Seattle Art Museum

One of my sons and I visited the Seattle Art Museum, or SAM as it is called locally.  The first place we went was the Gauguin exhibit, and while I would have loved to take pictures, they weren't allowed:-(

Right outside the entrance to the Gauguin exhibit was an awesome sculpture made from strips of woven and / or pieced fabrics, some of them appeared to be bound in a similar way that most quilts are usually finished, and if I had to choose my favorite piece in the museum that day, this would be it!

The other exhibit I was drawn to was the weaving.  There was a glass cabinet with shelves containing medium to small woven baskets.

To the right of it was this woven mat, which I believe is made from cedar.

And in another case was this dress, which I also believe is made from cedar.  I can't imagine wearing tree bark, but sometimes we have to make do with what we have or can find.

Of course there were lots of other interesting exhibits, and since we're all doing more recycling these days, this one really caught my eye and I couldn't believe it was made from scrap metal from bottle caps and wraps.

Another Madrona UFO - Finished!

I've wanted to try tapestry weaving for a long time, especially after a good friend gave me a tapestry loom that had belonged in the family.  Although I have spent a little time on my own trying to learn from books, wove a small sample, I really do need to learn the techniques in a way that I can remember them, instead of just following instructions for a sample, and forgetting what I've done by the time I can work on the project again.
This year Sarah Swett taught several classes and I was able to get into her Undercover Sketchbook and Weaving a Pouch on a Cardboard Loom (that's the title on her handout, but I think the class title was a bit different).  I loved both classes and have finished my woven pouch!

We learned how to warp our cardboard looms and begin weaving, learning tapestry techniques along the way.  She said we could draw a design if we wanted to, so I drew a spiral for one side and decided to keep the rest of the technique experiments on the other.  Some things worked better than others and I learned so much from this class I'm hoping to draw something up for the big loom and get started, although I know it will be slow progress.  Anyways, here's my bag:

Hot off the Loom

The grey scarves are finally off the loom! There is even a bonus 4th scarf, because I had made the warp longer than I needed for 3 scarves, and it turned out to be long enough for a scarf, but will need to be hemmed, because there is no yarn for fringe at the one end.  I always try to weave the remaining warp to save as fabric, and this time I'm grateful to have had enough to make an extra scarf!  Now, I'd better sit down and start twisting fringe, because I still have the previous 3 scarves to twist as well, making 6 scarves that need to be finished!  The good news is that I'll have some that can be set aside for "instant" gifts:-)

Garden, Quilt, Knit, Knit, Weave... and Book Giveaway!

Since April showers are supposed to bring May flowers, I thought it might be time I offered to giveaway a copy of my book!  Post a comment to this post before April 15th, and on April 15th, I'll draw a winner, so you can start making a floral quilt in May! 

This year, my gardening started indoors, planting seeds in flats, but is now moving outside.  Space has been cleared for the peas, and they're now all in the ground. There are two kinds, snow peas and snap peas, and we're looking forward to eating the fruits of my labor in the future.  In the meantime, I'll be watching over these, as well as the other babies that will be to small to go outside for a while, like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and some others.

The stack of sewn blocks for the Figs and Ginger quilts is growing, and I get a feeling of satisfaction every time I get to change to the next set of colors!

I've ripped back to my mistake on the Aquitaine Cuffs, fixed the error, and am now ready to move on:

My green Oatmeal Sweater, is moving along, and for those that were wondering what I was going to make with the yarn I'm spinning, this is the project that inspired the wool purchase, but since I'm making it in the green yarn, I'll probably choose a pattern when the yarn is finished.  The sleeves have been attached, and I'm now working on the pattern at the bottom of the yoke and working up, so I'm nearing the finish line! (Sorry, this isn't the best picture - the sweater is really green.)

On the weaving front, I've finished the scarf I showed you last time, and have begun to weave the last scarf on the warp.  This one will go much quicker, because the treadling pattern is easier, and I'm only using one shuttle!

Madrona Fabrics Finsihed!

The fabric for the acoustic panels at Madrona Digital, are finished!  I have yards and yards of fabric, just waiting to be stretched over the panels and hung in their showroom.  I can't wait to see the finished panels!

