Still Too Busy to Blog

But not too busy to cook! I was invited to friends for Thanksgiving and decided to make a breadless dressing. I won't bore you with the entire list of ingredients except to say three of them: morel mushrooms, chestnuts, and wild rice.
I am mostly getting ready for my show "Where Weaving Meets Paper" opening Friday, but I had to take a little break and wrap some words. I'll tell you more about this project after the show.


And I had to whip up some more brooches as the stock was dwindling.


And poor Grace, the loom, has been sitting idle for weeks, and this project has been looming (so to speak)
It always feels good to drape warp chains over the loom. I will also tell you more about THIS project after the show opening.

Now that I have quieted the blog goddess, I can go back to the project at hand.

And the Weave Goes On

Here is my new Grace-full studio. Gary, as you know, is living elsewhere for the foreseeable future.
My first piece in the new studio will be a Bambu 12 Woven Words scarf with the words
(fittingly) GRACE/RELEASE. I like to do a wrapping before I wind a warp. It gives a chance to see and work out some of the colors.


As you know, the client selects both the words and the colors. I am merely the agent in this co-creating process. I use the black and white "almost ikat" to separate the words.

And, again, that most wonderful and scary moment---cutting the weaving off the loom.

And then the most exciting moment--walking backwards across the studio while holding the beginning edge of the weaving.

Stay tuned for more on the words: Grace and Release!

Endings and Beginnings

Weaving delivered to happy owner. I know some have asked about the piece in the background, but for now you will just have to speculate.



I will not bother to show you another round of packing and loading and hauling and moving, but here is an arty shot of my new entry way taken with my phone. I am now wading through mountains of boxes and slowly embarking on the the next phase... life without Gary.

The Very Last Words

DEDICATION//CURIOSITY
It was very exciting using words I normally wouldn't have chosen OR colors I wouldn't have chosen.
But I just love it.
The most exciting moment---yet again.

So as Gary's last warp slowly sinks in the West, we begin our farewell to the little house.

Gary's Last Words

As my moving date looms large (pun intended), it seems that in order for me to move into the apartment of my dreams---Gary will not be able to make the move with me. As I wove the words ADVENTURE/LOVE/LAUGH/CLARITY, it became clear to me that Gary was ready to have an adventure on his own. He hasn't yet figured out what he is going to do, but we have had a lovely weave together.

I've had a couple of people offer to house Gary, and I would be able to come and weave whenever I wanted.

There have been a couple of times that I tried to sell Gary, but I had no takers. Ideally, someone close by would either be interested in buying or renting, and I would have visitation rights (be able to weave 2 pieces a year on him). I can weave most everything I need to weave on Grace.
(with a few exceptions) As I get older, I find it easier to weave on a smaller loom.


I will keep you posted. If you have been hankering for a fabulous Fireside Loom, this might be the time. (And summer is a great time to come to Montana)

Making Lemonade and Paying it Forward and Loose Ends

Several months ago, there appeared on Facebook the opportunity to Pay It Forward. If you were among the first 5 people to respond, the person who posted would send you a gift of something they had made (within the upcoming year). In turn, you had to post on your page and then make a gift for the first 5 people who responded. I don't think it has been 6 months, but I have just completed my gifts. I have the list of 5 and will contact them.

The lemonade part of the post is that this warp was originally going to be towels for the towel exchange, and I made the warp too narrow. Instead of fixing it, I just decided to weave it off as is. So I experimented instead. The pinkish piece off to the left is woven with cashmere. The bluey one in the middle is rayon chenille, and the white is a thick cotton chenille. I was quite pleased with how each of them came out of the dryer. And I look forward to sending out my Pay It Forward gifts.

Back to the warp at hand. Here is a little scarf I pulled off Grace (posing on my newly warped loom)
Woven Words and Almost Ikat warp all ready to go....


Sometimes it is hard to begin.....

But Not Too Busy to Weave

There are a few weavings to do before I pack up the studio, and this is a Woven Words Blessing Shawl.


I have to say this is one of my favorite couple of steps. This is when I get to see what the weaving is actually going to look like.


Up until this moment, the cloth is a bunch of notes on paper and some color wrappings. And then...the shawl reveals itself.


CLARITY/LAUGH/LOVE/ADVENTURE/LOVE/LAUGH/CLARITY

A Fabulous Big Blanket for an Amazing Little Person

What a wonderful way to celebrate a day of gratitude!

I don't really have words, but I just had to share this picture with you. Imagine sleeping wrapped in the blessings of your family.

Parents report that Maya goes right to sleep as soon as she is wrapped up in her blanket.

A Wonderful Workshop

I always think my workshops are wonderful, but I really believe they get more wonderful each time. I also believe that a more accurate title for this workshop would be Creating a Personal Color Gamp. Since many of the students decided to use bamboo yarn, I thought it would be helpful for me to bring my current Bambu 12 shawl. I manage to cut it off the loom at 10:30 PM the night before the workshop. I brought it unfinished and measured it---28" x 104".

Then I took it home, finished it, and brought it back the second day. It was great to be able to demo the change not only in size (27" x 96") but in the amazing change in drape and hand.

