Thursday, March 6, 2014

Some of what I've been up to...

Though I have been less than 100% the past few month, in order to not go stir crazy I managed to accomplish some creative projects.  

This is what I'm enjoying now:  I'm weaving an 8 shaft twill Saori style fabric from my handspun wool yarns on a cotton warp for a jacket I hope to complete for our fiber Guild of the Savannahs annual show and sale at the Coastal Discovery center at Honey Horn on Hilton head.  I have woven over 4 yards and have 2-3 more to weave.  it's been fun... the Saori way... experimenting with different weave structures and textures and fibers (wool, tencel, silk, mohair, alpaca, etc.). I will enjoy the next step as well... Finding just the right way to enhance the special qualities of the handwoven entirely unique fabric.
Here's grandson Ollie with his doll Woody from Toy Story that I designed for him.

Ollie loved Woody and I thought it would be fun to create his own unique Woody.  I looked up images on the Internet and then proceeded to start with the head and knit  using Woody colors down to the boots.  The body is in one piece stuffed as I went along and then embellished... Red stitches on the yellow knitted shirt for the plaid and golden threads for the belt.  I added the arms and then started on the vest... Embellishing with duplicate stitched spots and a golden star.  What is Woody without his cowboy hat so I knit one for him in the round... And it fit!

This is the Groovy-ish Girl Doll I made for 3 year old grand-daughter, Maja.  She was delighted as it reminded her of the Frozen Princess Elsa.  (I had no idea!)  She was fun to make... all cotton washable yarn with some yellow linen and cotton yarns for the hair.  I wish I had made her with smaller knitting needles as the knit was a bit loose once stuffed.

Then for the big g'girls... 7 year old Chelsea and 9 year old Abby  I made some American Girl Doll sweaters with matching hats.

Everything was completed in time to send off for a handmade Valentine from Nana!


Tuesday, March 4, 2014

I'm baaaaaaack!

I'm finally getting back to my blog after 6 stressful months.  First my only brother became very ill in Berlin, Germany the end of July and I spent over 3 weeks with him at the hospital.  He passed away early in October. When I got home after his death I found I had my own health challenges to face.  But I'm back!  I finally am feeling a new normal and started back to my former job at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) as a docent in their galleries.  It feels great to be surrounded by great artwork again and having the opportunity to share what I've learned about the exhibited work with our visitors.

Right now we have an inspiring exhibition called Manipulated: Contemporary Conceptual Photography which includes to my delight three 6' x 8' double woven jacquard tapestries by the artist Chuck Close.  One image is of the artist in color from a large format 20x24" Polaroid camera, a second is of artist Lorna Simpson in black and white including threads of light blue, beige, reds incorporated from that same Polaroid camera and the third is of artist Roy Lichtenstein in stark, very detailed black, white, and grays from one of Close's daguerrotypes. 

Close has his jacquard tapestries woven in Belgium through Magnolia Editions an Oakland, California fine arts company.  They help develop a very large set of digital instructions referred to as a weave file which can communicate with the computerized Dornier loom.  The warp threads are specially dyed Italian cotton; the 17.800 threads are woven 75 rows per centimeter.  Eight different colored warp threads are woven with ten weft colors.  These color palettes are proofed to get just the right combination of values to best capture the original.  “There is more raw data in one weave file,” explains Daniel Farnsworth of Magnolia Editions, “than if you combined the text of all of Shakespeare’s plays.”