Sherri Woodard Coffey

I’m looking at my home page, which has the latest news from NY Times, then flip over to the Style section. There’s an article about a collector of camp blankets, antique and new. Never knew these blankets were known as camp blankets, but I’m sure my knowledge is lacking in many other areas also. The collector is Tyler Has, who is a designer of high-end furniture. Take a look at the website—I really like the arrows they use to navigate from page to page. And the furniture is nice too! I’m partial to the Nude rug. A couple of makers of blankets were linked in the article. Who wouldn’t like a blanket from Warped and Wonderful? The other is from a farm in Connecticut that has pictures of sheep being sheared. So, why, one might ask, are there pictures of tapestries on the page and not blankets. Those two pieces shown above have found a new home. I haven’t woven anything like blankets in a really long time, but the one that I did weave was really quite attractive. Wish I had a picture of it.

Blues Interrupted is going to a new home on Monday, and it needed a new board for hanging.

During the summer when I was madly finishing five pieces (I know, I know), I decided to gather everything together for the last step before a piece goes out the door. The cans of flat black paint are used to paint the hanging board. Also in the bag is a jigsaw for cutting the boards, a small portable drill that is dedicated, so that I don’t have to switch out bits for any other jobs, and an inexpensive sander for sanding the newly cut ends and the area around the new holes. In the various pockets is a charging device for the drill, screws, and most importantly, directions for the sander. The order sending the piece to its new home:

• cut board to size
• measure/mark for screw holes
• drill holes
• sand ends and area around newly drilled holes
• take board outside and spray paint one side
• spray other side after it has driec
• staple Velcro onto board (unless using the self-stick kind)
• put screws, prepared hanging board, and hanging directions inside tube
• roll piece onto tube
• cut plastic to fit and put the whole package in the plastic
• close ends of bag
• deliver to new owner! Yeah!

Thanks to my new tool bag, this process went so smoothly this time.

This article starts out by saying “…Herb Williams is one of the only people in the world to have an account with Crayola.” Go to the article and see more sculptures and the process he uses to make them. Fascinating! And who doesn’t love Crayons?

I think I’ve found a use for that drawing workshop I took. Will practice what I’ve got in mind this week and report later.

Okay, I’ve got the big fancy camera, but who wants to drag that thing around all the time? I finally broke down and bought a small Nikon Coolpix 8100 that I can stick in my pocket and still get good pictures with. (You’re probably not supposed to end a sentence with ‘with’, but, oh, well.) Yesterday I drove all the way across town to take pictures of the Fort Worth skyline. My pistol league ended earlier than usual a couple of weeks ago, and the skyline at dusk was absolutely gorgeous. In fact, that was the impetus for finally getting the camera. The pictures that I took yesterday were not nearly as interesting, but I think they will serve the purpose.

Friday I drove to my friend’s ranch, where I took pictures of these plants. I don’t know what they are—forgot to ask—but the buds are very nice. The plant above has several on the verge of opening. the one below has only one bud, barely visible on the lower left.

According to my friend, the flowers themselves are quite beautiful but unpleasant to smell. I only got to see the fallen blossom below, still quite interesting. The center has lines or rows of purple and orange, two of my favorite colors.

Now, how can I use the star bloom in designing?

When I see ancient drawings, such as the ones from the Maya or Egypt, I always want to know how they got those colors. When I look at exhibit catalogs, I check the index to see if they give information about the colors used. I am currently listening to an audio book written by Geraldine Brooks called The People of the Book. It’s about an ancient manuscript and conservationist main character’s efforts to find out the book’s history. Boy, did my ears perk up when I heard the highlighted words below:

To understand the work of the craftsmen who created the medieval texts she restores, Hanna has made her own gold leaf and created white pigment by covering lead bars with the dregs of old wine and animal dung. She’s familiar with “the intense red known as worm scarlet … extracted from tree-dwelling insects” and the blue, “intense as a midsummer sky, obtained from grinding precious lapis lazuli.” Looking closely at the parchment of the Haggadah, she can tell it comes from “the skin of a now-extinct breed of thick-haired Spanish mountain sheep.” These lush details, at once celebratory and elegiac, will appeal to the sort of reader who picks up a book just for the feel of it.

The passage above is from the New York Times Sunday Book Review here. I wonder if the insects mentioned are like cochineal or another scale insect, lac. All of this talk of insects reminds me of the origins of the word vermillion, which I just found out this week. Who knew? Guess I may finally have to read the book, Color, a Natural History of the Palette. Now that I have an iPad, I can get the Kindle edition, read on my Kindle and see the color pictures on my iPad. The best of both worlds!