I had taught an earlier version of Color Horoscope Weaving to the Missoula Guild several years ago. Three of the students from before came back to do it again. Here they are: Karla, Vanetta, and Coby showing off their horoscope shawls in 20/2 cotton (tripled and sett at 24 epi).
I can't wait until they finish their new weavings. They all agreed that the new improved workshop was more fun.



One of the things that made the workshop fun were the color exercises. Creating a personal palette and the introduction to Woven Words made me wish we had at least one more day to further our color exploration. The Missoula Weavers Guild is a great group!


Of course, now I can't resist making a montage of the Color Horoscope Weavings in process. (although now that I look at it, I can see that I duplicated some and left out others) Ah, it is surely a work in progress.


So now I am a member of the Missoula Weavers Guild---something I didn't do when I lived here in the 70's. (grin)

Blessing Baby Blanket Complete and Shipped

For some reason, the computer would not let me make a post last night, but here is the blanket moments before I raced off to FedEx for a Monday delivery on the East Coast.

The finished measurements are 40" x 64" plus fringe. My plan had been to hem the fringed edges and cut the length down to finish at 48" as requested by mother. I wove the extra length because there was extra warp. I was planning to present a small woven strip to each of the grandmothers. However, everyone who saw the blanket insisted I send it as is---at least for now with the idea that I could always cut and hem it later and the parents should see the whole piece.

The picture was taken by my new across the street neighbor--

Now to unpack and set up my "office", work on back orders, and get ready for a Turned Weft Ikat Workshop in 2 weeks in Ohio.

And of course---weave

First Weaving in my New Home

I don't have the energy to write much. I feel like I have been running a marathon.

Ah, the thrill of victory.....
The dimensions before washing---44.5" x 72". I wove some extra which I planned to trim off when I hemmed the blanket after washing and drying in the machine. I usually get about 10" shrinkage in the length.

Yes, it is true, bamboo/cashmere washes nicely on gentle in the machine and dries in the dryer on low. It is really quite miraculous. I'll have a picture for you tomorrow before I race off to FedEx to ship before noon, so it will arrive on the East Coast on Monday.

Weaving With Intention

The focus is on "intention". The blessings I receive from the client are qualities they desire to wrap around the baby in a permanent "hug" rather than something for the baby to grow into.



I was going to tell you all about how I was 60 heddles short when I was threading the loom and that I had to have the only person I could think of with a Fireside loom FedEx a hundred heddles from Arizona. I was going to tell you about how I then proceeded to miscalculate the number of dents and had to re-sley---but I won't bore you with the details.

Instead see the cashmere I selected to use in the weft. Each different color and shade represents a cashmere sweater my mom and I unknitted together. (By the way, on my last visit to my mother, we decided that we had taken apart just the right amount of sweaters. I am no longer collecting cashmere.)


It looks like plaid---who would have guessed.


I just looked up the definition of plaid---interesting
A fabric in which bands of color running horizontally and vertically intersect to form squares.


Here's another definition:
Wide and multicolored stripes on different colored backgrounds for creating various patterns.

And another:
a plain or twill-weave cloth with a pattern of intersecting stripes.

I just have a few more inches to go, and I will cut it off tomorrow.

Blessing Baby Blanket

I don't recall what I was thinking when I accepted a weaving commission due on October 1, but I did.

The family selected 18 blessing words (and 9 colors) and requested a blanket 40" x 48". A blanket with that many words would have to be 80" wide. The family told me to decide, but I didn't want to leave out any blessings.

What to do?

I decided to put 11 blessing words in the warp (Bambu 12 doubled and sett at 24 epi)

Words are (from right to left)

Kind, Courageous, Creative, Curious, Inquisitive, Rhythm, Patience, Persistence, Joy of life, Confidence, and Charisma

The other thing I did was to treat each blessing as if it were the ONLY word to reduce the number of colors and give a more cohesive look (which I think it does)

The weft will be the recycled cashmere (triple strands)AND spell out the rest of the blessing words so I won't have to leave out any!

These are the words that will be weft: Adventurous, Love of music, Sense of humor, A good friend, Able to forgive, Strength and Unconditional love

I haven't quite figured out the weft in cashmere yet, AND I can't imagine what it will look like. It will surely be a surprise.

So I guess you could say that I am settled in my new Montana home...(grin)

Currently I am unable to send email, so if you have been expecting an email from we---next week for sure.

Rumors of the Big Weave

As I mentioned, this a test for the Dalai Lama weaving. I want to see how natural dyed silk combines with recycled cashmere.
When I test (sample), I always make a scarf.

Although this picture is dark, I thought is was adorable.

And, of course, the most exciting moment of weaving! I don't always have someone there to take a picture of this moment, but perhaps I should.....


Now to finish it off and launder to see just how it feels.
AND then to begin getting ready to head over to Montana in just a few short days.

Today I got a laptop! Tomorrow my personal assistant Breanne (sometimes model, video maker, artist and Renaissance Woman) will transfer data from this computer to the laptop. Let's hope for a smooth transition.