Weaving my way through the Blues

"Ocean Breeze" scarf 72" x 9" with 8" fringe  Alpaca, silk, cotton & sparkle

How fortunate weavers are to be able to sit at the loom and focus on creating fabric instead of obsessing over the affairs of the world and our country.  With the holidays rapidly approaching I have been weaving many wonderful things.

I have tried to post what I weave on Facebook and Instagram to create more interest and my New Year's resolution for 2017 is to get serious about creating an Etsy store.  I seem to have a mental block about it.  Everyone tells me its easy-peasy, but I get bogged down in wanting professional photographs.  That isn't happening... at least not yet... so i need to get over it and be happy with the ones I take with my iPhone.

One of my business goals was met in December when I finally revamped my website so that it was focused more on my textile designs and fiber art than the book I wrote about the Bauhaus weavers.   It's a work in progress, so suggestions are welcome!  You can find it at suzanneworkhokanson.com  It now looks like this:



Some other textile artwork I have been creating with my new Saori loom:

After Matthew... fabric woven on alpaca silk warp with several handspun yarns.

 

Shawl woven on a prewound Saori warp of silk noils

Second shawl from the prewound Saori silk noil warp

 

 

Jewel Tones Scarf - owned by BDinoff

Detail of"Ocean Breeze" scarf 72" x 9" with 8" fringe  Alpaca, silk, cotton & sparkle

"Glow"- My first piece woven on my new Saori loom, now owned by my brother's friend in Santa Cruz

Detail first Saori loom weaving on silk with cotton, linen, handspun silk noil and silk kimono fabric weft

Detail first Saori loom weaving on silk with cotton, linen, handspun silk noil and silk kimono fabric weft

I was also able to finish my Handspun Wool fabric woven on my 8shaft Mighty Wolf with a mostly alpaca silk warp.  I can't wait to see what it becomes.  I am thinking it would be a great light weight jacket.  Just off the loom and spread out on the living room floor by our silver Christmas tree...

Alpaca, silk and some wool warp with handspun wool and alpaca and art yarn weft - 11.7 ft x 2.4 ft

PreWashed weaving with fringes braided

After washing (fulling) before Steaming

After washing (fulling) before Steaming

After washing (fulling) before Steaming

Steamed and pressed and ready for sewing

Steamed and pressed and ready for sewing

Steamed and pressed and ready for sewing

Holiday Weaving

Lately I've been busy weaving items for Gallery 209 and for our Fiber Guild of the Savannahs annual Show and Sale.  Its the holidays!
Scarves and shawls and a ruana... so far...

 Holiday Ruana 27" long front and back... and each side 26" wide with 4.5" fringe:

Tybee Sunrise Shawl/Scarf - of alpaca, silk, wool and handspun artyarn - 78x17 - 5.5" fringe

Coton Jaune Revisited

Inspired by Sharon Gordon Donnan's beautiful documentary: Coton Jaune, Acadian Brown Cotton that I saw last year after encouraging our library to sponsor a showing of her film, I decided I wanted to create my own Coton Jaune blanket.

Sharon's film did a beautiful job capturing the story behind the French Canadian Acadian women who migrated to Louisiana from Quebec and spun and wove beautiful blankets.  i knew I wanted to try my hand at it.  Sharon gave me a source for ginned brown cotton from a gentleman in Louisiana who has about 5 acres that he set aside to grow brown cotton, Anthony Mullins.  And I had ordered some cotton sliver  in natural and natural mixed with brown cotton.  Most of it I took to Ossabaw Island to dye in the indigo vats at a workshop I took with Donna Hardy of Sea Island Indigo.  So it was time to get started spinning!  I used my supported drop spindle for some and my Kromski Fantasia spinning wheel.

I warped my Mighty Wolf 8 shaft loom as soon as we got back home from spending the summer on our sailboat.  I was able to speed the process up a bit by tying each warp thread to  "dummy warp"  that saved my threading and sleying. After winding the 7+ yard warp of various natural cotton yarns onto the back beam I was ready to start weaving.

Weaving in the Saori way on 8 shafts enabled me to create with a variety of patterns and techniques highlighting the variety of yarns I handspun interspersed with the various commercial cotton yarns I had used in the warp.  It was exciting to get started weaving and when I finally took it off the loom following our evacuation due to Hurricane Matthew, I was delighted to see the outcome as I laid it out down the hall.

Good intentions

I had such good intentions... to add lots of blog posts this summer.  You would think our carefree summer living on our 36ft sailboat would make for lots of free time, but with visitors nod visiting and the stuff that has to be done in our little living spac to keep it live able... Time gets away. So, here we are with about 10 days to go befor we head South following the lead of the Canaduan geese.

