Thursday, March 31, 2011

Busy Busy Busy

YUP... it's been busy...

First and most important - I wanted to make sure I had all my ducks in a row to donate my Woven Olympic Haori to Art and Crafts United for Japan to be auctioned April 8-10 on eBay to benefit Global Giving's Earthquake and Tsunami Relief. My young friend Anastasia helped me by photographing my haori on one of her friends. We had hopedto do an outside shoot against one of the beautiful weathered walls in Savannah... but it poured just as I got to town (& even hailed later.) We found a conference room with some natural light (gray rainy light...) and got to work. Her photos were much better than the ones I had taken with my iPhone. I NEED to get a decent camera! Outdoor photos are usually pretty good on an iPhone... but indoors, forget it!

Here are the photos I submitted...

To complete the submission I needed to get to the Post Office to find a box and to weigh it. Mission Accomplished... and I was able to get my digital application in two days early! It was fun to see the photos on their Facebook page. After midnight EST tonight when the deadline for submissions passes the challenge will be to tell as many people as possible about the April 8-10 eBay auction so the group makes lots of money to help the Japanese people! A similar group, though mostly potters - Handmade for Japan - made over $75,000 in their March 31st auctions. Hopefully we can do as well... or better!

The link for the April 8-10 eBay auction is here.
Auction Begins: April 8, 12:00pm EDT/4:00pm GMT/
Auction Ends: April 10, 12:00pm EDT/4:00pm GMT/
People from all over the world have submitted work and are "attending the auction!" Please help by sharing the information with all your friends... through email, facebook, twitter, etc etc etc!

The second reason for my busy - ness.... was helping our Fiber Guild of Savannahs set up our brand new Weaving Studio - Oatland at Oatland Island Nature Center. Oatland was the guild's home for many, many years and the guild had to move to Armstrong Atlantic State University when the administration building where they were housed was condemned! Ten years later the building is beautifully renovated and we were offered a room in exchange for working with children and adults in the community to share our knowledge of weaving, spinning and other fiber arts.

We welcome the chance to have our looms and equipment all together in one space - a beautiful space to work. When it looked like we couldn't get our looms from AASU, the guild members rallied and loaned looms, warping reels, a spinning wheel, etc. etc. etc! What a group! It is now FULL of wonderful equipment after our last minute move with Two Men & a Truck yesterday transporting 3 large floor looms - 2 counter balanced and one wonderful 12 shaft 45" Leclerc (we'll be fighting over THAT one!) and lots of other equipment including a huge warping reel, reeds, raddles, lease sticks, inThey are still disassembled (unless Bonnie and her supportive hubby AJ got over there today to re-assemble them.) but soon we will have an organized working weaving studio to share with the Savannah community. HOORAY! It is really VERY exciting! Take a look...
Look at all the looms and that huge warping reel in the back corner with Bonnie!
Warping reels, spool racks, bobbin winders, and 2 wonderful looms, etc. are on this wall.
Yes... that's a dogwood tree outside our windows!
Wouldn't bookshelves look great on that back wall? Have any to donate?
our moving team less AJ (Bonnie wonderfully helpful hubby) & Rachel at AASU
me (Suzy), Annie from Oatland, Bonnie & Anastasia

Our members will have an opportunity to weave and work on projects here - 7 days a week between 10am & 4pm with additional hours possible. We are anxious to begin to teach young and old members of the community the fine crafts of weaving, spinning, and other fiber arts here in our wonderful new space. Plans are underway for a Summer Fiber Arts Camp at Oatland! Stay tuned.

My other busy-ness was getting ready to present a program to our guild this Saturday - Fiber Arts of the Bauhaus. I've organized some hands on activities and will have a slide presentation of work created at the Bauhaus. The material was from research I did for my book, Woven: a Bauhaus Memoir. It should be fun!

PHEW... tonight I'm going to a presentation put on by the SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) Fiber Department on Mayan Weaving. Tomorrow afternoon there will be a workshop and demonstration of back-strap loom weaving.

What a weaving-full week. Now... if I can just get to my loom!!!

Monday, March 21, 2011

Artful Spinning with JazzTurtle

Esther Rodgers came to town to give Spinners from the Fiber Guild of the Savannahs a much needed shot in the arm! Eight of us met with Esther (aka JazzTurtle) at Wild Fibres, our LYS for a splendid day of creating artful yarns.
It started with interesting fibers and colors that were soon to be blended on a variety of carding machines. Esther brought three different ones and our youngest fiber fanatic, Hampton, age 9, brought his brand new Patrick Green carder. As inspiration, Esther showed us several delicious batts that she had created and dumped a huge bag full of scrumptious fiber over a chair from which we could create our own batts. She had two different kinds of Louet carders and my favorite an Otto Strauch. It did such a beautiful job blending the fibers! It was almost as much fun creating the batts to spin as it was to spin!
We core spun yarn by adding fibers to a yarn base which made for a warmer yarn. Its benefits are that it extends your specialty fibers much better than regular spinning. We added "stuff" to our yarn and explored lots and lots of colors and textures in the many different fibers. We learned to wrap strips of fabric around our yarn. What fun! All of us came away from the day exhilarated!
It was wonderful having Esther stay at our place while she was in Savannah. Besides being a patient and knowledgable teacher, she was a very easy guest and so much fun to have around. The two of us enjoyed a wonderful dinner with her favorite crabcakes at Skylers on Bay St. Delicious!

