Sherri Woodard Coffey

If you would like to take what is called a color IQ test, go here. You slide the color chips around until you get them in correct order. The whole thing is somewhat like the Munsell Color Set, shown below, good practice for color recognition. Which brings me to the brain. I know very little about what each part of the brain does, and know nothing about what part of the brain distinguishes between similar colors. Nor do I know what part of the brain does blogging, but whatever part is responsible for blog ideas must have been fried while I was running a low-grade temperature for two weeks. Ideas “R” (not) Us right now. However, as I look at the brain below—Have you noticed how small the visual part is? Of course, it is part of a larger visual association regionIn the reading department, I am listening to the second of the Stieg Larsson trilogy. The Girl Who Played with Fire. On the website dedicated to all things Larsson, one can find all kinds of minutiae, like Lisbeth’s computer, height, etc. The first in the series was kind of slow-going at first, but then picked up the pace. Maybe because I’d listened to the first book, this one seemed interesting to me from the get-go.

I’ve written before about my son Chad and daughter-in-law Tina. Chad makes “critters” and Tina makes beaded jewelry. First of all, I can’t believe that my son owns a sewing machine, but that’s a different story.

Living in Arizona, they enter their county fair every year. This year they raked in the ribbons, with Tina’s beaded jellyfish taking Best of Show, shown in the two pictures below.  The critter below is a backpack. What kid wouldn’t love to have that! Or adult…  All of the pictures can be seen here in a larger format—IF the pictures are not blocked on Tina’s FB page.

By the time this is posted, I will have had a photographer visit my studio to take pictures for Panache Magazine, which is published monthly by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. There has been frantic studio clean up and a piece started, because, after all, they wanted pictures of weaving! All of this happened while there was no warp on the loom and I was sick with what I thought was a virus. Turns out that the virus is an infection—where that came from, I have no idea. There were no symptoms. However, since this is my first experience with something like this, how would I know? At any rate, I’m happy that the problem has been found and is being treated. But, let me tell you, getting a warp on the loom and cleaning up the studio 15 minutes at a time, then resting 30 minutes, is a trick.

In the meantime, I have estimated the amount of yarn needed for each color of the commission pieces. This is a rough idea of what they will look like hanging on their lime green backgound.  I’m kind of not liking the square on the left. Need to rethink that one…  She wanted some yellow included, and some aqua (haven’t figured out a dye formula for aqua yet). The yellow square seems to be too much yellow, though. Back to the drawing board, as they say.The middle square will actually be more reddish than the orange shown. Maybe the yellow square should be in gradations of orange to yellow. Thinking, thinking, thinking…something will come to me while weaving.

This is the piece that’s on the loom now. After completing the commission pieces, I may use the same idea but in a different color arrangement.

In preparation for a commission that I have coming up and another project which will be explained later, I finally got the new warp on the back beam and tied to the dangly threads of the old warp, tied onto the front, and started weaving. I have used the Swedish cotton for this warp, ends doubled, and so far, I like it.

I took both these pictures with my new camera and am wondering why I seem to have a curve where there should be straight lines. Well, actually, I don’t want to know WHY, I just want to know how to not have them. The why is best left to another day.

The commission pieces will be a series of squares, which I have done before, so the challenge was to change them up a bit and to use different colors. While working on that, and because I needed something in progress on the loom, I started the charcoal, blue, teal, and cinnamon project. Here is the drawing for the project photographed above. There are obvious differences in the colors, but you get the picture. I may expand this idea and reverse the colors in some ways and weave another similar piece. I made eight or so square drawings to scale on graph paper, scanned them, then played around with color based on the color wheel in Color Schemer. I have mentioned how much I like this program in other posts.

It is so nice to be back at the loom! I love my job!

These pictures are from the March workshop.

Back in March I drove to Johnson City to take a one-day workshop with John Marshall. I was reading Kit Eastman’s blog about her trip to California to John’s home/studio. She has some great pictures there, so take a look. Also, take a look at Kit’s work. Lovely detailed work. It’s really interesting to read about the whole katazome process. I am fascinated by the big pots that John has for his various projects, especially the ceramic ones that formerly held soy sauce. Thinking about all of this reminds me that maybe it’s time to wash the pieces I did in the workshop. Have they cured long enough?

And, for all of us who love tapestry, take a look at this  page. It’s from the Australian Tapestry Workshop. I am in awe of some of the pieces in progress! Here’s a quote from the site:

Tapestries created by the Australian Tapestry Workshop are original art works that are new and vital interpretations of an artist’s design. Spectacular and durable, tapestries can be as small as the palm of a hand or as large as a gallery wall.

Okay, I am officially inspired by the lithographs at the Amon Carter Museum by Leon Polk Smith. What appeals to me is the idea of using paper and a pair of scissors to create designs. I’m not saying that’s what Smith did, just that I could. I really enjoyed doing that for the piece that I call Journey, and I should probably use that concept more often. So, in that regard, this exhibit inspired me to cut more! For Journey, I used the cutouts enlarged, warts and all, for the cartoon, perhaps another indication that I need to “let loose.”

You can see more pictures of Smith’s work here and read about him here.

Evidently Interweave has a YouTube channel (or whatever they’re called), but here’s Jennifer Moore demonstrating one way to wear a scarf. If you click on Interweave, there are 254 videos for you viewing pleasure on many different subjects. You can go to the subcategory of weaving and spinning to find specific topics. If you have the opportunity to take Jennifer’s workshop Mathemagical, I highly recommend it. In fact, I’d like to do it again! Maybe more would sink in and take hold.