Sherri Woodard Coffey

Yesterday, as I was weaving along, I realized that the weaving I was looking at didn’t exactly match what I had drawn out. So off to the design table I went for some re-designing.

Here’s the gift I bought myself for all those ditch weeds: Ryobi 4-Cycle 30 cc Curved Shaft Gas Trimmer. Now whether it will actually work for me? Don’t know. And even if it does, I will need to mow after getting the high stuff down. It’s all about exercise—at least that’s what I tell myself.

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal Monday morning that made me think about how I spend my time. The article is:

Employees, Measure Yourselves

Encouraging workers to keep track of what they’re doing can make them healthier and more productive

Admittedly, I have not read this complete article, but it did remind me of something I have been doing for several months. For those of you who have no trouble completing tasks on your to-do list, this will sound silly, but here goes anyway.

There is an online website called I done this, that keeps up with what you tell it you have done for the day. Just the simple act of writing down the things I have done throughout the day is freeing somehow. I am amazed with what I accomplish on most days. A dose of reality for me! My to-do list is usually too long to complete, and I do try to pare it down to the most essential, but often things get carried over to the next day. The way this site works, is that they send you an email every day at 6 PM. You respond with the list of what you did during the day. I have been scrupulously honest about my days. If I read and piddle, I say it. There have been a few days when I have responded with, “Not a damn thing.” But most days are filled with what needed to be done. Yay me!

The bluebonnets have been blooming for a couple of weeks here. We Texans love our bluebonnets, and they always bring cheer, but the last couple of years especially, I have felt a glimmer of hope when I see those first peeks of blue. This picture came from the Texas Hill Country page. If you go there, you will see a spectacular banner of bluebonnets.

The yarns are dyed and piled up in the middle of the studio. The de-cluttering continues, with the multiplying files. It’s kind of down to the dregs, you know, that stuff that you don’t know where it belongs or what to do with it. Which is what got me into this mess in the first place. I have also decided that the books will definitely need to be weeded.

Plan for the week:

• Cut off the started piece
• Redo the warp
• Plan the next piece
• Store the freshly dyed yarns
• Weave!!!!
• Continue the great file sort
• Mow, mow, mow
• Play with the Color Aid papers and do some designing

Gee, as I look at that list—Is it possible? I do think that after the magazine sort and the file sort, it’s time to do something I really want to do. So, weave it is!

There’s not much worthy of writing about around here lately. One of my organization tasks was to go through a stack of magazines and tear out anything I considered important. Amazing how a stack of a couple of feet can become a pile of 2 inches! The other task that I’m working on is my tax return. The next few days will be dedicated to that, along with the continuing stirring of dye pots. I thought the dyeing was complete, but two more batches are in order. Those skeins of yarn are so wonderful all lined up on the drying rack! Makes me smile! A panoramic picture of the colorful skeins will be in my next newsletter. Sign up either on my Facebook page or on my website, if you’re interested. I promise—it only comes out two or three times a year!

Now for the best part of my day, and it’s even related to weaving. A totally unexpected package arrived on my doorstep today from my son. Inside was the book above.

Here’s a quote from Amazon about the book’s author, Joe Ben Wheat:

During much of his career, anthropologist Joe Ben Wheat (1916-1997) earned a reputation as a preeminent authority on southwestern and plains prehistory. Beginning in 1972, he turned his scientific methods and considerable talents to historical questions as well. He visited dozens of museums to study thousands of nineteenth-century textiles, oversaw chemical tests of dyes from hundreds of yarns, and sought out obscure archives to research the material and documentary basis for textile development. His goal was to establish a key for southwestern textile identification based on the traits that distinguish the Pueblo, Navajo, and Spanish American blanket weaving traditions—and thereby provide a better way of identifying and dating pieces of unknown origin.

Read more about the book here. From the brief perusal of its pages, besides the beautiful pictures, there are copies of scholarly notes about different cultures and their weaving. I’m looking forward to studying this more, a little bit at a time. As it’s such a heavy book, that study will probably take place at a table.

