Sherri Woodard Coffey

Occasionally I find a newsletter from Folkwear in my inbox. Sometimes I read them, sometimes I don’t. In today’s newsletter were a bunch of what appears to be interesting exhibits of textiles. This is where I wish I could just hop on a plane and go—wherever and whenever I wanted!

The Fabric of Society: 1,500 Years of African Textiles at Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Beyond Fashion: Fiber and Fashion Art by Vincent Quevedo at Kent State University Museum.

Second Lives: The Age-Old Art of Recycling Textiles at the Textile Museum.

Beyond Peacocks & Paisleys: Handcrafted Textiles of India and its Neighbors at the Goldstein Museum of Design.An upcoming exhibit at the Textile Museum is Weaving Abstraction: Kuba Textiles and the Woven Art of Central Africa.

If you’ve never looked at what the Textile Museum has to offer, there are several online exhibitions, such as this one called Common Threads. Others are listed here.

Instead of traveling, I’ll be tending the dyepots again today. It’s really hot, windy, and dry, dry, dry here in Texas and most of the Southwest. Dyeing must be done early, my preferred time anyway. I like to get them cooked, turn off the burners, and let them sit overnight. More pics soon.

Photo credit

I love this picture posted on Facebook. Wish I had taken it, but I can’t take the credit. The credit link is below the picture. When it’s rodeo time in Weatherford, Texas, horses take precedence, as seen here “parked” at the Sonic Drive-in. Below is a picture of the Posse at the Fort Worth Stock Show in 2008.

My father was a member for many, many years, and it was somehow comforting when many of the members came to his funeral dressed in their “uniform” of white shirt and string tie.

The boys and I baked a chocolate cake for their Great-grandmother (my mother), Dannie Woodard. They wanted to put Lego characters on the cake, but I vetoed that idea. Since there were no birthday candles in the house, we used one big candle and sang “happy birthday” before finishing off the cake. I have a large family, thank goodness, so there was no cake to bring home. Both the boys loved having a pool party with their cousins-whatever-removed before the birthday celebration.

My grandsons flew in from Charlotte on Tuesday, flying for the first time by themselves. I envisioned them wandering around the huge airport as we tried to find each other, but, or course, that never happened. The “receiver” of the children gets a boarding pass to go through security and then is able to collect unaccompanied children at the gate, after showing ID (again) and signing papers. They really do take care of that precious cargo!

Spending time with children makes for busy-ness. After going to the Parker County Sherriff’s Posse rodeo on Wednesday night, we trekked on Thursday to Grapevine for Legoland. In case you’re out of the loop with what young boys like, Legos are IT! Above are two pictures of the city made from Legos, actually pretty amazing. The one on top was taken at “night.” We saw a 4-D movie. I learned that 4-D means that the 3-D effects are enhanced by things that the audience can feel, like wind swooshing as a skier goes by, and by actual snowflakes falling. Pretty neat! Believe me when I say that Legoland is full of lots of children.

Not much weaving or dyeing happening right now. Today we will be baking a cake for the upcoming birthday of the children’s soon-to-be 85 great-grandmother. Am hoping for more dyeing next week. They want to watch, but it will only be for the first part. I do not want little boys around big, hot pots of simmering water.

My choice of reading material is not exactly literary. I prefer mysteries (or, as they sometimes call them, thrillers). It used to embarrass me that this was my favorite genre, but I heard an interview once with a man who is considered by most of the world to be very intellectual (can’t remember who). He stated that his favorite reading is mysteries. With that I decided that I know longer have to hide my book choices!

I often choose books based on the setting, usually a place I’ve visited or want to visit. I am astounded sometimes by the extraneous and eclectic information one can get from books, probably gathered by a professional researcher. I never even knew there was such a profession until listening to an NPR radio program. I immediately knew that’s the career I should of chosen (had I known it existed). I was one of those people who loved the research papers in college. I know—sick! Recently I picked up a copy of The Silenced by Brett Battles. I was hooked immediately, even though the career choice of the main character is not exactly one we would wish for our children. Quinn is a “cleaner.” That means that he disposes of bodies that would be, if found, inconvenient for governments and various agencies. I have now started reading the first in the series, something else I do—read all the books by a certain author in order.

There is another series with a likeable character and lots of extra information to boot. Those are the John Dunning books about old, valuable books, featuring the main character of Cliff Janeway. Sometimes the only problem is that new books are slow in coming. Can’t these folks write any faster!

Mentioned before here is a blog about books: On a Clear Day I Can Read Forever. There might be some suggestions for future reading material there.

