Posts

Weaving in Wales – Off the floor and onto the bench….

/2 Comments/in , , , , /by

With my landscape finished plus a spacer in place….
1_spacer

Thursday morning I ‘moved up in the world’ —  from sitting on the floor to sitting on the bench = YEA!  This bench is designed so the seat can be moved higher as the weaving moves up the loom.

2_on the bench  3_bench  4_bench

In designing my next project, I wanted to continue working on achieving a sense of depth to the tapestry, plus I added working on being less literal in my interpretation of my starting photograph.

One of my favorite photos is one I took from the castle rooftop of the market square in Norwich England.

5_Norwich rooftops

I love the shapes, lines, and colors but have never succeeded in getting a good starting sketch because there’s so much going on in the photo.  I decided to focus on one set of rooftops, outlining the basic shapes, tracing a cartoon, then transferring those shapes onto the warp yarns.

6_rooftops start  7_rooftops outline  8_marking the warp

I started weaving using a range of colors which really helped me to be less literal and stay focused on the shadows and angles of the roof lines – moving from ‘Norwich rooftops’ to simply ‘Rooftops’.

9_weaving  10_rooftops weaving

Friday…..

11_workstation  12_weaving

And by Saturday morning I was weaving the final section to finish the piece.

13_completed

Rooftops 4″ x 4″

So much to do… so little time!

/3 Comments/in , /by

The good news is… it’s been a busy 2 weeks.
The bad news is….. it’s been a busy 2 weeks and there are only so many hours in the day!

A dear friend of 30 years passed away on her 90th birthday.  Jean was an amazing woman – a teacher, master gardener, weaver and storyteller who was always up for an adventure and road trip.  She’s the one who connected me with my very first weaving teacher – Gloria Teeter.  I’ve been helping her family inventory and organize the sale of her loom and spinning wheel, plus all the equipment that goes with them!  [The loom is still for sale so if anyone is interested in the details – send me an email.]

Last weekend I was the emcee for the Storytelling Festival at the ARK here in Ann Arbor with Donald Davis, Carol Birch, and Laura Lee Hayes performing.  The stories told on Saturday night for adults and Sunday afternoon for families were a spellbinding blend of humor, poignancy, rich language and imagery.

Plus I was working on a second felt wall hanging to submit with ‘Heron’ for the AAFG show in March at the Village Theater at Cherry Hill in Canton, MI.  I decided to do a self-portrait.  Now I struggle when it comes to sketching/drawing and being a ‘process’ artist/‘experiential’ learner … oh this was going to be an adventure!

Because I don’t ‘draw’ I take a lot of photographs and use those as my ‘jumping off’ point when it comes to design.

B in tower windows_1

Here I am in the lantern tower windows of Ely Cathedral, England.

————–

This is the view from the floor below.

This is the view from the floor below!

————–

Next I cropped the photo.

I cropped the photo…

————–

enlarge to 36" x 43" pattern

…enlarged to make a 36″ x 43″ pattern.

————–

laid out my wool fibers onto black silk chiffon fabric and felted using soapy water and rubbing.

Take #1
I laid out Merino wool fiber, black silk chiffon fabric and then backed it with Romney wool – the only black wool in my stash.  I felted it – rubbing/rolling using soapy water.  End size is 29″ x 24″ but the Romney was too ‘hairy’ so it did not felt the way I wanted and worked it’s way from the back to the surface = oops!!  Even after giving it a ‘shave’ with an electric beard trimmer, this was not going to work…..

————–

face test

…but it did give me a piece I could practice adding the facial features….

————–

12x18 test

Take #2
12″ x 18″ sample while I waited for my order of black Merino fiber to arrive.

————–

Daydreaming

Third time’s the charm!!   “Daydreaming”  (29″ x 33″)