Woven to a random rhyme

Newly mounted piece

2011-09-26T15:06:00.000-07:00

Here is a piece that I just finished mounting. Once I got lighting on it, I saw that the mounting still needs some tweaking.

It is a small experimental piece 4 inches wide by 6 inches tall. It is the first piece in which I have tried shaping a tapestry with pulled warp. In the aqua weft, I would leave small rectangles every inch or so and used paper to hold my space. In the green grass section I just continued to weave. I did this piece on a small copper pipe loom. Once finished, I pulled the warp to form pleats in the grass. It supposed to be reminiscent of waving sea grass. Unfortunately, you cannot see the pleating in this photograph. I am not sure how to light it to see the pleating.

This piece was a study for a larger piece I was thinking of weaving, but I decided I did not like the results as it did not turn out as I had envisioned. So, rather than scaling up this piece, I am thinking of a new piece working from a photo I took on Lake Champlain while in Vermont.

Fiber Transformed Group Show

2011-09-19T10:45:00.000-07:00

The fiber art group, Fiber Transformed, of which I am a member has a show open right now in Suffolk, Virginia.

September 11 - October 28, 2011

"FT: Fiber Transformed Exhibit"
Suffolk Art Gallery
Bosley Avenue, Suffolk, VA
Call for gallery hours and directions: 757-514-7284

This exhibit includes the the Fiber Transformed show, "Wish You Were Here" plus additional work by each of the group's members. "Wish You Were Here" is a show that uses travel photographs taken by members as inspiration for art pieces.

Hopefully I can make it down to view the show before it closes!

A Growing Garden

2011-09-15T05:19:00.000-07:00

Sometime ago I posted photos of our front yard after we moved back in after our renovation. Then it was a bare plot of land with a wall and a sidewalk. The sidewalk was new, and the wall quite old. Here is a photo of our burgeoning front yard. After 15 years of marriage I find out my husband doesn't like those messy cottagey gardens. So we ended up with a different kind of yard. After looking through scads of garden books, I found one picture where he said, Oh, I like that. It was by Piet Oudolf, a garden full of grasses, he loved the structure and look. So, grasses it was. I have fallen in love with all of them. They look different at different times of the year and of the day.

The grasses in this photo are quite small and will take a while to mature, the ones on the left which are hard to see are quite beautiful and standup against a wall.

These grasses are a bit larger, but hard to tell in this photo. It is hard to be patient sometimes with a garden, but in time the grasses will all fill in and be quite beautiful. These grasses, pink Muhlebergia look lovely in the winter with their pink blooms that glow in the morning sun.

I do have one area that is more like a cottage garden which is filled with grasses and very tall wild flowers. They are supposedly deer proof, but several gotten munched on pretty heavily this spring and summer. This garden has a wild unmanaged look with tall grasses with while puffy flowers intermixed with flowers. About 90 percent of the garden is native. We did put in four crepe myrtle trees because we couldn't find a native that fit in the space with the same structure, and there are a couple of flowers that are in the garden that are not native, but otherwise....

One thing that I love about my meadow garden is the visitors. The butterflies and bees have loved this plant which started blooming in June and is still blooming now, although not as pretty as it was in June, it is still attracting visitors like this Hawk's moth above. My children observed that the bees tended to come in the morning and the butterflies in the afternoon. I even saw a Monarch butterfly yesterday visiting.

I haven't gotten any weaving done, but I do love my garden!

Ruminations on Style

2011-03-31T13:59:00.000-07:00

I have been struggling to find a unique voice in my artwork. Do I have a unique style? What does wikipedia have to say on this topic?

"...style refers to the aspects of the visual appearance of a work of art that relate it to other works by the same artist or one from the same period, training, location, "school" or art movement. This may involve all the elements and principles of art, and other factors, often very difficult to analyse precisely.

By changing the way they paint, apply colour, texture, perspective, or the way they see shapes and ideas, the artist establishes a certain set of "rules"..."

Hmmm, when I read this definition I think that I don't have a definite "style". Although as I start to think of the art that I have made over the years, it pretty much has one thing in common, with the exception of two pieces done for art classes, it all represents something in nature. No matter how hard I try to do something else, I have not produced any pieces that represent the "made" landscape of humans. I have a few pieces that are fairly abstract, but again they are abstracted from nature and not from anything in the "made" environment.

However, it seems to me there is no defining way that I apply thread or yarn or weave. There seems to be no unifying color scheme, I guess the only defining way I see things is often to see the little things in a big way. I tend to overscale my views of nature. I paint (just one piece really, and I don't really paint paintings anymore), quilt, embroider or weave things that are either the same scale or oversized so that you see details that you don't normally see. I love to look at the inside of flowers for their defined structure, I like to look at the patterns that the waves form, I like to look closely at fauna. Is this a style? Who knows. Could someone recognize my hand if I put all my somewhat disparate pieces in the same room? Just my musings as I drive from the orthodontist to ballet to soccer back to ballet back to soccer home to feed animals back to the kitchen to cook dinner....

Does an artist have to have a style? Is it something that is an unspoken requirement? Will I develop more of a style as I spend more time at the loom? I guess only time will tell.

Finally "framed"

2011-03-31T07:18:00.000-07:00

I wove this flower tapestry last year for the open small tapestry exhibit for the ATA biennial. It was an experiment in combining the use of a regular weave with one in which I used two warps under and two warps over. What I found was although the weaving went faster, it of course pulled in more. Then, I found that I didn't pack the weft tight enough and a third of the way through the tapestry when I decided it needed to be packed tighter it changed my composition completely. I couldn't go back and reweave it since I didn't have time to finish it to get it to Albuquerque in time, so I had to improvise a change so that the composition was more balanced. I have to admit that when I cut it off the loom I was not very happy with it, and have not been happy with it since.

I have been trying to get it mounted on some type of frame or canvas since. I tried painting a canvas for it, but it looked really flat. I went through my stash of fabric and found a piece that worked perfectly, but wouldn't you know it--I didn't have enough fabric to cover the canvas. I went to the quilting store where I bought the fabric but it was long gone. Since then, I have been letting the tapestry sit with the fabric for the last couple of months on my studio table, looking at it when I enter my studio and letting it percolate through my brain. I finally came up with the idea of quilting a piece for the tapestry to be mounted on. So I cut the fabric in strips. I cut out two large pieces of muslin, one as backing and the other to sew the green fabric strips to and I sandwiched cotton batting in between. Once I sewed the strips together leaving a big square of exposed muslin which the tapestry would hide, I quilted the piece. Next, I sewed the tapestry to the quilted piece. I wrapped the piece on the canvas I had sized everything to, and found that I it was too small for the look I wanted. I happened to have a larger canvas that I had just purchased and so I layed the piece on top and liked the look. BUT, now the quilted piece was too small for the larger tapestry so improvising yet again, I had to piece more strips to cover the sides of the canvas. I finally stapled it to the canvas yesterday afternoon. I liked the look, but to pull it together a bit more I decided to embroider more seeds flying out of the flower head and across the quilted backing piece. I really like the whole effect now. With it mounted in this way, I have decided I actually like the tapestry. The overall size is 13x13 inches with the tapestry being 8 3/4 x 8".

Now I need to get back to my studio to get some more pieces mounted.

Update and Question

2011-03-08T06:28:00.000-08:00

The last three weeks have been very busy. Between recovering from bugs with the kids (why does the start of spring always seem the worst for catching yukky stuff?) and other commitments, I have not been able to weave at all. In fact, my studio is covered in dust, dog hair is rolling in tumbleweeds down the hall amidst the leaves and dirt the kids track in from outside. Oh well! Onto other stuff...I finally submitted the National Endowment for the Arts grant for the American Tapestry Alliance. I did it two years ago, so I had all the text more or less together, but it still took much more than the two days I thought it would take. They changed some of the format and things they wanted documented, and I had to update all of our information. I happily submitted it last Thursday.

I recently had my fiber arts group meeting. I showed my new pieces and their was a bit of discussion. There has been quite a bit of feedback on the way I mounted the piece I showed in the last post, not just from the fiber arts group, but from other friends and family. Overwhelmingly, I got a negative response from the tapestry being mounted on the white, however, I did have two people who liked the overall look, but here are the comments that I have gathered in the last few weeks...

