Weaverly

A Few Surprises

I found this surprise in my camera as I was downloading pictures from last week in New York: the moon as seen from W. 51st St.

 

And I found this surprise in my driveway today, after weeks of weather-related delays:

 

 

This bodes well, as does the return of this fellow:

 

I've started weaving Pillows, which you first saw here:

Pillows will have a patterned border, a device I've used a few times in other work. The patterning acts as a frame, but uses the same weave structures included in the body of the piece. The weaving is going well. All heddles behaving nicely.

And what a wondrous and splendiferous item arrived in today's mail! A box of handcrafted chocolates from a weaver/chocolatier. I just noticed that the text on the tablecloth reads "It's an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers." 

  

And, to cap things off, The Book has arrived back from its copyreader extraordinaire (all will be revealed).

 

 

 
 
 

Canal at Halfway

Canal is at the halfway point. Amazingly, the aspect ratio calculations were pretty accurate, and the sketch is weaving at the original proportions. I am not always so lucky. The weave I chose for the black lines is composed of black plus colors, so it has a lively mix up close, not dead black. I am really liking that. Click to enlarge.

At grave risk, I contorted myself to climb under the loom and photograph the underside of the web. The underside of double weave always has its own surprises.

 

And if you're still following the saga of what's going on outside, here are the new fenceposts.

Inspection, and Another Book

When you come to inspect a building site, you've got to check out the machinery…

…and try out the new sidewalks.

 

Meanwhile, back in the studio, the results of the new screw punch are revealed. I like this book so much that I photographed it from all angles. This is the first book I made where the outside of the cloth spine is uncovered. The lining is handmade Thai paper fused to the cloth with Mistyfuse. I worried a little about fraying of the handwoven samitum (the cloth is recycled from a failed wallhanging) after the holes were punched, so I dabbed on a bit of FrayCheck before spine sewing. There was no discoloration after the FrayCheck dried, another good thing. The wrapping band is a simple 8-strand kumihimo braid, and the button is of unknown pedigree, from my stash.

 

 

 

Construction Alert

After weeks of inactivity resulting from the huge amount of rain dumped by Hurricane Ida, the crews arrived this morning to continue work. Hooray! The new front walk is being laid:

 

...and holes have been dug for the footings for the new bridge:

 

...and to satisfy the inner four-year-old in us all, here is a little video of the concrete mixer at work:

Pixies

When we awoke this morning and looked out the window, we saw this erosion barrier along the creek. It wasn't there last night, so I conclude the pixies came and installed it while we were asleep. 

 

The pixies did not finish winding and beaming this black and white warp, however. This was done by yours truly this morning.

 

And the pixies had nothing to do with this kumihimo cord. I am experimenting with different treatments for the bands around my current crop of soft-cover long-stitched books (and yes, Barb, I think the ply-split bands will be way nicer). 

So the score today is Pixies 1, Alice 2.

Time Well Spent

I'm trying to improve my command of long-stitch binding technique. In their excellent book Books, Boxes & Wraps, Marilyn Webberley and Joan Forsyth suggest that time practicing the long-stitch with discarded manila file folders is time well spent, and they are right! I made a dummy book out of file folders and practiced stitching on this mock-up, and I'm much more confident of my binding skills now. 

 

There was more time well spent in the weaving studio today. I finally got over being depressed about the failure of my black warp of a month ago, and started a new warp with new yarn, this time black and white for a double twill project. It's going slowly but well. There are no sexy pictures to show you yet, but I did want to mention it.

And while I was warping, all h*** broke loose outside. The landscapers are back after a weeks-long rain delay. It was kinda hard to concentrate while these guys were moving rocks and such right outside my studio door, but I'm so glad they're back. I made a little movie as they moved the bridge upstream a couple of feet, if any of you are interested in such exciting stuff.

