Fine Craft

It’s no surprise that living on board a boat has its challenges….some things are just so easy at home and so hard on the water.  I have gone for months and years at home with no major equipment failures…..heat, water, appliances.  At home we expect these things to go on working for decades….  On board they break all the time.  You cannot get through a single sailing season without constant repair to major things….. why is that???

So, I won’t go through the laundry list of things that have gone kaput on Pandora.  It’s too long and technical for a weaving blog anyway.  But I will say that these problems fall heavily on Bob, so he has been under strain to find the source of our engine problems and our failed heating system.  We have been freezing the past few days as the temperatures have been unseasonably cold in Virginia and North Carolina.

I finished my niece’s sweater and have plenty of yarn leftover to make her a matching hat….I could almost make a second sweater! (Polly Macc’s Brother/Sister pattern)

But I have been SO cold that I decided to take out a bigger unfinished project so I could wrap myself in it as I knit.  It’s the fun Vivian Hoxbro wrap called “Zig Zag.”

As I began to take a close look at where I left off and how to get back into the zen of this pattern I began to realize that’s it’s been a really long time since I put this away.  I bought this kit when I met Vivian at a workshop at a friend’s house….we were able to arrange this workshop because the friend offered to meet Vivian at the airport on her very first knitting workshop tour of the US, which meant that we became her very first group of students on her US tour.  Ours was not a scheduled workshop, but something that my savvy friend was able to put together since she was housing Vivian on the first leg of her US tour.

So….how many years ago was that??  Vivian’s book Domino Knitting was new in the US, and she had copies with her to sell.  It was autumn, and I knitted my Zig Zag through that season and on into winter.  I remember specific knitting times when I was waiting in a physical therapy office, happily knitting, while my younger son was getting therapy for some long distance running injuries.  Yesterday I asked Christopher what year that might have been, and he thinks it was either his sophomore or junior year of high school.  That was a long time ago…..2002 or 2003.  And since I met Vivian a few months earlier in the fall of the previous year, I’m pretty certain that I started this pattern in fall of 2002.  Eleven years ago…..

What surprises me about how long it’s been since I set this project aside is that I have thought of this fun pattern every few months, planning to get back to it.  For over a decade I have told myself that I would pick up my Zig Zag right after I finish this or that other project…..and it’s now been 11 autumns.  Where does the time go??

It seems I’m not always on top of posting finished objects.  That is because I am focused on the process, the decisions, right or wrong, the ideas, the mistakes, the journey.  When a piece is finally finished I stop thinking about it with the same maniacal focus, so it slips into obscurity…. well, not totally, but certainly the journey seems done to me at that point.

Here is the finished trail of pears.  It was a terrific learning process.  The image is so simple that my focus became the line and the color of each pear.

I am waiting for some deep brown, medium weight linen to arrive so I can mount this little tapestry, which is ….  And I am hoping that the bit of wrinkling in the center of the piece will dissolve once the tension is off the loom.  Normally I wouldn’t have an ounce of hope about this, but Archie seemed to think that is what will happen.  Please let him be right!

And here are the two scarves from my workshop at NEWS with Sarah Saulson.  I still have not gotten to a bead store to purchase something to embellish the plain hems.  And I have not yet painted the last bit of warp. So in reality, these scarves are not yet finished!

Now back to what really intrigues me…. I have come back to the tapestry of my older son, and that journey is still exciting!  I am shading his neck and cheek right now and hope to reach his ear by early next week.  There is a LOT  I am not happy with on this piece.  I feel driven to finish it so I can perhaps do it again….better.

Ooops!  You can see the finished pears behind him…. oh well…

 

 

 

These didn’t get posted as quickly as I intended….I made the mistake of tackling some boxes in a room off my studio, and now I am buried in stuff that I have no idea where to put!

I have opened Pandora’s box, and now my carefully organized studio is a sea of knitting, spinning and weaving materials that is far vaster than I can handle!  There just isn’t enough storage room for all this stuff!  What to do?

Meanwhile, my two scarves are finished and cut from the loom.  I decided to hem them rather than have fringe, and now I’d like to do a little beaded embellishment at the hem….for this I need to find a local bead store, and I need time to do the beading. Here they are after a hand wash, hanging to dry from a birch tree in my front yard.  I wonder what the neighbors think when I dry handspun skeins and dyed projects.

It feels like it will take months for me to unbury myself from the chaos I’ve unleashed by opening all those boxes!

