Blog - Page 33 of 100 - Sherri Woodard Coffey

Mostly pictures

Viewers in gallery

Stormies’s bottles

First the pop-up gallery–on the left is a shot of the viewers, a surprisingly nice crowd for a gloomy, cold afternoon. And this space cleaned up well, only needs better lighting. The rabbit in this shot is Stormie Parker’s, as are the bottles below.

another section

Here’s another shot of the space. It cleaned up really well–the space I mean.

stolen garden sign

Now for some good stuff. This neighborhood is being “re-gentrified” and they have built community garden beds.Notice the cute entrance of branches painted blue. You might also notice the sign. The gardens are called Riverside Stolen Garden because the first beds were stolen. They’ve been redone, obviously. The fence to the right of the gate is made with wooden pallets.

Birdhouses

These birdhouses adorn the fence. They are all constructed alike, but the painting is different, as are the garden beds themselves.

Garden beds

wall art trailer

And there is the portable pop-up. I want one of those!

Gallery 108 and other doings

Evidently pop-up galleries are all the rage in London. I don’t remember where I read that but…We’ve got a pop-up gallery right here in Fort Worth, Texas! You don’t need to travel to London.

A group of 12 artists are participating in this gallery for Gallery Night. Our little pop-up gallery was written about, and you can see it here.

There’s big doings in town at the CAC. They’re celebrating 10 years of being open and have asked the greatest artists of this period to contribute a piece to be exhibited during the month of March. Then there’s the big after hours party and the swag available here. Maybe I’ll have to get some more reusable shopping bags.

Brandywine and warping-But not together

In my ongoing love affair with process and the artist’s final result, there’s an exhibit that should be interesting at the Brandywine River Museum. I wrote about this museum a few years ago after a trip to Philadelphia. We absolutely loved our visit, even though Jamie Wyeth’s art was not my favorite. The “docent” leading our group was one of the Wyeth grandchildren, a very vivacious and entertaining young woman who included family bits in her presentation.

Warping

warping spreadsheet

I can’t tell you how many times I have sat down with my calculator, pencil, and paper to figure out how long a warp I can put on with the fewest possible number of tubes of warp. Literally dozens, I’m sure. I did it again on Tuesday, even though I just bought this yarn and know I figured this all out before I ordered. Well, in my geeky way (or maybe it’s procrastination??), I have made a spreadsheet so that maybe I won’t have to do this again. I already keep a spreadsheet of how much I weave off, so I added this one to the sheets. That way I’m hoping I can remember where I put it!

Stalking the wild yarn store, danger ahead

Turquoise button

Red/orange buttons

It seems that I haven’t been writing much about weaving lately. Hmmm…..maybe because there’s really not much weaving going on? I did start with the warping process today. I was going to tie on to the old warp, but decided that probably wouldn’t be a good idea since I re-sleyed that warp from 4 epi to 6 epi. So, fresh start it is.

I went to the yarn store on Friday, always a dangerous thing to do. Of course, I only went because they were having a trunk show, not of yarns, but closings. I’m a sucker for buttons! I’ve got a collection of them from various travel locations and don’t have a clue what I’ll do with them. Probably nothing. The closings are from a local studio called Crone Art. You gotta love a name like that.

The Jennings Street Yarns is on one of the oldest streets in Fort Worth. If you go to their website, there is a picture of the current store and the street as it used to be. Scroll down to see other comparisons of a few streets in the city. I love those old buildings. Oh, about the yarns…yes, I bought some. After all anything with green was 25% off, everything else 20%. Yarn stores are dangerous!

Building blocks

There’s an article in the NY Times about building blocks, which made me remember yet again about how much I wanted an Erector set when I was little. I used to think that maybe those just didn’t go to little girls, but we had Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs, so that probably wasn’t the reason those were not under my Christmas tree. Maybe they were more expensive than those other building materials. So, I checked on Erector sets on Amazon (where else?), and it’s very disappointing. Maybe because of the popularity of Legos and their sets, Erector sets come in model form now. Where’s the creativity in that! I loved those Tinker Toys. Oh, what we created, my sisters and I! Maybe building blocks are a metaphor for life.

Okay, for the weaving part …the wedge weave is a big FAIL! I like the colors, though. My time will be spent warping the loom again and getting all the yarns back to their assigned seat. Pretty boring stuff. I warp sectionally, and before I got the warping wheel, I would be winding on, counting, when all of a sudden I realized I was no longer counting. The counter on my warping wheel doesn’t work anymore, but I seem to be able to count to 10 without a problem.