I did weave on my little 15" Cricket rigid heddle loom and got a bit of drop spindle cotton spinning done.  I knit a triangular shawl/scarf with some wonderful Copper Cirgi yarn in the Frayed Knot (our local Savannah yarn store) colorways... And am covering our. Cockpit cushions with Sunbrella fabric.  So there's quite a but of fiber related activity going on floatin on our boat!!!

The five scarf-like fabrics I wove follow.  I am limited to about 3 yards of warp because that is how far I can stretch to the peg attached by our companionway.  But some good things have happened due to this limitation.  The lengths are great for scarves and because the Cricket warps in about an hour, it is fun to do a variety of textures and combinations in each warp.

Taking what I've learned and Experimenting with new TOOLS

The window of the Frayed Knot in historic downtown Savannah displaying the work of Picassso's Moon fiber artist Deb Lambert

 I met Debra Lambert over the internet on Facebook... where I've met many of my fiber friends.  I went to meet her in person last Spring when I attended the SWAY (SouthWest [FL} Art Yarn conference in Sarasota, FL where she has her Fiber Shop.  I was so excited to learn that she was coming to Savannah after I told Jen Schofield, the owner of my favorite LYS (local yarn shop) the Frayed Knot about her.  I signed up for Deb's 3 hour weaving with art yarns workshop on Sunday morning, April 3.

Deb (L) and Jen (R) at TFK

Deb had warped up some 10" Cricket looms with novelty yarns with a wide set and we were encouraged to play with all kinds of textures.  I quickly picked neutral colors with pops of pale pink velvet that Deb encouraged us to rip into strips.  She had artyarn and roving and sticks from bamboo mats and all sorts of textures to add into our weaving.  What fun!

Fellow student's weaving in progress

Weaving surrounded by wonderful "STUFF!"

TEXTURE!

My weaving in progress

Detail of my weaving in progress

My finished piece hanging on our wall!

Deb's Wallhanging

I ordered a curvy stick from her longtime beau Joe M who creates wonder tools.  I was blown away when Deb gifted me one of his little I shaped looms and then sent me home with a bag FULL of treasures including several pieces of leather.

If you ever have the opportunity to take a weaving workshop with Deb Lambert... DO!  Her enthusiasm and expertise abound! 

Well... I've been busy!

my Springtime in Savannah series on the loom

I'm enjoying having the creative push to be creative!  Being an active member of a gallery is encouraging me to create more work.  I was especially was encouraged by the fact that I sold two large items.

I was very excited to hear that one of my Moroccan tops in blue and greens had found a new home and THEN to have someone purchase my mostly handspun coat I was over the moon!  I priced the items I have in Gallery 209 quite reasonably.  Because they are very labor intensive to create as each one is unique and like a painting with yarns on the warp... the mostly handspun wools, alpacas and silk coat was $680 and the cotton, linen and silk lightweight summery Moroccan top sold for $275.   This reflects the 25% fee that goes to the gallery as well as the $100 monthly rental fee and membership fees. The people who now own my creations are getting a bargain as they now have something in their wardrobe where each fiber has been touched and loved many times and the piece has been created as a work of art.

one side of my finger fringed Soft Shoulders Top

the other side of my finger fringed Soft Shoulders Top

I just completed a warp that I call "Springtime in Savannah" as it is reds and fushias and different tones of greens from dark to yellow green.  It was funny that I had to force myself to add the greens when I wound the warp... when I looked around at paintings I have created lately they all are in these colors... they really are the colors of my surroundings here in Savannah.

one side of the Moroccan Top on "Springtime in Savannah" warp

the other side of the Moroccan Top on "Springtime in Savannah" warp

 When I work at Gallery 209 on River St in Savannah I often park in the hotel at the end of the Riverwalk.  The other morning it was glorious as I took my Moroccan top to be put on display.  It was in the mid70s and there was a wonderful breeze and I found flowers along the way that reflected my palette.  How lucky am I!!!

Looking back through my photos to add some to this post... I realize I am very far behind in my posts so I will try to catch up bit by bit in other posts:
Workshop with Deb Lambert Picasso Moon
Workshop with Margo Duke on Eco Printing
Guild activities - Sheep to Shawl Spring Celebration
Oatland's Mighty Oak fiber art installation Dedication and our Show and Sale
Writing an article for Shuttle, Spindle and Dyepot Magazine about the process of creating Oatland's Mighty Oak.
SCAD Fiber MFA thesis show for Marv Graff
Losing my dear friend and fellow fiber artist Mary Kelly