A couple of years ago, I took a one-day workshop from John Marshall in which he taught us how to make our own pigments. You can find directions on his website here. Now, our blue did not come from lapis lazuli, but it was still fun. You can find a couple of ingredients for making blue on John’s website. Maybe making pigments is in the future. You can also check out Kit Eastman’s work and several others who are using dyes and/or pigments creatively: Donna Kallner and Kimberly Baxter-Packwood. Then there is the queen of natural dyeing, Michele Wipplinger, founder of Earthues.

It is Saturday as I write this and I am trying to decide what the next project will be. I thought I knew, but doubts are creeping in. I have tons of red yarns dyed for this next weaving, but now I’m not sure. Anyone else do this?

With the extreme weather we’ve had in Texas this year, I have become obsessed with weather maps and graphs. One of these is bound to end up in a weaving soon. Here’s one about possible precipitation this weekend. Notice that word possible? Mind you, this was posted Saturday and yet the title says “through Monday.” If only it would be true! At any rate, it has great gradations of greens!

The one on the left is essentially another map of wishful thinking concerning precipitation, but depicted differently. Same thing, second verse below. But they are colorful. The one below showing temperatures is my favorite, though. At least, today.

Cofradia Huipil (blouse)

When I saw that the Sheila Hicks exhibit and and exhibit on modern Maya clothing were going to be at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, my mind stated whirring. Maybe I could kill THREE birds with one stone: visit my daughter, and see these exhibits. But alas, I can’t travel right now, so will have to miss these exhibits.

The occasional newsletter from Folkwear Patterns arrived in my Inbox. Take a look at the photo gallery of the many variations on the middy blouse. I love variations on a theme! I like the Cowgirl jacket. Take a look at the original pattern and then at one of the jackets actually sewn. To be able to envision that jacket in so many different looks is talent. I no longer sew, but still enjoy what others do, in the same way that I admire the work of fellow weavers who do such complicated weave structures. Or maybe I should say structures other that plain weave!

Originally, I was going to post a blatant political rant, but I have calmed down some, so instead here’s another picture that combines the ancient with the present. The link is here.

CHIAPAS.- During Pre-hispanic times, three or four maya painters guided by a teacher represented Bonampak, which is in the State of Chaiapas. These stunning scenes, made more than 1,200 years ago, have come back to life thanks to specialists from the National Institute of History and Anthropology who have restored the murals. Photo: DMC INAH. H. MONTANO.

I’m not sure how I feel about this picture, but I think disappointed would be one description. I remember the first time that I saw Maya ruins, on a misty day, high point above the Caribbean Sea. The paint, amazingly, was still visible on the walls of the ruins. The mist made it seem so mysterious. I looked out to the sea and imagined the ancient people seeing the ships of Spaniards—almost gave me chills. Tulum was my favorite, even though Chichen Itza was grander. You can see a map and read about the individual ruins here. Would Tulum have seemed so mysterious and wonderful if the paintings had been restored? Or does it make any difference? At least it appears that the colors are still muted and look ancient.

A couple of months ago I downloaded Colorways, an ezine from Interweave Press. It is on my computer, and after my initial perusal, I haven’t looked at it again. It’s all about natural dyeing, and from many of the pages, there are more pages that one can click on to get more information. The pictures are great, and although I REALLY love to hold the actual printed matter in my hands, it’s nice that this is not one more thing to find a home for.

Now that the fall issue is out, I decided to download this one to my iPad, thinking that I would be more likely to look at it multiple times from my comfy chair in the living room and/or while watching mindless TV. I have tried a couple of other types of ezines, I think the format of the ezine lends itself to the iPad very nicely.

In the fall issue, there is even video of blending colors for spinning. The photographs are gorgeous. There is a whole section on indigo, which I haven’t finished reading. However, for me there is one problem with this on my iPad—there are a few PDFs that I would prefer to print. So, only time will tell about this format.

After finally having a design that I was happy with, I realized that it would probably work better with a cartoon. So, off to FedEx Office (formerly FedEx Kinko’s and, before that, just plain Kinko’s) I went. It used to be that to make an enlargement, the original drawing was placed in the huge printer. From there, it was trial and error. Now they scan the drawing or picture, size it to whatever you want, then send it to the printer. So, so much better! I usually do my designs on graph paper that has 10 squares to the inch. Now I just tell them to enlarge 10 times, and voila! it works!

To use, I cut the life size cartoon into sections of about eight inches each. And since not of my designs are very intricate, I mark the lines on my warp with a Sharpie. Holding the cartoon in place while marking has been an problem, that is, until I rediscovered clothespins. Ta Da!

In another what-makes-life-easier event, I upgrades my Photoshop. I was using Photoshop CS2. Now I’m using CS5, and oh, what a difference! CS2 had become very slow to load, and everything froze up on my computer at one point. CS5 has no such issues. Now, I have never used all that Photoshop has to offer, but it’s what I’m used to. So, there!

I’m getting excited to be weaving again. Those little dry spells are probably necessary, but they’re a little frustrating.