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Still not quite ready to get back to work. Did all the paper work, the laundry, sorted the mail...
Finished reading Julian Barnes, "The Sense of an Ending;" Kristin Kimball, "The Dirty Life;" Joshua Slocum, "Sailing Alone Around the World;" and am in the middle of Virginia Woolf, "Night and Day."
It's been subtly hinting, but today is the first day I have seen strong indications of Fall. A few scenes at the arboretum at James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia.
The last roses, and some dead ones in warm brown:
More dead blooms:
And this, at my feet:
The Complex Weavers conference has just ended, but the memories (and inspirations) remain. So many good ideas! Can't wait to get back to the looms. Here are a few snapshots from the past few days.
First—one of those informal moments when knowledge gets passed along.
Spotted in a classroom, this dobby woven scarf by Helen Bobisud (check out the borders):
Here's a quiet moment while a model waits her turn to go on stage at the fashion show. I'll bet you know who this blogging weaver is. First one to comment is the winner.
The Woven Pixel: Designing for Jacquard and Dobby Looms Using Photoshop®, Alice Schlein and Bhakti Ziek, was first published in 2006 in physical form. It was a 362-page black & white book with accompanying compact disk; the CD included all of the major illustrations in color, and all of the more than 1400 weaves described in the book immediately loadable as Photoshop Pattern Presets. The book went through two print editions.
After all the physical copies were sold in 2010, the authors offered the book and CD contents as a digital download, at a reduced price. Sales of the digital download continued until the present time (2012).
In the original TWP, the authors were working with Photoshop CS2 and Elements 4. The Adobe software has gone through many versions since then, and as I write this, Photoshop CS6 and Elements 10 are being sold. The techniques described in the book remain mostly valid for these later versions, although the user may have to look for different paths to achieve the same ends.
The original TWP contains lists of resources, some of which are sadly out of date.
The vast majority of the book, however, remains as valuable today as it was in 2006: chapters on jacquard history, jacquard design, weave structures used by jacquard and dobby weavers, and an extensive bibliography are among the many gems to be found here.
The authors are not inclined to undertake a major revision of TWP, but want to ensure that this important text remains available to the weaving community. Toward that end, we have made an arrangement with Kris Bruland at www.handweaving.net to offer the digital version of the book, minus the CD, as a free download. We are grateful to our many supporters who have invested in the print and digital versions of the book and CD; without them we couldn't have committed two years of our lives to the work. The original CD will not be included in the free version of the book, but will be available as a digital download at a cost of $100. Contact Bhakti Ziek (ziekgoodwin[at]gmail[dot]com) or Alice Schlein (aschlein[at]att[dot]net) for more information.
We hope you will agree that TWP was an important contribution to the world of jacquard design and that it will continue to inspire weavers and add to the spirit of sharing which is a hallmark of the present-day weaving community.
And while you're thinking about it, why not make a monetary contribution to www.handweaving.net? It's a great resource for weavers everywhere, and it's free!
Having such a great time at Complex Weavers that I didn't even stop to take pictures today. The luncheon speaker, Edward Maeder, regaled us with "The Rise and Fall of the Female Breast," which was laughing out loud funny (and very scholarly, too). In the afternoon I taught my class on crepe weave, and then crashed for a nap. Tonight is the fashion show. I'll try to remember to take some pix.
Meanwhile, here's another piece from last night's opening of Glamor, Glitter, Glitz. It's a book I made a few months ago, but I'm publishing it here for the first time. Cover is jaquard woven in lampas, with plenty of metallic yarn as part of the glitz theme. The selvedge is granite weave, and forms a finished edge for the wraparound cover. The binding is longstitch, and the wrap is a twisted cord made with the Bradshaw cordmaker.