a green pepper!  Can you say guacamole?? We may now have enough lemons and limes to last ’til I leave! Even better than that are clean sheets and towels!  And Marsh Harbor has a lovely spot to relax called Curly Tails!

Yesterday we wandered into Curly Tails for the second time in late afternoon and saw on TV the coverage of the Boston Marathon tragedy.  Being in this simple place, where people have so little and yet, on the whole, are so thankful for their little piece of home, it seems impossible that there could be such malice in the world.  I cannot fathom it.

Shortly we will head to Hopetown.

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Posted in sailing, travel, vacation, weaving

Busy Beautiful Days

Posted on January 14, 2013 | 4 comments

We’ve been back on board Pandora for five days already, and it’s been a very busy cup of tea here.  We thought we’d be crossing to the Bahamas on Wednesday this week, so there was a lot to accomplish!…. food provisions, engine maintenance, propellor cleaning, boat bottom cleaning…. various other small, but very important chores….not to mention getting ourselves further south so that the angle of crossing would be more favorable.  And as weather often does, it has changed so that Wednesday is no longer our departure day.  We are now cautiously aiming for Thursday… or Friday….

We left Ft. Pierce on Saturday morning and stopped in a lovely spot called Manatee Pocket that evening.  Great name for the location where I did see my first manatee!  No kidding, these creatures are unbelievably ungainly and touchingly sweet.  I now fully understand why they are at the mercy of fast traveling power boats.  They move very slowly and cannot possibly get out of the way of a speeding boat. When I saw my first manatee it had just started to descend back into the water, so its back looked like a giant black mooring ball!

There is so much beautiful bird life here … egrets, herons, osprey, kingfishers…. my favorite are the ibises.  They are so delicate….almost ephemeral.

During our evening walk along the shore of Manatee Pocket (looking for the perfect restaurant), I found a weaving studio!  Can you believe it???  Unfortunately for me, it was closed.

Who wouldn’t love spending time here??? That is a chenille warp on her loom.

Yesterday we motored 57 miles and went under 20 bascule bridges….surely a phenomenal logistical feat for any sailboat!  We deserve a prize! I saw The Breakers from the waterway…. where I once spent a decadent long weekend with Bob about a million years ago! I thought I might want to jump ship and stow away in a luxurious resort suite….but oddly, I didn’t!  At the moment I’m quite happy in my less than luxurious accomodations on Pandora!

The houses along the canals are getting more and more impressive.  It’s more Mediterranean here than the Mediterranean with all the stucco and terracotta roof tiles….and porticos!  The houses are huge, and are so close together.  It would seem to me if you have a house with a full acre of square footage, you wouldn’t want to be looking right in the windows of your next door neighbors!  To each his own…

On the knitting front, I cast on for a small Fair Isle purse at the airport in Connecticut.  It’s Beth Brown-Reinsel’s design from Interweave Knits Fall 2004 issue.  I’m making a number of changes to the pattern;  the most significant change is that I could not stomach the idea of knitting this purse flat. I know Beth must have had good reasons for her design, but since I’m pretty stubborn about stranding in the round, that’s what I’m doing!  I’ve got plans to make this a small tote bag, so I’ll be making a somewhat rigid insert for the bag when I return home next spring, along with a lining and leather handles instead of a drawstring.

I raided my J&S shetland and AS Scottish Campion stashes for these yarns (two large comforter-size storage bags stuffed full of yarn!), and I was quite surprised to find that I had absolutely no brown!  So I solved that dilemma with a quick trip to Yarns Down Under the evening before my flight.  Everyone needs a LYS who is willing to open shop for emergency travel knitting!  My LYS is the best enabler!

We are leaving shortly for Middle River, Ft. Lauderdale.

 

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Posted in knitting, travel, weaving

Sweetgrass in Charleston

Posted on November 6, 2012 | 4 comments

We are in Charleston, and I have not posted anything here since our arrival last Thursday.  Bob has posted lots of photos and descriptions of what we’ve been up to, and he’s done such a thorough job, that I’m not inclined to try to catch up!