Here's the new, brighter warp on the loom:

I wove the second, small panel with orange carpet warp, and think it will look nice on their green walls:

Here's the start of another panel that I wove with the tan boucle thread,that I had used for the light stripes in the first sample:

And here's my stack of hand woven fabric:

Weaving - largest project I've attempted!

I'm designing, and weaving some fabric that will cover acoustic panels.  I guess I should really say that I'm altering a M's and O's kitchen towel pattern from Handwoven magazine - widening the design and using boucle threads, that wouldn't usually be used for this type of weave (because my husband likes the texture).  So far, I've woven a test piece that is large enough to cover one of the smaller panels.
After washing, the fabric feels wonderful, but the fabric blends into it too much, even though the colors work.  Weaving with thread colors is almost like mixing paint colors, with the weaving pattern letting more or less of the different thread colors show.  So far, we like the pattern, but the colors need to have more contrast with the wall.  

To save some time, I made the first warp a half yard longer than I needed, so that I would be able to tie the next warp onto it.  You can see the remainder of the first warp threads tied loosely in front of the reed, and the next test warp hanging in front of the loom, ready to be tied on.  This time I'm using one of the original colors, and the rest are lighter or darker than I used in the first sample.

Late Christmas Presents - still in progress

Yep, I am still working to finish a couple Christmas gifts.  The lighter scarf is for my dad, and the darker one is for my husband.  Hopefully, I"ll have time to sit down and twist the fringe so I can give them to them.   I decided to make one pass in each shed instead of two, to make the weaving go faster, as I was already running so late with these. For anyone interested, the pattern is called "Large Herringbone Twill" and is from the book, Sixty Scarves for 60 Years.

Gifts made for others

Before Christmas, I was busy making gifts, so I couldn't post pictures because the recipients might be peeking.   Now that they have all been gifted, I can show you the gifts I made for others, at least the ones I remembered to take pictures of - some flew out the door as soon as they were finished!

Let's start with this quilt basket.  No, it's not the one I made earlier this year (or was it last year?) for me to tote things on road trips (it fits perfectly between the front and back seats of our cars).  My brother-in-law saw my basket, and thought it would make a great magazine basket, so I made him this one for Christmas.  The coloring is slightly different, with the stakes and weavers having slightly different shades when it dried.  The shape is also improved over mine, because I've had more practice:-)  For a short while, I thought it might not get finished in time for Christmas, because I managed to break one of the ears that attaches the handle to the basket in my rush to finish it in time. Luckily, the basket supplier was able to get the new handles to me in time to finish weaving and let it dry in time!

 

The pin cushions I made for a couple of my friends, Cathy and Ellen were from the same pattern as this chicken pincushion (pattern by Reets's Rags for Stitches), but I gifted them before taking a picture.  Theirs have a bunny jumping over flowers, and are so cute!

Everyone that saw my apricot / black swirling stars scarf, loved it, and I had read about weavers tying a new warp to one that was already on the loom, so decided to make lots of scarves for gifts, making two from each warp and then tying the next colored warp onto the ends and winding on, so I would be able to make them quicker.  I was amazed how quickly I was able to get the new warps on, and begin weaving again - about 3 hours, tops!!!  The other nice thing was that once the first warp was threaded correctly, I was able to tie on the others without errors, making it not only quicker, but more accurate!  Of course the 8-thread stripes probably helped keep me on track.

One of the blue / black scarves was gifted to my friend Cathy, and the other to a brother-in-law:

The fuchsia and teal scarves went to friends:

One of these black and white scarves went to my sister-in-law, and the other is still to be gifted to a friend.  You can tell from this picture that from each warp I wove one with all stars and if I had enough of both colors, I wove the second as stars with a band that had a rope-like design (same treadling, but only one color weft in that area).  If I only had enough of one of the colors, the scarf was woven with only the rope design.

I thought you might like to see a close-up:

And here's one of the black and white scarves, once the fringe was twisted.

I also wove a black and tan scarf, and also wove off the remaining warp of each colorway, both to experiment with woven colors and also to save for other projects.  A few were long enough that I might have enough for small purses or bags, but I'll decide that later.

