HGA "Small Expressions" Winner

The winners of the Handweaver's Guild of America's "Small Expressions" annual exhibit have been announced. 

I don't have the artist's permission to post a photograph of the winning piece, so I'll only link to it.

But I did want to post about it, and give it a shout-out, because it is phenonmenal.  And all kinds of inspiring. 

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First Place in HGA's 2012 Small Expressions goes to Jenine Shereos of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.  The peice is entitled Leaves and is made entirely of human hair.  She uses

wrapping, stitching, and knotting techniques to create the ephemeral skeletons of leaves.

~

I love the idea of using human hair in textile (or mixed media) art.  When and if she ever cuts them off, I plan on turning my Breda's long long dreads into something amazing and powerful.  The Darlin'Man's (shorter) dreads are waiting for an artistic hand.  Either he will use them in a carved mask, or I will use them in a tapestry.  


I love the idea of art being the telling of a story.  Storytelling in all its form is powerful powerful stuff.   What better way to tell our own stories than through our own bodies as the medium?  This is why I do theatre.

In many cultures, creation myths are told in the form of stories about weaving or about spinning.  Spinning takes a fluff of 'nothing' - a puff of wool - and turns it into useful and beautiful thread.  Weaving takes thread and turns it into structure and form.  Weaving is also used as a metaphor for fate or destiny, that the cloth that is woven defines the fate of the thread. 
I love the idea of using hair as thread and entering into this mythic discussion.  Hair is something that is our own, that is literally created by us, out of 'nothing' in the same way that plants create themselves out of sunlight. 

I think of fairy tales like Rapunzel and Rumplestiltskin, and about one I read years ago where the maiden wins (back?) the love of the king by weaving him a scarf out of her hair. I think of folk tales like that of the Crane Wife.   I conceive of performance art peices where my hands weave while my hair is fed into the warp - it would probably necessitate extensions, as it isn't THAT long - so that I am both the weaver and the woven. 

Sister shawl

This is the long-belated, much awaited, thanks for being my bridesmaid 2 and a half years ago, shawl for my sister.  Its in an eight shaft twill variation I got out of Carol Strickland's 8shaft pattern book.
The threading, for you weavers reading, is 123432123456787654321234321 876567876543212345678765678.  Tromp as writ.

It is made out of Jaggerspun silk/merino 20/2.  Set at 24 epi.  I think its a bit looser set than the first batch of shawls I made, but sleyed at 28 epi was just too much.

Loom in sun.

A couple of weekends ago, my breda and I spent an entire day organizing and setting up - moving into really - the studio.  It had never been fully moved into with the rest of the house, and then bgan to aquire heaps and heaps of fabric, yarn, clothes, costumes, materials, and odds and ends...  eventually all the heaps merged to become one giant mire.

Need I say that it was a monumental task?

But it sure did turn out nice:

And now I feel like it is a welcoming inspiring inviting space.

Some more pictures of the twill:

... I want to surprise her with it being done (when it is) - she knows its coming, but likely thinks it will "never" be done (I dont' blame her!)....  so, I can't post it on facebook.... but as far as I know she doesn't read my blog!

Finally Finished

This, my first rug, has been on my loom for far too long.  But it is finished now, and sitting on my altar table.  Eventually it will live on the wall, but for now the simple warmth of a wool rug on a wood table under a glass oil lamp speaks to me of the coziness of the cold season.

I spent a few hours today before rehearsal finishing the last half inch or so.  Because a traditional Navajo rug has four selvedges, it means that the last rows must be painstakingly needle woven in, under and over each individual warp thread, until enough are packed in that the end is no less dense than the beginning.

wedding gifts

Last October, two dear friends got married, one day apart.  One wedding was in Rome, Italy; one was in Wisconsin.  I went to Rome.  And resolved to make an amazing set of tea towels and napkins for the friend whose wedding I missed.  Just over a year later, I took them off my loom.

I have got to work on my productivity, and take less time to finish projects.

Granted, it was a 10 yard warp, and just under 30 feet is alot of weaving!

