Just Motorin'

Sorry for the blog silence. That usually happens when a lot is going on all at once.

I cut the warp off Big Beka tonight, and I think the project(s) turned out pretty good. Not too short this time, and funky. Hmm. Very funky.

Anyway, I'm debating whether to attempt one more project this week before heading off to Indiana next weekend. I think I'm getting a little too ambitious...but we'll see.

We spent the start of Hanukkah last weekend with the cousins in NYC, but (BAD BLOGGER) I forgot the camera. The kids had an awesome time, we had an amazing Hanukkah party, and best of all: I got to see the Bauhaus show at MOMA.

WOW.

The whole show is phenomenal in its comprehensiveness. I truly felt I was living alongside all these teachers and students and developing along with them. Everything in there was gorgeous, but when I turned the corner and saw the first large woven wall hanging, I started crying.

If you are anywhere near NYC, do not miss this show.

And I even got to bring home a souvenir.

Nothing Like a Feeling...

A couple of feelings actually:

...Relaxation with happy parents and kids laughing on a sunny Sunday morning. Kids SHARING and playing together with their blocks and trains. Dad with his apron on and cooking duck a'la'orange. Mom still sitting at the breakfast table, relaxing.

...Recuperation with two wonderful, much-needed, extra hours of sleep. Upon being woken up at 7 this morning, the Cap'n went downstairs with the boys and I drifted right off to sleep again.

...Production as I got a 5.5 yard warp on the Beka upstairs last night. It's a secret holiday knitting project, but I was so pleased that it went on so quickly and I was able to get 10 inches woven last night while the Cap'n went to a retirement party for a colleague.

...Inspiration at the open house Bonnie Inouye held in her Hyattsville home. Her work on a 24-shaft compu-dobby AVL loom is light years beyond the weaving I'm doing (to the point where my friends and I could barely speak the same weaving language) but it's fascinating to see all the different directions that weaving can go. I came home last night and listened to her interview again on Weavezine, which is a good substitute if you can't make her open house today.

Now, off the computer and back to the good feelings in the real world!

Fiber Party

Well, there was jewelry, pottery, painting, drawing, silk painting, and other arts on display too, but I was there for the fiber. (Check out that yarn tree behind me...)

The Art League's 2009 ArtFest was a blast! An awesome band, a little bit o' the drinky, tons of people and yarn. What more do you need?

My rigid heddle weaving instructor asked me to demonstrate, and our classroom was packed with a knitter, spinner, frame loom weaver, rug maker, and floor loom weaver. Other than the potter working in the next classroom over, I think we had the most dynamic room for hands-on demonstration.

Of course I made much less progress than I thought I would, but that's what happens with the lips are flapping but the fingers are not flying...Still, it should turn into a couple of cute scarves for the boys for Hanukkah.

Coldwater Loom Room

I just realized that I have not introduced any one outside of the family to my studio yet. This is Big Beka where she now resides, in the very uninsulated Coldwater Loom Room off of our bedroom. It's nothing fancy, but I sure have been enjoying it.

The boys like to play underfoot too, which sometimes makes for tight quarters. But I can't wait for the day when they also start some craft projects.

Beka actually doesn't make the 32" rigid heddle anymore (I bought it used when Springwater Fiber went out of business), but I'm hoping they will still be able to make me a second set of the three heddles I have so I can start learning how to doubleweave and work with finer yarns.

The above photo was actually taken a month or so ago with the first project on that I started after class began. It is the scarf hanging to the left in the photo below, made with Louet Opal in Navy as warp and Plymouth Happy Feet as weft.

I am so pleased with how that scarf turned out, and it debuted to many oohs and aahs of my classmates at the Art League rigid heddle class. My teacher was very enthusiastic about my selvedges.

Hanging next to it is the sampler I made in class to learn various techniques of tapestry as well as practicing with my selvedges. It's my little funky wall hanging that I am going to call "The Day Began Like Any Other, And Then..."

The third piece from the left is the tartan plaid that we made in class as our individual project. It's in Harrisville Shetland in navy, woodsmoke and gold.

The fourth is the Cap'n's new scarf, with a pickup stick pattern yarn in Peace Fleece and the base plain weave in ... eeek! I have forgotten. I have to go find my notes.