Another surprise today was a large envelope from my daughter-in-law. Back in January, some of Tina’s work was featured in the banner of an article on their gallery night. The picture used is here. It’s worth looking at her Facebook page just to see the banner. Beautiful!

I’ve been buying the magazine House Beautiful lately, something I’ve never done before. I’m buying them, not because of the pictured rooms, but because something inspires a design idea. Frankly, most of those oh-so-carefully-designed rooms don’t appeal to me much, but the individual textiles do. Often those are rugs or other kinds of fabrics. See below.
As part of my never-ending organizing, I am going through those magazines and tearing out pictures that appeal to me. As I was flipping through one of the issues, I noticed a small phone icon. I read the information, and now Digimarc (a free app for iPhone and Android) has entered my life. Throughout the magazine, there are certain illustrations that have “secret” information embedded. Of the ones I’ve checked out, all were videos about people featured or about putting the magazine together. But, I found a gem! One of those videos is about weaving ikat fabrics! The page with that information is above. I’ve circled the little phone icon. The video follows. Pretty cool!

A little something that makes me smile.

I visited my friend Pat’s studio last Friday and couldn’t resist taking a picture of this wall where a few of her finished masks were hanging. As I write this, I realize that I should have also taken a picture of the other wall with masks in progress.

And just a little organizational talk—One of the things I have done (with the help of organizer Melinda Massie) is get my finishing things all together in one place. Last October I wrote about the tools I use for the hanging boards gathered into one container with “dedicated” tools here, but this is a repeat of the picture. This little Snapware container came from my local Container Store. Each of these little trays snaps together so that everything is all in one place. In my top tray I have all the sharp things—needles and a pair of scissors. In another section I have all the different spools of threads that I have collected for hemming pieces, plus bobbins that go with them. Various other tools are in another section. On the outside I put a tag label that simply says “Finishing.” Sorry about the dark picture, but the box lives inside a cupboard.The one above is on Amazon.

Rectangle with Triangles on the Side, 23 x 37 in

I finally got all my pieces back from Taos, and now have to find room for them. Right now they are taking up much of the living room. I wish they had come back to me with their cardboard tubes and hanging boards, but they didn’t, so that’s another task that gets to be put on the to-do list, the never-ending-to-do list.

Over the last few years several kind of experimental ideas have come to me, but because of trying to keep up inventory and a gallery, I haven’t explored those ideas. Instead of only being sad that WS has closed its doors, I am trying to look at it as an opportunity for exploration and growth. Pieces take so long to weave that I hesitate to experiment too much because eventually that cut-off time arrives along with the knowledge that the experiment was successful—or not. Guess I will get the baby loom out, warp it up and experiment, maybe in a month or two? In the meantime, I think I will start a list of possible experiments.

I think we need these for all car brands, not just the bugs of the world. Love the pattern and colors on this steering wheel cover. I don’t want the dash or outside of the car bedazzled like this, though.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian celebrates one of Mexico’s indigenous communities with the unveiling of “Vochol: Huíchol Art on Wheels” in the museum’s Potomac Atrium. Photo: Alejandro Piedra Buena, courtesy of the Museo de Arte Popular ©2010.

I read the post below from artist Aaron Kramer’s Facebook page, shown below. If you can’t read it, go to his FB page and find the post. It’s all about using Pinterest with respect—respect for the artists or whoever originally created the pinned picture. You can get a “button” for your blog or website like the one above. By the way, Aaron is the juror for the HGA Latitudes exhibit to be shown at Convergence. His website is here.

And then there’s this quote taken from a Business Insider article about a woman named Kirsten, who is a lawyer and a photographer.

Kirsten likens Pinterest to Napster as an enabler of illegal activity.  It wasn’t just Napster that went down — 12 year old girls who downloaded music were sued too.

So, what to do, what to do….And do I really care that much?

In other news, this organizing stuff causes more disorganization! I haven’t gotten done what I was supposed to get done in the last couple of weeks. I’ve been in a bit of a funk, understandable once I realized the date. So now, it’s back to getting busy and going through those !?/#**#**! files! Sort, sort, sort!