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We were a little late with the program this year. Couldn't get the entire cast of characters together in time, but last night we made up for it.
No latkes (I find them indigestible), but Catalina requested brisket, so that's what we had. Outdoors the weather was frightful, but indoors the weather was fine.
I was the lucky recipient of a beautiful alpaca sweater. Thought you'd like to see it up close, as I know you appreciate good textiles.
It was so many days since the sun last showed its face that I had almost forgotten what it looked like. But it came out in full glory yesterday and there were real shadows! On my walk, that friendly cat on McKinney Lane, the one who greets me by rubbing her tail against my legs, came out and we had a nice chat. Her shadow was especially fine.
We took a quick run downtown for a first look at our show at MAC. Kim and crew did a beautiful job hanging it, and I was surprised to see that some of Bruce's photographs are totally new to me—or else I'm looking at them with fresh eyes. Beautiful.
The books look good, too, and it was interesting to see the butterfly-themed book displayed open flat. Makes sense!
I hope at least a few folks will get a chuckle out of "My Secret Life." At nearly eye level, it's hard to miss. If you take this book home, you can complete it with your own secret life.
Another view of the gallery.
In case you missed it, here is a look at the announcement and invitation to the opening.
This has been the most challenging critter so far. With every change from black to white there is a contrary motion of the tablets, which means more to keep track of. But the day is cold and the sky is gray; I was happy to stay indoors and figure it out. An entire afternoon gone by, and one fish to show for it. But such a pretty fish.
I borrowed the design from Otfried Staudigel's Woven Images, Unravelled Motifs: Double-faced tablet-woven bands from Burma, Tibet and Tunisia. It's a Burmese motif designed for a wider band, but I was just able to squeeze it into 24 tablets. It would have looked much better on a wider band, with more background area to surround the motif. But I was impatient to go fishing.
Chicken? Pheasant? Peacock? Does it matter?
This bird took considerably less time than yesterday's stag. Both sides shown. True double cloth. I still think it's magic.
Bruce & I have a show opening at MAC. Click on this invitation to see it full size. Black & white photographs and handbound books are featured.
All the books have handwoven covers and just by coincidence, the photo Bruce chose for this invitation is of a kimono I wove and stitched for him in the 1980's. It was my very first project on a new 16-shaft AVL mechanical dobby loom: a 60-yard warp, for four kimono, one for each member of the family. What goes around...
I am humbled by the genius of generations and centuries of tablet weavers who, without aid of computers or even pencil & paper in most cases, have figured out the twistings and turnings of these little cards, and designed elegant and mind-bogglingly complex bands. I am also humbled by more modern weavers who have written about tablet weaving; thank goodness I don't have to reinvent the wheel in order to enjoy this technique. Here's my short list. Download list.
I spent an entire morning trying to figure out how to weave this little stag, carefully following the general directions of Linda Hendrickson and borrowing a pattern from Ottfried Staudigel. I still made many mistakes and false starts (my fault, not the authors').
Alas, my puzzle-solving skills are not as sharp as they were when I was twenty-something, but I persevered and finally finished this fellow. It was the forward and backward turnings and their relative positions that almost did me in.
No finished dobby or jacquard piece has ever pleased me the way this one did. Honest!
Here I've moved back a bit so you can see the entire loom.
It's time to tackle double-faced weaving, tablet style, and I prepared a warp today with this in mind. There are 24 cards, each with two dark & two light threads. The two end cards on each side will be turned continuously in one direction, unlike the rest of the pack; therefore they have to be tensioned separately. Here's the setup, ready to go. It's on my PVC pipe loom, which has become my favorite. Pattern dark, ground light.
The center 20 cards are tensioned with a half gallon plastic jug filled with water. The four selvedge cards are tensioned individually with fishing weights, so that the excess twist from coninuous forward turning can be released automatically as the weaving progresses.
That's the theory, anyway. I'm a great proponent of learning by staying two steps ahead of my students. If any of you are reading this——trust me!
We're home again. The laundry is done, the mail is sorted, and now it's time for my favorite holiday activity, the middle school band concert. My special clarinetist is third from the right. They were pretty good this year. Progress is being made.
The paparazzi were out in full force.
There were a few attendees that didn't make it all the way to the end.