How about mounting it on red?
How about mounting it on red or lime green?
The painted canvas is much too small, make the background canvas at least 2 - 3 inches larger in each direction.
How about leaving the white, but putting another layer of an intermediate color in it between the white and the painted canvas?

Does anyone else have any suggestions? I am going to try and get back to work on the mounting soon. Would love to hear any other suggestions. The tapestry piece is 4 3/4 X 4 3/4 inches, and the outside canvas is 8x8". I have tried to find a blue or grey fabric to use, but all the ones that I have or found look too dull and lifeless.

Any suggestions are welcome.

A Finished Piece

2011-02-09T10:52:00.000-08:00

I finished another piece of weaving in the last week. While weaving, I liked the blue and white piece shown in progress below the best. But, I am having problems figuring out how to mount it. I played around with paint and acid free tissue paper on this canvas and found I liked it. However, once I place the little tapestry on the canvas it faded into the background. Instead, what I decided to do was sew the tapestry on a cloth, then attach it to a small canvas, and then sew the smaller canvas onto the larger one. I am pleased with the results and now find I like this little tapestry. Now what to do with the blue and white one....

Just a note about living in the country, this past Sunday as I was in my studio weaving I heard a large crash of something hitting one of our large windows followed by ferocious barking by our little muttly dog. I looked out the window to see that our dog Elsie had cornered a young racoon who was putting up a game fight of defending himself against the approaches of our dog. I rushed out to realize that getting too close was not too bright not knowing if the raccoon was rabid or not and seeing it in a state of panic. I shut the back door and ran around to another door and with much shouting convinced Elsie she should leave the raccoon to its own business. I later looked out to see my horse snorting and galloping around the field and ran outside in time to see the raccoon scooting up the tree next to his field. I ran and got my camera and took photos of the little guy as he tried to recover from his panicked state. If my horse had not called attention to him, I would have never seen this little guy in the tree, his coloring really helps him melt into the tree. Luckily, he did not find my two chickens who are the only souls left from recent dog attacks in our barn.

All is quiet this week.

Weaving Progress

2011-02-02T08:22:00.000-08:00

Through the summer and fall little weaving progress occurred. Between my back saga, the holidays, and other unrelated family happenings I just didn't get any weaving done. I am finally trying to get back to my looms. Last spring I visited Susan Iverson in her studio and mentioned some problems I was having with my sand pail tapestry, the sides were really pulling in. She encouraged me to unweave it, and reweave the problem areas. I did that, and I lost about 3 inches of weaving. I am so glad that I did unweave it even if it was painful to see my progress disappear. Now the tapestry looks much better and I am finally more than halfway done. I have six more inches to weave and will try to stay focused on weaving just a little each day. Here is my progress thus far....

The other weaving that I started was something unexpected. I first started weaving some linen to try and make a shaped tapestry. I was having a really difficult time with the linen and it kept pulling in the warp no matter how hard I tried. I eventually gave up. In the meantime, my Sylvia Heyden book arrived. It is a beautiful book showing the tapestries she has made throughout her life and some of her approaches to tapestry weaving. As you can see above, the sand pail tapestry is a painterly effect with the sand and bucket. I wanted to try and expand my horizons and I enjoyed reading Ms. Heyden's approach to tapestry that indicates that the weaver should weave tapestries that are unique to the medium and not just be copies of paintings or drawings. I decided to try this approach. My fiber arts group has several photos that are to be inspirations for us to develop works that can be part of a show called "Wish You Were Here." One of the photos is of a beautiful rowboat in the waters off the Swedish coast. I used this photo as a jumping off point to start weaving an improvised water tapestry. The green at the bottom will be part of the selvedge. The blue yarn is much brighter in person and shows up dull in this photo despite my best efforts to brighten it a bit.

This is a small tapestry and will be one of a series of small water-like pieces. Now I have to figure out how to mount them.

Plum Leaf Quilt

2010-12-09T09:21:00.000-08:00

I have a couple with whom I have been friends for a while, and they just recently got married. I was trying to figure out what to give them. I finally decided to do some sort of quilt. Last summer while the kids were home, we went out and gathered leaves and did some Eco dyeing as described in India Flint's book Eco Colour. Many of the things we dyed did not color well, however, the plum leaves from our red plum tree dyed a beautiful maroon and green mix of colors. I pulled out this piece and decided to stitch veins on many of the leaves on this piece of silk.

Once I had finished all the embroidery, I decided to mount it on a piece of raw silk, machine quilt it, and make a wall hanging of it. I hope you enjoy seeing the finished quilt.

Embroidery in process

2010-10-05T10:57:00.000-07:00

I have spent the entire morning putting directions for sewing a dress onto my other blog, With Needle and Stick. Wow, I hate waiting for the photos to upload. In anycase, I decided to update this blog too. I decided to show my new embroidery piece in process. It will be a bright pink cosmos in the end, but here I am working on the center and on the shadows along the edges of the petals. I seem to be stuck representing only a quarter of the flowers that I sew or paint. I am fascinated by their intricate structure. The cosmos along with zinnias are some of my favorites. I will keep further progress updated.

In the meantime, before my kids get home on the bus, I need to get at least a little bit of weaving done. Maybe I will show you my new weaving piece next...

Times they are a changing....

2010-09-24T08:21:00.000-07:00

Looking back over what I have posted in the last few month, I have decided to split off my blog. I will post my tapestry and art work here, but I will post my clothing and knitting to a new blog: With needle and stick. I felt this blog was turning into a mish mash. I am working on art pieces and as I finish them I will post them here. I have two tapestries in the works, and I am mulling over a new embroidery piece to complement my sunflower embroidery. I have hung that piece in our house but the opposite wall is empty and crying out for a companion piece. I have selected the subject: another flower, this time a cosmos, another one of my favorite flowers. It will be an orangey pink and close up like the sunflower embroidery. I have selected the background fabric, it will be the same as the sunflower piece, now to get to work on it. It is just that I am determined to finish my coat sweater that I started last year. I have now finished the front and back and started on the sleeves and I want to finish it before it gets cold, although after this summer and the fact that we are having no fall, I might never get to wear it, another day in the low 90's with no rain in sight....

I will keep you informed of my new art, but check the new blog Withneedleandstick.blogspot.com

Summer of "REST" Or How I Spent My Summer "Vacation"

2010-09-08T07:35:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a really long while, all summer really. I do have a good excuse.... I have had back problems all summer and spent five weeks of my summer in bed. Crawling from the bed to the bath is really a bummer, but it certainly beats getting carried, or rather dragged there. I herniated a disc this summer in addition to some problems with my iliac joint, so I spent five weeks of my life in bed and crawling. Looking on the bright side, I did get a lot of knitting done. I started a coat last fall and had only gotten the front done. I am now 2/3 of the way up the back, I got to watch almost every World Cup game, I learned to stitch on my back in between reading books, that is when I was concious and not swooning from narcotics. (Nasty stuff that I don't recommend at all, doesn't agree well with the digestive system, don't ask). Here is my Alabama Chanin shirt that I stitched while lying in bed.

In between my bouts in bed (I had three separate bed ridden periods (one iliac joint displacement and two herniated discs), I attended an art composition class. I did sneak some fiber arts into the class, but the first main project was a pen and ink portrait that used the idea of value. We had to scribble symbols to make different values to give the portrait depth. I decided to make a portrait of my nine year old son. Instead of symbols I used words that had meaning for him in his life. Here are the results of that exercise.

Our final project in the class was to make a "book" of the Jack and Jill rhyme:

Jack and Jill

Went up a hill

To fetch a pail of water

Jack fell down

And broke his crown

And Jill came tumbling after.

Each line was to be represented by an illustration which had to be at least 8"x11" and we had to have at least 6 images, but could have more. Students came in with all kinds of projects. One was a wood sculpture, another were 6 pots with plants in them, another was a power point presentation of water problems in Africa, two were anime boards of a cartoon Jack and Jill. In the end I chose two dandelions to represent Jack and Jill and made a quilt showing the life cycle of the dandelions.

