Weaving Archives - Page 7 of 11 - Sherri Woodard Coffey

Category Archives: Weaving

Goals

Definite line from the two different dye baths.

Not perfect, but improved

A lot of thinking has been going on in my head the last few weeks, about goals, what I want to do, etc. I know I want to weave and have a decent garden again, including a vegetable garden. Plus, there’s a desire to go to Machu Picchu, a place I’ve always wanted to see. That little item will take some serious getting into shape. Not only is the area challenging because of the trek, but also because of the altitude. Two times I have been in the Andes and both times I got a little tummy problem. The first time I just placed the blame on traveling, but the second time–well, maybe there’s a pattern here. So, this physical readiness becomes a goal. I liked the me that used to walk 5 miles a day, rain, sleet, wind, everything but lightning. So today, I got out and hit the street, then I worked at taming the climbing roses, before moving on to the weaving. The yarns I’m using came from two different dye pots, and there was a definite line in the weaving. So, I took out a few inches, then worked at blending the old color with the new color in that section. Now I’m just hoping I don’t run out of yarn!

Now about the little graphic at the top, yep, it’s the stick to it part that gets dropped. You?

Evolution of a design

Prairie Fire drawing

Prairie Fire

Prairie…what do you think about when you hear that word? Most people think of vast, flat land that goes on forever. That prairie is probably a tall grass prairie on the Great Plains. You can read a little about the Tall Grass Prairie here, and there’s a really interesting article about preserving the Tall Grass Prairie by setting fires here. I recommend that one. Where I live here in Texas is the mid-grass prairie, although the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department calls it the Cross Timbers region.

Frankly, I never considered the prairie at all, and if I did consider it, probably thought it boring. That was before I actually studied it and came to appreciate it. Our prairie is not that vastly flat Great Plains. We have hills. Low hills, but hills. And this brings me to my real topic today.

A few months ago, I went to a lecture at the Kimbell Art Museum during the Picasso to Matisse exhibit. The lecture was really quite interesting, but as I was sitting there, I started thinking about possible weavings about the prairie. Before I left the lecture, I had thumbnails of many of my ideas and a list of more possibilities. Since that time, I have been trying to decide how to actually execute my ideas. My first attempt was not a total success, maybe not even a fractional success. The two drawings above show what I wanted to do in terms of depicting grasses. Yes, I know, it’s yellow. The rest of the story next time…

Favorite tools

One of my favorite weaving tools is broken, and a replacement has not been found yet. I bought this beater/fork a jillion years ago from Weaving Southwest. It’s about 12 inches long–longer than any others that I’ve been able to find. The spaces are perfect for my 4-epi rug weaving. They are out of stock at Weaving Southwest, so I’ve been looking for others. How did this one get broken? It was dropped too many to times. It only got used when I advanced the warp too far, so most of the time it sat on the bench, only to get knocked off constantly. When/if I find a new beater, I am going to drill a hole in the handle, thread a ribbon through the hole, ad wear it around my neck, like some people do with their scissors.

What are your go-to tools? Do you have a beater you love?

DFW Fiber Fest 2014

What’s on the loom

It was about this time last year, the time of DFW Fiber Fest, when I bought a new spinning wheel. I only wish I had known how stressful it would have been to put together. I had everything together but one pin that was supposed to go through the hub of the wheel and a hole in the crank (or whatever that’s called). I could not get it to go in. I finally had to put it aside because of all the other stuff going on. And it stayed aside for a year. Until Saturday. I took the wheel and the very kind husband of the couple who own the shop, fixed it. And there was a special trick to it. So there!

I also took some fleeces to Gail of Ozark Carding Mill, so that she can turn it into roving. There’s something sad about this, though. After my fleeces (2 churro and 2 mohair) are prepared, the mill equipment will be dismantled. Although this mill has Ozark in it’s name, it is located in Oklahoma, not too far from the Texas border. I wish there was a mill in Texas. Gail was there as Gail’s Fiber Delights, and she does have some really beautiful fibers.

Now for part three of this Fiber Fest saga. I met a really nice couple who are the owners of Mohair and More. I was excited to see their booth because they had ball winders that I’ve been wanting to try out. These ball-winder guys are expensive, and I certainly did not want to spend a bucket of money for one without trying it out. They forgot their business cards, so I took a pic of a label on a swift. This particular swift is metal with pegs that slide for different sizes of skeins. If I didn’t like my squirrel cage so much, I’d be tempted.

It’s warp time again

Here’s what I’ll be doing this week. All week. There are two pieces that need their warps taken care of. Plus, there’s a jam-packed calendar of things, some fun, some just necessary.

One of the pieces that I’m working on is one that I just thrust aside after cutting it off the loom because it had caused so many weaving problems. It was redesigned a few times mid-weave and just wasn’t what I’d intended. After a rest, I decided it wasn’t THAT bad, so it’s getting a warp fix. Then I’ll think about it again and decide if it’s ever going to make it out of the basket it sits in.

The good news is that the warp is tied on the loom again. If I could decide on a direction, I could weave.

