Weaverly

Done and Done

An end of warp situation. This warp was tied onto four times. It's time to bring it to an end. The following two views are behind the heddles.

After cutting off the red warp, there was fabric for 2 bento bags and six smallish table napkins (I guess they're called luncheon napkins, although what luncheon means any more is up for grabs). I took the napkins immediately to the sewing machine and did up the hems.

Then I washed them and ironed them. I am now ready for my next luncheon.

The bento samplers are a little more interesting, a hodgepodge of weave structures and scraps of yarn from partially emptied bobbins. The were such fun to weave. Here they are after washing & ironing. The sewing will come later.

At OLLI we had our final rigid heddle class. So sorry to see it end! What a congenial group of weavers. At times we were the noisiest group in the building, and at other times you could have heard a pin drop, so focused were we on our work. Weaving does that to you.

Back home in the Weaverly studio, I am preparing for a sewing project. I've thrown away all my old paper tracings, because I'm not the same shape as I used to be (gravity is at fault), so I've starting making new ones. There's not a lot of worktable space, but in a pinch the floor will do.

In the department of fowl, around the lake this morning there was this:

And out in the larger world, Brian Stauffer has really nailed it on the cover of this week's New Yorker:    

Sign of Spring

When you see a kite stuck in a tree where no kite was before, you know Spring is not far behind.

The amazing weavers in the rigid heddle class continue to push the envelope and are very comfortable with their string heddles. Click to enlarge.

In my own studio, I'm giving my fingers a rest and doing some more investigations of amalgamated drafts on the computer. Click to enlarge here too.

The last one reminds me of a game of snakes & ladders.

Make America Read Again

Spotted in a campus parking lot. I really can't say it any better:

Still working on the straight threading, 16 shafts. More huck. This one has warp floats & weft floats, so let's call it huck lace.

And here are weft floats only.

In rigid heddle territory, I've been working hard on perfecting a brocade spider. Not there yet, but improving.

OLLI Class Weaving Brocade

Here are a few snapshots of my wonderful students in our OLLI class on weaving brocades.

We are following the techniques described by Erica DeRuiter in her book "Tejido Huave and Beyond", except that we are using rigid heddle looms. The students quickly branched out into designing their own motifs.

We have geometric designs...

...and creatures great and small.

It's a multiple weft technique. A pick of tabby is followed by a pick of pattern, in the same shed. The pattern is picked down in an open shed.

Getting Warped

This week marked the first session of my brocade class at OLLI. These weavers are not novices. I didn't have to spend a lot of time explaining warp, weft, shed, and all the other arcana of weaving. We just dove in. All hail the rigid heddle loom.

As you can see, we share this room with the chess classes.

Each warp is a different color. That wasn't planned, it just happened.

I think collectively we walked several miles.

A very congenial group of nine.

Meanwhile, back at home, the long warp on my 16-shaft loom has been finished, cut off, washed & ironed. There are three long pieces of cloth and a few little samples at the end. I really enjoyed all this sampling on a straight threading!

A gray day on my walk. I think the tower is leaning. Some people agree with me.

In the woods a lot of brown, but it makes the little bit of green all the more startling.

The purple cabbage relatives in the Furman Garden supply a welcome jolt of intense color to the winter landscape.

I just finished reading "First You Write a Sentence." by Joe Moran. I found it entertaining and highly useful. Thanks for the recommendation, Carla.

Orange, and More

New week, new warp. I wanted to weave more samples of the Tejido Huave technique described in this post. A little more spontaneous, this time. First a diamond.

What's better than a diamond? Three diamonds!

Then I tried something asymmetric, but graphed it out first. The challenge was to avoid any floats longer than 3. Done.

Winding onto the cloth beam.

A closeup. This might be the last warp I put on the rigid heddle loom before moving day. Maybe.

Jacquard sighting! This was while I waited for the elevator. Click to enlarge. 

Meanwhile, the outdoors beckons. On this morning's walk I spent a little extra time in the rose garden. 

And the waterfowl are always composing and recomposing themselves into elegant compositions. I thought this one looked better in black & white.

I love my daily walk around the lake. Now that it's a little cooler, I don't have to start out quite so early.

Now may I change the subject? Here's a bumper sticker I saw this morning: "Elect a clown, expect a circus." Yup.

Cut Off and Tidied Up

Cut off day before yesterday and tidied up. You know the drill, snip off loose tails, twist the fringes, etc. Here's the whole Theo Moorman sample laid out on the bed. If I weren't so lazy, I'd have gone down three flights of stairs and photographed this on the grass, but...

As I can't stand to look at a naked loom, I warped this little fellow up again yesterday. I have a limited stock of colors with me now (you may have noticed), so I used the same yarns in a striped configuration, and went for a little leno this time. I tried setting it up with string heddles, but that was a dismal failure. So this is one twist at a time. Pretty fast, actually, once you get in the rhythm. 

After it's washed, I expect it will be a drapey little scarf. Cotton & linen.

Ducks and Mosquitos

How lucky I am to have this beautiful lake to encircle every day on my walk. It's almost two miles according to MapMyRide.

The scenery is ever changing, and there is plenty of wildlife.

Meanwhile, back at the loom, we now have mosquitos. Yes, that's what they're called. You can complete a mosquito in three picks (well, six picks including the ground weave). Click to enlarge.

And more than one mosquito equals a scourge. Other collective nouns I have found for mosquitoes are swarm and cloud. I believe I prefer scourge, actually. 

Check

Getting better at the diagonals. Check.

Speed Weaving – Not

In the afternoons, the window light here is wonderful. And there is a view of Paris Mountain, should I chance to look up from the loom. Here is today's progress on the brocade sampler. Theo Moorman, pick up stick, string heddles, design as you go, loving it all.

Click to enlarge.