The class was a fun learning experience that I am glad that I took part in. The quilt is now hanging in my studio. Now I need to get to work on my other projects.

I did do a little experiment during this summer. I am thinking of doing a large scale color field. I have so many scraps laying around. I had seen the work of the artist Barbara Winoski on Lotta Helleberg's site that I thought looked interesting. I decided to use the scraps I had laying around to see what happened. Here is my little journal scrap quilt.

I want to try something on a large scale to see what happens, but I want to dye the scraps that I have, or rather overdye them to shades of blue and grey.

I guess the last project that I did, which I have been trying to do for some time was to make some big chair napkins. Having two young children, our chairs in our kitchen take a beating. White upholstered chairs are so beautiful when you are young and single. My husband had these chairs, but after a few years of kids sitting in them they became really disgusting. I recovered them, but the fabric didn't stay clean but a couple of months. I had the idea to make washable covers that I could use everyday and just take off for entertaining but never got around to making them. I finally did, and here are the results. I made them our of scraps of organic cotton that I had left from covering a sofa. I then took and sewed a double layer so we could use either side. I love Lotta Helleberg's work and decided to try my hand a leaf printing. I used oak leaves from around our farm and then also used fig leaves. Here is a photo of the results.

So now you know how I spent my summer "vacation"!

The perils of a home studio and the philosophy of tapestry and the secret to life....

2010-05-20T06:32:00.000-07:00

After weeks of no rain, we had three lovely days of rain. It was perfect, no hard down pours, no major flooding thunderstorms, just nice soft rain. Now the grass I planted is really beginning to grow, the yard no longer looks like a mud pit, but has the nice soft fuzz of new grass. After a few weeks of hard labor in the garden, I got to return to my studio, what a nice break. I have missed making art. I have scattered pieces throughout the studio in various stages of assembly, but I try to push them all along as I can. I have never been a linear thinking, singleminded person who can abandon all else for one thing. I seem to flutter from one thing to another, unless of course I have a DEADLINE!

The perils of a home studio awaited me on these rainy days however. My studio is directly across from the kitchen, which can be a minor distraction, but this week it has been a major distraction. I normally don't keep many sweets in the house and potato chips are strictly forbidden. The reason is, I confess, I have no self control. We had a dinner party this week for my husband's students who are graduating. He brought home several pastries from our favorite artisanal bread bakery. He always overestimates the amount he should buy so we had two boxes of pastry, homemade chocolate gelato, and then someone brought an apple pie. It has been too much for my limited self control so I have definitely overindulged this week.

In the meantime, I had a lovely visit with Susan Iverson... I have been reading several essays lately on the philosophy of different tapestry weavers. So far, my tapestries have all been renditions of my drawings and paintings. I have been asking myself, why the extra step? I could just stop at the painting step, except for the fact that I love the tactile element of fiber art. I LOVE fabric and yarn and the feel of them and what they can do. The past American Tapestry Alliance had several essays on the philosophy of several different weavers, the two that really caught my eye were Alex Friedman and Sylvia Heyden. Both of these women have been exploring the uniqueness of tapestry as a medium. What can you do with tapestry as a woven form that you cannot do with paint on a canvas. I really like this idea. To begin my exploration of this idea I contacted Susan Iverson who graciously spent a morning with me giving me a tutorial in shaping tapestries and showing me her work. My ideas of what to weave and how have been transformed. I soon (when the rains started) warped a loom and started weaving a small tapestry that I can sculpt into shapes by pulling warp. I also ordered Sylvia Heyden's book from Fine Fiber Press, what a revelation that book is! I am seeing tapestry through a whole new lens and looking forward to more interesting weaving.

In the meantime, I unwove about 2 inches of the sand pail, the weaving that will never be finished, since it was pulling in quite a bit. I was advised that I would be unhappy with steaming it and should just unweave it and make it right, so unweave I did. Now I am back to weaving it once again. I have 6 inches woven, and another 8 to go. It doesn't sound like lot, but it seems like it is really slow going since I have been working on this tapestry for 2+ years. In the meantime, I really want to get that tapestry off the loom so I can use it for my new ideas!

Fitting everything in

2010-04-28T07:21:00.000-07:00

Spring is finally, truly here. The daffodils are now gone as are the crocus. Now is the time to seed grass. Since our house was renovated last fall and winter, we are living with the remains of the work. As you can see from the photos out our front door, we have much to do. Plans are in the works for the gardens, but the back yard and fields are crying for grass seed. I don't really like having to mow a lawn, but with kids, you definitely need some areas of grass. I have been working slavishly to get the soil prepped for seeding. There were a lot of rocks churned up in the grass, they took out our propane tank because we switched over to geothermal, but left the hole filled with all kinds of rocky, gravelly soil, and finally there are the remains of our old brick patio and mortal laying around in the most unexpected places. We have been picking up and hauling these remains away, and tilling the soil, raking, and finally seeding, covering and watering. I have two big sections done, but the biggest sections are remaining. I keep telling myself, this too will pass, and it will be a relief to have it done. I look forward to planting the garden sections of the house, but I am waiting to finalize plans and budgets. I will be doing most of the planting myself, landscapers won't an obscene amount of money to seed grass and plant. Luckily, the kids are now beginning to be a big help with it all.

In the meantime, on the nights when I haven't fallen asleep by 9, right after getting my 9 year old son to bed, I sometimes manage to stay awake long enough to do some knitting. I am trying to finish a couple of projects that I started last year. I did manage to weave an hour yesterday.

I have started on a new project. I am not sure where this will lead, but I thought I would show it and see if anyone had suggestions. I was struck by the wonderful lines in the spring onions this year. This year they had lovely loops and curls, I don't remember seeing them like before. Maybe the deer always ate the lovely loops and curls off before I saw them. (Sorry about it being sideways, it is not like this in my photo album, but keeps coming up sideways in blogspot, weird, huh!)

In any case, I decided that I would try a new technique and embroider them onto silk organza. I am embroidering one or two at a time. Now, what should I do. The original idea was to layer them in some type of mounting. Not sure this is going to work. I have also considered just embroidering words around them and mounting them separately. I like them, just not sure what to do with them. Any ideas?

Mounted piece

2010-03-28T06:44:00.000-07:00

I entered this piece in a show last year. It didn't get chosen and sat around for more than a year. I finally got it out and took it off the board it was mounted on, worked on getting it blocked. I bought a canvas for it last week and painted the canvas and sewed it to the canvas last night. In the photo, the dark grey above the green looks black. It is not black, but very dark grey. I do like the silver highlights in the canvas, they reflect the light differently as you move around the room. Now we have to find a place for it in our house.

Cool knitting commercial

2010-03-25T05:17:00.000-07:00

I don't usually share this kind of stuff. But I saw this "knitted" commercial. It is so cool, okay, WAY COOL! Have fun! I keep watching over and over!
Natural Gas: knitting commercial

Back to old weaving

2010-03-23T07:01:00.000-07:00

I have been working on this sand pail weaving for more than 2 years now. I seem to find ways to avoid weaving it. I have finished a few weavings in between, but now I really want to get this one done. The sand pail has been a real challenge for me. I have woven and rewoven the thing about 8 times. I think I am finally done. In the last reweaving process, I wove it, looked at it a day later and found that it had regressed rather than gotten better. I then unwove it yet again, and wove it once more. I am still not 100% happy with it, but I think now if I try to fix it again, it will again get worse rather than better. This tapestry has been a big learning experience for me. I feel that I have learned a lot about weaving tapestries with it. I am going to get back to it this morning as soon as I finish the bills. One of life's pesky little things we can't avoid.

Sewing Bag Full of Memories

2010-03-18T07:03:00.000-07:00

After my mother died, my sister and I sorted through a lifetime of my parents' "things about them" (If you love the John Wayne-Maureen O'Hara movie of the "The Quiet Man" you might remember this quote, if you haven't seen the movie you should check it out!). My father was a basket maker in his later years and made beautiful, traditional baskets in the Shaker style.

My mother needlepointed, sewed clothes for me and my sister, knitted, and in her later years she learned to quilt. Among her things, I found a piece of needle point that looked quite modern.

