Life on the Farm and at the Loom
Lori and Kathi both came for a weaving class last month. They both had some prior weaving experience so warped the looms using twill and point twill threadings to weave samplers. This is a great way to experiment with weave structure and color.
Lori and Kathi came back for a chenille class and Mary joined them.
Great job, ladies! I posted this photo on the Meridian Jacobs Facebook page last night and you already have rave reviews!
Here's a look at what I am doing in the weaving studio.
These are the yarns for a wedding shawl for a friend's daughter. This will be a random mixed warp in a lacy light weight shawl.
My son's girlfriend chose these colors for her chenille scarf.
Llama rug that I finally got off the loom awhile ago. I think that most people don't usually wash rugs, but it still has a llama smell so I plan to wash it. I've been waiting for a hot day so it will dry outside.
This is the roll of 3 full-sized blankets woven in double width broken twill. I have cut them off the loom and now need to crochet edges on all of them.
I get tired of over-worked words to describe concepts which aren't all that new. Maybe it's good when more people start to understand the principles being described. Green is one of those words...and concepts. But I couldn't pass up using it in the title of this post. I honestly don't know how this yarn is processed but it is 100% recycled jeans and I wove the scarves with no energy except my own.
The yarn is called Riveting and is sold by Cotton Clouds . The scarves are woven on a Huck Lace threading.
Remember this photo? Here are the results of my weaving:
I made a warp long enough for two throws. (They were going to be shawls but because I wanted to keep all 16 colors the warp was too wide to turn into shawls.) This photo is a throw woven with a fine cotton weft so which you see the warp stripes, although it's hard to really see all the colors.
I wove the second blanket with chenille yarns in the same colors and order as in the warp. If you could see the whole blanket you'd see that it starts with green on this end and finishes with blue on the other.
Julia, who is the felting half of the November Artery show, and I got together a couple of weeks ago to get a photo to be used for publicity.
Julia brought Lisa, her neighbor's daughter visiting from New York, who graciously agreed to be our model.
Isn't she great?
I could weave O'Keefe inspired fabrics forever, but it's on to Mondrian.
Remember the O'Keefe painting that I used for inspiration for chenille shawls?
Here is one of the finished shawls.
The next one is Petunia #2:
The red canna shawl has 12 colors in the warp and I had a hard time fitting them all in. There are 15 colors on the table now and I don't want to leave any out. Since I couldn't decide what to do I decided to wind a warp with all 15 colors in a paddle and weave some scarves before I move to a large project of a shawl or throw. Here is what that looks like on the loom:
More to come later.
It will be ShowTime in November. That's when Julia (see Historic Fibers blog to the right) and I will have our show at the Artery. We started talking about this a year ago and figured that if we each created one or two pieces/month we'd have plenty. Oops. Now it's 3 1/2 months away. I've had the plans all that time--just haven't made much progress in real life.
I posted a photo awhile ago of this Georgia O'Keefe painting. Here are the chenille yarns I chose that represent this painting.
And here is the shawl on the loom.
My February 16 blog includes a photo of a chenille scarf in which 6 colors blend from one to the next. I want to weave more of those scarves, some for Cotton Clouds kits, and some for the show I'll have in November at the Artery. Here are the chenille colors I have to use.
I used Georgia O'Keefe paintings as inspiration for some of these.
It's hard to get the color to reproduce well on the computer, but these paintings and the yarns are brilliant. How about the next one?
Who needs to actually weave when you can have fun playing with colors like this?
I had the color samples out at WWW (Weekly Weaving Workshop) today. Here are two color schemes that will be turned into chenille scarves:
Chris' scarf
Phyllis' scarf
It sure feels like spring! And here are my annual acacia photos. When you have a huge acacia tree in the front yard how can you help but take photos?
The fragrance of this tree is wonderful and you can hear the bees hard at work.
Take a look at the almond tree.
Here is the color inside--more scarves.
This scarf is chenille warp and bamboo weft with 6 colors in the warp.
