AH, THE PALETTE IS CLEARED

 I have to say that after all these years, these moments remain some of my favorite.

 

 In case you haven't been following, this is my own horoscope woven in 8/2 Tencel. I love to experiment with weft colors and ended up using a variegated Tencel that gives and added dimension. I am wearing it as I write. I am loving that Tencel!

BOTANICAL WEAVING

Way back in the 50's and 60's, weaving with weeds and sticks was very popular. Of course, I had to give it a try. Below is the weed weaving I created in 1961 while I was a student at Rhode Island School of Design. I had someone help construct a real frame loom, and then I used phragmites (those fluffy top reeds that grow in profusion on the East Coast) . I gave this piece to my mother, who kept in hanging in her apartment. Imagine my amazement when I discovered how wonderful the hanging looked 52 years later.

The hanging looks good hanging either horizontal or vertical and the dimensions are 25"x 48"



 I thought I would create some small botanical weavings for the holidays---using dried grasses and flowers mostly from The Garden of One Thousand Buddhas. I am using jute for my  6" wide warp  with dried lavender, lily pods, willow, and I'm not sure what other things are called.

          I just love all the subtle color changes. It is refreshing after all the color I usually work with.
                               
                                        

 Below is catmint and mullen combined with willow and ornamental grasses.
 

These little beauties are so much and easy to make that they make good projects to teach beginners as well as making charming gifts. The assortment below can be seen (and purchased) at Meadowsweet Herbs in Missoula, Montana

The other interesting aspect of Botanical Weaving is that gardeners can supply their own material from their gardens as a way to remember some of their special plants. Some plants can be woven in bloom and then dried in the weaving. (so you watch the weaving change over time). Those brown balls are the seed heads of bee-balm, one of my favorites. And there is no rule that says you can't combine a little leftover ikat yarn in the weft.

THE MANY SHADES OF PEACE

Above: THE MANY SHADES OF PEACE
An assemblage of wrappings spelling out the word PEACE in English, Salish, and Tibetan. WEAVING PEACE is an ongoing project I will be doing in August at the Hangin Art Gallery and Coffee House in Arlee. Anyone who can make it to Hangin Art during my residency (August 4- 31, call for hours) is invited to add their colors.


Salish word for PEACE in 4 different color selections (above) and Tibetan (below)


And English below....

I have posted these pictures on my Facebook page: Weaving Peace-Weaving Together, but I haven't figured out how to link back to this blog.

Five Reasons Why I Love "Almost Ikat"

I finally found the perfect name for creating ikat-like effects using commercial space-dyed yarn--ALMOST IKAT.

If you love ikat, but don't like or don't have the space to dye yarn, here is a good solution.


It is so much fun to weave because the design unfolds before your eyes.


There is minimal planning.


I can use Almost Ikat as a stand alone design (as simple or complex as I desire) or use it as an accent with other techniques


I am about to cut the scarf off the loom and toss it in my suitcase on the way to Columbus, Ohio. I will finish it off and launder it at the workshop.

Check out my little YouTube tutorial for instruction on how to create Almost Ikat.

How Many Golden Orb-Weaving Spiders Does it Take to Weave and 11 by 4 Foot Tapestry?

Answer: One Million!
How long did it take? 4 years
How many people worked on it? 80 (I think those were just the number of people it took to collect the spider silk!)

Back in October, I got a real weaving treat. I went to the Natural History Museum in NYC to see the ultimate labor intensive weaving extravaganza. I was surprised to find there were no signs advertising the weaving. I asked a guard how to find the spider weaving. He said, "Go down this hall until you come to the giant mosquito, turn right and go until you get to the big canoe." And there is was tucked into a corner of a giant room with no hoopla or flashing lights or anything.
Click here to see my first reaction.


What I didn't realize is that is was woven in strips like Kente Cloth. So I imagine many different weavers contributed a strip. Wouldn't you have loved to tried your hand at weaving with this stuff? The main threads consist of 96 twisted silk lines. The brocaded patterns in the tapestry — stylized birds and flowers — are woven with threads made up of 960 spider silk lines.

The band at each edge was woven separately and attached. It looks like the fringe was also attached after the fact. I loved the braided fringe. The braided part of the fringe is about 18" long, and then there is at least 20" of chaos.


I would have give a lot to have been able to touch it. They say it feels like cashmere, but you would think it would be sticky.