I put it among my things and let it sit for a few years knowing that somehow something would come along sometime. After carting around my knitting and embroidery in handbags to piano lessons and ballet and soccer for the last couple of years, I finally decided what I really needed was a sewing bag that had the pockets and accoutrements that would make my travels and sewing/knitting on the road easier . I thought of the needlepoint, took it out and went to the fabric store in search of the right combination of fabrics. Amy Butler had just the thing, that piece along with some beautiful cream jean fabric looked just right. I had seen a lovely bag in a knitting store that I admired and had that in mind as I started my bag. I spent three days cutting out fabric and sewing this bag together.

I made sure I had lots of storage space for my yarn, and lots of pockets for scissors, knitting needles, thread, and whatever else I might need. I even included a pin cushion.

I have enjoyed using it, and think of my mother when I carry it with me.

Enchanted Pathways

2010-03-11T06:13:00.000-08:00

I finally finished my entry for the Enchanted Pathways exhibit at the American Tapestry Alliance meeting in Albuquerque, called Wind Blown. I was in such a rush to mail it that I did not take such a good photo. I took the photo from an angle and it looks really skewed. It is pretty square, thanks to K. Spoeirng's directions on blocking a tapestry. I have to admit, it is not totally square, I was experimenting with skipping warps on some sections, and weaving over and under on all warps on others. As a result, the tapestry really pulled in toward the top. Oh well, it was a learning experience, and it is a very different subject matter than I have used before. On to other subjects now....I am thinking about weaving a series of small tapestries called Lines. More about that later.

Spring fashion projects for the younger set

2010-03-10T08:30:00.000-08:00

I have been wanting to make something for the baby of some friends of ours. The baby is now over a year old and I finally got around to making and finishing the project. The turquoise is from a recycled t-shirt and the lining t-shirt fabric was in my stash leftover from other projects. The rabbit is from Alabama Stitches, and the dress is an easy jumper pattern that I have used for my daughter for years. This time I experimented with a bleach pen to write the word starfish all over the fabric and then used reverse applique to have the starfish swimming on the jumper. I thought it was a fun little play dress.

I also worked on a couple of things for my daughter for spring and summer. Here is a jacket that I made. I bought the book Sewing Clothes Kids Love. I love this book, and I had such fun sewing this jacket, now I think I am going to have to make myself one. I am trying to use up the stash of fabric that I have for the sewing projects that I have bought for and not gotten around to starting/finishing. This jacket was just so much fun to make!

Detail of the back of the jacket.

Signs of Spring?

2010-03-05T07:28:00.000-08:00

After all of this snow, I think most of us are a little cabin fevered. I am ever hopeful for warm weather and no more snow. I thought I would post some of the hopeful little signs we have been seeing here. I found our first egg this morning. We have one aged hen left, whom I thought was beyond laying eggs, but there it lay this morning in the nesting box. I profusely thanked Aphrodite for her gift and then my daughter and I proceeded to cook it and eat it. What a great spring gift!

While out feeding the horses, I saw the beginnings of the daffodils, a bit worse for wear from the cold, but up and a sign of spring no less. I will post some of my projects later this week, mostly sewing clothes for my daughter for spring.

Alabama Studio

2010-02-13T06:01:00.000-08:00

As you can tell by previous posts, I love the clothing of Nathalie Chanin. She also speaks to my heart, since I was also born in Alabama and spent several years of my childhood there. Her books remind me of my childhood spent eating biscuits (but not that often since my mother didn't like them, but boy, my father and I sure did), sugar cookies, and other southern delights, as well as the sewing circles with my mother and her friends, and the coffee klatches with their yummy treats. Anyway, I digress, Burda Style is having a contest for those who want to enter their Alabama Stitches inspired wear. I entered several pieces, but thought I would show one new one that I sewed for my daughter and a better photo of the black skirt and camisole top that I made.

Now it is back to work weaving my piece for the American Tapestry Alliance's Enchanted Pathways show. And, there are always the taxes to start, and the New Year's letters to finally send out....

Sun Spots

2010-02-12T14:09:00.000-08:00

Here is my latest piece, finally finished. This piece will go in a show with my fiber arts group, Fiber Transformed (FT). I have been working on this piece since Christmas. The FT show is called "Starting Point" and must feature at least one black dot somewhere. I mounted the piece on a 12x12" hand-painted canvas.

It is embroidered/thread painted with DMC thread on cotton fabric and measures 5 3/4" x 5 3/4". I beaded the sunflower center.

Yet Another Snowy Day....

2010-02-05T10:51:00.000-08:00

After 10 years of no real appreciable amounts of snow, Mother Nature is making up for it this winter. Before Christmas we received approximately 27 inches. I stopped measuring at 21", but then it continued to snow for another 20+ hours, albeit at a slower rate. This snow was followed by another 9 inches a few weeks later, to be followed by 4 more inches last weekend. The predictions for this snow are ranging from 12-30 inches. I haven't been measuring, but is has been snowing at a pretty good rate since 6 am, and it is supposed to snow through tomorrow evening. Here is a view out our kitchen window.

You would think with a nice snow, I could get a lot of weaving or other projects done. However, now I have three horses in the barn with water and hay to be given, stalls to be cleaned, manure dragged out to the manure pile. Soon, I will have to shovel a path to the barn and the manure pile. We had to stockpile wood, and start a fire to keep the fireplace clear of snow. The last big snow when the power went out I couldn't start a fire because the chimneys were completely covered in snow. My husband was stuck at a friend's house for two days because he couldn't get up our unplowed road. He is home today and busy outside doing most of the heavy duty work on stockpiling the wood. We have a fire started, but my son just came in to tell me that I need to get it going again. I have to finish this entry soon!

Of course it is not all work. My kids and I have had some fun with my husband's surf board. My childhood sled is only good on ice. With this much powder, we took out his surfboard, he took off the fins, and snow surfers we became. Here are my son and I trying to look cool as we surf down the hill into a pasture.

I think my son Scott has got me beat on the cool factor!

As for what I have been busy doing this week instead of weaving, my kids have only been in school 4 hours in the last week. However, that four hours was a nice break. It gave me time to run to the thread store and get some colors that I was running out of to finish my 10x10 inch tapestry, to run to the grocery store to get a few more items in case of power outage, and to go to my fiber arts meeting with a fiber group that recently asked me to join called Fiber Transformed. We have one show mounted right now at Artworks in Richmond if anyone gets a chance to see it. I was not able to finish a piece for this show, called Starting Point. There is another show right now at Radford University called Wish You Were Here, based on photos from members' vacations. Because I just recently joined the group, again, I don't have a piece for that show. I am finishing one for the next Starting Point show which will be at Blue Ridge Community College at the end of February. The Starting Point pieces must have at least one black dot in them somewhere, and it can be any size.

Today, I am trying to get a little weaving done. Here is a view into the studio, you can get a glimpse of my companions.

Here is a shot of my progress on my ATA Enchanted Pathways weaving.

Another snowy day

2010-01-30T08:45:00.000-08:00

We are having a particularly snowy and cold winter. We haven't had any significant snows for ten years until December when we received more than 2 feet of snow in less than 24 hours. We were predicted to get only 1-4 inches for today, but we have 8 inches and the snow continues to fall. Here is a view out my studio window.

I thought I would just show a photo of the sand pail. This is my first larger tapestry and has been a real challenge for me. The sand pail has been a hard piece to weave for me. I have woven and rewoven that section about 8 times, but I am finally pretty happy with it. I think the rest of the tapestry will go much faster.

Finally, here is a look at my new small tapestry. It is a bit of a departure from what I have been weaving. The other pieces have tended to be more realistic. This one is very graphic and is inspired from a quick painting that I did in a painting class. More on this piece as it progresses...