I can post these pictures here, as I've yet to gift them, because said friend doesn't read this blog :-)

I've been so very good, not posting on Facebook, so she'll be surprised.

They went to Fiji for their honeymoon, so the color scheme was my attempt to evoke Fijian islands.

They are made out of cottolin, a yarn that is a durable washable mix of cotton and linen which takes color better than linen and is softer and easier to weave, but is still stronger than cotton.

They were all woven on a dark purple warp, with 2 small aqua stripes on one side.

Tea towel/table runner:

The table set with place settings and 4 napkins:

and with the other 4 napkins:

close up of a multi-colored waffleweave sample, and another stripey tea towel

(I'm keeping both of these, the rest are the wedding present)

2 variations on waffle weave: dishtowels

Tea towel in plainweave with 3/1 point twill stripes:

Napkin in twill, with point twill stripes:

another napkin: plainweave

All the napkins:

Symphony in D(oubleweave)

"Hipstamatic" homelife

This post is inspired by Barefoot Crofter's seven days posts, which one of these weeks (or months) I may actually manage to do regularly, and in sync, with her.  It's a lovely idea.  I'm a bit in love with my hipstamatic app on my iphone. As you can see below...

Yes, I choose to beat my eggs with a hand cranked egg beater AND I own an iphone. 

Actually, my breda found me an electric beater at the Transfer Site (more on the magic of the transfer site in another post) - and I thoroughly look forward to using it to cream eggs butter and sugar for cookies, rather than beating that by hand...

Dogs in the kitchen.  Intent.  *Sure* that they must be getting some of whatever it is mama is making.  Even the broccoli.  They eat it. No joke.

This is the latest off my loom.  Actually off a loom at the Guild studio.  It is a double weave piece, meaning that there are two separate layers of cloth, with the layers exchanging places.  The warp (verticalthreads) are purple and copper.  The weft (horizontal threads) are copper on one side, and black on the other side. The first part of this warp was used for the sunburst placemat I traded for the metal art at the craft show earlier this fall.  It was much more geometrically regular. 

 There are six pattern blocks here, because it uses half tones (mixing dark and light warp threads in one pattern block).  The latest Handwoven magazine featured a double weave with 4 pattern blocks on 4 shafts and made a big deal about how cool that was.  I couldn't help but feel a teensy bit superior.  My weaving teacher keeps telling me I should submit things to Handwoven for potential publication.  She suggested both this and the tea towel and napkin set (coming in a post soon!) I made for my friend's wedding.  

This one I thought up while working on that first peice, and listening to Symphony Cast on NPR.  What if I thought about the pattern blocks as instruments or as notes in a measure?  What vitality and movement that would have! So that's what I did.  I was thinking of that part in "Fantasia" near the beginning, where Mickey Mouse is conducting the orchestra, and then animated sound waves come on screen and morph with the music?  I was thinking about that, too. 

So thar she be.  I call it "Symphony in D(oubleweave)"

This is my loom in the beginning to feel put-together studio.  It is in a dormer, so as I sit on my bench, I can look out into the yard.  Or at the insulated curtain when I get that made.  You can see I'm beginning warping my next project.  Its a bridesmaid shawl for my sister, only two years after my wedding when it was supposed to be done.  Bridesmaid gift, how about that?  The yarn is Jaggerspun merino/silk from Halcyon in a dark green.  I'm going to use an 8 shaft complex twill (this is actually the first time I'll be using all 8 shafts of my loom - I kept planning 4 shaft projects); and I'm going to use a dark blue weft of the same yarn, so that the pattern will be more apparent.

A view of the dog yard from the parking spot.  One day it will be a pasture, and the dogs will be re-fenced to a smaller area.  Then there will be a horse and sheep greeting me over and through that fence, and that gate.

The house.

The yard again.  You can just see the moon in the trees.  It was bright and big and beautiful, and didn't show up at all in the photo.

Misha.

My kitchen window.

In the pot you see oregano, that I brought in from the front porch (I planted it in a decorative pot this spring intending to do just this).  It is still growing, despite the rapidly shortening days.