I’ve been distracted.  We are photographing doors and window boxes, something I’m always intrigued to do… I’ve been thinking of window box images taken from every place I’ve been in the past decade or so…. Maine, France, England, now Charleston.  There are so many beautiful little window gardens…  I’d like to choose a few and weave them using Theo Moorman technique as Daryl Lancaster does (and as I have now done a couple of times), and put them together in a window frame fashion.  I’ve got just the spot in our house for this…

I’ve also been distracted thinking about the potential group tapestry project that the Wednesday Group might do.  For the first time in aeons I have been reading papers on classical literature and reliving my past when this was such a major part of my life.  It’s been aeons of aeons since then.  It’s rekindling the love of words and ancient languages that I’ve neglected for so long…

And I’ve been looking for the perfect basket.  Actually, I saw it last Thursday, on my first day in the Charleston Market, but I did not know it until I’d spent days looking at hundreds more baskets!

I didn’t realize that I would have so many choices.  And in the end that perfect basket was still waiting for me this morning, although when I finally realized it someone was holding it, considering it for themselves.  They put it down, and I heard them say, “I’ll think about it and come back”…..bam!  It is now mine.

Carlene Habersham made my basket. Here she is making some last minute adjustments to the rim.

She had this book on display in her booth

Carlene said the basket on the cover was made by her grandmother.  She then turned to the pages that highlighted both her grandmother’s and her mother’s work.  I was duly impressed.  But most of all, I just love the basket she made.

Last Thursday I spoke to another woman, Susie, who had some very delicate small baskets on display.  I wanted six of them to give to some basket making friends of mine.  Susie said only her daughter did work that small, and she called to ask if her daughter could make six miniature baskets over the weekend.  Susie told me to come back today and they would be ready.  Luckily for me, her daughter came too so I could meet her.

There were lots of other stalls with small baskets, but only these were done to a scale that was pleasing to the size of the basket.  Aren’t they lovely?

This basket is done by Susie’s other daughter.  It caught my eye as I was leaving their booth.

I am in basket heaven….

Days 52 – 56, Nov. 1 – 5: Charleston, South Carolina

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Posted in baskets, inspiration, tapestry, weaving

Eccentric Pleasures

Posted on August 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

It is less than two weeks until we leave, and I have just spent a week with visiting friends, up to see our new location and to say good bye before we sail off into the sunset…

While doing a little local sight seeing with friends, I visited several amazing places over the past week.  First the Chester Fair!  Wow!  This is a real old-fashioned country fair with oxen pulling contests; cow, sheep, and goat judgings; best vegetable and fruit contests. There was a sheep herding demonstration.  There were judgings for best fruit pie, best whoopie pie, best vegetable decorations…just to name a few.  This has been taking place since 1877, and it’s just down the road from me.  Who knew?

Two other highlights of the week occurred yesterday when my friend June and I visited a weaving school in an historic octogon-shaped house in Carolina, Rhoda Island, run by Jan Doyle who also teaches at URI.  She is doing an amazing program with local weavers, and she has lots of looms and quite a large weaving reference library.  On the way home my friend and I stopped in Stonington at the Velvet Mill to see the Fiber Arts Studio.  What an amazing space!  Just walking in the door I felt the weaving zen come over me.  I could live here…..

Now that I’m home, doing laundry from the week of visitors, all I want to do is weave.  I have two weeks to get organized and packed for a 9 month trip, but all I want to do is put on a fine linen warp for napkins….wouldn’t that be relaxing?  I really must snap out of this…

….which leads me to what I can realistically do today.  In the laundry this morning are 13  handwoven linen dinner napkins (not all woven by me), a dozen linen cocktail napkins, and several small handwoven towels from the powder room.  They are all air drying right now, and shortly I will have the pleasure of ironing them.  I know…..it’s a bit eccentric….maybe even quite ’round the bend’…..but I love to iron linens.  That’s a pleasurable activity I can’t wait to do in a short while when the linens are barely damp.

A spray bottle of water for the stubborn wrinkles, a really hot iron,  steam that will waft up at me and the sweet smell of ironing.  I can’t wait!

 

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Posted in inspiration, weaving