Another scarf

2010-01-30T08:29:00.000-08:00

My sister's birthday is coming up next week. I tried to start some projects for Christmas, but I just couldn't get anything done. Moving back into our house and cleaning up the house we were in took all of my time. However, I decided that for her birthday, I would make a Natalie Chanin inspired scarf. It is similar to the one I did shown in an earlier post. However, this time I decided to try something different. I used a black and white T-shirt material, so it is high contrast. I made it reversible by using embroidery floss and sketched a trumpet vine directly on the material with soap. If you don't know this trick, it is a great one that my mother taught me. You can sketch your quilt lines onto dark fabric with soap. It fades, so sometimes I have to do it more than once, but I just give myself a general outline. I then stitched the leaves, stem and flower, and then cut out using a reverse applique technique. I have to say, that the reverse applique is SOOOOOO much faster than the applique. I was able to finish this scarf while my kids were at school. It was a fun project, which I hope my sister enjoys.

A messy Sunday with my daughter...

2010-01-27T05:11:00.000-08:00

A couple of months ago, my son went off to work with my husband, and my daughter and I were left to figure out how to spend a yucky day at home. She said she wanted to make something. I happened to have the book Felt Wee Folks out of the library at the time. This is such a great book for making fairies, knights, and little bags like the one below. Linden picked out a pattern, and we got to stitching. She picked out embellishments and stitched some of it herself (asking a 6 year old to stick with it until the finish is a bit hard). I just used the felt that I had on-hand, so it is acrylic and not wool. I just haven't gotten around to ordering a bunch of wool felt, so expensive. Anyway, it was a fun project. Linden and I had fun making it, and she feels the pride of making something herself. I think it turned out great for a little girl's bag, maybe even for a big girl, too.

Down and dirty quilting

2010-01-24T09:47:00.000-08:00

My latest project took a few hours, but let me start at the beginning of the story. My competition horse, Oliver, lives most of his life outside. When he is inside, he gets bored and starts to get into mischief. He has flooded the barn twice by turning on the water faucet, he can open his latch and door, he likes the windows open, if they are closed he'll bust them out....

After bringing a pony home for my kids, he decided he would gallop around the field showing off, he then misjudged the distance and footing and slid into a gate, caught his legs in it, and sliced open his leg. He had to have 4 big stitches. Now while his leg heals, he has to live in a stall for the next three weeks. I put away his outside blanket and I had to pull out the inside sheet and blanket. They both had seen a little wear, so after washing them again, I had to patch them both and sew and quilt the patches on the blanket. A few hours of work sure beats spending $100+ dollars on a new blanket and $60+ on a new sheet. Sometimes you do what you gotta do... Now back to my art pieces.

Finished quilt

2010-01-22T11:03:00.000-08:00

I finally finished my second art quilt. I don't think I posted a photo of the first one I did, I could do that later... Anyway, I took a photo of this beautiful clam, Tridacna squamosa, a female that spawned about a year ago. I took the photo at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps in San Diego. This giant clam which is also called a fluted clam lives in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans. A very nice scientist at Birch named Fernando identified her for me. I took some liberties with the surrounding sea life. But it was a fun quilt to do. It took a really long time because of all the embroidery I did. I really like making these quilts by hand. We'll see how long the next one takes. It is a companion piece to this one, that is, it is another aquarium piece.

What to wear...

2010-01-19T07:07:00.000-08:00

After having two children, and not buying any clothing for years, I have reached the stage of major frustration. I find shopping really frustrating. Either the clothes are made for 17 year old who is into the latest fashion, which right now I really hate. Who wants to go back to hip huggers and hippy, flowing flower tunics? I know I don't, been there done that. Or, the clothing seems to suit a more mature sensibility; I am not ready to dress like I am 80 yet. I am happy that at this stage of my life I still have a good figure. I just want some interesting stylish clothes that fit well and look good. Is that too much to ask? What do I wear????

I started sewing again when my daughter who is now 6 turned 2. I wanted to buy her a dress appropriate for a formal type brunch. One of my husband's colleagues was being inducted into the National Academy of Science and all she had to wear were hand-me-down's from her brother. I went shopping and was appalled at how hoochie-koochie the dresses were for little girls. She is a little girl, not a teen pop idol. I finally found a cute little corduroy dress, but it was $40. I bought, but then vowed that I could sew dresses for her just as cute or cuter and for much less than $40. I admit, my first few dresses were not so great, but over the years I have started to become an accomplished sewer. I did take the required home ec class in high school and had to make a hideous skirt which promptly became a rag. Between college and grad school I took a class to learn tailoring for a very accomplished sewer and tailor. I then made a beautiful blazer, a winter white wool coat with bound button holes, and lots of other things. Once I finished grad school and went to work I was done with sewing until Linden came along. Here are a pair of jeans I recently improved upon for her.

After trying to buy myself some clothes a few years ago. I started sewing for myself. I like to be able to have my clothes fit, look the way I want them and to be stylish. Although I have to admit, not all of them end up being as stylish as I would like. However, I have had lots of women approach me to ask where I bought a skirt or one of my sweaters. Here is a scarf and sweater that I made recently. The scarf is a scribble lace pattern based on Debbie New's. I thought it would be really quick and easy, but I took much longer than I intended. However, I am pleased with the results. The sweater is sleeveless, mainly because I ran out of yarn, which was hand dyed. I won the yarn at an art show as a prize for one of my hats that I designed and knit. The yarn was a bit too heavy looking for me, so I lightened it with Kid Haze mohair. It turned out great, looks great on, feels great, but I wanted a scarf to cover my cold arms on winter evenings out.

A couple of years ago, I read a review of Natalie Chanin's book Alabama Stitches, I had looked through the book quickly at a book store and passed it over, but after reading this review I gave it another look. I then bought the book and started by making a couple of headbands, one for me, and one for my daughter. I can't say mine does much for me, but Linden's was adorable on her until she lost it. I then moved on and made an appliqued scarf, which I really love. It was a lot of work. I took the idea of the scarf in the book and then by freehand drew my leaves and flowers and appliqued it to a doubled piece of t-shirt fabric. After I appliqued the flowers and leaves on, I thought it was a bit plain so then I got our the embroidery thread and started embroidering it. I am really pleased with how it turned out, and love wearing it. Again, it is something that draws women to come up and ask where I got it.

This summer, I moved on to making myself a reverse applique skirt. I wanted something a bit dressy for evenings out or parties, so I selected a black fabric and got the dark grey t-shirt fabric on sale. The reverse applique went much faster than the applique scarf, but then I decided to bead it. The beading took a LONG time. However, I love the results. I call this my "don't touch" skirt. Again, I sketched the leaves free-hand. Does anyone recognize the plant? I have to say, the skirt doesn't look so great hanging on the hanger, but it looks and fits great. However, about halfway through the process of making the skirt I realized that I didn't have a top for it. I hurried back to the fabric store, and luckily they had just enough t-shirt fabric to make a corset top. It fits really well. I love the corset top and will definitely make another. Natalie Chanin suggests using used t-shirts to make her clothing, but I have to admit that any t-shirts that we have laying around used are only for the rag bin. Living on a farm, I really use my t-shirts. My good shirts that I buy for wearing to town are then used for mucking stalls and gardening, and by then they are so disgusting, stained and holey that there is no way to use them for anything remotely wearable, so I used new t-shirt fabric.

I am also doing some art pieces, but they are in the works and not ready to be shown. I will show some soon though...

My foray into Stained Glass Design

2010-01-16T18:34:00.000-08:00

Over the summer, as our house was being renovated, we had a spot where the architects had prescribed three stained glass window or art glass panes. Tom and I looked around and tried to figure out what we wanted in the space. We found some interesting pieces, the most modern being in California. Since spending his graduate days and post-doc in California, Tom loves the ocean. I decided to design a modern piece for the space that was reminescent of waves. I sketched out the design both in a small sketch and then to-scale, and then we went to a local artist Vee Oswald and had him make the piece. I selected the glass pieces that I liked; Tom and I selected the colored pieces that we liked, and then Vee executed the work. We were very pleased with the outcome. Hope you enjoy a peek.

Valentine Crafts

2010-01-16T18:21:00.000-08:00

Every year Valentine's sneaks up on me and the kids and I scramble trying to think about what to make for Valentine gifts. For some reason this year I got a major inspiration. My daughter, who is six, wanted to sew something. At six, her sewing skills are not many, but I have a stash of buttons, felted wool sweaters and old ribbons. I had a flash of inspiration, and what we decided to do was to make heart book marks. We cut or rather I cut the hearts out of two old sweaters, and I cut the ribbons, my daughter is choosing and sewing on buttons that attach the ribbons to the felted hearts. She is inspired and excited that she can do the sewing on her own and that she is making something special. Here is a quick look at two of the ones she has made so far...