The Birth of a Notion, and Other New Beginnings

The Birth of a Notion was the title of a seminar/panel discussion conducted by the late weaver and writer Margaret Windeknecht at a Complex Weavers seminar. I believe it was the year the seminars were conducted in the Chicago area, which would have been 1988. Unfortunately my notes from this seminar lack the date, so if any of you CW-ers can pinpoint the date more accurately, please chime in.

Margaret presented the panel with a set of design problems or challenges, and during the seminar the solutions were discussed. The panel consisted of Rose Rubin, Tommye Scanlin, Alice Schlein, and Kathryn Wertenberger.

One of Margaret's most interesting challenges to the panel was this newspaper photo:

 

I chose to interpret this photo as a double weave on 16 shafts. I was further inspired by Eve Broughton's article, Double Weave in Four Colors, in the Complex Weavers' Newlsetter, Issue #23, page 3 (If anyone has contact information for Eve, please let me know). 

Here's the profile draw down of my interpretation, titled Overlapping Rectangles, scanned from my seminar notes (click on any of these to enlarge).

 

Detailed tie-up information:

 

And finally, a scan of the woven fabric sample, front and back:

 

It was a wonderful seminar, and I'm grateful to Margaret for setting me off in directions I've traveled happily since then.

In other news, just as I was writing this blog, the landscaping crew arrived! The rainy weather of the past few weeks has delayed the start of their work, but it is now beginning in earnest. 

 

 

Ampersand House – First Sketches

Yesterday Willy brought over his first sketches for Ampersand House, the writer's hut to be built over the stream on the back corner of our lot. It is so exciting to see his ideas take shape in 3D. We put the models on the railing on the back deck, so that we could photograph them with the existing bridge visible in the background. The horizontal lines are to indicate that there will be air space between the boards. There will be large openings on both long sides, doors on the short sides, and the entire building will be screened. Benches will run along both sides of the interior. There will be a metal roof so that we can sit inside and listen to the rain!

This young lady had a few ideas of her own. Teddy, in the background, looks like he couldn't care less.

Drawing Large

Scott came over and marked off the new planting beds with a paint gun on wheels, an interesting device that allowed him to stride quickly over the ground and paint broad orange strokes. It was intriguing to watch him work this way, with large gestures on a big canvas. Such a contrast with the way I paint, with my little mouse and a small graphics tablet. Would working on a larger scale change the look of my designs? Probably. How could I incorporate some of these large gestures in my work? By getting away from the computer, for starters. I'm reminded of some of the wonderful environmental graphics during the broadcasting of the Tour de France––fields with clever arrangements of hay bales, photographed from a helicopter. Now there's a thought.

Time for a Redo

We bought our house 36 years ago, and neither of us has any gardening interest or ability, although Bruce from time to time indulges his fancy for roses. This is an ordinary lot in an ordinary subdivision. It does have some interesting features, such as a sloping terrain, a little stream across one corner, and some wonderful trees. Over the years we've lived here, we've maintained the health of the trees (to keep them from falling on the house!) and seen to periodic mulching and lawn maintenance, but aside from that, things have gotten a bit out of hand. Here's a satellite image of the lot, and you can see the stream and little bridge across the upper right corner. On the upper left is a largely natural area of azaleas, rhododendron, and overgrown brush and vines.

 

Two views of the overgrown thicket:

 

 

The stream is an area we want to uncover. At the moment it's filled with brush & vines, and there is a little bridge over it, leading to the small triangular area at the back, also overgrown.

 

 

Willy, our architect son, has been wanting us to build a little writer's hut on the triangle, but this morning he came up with a better idea: how about replacing the existing foot bridge with a small covered bridge which could double as a conversation area. It would be roofed and screened, have built-in benches for seating, and would be a great place to listen to the babble of the stream (at least I hope the stream will babble after it is cleaned up).

This week we'll all be meeting with Scott, the landscape architect, who is proposing the creation of a woodland trail through the back, replacing the leggy and overgrown foundation plantings in front of the house, and generally sprucing up the place. I'll be documenting the process here, so stay tuned.