Right now on the loom are Christmas and Hanukkah presents, so I'm not going to share those. Plus, I'm not sure how they are going to turn out. Might be a disaster, which would probably make for a better story anyway! (You can take the reporter out of the newsroom, but you can't take the newsroom out of the reporter.)

I am resisting this little pretty in the corner though:

This little copper pipe tapestry loom may be my traveling fiber project as we plan visits to NYC for Hanukkah and Indiana for Christmas. Just have to decide what sort of project to plan...I found Nancy Harvey's Tapestry Weaving book at the used shop, so I think I'll work from there.

Here's looking forward to a productive winter!

No Pictures Again

Even I'm getting bored of reading my blog without pictures.

But I am very excited about what I've been working on. My beginning class in rigid heddle weaving is going great, and I'm working through the list of techniques. Most are tapestry based, which has me googling all sorts of tapestry blogs and resources online. There are some fantastic works out there.

That led to my next search on color. I've never had an art class after the art requirement freshman year at Seymour High. I would really like to understand the color sphere and learn more about Johannes Itten's work. I can't remember how I tripped across his name, but reading about him led me to the Bauhaus School website. I am all about the Manifesto now:

There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. By the grace of Heaven and in rare moments of inspiration which transcend the will, art may unconsciously blossom from the labour of his hand, but a base in handicrafts is essential to every artist. It is there that the original source of creativity lies.

So that is where I am right now. I want to write this down so I remember everything that I want to study. I know there is a lifetime of work ahead, but it excites me.

This weekend we are headed to our friends' farm and I am taking the little loom with me. I hope to play with some more color ideas and use up all the yarn that I have before I take the makeup class next week. Then I'm a little lost as to where I want to go: I would love to try working on a tapestry of some ideas I have to document our neighborhood, but I also want to try making a rug and another scarf. But maybe I should hold off on those until I finish off the couple of earlier scarves I made.

Oy. I know I'm getting excited when I can't even take the time to make a new paragraph.

The only thing nagging at me right now is I am not making progress on the other priorities on my 2009-10 list. I want to keep a balance, and I have to remember those other areas as well.

Here's to a productive fall!

The Start of Art Saturdays

Whoo!! After mostly recovering from the crud that started on my birthday (it still isn't completely gone), I went to my first rigid heddle weaving class today at the Springwater studio of the Art League in Alexandria.

The Cap'n and I have a Saturday schedule we're trying to work out: I take weaving in the morning, and then he heads off to the Eastern Market pottery studio for the afternoon open session. He's taking a Thursday class there.

The class is going to be good for me. It's not as product focused as process-oriented. I think I'm going to be jealous of what everyone else is "getting done" but I'm going to be focused on learning the techniques. Getting the tension right, warping on well, learning how to do tapestry and kilim...I can't wait!

And since this is mostly a survey course to begin, I'm going to use one of the studio's small Ashford looms instead of my big Beka. I took the Beka today, but at 36" wide it's not terribly portable. So if I really get the itch to make a project, I can always warp it separately.

But I really think I should focus on learning the techniques and taking it slowly. I want to get really good at weaving, and figure out what I'm doing, so I need to step back from the go-go-go get'erdone mentality and learn.

Wow. I am so excited to be in school again!

A New Start

I got emotional today saying goodbye to the Cap'n as he headed off to his first day back at work after the accident.

This has been a really long, hard road. Almost 5 months of times I wasn't sure I knew how to get through, when they were happening.

The accident definitely changed me. It rubbed off some of the blurriness about what's important and what I want to do and have in my life. In some ways, I feel strangely mellow, as if the high anxiety of the past few months has made my usual anxiety seem like that not that big a deal.

We were off on vacation last week in NC, and at the time I started feeling sad. Getting the first bit of literal distance from DC and the accident gave me a better perspective on all I could have lost. I'll probably start talking to a therapist about it.

In some ways, I know I haven't dealt with all of the accident fallout yet, but in other ways I feel better about myself and my relationship with the Cap'n, knowing we can handle something that big.

I know I just want to keep moving forward. I've made a list of things I want to work on and accomplish this year, and that's what I am going to focus on. Sometimes there is no way through but through.

On that note: I signed up for a weaving class, but unfortunately had to miss the first one this weekend with an awful cold. First time I've ever lost my voice! But I should be back in the saddle to start next weekend...I can't wait.

And oh, all the other projects I have to show you....

He Can Rock a Turban

You know the Cap'n has style when he can even rock a turban.

