Blazing Cricket Sunset

Crazy title, I know... but it says it all.  This is my first woven project this summer on our sailboat on Lake Champlain... woven on the warp I wound and then dyed at the Blazing Shuttles workshop in early May on my little 15" Cricket rigid heddle loom. The colors remind me of some of the colorful sunsets we see while at dock in our boat.

Me and My Cricket

my Cricket

I haven't warped the loom from a warp chain before and it went quite well.  I had wound the warp from 4 different yarns at the same time - 100% cotton Anne's  Lace from Henry's Attic (a boucle), two strands of very very fine linen held together, left over cotton knitting yarn with bits of sparkle, and a pale green cotton/rayon mill end yarn that has been faded that I've had for years.  The overdye in Kathrin Weber's Blazing Shuttles workshop with fushia, blue and gold was gorgeous.  I had a bit of a blip when I spun the wet yarns and fibers I dyed in my washing machine to remove excess water... and the bag with the dyed tow linen opened and adhered to all the warps and yarns I'd dyed... which of course created a super tangled mess!  It was a wonderful project to sit and pick and pull all the tow linen I could from the yarns to try to make sense of it.  This warp was the least affected. I will tackle the others when I get back to Savannah in the Fall.

the tied warp bundles to shift the colors

the warp sequence

picking up every other yarn on the hole shed to create texture

I decided to do some shifting of the colors by tying three bundled knots in the warp behind the heddle as I wound it on.   It worked and was so easy to do!  Then as I warped I bunched some yarns by skipping a dent or a hole.  This caused the yarns to get more mixed up when I raised or lowered the heddles and the warp was more irregular... and Saori-like in its randomness.

SOME OF THE SAORI-LIKE WEAVING TECHNIQUES:

clasped weft

inlaid square

I gathered different yarns I had in reds through fuschias, purples, beiges, oranges, and pinks.  Some were handspun from cotton I bought from Sarah deRoo of Copper Corgi at the Fiber Frolic in April.  I used some silk I had spun on my dropspindle. Others were commercial yarns left over from other projects and a space dyed very fine silk yarn I bought a the Frayed Knot.  I was ready to play.  And what fun it was with the beautifully dyed colors emerging as I wound the warp forward on the loom!

The only problem about finishing is that now I dont have a gorgeously handdyed warp to play with.  I'll have to think about what to do next.  AND listen to what this gorgeous 4+ yards of 12" fabric tells me it wants to be. 

SOME DETAILS OF THE FINISHED FABRIC: 

Shuttles Blazing... With Kathrin Weber

Our Fiber Guild of the Savannahs hosted a three day workshop May 1-3 with Asheville's Kathrin Weber aka Blazing Shuttles.  What an energetic engaging teacher!  We spent two days exploring shifted warps and I played with a faux repp weave (ripsmatta) structure after having my loom prewarped with an orange cotton carpet warp dummy warp.  The third day was intensive dye day where she shared here technique for dyeing her unique warps.

Creating an Art Yarn Rainbow

What fun it was to explore the Rainbow at SWAY... the South West (Florida) Art Yarn Conference in Sarasota, Florida!  Hubby and I took off for a learning vacation in late April.  I had gotten info on SWAY the last few years and loved the work of one of the organizers Picasso's Moon fiber artist, Deb Lambert... so I teased my hubby and he agreed... since we'd never been to Sarasota... it was TIME.

The featured presenters were Wool Wench Suzy Brown from New Zealand and her cohort Arlene Thayer of Spin Artiste... together they are Fibery Goodness and are the goddesses of art yarn!  

The focus of the weekend was spinning a rainbow and using all kinds of tools to prepare the fiber from the brand new Magacraft drum carder and others, to blending boards to lethal yarn combs and dizes.  What fun!  I pushed my little Kromski Fantasia to her limits and was excited to find an adaptor I had already purchased to turn the oriface into the perfect art yarn spinner!  While at the workshop I forced her to take up the bulky yarns I was creating.  But once home with the new adaptor, it was delightfully easy!

It was a wonderful weekend exploring the area with my hubby during down time and falling in love with color the rest of the time!  I even picked up a great pair of vintage well worn cowboy boots and a dress made of vintage fabrics from one of the vendors as well as fibers to spin and some wonderful super big wooden knitting needles in a leather pouch!  WIN, win, WIN!!!

Getting Caught up in Four Stages

Has it really been 4 months since I last posted?  Here we are up at the lake with time to reflect... but the internet connectivity is LOUSY!  Even my iPad has been slower that slow.  But I'm going to give it a try.  I have had some wonderfully inspirational learning experiences  this spring... and have created some interesting things... and our Fiber Guild of the Savannahs Show and Sale was quite successful... so bare with me... I'm going to split this up.  I wish there was some way to back date things... but I guess that's not fair...

Frolicking

How my heart sings when I am back in the mountains.  So it was this past weekend when I had the opportunity to frolic with other spinners, knitters, felters and weavers and fiber artists of all kinds at the Carolina Fiber Frolic in Sapphire Valley, North Carolina.  

I was invited to teach some weaving classes on the rigid heddle loom by Frolic organizer Jan Smiley.  I was excited to share the idea of playful exploration on an affordable portable loom like the little Schacht Cricket loom I got last summer.  I made a Saori-inspired bag to carry my Cricket and lots of paraphernalia (tools, shuttles, yarns, etc) from my handspun alpaca yarns and fabric that my good friend Cathy Hill gave me a while ago.

Saori® Is a registered trademark for a Japanese company that makes very adaptable easy to use floor looms, but it has also become known as a philosophy for weaving freeform, Zen-like, textured and colorful designs on whatever loom you have available. I was excited to share my joy in weaving this Saori-inspired way.

Shortly after arriving after our 6 hour drive (the last hour happily winding back and forth and up and down through mountain roads in early early Spring) I settled down with my 3 eager students to learn how to warp their looms for the Sari-inspired Rigid Heddle Loom class I was facilitating the next day.  It's always a challenge finding places to attach the loom to a table (difficulty I I possible on a curve) and the peg 2+ yards away.  We managed to put a coffee table up on 4 rolling chairs to make it a more comfortable height for one weaver.! Fiber artists are nothing if resourceful!!!

Saturday morning at 9am after an early morning soak in the hot tub and delicious waffle breakfast... Our group of 9 weavers were ready to roll.  Some felt comfortable with being playful and experimental while others felt challenged to relax and explore, but by the end of the 3 hours, I was delighted to see everyone finding new ways to interlace weft with warp yarns to create unique one of a kind pieces.  It was delightful.  Several of us who had not scheduled an afternoon workshop met in the sunroom in the afternoon and 4 were able to finish weaving the length of their warps and excitedly pulled their creations off the loom and tied the ends.  What will they be... What will they be???

Each time I have the opportunity to teach I am made better for the experience. I absolutely love facilitating creative expression!  It reaches in and nourishes my soul!

Reunion of Fiber Guild of the Savannahs friends new and old... me, Sarah DeRoo (aka Copper Corgi), Fran Wilson (aka TallFran) and Jennifer Reardon