Tag Archives: weaving

“Explored” on flickr

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IMG_5541What a shock to find more than 18,000 views on this picture! The pleasing (and to me, astronomical) number was the result of flickr posting the image to their “Explore” gallery.

It came at a time when I’ve been reconsidering flickr. I’ve adjusted to their new format, I have. But, I don’t enjoy going there so much anymore and I don’t groom the way I used to — don’t always bother to populate my albums, add tags, see that there are comments, never mind respond to them.

Don’t look to it for connections. Been thinking that instagram might better suit. [I also found myself wondering in a paranoid flash, “Wouldn’t it be really, really creepy if flickr somehow KNEW I was ready to bail?!!”]

Anyone else? Where do you put your pictures, with what expectations and what results? Where do you find connection? Have you switched platforms in the last few years? Is blogging dead?
As for the picture, it is another weaving study that came out of Jude‘s most recent online class. Below is a pictorial narrative. I am hoping to make nine woven patches in the cloth.
Third of nine, in progress:
This morning, a fall wind blows warm air around. The tail end of last week actually found me putting the heat on. Thankfully, a sweater will do today.

P.S. The vintage linen base came out of my 2012 indigo pot. The dotted indigo fabric and the indigo threads woven in — from recent weekend in South Carolina.

Wrap up

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But before I go off to my LIST and my PAGES and the CLEANING I like to do on Mondays, I wanted to assemble a collection of pictures from the summer class I took —  ‘Considering Weave’ with Jude Hill over at Spirit Cloth.  Just as a place to see what I did.  How much I learned.  These kinds of visual bookmarks make a difference down the road…  it is so easy to underestimate or lose track of the volume of threads/cloth that went through the process with me… this will help me remember!

And, by the way, the act of doing this — its value both now and later — is just one of the many, many things learned from Jude.

in-process butterfly received a needle woven body — idea to embroider words inspired by Cindy over at handstories

some actual weave; some figurative

one of my indigo cloths with woven opening — made so many mistakes!

a woven patch — lumpy, loveable, functional

the “Triscuit” crater — backing from my indigo vat

buckling caused by size of opening could not be fixed even with machine stitching to a heavy weight backing

woven ‘islands’ extending patterning over edge — one of my favorites from the class

woven islands partnered with Middle Passage piecing

visual weave with vertical and horizontal running stitches

the crow got a woven base and flew off to Wendy Golden-Levitt

seeing warp and weft all around

continuing on a piece in context of weaving — many sections begun in another of Jude’s classes

more strip weaving because it’s hard to stop; travels well

speckled vintage linen from Deb Lacativa’s dye pot

blue sky — arashi technique with commercial dye — by moi!

sampler: Corn Guy

as I started ‘sewing’ more, back neatened up (worked top down)

copy of Jude’s waves. Woven on primitive box loom (which was a rectangular basket in my case)


Planning to order a bead loom so that I can continue without some of the frustrating tension issues caused by wrapping warp around a basket and taping it to the back.

I didn’t get a chance to make any fringe and look forward to trying.  Would like to edge some of my Star Maps with it. And, I can’t wait to try some of the more experimental techniques offered this month. Any more meaningful reflections on the class will have to wait.  It was a terrifically provocative journey (as usual)… and if other classes I have taken are any indication, the fruits of the learning will keep coming over the next months and seasons.

Bye for now!

 

 

 

