Weaverly

Ketchup

Getting close to the end of this warp, I began foraging for one more weft color. I found a cone of forgotten 16/2 cotton tucked at the back of a shelf at the tippy top of my cotton stash. It looked like a an ordinary coral color on the cone, but after weaving it on the lavender warp, it took on the appearance of ketchup!

And that does it for now. I cut off the cloth, and will work on hemming this evening. Ten amalgamation samples! 

Still reading: Barbara Tuchman's "Stilwell and the American Experience in China." An oldie but goodie.

The Lazy Woman's Photography Studio

The samples from my second amalgamation warp are hemmed, washed, and ironed, and before I put them away to join their sisters, I set up a quick photo shoot on my ironing board. Enjoy.

Yesterday while grocery shopping I saw this astonishing sight. Bright blue orchids. My fellow shoppers suspected they'd been dyed. I don't know about such things, but they did stop me in my tracks (the orchids, not the shoppers). 

Department of books:

I just finished reading At Paradise Gate by Jane Smiley. Enjoyed it. Actually, I've never read anything by Jane Smiley I didn't like. And The Greenlanders is one of my favorite books ever. I've read it twice.

A Warp Continued

More amalgamation. Today a yellow weft against the gold warp.

The patterns/between/the/patterns resemble crepe. Perhaps they are crepe. 

Now a mauve weft.

Another angle. With these low-contrast combinations, sometimes another angle shows up the pattern better.

All weavers notice this eventually: the pattern of the heddles being the reed, especially with a regular threading repeat. It makes me think of organ pipes in a cathedral. 

Department of books: just finished reading Mary Morris's A Mother's Love. Very fine.

Circles, Wheels, Reels

There's a new warp on my dobby loom. Amalgamation again, this time a design with smallish circles. The warp is a warm golden yellow. For the first sample I tried a purple weft for max contrast.

Then I changed things up with a more muted combination, same draft. Funny how the warp color appears to change as the daylight alters over a couple of hours in the studio

As long as we're talking about things that go 'round, here's my warping wheel which I'm about to put on the market. Now that I no longer have looms with sectional beams, this old friend's got to go. It's a first generation warping wheel from AVL, with a cross maker added. Pass the word along. No shipping; pickup only in Greenville, SC.

And a squirrel cage reel, also looking for a new home. An oldie but goodie.

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Now the book department. Two wonderful books I've read lately. Both highly recommended.

Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay

Fools of Fortune by William Trevor

What If…

Thoughts about amalgamation this morning. What if…

I'll bump this to the top of the list for my next warp. Sixteen shafts. Click to enlarge.

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In the reading department, I've just finished Eli Saslow's "Rising Out of Hatred." Well written, fair-minded, full of surprises, and couldn't be more timely. Highly recommended.

More Interleaving

A few more inches on the interleaved warp. The colors are startlingly different depending on the point of view of the photographer and the time of day.

Here is a view from the left, photographed in morning daylight.

And here's a view from the right, in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, I've thrown - almost literally - a new handspun warp onto the rigid heddle loom, and I'm weaving it with a simple pick-up pattern. It's great late afternoon weaving, just at the time of day when my energy level is lowest. In fact, I think I'll go make a cup of tea.

Recently finished reading Simon Winchester's "The Man Who Loved China." Highly recommended! Thanks, Teena, for the tip.

A Wednesday Miscellany

I've been meaning to show you this beautiful item I saw at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe a few weeks ago. It's a 19th century undergarment from People's Republic of China. This finely crafted garment is made of hundreds of tiny bamboo beads and cotton.

The description reads as follows: Male members of the Chinese emperor's court wore these bamboo mesh undershirts to create an absorbent layer between the courtier's skin and his many layers of silk under-robes during long ceremonies, especially during the heat of the summer.

I would have taken the opposite tack: I'd have worn it proudly as an outer garment, over a silk camisole. It's really an incredible piece of craftsmanship. Click to enlarge.

And now let me tell you about the newest piece of equipment in my studio: my electric shears! How did I ever get along without them? They are a boon for arthritic fingers. 

We now turn to the book department. Recently read: Canada, by Richard Ford (highly recommended); Lila: A Novel, by Marylynne Robinson (recommended, especially if you like Marylynne Robinson, which I do - it's the third piece of the Gilead trilogy); The Game Player, by Rafael Yglesias (didn't much care for this); and I Remember Nothing, by Nora Ephron (wonderful). It's amazing how much reading you can get done if the Internet and TV are out, as they were here for several days.

Parallels

It's pure coincidence that I was buying lima beans at the farm stand on Monday, at the same time I was tying fringes on the spooled silk shawl, but the parallel between the colors was hard to miss.

The shawl has been washed and steam pressed. It has a delightfully crinkly hand, probably because of the silk noil weft, and a good drape. There's more than enough warp left for another shawl, but I have to pause a bit and meditate on the color of the next weft. I do have some orange bamboo of the right weight. Hm-m-m.

 

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In the book department, I've just finished reading River Town by Peter Hessler, a memoir of the author's Peace Corps assignment in rural China. It's a moving account of cross-cultural attempts at communication and a portrait of a country poised on the brink of enormous change. Hessler was assigned to teach English at a teachers' college in Wuhan, a town at the juncture of the Yangtze and Wu rivers. His students came mostly from rural backgrounds, and he witnessed their reactions to momentous events such as the death of Deng Xiaoping, the return of Hong Kong to China, and the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. The narrative is moving and at times hilariously funny. I couldn't put this book down. Highly recommended.

Coming Together with DDW

The appearance of Pat Foster's excellent article on Deflected Double Weave in the current issue of Complex Weavers Journal was true serendipity. Pat's work is beautiful and she writes very clearly. Great pictures, too! If you're a member of CW, you can download the Journal here. 

Meanwhile I am continuing my explorations in random patterning of DDW. I showed you a sample just started on the loom in my previous post. After weaving off a liftplan of 512 picks, I cut that sample off and sent it through the laundry. Here it is out on the deck for a quick picture before our daily thunderstorm arrives.

First the front. Click to enlarge.

And now the back.

In other news, I just finished reading Rohinton Mistry's Such a Long Journey, a funny, bitter, sad, highly descriptive narrative of life in Bombay in 1971.  Fascinating local detail and politics. Mistry, a Canadian born in Bombay (current-day Mumbai), cancelled a United States book tour in 2002 after he and his wife were targeted by security agents at every airport he visited. 

A Commitment

After due deliberation, I selected sample number 6, with draft corrections of course, and tied on another warp, this one with peach cotton and burgundy wool/silk, for a longish scarf. It's so loud that I almost have to dim the lights to weave on it! 

A closer look:

In the evening, reading short stories of Mavis Gallant.