Surprise!

CLEARING THE PALATE
I'll bet you thought I didn't have it in me (grin). A fellow, who brought me 30 cashmere sweaters over the past year, requested a herringbone scarf. I had to talk him into making the warp a slightly different shade than the weft. I used Bambu 7 sett at 18 epi and just doubled the cashmere rather than tripled as it was a heavier weight cashmere. I used a straight draw and am dancing the twill with a direct tie-up on 4 harnesses.

Quiet Celebration

I received one of Syne Mitchell's temari balls! I was so excited because each morning I chant my mantra "No New Crafts- No New Crafts" I thought I would never have one if I didn't make it myself. I did break down and make the object above, however. A friend of mine taught me to make them some 40 years ago. What I like about them is that there is no take, glue, knots or any sort of fastenings. Very cunning.

In keeping with the holiday spirit, I made a "wreath" of recycled cashmere balls.

Actually, it is the weft for the horoscope weaving I have on the loom.


I'm about 2/3 done. It is really fun to change wefts every 12 picks or so. I can't wait to see it off the loom. I have made an extra yard to use for the woven sample in the kits.

Christmas Wrapping

I didn't feel like weaving but rather to watch It's a Wonderful Life for the umpteenth time, but what to do with my hands. I have several warps in mind for the upcoming year, so I thought it might been fun to do some wrapping. For scale, the widest are 1" x 6" although I can imagine them being large enough to be a room divider.

Most of the wrappings are words and colors selected by clients.

From left to right the words are: mirror imaged UNFOLDING in two different colorways; TOUGH, CHEERFUL, INSIGHTFUL; mirror imaged my last name TARSES in my colors and then my mother’s colors; ENLIGHTENMENT; OHM (repeated 3 times); FAST, ENTHUSIASTIC, CURIOUS; ENERGY, BALANCE, WISDOM; INTELLIGENT; INNOVATIVE.

I have come to believe that single words repeated or mirror imaged make a stronger statement.

The single word I am taking for myself and everyone into 2009 is HOPE. I think I will go and wrap it right now.

More Finding the Colors Within

A VIRTUAL QUILT CREATED BY THE WHIDBEY WEAVERS GUILD

Several years ago I taught the workshop FINDING THE COLORS WITHIN. I asked for a scanned copy of each students' woven collages. There were 64 woven collages, each one measuring 4" x 4". They actually were 4" x 5", but I trimmed off an inch because I wanted each piece to be a square. Then I grouped 4 squares together to make 16 eight inch squares.

I know it is possible to do this in photoshop, but I did it all at Kinkos. They really got to know me as I spent countless hours and countless dollars there. They also have a fabulous paper cutter there---very accurate.

So then I reduced the image to an 8" square and printed 2 of them. I flipped the image and printed 2 more and pasted them together. The quilt below measures 16" x 16"

The possibilities are endless.

One of the things that fascinated me about teaching these workshops is that each group produced quite different collages, both in the look and in the number of collages (which changes the configuration of the quilt)

Joining the Big Commission

Remember the Big Commission? I just went back to find the date I began this project--February 2, 2007. Some things take longer to complete than other things.

The only parameters I received from the client was to weave a blanket 90"x100" with a bamboo warp and recycled cashmere sweater weft. I knew I was going to weave panels and join them together, but the size of the panels, the weaving technique, and the colors were all left to me. I had recently seen a textile show of the Sarawak weavers of Borneo and became enchanted by the concept of having the design come to me in a dream rather than plan out a design on paper. So that is what I did. On the side bar of this blog under LABELS is the topic Big Commission with 12 entries. (if you want to track my progress).

Then I ran into a couple of snags which stopped me cold. When I had completed 5 panels, the design seemed finished although I had only 74" in width. When I washed the panels, they became 88" long. So I waited for a dream to tell me how to proceed. That was back in March.

In March my world went into high gear with putting the condo up for sale and moving. I still continued to wait for the next chapter of the dream. As August draws near, I realized I just need to join all the panels together and finish off the top and bottom and call it finished at 74"x88"

I am not great at tailoring, but I am a fabulous joiner. It takes me between 3 and 4 hours to join 2 panels together. It is a great way to catch up on movies or recorded books. I know it is not generally a summer time project, but it is raining and in the 60's here today.