Corn guy and Womb

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Funny to be weaving “fall” when it got so sticky hot here today. This guy got his start on a napkin-basket-loom.  I was trying out some things from the weaving class with Jude Hill (Spirit Cloth, side bar), and sort of having fun.  The warp caught in the grooves of the basket edges and stayed put well enough, but I could only use tape to secure it on the back, so it got loose in places — sometimes to the point of near unworkability.
Mostly today I pieced rectangles of cotton together, pressed the seams one way or the other, and enjoyed the cool of my basement.  I ran the fan all day to churn some of the mildew smell out the back door. That sounds awful but it wasn’t. It was a nice retreat after two very intense weeks of travel and settling the boys in.
In fact, the cool quiet of the cellar was perfect for my first ‘official’ day of the empty nest — a day that found me tired, disoriented, a little sick, and in real need of silence. I stitched a linen frond to the woven island piece (above, left) and excavated some of the sections representing Africa from the Middle Passage series (above, right)In the little square above, I put some of the ‘Ghost House’ remnants next to fabrics being used to designate ‘Strange Fruit’ in the ‘White House of Privilege’ series. A panel with a moon stitched on it is being blown sideways by the fan.  I like that almost more than anything else! Middle Passage scraps partnered with Ghost House piecing (above). Reading the recent ‘Atlantic’ article, ‘The Case for Reparations’ (by Ta-Nehisi Coates) has got me thinking about all this again (as if the events in Ferguson, Missouri weren’t prompt enough)…And all these tiny little ‘doodles’ wanting a home. The grid has one inch squares, so you get the scale.
I’ll close with a few pix from Vermont.  We camped at a state park located on an island in Lake Champlain.  We did this to save money, but it was really wonderful!  So quiet. So pretty.



The weather was perfect, and it was nice, as it turns out, to break up the drive and the border crossing over separate days. Since we’ve had some really nice visits to Montreal, including a few memorable dinners, there was no feel of a pauper’s compromise in this plan — none at all. Look at those skies!!

Opening in the center

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First, a rectangle. Then, a turtle born from its center. A long idle period ensued.
The center opened up (thanks for the idea, Jude).  And I got to work.
“The Paradise” entertained me (BBC period drama).  It is what “Selfridge’s” might have been had it been any good.  My husband figured out that we could keep the air on downstairs without risking a flow of water through the mudroom’s light fixture. This was a great relief.

I could live with the ‘having to take two warps at a time’ mistake (seen above).  In part, because it reminded me of spider parables cautioning against arrogance and the middle eastern rug-making practice of purposely allowing imperfection so as not to offend the gods.
But, when I took the piece out of the hoop, a faulty tension revealed itself:  oh such major lumps!! This is imperfection of a different order. The spoiling kind.  I couldn’t find my spray bottle (it’s been missing so long now I have to assume the leprechauns took it), so damp-stretching was not an immediate option. The attempt to stabilize with machine stitch was quickly abandoned.

Since some of us are headed to the Rocky Mountains today, it will have to wait.
Laundry got done in town. This beast gobbled up 23 quarters!!!  K. has disassembled our machine, watched YouTube repair videos, and ordered parts. Probably will save us $900.
Last night, the studio received its ‘flood preparation pick up’.  All items on floor are housed in plastic bins — no paper, no baskets, no leather or wood. Rugs up. Foot pedal up. I hope this will have been an unnecessary precaution.
Spotty check ins for a bit. My password for WP is not working on my phone this morning for some completely opaque reason, so we shall see.

 

Considering Weave – summer class with Jude Hill

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Last week marked the beginning of another online learning adventure with Jude Hill over at Spirit Cloth.  I will not footnote every idea/work that springs from there (out of laziness; also to honor how quickly the ideas may flow).  Just know here, upfront, there will be many strands of discussion from that forum showing up here, with gratitude and excitement!I made many woven rectangles during Jude’s class “Cloth to Cloth”.  At that time, I discovered how one could FIRST weave with the cloth, THEN create more weaving with thread (after all, a RUNNING STITCH is essentially a weave — over/under, over/under), AND THEN, create more faux weaving by appliqueing chips of fabric onto the surface.
I found the exercise of making these rectangles satisfying and irresistible. I have piles of them downstairs.  Pictured above are four that were lying about. Early experiments in incorporating woven rectangles into larger quilts (like the landscape, upper right) were not always successful.

Last night I worked on a Little Pink Elephant (notice her woven skin!!).
The horizontal blue stitching came first.  Next, I stitched the vertical white thread to look like weaving.  Unlike a loom, where the vertical threads would be the stable, structure-forming threads, my verticals are wobbly… they are forced to accommodate the less-than-regular rhythm of the blue.

I am in love with the concentric circles in the sky.

Would I have thought to interrupt the circles’ paths around the blue disk without the discussion of weaving at Spirit Cloth? I don’t know.  I’ll probably travel a different color thread through the white circles.

The rest of the pictures are from the morning’s walk and all triggered by the thoughts of weave in general and basket-making in particular.