Oy, with the crooked weaving...this one is supposed to be a scarf, but it has a complete C-curve in it.

Le Sigh.

AAAUUGGH! The Digital...

Slim's camera is kaput.

So there is no photographic proof of me finishing up two very cool projects.

The first is a knitting/felting project that I started probably 2 years ago (eek!). I found a beautifully dyed New Zealand wool at KnittinSis's yarn store in Bloomington, IN. Something about the blue, green and yellow called to me.

So I cast on that same weekend on a borrowed KnitPicks Options (you can have that 60" length back now, KnittinSis!) and it languished ever since. Do you know how big bags have to be pre-felted if you want more than a iPod cozy??

BIG.

But since the advent of the tendinitis, I've discovered that pure knitting with no purling isn't as taxing on my hand. And since I recently had to dump out the whole stash and rearrange it, I vowed a new-found commitment to finishing up old projects. And slowly but surely this last month I've worked on it.

(Insert imaginary picture of pretty felted bag here.) (Alas, the camera...)

I still need to sew on the handle and figure out how to sew a liner, in addition to coming up with two pretty buttons for clasps, but it's actually come out better than I thought it would.

The second project is a surprise for the non-KnittinSis. It's a weaving, and I hesitate to say more before she gets it in the mail. Which is sort of a problem, given that I haven't mailed it yet.

But for the record: A second weaving project has made its way off the loom.

(Insert imaginary weaving picture here.)

Sigh....

Hey Y'all! Watch This!!

So I started to write a post last night, but was interrupted by:

Slim: "Ewwww!! Mom, Mom! L pooped in the bathtub!!"

Ahem.

Anyway, as I was about to say:

International Weaving Woman of Mystery

Sorry for the crappy webcam quality (the digital camera seems to have given up the ghost), but LOOK -----> We Have A Weaving!!

I am more than pleased to announce the start of a new hobby. Can't say the same for The Cap'n, but he's been incredibly supportive of it.

It's been a long, interesting year. Last year around this time, I had just helped close down a fiber arts workshop that unfortunately couldn't be saved. I wish that I would have had about $50,000 of my own to turn it around. But I did what I could, and before I helped sweep up the last dust bunnies and box up the last yarn, I was encouraged to buy a donated Beka 32" rigid heddle loom.

They were really good fiber pushers around there.

I was a little shell-shocked after the store closed though, and felt very guilty that I couldn't do more to save it. So the Beka sat in a box under the bed for the last year. Around the time that I was working at the store, I also tried biking again and the tendenitis in my left thumb started acting up too.

So other than a couple of knitted hats over the last year, I was off fiber. I got a little stopped up with out my daily dose. (So to speak...)

But I missed it. Terribly. I just didn't know it.

Then on May 6, the Cap'n was involved in a bad motorcycle accident on his way to work. A woman pulling out from a stop sign didn't see him, and hit him. He shattered his right wrist and elbow, and broke 4 vertebrae in his back.

Talk about a game changer. He's doing better now, but it's been a long, hot, miserable summer. I had to return to fiber just to hang on to the last drips of my sanity that were seeping out of my ears.

So about a month ago, my KnittinSis came to visit, and I got her to help me dust off the loom and figure out what screws I needed to put the floor stand together.

It's a monster. 32" is not a shy and retiring size. Luckily the Cap'n doesn't mind it taking up one big corner of the dining room. I haven't named it yet, but maybe one will come to me.

For a first project, I decided to wind up some Louet Opal superwash yarn that I had purchased from Springwater in its first, healthier incarnation. It seemed karmically correct. I had navy blue and spring green, and I wanted to make a table runner.

Bear in mind, I saw people work on the rigid heddles at the store, and I saw warping being done, but I was way too busy to learn any of it. But I guess some of it came through osmosis, and a lot came through the innerwebs. I found this and this to be helpful.

Turns out I should have used a 10-dent heddle instead of an 8-dent, and superwash actually doesn't full (or felt) that much in the wash. And even selvedges? HA! I say.

Whatevs.

Any disappointments I may have had with my first weaving project were washed away as soon as Slim saw it and said, "Mommy, is that for me? Can I have it?"

So instead of a fuzzy crooked table runner (just what we need on our frequently crumb-y table), we have a warm, soft scarf for a very special little boy who is starting Pre-K next Monday.

Yay!