All knotted up

No, I haven't stopped weaving, it's knots in the way of progress, not to mention quilts with deadlines and getting ready to go to Quilt Market in a few days, which I'll save for separate posts!

First, the lovely braid of yarn ready for the loom:

Now the knots, which I believe was caused by fuzz on the yarns, but became knots, because I didn't notice early enough, and of course, I tugged it tight before I looked on the other side of the loom (probably wouldn't have happened if I'd had a helper (or anyone just watching the other side).

So, I still have a way to go, before the warp is beamed, let alone threaded and ready to weave, but I'll get there eventually...

Where to go from here?  When I get back from market, and have the time to patiently work on it, I'm going to try to pick it out.  If that doesn't work, my current backup plan is to break the yarn and knot in another length that will be replaced as I weave, in the same way that any broken warp gets replaced (maybe I'll use a different color thread for the temporary warp length, so I don't miss it).  If you have any other ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Weaving With Fabric - again

Another project in the other studio is on my rigid heddle loom (mentioned in the previous studio post).  I thought I could use it to weave up the remaining fabric strips and make another tote, but so far, I'm wrong:-(  On this loom I'm not able to beat the fabric and yarn as hard as on the floor loom, and although it's still pretty, the fabric is sheer and not suitable for a bag of any kind.

This picture was taken a bit closer, and hopefully, you can see how open the fabric is (and this is with the warp tension released, so I don't think it will get any better).  Maybe this will be ok for a shawl or sheer curtain, but I've either got to learn how to make friends with this loom, or it may eitherbe  resigned to only weaving knitting yarns or on it's way out of the studio.  (If it was my only loom, and only creative outlet, I'm sure I'd spend more time experimenting, but I love my inkle and floor loom, and have the new tapestry loom to learn, while I've had this one for over a year, and still haven't fallen in love with it - maybe I'm just spoiled with the others???)

What was I thinking?

Actually, I do know what I was thinking, although when I planned this project, I didn't stop to figure out all the litle details such as how I would support the cross of both the main, hand-dyed warp and the stripes that would be inserted when warping the loom. Up until now, I've put all the warps on this loom from the back, because it has a built-in raddle along the top, that makes spreading the warp quite easy.

Lucky for me, I was taught to warp a table loom from the front, in the beginning weaving class that I took, and I purchased a 4-shaft weaving video, and both used some different techniques. So.... I've combined them. The cross in the main warp was held by my lease sticks, which I suspended between the castle and front beam, and the striped warp was held in my hand. At first, I threaded the first stripe repeat in the reed, and then couldn't see how I could keep it in my hand, and at the same time, work with the threads that were on the lease sticks. In the end, I secured them and finished threading the main warp, leaving spaces for the striped portion. It helped to have threaded one stripe, because I was able to count the number of reed slots needed as a sanity check, which was really helpful with a 1, 2 threading sequence!

Once the hand-dyed yarn was threaded in the reed, I went back and filled in with the stripes. I think the most difficult part was separating the strands of yarn at the cross, so that I could see what I was doing, because it was a bit stuck together from the dyeing process. Behind the reed, the yarn is tied into large groups with slip knots, so that I can take a break as I try to decide if it would be best to count and move heddles to the other side of the loom (I'll be threading the heddles from the back of the loom, instead of the front, as I usually do), but from the back, the heddles are on the wrong side. I guess I really know they need to be moved, but most of them are quite tight, so it will take some time to get it done, so I'm just procrastinating on what I need to do, as it took so long to get this far. I probably could have had the whole warp beamed and most of the threading done by now, if I was warping from the back, although I wouldn't have been able to insert the second warp, since I only have one warp beam.

At any rate, this is what it looks like now:

That Rayon Warp

has been on the loom since June! Why, might you ask? Well, due to threading errors and busy schedule, I hadn't had time to sort out the problem that I'd found AFTER weaving my color sample (at that time I thought everything was fine), and as I was getting ready to begin weaving the scarves. As soon as I inserted my paper fringe spacer, it was clear that I was not ready to weave, as I needed to fix errors first. As you can see, the thread pattern at the top is not the same all the way across:





I must have been distracted with choosing the weft color, because I tried four different colors and didn't notice there was a problem with my threaing. At any rate, here's the front of my sample:





And here's the sample back:






Now that I've corrected the errors, I'm weaving the scarf! Oh yeah, another little error was not noticing that I should be reversing the threading for my loom, so I'm weaving upside down, but that's ok, as I can just turn it over when it comes off the loom - it's better than changing the tie-ups at this point:-)

Handwoven Scarves

The scarves from my first hand-dyed warp are finished! They are both so different that it is hard to believe they came from the same warp, and I love the way they came out!!!