Inkle weaving and then tapestry

The Fort Worth Weavers Guild had a one-day inkle weaving workshop. So lots of women (and man) weavers got together to learn about weaving on an inkle loom. It was a great workshop, and Barb did an excellent job getting all the materials together and teaching it. Even though I had trouble even warping my loom, I came away with lots of ideas to try. The warping will go better the next time around without the distractions—and a couple of thumbtacks on the loom to hold yarn that is not actively being warped. Plus, I will think of a better way to keep up with where I am on the “draft.” Barb suggested a magnetic board with strips of magnets to place where you are in the warping, a great idea. Added to my errand list.

Well, my summer exercise program starts this week—you know, all that mowing stuff. And, for a little something wonderful. If you haven’t seen this, take a look. I am so amazed with these tapestries.

Two years…

Two years. It’s been so long and then not so long ago. I was thinking of ignoring this day, but realized I really can’t. I need to appreciate not ignore. All it takes is passing a certain location or hearing a certain something, and the memories are there. Actually I’m grateful for the memories because they are good ones. Good memories are always good to have.

The Great Yarn Hunt

Order from Henry’s Attic

I’ve been using Henry’s Attic Crown Colony 2-ply yarns for ages and buy it in huge quantities. And I like them. But I want to change the sett of my warp, which kind of requires a new yarn. Therein lies the dilemma. I want a single-ply yarn that I can use 3 strands as one. Blending gradations is so much better with three strands rather than two. I have found a few that might work, but at two or three times the cost! Yuck! Maybe I’ll have to spin my own, a way to while away and evening in front of the TV, I guess. Not sure I really want to do that. I did buy some silver mohair recently from Kai Mohair. She has beautiful angora goats on her place in the vicinity of Austin.You can see a picture of Persephone’s mohair here. I love it when you buy wool or mohair from the growers name their animals.

By the way, as I’ve said before, Henry’s Attic is the only company I know of that does not have a website, nor do they accept credit cards. Actually that’s not quite true. They have a one-page website with their contact info on it. But I love doing business with them. Very nice folks.

Also, I sent out my newsletter on Sunday. In looking at my records, the last newsletter I sent was a year ago. And this one was short with lots of pictures. If you want to sign up, there’s a form here on my website. I am hoping to have another newsletter out in about a month. Then there will be a hiatus again.

Morphed and things I’ve learned about wedge weave

Before

Now

You can see from the pictures above that this piece has changed. I don’t usually change mid stream, but I couldn’t continue to weave all those various colors. Stressful! So hard to decide on the next color! 😉

Wedge weave is also known as pulled warp, according to Peter Collingwood. I have his rugweaving book, but wanted just the few pages on wedge weaving to carry to the loom with me. So voila! Since he allowed his books on rugweaving to be placed in the archive at the University of Arizona, I didn’t have to try and fit that huge book on the scanner. Links for download can be found here. I prefer the term wedge weave because I think of pulled warp as a whole ‘nother critter altogether, like here, here, and here.

Somehow the back and forth of the triangles confused me, and I added to that confusion by trying to vary the width of my shapes. Actually, they are probably parallelograms and not triangles. I am directionally challenged—see below
Slant up towards the left when starting on the left, slant up to the right when starting on the right
This technique really does pull the warp at the selvedge, and it’s hard to beat in for about an inch or so there. A generous bubble of weft helps.
Obviously, due to the nature of the technique (pulled warp), a hand beater is necessary—something I hadn’t considered when starting this project.

Another ode to color

Do you notice color everywhere? Pattern? I do. I love color! And I find myself noticing lines, shapes, etc. all the time.

The other day I was in Chili’s to get a to-go meal when I noticed the wall in front of me. And even though there were other people waiting with me, I got out my phone and took a picture. That kind of thing can get embarrassing sometime, but I really love the colors. Make a great rug! Each one was painted on an individual board, maybe a 1 x 4.

We all know who/what Pantone is, right? I say an article in the NY Times about the origin of that ever more famous color system. Interesting how the idea was sparked, and boy, do I have sympathy with the task the inventor had–mixing the beiges of women’s hosiery. Now, not many days go by without some reference to Pantone. Wish it wasn’t so darn expensive!

If your go to the article, be sure and read the last few lines. And if you want to see how real color geeks think, look at the comments below the article.