The ribbon on the left is one from Laura Foster Nicholson. I bought a grab bag from her of ends. The ribbons are lovely, and I have just really started to use some of them now.

A blog hiatus

2010-01-15T05:31:00.000-08:00

I have been taking a hiatus from this blog because after ten years living in a 1960's ranch house with our two children sharing a tiny bedroom crammed with two beds, we decided to renovate. We moved out and basically gutted the house. Gone are the black asbestos tile floors (okay, not gone, just well covered and hidden (the right thing to do for us and the environment)), gone are the faux gold and brown and white marble laminate countertops, gone is the double kitchen sink in the bathroom that I bathed the kids in for so long until they got too big to fit, gone are the brown speckled flooring in the kitchen and hallway, gone are the white painted fake panelling everywhere in the house, and gone are the decrepit acoustic tile on the ceiling.

We have lightened up the house with white paint, bamboo flooring and real white marble from Vermont. It sounds rather shallow when looking at the troubles in this world, but to live in a place of light and beauty makes me feel better. I love waking to the a clean white ceiling rather than the water stained acoustic tile, and looking out our beautiful picture window on our farm. One of the most exciting things that happened was that I got my own small studio space. I have had my stuff strewn in our crowded little office and in the kids play stuff. Now I have my own space where it is all "neatly" stored and easily accessible and best of all, I can get in start projects and not have to clean them up in mid-stream.

While the construction was going on, we lived in a house with no high speed connection. Dial-up and blogging was just too frustrating, so I gave it up for a while. Now I will start adding posts again, and showing just a few things that I have finished over the past few months....

More than weaving

2009-04-13T07:38:00.000-07:00

I finally decided that I needed to put ALL the handwork things that I have been working on in this blog. If you look at my blog, it appears that I don't get much done, but in reality, I don't get much weaving done. Instead, I make toys, knit, make clothes, patch my sons ever growing stack of holey clothes, or cut off holey pants to make shorts. I decided to day to upload a couple of things I recently finished.

I was reading Disdressed, one of my favorite sewing blogs, and was inspired Liesl's transformation of her daughters old toddler jeans into a skirt. I don't have toddler jeans left, but I do have lots of jeans from by son with blown out knees. I took a pair of these and converted them to a skirt for my daughter. I was too lazy to put on handmade yo-yos, so instead I used some ribbon that I had laying around and put it on top of pink bias. I put on a heart patch over a paint stain and used the leftover ribbon to swirl around to cover up the little paint stains. I thought it turned out really cute. I am thinking of making one for myself now.

Speaking of Liesl and Disdressed, she has a company called Oliver+S, a really cute company that makes kids' patterns. I bought the Sunday Brunch Pattern. I love it. It was easy to sew, although I did struggle for a little bit how to add length for my very tall but skinny daughter. Other than that, the pieces sewed together easily, except for a minor errata with the waistband, but I emailed the company and Liesl herself got back to me quickly and helped me find the fix. I have sewn two skirts with the pattern and one jacket. I have to say, I hate to set in sleeves, these are sewn in first and not set in, so the jacket went together very easily. I thought the outfit turned out very professionally. One of the skirts I modified by sewing on a flounce.

Finally, I found this great book called Wee Folks at the library. I thought it was a beautiful book. I have tried many times to make little toys for my kids. The books that I get often have beautiful toys, but I find them difficult to make, or that they don't turn out like the pictures. I feel that I am pretty crafty, so I find this kind of discouraging. But, this book was different. It has clear instructions, and the fairy/knights that we made came out wonderfully. The kids love them and so do I. My son, who is 8, sewed some parts of the pants and wrapped some of the pipe cleaners. Hope you enjoy them

Winged Rain Mounted

2009-02-03T09:19:00.000-08:00

I finally got around to mounting my "Winged Rain" tapestry. I was not very happy with the weaving technique, but after blocking, I think it turned out pretty well. I am happy enough with it. I painted the canvas, then sewed the block tapestry to the canvas for a more imposing looking piece.

I am continuing to work on my sand pail tapestry although my progress if very slow. A few snow and ice days have slowed my work because of kids being home from school. I will try and get the progress documented soon.

I await word on my acceptance of my piece for the Connections exhibit. I should hear this week, and if I don't get accepted, I will post that work as well.

Time flies when you have children....

2008-11-09T07:07:00.000-08:00

What has happened to the last five months? I posted at the end of June, and boom, here it is November already. I haven't seem to have gotten much art work done in that time. The kids were home most of the summer, with a few smatterings of camp, but by the time I dropped one off at one camp, then dropped the other one off, I would have an hour or so to do a little something before picking up the first one again.

I should be sorting through photos for an art project for a class I am taking on creativity. But, I decided to update this blog since it so woefully out of date. I have been riding my horse up until a week ago when my daughter came down with the flu, the car needed to have major repairs (this is the first and last Saab we will own--although I do like having a station wagon rather than a big SUV gas hog. I get good mileage, but where have all the station wagons gone?), and now I am suffering from a sore throat, hoarseness and a cough. I am not sure whether I picked this up from my daughter or my husband, but in any case, I don't really feel up to riding right now. Plus, my husband is really busy at work, which leaves me spending more time trying to keep things going here. Is there anyone out there who can really get stuff done? I feel as though I let so many things slide, the leaves are abundant in the yard, our horse fields are a wreck, the winter chicken coop is still not built, my weaving is slow, my painting is non-existent, and I have a dozen projects in my head I want to get to before Christmas. Then I still have the volunteer stuff to do at two different schools. Yes I know, whine, whine, whine, but I have to say when I woke up this morning, I listened to my children having a discussion on whether it was better to be eaten by a shark or a lion, and then headed to the kitchen to make themselves breakfast. This was indeed a first for them, letting mom sleep. I am lucky to be home with my kids and to even have some time to make art.

I have made some small progress on my sandpail weaving as you can see. I am almost ready to start weaving the sandpail and not just golden sand. In the meantime, I am trying to complete a second weaving of "Winged Rain" to submit to the ATA Small Connections exhibit. I have about 9 square inches more to weave. I have been weaving on that one some at night, but the last three nights I have vegged out in front of the TV sniffling, coughing, and generally groaning over my sore throat.

I hope I will have some more progress to show in the next few weeks....

Finishing other projects

2008-06-25T18:34:00.000-07:00

I still seem to be finishing unfinished projects. I cut a bunch of clothes out for my daughter in the early spring thinking, piece of cake, these won't take long to make. Well, three months later, I am finally finished with all the ones I cut out. They are shown below. They look better on her than on the sofa!

Now, if I could just get back to weaving, maybe when both kids are in camp at the same time. Although, our fiber arts group has taken a summer hiatus. Between kids at home, sick children, visits with parents, vacations, and other commitments, no one is getting any art projects done. Now I don't feel so bad!

Tapestry workshop

2008-06-20T08:15:00.001-07:00

I have finally started to weave my sand pail tapestry. I was lucky enough to have my husband look after the kids for two days, and I was lucky enough to take a workshop with Joan Griffin. I loaded up my Shannock in the back of the kid/dogwagon and hauled it to Joan’s house. I spent two days weaving with four other women from around the area.

The first day I didn’t seem to make much progress. I was in dire angst about whether or not I should include hatching in the piece. I did a bit of it, but I was stressing out trying to get my wefts to “meet and separate” in the same shed. That was causing me no end of grief. I finally decided to just go with the piece as I had drawn it and not to include hatching in this piece. Then, the weaving began to go much faster. I left having gotten almost two inches woven. This photo was taken a couple of days ago.

Of course, since then I have hardly had any time to weave. My kids are at camp this week, but by the time I get them there, get back here, work my horse, look after my setting hen (keep your fingers crossed for us, hopefully we'll have some chicks in a month) and the other chickens, and get a drink, I have about 20 minutes to weave, so much for my goal of getting this tapestry done my July 1. Goals are good though.