The book shown below is a fabulous book (out of print), but I was lucky enough to find a copy. I used to check it out of the Seattle Weavers Guild library, and I was the only one to ever check it out.

And what about the folks that have commissioned a larger blanket than they are getting? I have spoken to them at length, and I believe they will be thrilled with a blanket this size. It weighs almost 5 lbs as it is. I know they live in Montana, but a 7 lb blanket is just too heavy to deal with. I will be weaving them each a bamboo cashmere scarf, so they will get their extra inches in another format.

My plan is to ship the blanket on August 4th to get there in time for their 5th wedding anniversary. I will ask for pictures, but you never know.

Big Commission Takes a Holiday

It seems like a million years ago I started collecting cashmere sweaters to un-knit and use the yarn as weft to make a blanket. After I had collected 4 or 5 sweaters and took them apart, I put the skeins of yarn in my cedar chest and continued on my weaving journey. A couple years ago I was telling a friend about this great idea to make a blanket out of recycled cashmere, and she agreed and commissioned me to weave a blanket 90" x 100" that had the unknitted cashmere as the weft. These were the only parameters.

Slowly I began testing various warps to combine with the cashmere and finally settled on Bambu 12 doubled and sett at 24 epi. I ikat dyed a bunch of the bamboo and wove a 20" panel to see.

I wish I had time right now to re-cap or at least to give you the link to my older posts that chronicle the project panel by panel, but the airport shuttle will be here in less than 6 hours and I haven't finished packing and still have a couple more feet to weave before I can cut the piece off the loom (and I really want to take it with me).

I will attempt to fix the links whenever I get near a computer in the next couple of weeks. But the picture above shows some progress. I joined two of the panels together. I love the way it looks so much I decided to wear it as a shawl on my trip. It looks and feels quite divine. I am taking the other 3 completed panels with me and will join them all together in my spare time.

The delivery date of the completed blanket is August, and I have 4 more panels to weave. It is time to get busy.

I am sure you have noticed the narrow horizontal panel is longer than the ikat panel. Well, I fixed that right after I saw the picture (grin)

More Tests

It has been a busy couple of days, what with becoming another year older and all. I only had time to run a couple more colors through. For me it ends up being like smelling different perfumes---after 3, I can't tell the difference.

In the bottom right corner of the picture below, we have China Red in Bambu 7. The next stripe up is China Red in Bambu 12. The 3rd is Wine in Bambu 12, and the 4th Mandarin in Bambu 12.


As it stands now, I am favoring the Wine in Bambu 12 with the China Red in Bambu 7 a close second. It is very interesting to me just how different the Bambu 7 and Bambu 12 weave up. Next I will weave double strands of Bambu 12. I have often found that double (or even triple) strands of fine yarn wound together as weft produces a more supple cloth that wrinkles less.

The Second Time's a Charm

I delivered the shawl this evening, and it was very well received. I must admit it was hard to let it go (on one hand) and a great relief to be able to cross it off my list (on the other hand)

I really liked this picture although I had to remove some annoying kitchen appliances from the background on the left. Do you think it is too strange to have half light background and half black background? I can change it, but I can't decide if I should.


Onward!

Saturday Night Weaver

My silence has not been due to the fact that I haven't been working. I don't know if you remember this beautiful bamboo warp? Please click here to read A Cautionary Tale. I can't stand retelling the story although it was necessary for me to re-weave the shawl. I put it off as long as I could....

I knew I had to weave this piece before I could move forward into a new year. I did change the colors a bit and the spontaneous ikat stripes are a bit different.

The problem I faced with my first try is I couldn't make myself pack the weft tight enough because I didn't want to cover the warp with the chenille, and ended up weaving too loosely. I didn't make the same mistake this time.


Miraculously when I washed the shawl, the warp colors came through-- muted but certainly there. The tennis balls in the dryer worked really great! I will be delivering the shawl on Monday. I will attempt to get a picture of the owner wearing her shawl.

This was certainly a character building exercise, and I heartily resolve to never make the same mistake again!

Now I am moving forward again with just 11 days until my first Blogiversary. I am planning something special, so stay tuned....

Still Weaving Every Day

Today someone asked me if I wove every day. I gave this long convoluted answer, when in reality, the answer is a simple "yes". I don't keep track of the inches I weave, but ever since I came home from the Saori Conference, I have made "weave every day" a part of my "practice".

