Click to enlarge (if you dare). I'm getting ready for a studio sale, which will be held on Saturday, April 27, from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. If you're within driving distance of Upstate SC, please stop by! Lots of fantastic bargains. Yarn, hundreds of knitting & weaving books, small looms, sewing machines, sewing supplies, patterns, finished weaving & yardage, and did I say books? If you'd like location details, please email me (click on link in sidebar).
It took all afternoon to warp this little gremlin, but the actual weaving is quite mindless. 4 forward, 4 back. Repeat.
This would be a good project for watching baseball. Or the Olympics. Or a debate.
There comes a time, in any weaving, when you just can't go any further. This warp had reached that point.
Even with a warp extender (that little orange cord at the far end), no more decent sheds were possible. The table has now been cleared for other projects.
The Summer 2016 class schedule for Greenville Center for Creative Arts is now out. I'll be teaching two tablet weaving workshops there. For more information click on the above link or see sidebar.
GCCA is a wonderful new facility housed in the old Brandon Mill. It has great classroom space and beautiful galleries. Join us there!
I enjoy browsing for tablet weaving drafts on Pinterest. A prolific textile pinner is Silvia Dominguez, and here is a band I started this weekend based on one of Silvia's drafts. I inserted my own colors.
The first picture was taken in the evening, with artificial light, very warm:
I rephotographed it this morning by daylight:
The tablet weaving students are getting more comfortable with threading their cards. Penny finished her Egyptian Diagonals band. I love her subtle color scheme.
Carol started a threaded-in pattern a few weeks ago, and completed the threading in class today. Then she really took off!
I'm so proud of them. One more week to go.
On Friday I made a big pot of borscht with beef, onions, potatoes, and two different kinds of beets. Unfortunately my guests didn't much care for beets and it was not a huge success. But they did like the homemade bread with fennel, so it all turned out OK. And Steve brought me flowers. Thank you, Steve. I am enjoying the flowers today as I eat borscht for lunch. I like borscht, actually.
The photos in the background are by Bruce. They cover one wall of the kitchen, and I get to enjoy a changing display 24/7.
At OLLI Sandy brought in her week's homework for tablet weaving class. She finished the entire band she warped up last week. It's gorgeous! Great color choices and perfect selvedges. She's now a certified tablet weaver (as well as an accomplished basket maker).
Ta da! I just finished registering online for Complex Weavers Seminars. It went smoothly. Trouble is, I wish I could have signed up for more than one seminar for each time slot. Sad face.
A few more inches today on Slashes. Many interruptions, but progress is being made.
Yesterday our class was reduced in size because of illness. Penny & I had the classroom to ourselves! Penny had made a lot of progress over the weekend; she now knows all about S and Z threadings, and her threaded-in band is coming along nicely.
Two more classes to go.
The story I was starting to tell here has disappeared during a Firefox crash. I don't have the heart to rewrite it. So I'll briefly say that the weather has been conducive to cocooning and not going out among people (except for the tablet weaving class, of course!). Spending much time at the loom(s), reading, and playing Scrabble. I did manage to put my X on the double letter square last night, but that's the best that can be said about my Scrabble game. Loom work is slightly better. Here's a demo project I worked on while the students were rewarping their looms yesterday. I finished it this morning.
The Endless Dobby Warp has been sitting idle for far too long. But during the hiatus, something seems to have clicked and this new draft is cheering me up.
The warp is a networked twill in a random mixture of red & green cottons, and the wefts are green cotton and black tencel. Click to enlarge.
As my friends and family know, I am seriously deficient in the department of botany. Let a houseplant anywhere near my sphere of influence, and it will soon fall ill and die. Case in point is this hyacinth I purchased at the grocery store last week. The pictures tell the tale.
I do better with things that don't require watering.
