Prepare now

Mirrix Looms Christmas tree

I rarely prepare for Christmas early, but just in case you haven’t seen it, Mirrix Looms has a free e-book about weaving a Christmas tree ornament. They even have a kit for it that looks just beautiful! Including are the silk yarns, Ultrasuede for the back, cotton warp, and beads. Since I get a new ornament for each of the boys every year, I’m thinking this is the one for this year. Which means planning ahead. Take a look at the tree and get the book here. They have even got the tree kit/loom package ready to go. This will be a project for me to try out on the new Lani loom. And I am a distributor now, so contact me if interested.

Email: sherri@sherriwoodardcoffey.com

Phone: 817-781-1717

Address: PO Box 123305, Fort Worth, TX 76121

A week of new (to me) and old artists

Spider-a little late for Halloween

Spider-a little late for Halloween

The free subscription to the Wall Street Journal is winding down to its final days. Although I will miss it, I probably won’t renew. When I first started reading this newspaper, I was surprised by how much art is covered. A few artists from the last few weeks include a furniture maker (Kevin Stamper) who dyes his wood, a fiber/glass artist (Ayala Serfaty) who uses her hand-dyed wool roving to to create furniture inspired by coral reefs and lights from tubes of glass. Then there’s this exhibition in Milan:

A Beautiful Confluence: Anni and Josef Albers and the Latin American Worldpresents the art of two of the greatest artists of the twentieth century in tandem with the pre-Columbian objects they collected passionately from the time they moved to America in 1933 until Josef’s death in 1976.

Since I love all things pre-Columbian and admire the work of both Anni and Josef Albers, this would appear to be a great place to visit. We’ve got time; it doesn’t end until February of next year! You can see more images here.

I don’t know where I read about or saw the work of Dianne Shullenberger, but here fabric collage work is amazing–and I don’t usually even go for this type of art.

And since I don’t want to violate any copyright laws, I have made a Pinterest board of the artists’ images here.

 

 

Mirrix Loom

Mirrix Lani

Mirrix Lani

Weaving with embroidery floss

Weaving with embroidery floss

For years I have been looking for a small, portable loom. I’ve tried many, none successfully, that is until the Mirrix Lani. I love this loom! It’s only 8 inches wide and I’m not sure how wide it weaves yet, but this is fun. I’m using embroidery floss, which works great with the 14 epi warp spring that comes with the loom. And embroidery floss comes in soooooo many colors, which can then be changed by combining other colors in the same weft. I’m using a tapestry needle to weave the small warp on the loom, since I don’t have the shedding device on this loom.

I have recently become a dealer for these looms, so let me know if you would like to buy yourself a Christmas present. Or a just-because-it’s-Thursday present. Or just because.

sherri@sherriwoodardcoffey.com

Whatever

Smoke

Smoke in situ. Weft ikat, 60 x 28 inches

I keep hoping I will have something to say and then could write. This is what happens when you don’t do anything, go anywhere, live life on the edge. I really can’t put my finger on what I’ve been doing, but it feels busy. I have a bit of warp left on the Cranbrook, so I’m weaving some small pieces. Trying (again) to weave wedge weave on one of them. Not very successfully yet, but I’m persevering. The problem is that there are so many ideas floating around in my head, I don’t know where to start. And the house/outside tasks have gotten out of hand. Then there’s the mammogram, flu shot, etc. It was nice to go to the guild meeting and see people, something I need to do more. Working on it, Boss.

Why didn’t I think of that?

Fall

Fall on my mother’s hill

Although it’s 95 here, I am sure fall is coming. At least the mornings are cool. And I love fall. It’s also the season for all the grasses. I never really appreciated grasses until I studied the prairie system. The other day I was driving along a neighborhood street and saw one pink muhly plant in the flowerbed. Beautiful! All the grasses are showing off right now.

Pink Muhly

Pink Muhly

Unknown grass

Unknown grass

So, my plan is to get in a bit of outside time in the mornings. After all, I did NOT resist the bag of 100 daffodils at Costco. Funny…I have no volunteers to help me plant them either.

In the why-didn’t-I-think-about-that department–I’ve been doing a bit of spinning and not really enjoying it. In fact I was thinking of selling my wheel and getting another one. As they say, duh! I suddenly remembered that this wheel has three ratios. I switched to the middle one (I was spinning in the largest one), and what a difference it made. That pound of bluish roving may go faster after all. Then I can move on to the burgandy-ish pound. Then I can start on the undyed churro roving. How great is that!

Ikat experiments and more

Grocery shopping

Grocery shopping

No, this picture has nothing to do with ikat, I just like it. This is the painting on the refrigerated box for a drink that I don’t remember the name of. Judging from the picture, it must’ve been a fruit drink, right?