I settled on triple strands of medium grays of my unknitted cashmere sweaters for my weft. The picture doesn't do justice to how mellow and rich the gray gives to the vivid warp. And I am really loving the commercial space-dyed bamboo combined with the ikat dyed bamboo.

Overcoming Errors

As I was winding back this lovely warp, I noticed that I had left out 3 colored stripes (between the purple and orange stripes in the center of the picture) and the orange, olive and brown stripes should be to the right of the ikat stripe rather than the left. The error appears in the word "optimism" (begins with the very bright orange stripe "o", the red is "p", the dubonnet is "t", the blue is "i", and the purple is "m". I completely left out "ism" and put the word "new" there instead of putting "new" next to the word "beginning".


So I fixed it because I could and because I should have double checked my Woven Words before I started winding back. Of course, I am the only one who would ever know an error had been made.


Whew, that's a relief! Now I am back where I started, ready to move forward tomorrow.

I used to resist fixing my mistakes. I used to get angry at myself for making mistakes. I used to think that once I had been weaving for more than 20 years I would stop making mistakes (or I would have made all the mistakes there were to make).

I make as many (if not more) mistakes as I ever have, except now I see them as a humbling device. My mistakes have become more sophisticated over time, and I now believe there are an infinite number of errors to be made. I always learn something from my errors, and one of my great joys in weaving is knowing I CAN fix most every one. Though once in a while, I do have to cut my losses, and it is good to know when to just cut a warp off the loom and move on.

Designing in the Raddle

Here I am at the place in the process of dressing the loom that most excites me. I arrange the warp chains in an order that seems pleasing. When I stepped back and looked at it, I thought there was too much black in the center.

Sadly this picture is out of focus, but I think you will be able to see how I am able to alter the design. I lift out the chains I want to move, and then reposition the ends in the raddle.

The ikat stripe to the left of the turquoise stripe (and the matching stripe the second ikat from the right) is the place where I dropped in the black I removed from the center. The black ikat stripes frame the commercial space-dyed stripes shown on the warping board in the last post.

The What and Why of Turned Weft Ikat

Combining commercial space-dyed yarn with my ikat dyed yarn.

Every time someone asks me why I don't just wind warps and ikat dye them instead of ikat dyeing lots of skeins and winding the warp after the yarn is dyed, I have to stop and ask myself the same question. Why don't I?

I found when I tried winding the warp first and planning my design in great detail, I had a hard time achieving the results I imagined. It was hard and frustrating. Although my method is not particularly fast (It takes me about 20 minutes to wind an inch of warp), it seems so easy and so full of surprises. It's as if the threads themselves have created the patterns for me. When I am weaving an ikat piece, it's like watching a beautiful painting happen before my eyes.

I have hundreds of balls of natural dyed ikat silk I've collected and been using since the 70's. They were dyed by many different dyers over the years. I can still add them to a warp, use them for embellishment, or use them in my wrapped wall pieces. They are like tubes of paint that never dry out.

I enjoy the spontaneity of designing a warp directly on the warping board. When I design in this manner, all "figuring out" thinking happens before I warp the loom. Dressing the loom and weaving the piece become more of a relaxing meditative process.

Dye Day #5 A

I had all these good intentions to take lots of pictures, but I only took this one of the dyeing process. I figured most dye pots look alike. The only reason I took this picture is because the dye formed some kind of foam on the surface. The other 2 pots were fine. So far I can't tell there is any negative results.

I did three dye pots. I thought I would be smart I do one pot of Jet Black, one of Midnight Blue, and one Navy. This would give me a chance to see how these colors work with the 8/2 unmercerized cotton. I did toss in a couple of skeins of bamboo, however, because I knew I would have room. What I didn't do was pay attention to which of the blues I put into which dye pot. Tomorrow I will show you what they look like almost dry. I have them hanging outside, and it is not supposed to rain for a couple of days.
I got so excited to see how my masking tape experiment worked that I unwrapped one before I took a picture. But here is a black with one of the blues. I will tell you now that the masking tape is an unqualified success. So even though my back still hurts from 5+ hours of rinsing, I learned something. Well, I learned a lot actually and will sum it up tomorrow complete with a revelation, a realization, and the answer to the question, "Why don't I wind my warps before I tie and dye the yarn?"


I have not abandoned my Weave Every Day goal (although I was too tired after dyeing and 5 hours of rinsing to do any yesterday). I am inching along on panel #5.