Now, I have to come up with my piece for my fiber arts group, medusa and warmth, hmmm, medusa and warmth….

Today, my husband just loaded up the car with the kids to take them to a driving range and there is a birthday party this afternoon. Now, if I can get off this computer and stop looking at everyone else's blog I can get some weaving done. Yeah! I did get an afternoon of weaving and feel I made some real progress. Here is the latest view of the sandpail project. I have about 3 vertical inches woven, only 11 more to go! (This tapestry is to measure 12x14 ".)

Winged Rain

2008-05-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

I am a member of a fiber arts group that meets twice a month, “God willing and the crick don’t rise.” We missed the last meeting due to sick kids, costume design for a play, a boyfriend leaving for a stint on a salmon boat, loss of a car due to a camping trip… However, we started the group in January, and have been meeting regularly since. We have enjoyed sharing our work which is quite diverse. I bring my tapestries, sewing projects for my daughter, my knitting, and my art quilt (on which I have stopped work, gotta get back to it). We have a clothing designer, Rose, and a dollmaker who does amazing embroidering, Susan (see her blog Threads of Inspiration). We also have Kate, who make amazing sculptures out of different media (felt, foam, …). And finally, Susan who makes all kinds of things in her shop. Check out her blog at the Dandelion Factory.

We meet and have great things to eat. Share some laughs and then help each other with feedback and encouragement on our various endeavors. Two months ago, we started giving assignments that you could do if you wanted. We threw a bunch of words in a hat, drew two, and then you were supposed to design and make something around that theme. The first time the words that came out of the hat were telephone and closeness. Not a theme that I wanted to wrap my threads around! If you want to see the results of this first go round, then check out Susan’s posting on the projects on her blog.

This time we threw more words in a big pot and drew two out. It is funny how diverse the words are, and that they can come out with such an interesting theme. Considering that the first time I had thrown in mud and laundry and some of the other words included geometry, pigs, box, and orange, that we should get out telephone and closeness, I find rather amazing (mathematics and probability aside). Anyway, two meetings ago, we drew words again, and this time winged and rain were drawn.

I decided I needed to get going on some tapestry weaving. The last time I threw together a small quilt without much finesse. This time I decided to spend a bit more time than the 3 hours I spent on the first assignment and put together something I liked. I first went very literal as is my usual mode in life and took a photo of a drop of rain on a chicken feather. Although the feather is quite beautiful in the daylight, it lacks the life in the photo and I didn’t think I could capture its iridescence in a tapestry.
My son suggested rain with wings, I wasn’t so sure about this theme for myself, but he really dove into that idea. Here is his rendition of winged rain.
I had mentioned seeing a beautiful scene of dark rain clouds juxtaposed against the spring green of our poplar trees. Ever the Rothko fan, my husband suggested a color field of green and dark grey. I have learned to appreciate Rothko over the last 12 years of our marriage, but I didn’t want to copy (which I know is something that all artists do to learn about their style and technique). I wanted to put my own spin on the color field idea. (Another interesting color field artist to check out is Blinky Palermo, a German artist who put bought lengths of fabric on stretchers. I saw his work at a MOMA color exhibit recently.)

I warped my loom, and decided the piece would be 4 inches high by as long as I could get it on my loom, which is an Archie Brennan lap loom. It turned out 9 inches was about what it could do. I selected a couple of spring greens of Silk and Ivory by Brown Paper Packages, and then a range of greys. I started weaving (after some time spent warping the loom and readying the warp with selvedge and thread). I looked out our window and drew a tree line, and then wove in the grey. I had a color study but no rain. I decided to put the rain in with glass beads, so I sewed those on with clear thread, and I finished the top selvedge last night and cut it from the loom. So here are the results. Looking at the photo, I still need to do a little more work with the beading, and then I have to figure out how to mount it. Any ideas? Now I need to get back to work on my sandpail project, which by the way, I have started weaving.

I have no idea how I will mount this piece. Then, in the last few days as we have been taking little fun trips with our kids, I have been looking at the sky and the tree line at different times of day and have decided to do a series of these tapestries. We'll see how they turn out.

Finally ready to weave...

2008-05-18T05:14:00.000-07:00

I have finally finished my cartoon on vellum so that I am happy with it and I am finally ready to weave. I have been working on this idea for months. I thought I could just sketch something and be ready to go. It has been a real learning experience for me to find out that to get ready to weave would take so long. I found my first drawing had no depth and the shadows on the pail were not very realistic. After spending an afternoon outside in the afternoon light, and then two days off and on coloring on my vellum, I am finally happy with my drawing. I finished weaving my selvedge this morning, and I hope to start weaving today or tomorrow.

I should have ridden today, but it is very windy here. It is really hard to ride on a very windy day. The horses are likely to be spooky and not really willing to pay attention to you. I had a riding lesson with Mike Shaffer last week. It was an interesting experience. He had me start working with Oliver in a small circle and to have him walk and trot in a small circle. Mike is like the horse whisperer of the dressage world. He believes that you can’t put a frame on a horse and move them into the bit, but that you need to let the horse discover that frame themselves by carrying you in a small circle and help them to find where their head should be carried, then let them move their heads around. Then, bring their frame back to the correct head carriage, and then let them go, so that it is a fairly quick process. The horses quickly discover that the collected mode in which you want them to go is the most comfortable for them. It does mean that you have to start with the basics and master them before moving on. Therefore it takes patience, but it is supposed to pay off with a happy horse that can quickly learn the upper movements of dressage quickly. I guess we’ll see. Now I need to get back to weaving…

Another longterm project finished...

2008-05-04T12:22:00.000-07:00

After learning to weave a tapestry four years ago while my daughter was an infant, I have finally finished the series of tapestries that I began. I started with a sampler, and then I moved on to a series of persimmons. I had taken a photograph of five persimmons in various stages of ripening. I had first thought I would knit a sweater based on the photograph, but then when I saw Joan Griffin’s class on tapestry weaving I got other ideas. I took a series of lessons from her, and then I embarked on a process of weaving these persimmons. At first I thought I would weave five of the persimmons in various phases of ripening. But, I wove my first and it was rather more like a diamond than a circle, and had poor color representation. So, I began again. The second persimmon was better, but I still was not happy. I began a third tapestry, but this time I worked on the yellow or golden persimmon. I was finally happy with my result. Next, I wove yet another green persimmon. Finally, I wove an orange persimmon. I did end up weaving five persimmons, but was only happy with three of them.

So, here I am with three very traditional 5X5” tapestries. My husband and I like modern art. What am I going to do with these tapestries? I had a few ideas: build multi-layer shadow boxes out of wood and stain them a light green, or mount them with painted canvasses. My fiber arts group liked the last idea. So, I have spent the last two weeks painting canvasses. Yesterday, I joined them altogether and hung the piece. My husband likes it. Earth colors are not his favorite pallet, and after painting and weaving for the last four years, I have changed the pallet in which I work. So, I now tend to work with brighter colors. However, that said, I still think the piece turned out pretty well. And of course, the next piece I am working on, the sandpail in the sand box has a lot of gold in it, but it also has purple, red and pink.

Anyway, I am really happy to have these pieces finished and mounted. Now, I feel like I can move on to other subjects. But now that I have said that, I still have two persimmon pieces to finish. I started a triptych with one weaving of a green persimmon, one small quilt piece, and then a paper collage piece. I mounted them but then when I saw them altogether, I decided that I did not like the paper collage piece. I decided to embroider a green persimmon to replace the paper one. So, now I am in the midst of embroidering yet another persimmon. Finally, I have a painting with persimmons hanging from a branch that I need to finish. After these two pieces are done, I WILL BE DONE WITH MY PERSIMMON PERIOD. Yeah!

I haven’t been able to ride for two days. My silly horse has a tendency to roll into fences. For some silly reason, he lays down to close to the fence, rolls over and gets his legs stuck. Low and behold, he came in yesterday morning with two huge scrapes on his leg and with it swollen. He had rolled into the fence during the night. It seems after doing this 3 or 4 times and really scraping up his leg he would figure it out. My husband just laughed and said, “well, I always thought horses were a little dull…”

Finishing up projects....