Left: cartoon, Right: weaving

Left: cartoon, Right: weaving

So, ikat experiments–You can see it all in the above picture. I’ve recorded the info on the  cartoon; the cartoon is 6 inches, the woven is 2.5 inches. The yarn was measured in 1/4 inch increments for this experiment, so it makes since that this ratio is more than double the ratio for 1/2 inch measuring. The other cartoon with all its angles is not turning out very well. Maybe those need to be measured in 1/8 inch increments, something that I will have to think long and hard about.

spinning and roving

spinning and roving

…and then there’s the spinning. About a pound of Romney roving rests on the floor beside the spinning wheel.

Circular-warped Mirrix

Circular-warped Mirrix

… and the newly warped Mirrix, warped in a circular way without the use of the warp bars. Another experiment.

small pieces

small pieces

… and the small pieces I wove, oh, maybe a year ago. I trimmed them and dumped them in water. Next I’ll hem and stitch them to a canvas. Another experiment….

 

 

 

The weekend and less

Yarn

Yarn wall

Gosh, I really wish there was something exciting to relate! Alas, there is not. The weekend was full of driving. There was a family event way up in the northern reaches of Texas, 30 miles from Durant, OK. Toll roads all the way–a love/hate relationship there. After our guild meeting, I hit the road, following wherever the GPS took me. Since owners of Fiber Artz are retiring, they were selling out everything. Naturally, since I would be in Bells, Texas at Willowood Ranch, I decided to drive the 30 miles farther north to see the sale stuff. And buy. And buy I did. After all, 1/2 price. Someday I will have to start spinning again because I bought roving.

Drawing

Drawing for experimenting

Ikat-tree

Drawing for experimenting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finding my way to Willowood Ranch via narrow tree covered country roads was a nice drive. The ranch is wonderful, quiet, peaceful, and beautiful. Quiet except for the auto racing that began at dusk. It was relaxing to visit with family around a table with plates of barbecue. It is Texas, after all. Plus, I am hopeful that my brothers-in-law have helped me solve my ikat ratio problem. After I dye and weave the above experiments (yes, I know, they are not very attractive), we’ll see if the ratio holds true. And what’s a Texas ranch without a cow over the fireplace?

Cow

Fireplace

 

Mishmash

©Sherri Coffey-Keeping Count

Keeping Count, hand-dyed wool yarns, weft-faced ikat, 35″ x 65″, ©Sherri Coffey, Wall Gallery

It’s always interesting to see tapestry in the Wall Street Journal.

More Martha Stewart Made in America artists/craftsmen:

  • Ceramics: Ayumi Horie  Her website here. I love the whimsical characters on her pieces.
  • Ceramics: Romi Hefetz Website here. Simple, colorful, creative designs. I like seeing the everyday items that are inspiration for some of her work.
  • Jewelry: Stvdio Brooklyn Website here. Again, simple creative designs.

Practice, practice everywhere

Student doing some weaving on the Mirrix loom #weaving #tapestry #mirrixlooms

A photo posted by Sherri Woodard Coffey (@sherriwcoffey) on


So, trying something different here–embedding code from Instagram. Didn’t even know one could do that! Lately, I’ve been digging out all my itty bitty looms to experiment with. I have several and can no longer find directions. Thank goodness for the internet! Plus, I have been practicing on my Mirrix. And I need to practice, practice, practice! I’m just not as good on it as I am on the big loom. That is going to change, but it’s really hard to keep on practicing when I don’t like the way it looks.

©Sherri Coffey-Prairie Rain

Prairie Rain

Speaking of Mirrix, they are in the finalists for the Martha Stewart Made in America awards. There are lots of finalists to view and vote for. Evidently, you get six votes, so scroll through them and vote. Among the finalists are several weavers and other fiber folks. One of them is

One of the things on my list for this week is some ikat experimentation. I need a mathematician! It seems that I should be able to work out a ratio between the cartoon and the ikat that I tie with the actual woven piece. So far that is escaping me. And, since I’ve got some big projects in mind, I would like to get this down. On the piece that I just got through weaving (similar to the above Prairie Rain), I doubled the size of the cartoon, thinking that since I was tying in 1/2 inch segments, that would be appropriate. Wrong! I ended up with lots of tied and dyed yarn left over. The cartoon ended up about 108 inches. Since I was measuring my weaving, I stopped at 60 inches, after using approximately 66-70 inches of the cartoon amount. The experimentation will involve measuring the yarn in 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch segments and seeing how much is woven with each group. I am really hoping to get good information from this. Not all motifs have a place to just stop like the most recent piece. Some have to continue to finish the image. Plus, I also don’t want the motif to be squished. More practice. Sigh…