Sherri Woodard Coffey

Finishing

I have Señor Fish ready to hem, then he will be steamed vigorously. I will take a better photo tomorrow. I redid his eye with a small piece of needle felting and a couched yarn around it. It looks better, but I’m still unsure about the color. Oh, well…

Planning

I’m pretty sure that the next ikat project will be a really simple one of squares and rectangles. Not even much math to figure out. However, the yarns do have to be dyed before tying ikat wraps.  As usual, the color here does not look like what will actually be dyed.

Also on the to-list for next week:

• Dye magenta yarns
• Clean up studio
• Tie on warp
• Begin plain green piece
• Begin tying ikat
• Apple workshop
• Real life

I also would like to do a series of small (four inches) squares, but I don’t know what to weave them on. I’ve tried several things, so may end up using the Wolf Pup for this project. Any suggestions?

For now, it’s off to do kitchen, laundry, etc. Don’t you just love housework!

In addition to the finishing portion of my day, I have signed up for some workshops at the Apple store. In March, my soon-to-be-83-years-old mother bought a new laptop. At that time, Apple was offering one on one lessons. I found out today that they no longer offer that, so she has missed out on getting lessons. I’m going to take a few of their workshops and then teach her. Tomorrow I start, so we’ll see how that goes.

I’m working on the finishing of Señor Fish and while I’m doing it, I’m thinking about his name. I was first thinking of a name in Spanish which would denote his origins. However, my mother suggested that “fish” should be in the title in case someone couldn’t tell that he was a fish. Hmmm…

The other part of finishing this little guy is his eye. I couldn’t decide what color to weave his eye, so compromised with a blend of a different gold than his body and orange. It just looks like a dirty spot in the finished product. I currently have a red needle-felted piece for his eye. I’ll live with that while doing the finishing on the warp ends. One option is to do some couching as an outline around the felted part. We’ll see.

I’d like to get fish finished and photographed by the 15th for an entry in a fiber show. Nothing like the last minute, right?

 And since he’s a Peruvian fish, Spanish is most  appropriate. He’s going to need lots of vacuuming because he’s all covered in fuzzy lint. Here’s what he looked like on the loom. I’m always a little nervous when taking a piece off the loom…will it look as planned?  Tomorrow he’ll get cleaned, and then he’ll be hemmed. I decided on hemming since it’s only about 38 inches, but not square.

Weaving Week

I added up my weaving hours for last week and have over 14 hours. Not too shabby, but also not the 15 hour goal. This week may not be as good since I have two obligations on the calendar.

Ikat Table

I’ve set up the ikat table. It will probably need some dividers for the top two drawers. That’s where the scissors, tape measure, ikat tape, etc. will be held. The drawers on the left currently hold what I think is going to be the next really simple weaving project—plain weave with various thicknesses of yarns, some of which are hand-painted. The drawers on the right hold white yarns in balls for an ikat project someday. Some of the pegs are not in their holes, if you’re wondering. The horizontal boards are to keep the peg boards from drawing in as the yarn is wrapped around the pegs. It will be nice to have the ikat supplies close at hand and to not have to search for scissors. Yeah, right, like that’ll ever happen!  More tape from Maiwa should be coming soon. Casters may be added to make this more portable, but to also add height so the wrapping will be more comfortable standing up.

I’m working on the section with pick and pick, and it’s giving me a problem. I don’t do this kind of weave very often (think only one other time), and am struggling with knowing how to do the sides where the tapestry border meets the pick and pick section. Not happy with my result, but it works.

I am making a run to the Container Store to get inserts for the top two drawers of my new ikat measuring table. Pictures tomorrow. Then a little housework and yard work. Very little! Minimum in fact. Maybe some more studio clean up. Sorting yarns, rewinding partially used balls to make them more compact.

I wove for two hours, but not successfully. I had to take out an inch or so because I forgot to make a color change. Very frustrating. I’m beginning to think this piece has bad kharma or something. I decided it was time to walk away for today. Tomorrow is another day, right? Tomorrow will be the day I get to the easy part.

 Thunder and Lightning, tapestry, wool,

We had thunderstorms last night. Very noisy thunderstorms. Really, really thunderous storms. It was a wakeful night. Then I woke up again at 4:30. That’s AM. Since the alarm was set for 5:30, that essentially meant no more sleep. Got up at 5, had coffee, got dressed and made a trip to the airport. Then met a friend for even more coffee and a very nice visit. On to errands, appointment, haircut, and grocery store.  It’s been a very long day of no weaving. Will go to bed early and make tomorrow a weaving day. But hey, my hair looks good!

I read a review of this book today. This comes from Amazon. When I did a search for information, the video from YouTube came up also. Interesting designs. I’m wondering how they would translate to ikat.