2008-05-01T11:40:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to finish up a lot of projects that have been dragging on too long. I first have to give you background on this first project that I recently finished.

My mother was always sewing or knitting something. It used to drive my father crazy, "Click, clack, click, clack...all that clicking drives me nuts". Of course this statement came just after he was forced to give up his 3 pack a day smoking habit after suffering a massive heart attack. So, I think my mother's clicking needles normally didn't bother him, but, his 3 pack a day cigarette habit had turned into a nervous 5 pack a day Dentyne habit. My mother continued to knit, sew, and at the age of 65 decided to learn to quilt. In the last two years of her life, her arthritic hands prevented her from sewing and knitting, but she still loved to do handwork. I had decided to try and make this as my first quilt project. I thought it looked pretty easy. After cutting out the first few squares I was flagging in my efforts. Then, my sister suggested that my mother needed a project: enter the quilt square cutting project. Over the next few months, my mother started cutting up blue jeans gathered from my husband, my sister, my brother-in-law, my father, our neighbors and friends. My father passed away at age 87 and then my mother’s health continued to decline. After a two week hospital stay, she was told she either had to move in with me or my sister or move into a nursing home. My sister brought our mother to live with my family under hospice care. She continued to cut squares every day. Then, one day she seemed really driven and cut out 60 squares. The next day she lapsed into a coma, and died two days later at the age of 83.

This quilt was such a wonderful gift from my mother to her young grandson. After 4 years, I have finally finished sewing together the squares for this quilt. My son is very pleased with it. Now, after finally finishing this quilt, I made a discovery about myself. Traditional quilting is not for me! Lining up all those squares made me crazy, but I am pleased with the result and it is a great heirloom for my son It is a blanket of love as a last gift from my mother to me and to my son.

My newest tapestry...a beginning

2008-04-29T05:43:00.000-07:00

I have been working with Pat Williams since November. I have been weaving for almost four years now, but have a woefully small number of tapestries to show for it. The last four years have been busy…my daughter was born and now has started her first year of preschool and my son is in first grade, I lost both my parents whom both died at home with hospice care, and just life that goes along with being a parent of small children. Anyway, I have only woven small tapestries on a lap loom. This year I found a Shannock loom for sell on the web and I bought it. Pat and I decided that I should stretch myself and weave a bigger tapestry. I searched for lots of subjects.

I have a small cheap digital camera that I bought when I was looking for a new horse. It has come in handy, and my kids love it. They love to take photos and sometimes they surprise me with their photos, although many of them are of thumbs, close-ups of legos, blurry pictures of the dog, … However, I found one of a bucket in our sand box and it really called to me.

I took this photo, and after many sketches I came up with this one.

I wove a sample with a mixture of Appleton wool and Brown Paper Packages silk/wool blend.

I am almost ready to start weaving. I took my sketch and copied it onto vellum. Now I have to figure out how I am going to represent the colors in the various areas, simply by coloring them, or just calling them out by number or name. Hmmmm, I am still thinking about this.

Meanwhile, I figured out my sett and warped the loom with a few too many warp threads, then a too few, now I have the number just right and I am working on the selvedge at the bottom. It is supposed to be a table loom, but I am afraid the kids will pull the heavy thing over onto their heads, so I have it sitting on the floor and just sit cross-legged on the floor with my dog, and weave. It suits me, I have never really been one who likes to sit in a chair with my feet straight (which also makes it hard for me to correct my son’s wiggles and squirms in his chair at dinner—“Sit straight” doesn’t quite ring true when my legs are sprawled out to the side of the table.)

The rain has cleared, and the kids have gone to school. I need to go out and work my silly horse. We both need the exercise. After Oliver's second day of work at home again , (He just came home from being away for the last 7 months after breaking my arm), he was really trying. The first day he was angelic. Day 2 of work, he refused to trot, and after a couple of discussions gave in, and then it took 10 minutes of work to get a good trot. He then refused to canter, and started bucking. Now that I have broken my arm and have a family to take care of, I don't have the nerve I once did. I used to ride pretty much any horse. Now, I want to have fun, but don't want to injure myself again. We had another little discussion, and then he finally came around to my way of thinking and cantered nicely both directions.

My first post....

2008-04-26T05:51:00.000-07:00

After viewing blogs by friends from my fiber arts group, and thinking of starting a blog for months, I have decided to take the plunge, so here it goes....

I struggled with naming the blog, and found this quote from the poet Austin Dobson:

"And I wove the thing to a random rhyme"

which seems to be how I arrived at this place and time in my life.

I rebelled against doing many home arts as a child. I was the tomboy in my family. My sister was the one who did the “girly stuff”. I did the boy stuff like hunt, fish, and build things with my dad. Then after I had been out of school and working for a while, I decided that I wanted to learn to knit. I bought some yarn and got talked into buying yarn for an “easy” project, a vest that I had no interest in. Well, if you don’t like it, you aren’t going to work on it. Then I left work and went back to grad school and decided to try knitting again. This time, I took the yarn I already had, mixed it with some new yarn and knitted a sweater that I wanted to wear. I still have that sweater and still wear it sometimes, mainly on really cold days, it is heavy and warm. After that I was off. The sweater is baby sweater that I knitted while I was pregnant with my daughter. I just cast on and start knitting with about 45 or 50 colors of Paternaya yarn. I love this sweater; it is very similar to many of Kathryn Alexander’s sweaters, but not an exact copy. I took my one and only knitting class from her because I admired her work so much. Her class was called "Just Cast On". That is what I did, I just started knitting it together. The idea was to do a small version and then knit one for myself. Well, myself is still waiting!

Now for a change of subjects…I will get back to fiber arts, but believe me, they are related…

I have been riding horses since I was nine, but did not have access to a serious riding instructor until I was past 30. I took lessons and boarded my horse with Tad Coffin. He won two gold medals in 1976 at the Montreal Olympics in team and individual 3-day event. I thought I was a pretty fair rider until I started working with him. He had me relearn everything I knew about riding. I went back and became a beginner spending the first few months learning to sit in the saddle and walking my horse around the arena. I was finally allowed to trot and spent the next two years learning how to sit and post the trot and truly collect my horse from back to front. I was finally allowed to canter, then jump, then show my horse. In the meantime, I got married, we found a farm, I moved my horse, and then had two children. Now after a 7 year hiatus, the death of my riding horse and the acquisition of a two year old Hanoverian, I am now ready to start back to serious riding. Here is a photo of Oliver (who is by Romantic Star) as a two year old (he is just about to turn 5).
Last fall, after surgery for OCD, Oliver had been in his stall for 6 weeks. He had been released a week earlier for going out in a small paddock. We had successfully been going out down a hill to a small field for 6 days. Day 7, Oliver bolted, I couldn’t hold him and as he left he kicked up his heels in joy. He was happy to be out of his stall and free. Well unfortunately, he kicked my arm and broke my ulna in two places. Needless to say, that occurrence really changed our family life for a while. I was in a cast for nine weeks followed by 12 weeks of therapy for frozen shoulder. I was unable to cook for weeks, couldn’t lift anything, and couldn’t drive for almost a week. Life was a bit tough for a while. My husband had to pick up the slack, taking the kids to school, driving me to the doctor, cooking dinner, doing laundry, folding clothes, giving baths, …

However, I started doing several things. I started a tapestry apprenticeship through the American Tapestry Alliance. Pat Williams became my mentor (see her website and her wonderful, whimsical tapestries). I also took a creativity and collage class from Jane Broadwater Larew. I have been working on creating a larger more complex tapestry, and I created a collage from my creativity class. In that class I created a small art quilt, modeled after Leslie Gabrielse quilt. I then decided I had found two things that I really loved to do, tapestry and art quilts.

Come on my artistic and my horse training journey with me. I am going to see where my random rhymes lead me in the fiber arts area. Of course, I work on these things in between caring for my children, spending time with my husband, our horses, our donkey, our chickens, our dog, mowing grass, caring for the vegetable garden, cooking dinner, packing lunches, doing laundry, volunteering in my children’s schools, recovering from the latest illness brought home by my young children, …If you are a mom, you know how it goes.

Susan