Here is a luscious skein of art yarn that I created after Esther left using a beautiful spring flower inspired batt of wool from a black sheep who was SAFF champion, mohair, and silk and metallic threads. I added the little silk flowers and leaves (I stripped off all the plastic on them) and even a butterfly from flowers I bought at the dollar store. I love, love, love it! Such lofty soft texture! Now I have to think of just the right project for it, but until then I'm loving having it on the living room side table where I can enjoy it all the time!

Relief Effort by Artisans for Japan

The Arts and Crafts United for Japan (a Facebook organization) has organized an auction of quality handcrafts on eBay for April 8-10 to raise money for the Japan Earthquake & Tsunami Relief effort. I have decided to donate my handwoven Olympic haori (short kimono-styled jacket) to the auction and encourage others to take part in this well-coordinated project. Donations will be accepted until midnight March 31st. Please check out their Facebook page for the registration form.

Helping in this way seems like such a wonderful opportunity to use your beautifully created pieces to benefit people in need. Right now what the people who were so horribly effected by the largest earthquake recorded in recent Japanese history... and the resulting tsunami that swept over the northern coastline of Honshu... need is money so that relief organizations can purchase critical items. By helping in this way the organizations can purchase needed items locally so that distribution is not such a huge issue. The hand-crafted items you donate for the auction and the money they generate as a result of the auction will be able to purchase more help for the Japanese people who have been through so much. Thank you for considering this.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

My heart is heavy...

My heart is so heavy and I feel so helpless. The people of Japan are in the midst of hell and there's so little I can do to help them! They are the kindest, most caring, gentle people who when I visited several years ago often went out of there way to help me. What can I do to help them?

I can donate to the (done), I can donate to (done) or one of the other wonderful charitable agencies who are there helping now. But what else can I do?

I ache for the people who have been devastated by this incredible tragedy! Our youngest son spent a year in Ofunato which you see in many of the photos showing the tsunami damage - that's Ofunato with the car sitting on the rooftop. The town sits north of Sendai at the end of a long narrow bay. They were very prepared for tsunamis after being devastated by one in 1960. They build a massive wall that closed at the first inkling of an earthquake and practiced frequently. BUT who knew that Mother Nature would cause such a massive quake that would send all that water funneling their. My son hasn't been able to contact anyone, so he has no idea how his family and friends are. It was 16 years ago that he lived there... the year of the Kobe quake... 1995.

I was reading some postings of groups on Ravelry who are hoping to send handknit, crochet and woven blankets and hats and mittens to help the people of Japan. It's a somewhat naive idea as the cost of transporting these things would be great, but it is understandable that fiber artists want to help people who are suffering in a very personal way. Donating to Red Cross is imperative (and I found another great group that is supported by Rotary - Shelterbox) but this idea of sending handcrafted items of love, care and support is also important. Hopefully a way can be found to make it work... The hardest part is sitting by and not being able to help in some way! I am obsessed with finding up-to-date information, but I want to do more than send some money. I wish I could get on a plane and physically help in some way!

I heard back from my Rotary friend in Plattsburgh who coordinates the exchange student program this morning. She sent the email I sent her yesterday to all her Rotarian friends and has had several responses all ready. A Rotarian from Calif suggested we contact some very able former Japanese exchange students who may be able to help us find a way to donate handmade items to people who are cold and miserably distressed. I will contact them today. Also they suggested WORLD VISION wvi.org. I'll look into that too. I found a woman in England through Ravelry who is collecting 8" squares to put together into blankets. http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/japan-earthquake-how-to-help/1569950/26-50#42

By working together... we'll figure out a way to do help in some way! My mantra... Maybe we can't do everything... but we can do SOMETHING!

Monday, March 14, 2011

Introducing.... FIONA !!!


Fiona arrived last Monday, right on schedule. I quickly took all her pieces out of the box and arranged them at my breakfast table where I had lots of light... ready to assemble. Well... first I had to rub a couple coats of tung oil finish on her... and THEN Friday night my dear hubby and I assembled her. It was a fairly easy process... but an extra 2 hands were very helpful... and within the hour I was spinning!!!


She's a beautiful wheel and is just perfect for me! I love the contemporary style and the double treadle castle wheel construction. It was so easy to spin on her! As of last night 2 nights after her assembly. I've spun an entire bobbin of the beautiful wool that Beth Dinoff of Whorling Tides created especially for the Carolina FIber Frolic by coordinator, Jan Smiley. It seemed appropriate to spin this fiber first... as that is where I ordered the wheel.


Saturday our Fiber Guild of the Savannahs was demonstrating at the Oatland Island Sheep to Shawl and I plied a blue silk and wool handspun singles with a commercial 5/2 variegated cotton thread using Ellen's "bobble"? technique. I love it... soft and yummy color. I need to think of just the right project for it!

I do love this wheel, however I have to make a few adjustments:
* First, the spring on the Scotch tension has to be adjusted so that it is stretched to its full length and ticks the flier assembly when it spins. I need the tension to be this tight so that the handspun will draw onto the bobbin. I may try small coated elastic hair bands to see if this might be a solution.
* Second, I noticed that after spinning quite a bit... it already needs to be oiled. This may be because it is new... or it may just be a quirk of the wheel. It DID come with a thin needled oil "can" -- so I should have expected a need for oil --- and it was in the instructions.
* The third concern is my fault! I tung oiled the MDF wheel and it came out far too dark. I can't see the contrast between the wheel and the walnut swosh as much as I'd like. I may have to paint the wheel a contrasting color... which was something I'd thought of earlier. I just don't want to paint the light wood on the treadles, flier assembly, bobbins and upright. DARN! I'm not rushing into anything... but percolating on it.