Sherri Woodard Coffey

The drawing in the previous post became this piece. I really like the blues, which look quite striking against the almost-black background. It’s called Sine Wave.

In the previous post I also mentioned dyeing greens for a commission piece. That piece is also finished. It was a lot of fun to weave because the colors are so different from what I usually do. When I started the second piece of the triptych, I almost panicked because I suddenly realized that they were going to hang together, and it was really important that they be exactly equal!

I’ve really been inspired to plan ahead. I used Canvas to design several pieces and after not looking at them for a while, I still like them. So, I printed them out and started dyeing the yarns for all of them–8 skeins a day. Tomorrow I’ll do the yellows, then I’ll plan 5-6 shades of blue to begin dyeing next week. Some of the designs will require tying for weft-faced ikat, but a couple are tapestry. A couple of weeks ago I was showing someone how tapestry is done, and found my fingers aching to be weaving tapestry again. I’ve really missed it. So, while I’m working on tying ikat patterns, I will be weaving a tapestry piece.

I’m still doing everything else but what I need to do for the dye studio. Is that telling me something? I don’t think so; it’s just that planting season is here, and it’s a short period of time before the summer heat and drought set in.

I went to the plant sale at Southside Preservation Hall yesterday, so now I have to plant. I dug up the area where I planned to put the new bay tree and what did I discover? Bricks had been placed there many years ago. I dug up the bricks and got the bay, some daisies, a mystery bulb plant (Crocosmia lucifer), and a few periwinkles planted. Then I placed the roses where I will plant them tomorrow.

I know that next week there will be more chipping of tree branches in my future. I hope to have all the major gardening done by then also. THEN I’ll get to the chores related to the dye studio.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was just going to do some brush cutting, cleaning up around the yard. Then all that brush needing grinding up for compost. Then we had a storm and a huge tree branch blew down. More cutting, grinding for compost. The good side is that the branch did no damage, I won’t have to buy firewood this fall, and I have lots of compost to use next year. The bad side: I’m still not working on getting the studio ready. Nor am I weaving!