The Sonia Delaunay exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt looks wonderful—at least from my computer. The link will take you to a slide show about the exhibit. Some of the designs are on paper and some are printed on silk. And what about those swimsuits! The Hand-Eye magazine Facebook page has been featuring some of them. This one is my favorite. It’s gouache on paper, which makes me think (again) about doing a little designing that way. Even her driving caps (above) look cool! The blurb says that they are silk and wool embroidery on wool. Not sure how that works…they look knitted to me.

Usually I have a scale model of what I am going to weave and just count inches, sections, or whatever during the weaving. When doing these swirly pieces, however, I feel the need to have a cartoon, a life-size drawing of the piece. Below is the to-scale drawing of the weaving plan on graph paper, including notes on colors. At the right is the actual cartoon drawn on Vellum graph paper.

I have a new adaptation that I plan to weave, based on a geode slice. As I started to enlarge the drawing onto graph paper, my frustration level was increasing. So, off the drawing and I went to FedEx Office. The nice young lady there quickly scanned the drawing, went to her computer, enlarged it by ten times, and sent it on to the giant printer. In no time, I had my 3 x 5 cartoon of what I am going to weave. This process costs $0.75 per square foot. Quite exciting and no frustration! Previously, when I have had a cartoon done, we have inserted the actual drawing into the printer, and many mistakes were spit out. This scanning and working on the computer first is much better! Let’s hear it for technology!

but over sixty skeins of yarn are weighed and labeled, ready to dye! These are the yarns on hand that I forgot I had when I place the order for the new 100 pounds of yarn. So, the tree picture above really does belong with this topic. A friend gave me some of these plastic plant tags, and I’ve used the last of them. A little research, and a box of a 1000 of these can be mine for less than $30. These come from Gempler’s, a place I had never heard of before, but I think I’ll give them a call. I can not only write the weight of the skein, but also the dye formula on these labels. Previously, I have used masking tape (satisfactory except for dark colors) and homemade labels from milk cartons and Tyvek. I like these plant ties best, so, a phone call.

All of the new yarns are stored away in their containers, but since I’ve got all these weighed skeins ready to go, who knows when the bins will be opened. There may be a dyeing frenzy around here!

I ran across the work by a photographer somewhere—don’t remember where. Her name is Michelle Bates. I especially like the section in her portfolio called Graphics.

Within that group there is a section called Urban Oases. This section includes nature in an urban setting. I’m pretty sure that the picture that first caught my attention was the one of tree branches and shadows, something I’ve been photographing myself. There’s also a great picture of roots, another subject of mine. The photo below is of the tree branches in the snow.

The pictures in Graphics section were taken with a Holga camera, and, no, I had never heard of this before. Click on the link to find out more. From what I read, I am guessing that one would need to get these photos processed in a darkroom. Where does one find those nowadays?

It is said that the wind on the prairie drove some pioneer women mad. Maybe I’m there. The wind has been relentless this year, not even dying down after sundown. Hoping to find references to that phenomenon, I did a cursory research on the issue. I found one listing that looks interesting, a book called Pioneer Women: the lives of Women on the Frontier. Mentioned are several things I had not considered before about how dangerous the typical women’s clothing of the period could be. I had never thought about the possibility of a dress hem catching fire. Nor did I think about the hoops that were fashionable being caught in the wind. Now wouldn’t that be a sight! Hoops were removed and rocks tied to the hems, causing bruising of the shins.

The Teresita Fernández installations at the Modern Art Museum are very nice. I wish there were pictures of my favorite, an installation reminiscent of a scattering of small stars floating on the wall. It wound its way around the room which had a door through which just a glimpse of Martin Puryear’s Ladder for Booker T. Washington could be seen. Would have made a really nice picture, but …oh, well.

Here’s what one hundred pounds of yarn looks like. My estimate is that each of those bags weighs five pounds, since a rough count shows that there are twenty of them. Nothing slow about me! This is the first time I’ve received yarns bagged up like this from Henry’s Attic. At the bottom of the photo, below the paper, is how I have always received them in the past. Gee, wonder what today’s goal is? I’m just hoping they’ll all fit in the containers I have for them. It’s somehow comforting to know that there’s this much yarn available, since the dye gods don’t always smile, and I have to dye more.

Above is a picture of a box that I store the yarns in. In my studio are three closets along one of the walls. Two of those closets are used mostly for weaving. Three of the above boxes fit on the floor under the bottom shelf in each closet. They came from the Container Store.

Currently washing some yarns that were dyed at 50% of the regular 1% dye formula. They look nice, just not sure how they’re going to fit in with the rest of the colors. Pics tomorrow, when I can actually walk through my studio again.