In fairness, it’s not all fiber related.  The chaos includes a lifetime of printed music from my performing days, a set of dishes that I could not squeeze into the kitchen or dining room when we moved in last year, several lifetimes of photos that include our kids plus both sets of parents’ photos (they have both moved into assisted living facilities and now there stuff resides with us!), my father’s ridiculous collection of DVDs and our collection of music CDs which are no longer necessary.  I’d like to give Bob the task of dealing with the DVDs and CDs, but his plate is already laden with other chores.  I think it’s all up to me, and there will be no weaving or knitting until I get to the bottom of all this stuff!

And, naturally, all I want to do is weave!  I’ve come home from NEWS so inspired!  My dyes have arrived and I’ve made plans for the last of the warp I made for trying this technique!

During the conference I bought the book Custom Woven Interiors by Kelly Marshall.

I want to weave almost every item in the book, but I’d like to start with this rug!….as a runner in the kitchen and a smaller version for the two Dutch doors in my family room.

And meanwhile…. there is all that inspiration I got from the exhibits at NEWS.  Oh yeah, that was the point of this post….  here are the photos.

From the Instructors’ Exhibit, this is Dianne Totten’s wonderful collapse weave jacket.  It is done in the manner of ‘shibori on the loom’ with extra warp and/or weft threads that get pulled to create the pleats.  Then the fabric is treated with something that keeps the pleats in even after washing.  I hope to take a workshop in this technique someday!

This is the back of Barbara Herbster’s large wrap.  I have done a lot of scarves and shawls in this technique of supplemental warp with ribbons.  I wouldn’t mind getting back to it!

I thought this was a great combination of items together!  A  matching set of double woven blanket and pillows with the wonderful ply-split woven vessel.

There were wonderful household linens in the static juried show!  These were the items that inspired me most!  Look at the dragonfly inlay in this tablecloth!  It is a picnic set with wine bottle holder, silverware wrap, and matching napkins!

I love the overshot inlay on the corners of the napkins to match the table cloth!

The colors in this rep weave table runner and placemats are terrific….better than this photo shows.  They were woven by Barbara June Gordon.

A loom woven shibori hand bag!

This transparency of a lady slipper is a gem.  There was a larger transparency that won an award, but this small work is the one that won me over!  Look at that great woven border!

And THEN there was the fashion show!

I am intrigued with this beautifully woven and assembled handbag!

Great use of color and stripes in this vest.  It looks like it would be flattering on almost anyone.

This is an amazing piece, woven with horsehair and feathers and attached to a leather strip which fastens around the neck.

This jacket was woven from some lovely materials that I have now forgotten!  Hemp perhaps?  and linen?  It is called “Birch Bark Jacket” and the materials and woven technique make it a perfect match to its name!

It was woven with an undulating reed!

And this is the piece de resistance, designed and woven by Barbara June Gordon! The woven structure creates all the fitting in this top, and trust me, it fit the weaver perfectly!  She was brilliant to model it herself so we could all marvel at her skills.  It is an amazing feat of color, structure and fitting perfection!

Now you can see why I wish I’d never opened that first box.  I’d rather be weaving!

Yesterday I began weaving the second painted area on my workshop warp.  I did not finish this scarf although I was able to finish the first scarf in one day.  After experimenting with various weft colors and weave structures, I found that either plain weave or a straight 1 through 8 treadling sequence looked the best on my brightly colored warp.  I knew I probably couldn’t stand to weave two yards of plain weave.  Now I realize that I could just barely stand to weave two yards of straight treadling!

The first scarf was woven in an advancing twill treadling that had a 72 treadle progression.  This kept me on my toes!  I found I was soon yawning through the simple    1 – 8 repeat of the second scarf….  I ended up watching streaming episodes of “Call the Midwife” to keep myself awake!….and still, I didn’t finish.  Hopefully today!

By the time I was painting the second scarf on this warp during the workshop, time was getting very short!  I opted for my simplest photo of a vase of various lilies that I had cut from my son’s garden.

Here is a little tour of some of the NEWS exhibits.  First, the guild exhibits:

The Rhode Island Guild did an entire exhibit related to books.  The pieces on display were either inspired by literature or had to do with book making.

Sorry the focus is a bit off in this photo.  Still, I had to include it because it gave me such inspiration for making bags! Part of the Connecticut Guild’s display was a handbag making project that one of the area groups had completed

The Boston Guild has published a book of weaving patterns to celebrate their 75th anniversary.  Their exhibit showcased the projects from the book against a backdrop of pages from the book.  This may be my favorite project from the collection!  Certainly it will be the one I tackle first from this terrific book!

This is a stunning towel woven by my friend Emily from the New Hampshire guild.  Perfect color and structure choices!

I think there was a year’s worth of inspiration in the guild exhibits alone!