The warp is 5/2 pearl cotton that I dyed with Procion-MX at a class at Weaving Works in Seattle, the weft is Webs 10/2 bamboo in a medium olive green.

For the other scarf, I tried the 8-shaft Wall of Troy draft posted on Weaving a Life's Blog, and will definitely try it again, because it gave the scarf a more complex look and when the light hits it the right way, it looks iridescent!

I thought you might like a close-up shot of the woven pattern...

Next on the loom (currently being threaded through the reed), is the Rayon warp that I hand-dyed at the same class for the twill scarf article, "Twill and Tencel for a line of luxury scarves" in the September / October 2009 Handwoven magazine (p. 46). There is one threading diagram, with four different tie-up and treadling plans, so I'll do at least a tiny bit of sampling before I start weaving.

Beading, Weaving, packing for Sisters, OR

The amulet is ready for fringe. I did attempt adding small beads to the sides, but was unhappy with the look (and needle I was using), so decided to gather beads for the fringe, and am still digging for more variety, and deciding what small beads I'd like to use - so it waits...

Ellen and I finished our shawl pins, and this is mine (sorry for the sideways view, I don't have time to Photoshop the pictures right now).

The rigid heddle warp is now set up for my first try at log cabin weave,

and the inkle loom is filling with bookmarks. I've got to try some others in different colors and patterns.

On the quilting side of things, I did put together the background for the Madrona quilt last weekend, but forgot to take a picture before quickly folding it up to bring home, and here at home, I'm working in a narrow hallway, so there is no way to get back far enough to take a picture.

I'm heading to Sisters, OR next weekend for a week of classes and lots of fun with other quilters, so I've been busy making kits for my class projects. In five days, I'm taking four classes, and have kitted up my supplies for three (yeah, it's the easy classes where everyone makes the same thing, in their own fabric choices), but the last class has me thinking "why did I sign up for this class?", although I do know the answer to that question - it's with Janet Fogg, and I'm dying to learn her design techniques, and design my own project using them. The problem is that her class sample is in a sort of 50's style, with lots of black and white, and the ideas for my project are quite different, and have animals. My son thinks I should do the one kind of animal with green leafy fabrics for fur, and the universe as tea in a cup. So what to do? My friend is going to come look at the piles, and piles of fabric I've pulled out and hopefully help me with a sanity check, because the last thing I want to do is pack up a ton of fabric and then wish I had chosen totally different ones when I am in class - it's way different than changing your mind at home!

Two kinds of weaving

Since the beads were already out, I decided to do a little rearranging, took some things out of the way that didn't belong and moved them, found some already bagged projects ready to start, and decided it was time for a new amulet. I haven't been wearing them as frequently as I have in the past, but only because some of them are in need of repair (mostly due to the neck strap thread breaking from wear against metal clasps, and I've since found French wire that will hopefully alleviate that problem in the future).

Anyway, this pattern reminds me of the quilt pattern Grandmother's Flower Garden. It is in the book Beaded Obsessions III, and has lots of beautiful designs (there are more on my to do wishlist) in the small amulet size I love to wear. I'm halfway finished, and will start working from the bottom down, which is actually the other side of the amulet, as this will be folded in half when the beading is complete, and sewn up the sides, and then fringe will be added to the bottom fold (sometimes I also add even smaller beads along the sides to cover the sewing).



On the weaving front, my first hand dyed warp is on the loom! It was a bit more difficult, because of the tangling that can occur when dyeing and washing out the dye, but I wound it on slowly, stopping to untangle as I went.



I'm almost halfway through the first scarf! This one has green bamboo weft, and I'm loving the way it almost dissapears in the warp! It's going quickly, but I do need to make more progress on the quilting side of things.