Lost territory

I posted this on my Facebook page: Goals for the week that’s already half over: finish piece on loom, continue outside work (porch, compost leaves, weed garden area), do the finish work on “grasses.” This is probably more than I can do, but I’m going to try.

Fuzzy picture, but you can see where the big gap is above the colors.

That went pretty well yesterday. I wove five inches out of the 28 that I have left to do, finished with dragging all the leaves into the compost bin. Today I even got to the loom earlier ad was moving along nicely. That is until disaster struck. A warp broke! And it didn’t break in a nice, convenient area, but very close to the fell. So I took out several inches, including some that I wove yesterday. That means that today is a wash, as we say here in Texas. (Is that common everywhere?)

Now I have revised goals:

Outside–

finish cleaning off the porch, which also means hauling stuff to Salvation Army.
Weed the garden bed

Weaving–

Get 10 inches woven on the piece on the loom
Do the warp finish work on “grasses.”

We’ll see how this goes.

Weaving and experimenting

This is what I’m working on right now, and I already think I’m going to have to dye some more yellow. Plus, I made a design error, at least according to my drawing. After going back and redrawing the design, I elected to continue rather than take out four inches of weaving. Wonder why!

I’ve also been experimenting on the Baby Wolf. Part of the current weaving is going to have a rectangle, and I want it to look kind of like a shadowy door. I’m embarrassed to show these pictures, but I guess I have no shame. First of all, the Wolf doesn’t get enough tension for this purpose, but it is just a trial and error, so I continued. Originally, the little square was woven by itself. Then I went back in to weave the parts on each side. The sides were then stitched together just to see how these different techniques would look next to the background. The stitching is really messy, but that’s not the point. I’m still not sure what I’ll do when I get to that section of the weaving, but I do know what I don’t like.

The old fashioned way

The days are busy. After a period of much inactivity, I’m back on track. As much as I try, I can’t always figure out why that happens. Sometimes it’s obvious, others not. The warp is measured to go on the Baby Wolf for a series of small pieces or experimentation. I’m still trying to decide on the next big piece, but the choices are getting fewer.

To do the warp, I hauled out the warping reel, something I haven’t used in ages, wondering if I even remember how to use it. It really doesn’t matter very much if I do make mistakes. The warp is narrow, 8 epi. The reel had lots of webs all over it. Dragged out the card table too. Now to take that warp off, and load the loom.

As an aside, I started to say drug out the card table (instead of dragged), which prompted me to look it up. Isn’t it amazing what information is out there for us to find? Anyway, turns out that drug is not really wrong; it’s dialect. But more formally, one would say dragged. A couple of good sites: Grammar Girl and Grammarist.

Piddling

Seems that it’s almost impossible to get focused right now. I think part of the problem is that I’m trying to find a direction that I want to take next. Maybe some really small things? I may attempt that, but it means finally getting the small loom set up. One glance in that direction, and I walk off, although it would be really good to do, if only because it has a raddle. I’ve never used one before.

In the meantime…it’s winter again. My new-found embrace-the-weather attitude is being tested. So what do you do on a cold winter day? I played with apps. One it called Waterlogue. You can take one of your photos and the app will turn it into a “watercolor.”

I also was the program for a really nice group of garden club ladies. They asked me to do a program on natural dyeing, since, after all, they are gardeners. I got out the projector to make sure everything worked, when I discover that I have no way to connect the projector to my current compute

Rescued!

r! Yikes! I got changed for a trip to town, when I thought about my accordion folder for all things computer, including printer info, etc. Now I’m not usually so organized, but this time I was. In one of the pockets were several wrapped items, and lucky day! One was a dongle. Rescued!

More about focus later. One day it’s there, next day it’s gone.

Experimenting, part 2

Ikat

Even my weaving is an experiment. I really should be “sampling,” but I just go all out, so weaving is not the refuge that it usually is. I took out all the weaving that I pictured last week and started again. It seems to be going better this time around. I’ve decided I’ll complete the first section and then make a decision—cut off or continue.

Giving up?

I told myself that I would experiment with this for three months, so giving up is not a good option. However, I could go back to only rectangular shapes until I have a better handle on what is measured on the ikat board and what actually weaves up. Hmmm…

What I’ve learned this go-round

Weaving

Woven

Woven

One of the things that I’ve learned is to try to center the next pick with the one before it. That means forgetting those marked warps and trying to weave the design according to those. By centering the wefts in this way, they make the shape they’re supposed to make. On the left is a section woven in this manner. Now, that doesn’t mean they’re as good as I would like, but an improvement over the bottom picture–which I took out.

Dyeing

Trying all of those WashFast colors that I have is another experiment. After my initial disappointment, I’m really liking the colors. I’ll put them all in a pile and take a picture soon. Also need to make sample sheets, since the samples that I received are dyed at different percentages. Above are two yellows. The skeins are WashFast and the ball is the yellow from my usual dyes. The new yellow has a greenish cast, although not as severe as in this picture. Below is an adjusted picture. Not much better after all….just believe me!

Photo adjusted

Ikat Dyeing

More on this later, but experimentation here also. I’m not even dyeing the other tied sections until I decide the fate of this piece.