These are two scarves on the same warp. I gave my daughter, sister-in-law, niece, etc scarves for Christmas and let them choose colors, style, etc. I'm still working on them. My niece wanted a gray and purple scarf so she will choose one of these. Only 4 more to go for the Christmas presents.
These three scarves are woven with variegated chenille.
I am working on plaid scarves now.
Fun to look at but they take way too long to weave. Weaving with one color is fast but this one took me 3 CD's of an audio book. That's a long time.
The title implies that I dealt with the high winds that we had this weekend. I didn't really spend much time in the wind. I was inside at the Art & Craft Holiday Fair sponsored by the Crocker Art Gallery in Sacramento. I was surprised at the number of people that came through. Not as many sales as I'd hoped for, but it will be worth going back next year.
These are some of the v-shawls I had for sale.
You may recognize some of these scarves from previous blog entries. I meant to count the scarves. I think I ended up with over 50.
These are 3-D wire pieces that I liked.
And this is an example of another artist's work that I liked. All his pictures have a time theme and are made from watch parts.
A friend visited me at the show on Saturday and look what she brought. This is a sheep from the WoolPets felt kit that I sell and she knit a scarf to go with it. I wonder if she used toothpicks for knitting needles!
So what was with the wind? It howled all weekend. We hadn't had any significant damage from the other winds that we've had this fall. This wind took the top of the big tree in front of the house. Fortunately all that is damaged is a fence board.
This is upside-down and used to be...
...up there.
The tree is lopsided now--used to have 2 tops that looked like one.
I thought that maybe I would switch jobs and be a wildife photographer. Here are some photos I took in the pasture the other day. This marsh hawk (birder friend, Claire, tells me that it is a northern harrier, but marsh hawk is the name I remember) was flying around the pasture, would land, and then as I stealthily snuck up on him, would take flight again.
Same with the egret. The hawk is on the ground and the egret comes in for a landing. I don't have a very long lens so this is the best I can do before they take off again.
So I guess I'd better keep at the fiber business and just use wildlife photography as a side-line!
Some of this weeks scarves:
These first three have supplementary warp of various odds and ends.
More log cabin scarves:
These are the same except that one has a bleached white yarn and the other has an ivory yarn.
A friend and I did an impromptu dye session this week.
She dyed yarn and I dyed fiber.
I'm trying to get my shop ready for Shearing Day on Saturday. I'll be spending my time in the barn, but my friend will staff the shop and I need everything organized, labeled, etc. Here are new scarves.
This one is rayon chenille with a supplementary warp using a ribbon called Luna.
Same basic warp, but a different supplementary warp.
Here is another "left-overs" warp. The blues.
Another left-overs warp. This one is deep purple, but I can't get that color on my screen. Maybe it will show up purple on your computer.
I carded some sample batts using the Ashford drum carder and the new Wild Carder. Lots of fun! I wish I had time to do more of this.
The top two batts are using fiber that I dyed for a Color Wheel class. Those will be fun to spin. The white batt is from Jacob wool--it is thick and soft. I have a new packer brush on the drum carder and it really lets you pack in the wool.
Last, but not least, is a pony from the Wool Pet pony kit. I love the look on his face. I am also needle felting a donkey, but she is not finished yet.
I have been working on scarves for a few weeks. I'm designing scarves for Cotton Clouds kits as well as weaving for holiday sales.
This is a scarf woven from all the cones in a recent chenille delivery. I used each color twice with 6-thread stripes.
This scarf was designed after someone in my Weekly Weaving Workshop class asked how to weave a scarf with pure colors in two stripes. The next scarf is on the same warp, but you can see the dark weft crossing the light weft.
I had a hard time taking photos of this scarf. I need to try again. This warp has black yarn alternating with odds and ends of green and variegated yarns. See the table below. If there is 3 yards left of a color I have kept it knowing that it would be enough for a scarf warp. So the scarf in the photo uses the greens. I have a few more scarf warps to create from the cones below.
I just got this order of rayon chenille. I can't wait to start weaving these! The first warp will be one in which I use all of these together! Just wait and see.
